If you’ve ever been to my study, you’d probably remember piles of school-related paraphernalia free of compartments. Books lined up across my shelves, devoid of any apparent system of organisation. So, why do I instinctively look at people and wonder, “what is their Myers-Briggs type”? Myers-Brigg is a system devised by psychologists that attempts to compartmentalise people into sixteen different personalities, based on whether they’re more emotional or rational, extroverted or introverted, organised or spontaneous, and instinctive or sensing. In the end, one would get assigned four letters to outline their entire character.

Franchises that were popular in my childhood, such as Harry Potter, Divergent, The Hunger Games, and Percy Jackson shared many common themes- teenage protagonists, overcoming danger, navigating romance- but the one that affected me the most was the compartmentalisation of people. For example, in Harry Potter, the house system established by Hogwarts condenses people to a set of characteristics- you’re either brave, ambitious, clever, or kind. Of course, Rowling further refines her characters by exploring different facets of each trait, and showing that a person possesses more than a single defining characteristic- however, she makes no attempt to challenge the segregating nature of this house system. I wasn’t aware of it at that time, but perhaps the prevalence of compartmentalising people- whether by personality in Harry Potter, or parentage in Percy Jackson- encouraged me to look at people as simplified abstractions of themselves, defined by a particular trait that was probably not in their control, not as people with the same breadth of hopes, interests, or emotions as I do.

When meeting people for the first time, I am aware that my impression of them is based on only a few characteristics implied in a few lines of dialogue. I am aware that the same sequence is unfolding in their minds too. The first thoughts that comes to mind are- “how different are we? How should I present myself?”

If I tried to visualise the experience of meeting others, I’d draw a web of branches, all pointing in distinct directions, stretching from a fixed singularity. However, in real life, interaction and development of relationships is less like the branches of a tree, and more like entangled mycelium tunnelling into the soil. There is no such singularity that every path extends from, and seemingly distinct paths can meet again. The absence of linearity, the prevalence of the unexpected, and the possibilities that stretch ad infinitum is an oasis of exquisite beauty, but also the same spring of fear that everyone shares- is there truly anyone unafraid of the unknown?

I can’t seem to hide my preference for the familiar, but most people can, which sometimes makes me feel a sense of disconnect with everyone else around me. This sense of disconnect is taken to an extreme in ‘No Longer Human’, a semi-autobiographical novel by Osamu Dazai, whose inability to truly relate to others led him to commit suicide. The occasional feeling of displacement that I feel is in no way comparable to his- mine is a sporadic wave that washes over me whenever I look at people chatting effortlessly, and wondering whether I could ever learn to act as organically as them, but his is an oppressive cloud that has hung above him since childhood, and has never diluted.

The overall tone of ‘No Longer Human’- or rather, ‘Disqualified from Being Human’, the literal translation of the original Japanese (I believe it captures Dazai’s disconnect better)- is painfully detached and lacks sentimentality, but there is also a constant undercurrent of desperation that occasionally bursts through the surface. In those moments, lines such as “what should I talk about, how should I say it? I don’t know” can be found, and I feel relieved by how some of my anxieties are shared, if not universal. To me, it’s another facet of great literature, but to others, it could be life-saving.

I grew up with news programmes broadcasting statistics about war, poverty, suicide on TV so frequently that I almost feel desensitised to them. However, books like ‘No Longer Human’ adds humanity back to those statistics, as a poignant reminder that there are corpses, corpses that have lived lives just as complex and as vivid as mine, behind every statistic published on suicide. By reading, I was able to get a faint glimpse into the emptiness that depression throws people into.

However, I oftentimes feel the need to escape from the very real, inexplicably complex suffering that exists in this world. To do so, I pick up a sci-fi or fantasy book- my favourites are The Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, and the Martian Chronicles. These tales, with a greater focus on meticulous world-building than the human condition, allow me to feel the same unadulterated joy a child has when looking at something grand and surreal, such as a dinosaur skeleton. Although, instead of dinosaurs, I get to explore some of the most vivid imaginations in history- Tolkien, Bradbury, Herbert (author of Dune). As a child, I lived a second life among the trees of Lothlorien, the elves of Rivendell, and trailed behind Frodo as he escaped from the Balrog, with Gandalf thrown between them.

The greatest gift that books have given me is insight- whether into the boundless imagination of sci-fi and fantasy authors, the emptiness of depression, or the sometimes sudden, sometimes attritional horrors of war- a constant reminder that we are not supposed to be defined by four mere letters.