Note to self:
Stop trying to explain yourself and your journey to people who would neither understand nor accept you because they think you are less than them.
You don’t have to justify your existence to anyone and you don’t need to earn anyone’s validation. In fact, their existence in your life is what requires Your validation.
Keep close those who are like-minded, or at least open-minded enough to have acceptance for people who are unlike them.
I don’t want to keep apologising for being away.
It’s usually for one of these reasons — I’m busy, I’m sad, or I’m happy.
But I thought I should say hello, again, seeing that I’ve not said a word since the start of my birth month.
For two decades, I used to say “wake me up when September ends”… and that was a tradition I followed yearly, starting from late August.
September was usually a month of pain, trauma, regrets and losses.
It’s already the ninth day of this month and that phrase has not said hello again, yet. I’ve broken the streak.
Grateful for the strong start and hoping for it to continue.
Okay gtg bye. ♡
The end doesn’t always come as a full stop. Especially in the beginning, it comes as specks of realisation.
Those specks hurt progressively.
Letting go of old and long-term habits are incredibly hard. It is harder when it involves a loved one or someone you have grown to treat as family.
Who do you first interact with when you wake up, who do you have dinners with or watch TV with, who do you share a house with, who do you watch movies with, or have long (not-so-pleasant) conversations with ever so often?
On the surface, these are all just habits. But they have a way of sneaking into the deepest parts of your mind and staying anchored there.
In the beginning, the end seems like a whisper. It seems like it is at a distance away.
Going through the daily motions of life hoping for the end to come more quickly will make it seem slow and impossible.
But when the end is near, things change dramatically and it becomes heart wrenching.
It will no longer feel like a fantasy or idea you used to toy with. The concreteness of it will feel heavy and painful.
How do you step out of something you used to be in for so many years? No situation is a hundred percent bad. There have been good moments.
How do you divorce your soul from a life you have built over time and convinced yourself to call home?
And if that involves someone else, how can you break someone else’s heart to mend your own? Would that be selfish?
Are you leaving them in a better state, or can you look the other way, take no responsibility that isn’t yours and leave it to fate?
As you can see, I have too many questions… while the answers seem to elude me.
As the famous saying goes: “Upadhi dukkhassa mūlan’ti” — attachment is the root of suffering.
Years ago, an old flame and I decided to take a walk.
I was a willing party, but he reluctantly came along just because I’d asked.
It was truly adorable how he at first seemed really grumpy and lightened up as we progressed in our approximately 2km walk.
He was chatty and smiling most of the journey. Then suddenly, a bird cast its creamy blessing on his shoulder.
I was partly terrified that he would be angry and that would ruin his mood.
At the same time, I found the fact that a bird chose to accurately aim its excretion at him hilarious.
Despite my strongest effort not to laugh, I ended up vibrating violently. Upon seeing that, he burst into his usual thunderous laughter.
He appeared genuinely amused (and disgusted… but mostly amused).
For that, I felt grateful.
For the past three weeks, words have failed me.
So I did what every Tamil eventually does when language falls short. I turned to Sangam poetry.
Perhaps this can say what I have been trying to.
Translation and my thoughts are at the end.
குறுந்தொகை 40
யாயும் ஞாயும் யாராகியரோ?
எந்தையும் நுந்தையும் எம்முறைக் கேளிர்?
யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி அறிதும்?
செம்புலப் பெயல் நீர் போல
அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாம் கலந்தனவே.
Translation:
What are you and I to each other?
What relation is my mother to yours, and your mother to mine?
How did you and I ever come to know one another?
Like rainwater falling upon red earth, our loving hearts have mingled and become one.
My thoughts
There is a reason this poem still finds people after all these years. It understands something I have never quite found the words for.
Sometimes, people just happen to us.
They are not ours. They do not come from where we come from.
There is no reason for them to matter as much as they do. And yet, they do.
Two people, born into different families, living entirely separate lives, somehow meet and feel as though they have known each other for much longer than a lifetime permits.
“Like rain on red earth.”
I think about that line often.
Because once the rain falls, can you really ask the earth to give it back?
Maybe that is why some people never quite leave us. Not because we are unwilling to move on, but because somewhere along the way, they became a part of us and we, a part of them.
Kurunthogai 40 isn’t trying to explain love.
It is simply acknowledging that some things were always going to happen.
And perhaps that is the saddest thing of all. That some people are written into our lives in ink, even if they were never meant to stay.
Because I am exhausted.
We’re at the midpoint of this week and I’m already tired.
It feels like we’re stuck on a hamster wheel and the thought that we are racing against each other while going around in 3D circles makes me giddy.
Sometimes, I ask myself what the point is.
The disenchantment is real. I sometimes find myself craving darkness and silence after a day at work.
What is work and why do we have to work? Don’t give me the usual answers.
I find myself going back in time and questioning whether our modern economic system is really a natural way for society to function.
It is, after all, a human construct rather than an immutable law of nature.
At times, it feels less like a system designed to serve humanity and more like one that concentrates wealth, power and control in the hands of a relatively small group, while the rest of us spend our lives chasing numbers.
What is currency? Why does it have to exist? Can money ever truly and fairly compensate someone for their time, labour and service? Or is it simply a construct we have collectively agreed to believe in?
If we removed currency from the equation and returned to a system of barter, perhaps the world would become a simpler place.
Value would no longer be measured by numbers on a screen or pieces of paper, but by what we could genuinely offer one another.
Sure, one might argue that this is a step backwards, a sign of becoming less civilised. But look at where we are now.
On the grandest scale, the world is still consumed by war.
Closer to home, within our own little ecosystems, we fight over things as trivial as status at work or the power to make decisions that rarely matter or create any meaningful positive change.
What is the point of it all? And can we really call this progress or claim that society is moving in a positive direction?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the lack of consistency in almost anything annoys many of us.
When you order soup at a restaurant and if that soup has an annoyingly inconsistent texture, it almost immediately spoils the experience of dining.
You put on some makeup and when that powder you have on becomes inconsistent and patchy, it ruins your mood to leave home.
These are all inanimate things that we purchase or own, and still somewhat have control over and every right to feel some way about.
But what happens when it comes to the people in our lives? Should we reject inconsistency as immediately? Or do we then have to force ourselves to understand and accept that we humans cannot stay the same way all day every day?
Where do we draw the line with acceptance, before we decide that we are being taken for a ride?
It’s never easy.
While inconsistency from a human feels sickening, confusing and irritating, we can neither immediately reject the person nor tolerate it for longer than it should be tolerated.
The consistency for this situation: sticky
Pardon me today. I’m currently losing a fight with writer’s block.
