On the margin

And in the space given to it, sat little numbers on the pages of my notebook. The margin gave perspective to my content. The margin helped organize the system that was unfurling in my notebook. Being close to the border, and protecting me from it, the margin kept writing confined to the page. Even the blank, white and free art and craft notebooks required us to make margins!

But I, as other truants and angels, insisted on making our highest pieces of art on the left side of the margin. The finest doodles of many times lay scattered there. Don’t get the history, science or logic of organic chemistry? No problem, unleash the bonds for King Julian to tackle them on the margins. Where the right hand side of a margin offered no real space for imagination, its left side stepped in as a knight. Here, we could beat mathematical integration and the lethal combination of genes with the masterstroke of a dog pooping on them. Freedom and justice was found here.

It always elicited a whack on the head from teachers and parents alike. With an awkward glance of shame, we were trained into giving up the freedom we enjoyed therein. The margin was to be judged only for its neat order—its role was predetermined—it could not pretend to influence our future, even marginally.  

 
Yet this is exactly what happened. Over time, the margin broadened so much so that it disappeared. With age, little notes existed in every direction, in complete disarray and in mind boggling harmony. Freedom could be found right in the middle of the page—it could be central and organic chemistry could now go perch itself where it belonged, in the trash cans of memory. But, and more crucially, freedom could exist at the far left corner of the page and still hold the same depth. From it, could emerge the drawing of a resounding revolution.

Alas, even now and often, when the content of the margin makes it into the core paragraph of our essay, it is treated with a whack. At times, it is killed. We have refused to understand the margin in a stubborn stupor that has wiped out freedom and justice. This while the core of the peripheral margin simmers and brings home the whole point of freedom or justice.