Candle Light

I opened the door. I had left the house to find relief downstairs from the oven that it had become. But the electricity still hadn’t returned. The faint light from the corridor that illuminated the house revealed tan leather shoes near the shoe closet. Not in it, but near it. Dad was home.
I shut the door, flipped a few switches just in case electricity had made a sudden appearance, and then trudged dejectedly towards the room.

‘There’s no electricity’, I declared, even though I was pretty sure Dad had figured that out since the last half an hour of lying on the bed in darkness. I sat on the bed next to Dad. ‘How am I supposed to study now?’ I asked. (I assume) he smiled and replied saying, ‘We have candles in the house’. I involuntarily let out a snort of contempt. In the pale glow seeping in through the windows thanks to the streetlights, I saw my dad half rise from the bed and turn towards me. ‘Why are you laughing? Seriously! There is nothing better than to study by the light of a candle. Do you know why?’ he asked. I nodded harder than Noddy, and said, ‘Yes, yes. Lamp, knowledge, light, enlightenment. Metaphors. I know all that.’ At this, my dad got up completely, sat up straight and leaned forward. ‘No’, he said.

‘A lamp or candle’s light lets out a single flame in a dark room. That single flame illuminates only the immediate area surrounding it, and not the entire room. If you study under candle light then the flame will only illuminate the book. Everything else will remain dark, and therefore there will be no distractions.’

I just stared at him as this sunk in. And I realized that this was the more traditional and probably the most effective way of ensuring ‘out of sight, out of mind’. No wonder we heard all these stories growing up of the generation before us who studied under candle light or ‘burned the midnight oil’ and ended up successful. Our generation has practically everything but maybe that’s our bane. Switching off your phone and keeping it on the table next to you doesn’t do the trick, but keeping it on 'airplane' mode in some other room of the house does. Switching the TV or laptop off does nothing to help you study. But cutting off the cable does. Closing your door and sitting in your room may still not help you. But studying in the dark under a single candle flame might.