When I began this year with a day of spring cleaning and an evening of my 11 yo teaching me how to ride a scooter and after a few failed attempts and he being a patient teacher; coming back to the warm yellow of fairy lights lit home - I just knew this was one of those silently momentous turns of life.
It has been long time coming, my slow move into a space of doing less and being more. A free-fall into being human. Meditatively human. Aware of self and aware of things around you.
Sounds very avantgarde' and a saintly existence.
Can you then imagine being depressed?
And afflicted with the same old loneliness?
And insomnia, with head filled with dark images enough to scare M Night Shyamalan?
YES.
And the way to survive and shine through it all, through the days and nights fraught with macabre and magic too, is to just let it be. And suffice it to say, IT'S NOT EASY.
But, then I also realised, for me, no amount of therapy or Xanax is going to help if you relinquish the power of kindness for yourself to the terrorism of your mind. It is what, it is. And I have utmost respect for the entity my mind is, but I also need the agency to let it blow it's steam off without my being sucked into its shenanigans. I am not advocating this for anyone - it's my way and well has worked for me.
It is after all a product of messed up evolutionary drama with over bred, survival instincts laden and fantasy driven chemical synapses enmeshed into millions of neurons.
Trying to control one’s mind via intervention - of any sorts is like trying to make a dent in the universe. With no disrespect for Late Mr Jobs, it’s simply not possible.
We are inconsequential in multiverse’s larger scheme (Douglas Adams had the right idea) and we are absolutely divine in our own self – it seems like a paradox; it isn't really.
For eg: with the human population exploding to the brinksmanship today, one would not be amiss to think that it literally should be the simplest of the things – child birth. But anyone who has had children or been pregnant, knows... it is not so!! It still remains a marvel of nature. Forming of a living functioning entity inside you. The beauty of things around us, are paradoxical, always! Existence is paradoxical.
I said to a friend - I am self aware(ly) depressed. And, I realised, it’s in fact truer than I meant it to be.
Not maniacally. Just very very aware. It ebbs like an ocean – toggling between the calm mirror like surface water and then the churning tidal waves hit the surface.
18th was my birthday and whilst I had no plans except spending the day quietly by myself, with the child back in school. It just unwittingly turned out to be happy hour cocktail brunch with friends. A tribe of smart beautiful women.
And I gave up on my last social media thread. The only keeper of social timeline – Instagram today. It’s an experiment to lessen the despondency laced dependence on the culture of scrolling and double tap. It was eating up my hours – and no, am nowhere near addiction by any measure - I still didn’t appreciate the fact that I was losing my hours unbeknownst to me.
I gave up credit cards last year and WhatsApp too, now with this - I think my cyber hermitting level 1 is complete.
Would I ever again join the society of reactions, likes and engagements? Perhaps.
If there’s one thing, I have learnt in my all my 4 decades is to never shut the door to learning and evolving, however, that may be.
At that final hour, when I have a minute to reflect on this life, I would like it to read like a classic: “a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.”
Be Kind, To Self, First! It's quite underrated and the power is immense. So long...
