Have you ever sat down on a winter afternoon and watched through the window, the sun rays on the neighbour’s walls, slanting and fading away? I don’t remember when I last did that. Probably when I was in primary school. Since then, never got the occasion to sit still and watch the sunrays fade away. ‘It’s a useless exercise and a waste of time, I can’t be sitting and watching this’ – I told myself. I know someone is working just now and getting ahead of me. I simply can’t, I shouldn’t. Why am I not busy? Busy in reading something, busy in writing something, busy in planning how to generate more revenue, busy in getting more followers and more likes and more everything? A close friend was telling me a few days ago that he read somewhere, ironically on social media itself, that we have moved from ‘human being’ to ‘human doing’ and that just hit hard.
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This is my year of experiment. I want to see how I function, observe myself more importantly. It’s about knowing my vices, addictions, my fears, or my weaknesses maybe; see if I can overcome them. There is a constant struggle you know. A struggle in my head with the thought that I have to be ‘useful’. But what is the use of being ‘useful’ if you are less of what you can actually be. And this is where my thoughts become messier. I mean if you have read this far you are as lost as I am but bear with me for just one more line – I will tell you my biggest addiction – ‘Attention seeker or maybe the need to just always be the center of attention.’
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What fed this addiction was Social media with nearly 50,000 followers. Just the perfect escape for it. Posted a photo on instagram and the insight would tell me that there are more than 300k views of it and more than 10,000 likes and that became my point of motivation. Oh yes! The 300 messages in inbox everyday filled with ‘you are such an inspiration and I love you and will you marry me’, the constant pressure to do something new, find the right hashtag and then monitor if your post is trending, the murmurs and the constant judging and the struggle to get back up and start again every single day was another story all together.
I decided I can’t take it anymore. And on the eve of my 39th birthday, I deleted Facebook and Instagram and stopped sharing my life with everyone. I decided I wanted a close group a handful of friends whom I can trust. The list got to more than 900 people on my WhatsApp. That was an overwhelming number and clearly I had to cut it short so I started to ask myself if I wanted to share my life with this person? The answer was a loud NO so often and a meek YES at other times but the answer was always there and I learnt to recognize it. The list is actually down to a handful of people and if you are reading this blogpost, you are one of those people I trust.
I don’t like the public part of my life. I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that I don’t trust anyone and also maybe I don’t like being preachy. I can’t tell anyone how to live their lives when I have no idea where mine is headed. It is like the new OSHOism with everyone on social media preaching something, one quote here – the opposite quote there or people just being adversarial. In the lockdown world, social media has suddenly taken up so much prominence. But do we really need that kind of attention? I certainly don’t know the answer to it but I don’t want it anymore.
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In my new experiment thus far, I am loving these handful friends I have with whom I feel comfortable sharing my life. A close group. For a person like me, it always felt impossible. Surrounded by so many friends, I was always outgoing, making friends easily and everyone was my best friend. I mean I have friends whom I met in the airport washroom a decade ago, like seriously who makes friends in the airport washroom? I never quite understood the concept of best friend back then and now I don’t understand the concept of friend.
There are these handful of people I talk to almost daily and I find my solace and the exact amount of motivation. There are these few people, I can count on my fingers, I go to them when I feel hurt, and they tell me how to deal with emotions. There are these very few people I tell my dreams and know that they will send good vibes my way. These few I cherish.
Sometimes on holidays or weekends, I don’t even feel the need to have a human being close to me or the need to communicate. I sit for hours in my own company, reading and contemplating – sometimes a caselaw, sometimes a legal proposition, sometimes life and sometimes I sit and watch the sunrays slanting and fading on the neighboring wall.
It is my New Life albeit a Slow Life.
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