Creature of Inertia

Lately, I have been battling a severe addiction to social media and to watching TV to the point that I am frustrated of being on it too much. I have also been wanting to sleep a lot, and I have been indulging in sleeping as much as I can. I could argue that this is the beginning of my hibernation for the year, the rituals of the onset of the winter. Of course, I would much rather want to do it in a healthy manner, but I have realised I am a creature of inertia. I fall into the weaves of patterns and stay there until I tug myself out of them.

September was a tough month because of an extremely negative project at work, which thankfully closed down out of its own accord. I was working very long hours to the point of disturbed sleep and manufactured aimlessness. Most of my waking hours were spent on virtual meetings that seemed to go somewhere, and then, nowhere. When it ended, I did not heave a sigh of relief, but received a moment of clarity that this is not what life should be.

Due to the work situation, I did not meet my reading goals, which had me a little bummed out when I was reading The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante last week because her writing is so crystal clear, it reminds me why I have always wanted to write in the first place. In this book, she is writing about a really difficult subject of being left by her husband for another woman, but the texture of her prose shines through as good writing should. This book of hers reminds me of Rachel Cusk’s novel Outline in which she writes about being alone in a foreign city after leaving her husband. It seems as though some writing has the feel of cities, of the smell of the past, and a woman’s stream of consciousness. This is what I want from my own writing.

A saving grace last month was a girl’s trip we took through lush green of the Konkan roads in the monsoon. We drove down to a lake and were put up in boutique hotel at the lakeside. We talked, ate, kayaked in the lake, sat by a stream, and returned home. Overall, it was peaceful and serene. I took lots of pictures, beautiful, beautiful pictures, and the universe affirmed me that this is what life should be.

Trying to tug out of my inertia, after I returned, I looked up some places nearby where I could volunteer in an attempt to make better use of my time (and kick my social media addition by doing something useful with my time). While I did that, I helped with the creation of digital posters for a school kit donation drive that happens in the month of October every year. I also helped co-ordinate collection of some funds and it was lovely to be useful in a way that would mean something. And that is when it hit me. It seemed as though lately, I have been devoid of purpose, of meaning. Work being work would not afford me any meaning, specially if it is of the manufactured aimless kind. So, I suppose, I am gonna have to make my own meaning.

I am mindful that the seasons affect my body, my life, and that the monsoons were dark and grey, and my inner evolutionary sleepy bug was awakened. Now that we slowly slide towards winter, I want to lower my own expectations of myself. The flower buds I planted remind me of this dormancy. While they have sprouted, their green shoots coming out of the brown soil, they’re in no hurry to bloom. I, however, have always felt the need to be productive, to do something. This feeling remains, but it is now anchored by the need to have purpose. I am not wrestling or downtrodden by this need. It is sitting there feeling quite self-assured, and waiting for me to act on it.

While I explore what I would like to do next, I am taking it slow at the moment except for when my mind is captured by the dopamine hits, which I am curtailing by setting app limits. It is the foremost concern for me now. Everything else will fall into place. There’s so much happening in the world, too, and I would like to return to this blog to make sense of it, too. For now, I need to get myself out of this funk I gotten myself into – namely an overdose of screen time and lots of sleeping. I need the hours to be better occupied.

If I am to purposefully slow down for the winter, I would like to have more time on my hands to do it.

P.S: As I have reduced posting pictures on Instagram, the next post has some photos from the month that went by. Postcards from September.