Wavelength

“Dude… he isn’t my wavelength…” - Like so many other phrases I use, this too falls under the ‘not-so-well-defined’ category. Only sometime back, I decided to give it some serious thought and define what it could possible mean.

The first thing that people in the same wavelength share is the similarity in likes dislikes and prejudices. Liking the same rock star, hating the same prof, blaming the system for things that go wrong – these minor eccentricities make people sense a common connection. For a long time, I believed that similar interests and intellectual capacity keep people in the same ‘wavelength’, but taking personal experiences into consideration, I realized that nothing of this sort is really necessary – in fact, the thing that is essential is the (glaring) difference in levels of knowledge (Interestingly, MSWord suggested information as an alternative to knowledge… that makes me wonder… is knowledge just a memory capsule of information…?) in divergent areas among the so called pals. One guy’s knowledge of snakes compensated by another guy’s knowledge about sex at which the formers sophistication is as good as a 7 year old. One guy’s knowledge about computers is a great alternative topic to discuss when the other’s philosophical rhetoric reaches heights of boredom. This way people remain interested in each other, thereby forming a channel for knowledge exchange (simultaneously narrowing down differences).

The point I am trying to make is that people remain in the same wavelength as long as the abovementioned differences among them continue to exist. The moment this ceases to happen, people who once seemed to have the same wavelength turn into ‘pain-in-the-ass’ ones, engaging only in occasional small talk. Ultimately such associations end up in favor of new ones that look great on that day… and we once again foster them unaware of its fallibility.