Packer’s Block

 November 28, 2023

 

Writer’s block, packer’s or rather a packing block are the same, right? Same but different. The procrastination is the same, sort of, not really. It is funny – that I chose to write a post to overcome packer’s block when I’ve been in a phase of a writer’s block for a couple of months. I have written 20 mins, 5 days a week, at my desk, and at least one longer period in a café every week.  Just to keep the practice — you know like at least do your kata or throw some punches and kicks even when flooded with other things or slightly unwell. Of course, what’s emerged on the page is crap, but the act of watching words in different coloured inks, emerge from different nibs, of different fountain pens, is soothing. 

 

At the writer’s fest this weekend — I allowed that creative procrastination for myself before fully plunging into packing — two friends and I sat at a Starbucks, and had a conversation about our journal writing. They said when they felt bleah… they’d write bleah, bleah, bleah, bleah for lines and lines and even pages and pages. I said, I didn’t do that, but I drew pics of the bleah. A face tearing its hair out, a face crushed in the vice like grip of giant hands, a body drooping almost flat on the floor. My journal is full of these little diagrams. It was lovely meeting those friends I hadn’t seen in months and talking about how we process difficult states on the page. 

 

And then Monday morning, I decided to visit the GP. Overdue blood test and my bladder area had been hurting for a week, maybe two. Urine sample submitted and sachets of some effervescence, alkalinizing, granules collected. Began to feel less sore after just the first sachet. 

 

It was good to get away from the thoughts of packing even though it was merely to the GP who I normally put off visiting. (Oh, I also made that overdue appointment to see the gastro specialist this week, big grin). A humungous eggs and pancakes meal to break the fast, and an hour of writing – mostly rubbish. I didn’t mention packing once. I may have written about Spivak, Winterson, and Sissay (a new find), standouts from the writer’s fest. Maybe some sense in the rubbish then. I may have written about going to Think at Funan (after all it is right opposite the Art’s House) and spending a half hour trying broad nibs at the fountain pen counter. Some joy in the bleah. A pen, and two small bottles of ink came home with me. 

 

Hmm… so after a walk home in the scorching sun, and a cool shower, I fell asleep, waking to see a shadow under the front door. Somebody obviously had left something there. I ignored it and drank another sachet and settled down to read a book, I hadn’t picked up in weeks but was now due at the library — panicking only when the spouse messaged that the mover had left boxes outside! A day earlier then he was supposed to! Oh no! A day too early!!

 

How could he mess me up like this. I was wide awake until 2 am, trying to not think of those yet flat boxes in the living room, with tape and bubble wrap on top of them. They floated in and in and in, especially when I was dozing off. If only they had arrived when they were supposed to, I wouldn't be messed up. 

 

This morning they had to be confronted. Spouse said, we can begin tomorrow. But one, oh let’s do two, had to be unfolded, taped up, and will be filled later today. The top shelf of the bookshelf in my bedroom is a good place to start. If books, only fill half and put lighter stuff on top, the mover had said. So what goes on top? I sit around thinking about it. I drink a second cup of tea. I fill orange sailor shikiori ink, mokusei, in my aubergine slim PG. I test it out and draw flowers all over one page. The inks of course will only be packed on the day before they would be moved. 

 

At my desk I make a grid of dates and times. Then I start making lists. Virgoans manage anxiety through lists. Many non-Virgoans do too. I will eat lunch of-course and make a few more lists. Very detailed and none of those details will happen the way I write them, I know that already, but the list helps anyway. I will throw a few punches and kicks a bit after lunch and then put in at least six books into one box. I have convinced myself that once I start the path will clearly show up. Just like when we write one word, one line, on a blank page, more follow. 

 

My mum has consulted the stars and told us December 7^th is a good day for Graha Pravesh — entering the home. We will take over a set of clothes and something we love (a pen or notebook for me obviously) to leave in the apartment. We will light candles and leave water and something sweet in the kitchen. Walk around smiling at how it has turned out. Only one fight during the renovation — over the colour of paint in the rooms. After twenty-four hours the spouse, his office is only three bus stops away from this new home, will go over and drink the water and eat the sweets. And on December 14^th the movers will empty this apartment on Tanjong Rhu road, that we have lived in for sixteen years, and fill up the other on Depot road. Who knows how long we will live there? 

 

Of course between now and then a zillion things will need to be done to be able to spend the first night there on the 14^th.  Hopefully I will procrastinate less and less and work more on those boxes.

Acts of Kindness

October 5, 2023

 

I received a small act of kindness today which ‘lit up’ my dark, heavy mind-body.

 

Since I’ve been struck with covid, the heaviness I have been feeling all year has amplified. My body feels damaged, in need to healing. In the slowness and in the deprivation of smell and taste (answered that question about their purpose – at least partially) that covid brought I have been able to focus, on the mass of emotions scattering me away daily, and on observing minutely my inner processes and reactions to people and things, and simply days. It may feel very self-absorbed, but I am one of those people who believe that the un-examined life is not worth living. The things I gravitated towards for ‘happiness’, like my pen lover groups, lit up my brain but also created a craving that was obsessive and which dragged me back into darker energies. The books I read — working through the booker list — made me feel deeply and so enhanced that sense and so deepened the effect of emotions. Lose one sense and another lights up? Anyway my emotions lead me to some truths I had needed to re-remember. But that is not what I am writing about today. 

 

Two days ago, an horrible, a un-democratic, an authoritarian, thing happened in New Delhi. Hundreds of policemen swept into the homes of about 45 journalists who are employed by NewsClick, or freelance with them, at 6:30 am and without warrants seized their devices and questioned them for hours. Some were taken into the police station and later released but two were booked under anti-terror laws for promoting hatred and inciting violence and for seditious acts. The yet unproven charge that these journalists were funded by China and were spreading anti-India propaganda for it is being peddled by all government media, which is most large media in the country today. They don’t need proof but have already started showing charts of those who received the money. Activists critical of the government are part of these charts.

 

And they are quoting a recent New York Times article which linked NewsClick to an American man of Sri Lankan origin who is claimed to be a propogandists for China. Strange that he has not been charged by any American agency for the same, but India deems it necessary to arrest two and confiscate the devices of many others associated with the media agency that he is alleged to have funded. 

 

The  journalists were questioned about things they reported on over the last years. Did you report on the Delhi riots? Yes. Did you cover the farmer’s protests? Yes. Did you report on JNU? Yes. Their reports are in the public domain and anyway journalists report on happenings so there is nothing out of the ordinary about reporting on any of the above. They were asked if they had communicated — phone calls, whatsapps, or emails with people in the UK, US, Australia. Who doesn’t these days? They were not informed about the charges on which they were questioned and even the ones arrested haven’t been told what they have been booked for. If you don’t know the exact charges, how can you counter them or even prepare a bail application?

 

Many are calling this an undeclared emergency. But many, more than many, who have been slowly boiled by this government so they can’t feel the boiling water the nation is drowning in now — are scoffing at those of us saying this is more dangerous than the declared emergency. They even call us anti-India. They thump their chests and say, Yeah, who’s next.  All this merely because those journalists and small fry like me speak “Truth to Power”. 

 

It doesn’t surprise me that the government, and I mean any government, will go to strange lengths to keep power and to control the narrative. It doesn’t surprise me that they have tamed a fleet of loyalists who call themselves journalists to bark out their misinformation. It doesn’t surprise me that they will misuse agencies to go after their critics. It has happened before in my country and I never expected anything less from the BJP — more corrupt and power thirsty than anyone, anything, that’s come before. 

 

It does surprise me that my fellow Indians do not rage against this dying of democratic rights. That they slide peacefully into it. That even those who think themselves critical thinkers and intellectuals simply whimper out the same narrative. Though there is no evidence provided yet that there was funding from China they do daily shows that say, Yes the press should be free, but China funding is the ‘Laxman Rekha’. Those arrested are presumed guilty without proof and we are told instead to presume innocence would be wrong. 

 

I felt compelled to write this before I go into my cave for the next months. My body is constantly challenging me. Yesterday my fever spiked for no reason, and I was left quite unable to do anything useful. My mind is often oppressed by the brain fog and dodgy memory that many have spoken about post covid but oppressed even more by what penetrates the fog, and what memory cannot forget. My mind is oppressed by these acts of authoritarianism, of show of power, of bullying all those who criticize. It darkens the brain-space and pulls it into depressive, hopeless depths, and the same feeling then spreads to personal hopes. Will I ever get better? Will I ever be properly functioning? Will I overcome all this that pushes down?

 

Tomorrow I am grading two students in the dojo. One of my seniors has ordered a supply of belts so we can present them to the successful candidates. Only yesterday we realized that he was out of one of the colours I needed and that the one store close to me also didn’t have that coloured belt. I decided to order them online so at least I’d have it for next week, but on a small hope I asked the BJJ and Capoeira instructor I rent space from if he had a belt that I could buy from him. This instructor specially went to a martial arts shop and bought one for me. He will leave it in the gym where I can find it. 

 

This act — a small act, a huge act, you decide — of kindness lifted me up and out of the quicksand my brain had become. It lit up the inner space. I felt hope. For me the shift this accomplished was huge. 

 

Acts of kindness — sometimes when I do something small for someone the way they receive it surprises me. Their response to something tiny is so warm and filled with gratitude. Small acts for you may be huge for someone else. I know there are multiple stories like this in ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ type books and all religions encourage them. I know that I am not saying anything new here. 

 

But I wanted to share my story and the gratitude I felt today which lit up my brain space.

 

My body-mind controlled by the personal covid shut-down is directing me to hermit it out for a while. I have responsibilities I won’t turn away from but other than that I will be in a retreat. Perhaps even some sort of fast to cleanse my beleaguered mind-body system. So this is my last post here for a while. 

Covid and Me

October 2, 2023

 Slow, slow, slow recovery. Each day it shows me how I cannot rush it.

A friend wrote on my FB Covid post, Enjoy the forced rest. I was like, No, no, no. I hate forced rest! I prefer to pick when to rest. But the problem has been that I haven't been able to allow myself rest. I have noticed that when I need it the most is often when I don't allow myself rest. 

 

But now I am loving the rest. Just what I needed and wanted but was scared to have. It was easier to stay occupied than sort out the flow of thoughts and feelings floating through and through and through over these hours, and days, and months. Ya, so easy to see what Covid’s purpose is in my life, my current life, is. So easy. To know myself better. To observe the way my mind works and reacts. But I still can’t figure out the purpose of losing smell and taste. I like asking that question though. What is the purpose of losing my smell and taste? 

 

I have read, watched news, and lusted after fountain pens during these weeks. I have had terrible symptoms — both gastric and respiratory but the worst has been the moments of  blank mind. Total disappearance of memory and thought. It made me cry yesterday. 

This weekend, I went to karate and kobudo. Only 30% effort but still I was exhausted, and in the middle of doing a sai kata the next steps vanished. I stood still on the black padded mats, feeling so foolish and when memory returned with some help from Sensei, I finished quickly and vigourously. Angrily. 

 

But to go back to How I Survived Covid — it was by looking at fountain pens and inks. And telling myself that if only I had ‘that’ pen I would not be depressed. That I would get through these days easier. And convincing myself that playing with it would take me away from my anxiety. Absolutely the wrong reason to buy a pen, and I resisted. I did browse a local website and write in for a quotation for one of their pens, and they replied. How often I had that impulse, to buy a new pen, and still have it, frightens me. But it did help me get through the worst of covid. My sweet, patient, spouse, listened to my pen obsessing mind. 

 

This morning I wrote in my journal. I used the vibrant Platinum Silky Purple ink in a fine nib. I wrote — I woke depressed and with an anxiety dream. Don’t know why sometimes I feel like owning something new and pretty will make me happy but I also know that those are the times when nothing will in fact make me happy. 

Today I made a cup of black tea in one of my Irish teacups.

 (A wedding present from my spouse’s Irish aunt. Hand painted and each one unique — so pretty. Today’s was one with a floral design in bright pink, purple, and deep blue, with green leaves and gold trimmings.) 

I wrote in the journal —  It was one of my almost favourite ones and it made me happy, but I also found fault with it. I didn’t pour in the right amount of water. 

And of course I can’t smell or taste my beloved Ceylon tea.  

 

Hard to 'see' happiness when the body is ailing. But it is there.

 

I did play during these days with a Lamy 1.9 stub nib I hadn’t used before, and some new inks. This brought minutes of happiness, and I discovered my fountain pen profile. I like looking at every pen that exists — from a $5 Platinum Preppy to those exorbitant pens costing as much as $65,000 and probably more — and every ink that is shared on the fountain pen lover groups I am in. But I don’t like glimmer inks in my own pens and my pen preference is monochrome. I especially like black pens with rhodium trims. And sometimes I want to fill a pen of every nib size I own with black ink and only use those. I don’t do that — as I know I will miss vibrant colours after just an eye-blink.

 

In my dream last night… I had a party in a home, my home, and people I hadn’t invited kept showing up. Then I went to the front door of the building to say goodbye to the last guests and when I returned, I unlocked the door to my apartment with my key and went straight into the bathroom and shed my clothes to shower. Suddenly three strangers were in the apartment, and I realized I was in the wrong one. I said, but the key worked, sorry, and scrambled to put on my clothes. They attacked me, with ill intentions, and at first my punches did not connect and were weak when they did. The two men and one woman just laughed but then I began finding the strength to fight them off… 

 

I woke with a fast heartbeat, though not especially scared. I’ll be unpacking this dream today. Probably that is all I might do and read one of the booker list books. I finished one last week — Western Lane — and even managed to write a review of it in one of the book reading groups I am in. 

 

Ya, slow, slow, slow, recovery. And most days I say, be patient, though some days I cry with frustration. I am glad to have enough mental clarity to observe myself as I go through this. And today I could write this blog post. Yet my inner critic says, But you can’t yet write what you need and want to. 

Mother of Democracy

September 13, 2023

 

I woke with a lot of agitation — some good, some unpleasant — this morning. I had barely slept because the mind was active and heavy with memories of painful interactions, and dreams of betrayal kept waking me up, so trudged through the morning hours and got to my desk late. 

 

I have got into the habit of copying one or two chapters of the Tao Te Ching every morning before I work. It grounds me and soothes stress. But today I decided to stay with the agitation and write here instead.

 

I have been attending a play writing class and for that we had to first find an idea to work with. The first step in good play writing. Then go on and create a question that could be answered with a yes or a no, and the shades in between. I of course wanted to work with nationalism and democracy. 

 

Meanwhile in life these questions also floated around with things like the G-21, the presence of a certain kind of coverage and absence of another. Me trying to find sources that would fill in the missing bits of the picture provided by lap dog media. This along with the difficult interactions helped clarify what I would work on in the play. One-sidedness and manipulation are the micro ideas, by micro I mean detailed in a very personal situation, I want to write around, and explore how both are detrimental to true nation building. 

 

I used to be terribly and self-righteously one-sided at one time. I felt I had to be so to express the marginalized side in a conflict. I don’t like that part of myself so much anymore. I feel like this one-sidedness prevented me from seeing anything else, but more so it prevented me from listening, from softness, and from compassion for an individual because I was so aligned with a cause while the other was aligned with another. The other reason I don’t like it anymore is that I saw how it also prevented the other person from listening to me. And with both not listening no shifts happened. Shifts are needed for change. Ideally now I still want to stand for what I believe in but also stay open to understand where the other side is coming from and hope to create a dialogue even in the midst of battles. 

 

The thing though I hate even more is stating one is neutral while being entrenched in one position. Sometimes perhaps the person can’t see themselves and thinks they are neutral but other times it is a front they put up to manipulate and ‘persuade’ others. 

 

And it is because of both these that I dislike the BJP so much. They pretend to be neutral. It’s best I write from specifics. At the recent G-21 all participants were handed a booklet which had Bharat the Mother of Democracy. The next page had PM Modi saying he was proud to represent the mother of democracy. I had to laugh but I was so pained by this too. India was always at best a struggling democracy and has back-slided into authoritarianism in the last years. And there no evidence of democratic rulers in India's history. Perhaps the ruling party does not understand democracy but more likely it is manipulating perceptions.

 

Again let me be specific. India now stands at 161 out of 180 as far as press freedom is concerned. People will laugh at this number and say it is a conspiracy of the west against India. But with most/all mainstream media now being owned and controlled by corporates or individuals closely connected to the ruling party and funded (tax-payers money) through advertisements by the ruling party there is coverage filled with absences and bordering on both hate speech and propaganda. The government is perfect and needs no critique is the picture Indians are shown. The supporters of the government will say but look at all those youtubers always criticizing the government. If press freedom were dead, they would be behind bars. Well in my opinion the government has calculated that their viewership is small compared to the lap dog media viewers that the government can afford to let them be. In fact by letting them be they can maintain the illusion that press if free. 

 

So the Government calls itself the representative of the Mother of Democracy, Bharat, but has cultivated an army, media and foot-soldiers whose only purpose is to one-sidedly cut down every critique of the government and re-inforce the superiority of Hindus in our so-called democracy. It works best this way. Pretend neutrality so you stay light and clear while having your army do the dark work of hate. 

 

And unfortunately, the Foreign leaders, particularly Nato countries, have chosen to allow the PM to perpetuate this as shown by the recent G-21. Do they care for democracy? And do they think that the down-slide of democracy in India will not ultimately affect their own democracies? With a country set to be the largest population in the world it is obvious that the ideals and values of that country will spread through the world, particularly as other democracies allow it to represent itself as a democracy.

 

I don’t know why ‘India that is Bharat’ even bothers to keep the mask up. Any thoughts?

 

I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone but me. What are the holes here that I do not see? 

 

Anyway this being said I can do other things now. 900 plus words, decently strung together (I hope), in less than an hour — good writing practice.

 

G-21

 September 12, 2023

 You can’t please everyone and nor should you try. The reasons you might try to please someone at the cost of another someone could come from a wide variety of reasons. You actually agree with the someone you decide to please — personal preference, or that someone is more powerful, more useful, than the other one — a practical consideration. 

 

I’ve been watching some of the G-21 debate shows coming from India. Most, or should I say all, were/are tomtom-ing India’s ability to have got a consensus — particularly on the Russia-Ukraine situation. I’d prefer to call it an invasion of Ukraine by Russia than the war between Russia and Ukraine for really would Ukraine have voluntarily waged a war with Russia? 

 

This consensus was achieved by considerably watering down the words of the Bali declaration which named Russia as an aggressor. One of the participants of the show said this aspect of the Bali declaration was an aberration. I disagreed, shouting at him on the tv screen from my sofa. The statement this G-21 has adopted instead merely says, ‘Today’s era must not be of war…We call on all states to uphold the principles of international law including territorial integrity and sovereignty, international humanitarian law etc…’ Apparently this declaration upheld the human suffering in Ukraine while not blaming Moscow. 

 

Russia thanked India for preventing the Western leaders from Ukrainizing the summit. They were pleased. I don’t know who else, besides me, is dissatisfied by this but Ukraine has criticized the declaration’s text for not mentioning Russia. 

 

The only person on the debates I watched who called this what it is — shifting the balance towards the Russia-China bloc — was criticized by the rest of the participants. Some might say so what? About time Western countries were shown their place. 

 

Where do you stand on this? Is it enough to say states (powerful ones for sure) must honor the territorial integrity of other states (less powerful than them)? Is it enough to say that father’s must not abuse their children but when a father does, then respond by saying, ‘we sympathize with the pain of the children,’ but make no mention of the aggression of the father. You know what I mean!

 

I have presented it in a simplistic way. There are nuances to this. But the idealist in me does not like how the aggression has been swept under words of generality, under preferred values  and behaviors that the world should follow. How about living by those values too and calling out those who don’t? But this happens less and less everywhere. Lofty, nice sounding declarations, but no walking the talk. 

 

Of course, once this consensus was reached the summit could get on with the real work of economics. About one of these outcomes too, the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, the same reporter from above pointed out how the details were not available. Who would be bank-rolling it, he asked. Some of the other participants did lower their enthusiasm for this achievement when this was mentioned. Kudos to them for being open to perspectives — one though still praised India the new super-power under PM Modi. 

 

So where do you stand? Was this summit the success that it says it was? 

 

Today I am pondering why I, who has no power to change any outcome of anything, even ponder these things and write blogs. I don’t know. But I am glad I feel strongly about things outside my power. I like this part of myself.

 

Now that I have got this out of my system I might actually do some productive work.

 

The Tao that can be…

September 5, 2023

Since I re-discovered my love for fountain pens, I have wanted to use them to copy something out, just to practice writing and to use my pens and inks more. Many fountain pen lovers do this regularly.

 

I never thought that what I would copy out would be four translations or interpretations (as all translations of something where the author is long gone are but interpretations) of the Tao Te Ching.

 

I spent the morning perusing the six translations I had downloaded from the library. I wanted to only read two or three in entirety but couldn’t eliminate three, so kept four. And then I wrote in different inks, and pens, (I won't bore non-fp lovers with the details of which pens and which inks and why) notes from the introduction and the first chapter of each on foolscap (A4) paper. And I hope to spend an hour everyday with one or two chapters until I finish them. I hope the library lets me renew the books for I won’t finish before they expire.

 

I guess it was the relentless search for the theme for my karate stories, the willingness to stay with the not knowing for as long as it took, and sheer good fortune or something akin to that which cannot really be named, that brought me to this task. I definitely, momentarily at least, must have been in sync with the Tao to arrive here. 

 

There is a joy in being here today that I haven’t felt for ages. A feeling that enduring the darkness of the last eight-nine months was worth it. I didn’t ever think that it would lead me (back) to the Tao Te Ching. But isn’t this the essence of my seeking? Perhaps all seeking?

 

I had a dream in 2003 when I asked for guidance to deepen my meditation that lead me to goju-ryu karate. Twenty years later, I see another layer in the wisdom of that simple dream. And I am eager to find further layers, though I don’t know if I ever will. To look for something that I don't know if I will ever find is both a 'senseless' task, and the only task that matters.

 

But the Tao Te Ching, whose characters can be described as, ‘to go together, or to see’ as well as ‘being in harmony with the tides and phases of the moon that brings us light in darkness’, is exactly what I need to try.   

 

If we all read the first verse of this classic, we all may finish the title of this blog differently, and maybe also the same person might finish it differently at a different juncture of time. Today I would simply say that the Tao that can be written about is not the eternal Tao.

 

Very short post as I have much else to get to today.

Mini Eureka Moment!

 September 5, 2023

 

Last Friday I hit a mini eureka moment. After having ‘What’s the theme?’ floating around in my head, at all times of day and night, I caught a glimmer and I think I have a ‘feeling’ for the organizing principle for the memoir, if I write it. Phew!

 

For a ‘nobody’, like me, even writing a memoir is edgy stuff. It’s like giving myself and my life an importance that it has no business having. Every life is unique, and I feel curious about most people I meet, but spending months excavating my memories to write a narrative about myself feels hugely narcissistic. 

 

This is not new. Many memoirists struggle with this but until this weird urge to explore and record my karate journey exists, I guess I will do it. 

 

But really there are so many more important issues in this world that I could spend time thinking and writing about, maybe even finding ways to act on, so why do this? Maybe many of us grapple with the conflict between the personal/family and the larger socio-political-environmental needs we have. I don’t know how you have done it but at different times in my life I have balanced these differently, neglecting one for the other, seldom finding phases of perfect balance. When one dominates there is depression and exhaustion and naturally the self moves to make space for the other? Maybe there are people within whom there is no conflict around this. Who know what, why, who, and how they exist around. I am not one of those and often I envy people who know. Or those people who don’t know but also don’t need to know. I don’t fall into that category either. So, I exist in this state of angsty unknowing for major parts of my life – it is exhausting at times, exhilarating at others. And perhaps many others do too?

 

Right now, I feel a lot of general anxiety about the state of the world, some unspecific fears about my personal life and choices. I wake and sleep with these yet when I am writing about this, the karate stuff, they fade and I feel happy — as I do when I am reading well written fiction or non-fiction, or something that makes me ponder, or absorbed in any kind of training, or of course picking an ink for a fountain pen, filling it, and writing on a blank sheet with it.  

 

It is nice to find the few things that shift that heavy mood. 

 

Oh, I am not going to reveal that organizing principle I thought I caught a glimpse of from the corner of my eye. It is too tiny, too vague, to name yet. I need to let it ripen within quietly. 

The ‘Why’ of the Karate Stories

September 1, 2023

 

I sit at this desk, a low Muji dining table, facing the window overlooking Dunman School dorms. I have been writing on it since my daughter got married and I converted her room into my writing room. Outside the day is sunny with a slight haze in the air. These are my last four months (or less) of sitting here. I don't know how I will recreate this 'womb' I've created.

 

Today I have been reflecting on why I want to write these stories in the first place. 

 

This year it is twenty years in karate for me — a short time compared to many who are on this path. What started as a ‘dabbling’ hobby took up more and more of my time and life. When I pause to look back, I feel surprised to see where I have got to within it. I don’t know why but it has become a sort of primary identity that so many — close friends, work colleagues, volunteer buddies — identity me with. I don’t refute this but inside me it doesn’t feel right. 

 

I have been feeling I am more than just this, and simultaneously seeing that I have lost parts of my identity to karate. Maybe not lost because one can’t lose what one is – so lost touch with is more accurate. To the me that was twenty years ago, karate was a side path which I never expected to become a ‘main-road’ of my life journey. But as life changed, I adapted and here I am today.

 

When one loses touch with a part of the self, it is hard to get back to it. And it is also possible that that part has shriveled and died, or changed in an unrecognizable way. To put it more honestly, I have felt increasingly scared that I don’t know how to recover those parts and will die never knowing myself fully.

 

So, writing the karate pieces and submitting them to my critique group was an attempt to find through the writing something more of who I am. Surely, in this journey and the way I have been through it — the way I dealt with challenges and obstacles, the way I celebrated success, or healed, and the friends I made, the teachers I loved — might help me know myself better. I’m hoping this micro journey is a microcosm of me and not just a diversion that took me over. 

 

Who knows where it will lead.

 

Though I began seeking a theme since August 14, I haven’t come close to finding one yet – just the words, purpose and identity stand out, along with self-doubt/self-worth. I will be sharing this process of gathering these stories from my memory and writing them down. I am not really thinking of publishing them though I sent them to my critique group where I got comments on craft and what people found fascinating.  I feel a strong need to find the narrative, the story, of this huge part of my recent life, and know myself a little bit better. 

 

I really appreciate those who read my rambling enquiries and please do share your thoughts if you see a pattern, a connectivity, in the things I share. Much obliged.   

A ‘Theme’ in my Karate Stories?

August 31, 2023

 

One of my ‘loose’ goals this month was to do more writing. It has been pathetically sparse for ten months or so. Exhaustion due to poor health, and an expansion of external commitments, led to me de-prioritizing my writing always. 

Writing is one of the things that grounds me so not putting it centre-stage felt a lot like self-sabotage, or some sort of dysfunctional behavior, possibly stemming from a fear. I needed to de-clutter and make time to even figure out the fear and I decided to ‘give notice’ and quit from one of my writing critique groups even though the group is the very thing that forces me to write whenever it is my time to submit. But I also spend an average of 4.5 hours per week working on feedback on other people’s writing. My ability to give useful feedback has improved (my co-writers said so) and certainly being forced to write 5000 words every four to six weeks was the pressure I needed to not completely lose touch with writing. But I wanted to go back and re-find an internal writing flow, something that was motivated from within. The writing I submitted also was haphazardly written whenever my name came up, and I wasn’t working on any project in a coherent manner. I submitted two short stories, revival of chapter one of my fantasy novel (the first thing I ever wrote), and six other pieces — all on karate, in the last ten months. I never made the effort to go back and revise any of the submissions after receiving feedback. I wanted to write differently, though I didn’t know what I even meant by that. Perhaps I wanted to allow my mind to roam empty spaces and let the unconscious speak in my words. I wanted to reach deeper and not do the ‘surface kind of writing’ I had been doing. 

 

It was only on August 14, when I finally found a whole writing day. Having written six pieces about karate over the last months, I thought I’d start making a collection of karate experiences and move them towards a memoir. But just like this blog post – a bit rambly, I found the stories didn’t have any identifiable theme. Each one was a distinct experience – strong, but unique from the others. Two were from my first months in karate, one was my shodan test gasshuku, the fourth my first year of teaching, another on attending a CI, and the last titled the 108 kata ritual, and what that meant to me. Hmm… yes, nothing cohesive. 

 

And all attempts on investigating a theme, a thread, any connective elements in my karate journey, fizzled out, deflated like a car tyre with a leaky valve.

 

I have a ton of questions – which is good. 

·      Why did I embrace something I sucked at with complete commitment? Why did I keep going when people made fun of me? When I failed tests? (Doing something you are terrible at does build character)

·      Why did I keep the dojo going when Sensei left Singapore and I didn’t know how to teach? How did I cope with imposter syndrome? What propelled me to not hand it over to somebody else when there were more black belts in Singapore?

·      What messes did I make? Why am I still here when my body says rest?

·      Has it taught me anything about myself? About life? Am I different because of it?

 

But is there a theme? A prerequisite for shaping a memoir. If there is I can't see it.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke did recommend loving the questions and being patient towards all that was unsolved in the heart. So, I am living the questions for now and maybe on some distant day, gradually, without noticing, I will live into the answer. The prerequisite for finding answers though is keeping an attention on the unresolvedness of things even when it all feels elusive, wispy, transient. Like that thing you see from the corner of your eye and it disappears when you turn your head to look. 

 

I guess I did write a bit more without external pressure this month!

Ghosting

August 29, 2023

Ghosting is defined as, ‘abruptly cutting off communication with someone without explanation’. It is also described as passive aggressive behavior and compared to gaslighting. 

 

Recently someone who ghosted me suddenly made small talk with me. It was in a social situation, and it stunned me momentarily, and I stammered out a reply. But it left me quite unsettled. It happened on my birthday and I didn’t want to be stuck with dealing with negative emotions around this situation, which had created a fair amount of disturbance earlier too, so I shelved it to enjoy my day.

 

The feelings it generated continued within and I don’t want to carry them anymore and writing is often my way of processing.

 

People deal with conflict differently. I like to try to put my feelings on the table and sort it out as soon as possible. Others are conflict avoidant, not necessarily for mean reasons, but because they just don’t know how to address it — maybe never learnt or have been hurt in the past. I don’t really know. Some dodge dealing with it when they feel they have the upper hand and because they lack empathy for the other person. Many can pretend it doesn’t exist and continue to have a strained relationship, and even conversations with the other. I on the other hand find it difficult to make even small talk with a person who I have an unresolved conflict with. And this is where I am. This is who I am. 

 

The person, I’ll call him X, was part of a group I lead. He wanted to leave to follow another path and it felt like a loss, but I encouraged him to follow his heart. The conflict began last year after a conversation in which X said something that left me wondering about the loyalty of others in the group. I wonder if he knew what he was doing or he just said it inadvertently. It left me distraught for weeks,  more correct months. The next time I met the person, a few weeks after that conversation I had a hard time talking normally to him. 

 

But I reached out the next to next time we met in person, apologizing for what I felt I had done wrong, trying to resolve things, and inviting him to continue being part of our group even as he was finding his own path. I didn’t think the paths were mutually exclusive, though the world may disagree. X wouldn’t make eye contact with me and after that didn’t speak to me though our paths crossed as we have common friends. 

 

I felt I had hurt him. I kept blaming myself for this, wondering what I could have done differently etc. A couple of months ago I sent another text saying I was open to listening to his side of things hoping for a conversation that might resolve things. X responded by leaving the WhatsApp groups that were common to us. 

 

I felt a shock, but I decided to move on and stopped thinking about clarifying things. I know that not every conflict can be resolved. I moved towards finding my own peace around it.

 

Recently while I was away on a trip X participated in the group I lead. I truly don’t know yet how to write about the range of feelings I felt when I heard this. Shock, anger, disgust, total loss of respect for X, are among a few. 

 

But if I had ever felt that the ghosting was just in my mind, on that day I knew it hadn't been. I felt something hit me so deeply that it unbalanced me and made me question myself and even those around me. It was not pleasant to deal with it. 

 

So, this third or maybe fourth shock, of having X casually talk to me as it everything was ok is not something I can handle. Someone might say that X is trying to reach out. But it feels offensive to me. It feels like X wants to deal with things on his own terms, and completely lacks the sensibility that his actions had left me feeling hurt and snubbed. 

 

I’m trying to figure out my response to this. It’s something that has haunted me for months. If it was somebody who I feel might respond to my overture of having an honest conversation, I would suggest it. But X has rejected that twice already, and I feel too vulnerable to suggest it. But I do know that I cannot pretend that it’s ok either. 

 

Maybe I need therapy to figure this out — it has unnerved me enough. I’m noticing that even sharing it with others makes me feel fragile. But I am interested in knowing if others have faced something similar, and how they have dealt with it?