Being: Random Scribbles
This is a small series of notes that I write when I feel a bit disheveled in life. Just the comb to shape the top of my head.
Of Existential Apples
The apple does not fall far from the tree. That is a powerful statement. I am attracted to the word, fall. To make this sense of this, the apple has to first fall. For that, the tree has to let go. Without that action of letting go and falling, the context does not get created. The most powerful act is sometimes, just being.
We have the urge to act, sometimes, to make things happen. We know that we don’t control everything in life. The guilt, anxiety, and regrets come from running at a pace that we can’t. Every human is first being and then doing… so learning to be — discovering one’s journey — looking within, looking around, up and down, smiling, taking that deep breath, staring at the sunrises and sunsets, the flowers swaying in the breeze, stars and the rainbows.
The beauty of life is there for everyone willing to see, listen to, feel, and experience. Breathe in, breathe out. Connect with the universe. Work never dies. We do. So, while we are alive, first let us BE. Being is the first in living.
Sighing is a sign of life
How many times have you felt that life could have been different? How many times things don’t go your way? What if your loved ones feel different, and there is some disagreement? How many times have you held back when you wanted to say a word or two, yet bottled it all up because it would spoil a relationship? I have, often. My only response to these situations has been a sigh.
A sigh is the best way of letting go — a break from those torrent of frustrating thoughts; a full stop in the long garbled sentence that we frame in our minds. You may write another sentence or continue your long paragraph, but a sigh has done its job. Notice that the sigh is warmer than your typical breath — that is the proverbial steam from whatever is cooking you inside.
A sigh also signifies that we must pause delving into this quicksand of wrecking thoughts. Sighing is a sign that you should let go and walk away — get into something else. A sigh is the peak of worry — the volcanic eruption of those frustrations that have built up, yet unspoken. I did not realize that I had been sighing so often, and it took me some more — to write and vent, or just move on with other things. That is why breathing is a powerful indicator of your mental state and the experts espouse meditation and breathing exercises.
Closed eyes, cutting off the senses, and focusing on breathing bring us to our presence within us. It is like coming home and holding on to the barge pole of life — when everything is taken away from us, the only thing that remains with us is ourselves — and that is our breath — the sign of our life. Let us not underestimate the connection between our lives, the way we live, and our breath.
Fired to Write
Most of us have seen many New Year’s. I have seen 50 this year. Every year, I look forward to the year in hope, and I wish things change a bit — a wee bit. Sometimes, things don’t change. Same place, same people, same problems. It feels like I am stuck in a cage, sometimes, to the extent I want to release the life bird in my rib cage. Then, I write. The bird stays in the cage for the moment and next.
I am writing three books now — I am best when broken. The two books I last finished in a breath, in a series of sleepless nights, were when my mother was hospitalized. Sitting in her room, as she headed towards her inevitable, I wrote Bachelor’s Wife and then after she had gone, I wrote my next book ‘Stories from the City of Joy’. Both are not in my hands now (my editor is on it).
As 2025 starts, I feel the same — while nothing external has happened, I burn inside. It is a fire that I haven’t stoked, it started burning on its own accord. But the fire is the sign for me to sit in its warmth, and write my pieces, the pieces that come together as the three books. I don’t know where these will end, but, for now, it is the hearth and me. Someday, this will all make sense — the fire and the writing. For now, I will just soak and let my fingers dance on the keyboard.
~Random Scribbles, Ashok Subramanian © 2024
