Analysis paralysis

    

So anyway, my laptop broke in travel. It unravelled very slowly. I thought it was just slightly damaged but after a few uses, the hinge broke off and it was like deja vu — except that this had really happened a few years before with another (formerly beloved) device of mine. It’s alright, it had run its course. As had my budget 5yo phone when I dropped it in a wok of boiling shakshuka that one time earlier this year (but it survived!). I’m now left typing out this post on a tablet device because my thoughts must go out somewhere and I’ve tried journalling but pen-to-paper is an act that sprains my unaccustomed wrist.

Oh, I have too many thoughts to write down quickly on paper.

A friend I’d been thinking about reached out to me today and it was the warmest feeling. It was also the strangest feeling because we are now separated by a few continents and not a few miles. In my gut, I wanted to reach back and say, let’s meet next weekend! But that’s not possible anymore. Still, it’s lovely knowing I’m remembered and I’m looking forward to taking my time to send her a nice reply with a couple of pictures. Life is so strange and brings us to places we never planned to see.

But life is also long, as I’ve been learning. Very, very long. So long that plans run out before the years do and then you’re left twiddling your thumbs, not knowing how to while the rest of your time away before you force your grey matter to concoct newer, smarter plans. And on it goes.

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Well, here’s a question for you: what do you write anyway when your self-worth goes away, to no fault of your own? When you feel fine but are pushed to believe you need to do more, to be more. When everyone around you is a shining example of capitalistic productivity but you’re different — very productive in your own way but different. I don’t think much of myself but I’m happy and comfortable in my skin and I feel like when the others see that, it scares them. The possibility that they, too, could have it different frightens them out of their minds — hamari naukri jayegi tou hum bhala kya kareinge, kya honge? So many problems I come across in my day-to-day as a “mere” wallflower are resounding you-problems, very much to my isolated amusement. I think I like being in this position where I hear the noise but can choose what I do with it, and I choose almost always to just listen and pass through, never react.

I’ve seen the looks people give me when I tell them what I do — I see them screaming behind the prison bars deep inside their eyes, a huge smile plastered to their tired faces, faces no amount of makeup could mask. I feel for them. I want to let them know they, too, can choose a different life. They’ll just have to lower their standards. Their is nothing nothing nothing noble about giving yourself away to the machine, another cog in the wheel. Yes, I recognize my privilege in saying this but I had these thoughts (and this life) long before the privilege came to me. I believe you can just choose to be, if you like. But we like being perceived, we really do enjoy the few seconds of validation from totally irrelevant people.

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I want to read more and learn more, this year and the next. I feel like the universe has blessed me with some space to think and to do. I recently picked up The Days of Abandonment from the neighbourhood library. It’s something I read halfway through in 2019 until I discovered that half my copy of the book was missing pages. I loved the writing enough to remember all these years later that I’d like to see what happened to the protagonist in the end. Besides that, I’ve been skimming through both of Asma Khan’s cookbooks (also thanks to the library) and learning that my mother passed down some great recipes to me and that I am, in fact, a good cook with a sense of what goes with what and the science behind doing things the way we do them in our kitchen.

I want a windowsil garden. I want to teach my kids to pray. I still want that orange farm in Spain. I want to become very good at ASL. I don’t want to be known as someone who’s shy. I want to be openly fierce. I want to learn how to ride a bike and learn how to drive and know the answer to many questions that exist, if not most. I want to be more patient. I want to be more political. I want to protect what’s mine. I want to do well with the resources I’ve been given instead of seeking out more resources. I want to give and give without giving pieces of myself away. I want it to be known that forgiving is not equal to forgetting. I want to remember. I want to start things and see them through to the end.

May we all see through to the end what we begin.