Bookmark #922

( 2 min )

Woke up this morning with Hemingway’s Ten Indians lingering in my head like a friend lingers near the door when they are about to leave your apartment, or how you stand and ask a final question just as someone turns to leave, hoping, I could only imagine, for the conversation to go on for a little bit more. I regretted not bringing my bookshelf along with me since there are at least three compilations with the story in it, and I had to go the route of scouring for it wherever I could find it. Then, I spent the next few minutes reading it with a cup of coffee, remembering all the times I have read it before, and feeling glorious envy over how I could never write a story as simple and yet so impactful, it meets someone when they are eighteen, and sticks with them for a decade as nonchalantly as a piece of gum being lodged in an old pair of sneakers that sits in the attic because it is too old to be worn but too important to be thrown away. I reckon it is somewhat like that, and when the story knocked me out again, I began the day again, correctly this time. I primed myself by looking at all the things I had to do. Then, I got a message from someone who needed help. I reckon that was it: when someone needed help, you could never tell them no, you could never say things like, “There is a lot to do today”, or “I am a little exhausted”, or “Are you sure you could not do it on your own?”. Now, I wonder that you could, and I am no one to speak for everyone, but not me. It is impossible for me to say things like these on most days, and this is what my life made me, for better or worse.

And yet, as I go through this day fulfilling the different roles I must play like all of us must play, I will think about what I would write about when I write a story, and if it will be any good, and that most things are good if they are complete. I reckon that is all I have to do at some point: sit and complete something other than these pieces that say nothing at all, and if, by exception, they say something, it is rarely anything worth saying.

Bookmark #921

( 1 min )

After spending the entire day working, I went out to take a walk and read. Perhaps, get a cup of chamomile while I was at it. And on this short walk, which takes about the time it takes me to hum and listen to a full song, I noticed enough things to wash away the drudgery. Then, it took a wonderful turn when I saw a familiar face as I pushed open the glass door. It was someone I met at a party three, four weeks ago. I nodded Hello as I entered and asked what he was doing there, that I came to read there often, and if he was there regularly, too. He said his workplace was nearby, that it was shocking that we had not run into each other yet. How funny that in a city bursting at its seams with ten million people, you can run into someone still! Yet, it happens all the time. Things that seem impossible happen all the time.

Then, I read a little, making friends with Orwell as he told me about his journey with how he came to write and became one of the greats, and I was amazed at how casually he said that he had a phase where he was disillusioned with his words, his writing when he was my age, too. Of course, this little exchange happened where most of our lives happen: in imagination. But it did tell me something I have wanted to hear for a long time. Orwell, in his refreshing and signature honesty, told me there was still time. Time for what? Time for it all, that a quarter does not a whole life make. It leads to something if you keep walking, that you run into people if you keep walking, that you run into yourself, and it happens for all of us, the greats and the plebeians alike, and most greats are just ordinary folk who kept walking.

Perhaps that is the recipe: equal parts possibility and walking. It does not matter how much you do of either, but so long as you do both in tandem, something good comes out of it.

Bookmark #920

( 2 min )

I had time to meet someone for work today. I had time to roam about the bustling market streets today. And time to play some games with my friends, of course. I had time for all of this, then why not these words? I think about this to begin writing, despite my eyes shutting like a broken shutter on a window, coming down all at once and held only by the accidental knot of disarray in it.

But then, there is nothing to say. The only thing on my mind is last night, the drunken, purple haze and the aftertaste of mango-flavoured beer, brewed fresh. That, and the morning after, and arms I was unfamiliar with until last night. I reckon this is how it goes for most people, and I reckon this has now happened to me. Or perhaps, this absurd hope in me for love, for all things I did not know were possible until the sun set yesterday and the night began, and all of it seems to be a lingering memory of a dream still. I am unsure which parts happened and which were machinations of my booze-addled memory, and I would not be certain till I wake up again tomorrow. This day has been like the parts in a dream where nothing odd happens, when you simply sit somewhere or do something ordinary, when the dream is least like a dream. And now, I await waking up from this dream, and if in the morning, things are still as they are, it will be a pleasant surprise, and I will have to learn to live with the soft happiness of pillow talk in the morning.

You see, I have not felt this way in a long time, and so this is as new to me as the first warm slice of Sun after a long, dry and dreary winter. It is, in many ways, the first Sun I have seen. It is, by and large, like new to me. I do not know what to do with this flutter in my heart. Tired as I was today, not a second passed when I did not think of you. I had time for everything today. But I was stuck in the strange memory, trying to pick it apart and accept which parts did happen. And now, it has become clear to me, it was no illusion; I may have given my heart to someone is but a given now. And now, I must allow myself to be happy.

Bookmark #919

( 2 min )

Got out of bed and walked a little with a cup of coffee in my hands, not for the purpose of walking, but in the most natural, purposeless way a person can do things. Sat to write but realised a bright sun was out already. What a day this is to do laundry. Changed the sheets on the bed, added them to the load, set the machine spinning and sat to write again. I reckon this is how life is—when I know nothing, young as I am, I will do the dishes and the laundry, and when I am older, much older than who I am today, having lived all the years yet to happen, I will do them still. No will or knowledge spares a person from the banality of life. The most enlightened people still need to eat, and the man meditating under the tree is a religious myth. True enlightenment, if there ever was or can be such a thing, is in the mundane. This is, of course, a consistent argument I have made in these words. But that I repeat something has no hold over my loyalty to it. We tell people we love that we love them, and we do it over and over again, and we do it when we get a chance. This does not mean we love them any less; it is only that we still do. All things need reassurance, convictions most of all. And my convictions, for better or for worse, lie in living this life in the broadest way I can.

And what is the biggest conviction than love? I love the rain. I long for it. I do not, however, curse the heavens when the sky is sunny. I love the rain with conviction. That it is sunny outside has no bearing on it; it changes nothing about how I feel about the rain. Good things are good despite circumstance. And if it does rain, when it does, I will tell it; I will whisper under my breath, and I will sigh in relief, and with it, I will reassure myself, and if a force as natural needs any reassurance, then, I will reassure the rain, too. And that is how things will go, and between today and then, the sun will glare and shine brutally, and on all such days, I will do the dishes and on some of them, the laundry. And there will also be coffee and a lot of life in between, which will come and go like the morning news, and things will go on as they go, as they have gone.

Bookmark #918

( 2 min )

The pleasure of meeting a friend in a different city is under-celebrated. To see someone you last saw many years ago in a street you have never seen before brings upon a side of them you could not have imagined, even if you can imagine the wildest of things. It is beyond the most abstract of thoughts, the most faraway truths, the most absurd creation you can think of. Only when you experience this can you know how intimate, how personal, how soft the feeling is, and how wonderful an aftertaste the conversation leaves as you walk home. There are fewer things so simply pure that a person can experience, and this is one of them.

Perhaps it is the soft blemishes on time on both of your personalities, of how it shaped you and sometimes knocked and dented you out, how it changed them, and how they, too, have had their knocks and bruises. Perhaps it is all that, and then, the decisions: the paths your lives took, and how the paths crossed again.

“Look, we met so long ago, and it was goodbye, it was almost goodbye; for all our phones and messages and our million ways to stay in touch, we could not have known this would happen, that I would see you again, and yet, here we are.”

Perhaps it is just that and nothing else. It is the improbability. To see someone again is never a given. When we leave or when someone else leaves, we make our promises and vows. I have done this before, and I am sure you have done it, too. But we hug goodbye, and all regrets begin and end with fading footsteps because it is virtually impossible to meet someone again. And that it happens is an exception, not the norm, and so many people we miss not because we want to but because we once saw them in the flesh, and then, we never could again. Something came up, and life happened, and there was always something else more urgent, more important, and “I am not in the city on those dates” and “Will you stay till the weekend?” It is all this and so much more, and none of it can be held against anyone, and no one is to blame.

And yet, it does happen now and then. You plan to meet at the cafe, and you walk to it, and through the glass, you see them sitting, waiting for you.

Bookmark #917

( 2 min )

Oh, how I love the morning light, how it spills into my veins and causes unparalleled vivid awareness, and how the first hour of the day can be so tranquil, so restful in itself that the eight hours of sleep right before it appear second-hand and hold no candle to the present moment, which in its brightness supersedes anything else. In this light, I walked to the kitchen shelf, put last night’s dishes—now dry—back into the racks, and made a cup of coffee, which was so fruity and flavourful that if I might have just sipped from some mythical fountain and it would have failed to compare. There is little that brings me more joy than being fully present in the moment I am in, with all my faculties in harmony with it and today is such a morning, today is such a day.

It has occurred to me recently that I am a selfish person, that all my selflessness is a mask to keep people around for the days when I do not quite feel like myself, but on most days, this is not the case, and so, on most days, I barely give other people a second thought. Sure, I answer phone calls, get back if I have a message and say yes to invitations like a person must, but besides that, I care about other people like a field cares about the rain. It does not prefer specific droplets and does not care which part of the rain falls on it; as long as it pours when necessary, the field is content. It is, perhaps, this way for everyone; only I have thought about it and now put it into words, and once you put it down, it becomes real. Perhaps I often paint this much darker picture of myself simply because I am willing to admit certain truths that most people gloss over. Maybe I say all of this in some sort of coy comfort so I do not feel as obligated to others, so I do not have to surrender to how strongly I wish to be a consistent part of the grand tapestry made of other people, of society. Ah, this train of thought does not seem to have a station, so I must pull the chain here. I must stop it in its tracks.

Back onto brighter things, the sun has decided to usurp my rights from this hall, taking it all for itself. Rarely does coffee taste ever so wonderful! What a wonderful day it is to be a person.

Bookmark #916

( 2 min )

Lately, I have thought about love more than I should have. I have woken up with it waiting on the bedside table. I have slept with it waiting there still. No, not love itself, but the thought of it, and through the day, I have had it torture me in the most subtle but most infuriating of ways. But where was this thought for all these years? I do not know. Perhaps I had my heart hidden in some drawer in a cupboard I did not have the key to, and now, now that it is out in the open, I have begun to realise how an idea that evoked hope, evoked all sorts of joy in me once is now but a remnant of utter disillusionment. There is no reason for this except the general apathy that sets within the hearts of the downtrodden, not that it curbs their want for riches, like it has not curbed my want for love, but the apathy for riches exists in some sort of absurd contradiction. It seems it is now present in me, too, for all of us are beggars for one thing or another.

This situation is not for the lack of complete surrender on my part. I have, time and again, bared my soul in front of a person, hoping for something I cannot put into words. Acceptance, perhaps, but I could not be too sure about it. For all my want for love, I do not know how I want it or for whom, and like a duckling that imprints onto the first person it sees, I, too, tend to follow people around with unmatched loyalty. They say when something falls, we must not try to look at it but hear it, that if we want any chance of finding it, we must close our eyes and let our instincts pinpoint it with supreme accuracy. They say we were built this way. But what does one do when hope falls and sinks? I have been standing in a silent room with my eyes closed for years. The complications of modern love have embittered me, and then, saying that I realise, what is modern love? It has been this way for as long as people have been this way. Some of us carry streaks of near-misses on our sleeves, and we laugh at parties and make jokes about it all, and then we come home, and we sit with our eyes closed, listening still, to find what has been lost to the years.

Bookmark #915

( 2 min )

If my only qualm from life is that I am not easily understood, it is simply because I have done everything in my power to not be understandable. I can throw the blame around, but eventually, all fingers point at me in blatant accusation. I will be understood, as I have, more in my absence than my presence, which has always been, and shall continue to be filled with contradictions. My obsession with doing everything, with being everything I can, is so entrenched within all of me that by just being fully myself, I exclude myself, and if I want to sit in a place, I must do it in parts, crossing out a trait here, striking out a habit there, and only with this can I be among the others. And no, this is not some virtue, but I reckon this is gross limitation. And tonight, this is not washed over me. So, I must wash it down with a glass of wine or two.

How wonderful it would have been had I not had this urge in me, this urge that tells me to step aside and stand apart, and how synchronous should it have been as my only desire is to meld into the crowd, to merge into it and to not be a discernible thorn, a reluctant beacon, a poster-child of discord. But my very mindset, my very way of thought, and my life betrays my greatest desire. And I can but sit and think about it, and mull over it, and sometimes, cry over it. With a heavy heart, I must declare tonight that the person who claimed we are our worst enemies had no business making as astute an observation. And, of course, now the wine has set in, and my heart feels a little lighter; it is light enough to sleep, I reckon, and to begin again. The dishes are done, the people are met, the work is completed, and the words are written. What else is there to do? I ask myself this every evening right before I sleep. No answer. No answer at all. I do not know what else makes a person whole? Like a burgeoning green garden in the middle of March, I am complete, yet something remains. Only I have gotten used to this never-ending unease, this ever-present emptiness. To chalk it up to love would be a crime, to blame rusty regrets would be a fallacy, and to posit error would be plain wrong. Yet, the feeling remains. What can you do?

Bookmark #914

( 2 min )

The revolving door of women in my life should indicate success in matters of love, but when I woke up today after dreaming about one of them, I was distraught at first and mildly irritated later. It did not help that the room was moist, hot, and filled with pulsating warm air. It only got hotter from then on, and I kept thinking about the list of mundane nothingness, settling for answers without forming a proper question. I did my job and attended meetings where many people said nothing about nothing. And now, I am back to where I was: the corner I sleep on in the bed. This whole day has been one of an impossible longing.

No matter how I look at it or phrase it, love eludes me. It comes at the wrong time, or it knocks and leaves before I have a chance to open the door, and often, it sits silently for too long and only when I get up to go out the door does it call my name, but the words get lost amidst the loud bustle of life outside the cafe, and swoosh out the door like a piece of paper caught in a draft. It comes in sly sweet nothings I know not to entertain and finds a way to get under my skin anyway, and then, like a fever you do not know the cause of, it takes its sweet time to go, and even when the temperature comes down, the sniffles and the lethargy leave like unexpected guests, and when I crawl out of bed and feel like a person again, I meet another, down the street or at a party or in some yard in some event, and that, too, is a little too early or a little too late. Of course, I learn this much later, and then, I have a secondhand regret over a life, the existence of which I did not know until I learn about it with a coy remark about how I did not catch their drift, or how it would have been different had I said something different.

I reckon the universe can only help you so much. It can lead you to the counter carrying the winning lottery ticket. The ticket sits on the counter. You pause to buy gum. There goes it, there goes your chance, there goes the love of your life because you paused someplace, not out of hesitation, but because you’re so very human. You bend to tie your shoelaces. Someone else cuts the line. There it goes, there it all goes.

Bookmark #913

( 2 min )

In a society where everyone is too sure, too certain of the noun they plaster on their forehead, rebellion works a tad differently. Gone are the days when you had to be a social outcast to be a rebel. Rebellion today is grey. It is getting your haircut on time, wearing ironed clothes, and being on time. It is not the juvenile adolescent outcry of being out of step with the world; it is becoming a part of the world in the fullest, most complete, most whole sense of the word. To be a rebel today is to keep a mind so open that you entertain everything, to not have a preference for activities, for what you consume, for art or music or film. The fundamental remains the same: to not be boxed in. But today, mere side-stepping the box does not a rebellion make; today, you must be larger than any boxes they can put you in. Rebellion is overflow. It is grandiosity. It is being larger than any boundary they can put on you. It is rejecting all labels for they are too small and too limited to capture you. But it is not just ideation; it is hard work. To belong with everyone is not an easy undertaking, and it might take you an entire life of learning. Revolt today is this very commitment. I shall not be boxed in, and I shall not stop learning. Rebellion today is caring. Antics can only take you as far as they can, but true rebellion is about giving a damn in a world of apathy, of lukewarm interest or disinterest outright, of keeping to your own.

And this quiet revolution has begun already. There are some of us who carry the torch. We see each other occasionally, but we do not call each other out. We quietly acknowledge our existence, and we quietly agree to keep going. We welcome you, if you may join us, and all we ask is for you to be nothing but everything. That is the only entry fee to this club of people who fit nowhere and everywhere. That is all it takes. It is the easiest thing to give for many, but for most, it is the most challenging thing they will do.

Bookmark #912

( 2 min )

Out of all moments during a week, I believe the beginning of Saturday, and not specifically the mornings, but the time I spend idling about in the first half of the day is what I most look forward to. No day is as distinctly split into two as a Saturday. You wake up with an unmatched relaxation in your heart, and then, you slowly get into the groove of being a person. Then, you get some of the time you gave away to the world during the week back—nothing much, no windfall, just a few hours at best, but that is all we need. And what do I mean by giving the hours away? It is the little contracts we live our lives around: of work, of friendships and family, of love, of society. Every contract requires a little time, and some things require more than you are readily able to give, but then, you draw the short straw and oblige regardless. I reckon that is all it takes to be a person: to give time to everything big or small, like how the rain waters a garden and does not choose sides, or prefer a flower or a tree, like how all fuel stokes all fire and grows it and makes it bolder, like how any amount of change you can spare is worth sparing when someone asks for it. But then, this effervescent time, this window arrives, and I reckon, is often missed if you do not look for it, so I urge you to seek it, to find it and grab it. It is the reprieve we need. It is when I am at my happiest, and if happiest is too strong a word, then I am at my lightest, and no obligation pulls my strings. Perhaps it may not be the same day for everyone, but all this is to say that it does exist—a temporary rending of all fine print you did not read before signing the forms.

And now, as the clock gets on with what it does best, it is closing time. And this bar with no name, this temporal third place, this corner among corners shall now shut itself off for another week. I must pay the bill with these words. And I must get off this chair now. I must honour the terms and conditions of being a person, and visit people, and places. It is, after all, the least we can do. How awful would paradise be if it were the only thing you knew?

Bookmark #911

( 2 min )

It is a muggy day. I woke up in sweats, and at first, I thought something was wrong with me, that I had gotten sick, or worse, I was in love, but then I peeked out the gap between the curtains and realised it was just the sun. Then, I noticed a squirrel desperately clinging to the pipes, and the excitement of a tolerable rodent on the balcony got me out of bed. Were it a rat, I would have flung the door open and driven it away, but since it was a squirrel, I kept watching it till it left. It is funny how our response to things is dictated by their call to aesthetics. Then, I made some coffee; the sun had warmed the hall like an oven.

When I sat to write, I realised it would be a comfortable day despite the list of tasks, which was long and sinuous, like the most challenging mountain roads, not that I would know much about it. I have only driven in training, and until I get a car, the learning seems moot. But I have always been one to learn things without use for them. Rarely do I get an opportunity to share what I know about art or sociology, or all the economics I have read to tickle my curiosity, and the plethora of other disciplines I have dipped my finger like a mesmerised child who cannot resist the allure of an open jar—of jam, of honey, of paint. But it does inform my life, all that learning, I suppose. I read like reading was done before it was done for something.

One could say my life lacks purpose. Like the squirrel who happened to wander onto the balcony, I, too, tend to wander to and from people, leaving pieces of my heart like a forgetful rodent would leave its stash. I wander from jobs and lives I have made for myself, not because I am severely unhappy, barring a few instances, which is natural; I do this because it is in my nature. Just as a squirrel’s nature is to be accepted in the world of people, and a rat’s purpose is to be rushed out of sight, I suppose this is how I present to other people. I believe they can sense the impermanence of my heart before I do; as soon as I walk into the room, they know I am not one to stay.

This would explain everything. It is funny how our response to other people is dictated by how they make us feel.

Bookmark #910

( 2 min )

Oh, how I have missed the thump of my feet on grass, all my focus on the game, the ball, the rules. Nothing weighs on your mind on the field. For about ninety minutes, the only sound that matters is the beating of your heart. There is an unimaginable disconnect between the real world and you as you skid and stumble and graze your feet. I only learned it much later in life, of course, the importance of that hour and a half, but that carries no weight over how things have changed over these years. And, of course, to laugh at the ridiculous misses, the absolute fumbles everyone makes. In a casual midweek game, everything is allowed. For a little while, you are not reprimanded or blamed, and all anyone tells you is that you did something well, that you tried well. The permanent scrutiny of life is left at home or in a backpack with your other clothes—the ones you wear when you are out and about in life. Last night, under the glow of white halogens and on top of the green turf, I was the most alive I have been, and god, I have been alive in this life, its eventfulness, its ever-present demands and problems from me.

To know your body’s limits do not stop at the ninety-minute mark, to feel the exhaustion seep in like the sweat does onto your shirt, to feel the ache in your legs, and to know you can still do this all day, to know that you can run for all the seconds left in a day, to know that you can keep going as long as it is required, to know that you can be on time when necessary, to know that you can take a blow when it comes your way, to know that you can slip, fall and get up like it were the easiest thing in the world, to know all this and more, and, which is more, to come home with all that in your heart as it pumps blood to every corner of your body, to every last edge, to every crevice, and to feel the surge of it all—what a wonderful, wonderful thing it is to experience. And then, the cold shower, each drop felt precisely as it trickles over you, and then, the rewarding, effortless sleep as you instantly lose yourself in it, and then, waking up to the first light and beginning anew.

Nothing did ever get any better than this.

Bookmark #909

( 2 min )

When talking of ethical dilemmas, they often put forth the trolley problem. If you are not familiar with it, you must choose to kill a few to save the many or the other way round; of course, there is no right answer. I argue it is not even the right problem. It is not something we face on the day to day, and most people would never find themselves in the situation or the power to make such grand and vexing decisions. An accurate alternative to it would be this: You are the train—and if anthropomorphism feels a tad too much—you are the driver. The train is running headfirst into a wall. You do not know why the track ends in a wall, but you must, in the split-second it takes for you to run into it, make your peace with this unfortunate circumstance. If you have to do something, you may try to pull the brakes. And no, the brakes are not shot. They work perfectly well. It is possible for you to stop the train—and if you are the train and not the driver, then yourself—and avoid this collision course. Why, then, can you not stop?

This is a more relatable dilemma, and I believe many of us will understand this far better. Most lives are spent in impossible situations, sloping into rather unfortunate results, and we rush into them like the train running into a wall. We know this will derail everything. It is, in fact, the only thing that can happen. Yet, it does not occur to us to pull the brakes, and even if it does, it seldom is as easy. It is simple. But simple things are not always easy. And there are many explanations and answers to this; I am aware and quite certain of it. Perhaps the more sacrificial of us would argue it may be why the journey began in the first place, that there was nothing wrong with the situation, that there was some grand plan, and that the train running into the wall is a part of it. The rational would argue the plan is flawed. The nihilistic would not see the point in making the decision at all. The helpless and the unsure would not know if they could pull the brakes at all, or if they could do it right and, thus, would be paralysed.

And those like me will find beauty in the destruction and the debris; we will write ballads about it.

Bookmark #908

( 2 min )

In the morning, I sat on the couch and stared at nothing, taking in the whistles of the birdsong from outside. It was quiet and bright, and I began to think of where I was three or four years ago, how lost, how uncomfortable, how all parts of me were utterly out of synch. If you asked me to write you a prescription for calming the waters, I would have nothing to write on it, and yet, I have written everything I can about it all in these breadcrumbs I drop every day. Regardless of how much you know someone, all you do is drop crumbs in conversations. A friend, before they fully bare their heart in front of you on a well-set table spread with toast and juice and pancakes, will often just say a bit here and a bit there. It is usually nothing specific or anything explicit, but most of what they tell you when they do will have already been said. Perhaps when we say, “You should have told me sooner,” all we mean is, “I am sorry.”

Leaving that morbid tangent of thought aside on this beautiful morning and leaving it in the past where it belongs, I shall now come back to this moment. I do not know what brought about this ever-present lightness in my heart, that most things happen and blow over, that I find this absurd resilience in me. Now, it is natural to have your soul shaken off here and there. Things happen, and not all specks of dust settle equally quickly, but it does settle, and sometimes, it takes a week and, often, a day or two. And then, I find myself on the couch with a cup of coffee in my hands, ready and primed to start the day. I wonder if everyone becomes this steadfast, this immovable as they grow older, and to think of myself as something out of the ordinary is a mistake I dare not commit, so I will keep this note short and find a few minutes to sit quietly as the music continues to play and the sun continues to dance minute by minute, taking more and more of this hall under itself. I believe all the certainty I wanted a few years ago, I have given myself. That much, I am sure of.

Bookmark #907

( 2 min )

I believe I have forgotten the simplest thing in the world; I have forgotten to confess. Perhaps it was the impossibility, the mountains I scaled for years on end, or the touch-and-go of modern love that let me down—the meeting and forgetting, and meeting and forgetting, and meeting and forgetting. Perhaps it was that and nothing else. Or maybe it was being told often how I did it wrong, or poorly, that there was a right and correct way to tell someone you loved them. Maybe it was that, and now, like a child who is reprimanded for who they are turns to a quiet corner and grows into a quiet adult, like that, my silence is learned. So much I keep to myself—to think all the things I never tell others, to think all the times I have looked at someone wanting to say the three words, which, in what seems like a different life, came so easily to me, and keeping mum, uttering no semblance of speech, to think of all the missed moments, to think of all the missed chances, to think of the eager eyes on me, looking within me as if they were saying yes before I asked a question, and the eyes that begged me, “Say it, say it, what is stopping you? Why would you not say it? This is the only chance we have. If you do not say it now, we may never get another chance,” and me looking away and looking for a way to leave the room.

Yes, my heart was broken once, but lately, and by lately, I mean as far as memory would take me, I have broken it myself. I have suffocated it under a pillow. I have stabbed it in the dark. I have thrown it like you throw some absurd piece of decoration you got from overseas during an argument. I have dropped it like a bottle of wine you knock down when you are too drunk. I have starved it in a cage and acted surprised like a jailer that the prisoner did not live through the night. I have forbidden it from speaking, and is that not the same as dying? I have broken my own heart, and I have done it correctly. I have done it as they taught me. I have kept it all to myself. My heart has withered like a rose never watered. A petal or two remain, perhaps. But I wonder, at what point does a flower stop looking like one? Your guess is as good as mine.

Bookmark #906

( 1 min )

Often, people climb mountains only so someone worries and waits for them, and many voyages are made not for the wealth or the gold but for a packed lunch to take along. We all crave care, and you will find that the most important question a person can ask another on most days is, “Did you eat?” Or “Did you sleep alright?”

What is a person, if not someone other people check in on? What is being alive if not being asked to take care, to call or text when you reach, to be told you ought to ask for help? What is living is not being continuously interrupted with love? What is any of it, if not the perpetual and sometimes irritating involvement of other people, of them poking and prodding? What is any of it if not being thought of? To be a person is to be in another person’s mind—sometimes for a second and, often, for a lifetime.

Perhaps the worst feeling in the world is not a brutal heartache. Perhaps it is not having anyone to tell it to. There are far many terrible things waiting around the corner, like a predator hunting prey, but the most terrible thing, I reckon, is if they do happen, if the worst does come to pass, and no one knows about it. And the greatest blessing is not some absurd protection from it all, and it is undoubtedly not a seat in paradise where all things are bright and beautiful. Instead, it is to be thought of, to be called into, to be included and involved, and to be annoyed into belonging.

Tonight, there is little on my mind, and most of it carries no significance. The only part that does is this: I am alive because I am thought of.

Bookmark #905

( 2 min )

On a lovely Saturday morning, I slept in, woke up, and decided to stay in bed listening to music. I had my coffee in bed. And then, I had another cup in bed still. I read a little—a few articles, a letter, and a poem. That is all I did all morning; of course, I replied to a few messages here and there. And then, I reckon it was time to begin the day. At some point, we must all start. That much is true. And until then, nothing was real. Nothing ever is real till you’re not out of bed. We are only people in the waking world. We are only real when we are out and about and walking and making jokes. I would know. I have realised that in many situations, the only thing in my purview is making an ill-timed joke and that I cannot physically resist a terrible pun that has made its way to my mind is both a blessing and a curse and brings about wildly varying results with a wide variety of subjects and situations. But regardless, I began the day and became a person, got a haircut, had conversations here and there, and made small talk with the building guard who barely understands a word but does his job well, and then, I watched some TV and ate a little bit, and before I knew it, the lovely morning had turned into a delightful afternoon. And then, I made some calls about things that needed fixing, and on each call, I held the phone for as long as they kept me holding, and annoying as it was, I did not give grief to the person trying to help me. To my surprise, most things were fixed or resolved. It is a Saturday. We only get this day to get all the frivolities done. It is now slowly inching towards the evening. I have spent an hour lazing about, suspended in the limbo of asleep and awake. It has been most pleasurable and greatly rejuvenating. I wish I could have stayed in bed a little longer today. But then, once you get out, and until you get in, fully committing to sleep at night, you are, for all intents and purposes, a person. And as a person, I cannot simply call it a day in the evening. We must go to the town and celebrate a friend’s revolution around the sun. That is what people do, I reckon, and for a few hours, about six or seven more of them, I must do it, too.

Bookmark #904

( 2 min )

I must preserve my mind. It is crucial. I must preserve my mind before the thoughts of every day, of troubles big and small, of “work”, trickle into it like viruses into a bloodstream. They multiply like viruses do—rapidly, violently, ruthlessly. The sheer apathy the world and its numerous abstractions have for our more noble pursuits stirs me uncomfortable and leaves me dizzy. Before you know it, the tepid, irrelevant matters multiply and cause a sudden sickening of the mind, and you do not get a chance; it is too late on most days. By the time you realise something is wrong, you are coughing up flimflam; it takes hold of you, and nothing can be done about it until a good night’s sleep.

There is a diet and a regimen for life that can, at least, hold this all at bay until you get some work done, and work here is a greater pursuit. I forget to make this distinction often, and it is an important one to make: the only activities that truly matter are things that make life bearable for us or others. Carrying bread to a friend carries greater significance than making a million dollars. Walking on grass will always be more vital than never-ending paperwork. And I do not mean to suggest, for people often read ideas as dichotomies, that the latter is unimportant. Most things are worth doing, and anything worth doing is essential. But there always is something more important than others. We must learn to spot the difference. We must learn to find Waldo. It is all there is to living.

Between writing a poem and writing a few lines of computer code, between sitting to read with a warm cup of tea and reading a report financed by a lobby chasing a monopoly and a bottom line, between calling someone to check in on them and cold calling a potential customer, between all of these and more, one is more important than the other. We know it already. We, you and I, know this so well that we jump onto making excuses as we read the words. And so I am sure of your reasons, and I am confident you have already listed many, and the ifs and the buts are plenty. But to that, all I can say is:

Tell me, dear reader, who are you trying to convince so desperately?

Bookmark #903

( 2 min )

The sun blares through the kitchen window, warm, almost burning, and in the soft comfort of having woken up just five minutes ago and being kissed by the sun, I make my coffee. I plunge the French press filter and pour the coffee into a cup. Then, out of nowhere, like a bird with no place to sit on this tiny balcony, a thought arose, and since I only think about nine or ten things in total, this one was about the usually beaten horse: writing. Specifically, it was about how, compared to the other forms of art, writers do not do much.

What do writers do? They just stare at a page. But that something requires no effort to get into has no bearing on the effort it requires to stay in it.

What do writers do? I wager they keep writing. That is all they do. But it is far more difficult and irritating than one could imagine. Many can write—this is true now more than ever—but to do it for more than a couple of days is crucial. It is different for writers. Many write their lives away and never get a word read. Many write a few poems, and people go gaga over them. Music works differently—do not get me wrong, I do not mean it works easily—where a person can do ten songs and not make any for a decade. Even if they do this, they will be called a musician. Their vocation is in their ability to play an instrument or sing or perform. But a writer is only a writer till they are writing. If I were to stop what I do tomorrow, if I stopped writing altogether, even for a week, they would say: he does not write now; he was a writer. It is different; we must stay submerged, torn, always living, always watching, always sitting to write. It is not always easy, not when your soul rebels like a disgruntled worker, not when your heart beats out of step, not when your mind and body bicker like siblings of about the same age, one or two years removed. It is hard on most days, and on some, it is harder.

That something requires no effort to get into has no bearing on what it takes to stick to it. This is true for love, and this is true for writing. Perhaps that is why they claim writers make for excellent lovers. But what would I know about love? I only know to sit and wait.