In those fleeting moments, when the déjà vu strikes, it feels as if the universe is whispering, reminding us that time is not just a straight path but a circle where past, present, and future constantly overlap. Every experience, every echo, is like a fragment of a larger picture already drawn, yet still unfolding before our eyes. And perhaps, this is why we often sense familiarity in the unknown, a silent recognition in the chaos, as if our soul had already walked that road long before our body reached it.
Déjà vu is such a frequent visitor in our journey, though once, I did not even know it had a name. It simply felt like life repeating itself, the same air, the same atmosphere, the same sequence of happenings, quietly unfolding again. In that instant, awareness strikes, and we realize that this moment has passed through us before, as if time itself is looping, showing us a mirror of what has been and what is yet to be.
So technically, when I drift into thought, one particular déjà vu always rises before me. It is not a sweet memory but one of the strongest, and the heaviest. The worst experience I had while writing my 10th standard examination returned once again during my 12th. The same guilt, the same fear, the same laziness wrapping around me, the same unexpected reactions, and that same odd, unsettling feeling. As if the universe was pressing replay, forcing me to live through the very weight I had hoped to leave behind.
In every aspect of lifestyle, we see reflections of the varying cosmos. If we scan through the experiences of our life, somewhere deep down in the soul, we always find glimpses of all that we are living now and that which will come. The future remains uncertain, and yet we are strangely aware of it because those rounds of glimpses keep returning. We catch ourselves thinking, “Oh the same,” as if a familiar echo is nudging us forward.
Déjà vu is a frequent visitor along this path. Once, I didn’t even know it had a name; it was only a feeling: the same atmosphere, the same things happening, a scene repeating itself until at last awareness settles in and we realize, quietly, that this has passed through us before. Time, for a breath, blurs into a loop.
When I think, one kind of déjà vu rises above the rest, the strongest and the heaviest. It is not a gentle memory but the weight of old fear: the worst experience from my tenth-standard exam came back to me during my twelfth. The same guilt, the same dread, the same procrastination and unexpected reactions that odd knot in the chest all pressed against me again, as if some replay button had been pressed on the hardest part of my life.
And yet there is another thread to my nights of solitude. In those me-times, my mind turns philosophical; I think of the Supreme, of the cosmos. Sometimes it feels like someone high above wishes to speak, to reassure me: you are not an accident, you are part of a plan. That whisper gives shape to the small anxieties and the recurring mistakes of a quiet architecture behind the chaos.
I carry that assurance into my conversations with others, too. When I look at a person alive or departed, I feel they are part of the same plan. Somewhere, in the long weave of humans trying and failing and rising again, there is a power that stitches things back together. We may be the ones solving problems, but it feels as though something greater is smoothing the edges, keeping the pattern intact.
So I walk between these two truths: the looped moments that unsettle me, and the steady belief that there is meaning behind the repetition. The familiarity of déjà vu can be a burden, but it can also be a reminder that every echoed fear, every repeated mistake, sits inside a larger design I have yet to fully see.
I had no clue what was happening around me, so I turned to my wife, Lisa, and asked, “What do you think about life?” She shrugged, smiled that small half-smirk she keeps for mornings, and said, “Nothing much. Life is just going on the way it is. Wake up, and you see what a wonderful life we’ve got. Very nice, beautiful, blessed life. Live each moment.”
She said it lightly, like a prayer or a joke, I couldn’t tell which. That smirk threaded the sentence with an edge of playfulness, and I found myself wondering if she actually believed it, or if she was gently laughing at my questions. Either way, her words landed like a stone in a pond: simple, honest, and making ripples. Maybe that’s all faith needs sometimes a soft, steady voice and a small laugh to keep the terror of repetition from overwhelming the day.
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