SLAMBOOKS AND THEIR ROLE IN MANIFESTATION
Every 90s kid will know the craze about “slambooks” just like kids of this generation (GenZ) go online and do similar stuffs on each other social media pages with templates posted on stories tagging each other to denote similarity of thoughts or ideas.
I had almost passed out having a chocolate ice-cream because my brain was almost shut with the workload. Sleep hasn’t come to me easy owing to various factors, none of which need to be discussed here. I was looking through one of my old posts on Facebook and found a picture of myself sitting in a classroom with a portion of my slambook visible clearly.
My brain started running again. I realised something that I hadn’t probably in the past. If you introspect, you often shall find that school days were simpler and people were easy to deal with somehow. Not that everyone was nice and pleasant but some friends have remained with you and some haven’t. I recollected memories of the time I had the habit of buying slambooks whenever I could save some money. When I moved out, the slambook culture was replaced by more “metropolitan” habits where socialising meant meeting for coffee once or twice and then moving on like nothing major has happened. Moreover, if the vibe matched, friendship bloomed and if not, nobody cared much.
Here’s what used to happen when the slambooks were in fashion.
A. Some of us were too picky. We gave the books only to those who we liked or were neutral with. If we had an animosity with someone we never approached them to fill the contents up.
B. Whatever was written by the recipients of the book was understood and accepted as the gospel truth. Nobody questioned the answers and their images were exactly like how they had written. No ifs no buts.
C. Some slambooks were highly priced with the decorations and supplimentary pages and some were simple. Nevertheless filling the pages was fun. There were no biases there. A 50 rupee slambook was as precious as a 150 rupee one.
D. Some extended the olive branch and broke ice when the slambooks were passed to those with whom there was minimal interaction and undoubtedly there were surprises because someone could turn out to be really interesting given their choices in music, books, places to visit, etc.
E. Every person who filled the slambook was almost like a star to the person who owned the book. If there was something the owner hadn’t experienced or tried, the inputs and contents of the slambook made them try things out just for the fun of it.
If you ask anybody in this day and age, they will definitely say that school days were the best days of their lives. Not many have that privilege. For some, school was a trauma centre where humiliation and attacks on choices were never ending. The role of these slambooks is far more than just the fun associated with them.
When people read through the contents, they felt some emotions. Some felt great and some did not. Some felt less of themselves because they believed that their preferences in life were too common whereas someone who mentioned something different was considered one of a kind. That idea kept being fed by other sources that if you are different than the crowd then you are special. Nobody told us that if you are ordinary, there is extraordinariness in that too. In that pursuit for a sense of validation, most children have had terrible early adulthoods because the pressure of standing out became more important than being simply happy.
What manifested later was this chaotic environment where nobody knew what they truly wanted because all their lives they have just been entertaining the idea that something that looks pretty and flashy must be valuable. If not flashy, high sounding words from those who spoke well, scored well were tagged as intelligent. People held on to the ideas written in the slambooks and subconsciously their idea of a perfect life was always associated with that one girl or boy who they looked upto in class and years later it still mattered where this person stood in life. What we call Inner Child Healing is nothing but allowing the child inside of us to feel safe finally because it felt threatened once upon a time by circumstances that overpowered their thought processes.
Slambooks constituted a lot of our subconscious belief systems. We believed everything that was written down by the people we passed them to and when we found something that triggered a part of us, instead of accepting the imperfect parts, we started to loathe ourselves because “I don’t look like her”, “I don’t speak like her”, “I don’t have a rich parents like him”, blah blah.
It was an innocent and harmless activity in our school routines. But this also laid impact on our minds because during our formidable years, we generally have no idea of who we are. Whatever is “suggested” to us, we stand by that. Whatever is “taught” stands true. We never realised that the limitations that were imposed on us were nothing but this idea put across blatantly, “If you are ABC then you are special and if you are not, nobody will like you.” Some parents took special interest in the slambook content. They read over and asked their children to follow the path of the supposedly “intelligent” kids because they were unique and exemplary. Because the whole idea of what looked attractive was so rooted in how different one is, one forgot to acknowledge their own lives and became ungrateful in the process. If you don’t believe me, think of all those times you’ve compared yourself to someone you have admired in school and college or even after and asked yourself, “Why can I not be like them?” instead of thinking, “Someone somewhere is praying for things I have” or “I might not the best but even if I am good, it is fine.”
Some of our childhood memories hold the key to unlocking our potential. The child inside has calibre and it didn’t have to be like the ones who sounded or looked inexplicably magnificent. It had to discover itself instead of mimicking someone else’s personality and becoming just another copy.
Coaching for inner child healing: anjashi.work@gmail.com
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