Metamorphosis

These past few days, there has been wailing within me. The voice of my sorrowful heart filled me from inside, and occasionally, got a vent by way of my face and my actions. The tough stretch can do so much to you, you simply do not know where, how or what you will be in the next phase. All this uncertainty clouded my sight and my vision, and my much needed release eluded me.

This may not be news for some, but truth is - the solutions to all our questions and dilemmas are all within us, and the depths of our insides are simply fathomless. We seek for so many answers on the outside, which is as sensible as the blind leading the blind.

I have been a whining fool all these days. And it took me so long for realisation to snap things back in place for me - we are all misfits living in a world of misfits - no expectations, no disappointments. But it is hard for many like me to not expect, and we end up learning things the hard way, as unnecessary as it is.

I felt great disappointment and found the integrity of everyone around me questionable after an unfortunate event. Actually, I burst the bubble by snooping a phone, twice, and I thereby brought all of this on myself. So, in a way, I am to blame. But to know that it took me so long to realise all this is just embarrassing. And now that I have finally realised it, I feel a huge release.

The stages I went through till the realisation dawned on me, I narrate here. Initially, I felt crushed and I was unable to think about anything. I felt greatly hurt, and I kind of stagnated in all my thoughts and stopped doing anything. Then, I went on to a good deal of soul-searching and realised that I was feeling too much for someone who simply meant nothing to me. How gross does that sound! It is as true as it is. I simply got carried away with things and was expecting, and hence, I got disappointed. Now, because I had a lot of time, I began to whine. I could not bring the words out of my mouth to some people with whom I thought I could freely do so, and this made me look for alternate outlets for all that I wanted out of me. Much of it was in vain, so I had to learn to talk to myself to get me to see sense. After a while of doing so, I realised many things and hung desperately to them to pull myself out of the fix I was putting myself in. Then on, I was walking right on the line - I could be above the surface, breathing fine, or under it, drowning. It takes a while for a day to dawn when the mind enters an ethereal state and you can see things way too clearly - and on that day, you have several eye-openers.You can clearly see the paths before you and choose the one you need to take, and leave all the previous hurt and bitterness behind. And on such a day, I chose what and how I wanted to be and now, I am looking forward to another day to know if I made the right choice by putting my decisions to test.

Moving on, as simple as it sounds, is never that way, for people like me. To me, integrity is of paramount importance. If it comes under the scanner, I feel shredded and totally out of place, and I am like a derailed train - unable to move. It takes a while to put things back on track, and once that is done, I arise, a new 'ME', putting the past aside, and rushing on, lest the world catches up with me.

Solitude

I cannot say if this is felt by many - I feel it, and when I do, I find myself totally lost and struggling to get my bearings and move forward. It is not so loud a feeling, not something you could expect someone common to understand. When it strikes you, you will know how scary this could be. The feeling is something like this - You are in a familiar place where everyone around you is familiar and you are on pretty much good terms with everybody around you. You are there, and suddenly, you feel lonely, like you are in a totally strange place. That's when something grips your mind and you feel like you are lost without your bearings and you fight to get your bearings and your course back.

Of late, a lot of strange things have been taking over me. Living in the vicinity of your workplace is not all that advantageous when you have a wandering mind. And mine is playing pranks on me, way too much and very frequently. And this is pushing me to new peaks with my breakdowns. Though the honest fact is that there is no body reasonably sound enough to see me through to the other side, I am trying hard to get there with someone I hope is good enough. And this combination is not worrking really fine, and it shows, in my discontent and persistent depression.

I sometimes wonder if I am ever so lonely that I have to give myself company all the time simply because I am so pathetic. I tell myself I am way too good to be the friend of someone nearby. I am way too choosy, that is an indisputable fact. And because of this thought, I sometimes feel others feel the same way about me too, like they are too good to be my friend.

I have a bitchiness about me when it comes to some people. Now, there is no one totally deserving the bitchiness in my about me, and the same can make me feel bitter for ages, which I do not desire. But then, this particular aspect is making an appearance now and then and playing spoilsport to my sensibility. There is only one person who means something to me, and the bitchiness is spilling on him now. Now, that is not a good sign, and I can see bad history repeating. Damage control has to be put in place, before much else is done.

The mind has taken the heart too in this wake of events. And this has led to such immensely heavy pangs of loneliness in my heart that my heart feels darn heavy when there is a slight hint of my being lonely.

I did nothing to deserve this, the world has nothing against me either. Then why do I feel things the way I do? I think it is simply explained. I look at things that way. There is a need to change my perspective. I should learn to be a grown up - a boring, blunt person who knows precious little but what he does and stuff associated with that. And what if I don't do that? I will simply be left behind.

Dawn

I was having coffee with my colleagues when the most easygoing of them suddenly turned frigid and sensitive and began to act like a squid spilling ink. It was totally unexpected, and it was absolutely shocking. And that told me - I am not the only person prone to such sudden withdrawal symptoms.

My best dude and I were under the spell of a tough stretch. The cause - I felt his integrity was questionable. This was causing so much pain and strain, and coupled with the fact that he was having a pressing time with his work, he could not clear things up either. And finally, two days into silence, we broke ice. It was when that happened did I realise that I have stuff to tell him, some of which was way too sensitive and required way too much trust that he had to prove himself worthy to get it all.

Mood swings - are interred in my way of life. One moment, I am a sage, the next, I can be an ogre. I was never alone there either. My good friend also experiences such moments, though not as frequent as I.

I was born with a short fuse. At work, I realised that there are many people with shorter fuses than I, who got into severe fits of temper, some a lot worse than my worst. Hence, the bandwagon there is not a lonely one either.

I rely more on friends than on family - something that I hope will change. And many at work are on similar paths. I am not alone in that boat too.

All this brings into light the simple facts - Everyone has their set of emotions, some way too good or original, some mellowed and some, practically non-existent. Though no two people are entirely alike, two people can be alike in many aspects. And I am not the worst being on Earth, not yet. There is a long way to go to get to be that.

Sinful

The other day, my friend and I took a little break at work. We wanted to pamper ourselves with dollops of ice cream. And it had been a while since I last ate some. I was starved of ice creams. And so was my friend. And this only increased our cravings for the sweet treat.So we hurried down the staircase to our cafeteria. And once at the ice cream counter, we were browsing through the flavors on display. After placing our orders and grabbing our cupfuls, we took our places and started our delicious promenade down the road to bliss with a panoramic view of a zillion flavors. And halfway past our own ice creams, we decided to taste the one owned by the other. Just as I was trying to enjoy the flavors in my friend's ice cream, she told me her opinion about mine - "My, it's so totally sinful".

And now, this incident set a train of thought running in my mind. And, as expected, it was about the recent turn of events, about my self, about how I saw the situations and how I wish to go about them. And here's the story.

There are too many sides to me, so many that even I have many to explore yet. I know people see me as a loony persona, but truth is, frankly, I don't care what they actually think of me. And though I may be a lot of things, a few words that best describe me are lonely, bitchy, scathed and scathing, I am not just that. Like everyone else around me, I got my set of faults, some of which I take in my stride and some of which I complain about and some of which I really yearn to change. To genuinely be my usual self does not take much effort. But I feel I need to change some stuff so I can better in those areas in which I feel I need to improve. Like the two sides of a coin, there are two ways to this - either to change my ways and get on with it or to change my perspective of things and get on with it. Either ways, it spells change, only that the latter is easier than the former and I believe it could leave a lasting impact on me. Who knows, I might retrospect again and find I need a new perspective again, and once I change anew, I might land in the same old place on the cycle again. In which event, I will most certainly be screwed. Now, this is a possible extreme thought, and hence, not to be considered.

Right now, I am an origami artist at work, where it concerns my relationships. I feel tired and a need for a whiff of freshness on that front. The answer to that, in origami, is to take my scissors and my papers, snip at them and cut some of them into beautiful masterpieces, after practising on a score of them. And of course, I will keep the masterpieces and discard the rest. And the untouched paper sheets will have their chance at the scissors soon, when the snipping and cutting will decide whether they will be in my bin or out of it. Also, I am looking very closely at my old pieces for any signs of wear. If there is, beyond repair, I would have no regrets when I discard those too. Well, it would never take much longer to make myself a new piece in the same fashion as the one I will be discarding - if not, why would I be the origami artist?

And among those I will keep will be the BFF I will ever value, all my life. Despite all his faults, he has so much in him that I simply adore. And despite him not being to me what I would like him to be, I do not mind, because he is merely being himself. And I love him that way.

And of those I wish to axe, will be one tall guy with supposedly stupid thoughts - like he could dupe me. To all such people, I have a lot to say - I may have a lot of love and attention to shower on so many others, but I have expectations on you too - I am not your mother to love you for free. There is some reciprocation everywhere and at any point in the relationship, which keeps it fuelled and running. The moment the fuel runs out and things come to a standstill, I will definitely feel I need to move on and I usually do. It is not entirely your fault, partly mine too, but the magic has become too trite and unexciting, so I have resorted to looking for it elsewhere.

Maybe the last bit made me sound like a total jerk, but that is exactly how I am. I need to be me, and that's what it takes for me to be me. I offer tons of love and all I expect back is a few grains of it. If you cannot give me back, I cannot give you any more.

Severe severing as it sounds, I need to make this clear. I am a Rolling Stone, I become tired of things way too early and I need a change very often. And perhaps that is why I never made any true friends. " A Rolling Stone gathers no moss" is the old adage, of which I am made example of. Bah! Like I even care!

Bliss

Happiness lies in every moment. It remains for us to find it. And obscuring it, is nothing but perspective. I take happiness out of achievement, attaining something I would die for. Though this may be the case for many people, it is indisputably also the cause for many a worry.

Happiness - what could that mean anyway? It is tough to string words together to match that one word. And to reach there, albeit for a little while, will feel so much like you have got something that will last you your lifetime when you have it, but in its absence, one yearns for it.

This forms part of the cycle of life, and perspection controls it. It is truly disheartening to note how passion is severely impaired for want of happiness and by change in perspection. Truly devastating is an understatement to describe the extents to which the human mind would go to taste a drop of Happiness - from going insane over frivolous things to totally shifting its goals from what it always yearned to something totally unexpected to simply find happiness in its grasp. Even when it looks like Happiness is never going to be again, the hardening of ways to force them to be happy again the old way, all in vain, can be quite a source of repeated disappointment, each of which, in many cases, just gives people the wrong motive.

Happiness is ubiquitous. This is a thought that everybody misses, and consequentially, lose their faith in happiness. A simple explanation could be that people look forward to very big things to imbibe and exude happiness, when actually, they could do it where they are with every little thing that goes on around them.

Greed is the single big thief of the better perspective. Greed - how greedy can one get to turn happy! Overcoming greed is of essence in order that one may be happy for longer and more often. It is easy to put this in words, but it definitely costs an effort to put that in deeds. All said and done, bottomline is - kiss Greed goodbye.

Simple things that last a lifetime need to be our constant springs of youthful happiness rather than the big balloons of sporadic events which may occur infrequently and for a really very short time. This requires a careful choice in one's perspection. And that could be tiring too, but then, which of the good things is a cakewalk? For the juicier and better things in life, there is a lot of hard work involved. And the most one can do about it is get it started, take it one step at a time and keep at it till things definitely fall in place. And once that is done, there is simply nothing to stop anyone from attaining bliss like they never thought possible.

Reflections

I take a look at myself in the mirror. I do not admire the way I look right now. I look at it to look at the way I looked ages ago, when I could have gone on a strut showing off my many looks. And it makes me wonder if I want to go back in time to those periods when I never endured loneliness or whether I would rather carry myself forward in life in a quest to conquer my loneliness.

It is a wonder how I even passed through my childhood. I was always with my nanny, at least till my 12th. And she was always telling me her dream of making me a 'Jilla Collector', a post she would have definitely wanted to see her son in. But then, she did not live to see the day I wrote my exams - she passed on just before my first exam in the school ending phase. And then, I felt bad that she would not live to see her dreams or mine come true. But then, how often have we never seen things we hope from our deepest insides to see, especially with someone who has been there with us since we were babes in the world, our eyes just open to the mask of the world?

Ever since I never felt an ounce of loneliness for a really long time. Till someone came along. He erased all my troubles from the checkered past. He gave me a shoulder to lean on, and a lot of emotional support. I gave him a little of that when he was in great need of it, and he returned the favour manifold, and he was selfless in not expecting much from me. I have a gut feeling that in those troubled days when I was being torn at from home, he kept me together in a piece, else I would have definitely torn into rags. And as expected, I became too steamy to have a hold on, too much to handle and too much for his size, so he had to decide for his self for now and he did - he chose to move on, after giving me the best days of my life.

That is when loneliness hit me like pangs of starvation. I could not be myself with anyone else soon after that. I was not able to gather myself on time for many stuff and I lost a lot of turf to people I would have definitely kept off my grounds. I was distraught. And that was when someone else took his turn to be the sun in my skies and my moon at night. He was quite well-known to me from earlier on, but he chose this time to shine in my life. And he was good at his game. All he wanted me to be was - not be a sulker, but someone who could save a friend from sulking, someone who could stand on his own feet and not feel lonely or bad about what someone else did to him. And beyond all that, a bigger person, someone he could confide his greatest troubles with and whom he could be a good listener to. And things improved from that point on, so much so that he could be really good to me and got close enough to being the Sun in my life - but I never felt his real worth was good enough to be just that to me. He was good - but not good enough. He had charm, but was not charming enough. He could not get me glowing, the way the Sun actually could. He stirred some stuff in me the same way as the Sun, he stirred a few stuff much better than the Sun did, but then, he could never make me feel like I was basking under him.

It has been many days since the ice has been broken. I guess I have to get on with life without the Sun, with what and whom I have, and with my self to change. The past has passed, and has rendered many things inconsequential. The present is at hand to make the future a better place for me. And all I have to do about it, is to grasp every opportunity that the present gives me, utilize it to the extent I possibly could, marvel at the result, and get on with life, to the next opportunity.

Possessed

I have a feeling that there is a person in me pulling at all my strings. It is not a very nice person, not someone I like. I have sensed a lot of bitterness on the person and I would do anything to get the person out of me. I simply do not know why other guy-guy relationships are like ships sailing on calm seas all the time, but the same cannot be the case with me. I feel things that people have pointed out as things I should not be feeling and there are things I feel not which I should be tender about. And I can never call someone my friend unless they have been around for a really long time and I have been 'ok' with them all the time. Of course there have been exceptions to that, but very few of that. I have been this way ever since I was a kid, I believe and I hope I change some of these things before I see the grave, if I ever do. And I see through the eyes of the person in me, not with my own, which is also the cause of many disturbances.

I mean, imagine yourself doing a lot of things quite in a flow and regretting the stuff you did later. Also, having two trains of thoughts running at the same time, more likely on a collision course with each other - let me tell you, is an explosive idea. It is tough to juggle between the two and pay adequate respect to the two, but then, when you know for certain that one is always right and the other is often so, and yet you do not know which one to choose for yourself, it is complete chaos. Imagine a mad bull in a delicate china shop. That is an understatement of what one would feel when faced with such a choice.

I love the way I am, most of the time. The turbulent times are caused by a switch in the train of thought, I am made to believe. One train is very calm, composed, does not pine for company and loves to care for people in a selfless manner. The other one, in contrast, needs a human companion to pamper me, is very excited about people and not other things of life, selfish and possessive about one person about whom it is totally attached to and cares not for the rest of the world.

Either way of being me is good enough, satiating in its own way and unsettling too, at times, also each in its own way. Point of the issue is, being either way feels like me for a while, but the feeling wears away in a while and I feel left behind, so I switch to my other perspective. And in the process, I am forced to leave people I know behind, and move on to new people. A reason I never make (made) any friends for life. Everyone had to move away in a different direction when I changed phases.

I simply am too much to handle for just about anyone that ever walked on Earth, especially in my life. With that in mind, I simply wish to understand and know, who on Earth could ever stand me to impact me enough to stay with me through all my highs and lows through two different trains of thought.