Dear readers, this Christmas I have no stories of going home, of Dubai, of India, of family, of travel, of different scenes, of sad partings... I am where I am and I am neither happy nor sad...I am sort of at peace...I feel that throughout my childhood and life I have had a tendency to want to hold tightly to people or things...the physical presence or tangibility always seemed very important to me... I am slowly moving into a zone where—maybe it's a sign of maturity? or wisdom?—where just knowing I am loved and the memories I have made seem something to be grateful for... I feel like I don't even need to care if there are reciprocal feelings... because my own heart feels full... of love and blessings... not just of those in my life but those who have left for the heavenly abode as one says... I feel, sitting alone in this house tonight, this Christmas eve... as if they're watching over me... faintly proud, faintly smiling... look, how strong she's become... I feel like I am surrounded by love on all sides and that's more than one can ask for on Christmas... in my younger years I used to see things from a fixed perspective... I now see things with more nuance, I think... I now see people function differently and though it's hard to see things their way sometimes... just the idea that there are many ways makes one realise that... as someone once said... that even if they don't seem to love one the way one would want them to, it doesn't mean they don't love with all they have... I think about some of the things people did and do for me and indeed... if that's not a show of love, I don't know what is... I feel like I must cherish it more for what it is...instead of wanting to box it somehow… and maybe that's something to take into the next year... other than hope... which is a topic for another post!

Don't know why I went into a tangent there, but you, my dear reader, you know you always see more of this more-reflective-than-usual side of me in the Christmas-Birthday months...though this time you might have to bear even more of it what with me being cooped up in myself :)

Merry Christmas!

When something gives us a lot of pleasure, why do we start questioning it? Maybe because the things that usually give us pleasure are said to be not good for us…? Like, eating sweet treats or watching the telly all the time. We start perhaps looking at the things that give us pleasure with some suspicion, as if the very fact means that there is something forbidden about it, and therefore must not be indulged. I wonder if there is some religious austerity logic that gets embedded in our brains, that anything that is indulgent, pleasing, and so on must be the devil tempting us. Eve was after all tempted by an apple and look where that got us! Though for the life of me I wouldn't know what's to be tempted by an apple! So, I am telling myself, about quite a harmless activity that I am enjoying terribly, that I must curtail its frequency. I asked myself why and the answer stripped to its bones would be that the fact that I am having so much pleasure out of it means there must be something wrong about it, and as I am not finding anything inherently wrong, I am looking for something to fault in it by stretching its implications. In a way I am invoking a guilt mechanism in advance of the fact so to speak! Makes me also wonder if the things said to one in childhood or the austerities one is put through sort of leave a permanent regulating effect. You can't escape them no matter how much you try.

I spoke to an uncle after a long time today. I was told he was remembering me quite a bit. The fact is being the nostalgic person I am, I remember my childhood scenes and the favourite people in it quite a lot too. I am never one to forget a deeply cherished memory or person. But as I have evolved, the people of my childhood haven't. It's like I cannot relate to them as I did when I was a child and they don't seem to have the mental or emotional apparatus to relate to me. This uncle, every time I speak to him, makes it a point to ask me why I am still studying...at my age! When will I stop? And he says it so nonchalantly, innocently, benignly like he is enquiring after my well-being. I have no words to respond to him because he has no malicious intentions nor does he have a clue how this question appears to me. In a way this question doesn't appear to me as anything but ignorant but even so it leaves me dumbfounded and at a loss. Now it might be evident why I don't really feel so much like calling this uncle if you also take into account that I am by nature very resistant to making small talk calls. There is no sensible response I can give to this uncle to this almost certain question because it's not just the view but the entire worldview that's at issue here. And it's a worldview that's too firmly fixed at his age. So I just make some noncommittal noises… I wonder though if he can't even tell that such a question could annoy or hurt me... this complete lack of emotional intelligence seems the most bizarre to me, not the difference in worldview which can be easily attributed to him being a product of a different world...

Maybe I should be

Much less truthful

Say a little nice lie

Speak a little softer

Tell you not what

I actually think

Make you guess

Hidden links

And maybe you could be

A lot more truthful

Put it like it is

Hit it where it hurts

Dodge not

Nor skirt around

Go for the blow

Aim the spear

Miss not the mark

All plain and clear

Or maybe we two could

Stare a long while

Into the great and hidden depths

Of our souls

Where you will find me

And I you

If only we would look...

~ Me

Staring into the distance

Nobody home

Only silence

Permeates the air

Slightest sounds

Startle me

Then recognising

My strange aloneness

I smile

Nobody home

December this year

Unlike any

No anticipation

Excitement

No thrill

What shall I buy?

For the little ones

Have I forgotten

To pack something

One week to go

I would have thought

And then I'll be Home

But this time round

All seems bleak

Nobody home

What I’m going to say may sound un-empathetic or even arrogant but that’s not where I am coming from at all. I guess seeing things from a fundamentally “thinking” perspective rather than “feeling” (recall my post on MBTI and that I am an INTJ with T being Thinking), makes me see this very differently. I’m referring to a tendency that seems quite dominant in almost every context to coddle mediocrity or make it seem okay to be just okay or mediocre or to make it seem as if expecting more from oneself is almost like punishing oneself or denying oneself “self-care”. This mediocrity is so rampant that if a person makes it quite plain that certain things are just beyond their capacity no matter how much they try, the answer from a “feeling” population will usually be that whatever they are doing is enough and others need to recognise this and not trouble this person—because they are clearly trying their best. The term “impostor syndrome” has lost all meaning because everyone is suffering from this syndrome apparently. The term is meant to imply a person who is actually quite good but doesn’t believe in themselves. They suspect they are just an impostor trying to fool others and not competent at all. The real test of whether one is suffering from this syndrome or in actual fact an impostor is that the one with the syndrome will usually get good external feedback. This will make them think that they are successful in fooling people rather than that they know their stuff…because of the syndrome. The one who is an impostor or technically incompetent does not usually receive good feedback from the external world; however, because everyone these days is supposed to be competent at everything and only suffering from impostor syndrome, instead of taking this feedback seriously the actual impostor will continue to think they are suffering from impostor syndrome and that people around them just don’t get them.

While it might seem like I am putting down people as incompetent, on the contrary, I am not using the word incompetent in general as a label for the person but incompetent in the context of the work the person is trying to do. This could mean that someone who has absolutely no ability to write keeps trying to get published, keeps getting negative feedback, keeps feeling discouraged, then being told by all and sundry that they only need to keep making an effort, and they will get there. What irks me is that it seems as if the feelers are being empathetic and helping this person gain confidence, but in actual fact they are only derailing the process of introspection and self-evaluation, and what is more important, denying them the possibility of exploring options where they might actually find fulfilment instead of being met with constant frustration.

I guess it also boils down to the question of whether people would prefer to spend their lives doing things they excel at or intrinsically enjoy, or alternatively, doing things that they have somehow stumbled into and wouldn’t mind just getting by. If it is the latter, then my way of thinking or advice would be at odds and the feelers are right in giving the person false comfort. They are not telling this person what they already do know but making them feel validated for the conscious choice of mediocrity. It works in general because everyone in this tribe is looking for the same general validation or commiseration… anyone questioning the validity of this choice on the other hand might be seen as a villain for reasons that are explicitly different from the implicit ones just pointed out.