journal.coffee

I was with a friend today, and we were talking about life, in general. We always talked about life over coffee. Then, we had an epiphany, of sorts. We take things too seriously. That’s when we spontaneously made a pact not to take anything seriously this year. “Fuck it,” we said in unison, “let’s not think this year; let’s not think at all.” As we drove back home, the evening had ended, and the year had begun.

Sometimes, I’d sit, unable to move my body or even my hands. I swear, I couldn’t move an inch even if I wanted to, not that I wanted to. I’d sit, staring blindly into the abyss trying to grasp how infinitely large everything was, and how small I was, by comparison. It wasn’t that I didn’t matter for I knew did; at least, to myself. I’d lose all sense of reality at the thought of it all, though. I’d look at the infinity and the expanse of it all from a distance. I’d sit there thinking, at first. Then, the thoughts would cease, or maybe my noticing and taking them too seriously would stop. I’d sit there, looking at the sky.

I would think of wishing the clouds away or changing the colour of the sky to purple or even orange, and sometimes, it happened. Still, I could never know if it was my wishing of it that did that or if it was the whims and fancies of the universe. If I couldn’t say for sure, then why bother, I’d think to myself. The best I could do was snap out of it, and move a muscle. It always came down to moving a muscle at the end of the day. That was the only thing that mattered. That was the only thing I could control; myself.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t really like myself. I loved myself; I hope you don’t misunderstand me there, but I really didn’t like myself. All my life, people kept asking me to learn to love myself, and so I did. I learned to love every little thing. It came slowly but I learned to love the days, the life, the people, and yet, I didn’t really like myself.

There was a slight difference; there is a nuance of sorts. It was like my relationship with the rain. I loved it. I could watch it from the inside as the drops slapped against the glass, and fell down clinging to it. I’d enjoy my cup of coffee as the frost settled on the window. I’d play some chill pop instrumental and walk about barefoot on the cold tiles of my dimly lit apartment. I loved doing all of that as the rain poured down.

If you asked me to go out in the rain, however, I’d immediately call you names, and call the rain names, and just act like a colossal pain in the ass, and throw a giant tantrum. You see, I liked how the rain looked but I didn’t like how it felt.

So, when I’d wake up in the morning every day, I’d look at myself in the mirror, and I’d see what others see in me, and I’d love it. I’d think about my life, the days, and the people, and I’d smile. I loved myself. I had learned to do that all my life. I loved what I saw in my reflection.

However, it was all from the safe distance between the glass and me, like it was with the rain. When I’d take a closer look, and look through myself, and through the days, the life, I’d realise I’d never learned to like myself. I guess I loved who I saw, but I didn’t like what I felt, at least not on most days; on most days, it was exactly how it was with the rain.

Over the years, my relationship with writing has changed. It’s become somewhat of a condition. I cannot help but feel sick if I cannot dump things out on a sheet of paper or a blank screen every now and then. This decade has given me a lot in everything, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the things it took away from my writing.

When the last decade began, I had just started to string words together. It was my best attempt at lousy poetry. I don’t know where or how that started, but I vaguely remember a broken, adolescent heart was involved. Yet, there has been a search to find my voice; to seek what I want to talk about, and string words about, and go on and on about. I think I have managed to find an inkling, a first step to what writing is for me.

After much thought, I’ve realised that I cannot write about things I don’t experience myself, irrespective of how noble the cause, how worthy the conquest; if I wasn’t there, the words feel dishonest. After much learning, I’ve realised that I cannot write about different ways to help people; the best I can do is share what I do, to the best of my ability, and hope that someone finds some knowledge in it. After much time, I’ve realised that the only person I can write for is myself; that I don’t owe a single word that forces itself upon my hands to anyone else.

This decade slowly stripped my writing away for everything unnecessary. It took the innocence out when the heartfelt poems started feeling ugly to me. It took the audacity out when the articles started feeling ridiculous. Finally, it took the naivety out when I found myself unable to grasp at the nuances of the world.

In the end, nothing much was left but the honest word which belonged only to me: the word I didn’t write to please or help or inform or change; the word whose rightness or wrongness didn’t bother me; the word that may or may not go unnoticed. I realised that was the word I wanted to write.

I realised I’ve written words for almost ten years now, but it was this year that I had finally begun writing. That’s the thought I’ll end this year on, I guess. It’s not the only one, but it is an important one.

You were twenty-something last year, running about in another city. It’s already December now, and December is about to end. You exit another building as a soothing electronic track plays in your earphones. You take a few steps down and look at the time. It’s late. You’re always too late, but you tend to make it still. You always make it.

You find yourself running on the sidewalk; cars, traffic, blaring horns muffled by the music in your ears surround you as you raise your hand for the taxi to stop. As you walk towards it, you feel yourself immersed at this moment, your earphones swinging slightly, your grown-up self, a montage of how you got here from that other city from that other December, and how this was all so alive.

Everything was alive, even the smallest pebble on the road was part of this elaborate scene being shot by someone. You don’t know who, but you feel someone’s watching. The music starts to pick up, as does your heartbeat, and a soundtrack begins to form around. You ask: How is everything so much in synch?

This is when it hits you: the scenes, the movies, the books, they weren’t art. Life was art. Your life was art. You didn’t have to live it like that movie, that scene, that book, that chapter. It was this, all of it happening so cinematically, you could be sure someone’s watching.

As you get into the cab, you look all around. You look at people going about their business. You give it one hard look. You take that in, and you make sure you remember. You make sure you remember it all down to the smallest detail for one day, you will steal from this masterpiece to create an imitation of it, and they’ll call it art, but you’ll know the truth.

You figured it out. It was the other way round. It had always been the other way round.

Someone once said to me, “anger is always the second emotion” and while I nodded then, it wasn’t until recently when I was sitting alone on a pleasant winter evening that I realised what they had meant.

The realisation came like a breeze and the leaves that are dropped in it. Like the breeze, the realisation came unannounced. It made itself home, and then, the leaves fell all at once, ending their journey.

I realised I had been angry too. I had been angry for a while now. I had been angry at myself for leaving little pieces of myself in other people, and I had been angry at them for leaving parts of themselves with me. I was angry at them for leaving.

It made me furious — not knowing what they’d do to the pieces of me, or what I’d do to theirs. We were all linked in this interconnected web of the most pointless exchange in the universe, and I was angry. I was angry at its futility.

Then, the breeze picked up again. As it lifted the leaves, I dropped a piece of my anger on it, like I’d throw a pebble. To my surprise, it carried it with itself and didn’t look back. So, I did it every day. Every day, I’d sit there. Every day, the breeze would come. Every day, I’d chip a small piece into it. Months passed.

Until one day, the breeze came like it always did, and right before I picked a piece, I realised it was different. I looked at the piece I was holding, and I remembered who it belonged to so I smiled.

The breeze was baffled but it stayed for a while, waiting patiently for me to drop the piece. It didn’t discriminate between the pieces but I did. I held on to this one.

I scoured my bag and I realised the anger was all gone, chipped slowly into nothingness. Only pieces of people remained — pieces they had entrusted me with good faith — colourful and each different from the last. I let the breeze go.

I still get angry every now and then. So, I sit where the breeze arrives, and I empty my bag. I don’t know if the breeze visits the others, or if they threw the pieces of me into it ever, but I have it on good authority that if they were angry, they too would learn what the breeze taught me.

Anger may be the second emotion, but it was always the first to go.

Remember the band we used to listen to together? I remember we couldn’t decide on our favourite song from them. We couldn’t agree, and yet, not dislike the other song as much. I remember that soft argument, years ago.

Well, I’m here now – in the crowd – listening to them. I’m surrounded by strangers, squeezed in together. I’m surrounded by my friends, too. There’s just this massive group of people, swaying, misremembering the lyrics, mumbling, not singing, laughing, smiling, and just being happy, and very drunk.

Oh, they just played your song, and that’s what made me think of you, and how you’re not here, and how it’s been a while, and how I’d stopped counting after the first few months. It’s been a while, though, I’m sure.

Anyway, I couldn’t listen to the music without being distracted by the thought and the face of you, so I decided I’ll bullshit myself long enough for their gig to end. I decided I’ll believe you’re in this crowd somewhere. You could be anyone. You could be the face I can see far away between an array of silhouettes, or the person standing right behind me or standing somewhere close by but far enough.

I decided I’ll believe that because I’ve forgotten how you looked anyway. I’ve forgotten a lot of things. I like to think that, at least. Yet, there’s the song and the memory of arguing playfully. I can’t bullshit around that, I guess.

That’s what I learned in the crowd, listening to the band we used to listen to together in your car. I learned there’s no bullshitting around some things in life. I learned there’s no bullshitting around the moments when you felt pure happiness; even if they’ve passed.

There are a lot of things you learn about yourself when you reach a decent age, say twenty-three.

You learn your biting of nails under distress is a symptom and not a habit. You learn that your walking fast and talking faster comes from a place of its own, and it isn’t just something you do. You learn that your leg doesn’t just up and start shaking; there are reasons for why that happens. You learn your affinity to routine has an entire backstory behind it with characters you have nothing to do with anymore.

Then, one day, as you’re sitting by yourself at night, nibbling at your nails, waiting for the clock to hit thirty-past-eleven just so you can get in bed, you have another epiphany – So what? You ask yourself. What am I supposed to do with this information? You ask yourself again, louder this time. The apartment, however, stays silent.

You realise this is as important as knowing that you have a scar on your lip that you got as a kid when you stood up to a bully. There’s nothing you can do about it now. The scar is there. There are a lot of things that are just there. They’re there for you to look, and they’re there for everyone to notice, but they don’t change anything about your life.

So, you take a step back, and another, and you keep going back to stand exactly where you were when you began. Then, you start doing exactly what you were doing. You begin to pull in longer hours. You begin to exert yourself beyond control. Unstoppable. You wake up, and you do so much in a day, people lose their breath as you tell them about it.

You have always been this way, you realise. If there is contentment – even if there’s just an ounce of it – it is in the flow. It may work differently for everyone, you think as you go through the motions, but this is how it works for me.

As all of this is happening, and as you’re unravelling, and as everything is rewinding as if someone was to rewind a clock, you learn one last lesson for the year – don’t fix what’s not broken.

Maybe it was a feature and not a bug, you convince yourself. Maybe you’re so used to putting out flames, you’d rather set yourself on fire than have nothing to do anymore.

In the twenty-third year of my life, the most important lesson I learned was that my head was my own responsibility. Every thought, every moment, every instance where I sit on the floor, letting everything go is my responsibility. I’ve learned that picking myself up is my responsibility. I’ve learned that although the world should be kind to us, and although we should be kind to the world, it should not be an expectation. It cannot be an expectation.

I’ve learned that I cannot expect the world to treat me kindly, especially where one species of thinking monkeys has convinced themselves of their superiority so well that when we say “world”, we immediately think of ourselves and no other part of it. It’s all so abstract, it might just not matter at all.

I’ve learned that my fear, my thoughts, and even the narrative I spew for myself to convince myself of myself are my responsibility. No one owes me happiness, and neither do I owe anyone just that. Although kindness in all the things is absolutely necessary, I’ve learned that it is a mission failed so often, we might just consider it a lost cause. I’ve learned that it is not a lost cause as long as we keep trying.

I’ve learned to expect the world to fail. I’ve learned to expect the world to fail me, to fail itself, and for myself to fail it every now and then. I’ve learned to set the standard so low, even the smallest things make me happy. No, not happy but peaceful.

In the twenty-third year of my life, I’ve learned that happiness is fleeting. I’ve learned that the world is just how it is, and just how it will be, and we will keep doing things, and things will keep happening, and it all keeps going, and it is at that point I learned, I don’t want to be happy anymore. I would rather be peaceful, flowing through the motions, going through another day, trying to do my best, failing, maybe trying again, or sometimes, just letting it all be.

I’ve learned I cannot control everything. I’ve learned that the best I can do is try and control my head. I am, after all, my responsibility.

Hope can come in like an easy breeze as you wake up early, stretch and make yourself a good cup of coffee. Hope can come in like an unfamiliar feeling of power, growing from within you as if you were possessed.

Hope can come in like the first drop of rain after a scorching summer, or like the first ray of sunshine after a moist week of rain. Hope can come in like Satie’s bittersweet compositions playing in your ears as you walk around in the dark evening, illuminated by the lights of people waiting to get home.

Hope can come in like taking that last flight home, or to the love of your life, or to a friend. Hope can come in like an apology that was overdue and is a testament to restored friendship.

Hope can come in as a friend calling you, telling how they’ve finally dug themselves out of the little hole they had found themselves stuck inside. Hope can come in like a litter of little puppies making their “”vicious”” barks at you after a football game with your friends.

Hope can come in with you getting out of bed, on time, and doing what you’ve always done as well as you’ve always done it.

Hope can come in a lot of ways but it doesn’t. Hope comes like a smack right at the back of your head. It comes as a smack so loud, the entire universe hears it.

Hope knocks you, and says, “”Get the fuck up and move forward. The world is still okay, and you are too. It’s not perfect but neither are you.”” Hope comes like an epiphany, a lightning strike, and a moment out of nowhere.

Hope comes in like hope should — precisely when you need it, exactly how you need it, and never a minute too late. Hope knocks a lot, like the noisy neighbour who’s just trying to make conversation over a random favour.

Hope comes in when you open the door. Didn’t you hear it knocking all this time?

The world runs on little acts of heroism and honesty. Fuck Netflix, and fuck your Sunday binge. Don’t tell me about a half-assed opinion on a world issue you heard about yesterday on a Youtube video. Tell me about what makes you tick. Tell me it bothers you when the piece of chalk makes an odd sound when it strikes the board sometimes. Tell me about that puppy and that little blister on its back that almost makes you feel real, physical pain when you see it in the morning. Tell me about the bum you sometimes strike a conversation with, and how he smiles at you with his broken teeth. Tell me about how good it makes you feel when you can afford that meal in a fancy restaurant. Stop using the big words, the magnanimous vocabulary, the terms, the terms. Stop the terms. Let them go. We’re all an inch away from hopelessness so stop feeding me your bullshit. I don’t give a shit about being positive all the time, and those jingles, and how the sun shines every day. Love, I take three hours to get out of bed sometimes, and I own it. I know it’s something I have to deal with on a daily basis, and I am positive about it. I am positive I get up. I always get up. So, I don’t deny it by pretending how beautiful the world is because it’s not. The world is ugly; the moments are beautiful, sometimes. We live for the moments. Your obliviousness is annoying. It’s annoying. It’s annoying, and I’m tired. Be honest to yourself. Lend a hand. Help a stranger. Take a flight for a friend. Move. Get up. Fix things. Try again. Fix yourself. Try again. Get up. Do all of that. Do something. Maybe then, maybe just then, I’ll hear about that video, and that issue, and those words filled with sunshine and rainbows but until you have nothing to show for it besides your naivety, spare me the trouble, and swipe left, and swipe left, and swipe left, and keep pretending, and keep pretending, and keep pretending. Keep watching the videos. We’re all an inch away from hopelessness, especially me, so spare me from it, spare me from it all, and let me be. Let me be until you can be heroic, and until you can be honest. I’m not sure if you heard, but the world runs on those, not long words of empty concern.

We’d tell them how all of us woke up every day and got out of bed intending to save the world. We’d tell them how by nine-fifteen in the morning, we’d give up on our quests, and hope we at least saved ourselves. We’d tell them how much of art we loved, and how much of it we made, and how much of it got unnoticed every day. We’d tell them we still enjoyed all the art, and we listened to everything, and we watched everything, and we read everything. We didn’t care, and we had no taste. The idea of taste was dead.

Everything came crashing down. Everything we knew was breaking down, and everything broken was being put away. It felt like nothing we knew about ourselves, and about the world was right. I stopped tracking things. My calendar, my to-do lists, my routine, my life ceased to exist. “I exist because the system exists,” the kid screamed inside as one by one the system came undone. “I exist because the system exists. If the system didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist,” he kept repeating, almost chanting, as he had always done. Life became calmer but never slower. It was all okay now; it was all fine. The kid was still scared though, and he didn’t stop repeating those words, so I held him from his shoulders, and I shook him violently — something I had promised I would never let happen to him again. “I exist because-,” I interrupted him. “Look around, kid. The system is gone. The system is gone, and you still exist, and everything is okay now. Everything will be fine; we’ll be fine. The system is gone. It’s all gone, and we still exist.” I gave him a tight hug. I wondered if that was the only thing he needed all along. I held on to him one last time, as tightly as I could, and then slowly, I let him go.

I’ve thought a lot about a lot of things lately. I’ve thought about how I feel about how I’m feeling lately. Maybe, this aloofness, for the lack of a better word is a mistake, but I’ve realised that any mistake I make is my own personal privilege. I just want to sit and have some coffee and not be troubled by the world burning anymore. I’m tired of putting out fires all around me anyway.

Someone once told me I needed balance. “If only you had balance,” they said, “you’d do so well.” We’ll never know whether it was their brevity and trust in my understanding of things or if it was my naivety but I never really understood what they had meant. I know now that they had meant a balance of thoughts; a calm in the spiral which is perpetually visible on my face. They wanted me to slow down for once, and balance the inside. It is only recently that I’ve realised that they never meant for me to be stretched in all possible directions but to take a deep breath every now and then, and let it all be, then let it all go. They wanted me to slow down for once, and all this time, I kept thinking I wasn’t quick enough.

There may be love, but is there understanding? There may be communication, but is there comprehension? It may feel exciting, but am I always on edge? They may show me different sides of things, but am I always on the wrong one? They may have their beliefs, but are mine irrelevant? I love laughing with them, but do I sob alone? There may be affirmations of love, but are there more apologies? There may be happiness now, but was I happier on my own?

Winter arrives early every year for some so as to say a little hello before it’s truly here to stay. The frost creeps slowly as to say a quiet hello; the cold covers every thought as to make it’s lonely presence felt. With an early winter inside, the words freeze too and need some thawing and some warmth to break out of their inanimate state. Winter arrived early this year, like every year before, and I’ve been busy thawing. Until a morning, some mornings ago, when the words glistened as they appeared from beneath the ice and made their presence felt. They came like a warm hug from a loved one I hadn’t seen in ages; they came like a cup of coffee in a warm cottage while everything outside remained frozen-cold; they came like the strong rays of sunlight heating the haze away, almost instantly, as if it was never there.