The porters in my apartment complex are really lovely. I think I'm going to miss them when I leave. Miss feeling like there's this nice group of people I can call whenever I have any minor issues in the apartment. I have been a bit spoilt that way. There's this particular British porter who is particularly sweet. He has this way of saying my name that makes me feel like he knows me, that I am not just one of the residents among many. I like it when people do that. I suppose I really like being treated as a unique individual, and not one among many with similar characteristics. Even if the characteristics were true, say I am a student among many students, I would like to be treated as "me", not one of the many students, if that makes sense? The more they show me that they really see me, the individual, with my own individual characteristics and history, the more I like it. The more I warm up....

So coming back to this particular porter. I had a parcel to pick up today and it was his shift. I think this was probably the first time I interacted with him up close since I came back from China, so he asked, was it China you went to around December? I said yes. To which he asked how it was. And I said it wasn't the first time I went and it gets better the more familiar one gets. To which he broke that wide smile. Something made me add, "but this is also a new country for me". He was taken aback. Shocked that I would compare my experience here with China. ...And he came back with, "I hope we take good care of you". His smile was kind and mischievous. I had to concur profusely! I felt he wanted to be reassured my experience here was much better than China. I couldn't help wonder later how people tend to assume that visiting certain countries, particularly in the East, must be some sort of traumatic experience... but never stop to think that many of us are also experiencing this country as an "other" country. I guess they take it for granted that this must be superior to what we had because we have chosen to be here. I think by mentioning this country in the same breath as another country I toppled his worldview for a second...

'...in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.' ~ From the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once

I haven't seen the movie. And I believe the context of this quote is very different in the movie. But something about this quote struck me emotionally from the first time I read it. Sometimes I have chewed on it, as if something about it is delicious. It may not seem that way—or maybe it does and I don't know?—that I have a very romantic side to me. It's not probably what one generally associates with romantic—the very over-the-top, splashy, shouting-from-the-rooftops sort of thing. No, that's not my thing, nothing over-the-top or loud about my kind of romantic. Like everything else about me, it's about the depth. It is probably only visible to the one it is expressed to in my quaint ways and if they are the kind who also values depth. From this vantage point, there is something very delicious about the quote. I paint a story in my own imagination around it which is easy since I haven't seen the movie. I imagine two people who cannot really unite in this life, but they sometimes dream about what it would be like, if they could. And that's where maybe, you the reader, will find it hard to imagine with me. They dream about what it would be like to do the mundane things together. Like laundry and taxes. I find that delicious! Not things like going on vacations or having adventures together. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the everyday stuff. They dream about what it would be like doing the most ordinary stuff together in perfect silence and unspoken harmony. Which hides a lot more passion that any loud proclamation. That feels so deliciously romantic to me somehow!

Loyalty is such an underrated quality among friends. But I wonder if people really understand loyalty in the same way? What would loyalty between two good friends mean? To me one of the things it means, in very simple words though Aristotle says this with a lot more nuance, is that the enemy of my friend is my enemy. Obviously ‘enemy’ is a very strong word when we are not going to wars with anyone, but let's just say someone my friend cannot stomach. I for one cannot stand manipulators, game-players, and apple-polishers—these ‘qualities’ usually come in combination.

I would expect loyalty to dictate that I will not entertain that person either. One reason is that I care for my friend and want to show them where my sympathies lie. If they lie everywhere, that itself is a problem. A friend to all is a friend to none? But I think there is a logic beyond this too. Aristotle considered the best friendship between those who have virtue. Let's say high integrity. And this is the kind of friendship I am talking about. Where both have high integrity. If we assume that the two friends with high integrity also have high discernment, then if one of them cannot stand a certain character, it would have to mean they detect a lack of integrity or sincerity in that person. In such a case, the two friends who obviously trust each other very much, would certainly have to feel the same way about the person in question even if only one has reason to feel so. If we assume one of them has not had the chance to detect the two-facedness of the character in question or the character has cleverly managed to hide it from them (they are ace manipulators after all!), it should not matter. If the friend has seen it, that is enough. If the friend has been distressed by it, that is more than enough.

When I like a particular thing, I stick with it. I stick with what I know is good, no surprises. Like I like lemony desserts. I am not a chocolate person. I had a whole lot of choices in India but here very little. And among the few, I like the lemony ones, lemon cheesecake, posset, what have you. But not all lemon desserts are created equal. Like all things. Some are what I will call very, very good. The one I am specifically thinking about is an M&S variety. It came in a small glass bottle design. Lemon curd, cream, biscuit crumbs of the most delectable texture when mixed with the rest of the layers. In short, I was sticking to it. The trouble with things I like and I stick to is that somebody somewhere decides to take them away. So a few months down the line the dessert was out. I haven't found that kind of heaven again :( Same goes for other stuff. I like a makeup item, year later it's gone. I like a shampoo, soon enough gone.

The fact is this has been the story of my life, not just with things but also with people. I won't get into the people angle now as that's rather gloomy territory. But the fact is that as soon as I like something too much, I know it's going soon. What confounds me about these products is why are they discontinuing the good stuff?! You'd think if something is selling well, they'd make more of it? They want people to like their things and buy their things, right? What does it matter if the thing has been around since Adam? Shouldn't they just take our money and keep at it. Keep it coming? But no. Beats me really. Annoys me no end. Because now I have to spend time/energy to find a new thing and I don't have that much to spare. I have high standards, and it is exhausting trying to meet them. I haven't found a replacement for my lemony dessert at M&S. Closest is the Sainsbury's one but it's nowhere near close, if you get my point. It's at these times that I really wish I was living in London :( I might have found a worthy successor in Waitrose surely?

Some people I encounter have a strange reaction to disagreement or contradiction. There are two reactions that specifically bother me: 1. ignoring the disagreement/contradiction and carrying on with a different thread of the conversation, and 2. immediately agreeing with your opposite point of view. The first reaction tells me that they are not really interested in exploring an opposite point of view, they are not interested in why you think what you think, they couldn't care less if they/you might be holding a problematic position, and most of all, they have no desire to learn (or share). And the second reaction when it comes with no actual explanation or qualification for the about-turn, tells me that they probably never thought through their own point of view, they are not really committed to any particular point of view, or they would rather continue a comfortable conversation than get into any serious discussion that forces them to think. I have to admit that when people constantly do either of these things (I of course understand there might be times when people are not really in a space to engage seriously or there might be other genuine reasons), I gradually give up.

I suppose I might have mentioned this before—it is so fundamental to the way I approach relationships that I would be surprised if I haven't mentioned this—that the way to my heart is through my head. Mind you, it’s not a conscious approach, it’s just the way I am wired! I believe it's very different to how most people develop affections. In my case, a very high intellectual connection is the road really to a deep emotional connection. Which is why it is so rare. That is not to say that I do not have people in my life who are exceptions to this rule; the very rarity of this type of connection means there have to be. The reason I mention my orientation in this context is that with people who avoid exploring an idea, be it an agreement or a disagreement (frankly they are the same in my books), it's very unlikely that an intellectual connection could be reached. There is no authentic engagement so how can there be a connection? So I suppose when I give up I do not just give up the intellectual possibilities but perhaps possibilities for friendship as well... though philosophically speaking one could say the latter never existed in the first place.

I have a tendency to frame any explanation or discussion of the particular with the meta. A sort of begin from the beginning. I do it so that the opposite party understands the big picture against which I am viewing the particular thing. If I did not offer that, they won't get my perspective, that's my logic. But what often happens is people are not sure where I am going with what I am saying. They are not comfortable with the 40000-feet view, it makes them dizzy, and they would rather I get to the ground fast. What is funny is I am actually a very to-the-point kind of person. Just that I see a whole lot of dots that are intricately connected to the point and do not believe I can make the point well without revealing all those dots. But it's a rare few people who can see those dots even when you show them so a better strategy might be to take the shorter route. It's a rare few people with whom I care to do the dot-connecting exercise even. Except that sometimes I find myself in the middle of a situation where I need to make a point. But this logic is so hardwired in me that even when I know I am not with my ideal audience, I still can do only what I do. Part of it is that when I am focused on an idea, the world, the audience, the social situation, all disappear. Should it matter? I suppose, being the INTJ personality type that I am (more on this later), it is just how my intuition-thinking expresses itself... it cannot be otherwise. The better question might be whether I'd rather be someone else? And that's an easy one ;)

I am practising this business of letting be these days. I can deconstruct my own actions, feelings, reactions, and what have you till the cows come home (or not). It energizes me. Never exhausts me. It is a process of growth really, to know myself better and better. Growth as in not change, because not everything is about change or needs to change or can be changed. I would call it self-awareness rather. In a way, I am always in the thick of this process no matter what I am doing. But I have been wondering if sometimes it is good to let things just flow so to speak, not to question, comment, deconstruct, call attention to. To let things sort of slide, to let them take oneself over, apart,...? To talk about it sometimes might be to disenchant what is really magical in it. To name a thing might be to put it into a box and then one has to find a label... and labels again take away the magic? You understand this is not my normal mode? I am trying out something that does not come naturally to me... seeing how it feels like instead of controlling, deconstructing, making sense? How about not trying to make sense for a change? Just absorbing it? Letting it be? What's that like?