Output on the blog has slowed to a trickle. I don’t feel capable of giving advice. I haven’t figured it out. In fact, the depth of what I don’t know has me so overwhelmed that I’m wondering if I should open my mouth at all. When I read old posts like ‘dealing with depression’ I cringe. If it was so easy as I laid it out, why am I still so depressed? No. Life is not so simple. Sometimes band-aids may work but many a times intense soul-searching is needed. The last 1.5 years, have been tough on me. I had seen worse, but, was still not prepared for this. After one glass palace crumbled, I started questioning a lot I took for granted to check for other weaknesses. When you operate from a base, you are safe, you can question other aspects, but are still on solid ground. But, if you are questioning your base then it’ll lead to a lot of insecurity and low confidence. Some ideas I’ve been mulling over the last few months:
Facebook – I quit the social network last December after being active for 7 years. Over the last year I started observing a change in me. What started as a harmless place to share updates on your life and jokes somehow morphed into a gallery that I was playing to. I was more focused on what ‘image’ I was cultivating, how many were validating my posts (in extension my presence) with likes and comments, and was continuously searching to find something to hook my audience with. The change creeped in, inspite of being careful. It started bothering me when no one reacted to my posts. The more I saw the highlight reel of other’s life, the more dull my life seemed. I started to think even my highlights reel would not be as good as what I was seeing on the wall. Sanity prevailed sometimes, is life not dull? Do we go to trips/pubs/picnics every weekend? Do we have interesting things to say everyday? I argued with myself. But, the instances I had to tell myself this became frequent. It also started to feel as if the ‘crowd’ was with me all the time, waiting for me to post something getting disappointed in me when there was nothing to post. The more I couldn’t post, the more dull my life seemed. Private, normal moments that I would’ve enjoyed were now lost on me. If it was not ‘marketable’ then it was simply dull and not worth it. I was unable to disconnect. As days progressed, I kept asking myself why I had to share my life with folks, 3/4 of whom I was pretty sure I won’t interact beyond a ‘hi’ when I meet them. The effort was not worth it. I stopped logging-in Facebook & deleted Instagram. (Who knew how much mobile data I could save with this one move). Have I made a mistake? I don’t know. Do I miss being in touch with folks I definitely would want to be in touch with, yes. But, was the effort worth it? Atleast for now, the answer is no.
Ambition – A few weeks back, I asked a couple of friends what they mean by ‘ambition’. The answer was common – it gives direction & purpose in life. Without it we wouldn’t know if our life amounted to something. Ambition, it felt, decided whether our existence had a meaning or not. Everyone should have direction in life, I agree. But, is having direction enough? Or should our strong desire to achieve something be quantified with goals? After all, what gets measured, gets managed, right? But, is ambition a goal-heavy-failure-inducing-Damocles-sword we hang on our necks voluntarily? Say, helping people is what I want to do, should I be content when I chose a vocation or past-time that supports that dream? Or should I turn that desire and quantify it with a ‘goal’ and say, I will help 1000 people this year? You can do either or both. But, many would argue having an ambition to help 1000 people is better. Why? because goals get measured and paid accordingly. Goals work well in work places. But, do they help or hinder in other aspects of life?
I think, as long as we can understand that ‘goals’ are arbitrary and not inflexible guideposts that decide if we have been ‘successful’ or not, they do not lead to depression or anxiety. But, as we spend a major portion of our waking lives at work and live in a culture of productivity where worth is defined by the wealth you create, it becomes difficult to be content with just having a direction. With quantifiable goals floating around, we instantly know who contributed more, who worked more, who achieved more, and by default who contributed less, who worked less, and who achieved less. If we are not the ones to achieve the maximum it is by default meant we are doing less than what we are capable of. We are rated lower in the social pecking order. So, is our self-esteem. All this, even without we voluntarily wanting to do any of this comparison. Working day-in and day-out has imprinted ‘competition’ on our minds so much. To not feel left behind we dangle more carrots, more goals, before ourselves.
So, now does ambition help or hinder? Do we now need to go easy with this word?
Health – A long time back, I heard of an experiment. You take a frog and put it in a boiling pan, it will immediately jump out. But, if you put it in a normal pan and then start heating it slowly, the frog will continue to experience the rising temperatures but would not think of jumping out and ultimately boils. Just like the frog in a pan that is being slowly heated, we never know when or how we screwed up our health until it’s really bad. Over the last few years I’ve been in tremendous psychological stress that wrecked havoc on my immunity system, causing me to frequently fall sick. And, I never noticed the effect, like the frog, until it was too late. I now have to contend with a weakened self.
Stress is a strain resulting from demanding circumstances. When the pressure put on you starts getting to you, a fear of annihilation grips you. As if a great glass palace that you embalmed yourself-in would crumble any second revealing to everyone the true you – a Charlton, a disappointment, an impostor And, when we are invested in some form of identity, any threat to it will send us into a tizzy. How to avoid this? By not being invested heavily in any one part of your life. Easily said, right? I remember reading about a Tony Robbins seminar where one man gets up to talk about his issue – he was once a star at work, but now is laid off. He feels he has let everyone down and not being able to provide his family, wants to commit suicide. Tony then reminds him that, he has only seen himself as a ‘provider’ to the family and that he has not invested in any of his other roles – that of a parent, husband, or all the other roles he plays. So, when the part he invested himself mostly in – work, crumbled, his sense of identity went with it. He was no one now. When a carefully constructed facade crumbles it is very difficult to cope up with. You have to figure out who you are without that facade. And, it’s scary.
Depression – it is not major incidents that push a person over the precipice, but, the combination of small incidents happening in succession. Snapping of a shoe lace before the meeting, a car overtaking rashly, a back biting colleague, a reprimand from the manager, an argument with a friend; all happening in succession could suddenly cast gloom over the day. Sometimes, the gloom can be dispelled, but sometimes it cannot. Yes, depression doesn’t make sense. None of the above reasons should trigger an avalanche of emotion. But, for some they do. Sometimes we cannot mention what caused it, sometimes there is nothing, sometimes it is so minuscule that mentioning it/acknowledging it can lead to further sadness over our incapacity to handle even that small stress/issue. Many don’t talk about depression, it’s too depressing to talk about it, but also because they don’t want to be told to hold it together or that they are too sensitive to handle life.
Health is a boon to those who have it. They know not what they take for granted. It is the one without a roof who knows its value.
Brand: When you spend time in an environment that encourages you to create your brand, and when we see how creating a brand helps in networking and being recognized for something, we parcel and project the best parts of our selves to everyone in a neat package. And, from there on, we judge all of our actions with one criteria – are they brand compliant or not. Though started innocently, now we see ourselves as ‘someone who is so and so or who does so and so’ and we take actions that reinforce that image and accept view points that are in line with it and scorn everything else. As we keep accepting or rejecting views, doing stuff to empower the ‘brand’, we enwrap ourselves in a nice bubble. We never notice this. It happens so subtly that when the bubble bursts inevitably, we surprise ourselves wondering how did we get caught up in our own projections. But, the cycle will repeat itself if we are not careful. If we don’t stop creating our brand, we cannot stop ourselves from creating a bubble around us. I’m so and so means I’m not so and so. I’m so and so means I act so and so; that people expect me to act so and so. This last part of the above sentence – that people expect me to act so and so soon becomes a heavy yoke to carry.
I’m reminded of Bob Dylan. In a documentary he recollects that though he became popular as a folk singer when he turned towards rock his fan base was angry with him. He simply did not care. If he wanted to play rock, he would play rock. If people wanted to listen to him, they could, or walk out. But, he would do what he wanted to do, not what his fans wanted, not that aligned with his brand. Was it risky? yes. He might’ve failed. But, which failure is greater? succeeding where his heart is no more? Or, failing, doing what he wanted to do?
Should you create a brand? Brand that is nothing but ego giving you identification or should you be more focused on living and doing what you want to do, what is right to do taking the ‘I’ out of the scenario?
I’m unlearning a lot of what I inculcated. I’m trying to be no one. I’m trying to remove the ‘I’ from my every interaction. I don’t think either I or anyone can remove ego out of the equation, but we can remove it atleast to some extent. The less of ‘I’ there is, the more of peace there is.
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