writing – Page 7 – untitled atm

026a – have you tried turning it off and on again?

How do I explain anxiety to someone who’s never experienced it? How do I explain what it feels like to constantly be on edge, like I persistently have a reverse countdown or the reverse alphabet running in my head in the background? How do I explain why I’m not able to fall asleep even after 36 hours of being awake? And even if I’m able to explain it, does it achieve the purpose? What am I trying to achieve by making other people understand? What am I looking for? Sympathy, empathy, compassion? I get that regularly from most of my friends and family. I get a decent amount of it. Why do I have this need to for my anxiety to be “properly” understood?

I might need to look for a support group. I’ve had this on my list for ages but this is the first time I’ve written it out as a task to primarily focus on a few weeks down the line.

I was fully occupied this week with house-hunt and messed up sleep, so processing my feelings / writing took a huge hit, and I find myself suffering because of it. Definitely consumed a lot of media and I think that wasn’t great.

Already feeling a little better, thank you, me.

I need to be careful about how I spend my time because the moment my routine and sleep and food suffers, things start getting tough very quickly. I don’t think I’m able to judge my social needs very well. I end up spending time texting with people quite often in the day but I’m not sure if I need to or whether it’s actually doing me any good or just ending up being a zero value time-sink.

The anxiety medication (it’s been 5 weeks since I started it) has been helping a lot but the last two days have been high anxiety days. I missed a couple doses too which got me worried about whether that was the reason for them, but I’m also quite sure that’s not how it works.

Covid’s been weird in terms of bonding with colleagues at work. Being honest and vulnerable about some sensitive things with someone you’ve never met is quite difficult, even if you keep doing it repeatedly. I wanna say it gets easier each time you do it, but honestly, the difference is so minimal it barely feels noticeable.
Of course, grand scheme of things – nothing matters, or it doesn’t matter as much as I think it does, blah blah blah.

I want to be able to fall asleep without having to do this. I know it’s okay to use writing as a tool to feel better, but I feel weird to think I’m almost dependent on it? Or maybe it’s the kind of a need that’s similar to physical exercise and it’s probably okay to have a need like that.. This barely took twenty minutes so I suppose I could find that time a couple times a week.

025 – spring cleaning

Well, Friday’s here. I’ve had a good week so far. I’ve been wanting to write a post about photography but I think I want that to be a little more organized than most of my other posts. I want it to be readable and I want to be able to share it with a group of people who I think might want to read it or could get some value out of it. For that, I’ll probably have to put in a little more effort than simply writing on a whim. I have notes and content, so I’m not too worried about that, it’s just the structuring that’ll require some effort.

One thing I’m learning about “good” and “bad” weeks is that good weeks require slowing down and reflection as much as the bad ones do. It’s quite easy to get carried away in the general easiness of things sometimes and I worry about how that might leave me in a worse place than a bad week by itself might have. While anxiety generally makes it hard for me to let things go, I at least end up completing my goals and tasks most of the times. When the anxiety’s not around, I often end up living “too” much in the present. I suppose it’s a constant battle to manage the short-term and the long-term. Or maybe this is just the anxiety talking again.

I’ve got an apartment move coming up ahead, and the decision making over it has completely fried my brain. The budget decisions, the wants, the fitting my wants within my budget, it’s all quite exhausting. Fortunately, work’s been a little light this week so I’ve managed to do a bit of house hunting. It’s terribly windy outside, I wish that weren’t the case. I’d have loved to take a walk right now. I went downstairs and had to come back up within five minutes is how chilly it was.

I finally figured out how to add “top posts” and “tag cloud” widgets to this webpage so that’s kinda cool. I don’t know why I’d been struggling with that earlier. The thing I’m unhappy about though is that I wanted to list out of my top posts based on views, but that only takes into account the views from 48 hours and not all-time views, so I had to list them out by likes instead.

On the work front, my repressed interests in product management have come up to the surface again. I’ve always thought that I care more about the “what and the why”s of a product rather than the “how”s. But the thing I don’t love about product management jobs is that they definitely seem to involve a LOT of multi-tasking, organization and meetings, and I don’t know if that’s something I’d enjoy. Thankfully this isn’t a completely uncommon switch that people make, so I know I can find enough material to help me think about this and figure out if makes sense for me.

In other good things, my heart’s been warmed by how much great queer representation I’ve been seeing in the media these days! I was making my mom watch Atypical, which literally has one of the cutest wlw arcs. Followed by Ginny and Georgia, it completely blew me by surprise, and Sara Weisglass does such a phenomenal job in it. Lastly, from the motherland – Bombay Begums – again, very surprised they handled a queer arc gracefully. Have to say it again, my heart’s so full. I was thinking about how the word “representation” doesn’t fully capture the value it actually holds. Representation doesn’t just mean “seeing” more kinds of people and diverse storylines – it basically implies “resonating” with them. Quality representation of diverse emotions is probably an important goal that the word by itself doesn’t convey.

I think a cool thing about writing one of these is that often at some point halfway through I remember everything that’s bothering me about the “things I haven’t done” or the things I haven’t planned for, and I’m almost forced to step out of this and make that list I’m always putting off. Because if I don’t do that, I’d either end up writing out of my feelings about those tasks in the post, or I’d end up giving up the post at that point. And since I know I don’t want to do either of those things, I end up making that list. Which actually ends up helping a ton.

Well, Sunday’s here now and I had a pretty great weekend. It was productive when it comes to my personal goals, it was relaxing, and it was social – it was everything I could ask for in a weekend. No crises this week and I’m quite happy about that. I don’t have much to write about tonight so I’m going to use the last chunk of this post to note that I’m in a good place with my “hobbies” now. I think I’m at the place where I can all all three of photography, music and writing a regular hobby that I find that I’ve been able to stick do and do somewhat regularly. Regularly enough to not really lose touch with all of them. I think the next thing I need to do is setup some good workflows for my work work, so I can make sure to not get lost or off track on that. I also want to set some financial goals and see if I can become a little smarter about my finances so I don’t have to worry about them too often. The next thing I want to take care of my health, I’ve been doing much better from a month ago but I want to take some time to reflect on it.

Word vomit’s done. What should I call it?

021b – cigarettes, shame and the anxious brain

Had a cigarette right now. Been thinking about how the last pack had lasted me more than a year. Which averaged like 2 cigarettes a month. One of my friends said that’s okay since you gotta feel French once in a while. This pack however lasted me around two months. Which averages to roughly 2 cigarettes a week. Not happy with this but I want to plan to not buy another pack unless I’m spending it with friends. Having a pack to myself definitely made it much easier for my frequency to increase.

Wondering what feels so good about smoking. I had to resist myself from lighting another one up when one ended. I managed to, and I feel good about it. But there’s a big doer energy in me right after smoking. I feel good, I feel optimistic, I feel hopeful. I want to feel this way from other things. I want to remember that this temporary relief isn’t natural. That it’s just that – temporary relief, temporary goodness.

Was researching a little bit last night and it does look like the nicotine stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, so it’d make sense why I’ve been craving it more often these days. Don’t know enough neurochemistry to jam on this but I’m definitely curious about what’s special about this chemical.

I’d been feeling a lot of shame around smoking, however. I managed to separate it out into a) a worry about it becoming an addiction, b) cultural and societal shame around it. So for starters, it’s also nice to be able to smoke without feeling the shame associated with it. I feel like as long as I was feeling the shame, I was also wanting to smoke more. It’s natural to want things you can’t have, right? Once you remove the barriers to getting something, you can plainly see how much you want it. Honestly, it feels easier to let go of it once I ditch that emotion of “can’t have”.

I’m not sure how I feel about publishing something related to smoking on this blog, but since I know I’m kind of following a full-disclosure policy with stuff I write, I know if I don’t publish this, I’d be doing that out of (you guessed it) shame. So I suppose it’s worth completing this and hitting publish.

Since I gotta add around 200 words more – I was thinking about how the anxious brain is never out of thoughts. If my anxiety is cured, what will I write about? Will I still have thoughts to share? There’s definitely a part of me that has been anxious and coping with anxiety for so long that a lot of my identity has been shaped by it (even though I’ve tried hard for it to not be the case). There’s a lot of “good” sides to anxiety, being able to have very sharp focus when stressed, having a ton of foresight, “remembering” a lot? And of course I’m curious (or worried even?) about whether those “good” things will go away if I’m not feeling regularly anxious anymore. Thankfully, someone has written a nice, well-researched post about this as well. And thankfully, I don’t write or do creative work for a living, so I probably don’t have to worry about this as much as those people might have had to. I like the conclusion there, I can probably treat it as an experiment. If I never try, I’ll never know. Maybe everything is an experiment anyway. Like publishing this post.

020b – 20,000 words + keep connecting the dots

Well, after this post I’ll have written 20k words in the last month, and I’m kind of proud of having reached this milestone! I know the pace for the rest 80k is almost certainly not going to be the same, not even sure if I’ll reach that point, but it’s good to have come so far. I think I can afford to reward myself with another meta-post.

Words flow easier now, thoughts get stylized easier too. Maybe some of it is placebo, maybe some of it’s real. Regardless, I love it. It’s definitely easier to write a 500 word post as opposed to a 1000 word post, but it’s a compromise I’m okay making from time to time. Happy that it allows me to keep moving.

I have more drafts sitting in my word editors now, I have more half-formed stories waiting to be completed. It’s a good feeling. I have enjoyed this process with photography and music before, but it’s nice to be able to enjoy it with writing too. Part of me worries that at some point I’ll get sick of writing meta-posts and sick of writing about my own thoughts and feelings, but another part of me knows that when (or if) I weed through all of it some fun stuff might come up too.

Since I’m sitting here reflecting again, I want to think about the few things that might keep me going forward:

Creating feedback loops for writing more
Thinking about what people might want to read
Organizing and structuring more / Writing about a single topic as opposed to only free-writing
Not being afraid of writing about scarier (for the lack of a better word) topics like loneliness, heartbreak, sadness, depression, anxiety, therapy (I do a decent amount of it but it’s still not enough.)

I’m watching my mother go crazy with knitting (a hobby she picked back up recently, after many years) and I feel aligned with this stint of hers in some ways. She makes a clothing item a day, I write a post once every few days. It’s all about connecting the dots, isn’t it? Dots that don’t necessarily connect for anyone else, except perhaps our own selves.

Sometimes I think everything can connect, if you want it to. Every little action can be a metaphor, every word a story. Every story a goldmine, every person a landscape. Every landscape art, every piece of art magic.

Don’t really have much to write about anymore so I’m distracting myself with food and coffee. Not the best idea, perhaps. But it’s not that easy to write a 100 words more when you’re kind of out of thoughts.
I’ve been going on a lot of walks lately, it’s a nice habit that I want to keep up. Getting that time and space to think, think about difficult things without necessarily having to feel the related physical feelings. It’s peaceful in a way very few activities can be.

018b – thoughts are cheap, my darling

She sits in a chair and looks at the pink lilies sitting on the table. She’s divided them into different bottles since she didn’t have a vase to put them out into, but she’s happy with the arrangement. She’s grateful for the one who helped her pick them out, she’s not sure if she’d have bought them if she was alone. She doesn’t fully get why these small acts of kindness make her so happy, but they do. She feels a little silly when she thinks about all of this, but she’s also happy it’s generating words for her.

Night time’s precious to her, it always has been. She tries to conform to societal rhythms to function better but she just does so much better from the hours of ten and three. She now thinks of it with the context of her generalized anxiety, and it makes much more sense. Lesser interruptions, fewer people demanding things from her, lesser accountability, fewer things for her to solve..

She doesn’t actually have problems with focus. She knows she’s good at focusing for hours on end if the conditions are right. Conditions that the night easily provides. She doesn’t think it’s super sustainable though, since waking up around eleven in the morning leaves her with little time to chase the sun.

She’s been using these friendly hours to write lately, but she might have to consider using them to catch up with some of the work from her day job. It’s quite ironic, she knows that.

Even the motorbikes don’t sound as noisy when she’s writing about them at 12 am. They drive her crazy at 7 pm though. She wonders if if she can use the flexibility of working remotely to her advantage. She knows she was enjoying it all when they’d just started out, almost a year ago. She doesn’t know when it all went haywire.

One thing she likes about the act of writing is how she can go from “thinking” to “doing” without much effort. She knows it’s almost common knowledge how thinking is easier than doing, and writing allows her to become a doer, for whatever it’s worth. Even if it’s often a thought dump, she likes how she ends up with something to show for it. For the time she spends thinking said thoughts.

It wasn’t easy tonight. She got distracted multiple times, she got distracted by the internet, she got distracted by tiny chores. But at some level, she knew it would happen as long as she came back to it. She recently read something about how there’s five elements to the human experience. These are – the form, the perception, the feelings, the mentality and the awareness. She thinks when she writes like this she’s almost speaking from the awareness’s perspective. It’s interesting to her, she almost becomes detached from the other four. And maybe she does. She likes to believe she does. When one becomes detached from the other four, they’re left with a purified form of awareness, she’s heard them say. She likes the idea of it. Ideally though, she’d want to be detached from the awareness as well. But it’s okay if that’s too far into the future.

She knows she’s taking it one week at a time, one day at a time, a few paragraphs at a time. That’s all she can do, really.

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References: [1]

015a – a rainy summer San Francisco afternoon

It’s a rainy afternoon. She looks out the window towards the buildings and the skyline she’s been seeing for over a year now. She can’t help but think of how it’s only been a few months since she’s started associating them with the feeling of “home”. For the first time in months today, she sees them from a different angle. For the first time in months, they catch her eye and invoke that feeling of newness, the feeling she thinks one can only get in hotel rooms in new cities. The feeling one can get if they were to look out of windows of such hotel rooms. It’s mysterious, adventurous, inviting, all in a single frame. She thinks the mystery comes from what she’s looking at, not from where she is. It’s mysterious because she’s not there, because she can only look at it. There’s a part of her that feels anxious about stepping out of the house. She might have wanted to walk towards the buildings otherwise.

There’s one in particular that stands out among the others. Brick red in a sea of beige and grey. As the sun steps out to test the waters, her feelings fade away a little. Almost as if they don’t want to be examined in good lighting. Almost as if they’re afraid of being seen. She thinks they faded since the former gloominess had reminded her of a certain few days in Italy. A certain few days with her parents a couple years ago. It was the last time she remembers being awed by the newness of a place.

Things had changed quite a bit a few months later. She’d started feeling much more anxious much more often. She would almost always feel less present in situations. Less focused on the things around her, since a big part of her attention would almost always be on herself. It was the result of what her anxiety was centered around. Or so she thinks.

It’s still beautiful outside, yet she notices herself coming back into her own thoughts. There’s been no visible change, but she’s transitioned to a different person in a single moment. A moment ago she was fully consumed by the beauty of everything outside of herself. Now she’s only interested in everything related to herself.

She notices how her window (that she’d earlier propped fully open to capture of a picture of the said view) is now stuck and doesn’t close. She notices how she’s wishing for some food to make the observing experience better. She notices how her room’s cluttered and suddenly she’s disillusioned. Or as some would say, re-illusioned.

She feels lost in thoughts. She doesn’t feel like there’s a point to what she’s seeing or doing. She knows the feelings that had come up were precious to her, and there’s a part of her that wanted to stay in them, understand them, and maybe even share them. She wishes she could make someone else feel the same way. She thinks that’s crazy, she doesn’t think she has the skills to make that happen. But there’s something that’s not letting her move on to the next block of the day. She’s trying to write and she doesn’t want to stop, she doesn’t want to get up and order food or whatever. She wants to stay here. She wants to go back thirty minutes in time and feel all of this all over again.

She’s grateful for the circumstances that have allowed her to stay home this week. She’s grateful that her anxiety didn’t come up everyday for a whole seven days, she thinks that’s what allowed these feelings to come up at all, and for her to notice them, and for her to be able to stay with them. She’s amazed by how she’s been overwhelmed by a “positive” emotion after ages. She knows this was happiness, though she also knows that it’s gone, at least for the time-being.

She almost wishes the sky would be gloomy again.

010 – reflecting on writing or expression

Probably about to reach ten posts soon. It’s been a fun week, I know the pace isn’t sustainable for me but it’s been fun to find that excitement. I’m at that point where I can allow myself to think a little bit about the meta-questions that are coming up. I am not super sure about having too many meta-posts on here, but again.. can’t really care about all of that right now, right? Gotta keep playing the numbers game.

So, who am I writing (expressing) for? Do I want other people to read this? Why do I want them to read this? If I do want them to read this, what value can I give to them? Do I need to start thinking about the topics that I’m writing about? Some of the surface level thoughts and feelings are done, how do I be okay with diving in deeper? I also noticed how the first post isn’t visible on the home page anymore, I don’t really feel like investing time in making sure all posts are easily accessible, but I think I’m probably going to have to.

Now that I’ve asked these questions, might as well attempt answering them. *sigh*

Who am I writing (expressing) for?

Pretty much myself. I have a need (want) to express, to feel heard and to feel seen. And my current “listeners” (friends, family, therapist) are unable to fulfill that need well enough. Writing and sharing it out into the world makes me feel like I’m somehow addressing that need, even if I don’t always get immediate engagement or the pleasure of truly knowing that that’s happening. But it’s a gut thing, a feelings thing – and it’s working, at least so far. Plus, I have my (potentially) meaningless goal of quantity that I also get to chase.

Do I want other people to read this?

Well, now that I’ve brought up the desire to feel seen and heard, I’d say yes. I also find myself sharing a few of these with people whose opinions I value or care about. So, yes, I think I definitely have started wanting people’s eyes on these.

Why do I want them to read this?

This is the tough question, isn’t it? Again, wanting to feel seen and heard. Validation. Engagement? Potential conversations? I did feel really warm when a couple of people messaged me telling me how some of the stuff I shared resonated with them. That was a nice feeling. But I think when it happens organically, it’s better. Not sure whether this is true. Why does the value of their attention reduce if I ask them for it? Does it? Unsure whether I do feel this way or not.

If I do want them to read this, what value can I give to them?

This is probably quite tough. I know a lot of amazing people have thought and written about this, so I’m sure I’m going to have to do some research on this one. Right now, I feel like the only people who’re probably going to want to read anything I’m expressing are mostly the people who I already know or have a relationship with – the people who want to get to know me. This is not true, though. I’ve had some strangers read some of the stuff I’ve written. And they’ve found that they were able to connect or resonate with some of it.

I think.. maybe honesty is the only value I can give to them, right now. I could want to educate people on topics that I care about, as well. I know for sure that there’s a big market for mental health education, LGBT dialog and education, specially in South Asian culture!
Pretty much every-time I’ve come out to someone about both mental health or sexuality, I’ve often received the same comment – something about how brave I am. Sometimes that bothers me (more on that in a separate post, someday), but mostly I think it comes from the fact that there’s 👏 not 👏 enough 👏 representation.

I know I have some the tools one generally needs for this to work (this is based on feedback that I’ve sometimes received, but also things I feel about myself haha). That’s not to say one always needs all of these to exist, but I’m sure they’re good-to-haves.

Clarity
Relatability
Honesty + Vulnerability (albeit intentional)
Empathy
Passion, care, a personal interest (I’ve heard that this one generally matters the most)

What I would need, additionally

Feedback loops
More experience, more of me being out there doing and feeling things again and again, can’t just keep exhausting what I already have, need to diversify with newness from time to time

Do I need to start thinking about the topics that I’m writing about?

Probably don’t need to worry about this, whatever comes naturally is probably the best thing to talk about. Can’t really afford to, at this point either. I can only see that hampering my pace.

Some of the surface level thoughts and feelings are done, how do I be okay with diving in deeper?

This one’s quite tough as well. I think it’s the same thing again, the deeper I go, the more vulnerable I’ll have to be. But I think like before, the only way out is through.

Anything else that comes up?

One thing I don’t really enjoy is doing research. I often find myself getting lost when I try to look up what already exists about a certain topic. Sometimes I get discouraged because “so much” already exists about everything – who’s going to want to read “more” of it? I know we all have this unnecessary need to be original and unique. We forget that we are being unique, regardless of whether someone else has already talked about it. This is why I’ve mostly only written about personal thoughts and feelings so far, research gets daunting, it reduces the excitement. I might have to address this, I’ll probably have to think about what the motivators and benefits of (good?) research could be. Then I also think about how sometimes I’ve come across really amazing things (art, writings, concepts, projects) on the Internet which have often inspired me to do things. I guess always checking in with self could work. It’s going to have to be like any other process, anything can get daunting and tiring from time to time. Maybe I have a general clouded “negative” idea of research. Maybe if I did it with a fresh outlook, for things that I care about, and things I know that I care about, maybe it’ll be different? It’s possible.

008a – appreciation for the sea

She stands at the edge of the pier, staring into the water the surface of which glistens brightly under the evening sky. She wishes the waves would meet her eyes and bring answers to questions she doesn’t know she has. Another lost soul makes its way to where she stands, but she doesn’t turn around – she fears she’ll see herself in them. She doesn’t turn around, she fears she might have to acknowledge their presence, she’s not done grieving the lost ones yet. She stares into the sea, hoping it’s her desperation that’s making it talk, and not the moon that’s barely visible tonight.

She hears voices float towards her from a little far away, a family of four out for fun, out practicing, trying to catch fish. She hears the voices but she doesn’t pay attention to them, she’s hoping the ripples and the waves will somehow fuse to make the sound that she really wants to hear. The sounds of the lost ones.

She’s been coming here for the last seven days, seeking and saying goodbye at the same time. She fears being recognized. She thinks if someone saw her twice they’d know what was happening, they’d know she’s been grieving. She’s shared her grief with everyone who’s listened, yet tonight she doesn’t want to be seen. Not unless that can bring her comfort.

She’s listened to Atlas Hands for hours and she’s found comfort in the idea of a shared external world. She cannot reach the moon or the stars but she can get pretty close to the sea. This is the first time in years she’s glad she lives near the water. This is the first time she’s fully appreciated the sea and all it can be and everything it can mean.

She is falling in love again. She is transferring her love for another heart into the sea. She tries to draw the meaning out of the memories and pour it all out into the sea, where it can dissolve with the water and free her a little bit. She’s been doing this for seven days, or seventy, she’s not really sure.

She starts making her way back to her house, there’s real life she needs to get back to. She doesn’t really want to go back, it’s peaceful outside. There’s a homeless man sleeping near a sidewalk, she wonders if she’d ever survive a life like that. She sees a group of homeless men talking and laughing. She wonders if, in this moment, they’re happier than she feels. She pays attention to people on her way back. She feels drawn to them, in ways she can’t always describe to other people. She moves slowly, as if in a movie. Everything she perceives feels beautiful. Every noise musical, every movement graceful.

She’s making room for the new ones and she doesn’t know it yet. She doesn’t know she’ll be thinking about this night a couple months later from now. She’s found meaning in life all by herself and she doesn’t know it yet.

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Credits: 1 2 3