The Modern Fable

Hide your tears behind closed doors, Such is the comfort of my home.

This quote was shared with me today by my mentor. And it was a wake-up call for me. Don't believe everything you think - Joseph Nguyen  .     .     .     .     .   In my 11th grade, I struggled a lot. My family had to shift back from Delhi because of our finances, and I was a late admission into a school in which I felt out of place. I was struggling to find a way to work towards my dream of going to study in the USA, but I knew that there was a strong possibility that it wouldn't happen because there wasn't enough financial support I had. I was stuck in my head, most of the time, because I was trying to figure out which project I could build that would be my golden ticket abroad. But the problem was that my self-discovery was going into the realm of self-indulgence, where instead of trying new things and testing them out, I was indulging in stories and patterns from my past that I was trying to make sense of so I could have an insight i...

There comes a time when your daydreams, turn to nightmares, jostled by the abrupt change to reality. Who do you turn to now. when you need to build up hope? When everyone around you, says the same old woe. You need an escape, a vision, to pull you through. How do you balance optimism and practicality, when both of them pull you towards different streets? You try but the balance tips at times, while making sure you tread, towards the vision you have. Even when at times, with little will left, You sometimes resort to go back to daydreams.

Find a love in your life, a love so strong that it can push you forward, even when the storm surrounds. A love so strong, that it gives you strength to carry on, when the struggles seem hopeless,  when pondered upon. A love so deep and true, shining like a beacon of light, revealing all the superficial rules.

These string of moments, flash by my eyes, not tethered by logic or time, but by emotions of wholeheartedness,  filling me with life. These emotions don't pull me down, like the ones I feel usually do, but fill me with strength and hope when life feels just right. Not more or less, looking for an excuse to fill with an escape, but just right. Right here and right now, for no special reason to tell, except that the people are right, and so am I. I look around and spot a ton of ways, the celebration could be grander, The decoration could have been neater, but there is no place  on the face of this earth, I would rather be. Rather than right here and right now. What is so special you might ask? Well, there are some brief glitches, in the matrix of time, when we don't live for a reason or a goal, but just for the sake of living, right here and right now. When life comes together, not to teach you a lesson, but to give you a reason, to keep carrying on. Right here and right now.

When you look back, you remember the moments you felt deeply. Not those moments when you were at an extreme end of a mood swing, but when your emotions held gravity because you recognized something in your life worth noticing. These moments may be felt consciously, like the time when I saw all my family members dancing to weird Bollywood songs I don't even remember and thought that I would miss this when eventually I packed my bags to a college I hadn't decided yet. When I hugged my brother close on his 22nd birthday, hoping that the smell of his hair might soften the reconciliation I'd have to give myself when I left town the next day. It is at these moments that we feel the urge to hold these precious moments close because we're scared of letting them go, filled with fear of losing this wholeheartedness. It is at these moments that I fully experience what Brene Brown meant when she said that joy is the most vulnerable of all emotions. We're scared to feel it, but ...

I have faced isolation from friends and family, lack of financial stability and physical freedom, emotional abuse, and clinical depression. (I am still in the middle of some of these problems) I have given up on many good ideas and projects, and haven't found a strict definition of a career to align myself with.  I thought that this made me different, that this defined how much I could achieve in life because they somehow scarred me. And I won't lie: they have scarred me. I have trust and self-esteem issues. But the key thing is that I am not alone and I can use my experience to help others, even by talking about these problems and creating a safe space for them. I define myself as a problem-solver and that has been the key to deciding which projects I enjoy, and because of these experiences, I am in a unique position to empathize with those who have faced similar problems and use that emotional intelligence of what it means to go through it and develop solutions. These solutio...

The stories we tell ourselves, how they fuel shame, and the impact they have We are creatures of habit, and our thinking habits form mindsets. Our mindsets, more or less, dictate how we approach our life. Lately, I have been exploring my mindsets and their impact on me. Earlier this year, I struggled with severe clinical depression, and taking a gap year to spend some time with myself has helped me explore the mindsets that brought me to this point. And I realized something. The stories I told myself had the biggest impact on how I viewed myself, how I interacted with others, and the decisions I made. In 2021, as the pandemic was raging, my family was struggling emotionally because of the financial setbacks we had faced. Amongst other problems, as mid-year approached I would wake up filled with anxiety that would get aggravated when I saw the date. You see, when the year started I had an intention of starting projects that I could include in my college application but months passed, an...

Instead of asking, 'Have I worked hard enough to rest?' ask, 'Have I rested enough to do my most meaningful work?'  Nicole Jane Hobbs This quote changed how I viewed rest. I used to bargain how much rest I deserved based on the quantity of work I had done. But after giving it my all in one project, I find myself needing a long rest to recuperate. Oftentimes, I feel like I need more rest than the little window I had allotted myself. And there is a reason for pushing myself back on the track again. Piling messages, pending projects, upcoming deadlines, and disturbing realities to escape. But I have learned that the outside world won't stop because I need it to slow down. I will have to step back. This means drawing some boundaries: not scrolling LinkedIn in my free time and saying no to a couple of projects I don't think I have the mental capacity to deal with anymore. Making boundaries is still quite tricky for me though. If I say no to this project, will I regre...

I will be honest. I used to despise this blog. Why, you might ask? Or, you might not but I will still answer as that is what this post is about. I wrote this blog amidst the beginning of a dark time in my life, where I was in my head more often than not, trying to find ways to move on towards my definition of success. I was lost, anxiety-ridden, and filled with guilt over my perceived mistakes. It was also a very isolating period in my life, where I was slowly uncovering my values but no one was there to discuss them with, to acknowledge my efforts, or to nudge me in the right direction. I have since learned to be there for myself when no one else is, but it can still be quite isolating. I was on a quest to do something great, but I was struggling to commit to something, anything. I eventually found a way to bring my ideas to reality through TKS, but that came way later in September 2022. Right now, we are talking about the latter half of 2021, when I had recently started this blog....

There is a ticking clock in the back of my mind, taking away my peace, pushing me to strive. Piling expectations to exceed, and messages to read. Sometimes, I feel I am a puppet, getting pulled by threads. But even when I stretch and stretch, the pile still remains, mocking me with its presence, reminding me of my mistakes. Oh, I know what you must say, build better boundaries. But boundaries can keep other people out, how will they keep me in?

Emptiness frees up space, to push away the remorse I’ve been clinging to, to break away, the cycles of mind-numbing thoughts I have been going through, to pause the pattern I have immersed myself in to escape the reflection that has been due. Emptiness takes up place, where old wounds festered, where the pressure to keep up pressed further. It takes its presence within, when you finally have the courage or the lack of iron-fisted will, to no longer keep pushing on, to let go of the forces dragging you on. Emptiness follows letting myself go. But with the void comes distant hope, for the bondages that may eventually fill it, who knows? Emptiness makes space for wind to blow and sunlight to show. It may take away the heavy-hearted guilt, and even the bubbling excitement, but the lack of stimuli, gives peace to the tired old soul, and shelter to rest. Until, the war is back on.

 I hoped that the brightness of your smile, would chase away the darkness surrounding me. But it was a foolish hope and an even more foolish love to fill my void with your soul. You tell me of your mischiefs, your adventures and the girls who once loved you like I do right now. I will soon be replaced, but I’ll always remember you as someone who saw me. Someone with whom I could let go a part of me unknown to many, even counting me. You tell me stories, while I share my feelings, for apart from my emotions of being lonely, and disconnected, I have nothing to reveal. What do you want me to say? That I find my existence bleak? But how would that make for a great dinner story? You think I worry for naught, but I have lost more things than I ever had, like the time I lost you, when I shared too much that went on in my mind. So we stay together with you enjoying life and me enjoying the sight because it’s the closest I have been to happiness of my own....

 I dance around your demands, hoping to squeeze in my own wants, for I know if I breach your lines, you’ll threaten me with your trusty old tactics, hoping to take away the means, with which I build my life. Whether these threats are empty, only time will tell. But my mind is too tired to calculate the next move which shall soothe you, so let me break the paradigm. Let me test my own willpower, while you retreat to your set of laid-out commands. Let me test my own freedom, question the narrative of the outside world shunning me. Let me build my own world, outside the walls you have built for me. I have your unwavering support one day, the next, it is gone. Well, I’ll have to manage without it, so it seems from now on. Let me test if my love, can fill where yours took hold. It might not fill the void, but it will help me go on. On and on, until you are just a story A story that my mind replays, when it winds up the good, old memories. Well, stories can c...

I have struggled to find a home where I could rest. All I could find were walls,  that held the promise to hold me, shelter me,  but all they did was contain me. The cleanness of the walls barely became a canvas of my morphing anxieties. Their protection against the outside clamor, brought no peace. I couldn’t build a home inside the people I had the blissful chance of being close with, for they were forever changing, as if colors of varying dyes were being added, in the water their vessel contained, predictable over what color might form next but changing nevertheless. I couldn’t build a home that was bound to be broken for I might not have the strength to piece it back together. I have since found a home in books, where people share their life experiences behind the veil of a persona, a fictitious character, which is as real as all our memories and thoughts, for the person who reads them. People may change, but the books they have written would remain ...

I scroll through people. People with opinions, with faith and wisdom, with songs and limericks. Yet no matter how beautiful, bold and profound they may be, they don’t fulfill my need for connection.

Detached from the words we write, Personas separate from personalities. Experiences morphed into facts, they form our shared, disconnected reality. Boxed into pixels on a screen, powered by a freedom of speech. Tweets, captions, unread messages, and catchy headlines, rule the unruly mind. The foreground becomes a blur, yet the digital wallpaper becomes crystal clear.

//This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. What can I say? I know enough, to not want to know more.

//This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. Adults live more in imagination, than children do. The children overcome their beliefs and dreams, All in due time. But adults continue to live, under imaginary fears and responsibilities. Believing everything to be an imposition, when they are truly free to leave,

//This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. In matters of the heart, There is no pretense, Only truth. The truths do not come to the wise, in search of them. But reveal itself to those, who have been broken enough, to not put up a show anymore. Neither to the world nor to themselves.

 //This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. What is inside you? People see heaps of crap, Tossed aside, broken loose. But I see a silver jewel, A tinsel of light, Shining through the blues. It glitters moderately Conscious of the other hues. But dear, why do you bear, The words that voice Obscenities for you? There is no need, To work through it. When you can fly away Far, far away. This is the very shimmer I ignore, When I behold, The eyes that I was born with. Reflected in the mirror, Tired with their bearer.

//This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. Shake this emptyness away,  Please. My legs run . My hands swipe the water away  So that I can once breathe in the open air again.  But the ocean of tears is dense  It chokes away my breath  It pushes against my chest,  Emptying the cavity of my breast.  The substance of life  Envelopes in bubbles  And floats away.  Up, up to the surface.  Where it frees my breath  like unwanted air  And chains my body  Pulling it down, down  Into the flurry  Out the fissures and cracks.  The surface torn  Beaten down, down  Until it ripped through.

/This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. The means of survival Is the wealth you gather. But when the tide of grief rolls in, Washing away hope and happiness, When it brings with it the isolation, Stemming from rejection, When you feel dejected, A need for validation, Sacrificing the person you once were, For the one society craves. The minted papers float away. They do not form the foundation. Only the curtain on which, the reel of humanity plays. It wraps around your soul like grapevines. with the tendrils tightened. It catches you in the mesh A person bedazzled. The tendrils tender, With the salt of the tide, And wash away like all worldly pride. Only the iron will stands, Keeping your back upright, When the burdens bend it down. The means to live, To get by, Resides inside you. You have the gift of the gods. Not the one money can offer you. The means of survival, Is ...

/This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. ‘Oh, so you're the smart type, You must make your parents proud. But can you do the work?' I stared at the woman dumbfounded. She smiled at me as if asking an obvious question. Does writing and reading not count as work? But little did I realize that the woman and I, Are not on the same planet, Let alone on the page. Her world is surrounded by cookpots and gossip, Ladles and murmuring ladies. I look at her with respect Yet Why don't I get the same in my set? 'Can you rephrase it please?' My frankness surprises her, But inside she is pleased For those eyes veiled in envy Can do little but reveal. She opens her mouth but I already know What she means. How well can I make tea? Arrange the loose pillows on the couch Not slouch, dust the windows and sheets Clean your mess after you leave. She says if I care after my fa...

/This is one of the poems I found from the year 2021, while gathering my writing. I decided to post them to document my growth. When rage makes my body shiver, like a pamphlet discarded, In the air, I let it come. I let it grow. When the night comes, And my eyes close, I choose love to fill the darkness below. When hate blurs the lines, Between fact and fiction, And I spur on obscenities, powered by imagination, When the moon ascends, In a lonesome sky, I choose love to fill the soul. Always and forever, Love will be the flower I nurture. Hope will be the fruit its buds manifest. In a world where hate and anger, Is the norm, Let your abode be one, that houses love. A house for love.

'What is that so horrible that I hear you complain?’ I hear them say, as I count my scars to sleep. I have heard these words many a times and I don’t have an answer. Why even my hurt needs to fight, to have a place in their eyes. For them, it is better it festers in my heart rather than release itself on the page, in fear that others might see what they have done to me. My struggles may not move mountains in your eyes, but they are monumental to me.

 I can’t fit my struggle in a sheet of paper. I can’t voice it in a single poem. It’s a blur if I look at it. An illusion, a shape-shifter. And I sit here That’s all it leaves me good for Deciphering images on the couch of my therapist. I can’t make it rhyme, I can’t make it somehow feel fine. A blur of hope and unmistakable drive, crumbled into longing and regret, guilt and strife. Why so vague you may ask? I don’t remember the triggers, only the emotions the ones that made a lasting imprint on my mind The newfound intensities of hatred and despair I didn’t this body could contain It did, it did even when it swallowed me whole. Filled to the brim, and when it overflowed it dissolved everything in its hold. Even the broken dreams that once unleashed them. I can’t fit my struggle into a narrative a series of events, echoing coherence It was a scramble that bore no witnesses. People only saw the worries etching deeper and deeper in my face And they re...

 I write so all my sufferings, are not in vain. I write in hope, to give meaning to the despair, that comes from the meaninglessness of it all.

 There comes a time when your daydreams, turn to nightmares, jostled by the abrupt change to reality. Who do you turn to now. when you need to build up hope, when everyone around you says the same old woe. You need an escape, a vision, to pull you through. How do you balance optimism and practicality, when both of them pull you towards different streets? You try but the balance tips at times, while making sure you tread, towards the vision you have. Even when at times, with little will left, you choose to go back to daydreams.

My anxiety renders me useless at times, yet the irony is, it comes from wanting too much for myself. Uncertainty clouds my mind, and rips me off from the root of reality. I float like a ghost, in corridors of my own, a stranger to those I call my own. Anxiety comes from having clipped wings, from wanting too much, yet at times, the most I can do, is imagine what could be done what I should have done, how I should have done, and more time passes by, and no respite shines my side. I come to a conclusion to quieten my hasty mind, and it complies, until it gathers enough energy, to construct a new tangent, and suck the remaining fuel, I need to sustain my life. Fears, insecurities dog my mind. I can’t retrace them. Oh why am I lost inside my own mind? Who do I seek for help, when I can’t even determine, what snack to order tonight? I may be surrounded by people, but am always alone, tired of traversing the path I have etched on my mind, round and round, energy...

The lives I lead form stories at the end of day. Ridding their weight of responsibility, as long as I have the words, to disguise them as fiction.

I don’t have hobbies. I no longer have that luxury. I only have vessels, in which I can pour myself, for when I can no longer cope with the demands of constructed reality