Come Healing

in the final scene of A Beautiful Mind, an old John Nash, after fighting hallucinations for a lifetime,  asks a student if she can see anyone standing beside him. Upon hearing a no, he simply ignores the imaginary person talking away urgently, desperately demanding his attention. he walks down the university corridor not paying heed to the speaker.  walking, sleeping, surviving  alongside anxiety has been a similar cognitive learning for me and became a habit over last one year. anxiety. or the nonstop noise in my head throughout the day. or paralysing fears at waking every dawn. or the high alert state of mind at all times. I dont fight. I walk alongside and do what must be done. it is strange - this anxious high alert being. as if anyone could die any minute again. and this time around, I have to be attentive and not be busy living.  ... Which is why it was unexpected to find two strangers standing almost side by side in an elevator in The Zephyr, leaning lightly a...

so. here's the thing.  no matter how brilliantly i start the day, how unsnoozed the waking up, how perfect the morning, a meditation and a workout later, slowly, unnoticed, almost knowingly, a sense of sustained, existential loneliness trickles and collects. and then starts seeping in.  like rainwater seeping into earth through permeable pavers so it never pools on top. it shouldn't pool on top, and it can't always find the storm drains to run off to when it needs to quickly. so.  it makes me doubt if I was really, at all, ever made for this world. it is too matter-of-fact, too unfeeling, too crowded, too rushed, too strange, too much for me at times. oftentimes.  i feel like a forsaken and lost pariah.  ... They mostly do this using meditative silence, stiffened bodies, constant floor /ceiling stare and non-stop monitoring of the level indicator. There is also an unwritten spatial algorithm of how two humans in an elevator will distribute themselves : usually o...

what does one do with memories. those of a special kind. the kind that can never be relived again. because not the time or the place, but its core, the person/s are gone.  someone said what you do is smile a bit, grieve a bit, and move on to tomorrow. what you don't do is self-flagellate.  aren't memories like air. invisible, omnipresent. they carry fragrances. or stench. and you cannot not receive it if you are in the same bubble. we are all in the same bubble aren't we. or maybe not.  ... Human behaviour in an elevator can be a masterclass in unintentional sociology. For want of desirable physical distance in the small metal moving box, humans tend to create psychological distance to keep off unknown humans who land in their intimate proxemic space. 

  old stickers from the daughter's laptop are now on mine. because hers is getting an artistic makeover. and mine could do with some psych-major daughter art.  so one sticker goes -  It gets easier. It gets a little easier. It does get easier. You got to do it everyday. I open the flap look at the screen moire dancing across a fully booked calendar, close the flap and read the sticker again. And pause to reflect. Does it really get easier. Is easy even the word. Also. What is 'it'. I create this new blog on my way to work. and add a 'day one' post to do the bit for today.  we shall see about tomorrow.  ... An elevator is a mechanised vertical vehicle that carries humans and objects to levels above or below the one they got on.  An elevator is a also an enclosed spacetime box where humans usually tend to be silent and borderline contemplative.