Do people get some sort of strange sense that someone is thinking about them a lot? Maybe they suddenly start thinking about them too without knowing why? But then is it them thinking the first time in the sequence so the other person then starts thinking about them or the other person thought about them first, so they started thinking without knowing why? This is how I tie myself in knots! The simple question I am pondering is whether intensity of feeling can be so powerful that by some magical thread it tugs the other person? But the other person wouldn't know why they feel so tugged...? In my community there is a superstition that if you yawn repeatedly, that means someone is thinking of you. I saw older people say this to other people when I was a child, 'oh, someone is thinking of you!'. Then sometimes when I would be chatting with my mother and she would all of a sudden get a yawning bout, I would tell her, 'I am thinking of you!'. She would tell me that's not how it works! I don't know why I found that funny...

A celebrity recounted a difficult experience in a video. Her relationship with her mother was always fraught. In the mother's last few days when she was very ill, she was living in this celebrity's house. The mother seemed to be fighting for her life, suffering too much. The celebrity said that she realised that it wasn't her mother but she who needed to let go. The celebrity had never heard words of love or affirmation from her mother. Every time she went into her room, she was hoping her mother would say something to her, about how proud she was of her, how much she loved her, and so on. But the words never seemed to come. The celebrity finally decided she would release her. She went to her own room with acceptance. The mother died soon after.

This story and the celebrity's enormous pain touched me deeply. Maybe many would think this celebrity was selfish? That even when the mother was on the threshold of death, she wanted to hear words to show she mattered to her mother? That in a way could seem like it was about herself? But I don't feel that way. I feel compassion and empathy towards her. I do not find her desire, a last desire of sorts even though it was her mother who was passing, selfish at all. I find a love that was never reciprocated, a wish to be able to hold a memory more affectionate than the reality she ever had, a possibility of exonerating her mother finally for her wounds, a reassurance of something that could only be expressed in words... a closure even. To have none of that... the pain of living on without any of that... I could imagine why she found it hard to let go...

'When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!'

~ Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

How should one live seems to be an age-old question. If one lived on an island, it would probably be an easier question. You could choose to live how you wish to but you'd still have constraints—what you eat would depend on what's around, when you wake up and sleep would depend on the sun, what you wore would depend on the seasons, what you occupied your time with would also depend on what you have at hand... When you live around people, the constraints multiply. Over time, this multiplies more and more and more in complexity… until no one probably knows why they are doing what they are doing in the way they are doing anymore. We are constrained without knowing why or to what ultimate purpose. We seem to have very little choice in opting into or out of the purpose or choosing something that is more attuned to our own individually felt sense of purpose. In many ways it's perhaps easier if we are not bothered much by the whys and wherefores and are happy enough to be dragged by the collective current to wherever it may lead. More practical and sane for sure. I suppose having a reflective streak makes it almost impossible for me to be led blindly. But then how does one have such a streak, occupy a necessarily constrained position in the world, and still answer to a purpose that makes sense to me and likely to no one else? How does one balance the practical and ideal...? It's an ongoing struggle in a way... to protect what is precious to you and yet meet conditions of survival because without survival, you cannot protect or nourish anything. In Hindi there is a saying, ‘jaan hai to jahaan hai’. Which means, ‘Only if you are alive, the world exists’ ;)

When you look at what's happening around the world, you start wondering if the age of reason is past. On social media, your instagrams, tiktoks, etc, almost everybody seems to be a producer of random vapid content, and there must be as many consumers of such stuff. The popular meme which shows the world on fire and the cartoon man/dog peering into a screen saying, 'I am fine, everything is fine' or something like that comes to mind. 

But I am starting to think our age isn't peculiar. It might feel so because of all these new-fangled technologies. But is it that different from what was captured ages ago in Plato's Allegory of the Cave? People imprisoned in the cave mistake the shadows in front of them, projected by the fire and activities behind them, as reality. When one of them is released and goes out into broad daylight, he can't believe his eyes. When he gets back down to report on what he saw, no one believes him. The released prisoner is worse off in a way because he has seen light and cannot participate in their concerns around the shadows anymore. The prisoners don't want to be in his position. They do not want to be released. They continue to be invested in the world of shadows, of appearances, which are most real to them. Their minds cannot accept anything other than the evidence of their own limited senses. The analogies to our current predicament are fairly obvious, I guess. 

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On a lighter note, I made my favourite 'godd narl pou' (jaggery-coconut-flattened rice) after a very long time. I feel a lot more settled into my new home now, so I am slowly starting to bring back some of my favourite foods and activities. The biggest challenge with making this dish or any other that requires coconut is the actual breaking it into half. This dish tastes best with freshly grated coconut and not the frozen variety. Breaking it requires a certain amount of strength and a certain technique and perhaps a bit of immunity to the loud sound that happens. Not my thing at all. But somehow I managed it and the result, dear reader, is here :)

I ran into one of those random anonymous quotes on Facebook. Normally I scroll past, but this one got my attention: "If you are an ocean, be an ocean. Don't be a pond because people can't swim." I suppose it touches on something I have ruminated about off and on...

I feel a pressure sometimes to become a diminished version of myself to accommodate people. I could give in to the pressure if it's for a very short while. I could put on a (rather bad) act at a party while itching to be home. I can't do something like that for too long. I can't pretend to be something I am not for long. You also want that people you genuinely like or care about know the real you, want the real you. They would love you for who you are, as you are. The rest as they say, don't matter. But when it looks like they don't, when it looks like the real version of you, the ocean, was too much for them... that's when you wonder... if you should have tried being a pond to them? If you should have been less of yourself? If you should have hidden your depths...? But that makes no sense.