What is Personal?

We often use the word ‘personal’, but at one time I wondered if there are things in our life which could be called ‘personal’ to us in real sense. I would start with the closest guess. Are our feelings really personal to us? There are people who can guess our feelings accurately by looking at our face or into our eyes. And then we by ourselves show our feelings in many ways, unconsciously. And then there would be people close to us who would feel a part of our own feelings – out of empathy. Our life itself is also not personal. There are interferences from our parents and friends which we can’t avoid. In fact if we look back into our life, we would realize that most of our life was shaped by external events and circumstances. What if my parents didn’t have money to fund my education? What if I was born into a remote location with no school? What if my wife said no to the marriage proposal? What if I missed that train to attend that interview on time? Our life is definitely not entirely in our hands. So what others can be our ‘personal’ in true sense? Any relationship that we share has different aspects and many stakeholders in it. The properties and assets we own really don’t amount to be counted in the personal list – they won’t be there if we don’t have finances to retain or maintain them. Our parents or our relationships with our parents are very close to our personal in the sense – but then they have other children apart from us; some others too call them papa and mom. 
 

But I think there is one thing which we can call entirely personal. And there won’t be any others to guess what it stands for us and no others to claim a stake in it. It’s the feeling of nostalgia. What you feel seeing that locality, or that design of chair, or the name of that school, or any mention of that teacher or person, no other in this world can feel it the same way. No other person knows about every memory behind our recollections at the moment and there are no stakeholders present today in the events of the past that make us feel nostalgia. I think our feeling of nostalgia is such a unique thing that it should qualify for our truly ‘personal’ by any definition…