The way you drive your car says a lot about your psyche or, simply, your state of being. Oftentimes, when we are going through a rough patch in our lives, the speed of our cars begins to exceed that of what we drive normally at. We take sharp bends making everyone and everything in the car bump into the windscreen, we honk the horn more often, we blatantly insult anyone we deem doing inappropriate gimmicks on the road etcetera.

In a calm state of mind, the reverse happens. We even tend to take the middle road, driving at a slow pace of 50 km/h or the like. Everything seems beautiful, even the child running crazily well before the zebra crossing and right in front of your car.

I have often heard many who drive speak about the insane manner in which Pakistanis usually drive their cars or, in general, their vehicles. But nobody I have ever heard even thinks about the reason behind it. All we see is the surface and we are all complacent at that.

I think this is the story of our lives, too. How we judge people on their face value, how we associate certain characteristics with them without thinking why they might have reached to such an end.

Once in a theatre workshop I asked our instructor, "Don’t you think acting is all about lying? You are not in love with someone and yet you ‘pretend’ to be in love! How can you do that? How can such a person live with him or herself?"

The answer to this changed the way I see things. I was told that there is a story behind everyone. The way someone stands, move his/her hands, says something, put their arm one on top of the other, everything has a story. Everything! So the actor does not feel shamed in lying since he is telling a story. It is like the end exceeds the means.

And, I found that this is true.

We all have a story that shapes our present selves. Some little thing in the past or a huge event in the past, anything and everything contributes in making us who we are in this present moment. The sad part is that most of us just forget to observe and are more quick to judge.

The ‘rattling pieces,’ as I call the stories from the past, are inherent to all of us. For some these pieces make more noise; for others they make less. But the noise is there in one form or the other.

Some have achieved a state where they could silence the rattle but that does not mean that the pieces have vanished all together. They stay. And they shape us for who we are and who we will become one day.