noNexistent nothiNg: my 2 cents

Showing posts with label my 2 cents. Show all posts

Beauty begins with Dark Thoughts

A new friend, over a coffee, asked me what was it like to be assessed, for being on the “spectrum”? Did it explain away lifetime supply of ‘weirdness’ and the ‘who the heck is in the mirror’ disconnectedness? Was it finally good to label the source of all things dark and grey? All things outlier, too?

And that unwittingly uncovered way too many scar tissues. Just like that. And that’s what happens when you are not on your guard constantly.

But, after decades of trying to find my place on the chessboard of human society - the realisation that, I don’t need it. Am not a chess piece or even a board. Am multitudes. I know that now.

Defaulting to primal instincts - all my choices from outfit to people to be vulnerable with, is now just viscerally curated by it. If there is a zing - I give myself into it. If not, well then not. There is no such thing as oversimplification when responding to energies. And I finally am able to recognise the cousins and even the distant cousins of my tribe. We are way too less than one would imagine. And hence as one of my sweatshirt says ‘unfollow people IRL’

Living with MS with a ‘healthy’ dose of clinical depression and silvers of what is popularly called ‘being on autism spectrum’ has been fatally challenging. And that is an understatement. Multiple ‘organ’ failure complications of mind is how one of my doctors described it.

If I had to sum up this colossal degree of genetic cluster fuck - I have a word for it. Guilt. The red hot lucifer of all emotions. My leading primary emotion.

Why don’t I feel enough? Why do I feel too much? Why am I not thinking of what people would think of this? But then why am I also over thinking how someone was really feeling? How do I fix this? How do I fix that? How do I stop the fights? The hunger? The violence of all varieties? How do I make sure that person has all the comforts? Why am I still unable to attach myself truly to people? Why do I get coerced into relationships only because I don’t want to embarrass the other person even when I can’t fucking stand the way they eat or laugh? Why am I able to see the beauty of math theorems and intuit the answers but just unable to solve it in pre-define methods? Why did I let myself be taken advantage of time and again without any regard for myself? Why can’t I stand certain smell, textures, colours, ideologies and well a lot of people? The OCD I have for trivial things in their places is way too many. Why was I explaining away my postpartum depression to my own self? How do I fix this? Why? How? I AM RESPONSIBLE for this cluster-fuck! II deserve the mind-bending crescendo of chronic pain (in all forms)

But, hey I can easily fix this!

And thus began the creative ways of self destruction, I deserve-all-things-bad suicidal cycles. Like an addict I also began to hide behind the complexities of word plays, scientific facts, bits and bytes. Books and computers are both beautiful and very benign. They don't think you are weird or bad or dispensable or actively hurt you. They can't hold their affection as a proverbial carrot with a dangling stick of violence. For years, nay decades, I was swimming in various levels of toxicity.

Some of my friends,I did manage to find some of these - despite myself, and my sister always remind me that I have a saviour complex. How do I explain that - it’s not a saviour complex, it’s me trying to constantly neutralise my armageddon level destructive thoughts, constantly trying to Control-Z my Guilt.

...to be continued

A Manifesto for Manifesting Self Love

My parents used to have Typewriters - Olivetti and Remington too. For a long time it was one revered thing for me - sometimes more than the huge black&white telly. My father would sometimes type on it and something about clickety-clack of the keys hitting the paper felt magical to me. Once I had the permission, I did which any self respecting typewriter tester used to do - I typed the pangram "A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"; without really knowing the rules. I just knew the sentence contained all of the alphabets. I did type one of my high school essays too - of course, I couldn’t submit it - because hand written homework were the norm.

I don’t really know why am I droning on about typewriters and high school essays. I guess because as I find myself increasingly reliving the past (in my mind); whilst this in itself isn’t worth mentioning; since most of us do this anyway. The difference this time is - I find alternating between the realm of living all my realities at once - the 5 and 15 and 25 and the 35 year old existing not in linearity but as a interconnected lattice or even in the same minute AND the realm where I seem to not identify at all with any of these and have become a detached observer of this person. There is a distinct possibility that I might just be finally losing my mind. I mean, all of it!

In the meantime, A manifesto for myself:

There is enough. Enough resources. Enough love. Enough peace. Seek and you shall find, is every bit true
Help people wherever you can. And ask for help, if you really need it.
Join forces. Meet people for coffee. Some of the humans from this monstrosity called sapiens are worth knowing
Listen. Listen some more.
You'll make mistakes. Many of them. Admit them, apologize and then move on.
Move on for real. Don't let emotional stuff become an energy drain.
Know what it is you're actually offering, or doing. Why does it matter?
Know who cares about what you're offering. Who does it matter to?
Treat people like people, not like features in product called your life.
Demand the same - if someone is unwilling to be a decent human. Walk away
Be loyal and respond to awesomeness in kind, with real things like handwritten notes and meaningful messages
Get over this fact right now: there will be competitors, haters, and jealous fools. Ignore them
Be humble. Ask for help. Admit that you don't know.
Be generous. Share what you do know. Share your process. Your understanding. Yourself.
There’s always something to be grateful about. Find That. Everyday.
Be Kind - to yourself and by extension to everyone you meet
Speak the Truth and when you can’t Don’t say anything. There’s power in silence, too
Have Courage to Be Yourself. It’s the only way.

Exploring Humility

In Asian cultures modesty and respect for others are conveyed through the simple gesture of bowing. The hands-together bow is used throughout Asia: in Japan (gasshō), China (héshi or hézhǎng), Thailand (wai) Viet Nam, (hiệp chưởng) and India (the añjali mudrā or namaste).

Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshicha (1765-1827) used to say that everyone should keep a piece of paper with “for my sake the world was created” in one pocket, and a piece of paper with “I am but dust and ashes” in another. The Rabbi was expressing an existential truth: each individual being is important, but not self-important.

The root word of Humility and Humble comes from humus which means 'from the earth' or 'grounded' and just like a tiny a flower thats springs from earth, celebrates its beauty as much as the big birch. I continue to learn that there's always this self, this ego that stands like a guard against some of the necessary naturalness of the soul. And thats not really a fault - it's rather a survival mode developed by our brains in order to protect, the one of the frailest flesh and bone of animal kingdom.

Darwinism aside, on one hand it would seem that humility is rather under-valued—not to mention difficult to find—in modern life today. On the other hand it is quite Humean (it was Hume, after all, who famously disparaged humility as a “monkish virtue.”) Doesn’t humility involve putting ourselves down? Doesn’t it conflict with pride, and with confidence, both of which, surely, do have some positive value, at least when appropriately felt and expressed? Moreover, doesn’t humility involve pretending to think worse of ourselves than we really do, thus committing us to dishonesty and insincerity?

A very commonplace fallacy constructed, and rightly so, when humility while being a virtue inculcated in pupils; began to be abused for power, as a mental and emotional gaslighting through ages, societies and civilization.

With industrial and then technological revolution some of these societal threats have now lessened. However, it would take a few more decades (if we survive as a species) for HomoSapiens to truly explore some of the amazing things our mind-body continuum is capable of without cannibalism in any form.

Like all things of high calibre and sophisticated conceptual construct - humility like true meditation isn't about belittling self it's rather about knowing that whilst we are our own creator's of reality - there are zillion of other realities AND we have neither the accoutrement nor can we fathom the vastness of things that there are. It is about celebrating the fact of being alive and evolving together with the rest of the life around us.

It is finally about acknowledging that we don't know all and it is okay to not know all and it is okay to continue to be a learner or even sated with oneself without the need to compare self with any other living thing.

Here's wishing all of us a way to be find humility in our hearts

La Vie

Life has a way of stopping you and also getting you to run. Amidst all the best-laid plans – it sneaks up on you.

A month of back-to-back days; without a minute to collect breath – there have been hurriedly written journal entries or notes scrawled in the margins during meetings.

I come back tired these days. Amidst the teeming madness of a big city life – finding the quiet for the core can be a task, sometimes. So, back in the apartment where the stereo croons something soft changing tempo to imagine dragons to ‘80s disco and back to alternative. My playlist like my friends and living too, is eclectic. I cook – I try and write – I devour books or binge Netflix. Or simply just let the being float in vacuum.

I don’t get much sleep – but that’s always been de rigueur much like my denims and white tee – in dreams where ideas take shape and things are woolly soft or where the anger gets amplified – a narrative happens. A twisted messy glorious pretty narrative. And just like that the ideas begin to converge like iron filings in a slow motion drag to magnet.

Despite myself, the default of curling up with a book, last weekend – went out for a dinner with a set of funny brilliant women. M who is kickass and warm; to be honest she used to intimidate me and then I figured she is a choco-lava cake! ‘A’ who is so full of life – the practical and the practiced too – she could easily be an elder sister, partner in crime and then we have another 'A' who makes you laugh so hard you weep/pee your pants with her straight face anecdotes.

Then took a mid week break to walk down a promenade – watching the sea and feeling the ‘mistral’ blowing through a sunny day. A stroll through a near empty huge shopping mall – catching up on the woman superhero – much slicker than superman could ever hope to be; Captain Marvel! A much needed break to balance out the craziness the human systems become.

I took my notebook with me. And, what I remember is the heat of an azure blue sky and the wind turning up the brolly upside down. The huge warm amber chandeliers and mustard laden burger from shake and shack.

To paraphrase Max Ehrman – Despite all the mess – it’s a beautiful planet!

What I miss is the sweetness of my baby. His fingers; in mine, and his smell – which still carries a hint of the baby boy.

What I remember is this: to show up and show up with the intention. There. Done. The beginning is here.

sapphire, silence, sublimity

this poem fell from the sky,
from the molten sapphire above
this season melted from the snow,
from the whiteness pure

this journey began from nowhere, to nowhere, with lots in between
the headlines of the 'galaxy times' says: "the time just froze"

no more angular, no more linear, no more constant variable

soft lights, water, music notes, everything that screams romance
everything that’s mush, everything that sells on valentine’s…
it’s 1000 bucks a couple… 120 bucks a shot of ecstasy

fails to move a muscle in me…

diamonds are not for everyone
sometimes a cubic zirconia is perfect

happiness is another noun, felicity being it’s twin
but poor love lost its grammatical position…

something broke and the life fell, pearl after pearl…
lost the day, while trying to catch the twilight
the shadow occupies the senses
eludes the being

myriad falls, sequestered my silence
the pyre of dreams going up in flame
the effusive hush doesn’t make sense, yet…

Destination: Luxurious Decadence of Orgasmic Peace

So the year ends! A lot … and I mean A LOT happened this year.

I traveled through geographies (continents really), traversing breathing taking vistas to world-views,

feelings and realms – it wasn’t a roller coaster ride, No!

More like sailing. On steroids.

Time runs marathons. I stop. Panting doubled over – catching my breath – at the beauty and clutter of all of this. Life, as it happens. Each moment defining the next.

As we began this year - with exploring the impulsive moments; playing dress up for New Year’s Dinner Date and impromptu drive for a bite at Mumbai’s Mondegar – I told myself I would be more present.

More showing up – less careful planning and my list here feels like a pat on the back – more or less. Because first time in years did not finish my Reading Challenge

I did a highlights timeline of these 12 months and it literally just fills up one page and I know I could write a book if I wanted to. But. Am Lazy and well Am a Memory Hoarder.

I don’t yet want to put it all out.

This year for the first time - felt like it was mine! My time. My mindfulness.

My growing into myself year

Tiger Heart and Swan Vulnerability. Nagging doubts and the bourgeois vanity.

Gratified in knowledge that I could set pulses racing and turn heads and be completely grounded.

Content that I could get giddy with adrenaline for blood and not be jaded.

Blasting the walls of my comfort zone – the cocoon no longer served its purpose - I met some amazing new people and learnt the topographies of new stories. The way someone’s nose crinkles and the way someone else’s laugh lifts off and how one person’s eyes light up when they talk about their children and how the other one’s dances when they talk about their passion of wine and yachts and the shift in the air when someone wants to kiss you or is about to confess something silly. The easy camaraderie of colleagues to tense awkwardness of dates.

The realisation that the little things still move or outrage me, was humbling. It was heartening to know – I could still make mistakes – too trusting sometimes, cynical in other moments. It was lovely to connect with the core, which still believed in the larger good of humanity – with a pinch of salt, of course! J

It takes commitment to show up every day – to show up in time to work on the person one is. It takes every fiber of one’s being in taking up responsibility to connect and to be detached.

In accepting the dark and the light – all at once.

And in the year to come - I vow:

· To be vulnerable and

· To keep the core resilient

· To Learn

· To make the remainder of this life a work of art

And… even with broken heart, perhaps despite that

· To believe in Love – because really, what else is there?

Adios, 2018! You were a sine wave. You were glorious.

sublime confabulation

Ensconced in the parked car on the side walk, I do the rabbit hole of mind surfing again. This private space created bang in the middle of flow and ebb of traffic. I promptly lock the doors.

The flow of humanity, some weather beaten, some sapling fresh faces. Some completely dilapidated bicycles and some spotless shiny sedans… I gradually soak up the emotions of everyday. The hues and the harmonies of the dying day and enveloping darkness interplay with shop lights, choir up with street lights, and weave arias with the vehicle lights. All of these have story to tell their own version of all the light hearted and heavy headed Acts of life! Bits and pieces of life - form a mélange. A vibrant hum of existence!

This watching and observing has been a second nature, guess comes from a solitary childhood. I almost find a solace in quite observation of our kinds. Large dispassionate, professional groups I can manage. One on One, I think… communication becomes this huge looming over my head thing. I think my innate shyness (!!!) comes to the fore, every time. I suck at “hellos” and then at goodbyes too!

I’ve wanted to write about so many things, beautiful thoughts, scary ones too… but instead I’ve been crawling into mind. Seeking sabbaticals or is hibernation more like it! I’ve tried to wrap my mind around what I want to express and yet I keep falling short of whatever it is I really want to say.

I’ve observed myself enough over the past few years to know that about when I am feeling absolutely empty inside, I begin taking that extra care on how I look. The world needn’t see the chasm. But then things begin to crack inside… the look, the need and mind to take care of the body goes out to the winds. The emptiness seems ever widening.

I think the emptiness has something to do with wanting to voice something I can’t quite name, wanting to live something I can’t quite get to, wanting to get something out of me that I can’t seem to give form. It also has to do with knowing that I’m not living out of my fullness, that there is so much left un-lived and undone.

The gloom all on its way to the sure doom for past few days, the living teetering on the edge of nervous breakdown. I slowly and systematically, pick myself up and away from that cliff and with unsure steps-on-the-gravel move towards the table land.

I wonder if this oft repeated standing on the edge is a necessary lesson I have set myself up for? Or is it really that I am a horrid-pessimist-in-the-garb-of-ardent-optimist? Am I missing out on life? Did i miss out completely? Maybe a bit, perhaps a lot

the escape art

We are all pieces, trying to find the best fit for all our edges; grappling with self, with life and with purpose.

Today I found myself feeling every thought that traipsed across my mind, not just thinking and analyzing on auto pilot but feeling them… each one of them.

A neighbor lost one of her sons to complications of cancer, a friend lost a friend to depression; another one lost a girlfriend to murkiness. I devoured books like someone out of prison. I took impulsive drives in impulsive rains. I forgot obvious words in the middle of sentences. Basically I ran out of words. Bundled up on emotions; every single one of the senses taut and alert and me just the audience.

It’s been a drama of a week.

On Monday in the wake of a dramatic weekend and in wake of series of arguments with the manager and the way things are at work, politically, dirty, I decided to drown myself in work. And did just that! Dive down and there’s plenty to do, some oysters to find, some pearls to be discovered and some simple wonders of everyday. The beauty of being busy! The magic of mundane.

On Tuesday an impromptu coffee meeting and then what looked like escape begins to look like destination of some form. I stayed up till nearly midnight. Reading. Thinking. Hurting. Dreaming. Calming myself down. It is kind of surreal to see yourself through the motions of emotions. Be this high octane drama queen one moment and lovelorn lost soul next to completely sorted strategist the very next second. Like Magic.

On Wednesday I stayed up until midnight, talking, wanting to just go out and chill; while trying to make sense of the addiction to drama. Why does he do this? Really? I am at a point in my existence where even a hint of anything over the top, dramatic, scares the hell. Drains the premium Qi away! And, then I just gave up trying to fight the illogic. Trying to draw some semblance of sense. Why bother? Not with apathy… but with compassion and understanding that everyone needs to, has a right to make their own brand of mistakes, missteps and evolve from there. Caterpillar to Butterfly is messy and yet Magic.

On Thursday took a detour from norm and went out pub hopping; on an invitation; invitation of an impulse! Reached home and collapsed into bed short circuiting another scene and another risk. And my five year old waiting for me and promptly falling asleep holding my hand, was magic!

Friday was back to back meetings – strategies to be made. New financial year to be charted; excels to be plotted and then Starbucks. Catching up on space. On nothingness. On re-calibration. On curious quotidian. Nothing short of magic.

Now, looking at Saturday. Day full of reading and wondering and laundry and chores and thinking and obsessing. And now catching up with friends, picking up from last weekend…

A day of whiskey in wine glasses, and wine in coffee mugs and vodka in beer glasses; managing toddler time with grown-ups talktime; a day of letting the drama slide out … and unwittingly it becomes a day of letting go, hanging on and keeping things which matter, close…

For real life is messy. And real life is murkier than any pathos can hope to be and real life is richer, right here, happening, unraveling while we zone out…

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