Experiencers

Today was quiet. I tried reading up one several things at once. It's been ages since I've had an extended roll of hours like this. Even in the noise the silence came through, dominant and it is welcoming as well as disconcerting. Especially for a person like me, who needs to engage when the hours of engagement have been put on paper and signed. Like a job contract?

 

It's not like I feel guilty, I just feel like I'm not being useful, when I'm supposed to be.

 

Anyway, as I sat and read the reports on renewable energy, art and restaurant reviews from pages across the world, I suddenly had a thought about friends.

 

If you look at the long list I have on facebook; I'd almost believe I'm a pretty popular person. The thing is, see, I'm not.

And all those people - the 200+ - are faces I know, some are good people I know, some are people I just met and know, others I just know and a handful, nay, a smidgen of those are friends.

 

I don't know if I can call them real friends. To be fair to them and myself, I really don't know what constitutes a good friendship. The bar is different for every single person.

 

For most it constitutes meaningful hours and experiences spent with a group, that over time learn of your nuances, internalise them and accept you for who you are. Sometimes they celebrate you.

 

For others, it's a lot deeper. It's those one or three people who know everything. Everything there is to know. They transcend family and become an inseparable part of you. Your hip, arm, heart, lung...

 

No, I don't have that with anyone.

 

For another set, it's people who make them laugh, shout, dance, have a good time.

 

For some more, it's the people who are at your door even if it's 3 a.m. and you just wanted to cry about that crappy date or horrible interview or worse, a break-up.

 

For me, I think friendship is a place where I can pick up from where I left off, even if there are 5 years between us. Not age, but time.

 

I have that with , Goomphy, Abe, Brother Bear, Absolut, Twister sister, Sandy, SKfan, Boukheir and V (holler out to the online buddy). 

 

There are no judgements, no questions. Just a quick hello and straight to business. No frequent updates on email, or incessent (ILU ILU) phonecalls. No mush. No explanations. I don't know if they'd be at my door at 3:00 a.m. I don't know if they'd qualify as that missing organ, I don't know if they care whether I win or lose. 

 

All I know, is when we meet or speak or chat or call - it could be years, months, days or hours but it is just like nothing happened since we last met. Nothing existed since that last ding!

 

We don't care about what we've achieved, we don't care about what we've not achieved. Well, I don't, so I can say that for sure. In my heart I know I speak for the lot of them. We're aware of our milestones, and a nod and grin speaks volumes between the lot of us. They celebrate your victory if you want to, though. Any excuse to share good vibes. Yeah, sure! Of course.

 

I do believe we care about each other very much, in an extremely twisted way. When we meet or communicate, it's always reminiscing about something that happened and defined us as people or creating an experience that we can add to the collection.

 

To most, in fact, anyone that have witnessed these episodes (lingo - epidose!), nothing out of the ordinary happens. In fact to most, it could easily be labelled boring. But magical things happen, you know. Things that even the said participants don't see, until we meet again and dredge it up. That's when our eyes widen and we know that we will never be the same since. 

 

Like wine. Good wine.  

 

Y'see anyone can be a part of this experience, and most of the times there are a few; we remember. But like catalysts, they remain the same, no change whatsoever. But then the effervescence they add - ooh boy! I would like to officially thank the 'bystanders' immensely. You just don't know what you've helped along. Visionaries the lot of you! Lol.

 

So...do I have friends? Haha! No I don't. But, I have experiencers.

And that for me is a reality, I will thank my good fortune - for - better or worse. 

We were supposed to have a meeting this evening. It's 36 minutes past the assigned time. No one bloody cares, really. Because time here, isn't as valuable as the notes that one makes at the end of the month.

My time has been desecrated ever since I decided to live and work here. My skills and talents to plug holes that others don't have time or interest to fix. If anyone wants to know where to get that small item they require, or need a spelling or an extension number of fellow colleague - who ya gonna call? Moi.

I seem to know everything and yet nothing seems to fall in place. For me. I feel like I'm welling up with possibilities and like a helium balloon that catches someone's fancy for that one moment in time, I'm then let out into the open or left in a room to rot, until the very thing I was given attention for suddenly pales and is now no longer relevant.

It seeps out slowly, in whispers. And then slowly from that amazing height, I float down, bit by bit, until I'm crumpled in the corner and then crushed into a bin.

Self-pity.

My father told me it was the one thing that could destroy a person without even trying. So what do I call this reality?

I had ambition once, a vision that would help change the people and the sector I worked in. I was then introduced to the real world and the real corporate. It doesn't matter who or where you are. Unless you're at the source, can play politics and dress sexy - no one really cares who you are.

You can have all the talent, integrity, ideas and ability, but if you can't pander or play a little 'go seek' - no one's interested.

I fancied a swank office once; I'm sitting in one that can be. I fancied a great strategic job once, I've got one that could have been, I fancied the cover of a magazine once, but after seeing the lengths of compromise I have to make to get there, I can no say I don't want to anymore.

Because I can't smile long enough to make it look real. I can't engage in banal exchange long enough to make it look like it matters, I can't get along with people that really just need a kick up their behinds for their self-involved idiocy. I've tried and I fail so miserably, because even the uninitiated knows that I'm faking.

They all know. And they feel sad for me. That's all I get for showing them the truth. Sadness. Pity. And a little self-indulged pat on the back.

I believe being different beams you up to planet lonely. Where you get your own country and a flag. Only to realise that's a snow globe that everyone shakes when they feel bored so that they can watch the flakes fall around you. Double meaning intended.

Just a little bit longer.

Just a little bit.

Just a little.

Just.

It doesn't exist anymore.

This one's for A...

This one's for A.

On 9th July A got married. On the cusp of what would have been an outstanding view of the Valley of Fire in Vegas no less - four people have stood witness to a union that I for one thought was a long one coming. Only because A is so much like me. And yet emanates such a fiery difference that make twins similar yet extraordinary.

I'd like to congratulate the other A...goon on ya mate! He who had the quiet sense to kneel in a terminal of an airport and quietly state his case. Of love.

This is a toast in prose. The picture as promised will be emailed to you ;)!


I hope you find each other amusing and interesting when the sparkle of intimacy fades and is replaced by a thick feeling or familiarity. You both feel it - how fast or slow, I cannot tell. But feel you will.

I pray that the heavens grant you a wicked sense of humour in those times. For it is the best of laughs you could ever have.

I imagine the 'Valley of Fire' to be a blaze of red gold down below you; signifying the fire of purity that so often remains the centrepiece in our Indian weddings. Fire in so many forms fills our places of worship - at times to spread fragrance and blessing and in others to drive away evil.

I hope the pastor remembered to crack a couple of jokes when he pronounced you man and wife. And I hope to God, that the photographer solemnly stood in silence for just that one minute before he started to click away.

I hope that that one moment of silence was blessed and your eyes met with your partners in deep understanding of the next connecting flights, transit runs and a possible rendezvous in between . Ha ha ha.

To you both, we raise our glasses (we have cool wine goblets by the way!) wishing you nothing but happiness and good times. But most importantly the honesty to have a good fight and a skinny dip afterward...:)

And hey, congratulations 'John Lennon' - all you need is love. ;).

Open my minds eye so I may see and feel Your shinning light presence close to me.
Give me inner strength for my stumbling feet as I battle the crowd on life's busy street.
And widen the vision of my unseeing minds eye so in passing faces I'll recognize not just a stranger, unloved, and unknown, but a friend with a heart and soul that is much like my own.

- Ruth Ann Mahaffey

A Ear with Sucker Attached

You never know with advice. It's a double edged sword really. For instance, the very same people who ask you for it, tend to act as if they don't need it when you're in the thick of it - right in the middle - just getting warmed up and hitting close to home.

Advice, is such an overrated adjective for opinion. It asks you for it and then some. If you're one of those people who get asked for your opinion a lot (and of course they say, it matters) then remember this - you'll feel very light headed and drained if you're putting your heart and soul into it for the same group of people who 'hear' you but don't 'heed'.

I recently have come to term this particular series of conversations I have with a long time friend as a 'series in insufferable'.

She calls, talks, vents and rants and then a few days, weeks or months later, we're on the same page. Only this time we've for more people she wants to talk about, more people she wants to blame, more people she's exasperated with, more situations that are unfair, more things that are not hers. The list, yes, it goes on.

It got me thinking this evening as I walked back from the store and I realised that I had over the past few months been dispensing a bit too much. I have officially had enough of waxing eloquent on things which should normally occur to most humans, my peers at least.

I'm sick and tired of hearing the diabetic prologue of how my thoughts would really help and then later realise that it really doesn't. Because all that's being sought is a ready ear, and a sucker attached to it.

So to my friend I'd like to say, I see through it now and realise how stupid I was to not see how desperately wise you wanted to sound and how 'zipped' I should have been. I don't think anything of what I said would make sense to your experience or life, because in spirit and form we are two different people.

So let's celebrate that and not discuss it anymore shall we?

And so it begins
This new beginning
A life once thought was not worth living
A chance to recreate a start
A chance to actually play a part

In something better and beautiful.

I believed that every end meant sorrow
I chanced upon more stones to follow
Until once day I looked above
And saw an awakening of

A different perspective.

If I don't belong here
Then its somewhere else
A place that believes in bettering oneself
A purpose filled project or life
Emerges from every single strife

Climb up from bottom of the pit to the top of the heap.

Up. Up. And away.

I ask you...

Would it really upset your apple cart to come to terms with my life and choices?

How would it feel to just be able to breathe without having an aneurysm? Why is it that every step I take or make interferes with your better judgement and enjoyment of the world?

Is it not enough that you had your chance to live? Must you then force your burdened ideology on others, especially me?

Why are you in so much pain; self-inflicted, hurtful and damaging. Will you never be happy?

Why do you blame your inability to move to the next phase of your life on everyone else but yourself? Does your serious infection of superiority complex have to be spread? Can you not go that particular 'it' alone?

Your every moan and whine spirals and sucks everyone around you into a vortex of irritation and anger. A frustrated state where we can't seem to believe we deserve to be ourselves. My rib cage hurts from just thinking about the impossible ways you inflict this disgusting wave of self-involvement.

I screamed into the screen yesterday; just trying to blot out the noise. Words without feeling, without sense, without purpose. ARGH!

Is there no space where we can meet? Is there no solution to this desolate situation? Will you not make peace with your suffering? Was there suffering in the first place?

Why does your dissatisfied sigh settle amongst our bones? Are your own bones weary and infused to the brim?

For every gift and privilege your claimed as your right; for every second of someone else's time you stake your claim to; for every intake of someone's breath you suck; for all those times you could have been happy.

I now say verily unto you that you have had your fill. And that my life is mine to recreate and gift to an unknown generation, to a promised land, to myself in healing.

Make peace with yourself. And us. It is a command. Not a request.

- "Ever had that feeling?"

+ "What feeling?"

- "You know...the moment you own up and admit, you don't know where your headed"

+ "Everyone goes through that at some point, don't they? Tell me something new"

- "Something new...what's new is that one's willing to admit the feeling in all its
honesty and that its not a thought that comes at some point and leaves. It
arrives."

+ "And then what?"

- "Then...you either change the situation. Or you keep going in the same direction."

+ "I figured that much.."

- "..Here's what's new though...not everyone listens to the feeling."

+ "Is there anything else?"

- "Yeah."

+ "What?"

- "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

+ "Tell me something new"

- "Not biting?"

+ "Nope"

- "Okay then."

I hate the way I feel right now; like there's no hope.

The last time I felt this way, I stayed at home with copious notes and a book and didn't interact with fellow humans for two weeks. I think solitude to me is both a craving and a curse.

I work so hard at being social. So hard. And then it (the way I'm feeling now) hits me and all the slaving I've done goes to waste. Well, not entirely. In my defence, my slaving has seen the fruits of labour.

Those of you who know what I'm talking about; I'd like to thank you for sticking it out and letting me back in without so much as a question. Just a big welcome back sign. It means the world. Honest.

Last year, I had the opportunity to stay with my in-laws. We had several conversations, but the one that stands out most to me is the time when my mother-in-law and I discussed people's quirks. I am quirky. Period. I have enough quirks to go around.

She (my mother-in-law) teaches autistic children; she's in the business of understanding them and their disability and channelling positivity and expression through it. It's tough job, but she loves it and she's never been as passionate about anything as she is now. It's amazing how she channels such optimism in the face of such emotional challenges that these children experience everyday.

So when she said, "you know, in a way I think we all are autistic to some degree,"; I had to agree with her. Because it's true.

Autism is defined as:

1. Psychiatry. a pervasive developmental disorder of children, characterized by impaired communication, excessive rigidity, and emotional detachment.

2. a tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and desires.

Isn't that classically how we are too at times? The difference is that we have better control (and sometimes none, albeit socially tolerated) over these tendencies.

I wouldn't be lying if I said that I have felt autistic on several occasions. Misunderstood, hurt and completely incapable of reaching out to the other side. And yet comfortable with that solitude. Just at peace knowing that I don't have to talk or furnish explanations. When alone. That is.

Not everyone wants to listen to your problems. Not everyone needs to.

So why do I feel this way today? Reasons - aplenty. All reasonable to me. Which is why it's so hard to share, to explain.

I just feel this way; and that's the way it is. I'm going ride out this one. I hope I'll see you on the other side.

Dislike.

It's not nice when you know someone doesn't like you. I'm sure we have our fair share of detractors. Silent loathers, who can't find a logical reason or good explanation to express why they can't seem to reach across that barrier and give it to you straight.

When it comes to our own person, we believe that in many ways there's not much that people cannot like about us. I guess it all boils down to chemistry, outlook and form. Some things just don't mix. Well.

I must admit that I too have my inexplicable repellers on when I meet some people. In my defense I can say that the people I have found hard to like or get along with are few and far between.

Maybe some can easily blame it on my upbringing. We're taught to stomach and swallow several bitter pills in life and ensure we have the most convincing smile in place when asked for a reaction.

But then we all have our limits. And growing up affords us a certain freedom of expression that our childhood doesn't.

This NY, that's my compelling thought. Dislike. And while most of us would think it slightly sour to start something promising off with. I look at it as a perspective that could help us all shape our approach to everything differently.

Dislike.

Think about it.

Several communities and countries lost so many of their own to dislike. Dislike is a misunderstanding. So many of us forge distances between us and many others due to dislike. Dislike impedes so many experiences that could change us. Dialogues that could probably help us see another side to things. For better or worse. Again that's another perspective. Another to be discussed. For another time.

I dislike many things you know. The list isn't long and endless. It's a few things. But their ambit can cover several permutations and combinations. Convenient eh? Heh.

If there was a resolution for me this 2009, it would be to get that list out and do some spring cleaning.

The more I dislike, the smaller my yard gets. And I don't like small yards.

Happy New Year.