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.