YS – Younger Self, CS – Current Self 

Scene: I have obtained a time machine, but I can do only two trips and return back to my current time. I decide to try it out. Setting the time to the beginning day of 2001 summer vacation. Setting the place to my grandfather’s TV room. A twist and a turn and some bright light, and voila, here I am. There he was. My younger self. Connecting cartridge run video game console to the TV. Figuring out which wire go where, tinkering with the amount of Voltage required to the machine, adjusting the contrast. he turns on the console and a smile on his face.

CS – So, what do you wanna play?

YS – Let’s see if you are able to figure it out. And let’s confirm if you are really who you say you are. What would I choose?

CS – Meh. Easy. Super Contra hack, with S power enabled and 30 lives. Player 1 or 2? 

YS – Player 1 always 😎

CS – Haha, alright.

YS – Do we still play these games?

CS – Actually yes. We still play all our favourite games. And not just these few games, we find lot of new games. Some games we play again and again 😛

YS – Haha, did we run out of games to play?

CS – Nah dude. There are so many to pick from. One life is not enough to play everything.

YS – What’s a dude? 🤔

CS – Oh. It means erm.. something like “friend”.

YS – Ah, ok dude. Then why are we playing same games again and again?

CS – Oh, for now you just need to know you enjoy playing it. No matter how many times you play it. As to why we do it – we do it because lot of our moral values comes from certain characters in these games. So we enjoy being these characters, even if it is virtual. But these games kick ass. Such good graphics, game-play, story arc, character development and so on.

YS – How does all that matter, if you are enjoying playing it?

CS – Haha. Ah yes. The wise old young me.

YS – So who are these characters we start following?

CS – I cannot say that to you. That is something you will discover on your own.

YS – Ok dude. So we are going bald?

CS – Lol, is that bothering you?

YS – I don’t know, should I be bothered?

CS – Nah, we are fine. Wait a minute, you are tricking me to get answers out of me by questioning me back. Hey, I know all your tricks.

YS – Hehe, you know me well 😛

CS – Well, I am you. And you are me. 

YS – Yeah yeah. So how is the future world?

CS – I am sorry, I cannot answer that question 😅

YS – What can you answer? 😑

CS – I wish it was that simple dude 😅 But still ask, I will try to answer.

YS – Ok, do we have lot of friends?

CS – No. We don’t have loooot of friends. We have very few friends, but we can proudly call them friends.

YS – Who’s our best friend?

YS – Wait, let me answer that – I cannot answer that question 🤐

CS – 😂😂 We will get in touch with some of the most beautiful people. Especially our best friend. This person will create so much impact in our life, they will play a huge role in moulding into what we are now.

YS – And what are we now?

CS – A kind soul.

YS – Anyway you are not gonna tell who that is, but still I am excited. So, what you are saying is *you know who I am talking about* is not going to be our best friend 😜

CS – Lol, I never said that. One person can have many close friends. And I want you to experience everything and everyone without any judgement and discrimination.

YS – Is our father still the same?

CS – When you look at me what is your initial impression?

YS – Ok old man, I will tell you 😜 You seem alright. I think I feel peaceful when talking to you. A calm vibe. Being so patient with me. So yeah, you are cool, I think 😅

CS – I know you are angry at father right now. Is he still the same? I can’t answer that. But all I can say is, it doesn’t matter if he is still the same or not. You are cool, I think 😅 Your words, not mine. Now don’t ask me if I am angry at him, I can’t answer.

YS – Our words.

CS – 🤣🤣 I forgot your subtle sense of humour.

YS – We are not funny anymore? 😱

CS – We are 😅 In fact, we have expanded our sense of humour in different categories. Especially dark humour.

YS – What’s dark humour? 🤔

CS – You will find out in time.

YS – Are we still into reading?

CS – I wish I can take you to my current collection. Some you will love. Some you will hate. But you will be amazed for sure. There are so many interesting book and topics we will be exposed to. I wish I can discuss all that with you.

YS – Now I can’t wait to grow up 😍

CS – Really?

YS – That’s a fair question 😅 So, are we loved? And is it real this time?

CS – Yes, you are loved. Often many people don’t know how to love you, nonetheless, still you are loved. Is it real? I don’t have an answer. I guess we will be figuring that out together 🙃

YS – Do we still struggle with reassurances?

CS – Yes, we do. But don’t worry we keep working on it.

YS – And nightmares?

CS – Yes, we still have nightmares.

YS – I understand.

CS – Perhaps not as frequent as we have right now. It will reduce over time.

YS – Phew, some good news 😜

YS – Do we ever find out why he did this to us?

CS – We don’t. In fact we decide not to pursue that path anymore.

YS – Why not?

CS – You will have you will answer when you come to that realisation. I am sorry.

YS – It’s ok, its not your fault. I know you are trying 😇

CS – We are trying.

YS – 🤣🤣

YS – Are we still scared of physical touch from others?

CS – Yes we are. There are times we will get physically starved because of that. But at least it will keep us safe.

YS – Isn’t that a bad thing?

CS – Yes, it is a bad thing. We are just trying to make the best of what we have and what we can. And I know you need assurance. So don’t worry, we are not dying a virgin 😅

YS – 🤣🤣 That actually helps 😜

CS – Yeah, I can’t stay for long. I can’t let anybody else see me. Let’s spend some time, playing together 🙃

YS – Yesss. Lets do that.

Scene: It’s been three hours since we started playing. Mother is calling us for dinner. And I decide to say my goodbye and prepare to leave. I start the machine. But before I enter into it, I turn around. Go towards my younger self.

CS – I have a lot more to say to you. But I can’t stay here for long. Here, I have written whatever I can in this letter. Read it leisurely on your bed. 

YS – Alright. Got any last minute advice?

CS – Be kind to everyone. Because you don’t know what the other person is going through. And always remember no matter what anyone says, you matter, your feelings matter and you are enough.

YS – I wish you would stay for longer.

CS – I can’t. I wont be able to answer a lot of your questions. Not that I won’t, I just can’t.

YS – It’s ok, you know what’s best for me. Take care of yourself 😇 And I am sorry, if I have made your life a struggle.

CS – Hey cool guy, You made my life awesome. Let’s not go there?

YS – Yeah, I know I am pretty awesome 😎

CS – We are pretty awesome.

YS – 🤣🤣

I hug my younger self. I enter the machine, turn it on, set the time and place. Where and when? Lol. I am not saying that. Before I start her up, I turn towards my younger self and tell him “Say hi to prpt on behalf of me 😛”. The last thing I see is my younger self blush, before I vanish away.

Scene: I finished having my dinner. And went on to play for some more time. And its time to turn it off. I go to bed. But I am excited. I want to read the letter from my future self. I didn’t want to be disturbed while reading it. So I locked my room door. Turned off the lights. Turned on the fan. Turned on my study lamp. Got myself to a comfortable position. I kept looking at the letter for a while. Wondering what could be written in it. I finally decide to open and read it.

My Dear BMan,

It’s raining so heavily while I am writing this. And I know how much we love getting drenched in rain. And I have become very lazy to go get drenched now 😛 I know you will have a lot more questions to ask. And I know I will not be able to satisfy your curiosity in the time I will be there 😅. But then there are few things I would want to tell you. So here it goes.

For sometime I thought I lost you. It felt like I will never find you again. But fortunately here we are. I want you to know that we don’t let anything happened to us interfere with how we treat others, or at-least we try. But we are also human, we make mistakes, we get emotional, have expectations. Lot of people will find it weird, coz not many have seen this side of ours. It’s ok, they forget there’s a human touch to us as well.

I know we are very broken. Often people will break us more, when we are trying to pick our already broken pieces. But you are a warrior. So, please don’t give up on us. We don’t give up on ourselves or anybody for that matter. You are more than enough. If somebody thinks otherwise, that does not necessarily mean something is wrong with you. You are always as kind as you are now. There are so many sides to you, than you will ever realise. I want you to embrace all of them.

I know you will be taught to go and chase happiness. Coz, the world around you thinks it is important to be happy. But one cannot be happy always. We must learn to respect all emotions and feelings equally. Process them and go through them as it is demanded. It is not going to be easy. But I want you to know you will fight through all that.

I am always proud of you for the person you will become. I promise I am working very hard to create a safe space for you. All this panic attacks and nightmares will reduce, I promise. You won’t have to be scared to let out your emotions. That safe emotional space you always crave for is available now. Yeah, we struggle with reassurances and insecurities. But we are still working on them. You have come a very long way to give up my friend.

There’s so many amazing things out there for you to be discovered. Even for me. I guess our learning and curiosity will never extinguish 😅 I am thankful to you in a lot of ways. For keeping me strong. I have realised you are my home. I guess that’s why I am very hesitant to use that word anywhere and I am very careful with how I use it. You are always loved. And you are always safe with me. We are safe with each other.

With lots of love,

Your Protector – BMan

Most of my friends see me as this confident person, who feel very comfortable confiding in me. The struggles they go through, all the inner conflicts they have inside them. I have no idea if it has anything do with my confidence. But when they tell me all these things, I picture myself in their situations and try to connect with them emotionally. I don’t try to give them a solution, just be there for them when they need me and listen to them. I know everything works both the ways. But when the same situation is laid up on me, I cant seem to confide into anyone that easily. Its not that I wont, I cant seem to do it. Asking for help has always been very difficult for me. And I think that’s one of the reason I tend to isolate myself from everyone. 

I am often scared to open up to people. Though I like exploring people, their emotions, often I find them weird. I do have fear they would judge me based on my anxiety, because most of them don’t understand what it means to live with constant forms of anxiety. Most of us are over-thinkers, we tend to overthink even the smallest of thing. People often think we overreact because of these intense thoughts. So, I stopped explaining myself to anyone after a point. I always believed from the bottom of my heart, being kind is the way of the world. I have always been sincere at it.

But often I have wondered where has it led me. I have always been scared to show my vulnerable side, and yet I have tried to get out of my comfort zone, and showed few people that side of me. But most of them only end up seeing that as weaker side of me, or consider me emotionally broken. Which has forced me not to show my vulnerabilities to anyone. I showed this side of mine as a sign of trust. To show I am just a human, as flawed as anyone else. But now it has become much more difficult for me to trust anyone, and show my emotional side.

I cant do anything halfway, either I am all in or all out. For me having an emotional connections gives me a good high. I wanted to know what it feels like to be loved unconditionally, what it feels like to be loved like I do, what it feels like to be loved. Most of the times I end up being taken advantage of because of my kindness. It gave me a l lot of trust issues, it became very difficult for me to trust anyone after a certain point. I was taught love as a different thing when I was a child, and I believed that was love. But later when I knew I was taken advantage of emotionally and physically, it broke my heart. I did’t know what was love anymore. I have always been searching for that feel, to feel alive.

All these created a lot of insecurities inside me. Creating self doubts. So much anxiety. Its not something I chose. People I thought were close to me, are nowhere around me. The anxiety attacks are getting very heavy and frequent these days. The breathing becomes very constrained, so much pain near chest, sometimes uncontrollable crying, so much restlessness, often hands start shivering. Even when there is nothing to worry about, there’s this constant nagging or itch in mind, that something is wrong or something is going to wrong. And there’s nothing I can do about it. 

I have often pushed myself to get out of this zone. I have pushed myself to do a lot of things. Like going alone to a restaurant or a movie. Travelling alone. Trying to talk to strangers. Trying out new things, experimenting a lot. But lately, I feel very tired of it. Like I have nobody to even talk to and nobody is able to understand me and what I am going through. So, I choose self isolating myself. I know the pain of not having anyone to just let know what they feel. Just sharing things, happiness, joy, sorrow. Just a shoulder to hold onto. I don’t want to go to my dark place, but often I feel I have no other choice. I have been trying very hard to fight through my anxieties from my childhood. But I am also a human, I got tired now and doing all this alone, and nobody to understand.

At every point we need constant assurance. That’s why sometimes we might ask some stupid questions. I urge everyone to be a little patient with people who have anxiety. Just give them assurance that, you are there for them. It might be too much to ask for, but it would ease their pain a little bit. I don’t even remember how to make conversations these days. I wish I could just talk, non-stop how I used to. I cant seem to find that me. I have been searching the way back to my roots. Be kind to everyone, nobody knows what someone else is going through. If someone seems to be self isolating, please talk to them, before its too late. We don’t know how to ask for help, but we will always be there for you when any of you need us, or at-least me. I wish all this heaviness would just go away. 

When I was a kid, I thought love was a bad thing. Coz love meant only one thing those days, something that happens between a boy and a girl. I mean, I didn’t know why it was a bad thing, but you know how it was portrayed. There were many things influencing that thought. First one was obviously movies, I don’t know why, but they always show lovers in a pub, always drunk and dancing like they got no care. For some reason, the protagonist or the hero as we call, always taught us, doing that was bad for society. I still don’t understand how’s it bad for the society, maybe drinking was bad for their health, but hey, he is the hero, he knows whats best for us. Then comes the social taboo. Loving someone is so wrong, its against the tradition and god will punish us for it (not to worry, in case god did forget it, we made sure to punish them ourselves). What will society say? I have no idea, coz apparently the society is our deciding authority. Then comes religion, caste, creed, status, nationality, color, gender, habits, astrology and literacy for some reason. And top of this hate chain lies The Family Name. Yes, if you love someone, even if it makes you happy, the family name will get spoilt.

Lucky for me, I started thinking on my own (a very dangerous thing to do). It took me sometime to understand love is more than, something that just happens between two people. I started to see the difference in infatuation/attraction and love. Still many don’t understand the difference between these things. Apparently, teaching us molten lava is called magma, seemed very important than teaching these differences. Love can take many forms and evolution in each person’s life. It can make us and also break us, but in all essential, that’s our driving force. I would like to share my evolution of love for few of the things.

Love For Books – Books has always been my first love. Most of the things I understand about this world and life comes from pages and pages of many books. When I hold a book in my hand, the smell of the book, the feel of the paper in my hand, always excites me. Its an experience very difficult to explain. Its like I am off to start a journey, into a new world. I could relate to each character, the things that make them happy, angry, sad, cry. For the most part of my life, books have been my constant companion. Always stirring up all the emotions inside me. Even at times, when I am not reading, I keep hoarding them up. Books have helped me, understand and accept myself.

Love For Daughter – Well, technically I don’t have a biological daughter. But I do have a daughter. It might seem confusing, let me clear it up. I met someone in the internet a few years back. We were friends in the beginning, but somehow a father-daughter bonding started forming between us. And that is how I would like to call her – my daughter. People might think this as weird creepy relationship, but I don’t care. I would always proudly say I love her. I have learnt a few things from her, now and then. She has stood up for me in ways, even I can’t stand up for myself. I might get too overwhelmed to share the bond between us. For now, all I can say is, I will always be there for her when she needs me and I love her.

Love For Friends – I am not the most perfect friend in the world. I have hurt few of them, not intentionally though. But I have always loved all of my friends from the bottom of my heart. You guys have helped me in many ways, than I could ever ask for. I might have been a little distant from all of you, some of you might not even talk back to me ever, but I want you guys to know that you have always been in my thoughts. I have this bad habit of not asking for help from anyone, perhaps I don’t know how to ask for it. But I promise you, its not my ego, it always feels awkward and uncomfortable for me to do so. I am sorry, if I have hurt any of you, I would never hurt anyone intentionally.  Its just that, lately I have been having thoughts that, I am not worthy enough to be anyone’s friend. So I kinda shut myself off from everyone. I always love all of you guys, I will always be grateful to each of you and no matter what, I will be there when any of you need me.

Love For Religion – I am an atheist. Then wondering why I have love for religion? I would recommend read the book Sapiens, to understand why religion is important for the survival of our species. Everybody thinks atheists want to prove the non-existence of god. To be honest, that’s not even in our list. We respect everyone’s right to their beliefs, but forcing us to believe in other’s beliefs and customs is where we draw the line. Religion is a very beautiful thing though. It gives so many people something to believe in, something to hold onto.

Often I am surprised to see some people’s faith and loyalty to their gods, the things they can do to prove their love for their gods. But its sad to see, taking advantage of this faith and commercializing for their own agenda. The truest faith is born out of love and not out of fear being instilled. I am sure, your gods are kind, and they only want you to be happy and not cause pain to others. Sometimes, I do some research of my own. In one such research, I was very intrigued by the concept of Dasa-Mahavidya. I am looking for resources to know the stories of each of the Mahavidya.

Love For Tradition – One of many things, that has always fascinated me is the concept of tradition. We are led to believe to protect our traditions. But tradition is something ever-changing. You cant protect everything behind it. Doing so is like holding on to something, that is not valid anymore. There is a bit of science behind few of these things, but not everything. For instance, they say don’t cut your nails after 6 in the evening. This was coz there were no lights those days, they didn’t want you to hurt yourself. Its the same reason why we were taught to light lamps in the evening. Don’t cut you hair on certain days or take a head bath only on certain days, this was actually a concept to save water, nothing more. And also on these days, the barbers would get off time. Women not being allowed in temple during their periods, is a very controversial topic. Again, there is science behind it, its not because they are impure or they are weak or they will spread something. Its a very simple concept, during menstruation, their body generates lot of heat, and the temples and idols were not strong structures. To avoid any damages to these structures and for the safety of everyone is the real reason. But still there are many things that are followed blindly. 

Tradition often comes as hindrance to progressiveness or at-least delay it. The best approach would be to take what’s suitable for that time period and push behind things that don’t make sense. There are certain things that I always don’t agree with. Why is that a woman has to take a man’s name after marriage, this practice was started to show, this woman is now this man’s property. Nobody can be anybody’s property. Why is that a woman has to go to the man’s house after marriage, why is that only she has to leave her family and friends, while men have the comfort of retaining their environment? Why should it always be house-wife, why not house-husband? There are flaws in the construct of our tradition. 

Love For Equality – We all know this a patriarchal society. There has been too much struggle to get to this point of gender neutrality. But is that enough? Definitely no. I have a problem with the word feminism. We are fighting for equal rights for women – 50-50. Tomorrow, if the ratio changes, will we start a menism movement? This has become more about which gender dominates which, the entire movement’s basis has been lost. That’s why I would prefer to use the word empowerment. Empowering, irrelevant of gender makes much more sense, at-least to me. There are communities suppressed because of their caste and whatnot, which consists of all genders, empowering them to move forward is the way to equality.

Equality is not just a fight between genders. In a true sense, nobody is equal to anyone, everyone is unique in their own way. The equality we need to fight for is to provide fair opportunities for everyone to progress further in life. To show them the way, but beyond that, it has to come down to how they take it further. Everyone is entitled to dream, and at-least try to do something about that. But we kill dreams right from the childhood, rather we cheat them of it. Let everyone dream, no matter what gender or caste or religion. I love to see people not through their religion or gender or caste or nationality, rather for who they are.

Love For Food – This a no-brainer. After all, this is one of the reason we work so hard for. I have had crazy journeys in this process of loving food. There was a time when I was in search of food on mid-night. During this search I found a small place, who serve food during nights. It was very small home, the kids were sleeping in a bed right in the front. They were kind enough to cook me some fresh food, and gave some to take with me. When eating food made with such love, it would taste divine. I am usually a lonely traveler. There were times where strangers had offered me food in their homes. But best of all. will always be getting fed by mom. She would cook hot rice and curry, she will mix it all with her own hands. Make them into perfect round balls, and when she feeds it, it would taste heavenly.

Romantic Love – When I talk about romantic love, it doesn’t only include physical intimacy. We tend to mix up romance with just physical relationship, its much more than that. I would rather look at you naked emotionally, than physically. But most of this generation finds it easy to hide behind physical intimacy than connecting emotionally. I want to know what makes you cry, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what surprises you, what makes you angry, what do you like to eat on a rainy day, what irritates you, what embarrasses you. I want to save your embarrassing pics, not just your good ones. I want to kiss on your forehead while you are asleep. I want to hold your hands, and take a really long walk. I want to brush you hair over your ears. I want to look at the way you eyes shrink when you laugh. I want to look at you grow, emotionally and professionally. I want us to grow old together.

Love For Self – The most difficult thing you can do, is be kind to others. But even more difficult thing to do, is being kind to self. This is something I have been struggling with a lot. It very difficult to give credit to self, for even doing a small progress. There were times, I used to do a lot of experimentation to test my own limits and find myself. Trying to push myself to go beyond. Accepting me for who I am. Its as if I have lost this person somewhere. I want to be proud of myself, for still holding on. Only if it was that easy. But still with whatever strength I got, I am trying to learn to love again. Trying to learn to love myself again. To everyone going through this struggle, please don’t give up. You are not alone. You don’t have to man up, and bottle your emotions. Its ok to let them out. Its ok to be sad. Its ok to feel down. Its ok to not feel productive. Its ok to not do anything. Its ok to cry. 

 

 

Anger is nothing more than an outward expression of hurt, fear and frustration

Red is associated with anger, for some reason so is love. That’s because anger and love go hand in hand. You either love too much or too less. We are always taught to be happy, and reduce anger. Like any emotion, anger can also be addictive. Acquiring the balance of these feelings is something we strive to achieve. Anger can either fuel you or destroy you. Its up to you, on what path you choose to take it forward. Expression of anger is very important. So, here I am trying to express out all this anger vented up inside me. 

Anger – feeling or showing strong annoyance, displeasure, or hostility; full of anger.

We always try to keep away from people who show anger, it has been portrayed as a quality to keep away from. There are two ways it comes as an outlet – anger on the outside and anger on the inside. When there is no way to express it outside, we tend to transform this anger on ourselves, making us a bitter person. The most difficult thing to do is, being kind to oneself. Though I have so much anger vented up inside me, I try my best to be kind on the outside. But, its not the same on the inside. Though we frown up on people showing anger, we fail to understand what caused this within. After all, it is nothing more than an outward an outward expression of hurt, fear and frustration. 

I am afraid to express my anger. Sometimes this world seems to be filled with hatred and propaganda. We kill each other in the name of something we created ourselves. It hurts, when we use politics and religion, when a child has lost its innocence. We are ready to blame one community to another, we show our rage by demeaning one another. If you really feel that anger, and the pain a child must have gone through, must you not be angry at the people who did it? Must you not feel for the child? Must you not feel for the care the child needs? It hurts bad, to take away that innocence. But we play very dangerous games, instead. Create a political and religious scenario out of it. We call ourselves civilized, but are we really? Men using women for their lustful needs. Taking advantage in the name of friendship/love. Women using men for their needs, playing with emotions. If that is what you need, why not be clear about it? We play with emotions, that could break someone very badly. We boast of our moral values, yet mend it based on our conveniences.

I crave for emotional and physical intimacy. I want nothing more than to be acknowledged, that I exist to them. Sometimes, it gets tired to be just a choice to others and not prioritized. They notice that we show our anger, but they don’t understand they caused it. One small act of kindness can go long way. It often gets tiresome with so many rejections and betrayals, that we get filled with nothing more than a deep rage. And we show this rage upon oneself. There are times where I want this whole world to burn to its ashes, reborn again, only to burn again to its ashes. And at times, I feel this world doesn’t deserve any kindness. I truly don’t understand how can a person break someone so badly, in the name of love. Perhaps that is why anger and love share the same colors. Not a remorse for what they have done. So many things hurt me and scare me. I always used to believe love triumphed over everything. But I really doubt that anymore, in this materialistic world.

I wanted to express all the anger built up in me. But expressing pain and hurt is not that easy. Sometimes words are not enough to complete them. Maybe a shoulder to cry upon, will tell a lot more than words. This leads to nothing more than building deeper walls around us. I am sorry if someone made you feel less. Fuck you to everyone who made me give up on my dreams, who made me give up on love, who made me feel I am unlovable, who made me feel less of a man, who made me feel worthless. A big fuck you to everyone, who broke someone and for breaking their trust.  

Home is not a place, its a feeling

The search for home is never-ending. Most people don’t even understand their search for home. Coz they don’t understand they are looking for home. Its just different semantics for different people. I like to call it home. Or at-least I used to. When I say home, most people think of the place they stay. Its not wrong, coz that’s what they see. Its something more from my perspective. But it has lost all its meaning to me. My best friend used to tell me – actions have more meaning than words. It took me a while to realise it. I have been naive for a very long time, falling for words from people. People I used to consider home.

Home – the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

I am a very emotional person, sensitive to the core. Small things mean a lot to me, and those are the things that affect me the most. Lot of people have taken advantage of this personality of mine. In a way I am thankful to these people, to help me grow what I have become. But I also hold onto so much anger against these people, for breaking me into pieces like this. I understand, this anger doesn’t have any point. But then at the end of the day, I am just a human. Things always go beyond our control. My good therapist used to tell me – we all like to keep things under out control. I can understand, not every-time things will be under our control. We gotta go with the flow. Its easier said than done.

Home is a very safe place. My home kept my nightmares away from me. Home is where I discovered a lot about me. How extroverted I can be. How far I can go beyond my comfort zones. All those sleepless nights were worth it, coz I got to sleep like a baby at my home. The place I used to call home, or rather the person I used to call my home, is where I got to see the real me, the fun me, the happy me. I don’t know if I can bring back that me again. But I know it wont be the same again. 

I always used to say, humans are very beautiful. Deep down I know, its not true. But when I look into their eyes, I can see a lot of things. The desperation in their eyes, to achieve something for their family. The hopes in their eyes. They too care for someone deeply. Sometimes I wish, I could see the struggles they are going through. Try to understand their pain, give them a long hug, tell them everything is going to be okay. I try to connect with lot of people. Try my best to help them through whatever going through. But these days, I don’t find any strength to connect with anyone. There are days where I stop talking to people. I cant explain why I put myself in self-isolation. 

I try to put up a positive face for people I love. Coz I know how it affects them. But they fail to understand how it affects me as well. Sometimes it makes me feel like, it wouldn’t make any difference to these people, even if I stop talking to them for days. I can understand everybody is a grown adult, and they are busy with their lives. But even I would like to feel prioritised sometimes. That’s why nothing feels like home anymore. I cant feel anything anymore. I used to love rain. It always felt home, when it rains. It used to give me a spark when I see rain. And always makes me smile, when I get drenched in rain. But now, nobody knows if its rain drops or my tear drops. The black cloud is filled with sadness and emptiness. 

My home has been shattered into pieces. And I am very sacred to find a new home. I cant fall for words anymore. And I hate this world for trying to find home through physical appearances. Whenever somebody talks about physical beauty and physical intimacy, it kills me inside. My stomach gets twisted very badly, I run out of breathe. But I am not going to show this to anyone anymore. Everybody wants to fall in love with the strengths. But I want to fall in love with their flaws. There is no home anymore, I don’t even have the strength to look for one anymore. Home was supposed to be the place where family stay. But families don’t break you into pieces and break you again, while you are still trying to pick up the pieces. Home is a not a place, its a feeling. Home is a lie.

Trust is a double edged sword

“Love everyone, trust no-one” is what my best friend tells me. But he doesn’t know that love and trust go hand in hand. I don’t blame him, because he is right from his experiences. But then perspectives change as more experience is added. So, how do love and trust go hand in hand? To know that, we have to know that falling in love and loving someone is two different things. You can fall in love with anyone. But you start loving someone only when you trust them, because you are going to give yourself completely to them. You don’t often get someone with whom you can be naked emotionally. 

Trust – firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.

The whole world revolves around trust. But then everybody has their own world. World is nothing but an imagined reality. World can be anything or anyone you want it to be. That is why trust is very fragile thing. Its like a broken glass, scratched sticker, yeah for sure it is something like that. But imagine this for a moment. Your whole world crashes on you, breaking you into pieces. Letting you stray away out of the orbit, which was the only strong bond held it together, being sucked into the darkness, and all that emptiness. The place you once considered home is no more. 

People don’t understand that often breaking a trust is like breaking that person itself. Its a very complicated layer of betrayal. Its something like this, trusting you is my decision, but proving me right or wrong is your choice. I am a very sensitive person, often living in my shell. Me taking a peek out of that shell means I am noticing you. But imagine me coming out of that shell for someone. That’s a different level of trust. It might seem something silly, but I am sure introverts and anxious person like me can relate to this. But I came out of it only to be pushed back in again. It would become difficult for me to get out of that shell again, even if the new person trying to take a peek in the shell deserves to be trusted.

Don’t leave someone broken into pieces, only to be picked by themselves. When you have the chance to do right by them, stand up and do it. But then morality is a very difficult concept to grasp upon. But integrity is not. I always think very hard before giving a word to someone. Because I am scared what if I stray away from that. My word is like my bond, that I am signing up to myself. I don’t want to live my life with regrets. I want to die with at-least the sense of satisfaction that I tried to do something right about it. But as I said, morality is not something everybody can understand. Let alone, being moral to self values. 

Trust is a double edged sword. I will tell you why. You trust someone too less, then you are not going anywhere with that person. But if you trust too much, it will hit you hard when it all breaks. But there is no weighing scale saying this is how much you gotta trust someone. How do you know trust someone? You know you trust someone, when you know that person is going to be there by your side no matter what. You know you trust someone when they are your critique. You know you trust someone when they bring out the best in you. You know you trust someone when they always lookout for you. You know you trust someone when that’s the first person you reach out to at your lowest or best point of life. You can be yourself around that person, with no levels or layers of protection.

I am sorry for everyone who broke you and your trust. I hope you get to trust someone again. Remember, there is always one person you can trust on – YOU. To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.

 

Happiness is just a choice

Let me describe my ideal day. In the center of a semi-circle room, lies a comfy recliner, the room is filled with stacks of books. The entire room is dimly lit, while a reading light is placed on top of the recliner. I find a very comfortable position on the recliner and seat myself. In one hand I hold a very long glass filled with cranberry soda, mixed with a dash of lime, with lots of ice and in another hand I am holding my favorite book. I am sitting there for hours together, enjoying the book, completely closed to the outside world. Most importantly, enjoying the solitude.

 Happiness – feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.

 Everyone is so busy with the “pursuit of happiness“, they tend to forget there are other emotional elements to be appreciated as well. The society has set a standard to determine if a person is happy or not. Its like they have a measuring tape always ready in their brains, and if you fall under the scale, you are happy else you are sad or arrogant. The problem is most people think – ‘she/he is not behaving the way I want to, so she/he must be not happy’. These set of standards created by this society has only put our younger generation under a lot of pressure to find the things they are happy about. We don’t teach them to go and find their happiness, rather we tell them a list of things which they should run after, if they wanna be happy.

Lets get real for a second, you don’t have to feel happy about the things I feel happy about, and it doesn’t work that way. I have been through a lot of things to find this so called happiness. So, basically I am an introvert, people around me are all extroverts. They are happy going out, participating in social activities, talk to each other and to new people with such ease. It made me very anxious, every-time people kept pointing at me saying I was shy, and I feel shy talking to people or to even get out, it kinda put a lot of pressure on me. It made me think, maybe something was wrong with me. They weren’t ready to accept me for who I was. In school, it was parent-teacher’s meet. For some reason, my teacher came outright and asked my parents, if I was depressed. 

And all this because I didn’t meet the list of requirements set by them. It always felt like happiness is a responsibility enforced upon us. So, I wanted to find why all this fuss about happiness. I have this practice of experimenting with my comfort zone. I have done different things to break my comfort zone at different points of my life. All this experiments have helped me a lot in figuring out myself and broadening up my mind. I started reading a lot of books, trying to understand people’s behavior by observing them, try to talk to people whom I thought were different than normal people. That is when I came to realization, there are other more important feelings to also consider. Just because I am quiet and not talking to people, doesn’t mean I am not happy. If anything I am more than happy with that. I am happy being myself, enjoying the solitude and little things in my life. 

Happiness is important, but it is not everything to me. I knew that an emotional stability is far more important than happiness. Any given day I would prefer peace of mind over happiness. Eventually, I figured out what are the things that makes me happy. A simple book can make me happy, a quiet and alone day makes me happy, providing to people makes me happy, a very simple and delicious meal makes me happy, an insightful and deep conversation makes me happy. The important reason I was able to figure out all this, was because I was able to accept me for who I am.

Happiness isn’t everything in life, it should just be an another choice provided to us among many. We need to teach our younger generation to experience all wide range of emotions. We need to tell them, its ok to feel sad, or even sometimes cry. We need to teach them to be empathetic to others, to understand what others are going through. Teach them to find out things that can make them happy, rather than telling them what made us happy. Accept them for who they are – this is very difficult for most of older generation parents. And most importantly, teach them to accept themselves for who they are. 

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary

During my school days, I had this subject called Moral Science. During this class, we were told different stories, which always ended with – moral of the story. It was always fun to listen to these stories. Though I liked these stories, I always wondered why was it part of my school curriculum?

Morality – principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

Honestly, I have to agree to the fact that these stories did help me mould my character to an extent. In all honesty, morality is only a byproduct of decency. Of course, be kind to each other, help each other, don’t get greedy, be wise, don’t cheat/hurt others are necessary values to teach our children. But most of us stop with that, is that where the moral values stop? I always considered myself to be a good listener. The problem with listening is, you will only be told what they want you to know. That is the reason I rely more on observing these days. 

So, who defines what is right or wrong, good or bad? Is there a community for it? If so, who heads this community? I will tell you who heads this community, you head this community, you are the community. My moral values need not be the same as yours or vice versa. For instance, I don’t drink or smoke, because those are my principles. But I am not gonna judge someone who does smoke or drink. But there was a time when I used to think it was wrong, because of my lack of exposure. Your morality or moral values will keep evolving along with you.

Things which you thought were wrong once up on a time, might be okay now. People are gonna frown on me for the thing I am gonna point out next. Sex before marriage. I am not here to advocate it is right or wrong to do it. All I am saying is, its fine, everyone needs to chill about it. The problem is, people think, we were not allowed to do it, so it must be wrong. We need to understand that just because we were not allowed to do something, we also don’t let others do it and pass judgement on them. I mean doesn’t it contradict with what is being taught in those Moral Science stories. Don’t discriminate people, without knowing them. 

Where does one draw line? Morality is a very complex structure. We are being taught, respect all living being equally, and yet its okay to murder cows and chickens, while murdering a homo sapien, you go to jail. Why does homo sapiens think we are superior to all other species? We are the only species that are so proud that we have moral values, and yet we are the only species who kill each other among ourselves, for the same values. For instance, we appreciate when someone quotes things like – always be yourself, and yet we celebrate people who pretend to be someone else in movies. Lets take a more small case. Love marriages are frowned up on, in the society I live in. When I was a kid, one of my relatives went for a love marriage, to add more to the fire, it was a female. That was enough for my other relatives to discriminate them. I mean, its not like they did something that could potentially end the world or something.

Again, we are contradicting ourselves to the moral stories we were taught, don’t talk ill about a person behind them. You know the people who are discriminating the concept of love are the same people, who celebrate our ex-chief minister of Tamilnadu, who was actually convicted an accused in income tax fraud. Where is the moral in that? It is very convenient, that we homo sapiens can bend our morality as per our needs. Was it moral when Krishna instructed Bheema to hit Duryodhana below the belt in their last fight? Was Duryodhana not moral when he chose Bheema to fight the last battle, when he could have chose any other weak brother whom he could have won easily? Was it moral for Arjuna to use Shikandi as as shield against Bhisma? 

I don’t think most of the people understand the concept of morality. Morality is only moral when it is voluntary. You don’t try to impose your moral values on others. The moral values you impose on yourself are based on your experiences of life, similarly other people will come up with their own moral values. Start observing, don’t just listen.

Respect is something that has to be earned, not demanded

Right from my childhood, I was told to respect my elders. I never understood why I have to do it, nor was I taught why I have to do it. We are taught to question everything and also at the same time, we are taught to blindly follow certain things. At least, in my case when I try to question why I have to follow those things, the only answer I get – that is how it has always been. But I am a very curious person, if I am doing something I wanna know why I am doing it. So, I wanted to know what does respect actually mean.

Respect – a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

Now, that I know what it means, I know whom I have to respect. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect other people. Its as simple as this – I respect everyone, as a fellow human, but beyond that is something you gotta earn. Now, I know why I have to respect my elders, for their experience and age, but beyond that is something they gotta earn. And that is when I learnt and decided, whom I should be respecting and for what reasons. I am surrounded by people, who judge a person based on the community that person belongs to, but I don’t see any sense in that logic at all. Respect is not something you get based on your caste or religion or gender, rather its all about who you are, and that’s how respect is supposed to be earned.

Now, how do you respect someone? There is no definitive answer to that. You don’t have to respect people the same way I do or vice versa. For instance, I usually don’t call or chat up with people, with whom I am not that close (be it relatives or friends), that doesn’t mean I don’t respect them, that’s just who I am, its my character trait. But they fail to understand that its not being done on purpose. At the same time, if they call up, I will respect them enough to talk what is required. I am not much of a chatter or someone who does small talks, and more often it fires back at me, where people think I am being disrespectful and they get offended. Its really simple, you wanna talk, ring me up, I will talk. You wanna see me, let me know, I will come. These people demand respect, but respect is something that has to be earned, not demanded.

People easily get offended, when they don’t get the respect, but they never try to think for a moment if they have earned it. I personally don’t take this respect stuff too seriously. You are going to respect me for what I am, but nothing more. I wanna respect people for their thoughts, their vision, their intellectual strength, their passion, their kindness and of all their honesty. Most people around me don’t understand the concept of privacy and personal space, to respect such things. I believe everyone’s entitled to have their opinion about anything, and I completely respect that, but I draw the line when they try to enforce their opinions on me. For instance, I am an atheist, we can have a healthy discussion about it. But when you jump out-rite that I am wrong, without any discussions, I simply loose respect for you. And honestly I am surrounded by such people, and I try to stay away from such people.

There is a huge difference between telling and teaching. We need to teach younger people to respect others opinions, respect others feelings. Of all teach them self-respect. We also need to respect them for their thought process, their dreams. We need to respect them for who they are and not be judgmental about it. Everyone you meet is not gonna respect you, and it shouldn’t matter. If you wanna be respected, earn it, not demand it.