As I am writing this here, there’s a white pipe coming from the water cooler going into the pot, filling it up drop by drop.
It served me well until now to think and believe that everyone of us are enlightened, we just don’t know it.
I saw a yellow snake with red dots on it when I was walking barefoot on the barren land in front of my house at 41℃. A week before that, in a sleep paranoia, I dreamt of a thick lizard crawling on my body and I let it. Today I slept in the sun at 40℃ so that a sister could use the cooler.
I am trying to train my mind to go against what’s perceivably normal, conventional, downright acceptable.
I come from a cycle of harm that is barely physical. It operates in the burrows of fear that remain cool and pleasant in the heat of the truth. One can hide there, but it can never become an abode.
I have always seen the weaker(as perceived, not really)being the wrong one. A target of blame. The stronger crawls, all over. A slight hindrance to the strong and it collapses. Perceptions are illusory.
I have no idea if the pot is filling up. It all looks the same.
In my spare time, I have found a new interest in analysing the new built up working structures that are highly valued, accepted and used in our society. Let’s take social media as an example.
It started with me questioning why did someone construct something like social media at all? People were meeting people anyway in real and emails and personal chat boxes were enough to get along for the whole life. Businesses were still there and millionaires still had Rolls Royces and the costliest diamonds.
I observed people and I realised there were people defining their own utility according to what they wanted. Here’s what I found broadly-
Business babies: A broad category of people who are looking to expand their businesses by posting about their work, event updates, personal sessions and also bit of a show off to lure. They often disguise in the idea of “we care for you” but in real, only money and data that comes in matters baby!
We are doing it: This category is the one that has just started with their business accounts, websites, offerings, pages etc and they seem quite stoked to offer. Yet it’s evident that they are mere copy cats of the Business babies. Though they won’t accept that if you say it.
Fame game: These are only looking for fame. So more likes,more followers, more DMs and there you go.
Validate us please: Selfies, selfies, more selfies and guess what, some more selfies. Alright, this category also includes travel freaks, food freaks, book freaks, alcohol/weed freaks, ideology freaks and all they care about is how can they be better appreciated, more accepted, stand out and still be called great. In short they are screaming “Love Me” in all their posts.
Because everyone else is: Fitting in. They are only trying to feel accepted by doing what everyone else is doing. They have no idea about what, why, how, when. They are simply walking with the herd. They repost every little thing and they won’t deny anything unless everyone else does.
Awareness: Now these are the ones who really care for you. They will hardly promote their names, they will go more for the cause and keep updating helpful insights and tips and tricks for everything that you feel is a problem. They won’t ask for money or personal details. They are truly here to help.
Community sharing: These people are my personal favorite. They are sharing stories, personal and of people, insights, wisdom only for the sake of sharing. No other agenda. No other motive. Simply sharing and encouraging to share.
I’m not so sure: I belonged to this category for the longest time. Now these are the ones who are a bit of everything. They want business to come, they want money, they want fame, they want validation as well, and they really care about you sometimes as well. So you’ll see a bit of everything here, but if you ask them why they keep posting they won’t be able to answer.
There are people who are bits and pieces of everything from the above and I don’t categorize it as good or bad in anyway. It’s just how it is and it is amazing that social media allows the variety of users to feel free to feel free.
It makes me laugh to finally analyze this and see where I was and how I would like to use it from now on or whether I need it at all.
I have a list of topics to analyse and I am stoked to start. But it is funnily obvious to me that I wasn’t open to analyzing this when I was first asked this question of Why I am doing, what I am doing. For me the fear burrow was pleasurable.
I sometimes think, how many such burrows am I living in right now? When will someone keep questioning? When will I defenselessly consider and look inward?
The pot is taking a lot of time to fill.
I was standing in a queue to fill up a form at the university so that I could get my marksheets for the final semester. In front of me was this tall guy, taller than most tall people, quite unusual and so I could see people staring. Half an hour in that queue and the doors shut down for the lunch break. We had an hour to kill before they reopened.
I gave a huge long exhale and he turned to look directly in my eyes. I turned away to find a place to sit for that hour. He followed me and when I sat down, he sat beside me too.
We didn’t speak for that one hour. I was scrolling on my phone, I made two phone calls and I quickly wrote an article that I had to submit in two days. He simply sat. Did nothing. No fidget body movements also.
The hour passed by, I went to stand in the queue again and in another half an hour I was done and struggling to unpark my bike from the parking because apparently it had rained heavily in the last hour and the mud in the open parking area had gotten soft and slippery.
As I was trying hard to pull my bike out, I saw this huge tall guy lifting my bike from the behind and asking me to tow the front wheel. I did as he asked and within minutes, we were on the paved roads. He had a bicycle so it didn’t bother him as much.
While I was extending my gratitude for his kind gesture, he asked me my name and what I was doing otherwise in life. I told him and asked him the same. He was actually a seminarian, studying theology and philosophy. I was surprised by his appearance. He was tall, spoke politely and always had a smile on his face. I asked him if I could be in touch with him further to which he pulled out a small diary from his pocket and asked me to write my email ID on it.
In the days of social media, this young chap was carrying a diary. I did so and we bid goodbyes.
Three days later, I got an email from him asking me about my whereabouts and that’s how we started conversing, at the pace of one email per week, sometimes even late.
I don’t remember when we stopped sending emails, I think it was when he managed to get a small dial phone and we started talking on that.
Our conversations were mostly about philosophy, the cathedral to which I judiciously prayed at as well, even before I knew that he was also a part of that same cathedral service. Though we never met after that.
Years later, I saw a text from him on whatsapp asking me how I was. It was pleasant to hear from him after so long. He told me that he had become a farmer and he works for rural development.
I told him I was working on myself, healing, meditating, analyzing etc. I also told him that this work is lifelong and that I don’t think it ever ends.
He replied to it saying,
It ends when you want it to end, mademoiselle!
I kept silent after he said that. I was taken aback to that one hour we spent together on that bench. I had always been a controller. A doer. Making most of everything. Didn’t waste/use/sit/do nothing even in a free hour. I remembered just how beautifully okay he was with doing nothing. Simply sitting. And this reply of his made me question myself.
The pot is filling, am I okay with just that?
After graduating when I shifted to the city of my dreams, I came in regard with a poet’s circle. There used to be poetry open mics every monday at a local cafe and these enthusiasts used to open their hearts there. Every month, they also hosted a poetry tournament where each one us were given a topic and we were supposed to write a poem on it within an hour and perform.
For the first two tournaments I wrote what I could, almost killing myself with pressure because apparently writing good and winning seemed more important than the poem itself.
Before I went for the third tournament, I had decided that I was not going to put myself in that pressure again. I invited this guy who was asking me for a date to accompany me to the event and for the one hour that was given to us for writing, I spent holding his hand and looking into his eyes.
I went on the stage with no written matter. Nothing to read from. Impromptu. I managed to make a small little piece in my head while speaking and I still didn’t win. Apparently that date didn’t end up well as I asked him to leave abruptly when he tried to hug me, as I was too sad.
That night while traveling back home in the local train, I sat with my discomfort. I wanted to know the secret formula to winning. I wanted to hack it. Learn it. Become a pro at it.
Fortunately the winner was traveling with me in the same train and so I took the opportunity to ask him, what made him write the winning pieces. What was the formula? Where was the way?
He didn’t say anything for a long time. In fact he didn’t say anything until his station came. While getting off the train he asked me,
Why do you write at all?
The train moved and I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t answer because I had no answer. I thought of the pressure I had experienced while writing, I thought of the sheer extreme opposite of pressure, ignorance just so that I didn’t have to deal with it again. And I also thought of all my other poems, that initially used to come from pure, profound ideas and just because I couldn’t sit through the discomfort of giving them a day or two to create, I gave in to mediocrity.
Doing, creating, involves a sense of patience, a being while doing.
The pot is filling.
My grandfather had been an alcoholic for the majority of his life span. When I asked him about it, he told me that his father owned a cigarette factory and so these children started smoking and drinking at a very young age.
In his mid fifties he was diagnosed with asthama and he had to stay in the hospital for fifteen days. That’s when his doctor told him that if he didn’t stop drinking and smoking now, he’d die in a month.
Frightened by what the doctor had said, my grandfather transformed. He did not just leave alcohol, he stopped having meat and his diet considerably changed to plant based products.
Though his disease refused to leave. In five years, he had lost his right lung. In another five years, his left lung was also almost dysfunctional.
We seldom had to keep him at the hospital as breathing without machines became very difficult for him.
Though after he changed his diet and his habits, he encouraged everybody in the family to take up healthy habits as well.
The fear of death changed his perception of life and after that incident, it was as if he was living in the pursuit of not dying at all. He started changing everything so that he wouldn’t die. He made sure he did everything his doctor said. He became the perfect patient. Someone who always wanted to be healthy, but remained a patient lifelong.
When both his lungs gave up and he had to be dependent on machines always, he got more scared of his own end. When he died and I was sitting next to his body, I wondered if all pursuits ended this way.
The pot is now full.
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