Cat got your Tongue?
Cause who am I if not myself? Completely Ridiculous (Ain’t I right? Redfoo with the big AFRO!)
Today’s story girls and boys and everybody else is about the beautiful emotion called ‘EGO’! You know that word we nonsensically use at least 4 times a day?
“I have such high walls!”
“Why should I allow that person to have something I want even though they deserve it?”
“I cannot call someone I love cause I have MORE ego than they do!”
Ring a bell?
Ego, Ego, Ego! There is no dearth of it in the world; like little sprinkles of BS on everyday life. Ask the Ola cab driver who is racing to my right when I have signalled moving in the same direction because “me first!”. Or the aunty in line at the store, you know you can just ask me and take my spot instead of treating me like I’m invisible right?
A few weekends ago I had a party and all my friends were over. Around 4 am I woke up dehydrated; blame the excessive tequila consumption. The thought of all the things we do not say to people who manage to start to matter because we feel we are letting go of our self-esteem/respect began bubbling up. We think s/he should say it first, even if it takes years or maybe never even happens at all. We would rather sit there and wait and suffer silently than walk up to them and have an uncomfortable conversation. I am not saying it always works out, or that it WILL make you feel great, or that the person on the other side of you will put his “Self-respect” and acknowledge what they did hurt you or vice versa but it will certainly clear your mind and make you more self aware.
Isn’t that worth a shot?
Miss Chan’s Elocution and Writing class
Let’s back up to when I was about 5 and a half. I was talking to someone a few days ago and they said I was very expressive and that was rare. Over a call with my mom I told her and she said it is only because she sent me to Elocution class as a very small child. She said I would not stop talking about many things, very many things all day like toys and Mr.Bean, Carry (my bestfriend then) dog Pilot being so small and light and Jenga bricks being a cool way to build a miniature farmhouse under our dining table, about that one time I hid a snail and it laid many many little snails in our little balcony, or how the coconut trees were high, how my skin colour was different from the others in my class, how I did not want to learn Tamil but Mandarin instead at school. About how Jojo and I discovered a hiding place under the staircase in Tower 8 and Mother just wanted a break.
Miss Chan was an interesting lady. She spoke in high decibels and her voice would suddenly drop as a way to get our attention but that is not even the best part. She gave us such unique stickers every time we wrote and read out loud what we wrote. I just wanted a sticker for my very large plastic file full of illustrations to accompany my words on those worksheets, to be true.
I learnt the importance of communication through this.
A “Hypocrisy”
My oldest friend on this planet Samar Shaikh used to journal when we were about 11. She would write what she did all day. An ordinary blogpost would go something like.
> Today was a gud day,
> We had a free lesson and ended up playing hockey for 2 hours
> Shefali is such a “hypocrisy” (a series of events had led to this adjective with Samar and I, I was rude and selfish.)
> Ate Maggi today
> Okay, bye!
I was the kind of strange bossy child, that would get upset if people did not do what I wanted them to do. Like an unrealistic high need to control. I would walk off or sulk until everyone played what I wanted them to play or talked about what I wanted them to talk about. I had ego at 11.
Who likes such a person? Not me for sure. I am lucky to still have Sam in my life, 15 years and counting.
This taught me that, Samar really likes maggi and that you cannot control everything, scratch that you SHOULD NOT CONTROL anything except your output, you and how you make other people feel. However, I did not learn this back then. I only learnt it 3 months ago.
Bodhi Lessons
A year ago I learnt that one of my super close friends follows Nichiren Buddhism. It was only this February when a horrible fight with a very close friend made her take me along to one of these meetings. It isn’t Buddhism to be precise it is modern thought. It is the practice of kindness and compassion. When you sit in a meeting like this for the first time all you really feel are vibes, no pushing and shoving, no judgement, no questions. As I got introduced to the faith, I was told I needed to study about the history. My guide (the person that is your buddy as you get into the faith) gave me a little satin bag with a prayer book and another book that she said was my introduction to the faith. I looked at this book thinking “wow another manual!” However, the very first line of this 20 page book read “Every human deserves to be happy!”.
It was that second that I was reassured I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Shortly after I started to meet more people, chant more, believe in the universe again. However, there was this constant nag, a cloud of supreme hypocrisy over my head. You cannot truly believe in something entirely when you aren’t applying it to real life. I cannot hold on to Ego and pain and grudge against someone that hurt me and lie that I follow a faith of peace.
The Alchemist, The King and the Shepherd
I have been told multiple times to go read the Alchemist, that it would change my life and perspective. Shortly into the graphic novel version of the book, The Shepherd meets a King disguised as a beggar who seems sort of psychic in everything he said to the protagonist. Maybe Paulo Coelho will kill me for letting go of the whole point of the book but the King explains and describes to the Shepherd, that all he had to focus on discovering his personal legend and that everything else was unimportant! Which made me think that if each and every one of us have a personal legend and because we get lost in everything else we either never discover it or discover it too late.
My Way of the Highway!
Highways are cool, they are clear and empty and always fast-paced. In the movie The Reader, Michael knew that all the guards were as guilty as Hanna, he knew she could not read and so it was impossible that she wrote the report claiming to be the only one involved in the crime. She took the blame for it because she had too much ego to admit that she couldn’t read. He being a lawyer did not help her because he had too much ego to do so too. Instead he got into a failed marriage and remained unhappy. Instead she spent 20 years in a prison cell. After which he decided to send her cassettes of books which she used to teach herself to read. They spent years apart and eventually when it was time for her to leave he met her again only to learn she would kill herself within the 7 days.
Forgiveness is liberating! Letting go and taking the highway instead of holding on to ill feelings, revenge or grudges is a renaissance of your mind (embrace it!)
#FOMO
My boyfriend and I often talk about having a million interests and feeling a strong sense of FOMO (for the uninitiated this means the Fear of Missing Out). We sometimes talk about Art, Feminism, Science, Religion and about how many things we want to do and how overwhelmed we get sometimes.
A legit term/urban dictionary adjective for this is ‘Procaffinator’ (a pretentious hipster who needs expensive Starbucks coffee to get basic trivial tasks done at the very last second). In addition to that random rant I do silly things like, if my phone does not vibrate until the time I count to 20, If I don’t share this particular flight of stairs with a random stranger, if a song by Coldplay does not play next on my car stereo, if nobody asks me a question until it is precisely 3 o’clock s/he is not thinking about me (he being some guy I may have been interested in/a friend I have had a horrible egoistic fight with/something utterly random and trivial) instead of picking up the phone and calling this person I am thinking about so much!
Then & Now
A little village hut then, a bustling chaotic city today but human behaviour precisely the same! If you look back at almost every favourite movie, story real life or fictional everybody seems to be stuck on something that they think is the right thing to do to protect their ego which they easily mix up with self-worth.
What a Cat-astrophe! (what? we must stick with theme!)
In conclusion, Why do you have nightmares of the people you love and are avoiding because you have allowed the devil basically to get the better part of your subconscious?
So the next time you are spending time walking across the street with your smartphone, stalking the exact person you are ghosting, maybe drop them a text. Do it with no expectation of anything in return. Slow and steady things will change.
Today as one of my ex boyfriend walks down the aisle or around the holy fire with another woman (and they look great together btw) and ex-bestfriends from many years past do well in their life, I genuinely feel happy for them. Cause we had that uncomfortable conversation, we sobbed and cried and were vulnerable but closed many books and chapters that were left open.
Liz Gilbert: In the end, I’ve come to believe in something I call “The Physics of the Quest.” A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.
I would like to conclude this gyaan (in the form of a blogpost) with a TED talk.
