Beginnings, Endings and In-Betweens

In my end is my beginning.

                                                        -TS Eliot, East Coker

I’m starting this blog with a line from the poem East Coker by TS Eliot. I don’t want to get into the nuances of his literature — partly because I don’t understand it fully — but this line seems relevant to me. When we think of beginnings and endings, they are always seen as opposites — one opens the door, and the other closes it. This is what gives us clarity, certainty. But as a new year begins, I can’t help but wonder — has the last chapter really closed?

The paradoxical relationship between beginnings and endings makes it harder to separate the present and the future. We are constantly worried about what is coming, so much so that we completely forget that what was coming yesterday is already here today.

I’d rather think of it in a more positive light — the intertwining of beginnings and endings is transformative. The continuous array of beginnings and endings is what has led me to be who I am now. For example, when something ends, a trip, the academic year, or anything else, I feel like time has passed too quickly, but it also allows me to appreciate the future even more.

Is there such a thing as an absolute, definite ending?

For instance, there isn’t an exact moment when your childhood ends even if legally, you become an adult at 18. You haven’t become who you are today overnight. Defined endings, like the end of a year are merely milestones created to give us assurance. I mean, personally when the new year begins, I don’t really feel like a new person. Nothing changes other than the date.

If we are to discuss death, which is the biggest idea of an ending that exists, we talk about it in its physical form. However, when someone dies, their effect doesn’t wear away. For example, I started this blog with a line by TS Eliot, who passed away in 1965, and yet his ideas live on. I’m sure it never occurred to him that over 50 years later, his words would inspire a 15-year-old girl somewhere in the world to write this blog.

In nature, death isn’t an ending. Imagine the death of a centuries-old tree, with a massive trunk and huge branches. When it dies, it replenishes the soil. It gives home to fungi, and all kinds of other organisms. Even the way the sunrays hit the forest floor change, and it’s as if a new world is born. Scientists even have a name for this — they call it a nurse log.

But why do we consciously make the effort to have an ending? Psychologists call this our need for closure. Wanting closure isn’t just a personality quirk, it’s wired into us. Sometimes, subconsciously we create an ending for ourselves when we don’t always get the answer, filling the gaps with our own words. For example, when we don’t get a definite reason for why a friendship started to fade away, we make up a million reasons as to why it happened: ‘We outgrew each other’, ‘They didn’t care about me’, ‘She changed’ and so many more.

Personally, when I message someone, and they leave me on ‘read’, my automatic response to this is that they must be angry with me, even though, in reality, I have no idea what happened. This isn’t necessarily about truth, but rather an inbuilt mechanism that helps us make sense of events, and to make us feel emotionally comfortable.

It’s interesting to think about book endings in this light. Have you ever found yourself immersed in a book for days or weeks, waiting for the ending, and when it finally arrives, it feels unbelievably unsatisfying? Especially when it’s not a happy ending. We continue to turn the pages to see events settle into meaning. Our need for resolution is what keeps us going, Overall, the anticipation of the ending is what keeps us engaged.

To summarise, beginnings and ending are just a way to identify and make sense of our lives. It’s human nature to want to have clear boundaries between the two, but the truth is that they aren’t all that different.

By Aadya Satpathy, Grade 9