Life's A Tape Recorder: Pause
This narrative is a continuation of a previous post which can be accessed here.
It’s been several months since we last met. How about we jog through our memory together, shall we?
Highlights from the previous story:
Solo vacation of sorts.
Pressed the “Rewind” button in Auroville.
My impeccable “planning” skills
Wait, Karthik, these weren’t the highlights! Didn’t you mediate inside a cave for a week, fight a bear empty-handed, and dance with the mermaids.
Sorry to disappoint you, my dear reader, but no.
Also, if you are looking for any profoundness or insightful writing, I wouldn’t want to take another 8-10 minutes of your time. Press the “x” next to this tab and listen to this live concert performance from Adele.
….
You didn’t leave?
Thank you! Let’s get back to our story. Straight to the supposed “cliffhanger” first.
I carried a phone with me. India has been very progressive on the digital payment front, and my frugal blunder was saved face by a digital payment app that I had previously installed.
And that’s exactly how I paid for the tender coconut!
Though I must say, the interpretations from the readers right from trading a story for a drink to providing marketing ideas were generous. As most know putting money where the mouth is, tops all of these short-term benefits. :)
I skipped past this previously, but let’s talk about the two hours I spent in Auroville right before I headed back to my place of stay. There were three things on the top of my mind:
- People 👨👨👧👧
- Memories 💭
- Titles 🎓
Let’s address them one at a time, shall we?
People 👨👩👧👦
I had always felt like I was never a people person. It took me an unnatural amount of time to get over this notion I had of myself.
Slow down, Karthik. What do you mean by a people person?
Were you not comfortable conversing with people? Did you feel insecure in the presence of strangers?
…. Are you asocial?
No, no, none of this. As the definition goes, people’s person is someone who is very outgoing and makes social connections effortlessly.
Based on all my previous experiences, I labeled myself to be anything but a people person. If any, I was more inclined to name myself as someone who was avoided by everyone around them a.k.a avoidant.
I had my rationale to believe this since I felt that it had been the case for me up until recently. My mind was mentally prepared to be ignored by every person I had ever met.
This wasn’t a forced action but an instinctive reaction.
One can train can their mind through several explicit methods, but it always was such an uphill battle to prance over this mental obstacle.
But, was this mental obstacle formed recently?
No. It’s like lego blocks, with each block strongly magnetizing the other strongly.
I remember very well when the foundations were first laid down.
I need to take you down memory lane. Things aren’t going to be very pleasant, I would recommend you to listen to a happy piece. (my favorite one, it always manages to induce a sense of happiness in me)
This harks back to my younger days. More specifically the early to mid-teens. My mid-school started with me being a demure and my high school digressed with that of a recluse.
All the experiences and the little dots that led to this transformation had been well etched in my memory like it was just yesterday.
I wrote a bit about my demure experience in the first segment of this post. Without reiterating much from that post, the sole focus point had been bullying which led to mistrust, solitude, and abstaining from forming any deep relationship with anyone who isn’t my family.
I wanted to run away whenever someone wanted to get closer to me.
What if they were just doing it with some ulterior motive in their mind? What if I was just a tool they needed in order to accomplish one of their goals in life? What if they took this as an opportunity to learn more about me to mock me further?
Every day was a struggle back then.
Imagine being the only soldier on the field with no weapon of your own against armies that want to go ballistic and employ every cheap tactic possible to bring your guard down and make you feel so little of yourself.
Unsurprisingly, I made no friends or acquaintances in this period. Back then, my only company during the mandatory school hours where I was being tossed like a ball among different ethnic groups, had been books. <3
And this has been my best friend up until this day and has held my forte through my frustrations, helplessness, and unfulfilling morbid thoughts.
Things started to take shape on a positive quadrant when I entered college. I wrote a bit more about this shift in this post about escapism. But I still felt that something was amiss. I was holding myself from forming a deep friendship with anyone.
Most termed me as a closed, shy, and stubborn individual. I was neither. I just didn’t want to open up to anyone around me. There were countless thoughts in my head but it was all just held there.
This pattern repeated when I started my master’s, but call it either the level of helplessness in a new country or meeting more diverse people which led me to shed a few of my boundaries.
I was able to add a few more to my circle and call them friends.
Friends who didn’t expect anything from me apart from my time and attention. My notion of ignorance bias didn’t leave me yet, since it managed to somehow deeply root itself inside me.
I still kept my distance.
Things did get better on the people front up until the pandemic struck.
During this time I read “Who will cry when you die” by Robin. It did help put the people around me in a better light. It helped me shed some boundaries with a few people I met who I am fortunate to call now close friends.
What’s the point of triumph if you’ve no one to share it with?
Jeffrey Archer in “A Prisoner of Birth”
Since then, like trophies, I have been collecting people in my life who would cry when I die.
I will sum up what people who I call friends in my life, mean to me in the words of Jane:
There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen
Why don’t we switch topics to something I have little to no idea about – relationships. Quite specifically romantic relationships.
Yes, yes!! It’s getting spicy now! :D
No, not so much. My cooking is far more spicier and seen much more. :P
Only the clueless can be ardently curious and inquisitive about things that stay as a piece of common knowledge to others.
Whenever I get to meet couples, which is not been a lot, I try to understand the psychology behind them trying to stay together in the first place. What was the attracting factor? How did they stay hooked on each other?
There were so many questions, but so few answers.
The best way to answer them is to set up an experiment which I later did. I learned more about human psychology than relationships through my experiment. 🙈
For those who didn’t know, I set up a dating profile of my own and also a template for others to set one for themselves. In the initial days, I garnered interest from my own friends who either liked the idea or ridiculed it.
While the idea in itself didn’t work out, the template was duplicated by more than 60 people! This is something very positive out of the effort involved.
What did I learn about psychology from this? Precisely this quote from Rumi:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Rumi
Let me recollect a conversation I had with a couple who are destined to be together and live for/with each other. During the initial stages of their relationship, they had sought my opinion on how they should proceed further. (What an irony right? :D)
I spoke to them along the lines of chemistry right from balancing chemical reactions with the right amount of reactants to finding the “catalyst” which fosters their relationship. After hearing my 30-minute lecture, they were far more baffled than they were before they asked me. :D
Thankfully they sought counsel elsewhere and are happily married now.
This particular incident got me into reading more about relationships and here’s my framework which is less chemical and more mathematical. :D
I am sure most of you are familiar with set theory. Let us assume the two people in a relationship to two set A and B. I am assuming monoamourous (involving two people) relationship firstly to simplify things and set the context.
Most of us are aware of the types shown in the above video. What would you term as the most ideal relationship for yourself?
Balanced has been a clear predominant in eastern philosophies, where the intersection of interests isn’t a null set.
Aligned is the one most people wish for, the more common word being “soulmate”. Mathematically it would be either A or B with some outliers.
Dominant and Segregated are the extremes to which no one would want to subject themselves to, but are sadly left with no choice. The mathematical implication is apparent.
Let’s leave “explorative” and “polyamorous” alone because frankly, I still have no clue about the ideology behind them. It takes immense effort, time and energy to maintain one meaningful relationship. I cannot see myself taking more in and dispersing the love I have from one to many.
If you ask me what would be an ideal relationship to me?
I would say any one of the above could be based on how the people treat each other during their relationship.
And with that, I am drawing the curtain on romantic relationships. Looking at how little I have to speak about them, you can second guess how many people I got to meet on these grounds. ;)
But it is all well set and done. With ignorance, we can achieve only so little.
Now that I know what is lacking in the first place, I can improve on that front. Until then I will continue to be a third-wheel and love guru to other relationships around me. XD
And perhaps, I will get to say the below quote to someone in my life in the future. ;)
“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
― Paulo Coelho
Let’s end it here. My story stretched longer than I would want it to. Let me give a sneek peek on what’s in store.
Memories 💭
While the actor danced, he could find no mirrors, so he leant back to admire his image in the chandeliers
Scott Fitzgerald
Titles 🎓
“I am nothing special, of this I am sure.
I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.”Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
to be continued soon..
My Newsletter is my way of communicating with this world around us. It would be nice to have you there.
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