Mostly Transitions

March 19, 2024

            It is Tuesday and I will write a blog post. It is a pattern I’m attempting to develop. 

Since before my move to our new apartment in December last year, I had been thinking of the dysfunctional patterns, many that I got into during covid — I had a healthier pattern distribution before covid. I told a friend I was talking to that I would like to use the move to break some of/all these patterns. Maybe unconsciously I was putting out a message to a force bigger than me, asking for help to do this for I expressed it often enough, in my journal, or in conversation. 

The help these forces deliver is not always sweet and gentle. Sometimes they churn up things so much that there is no pattern, no routine, nothing at all, left. This did happen to me since the beginning of 2004 with each day, throwing up a challenge – major or minor – and also forcing me to adapt to someone else’s patterns as I lived in their homes. My mum and sis, and the cats, do have rigid patterns, and I did see my old patterns, well most of them, and unfortunately even the healthy ones disappearing. And I am here, ‘arrived’ at my own desk on this Tuesday, without any useful ones. And maybe this is my own fault since I didn’t use this time to reflect, in specific ways, on what kept the patterns in place, and what new ones I wanted. 

I think I was afraid to reflect and have my Virgoan-self emerge and create new rigid time structures when part of me knew I needed spontaneity and freedom. But s and f can become addictive, and they did, and I feel left with nothing, an emptiness. Which can be great because I can fill it anyway I want, but it can also be a sense of collapsing, as the external ‘air’ pushes against the emptiness. You know what I mean?

But I think to change your patterns, perhaps you must be prepared to lose all of them. You must be prepared to feel this weird transition, the unknowing.

I had this dream two nights ago. The first night I was back in my home after the wanderings of 2024. I dreamt — I was in the cabin of a plane, in business, so there was more room. I walked towards the front and found the plane opened up into huge rooms. How was this possible? There was a mingling room right in front, a place where performances were happening further ahead, and even a market of handicrafts to my right. I was looking for a glass to pour myself wine and couldn’t find any clean ones. Suddenly my spouse appeared and said, there you are. I told him I was looking for a glass and he found a steward who went to look for one. I wandered to the left and found a tree-lined street. I was still in the plane. 

A lot to unpack, but planes have always signified transition states for me. There I was in one with a lot of choices or possibilities or activities? But it is clear that I haven’t arrived anywhere yet, and am still in transition. And the wine? Intoxication and chilling but also spirituality as in Hafiz’s, Drunk on the Wine of the Beloved. Interesting that I cannot pour myself a glass.

I lost the healthy patterns of regular exercise and generally eating decently. At first I resisted losing them but then the decadence of no discipline to maintain them felt very pleasant. My left thigh that was injured in the days of moving was not nourished and the muscle feels atrophied and blood tests showed some adverse effects from the comfort eating. 

The only pattern remaining is the obsessive news watching sometimes until late into the night. 

A lot happened in India over the last week. A corrupt and exhortative money gathering scheme, opaque to the public (because mere citizens in the mother of democracy don’t have the right, don’t need to know everything), made legal by the ruling party, was struck down by the supreme court and as the process unfolded the extent of destruction of democratic structures, of a level playing field for elections, was revealed. It also became obvious that most of the public don't care — so what it's not the first time, this happens to every government — as they don't about unemployment, inflation, or inequality. Hating the other is much more fun than having a decent life. I doubt if any of it will affect the outcome of the election.

Elections are just months away and I guess I might be writing about my feelings around them as the media pushes lies and propaganda. Last night I watched an interview about a book written by Avay Shukla about the destruction of democracy in India. He used Kershaw’s theory about the brutalization of societies which Kershaw based on what happened in Nazi Germany. He said it starts with the supreme leader and percolates down through seven levels, changing Independent Institutions, Police, Media, Judiciary etc., becoming less compassionate, less able to be open to differences, at every level until it reaches society/citizens where the message of hatred is so amplified that people become beast-like. Imagine losing your humanity? 

Citizens then become divided into believers and silent acceptors. It is easier to do one of these than hold the pain of disagreeing, feeling diminished, and marginalized as a minority viewpoint. 

But many of us cannot fall into these convenient categories the supreme leader would like us to, and it is good to see those who can file and fight cases still do. Others use u-tube to send out counter-messages that want you to feel and think about what is happening, or write books, or make satire of these things. I try to support them and try to remain connected to what I feel and express it. That’s all I feel I can do right now. 

It is an election year in the US too and I hear it is likely Trump will return. I wonder what people are feeling there? Something similar or is there more hope that there are more avenues for opposing and more signs that people will choose civil liberties over an administration moving towards A Kershaw nightmare? In India we already have a new discriminatory law for those who seek refuge from other countries where they are being persecuted, and we have detention centres to hold illegal immigrants. I guess no country wants illegal immigrants which our Home Minister once described as termites (or was it something else?).

Returning to the thought of patterns I began with in this post I guess for now I will be retaining the news watching even though it is not particularly healthy. The one healthy pattern I want to re-instil is the exercise – even if it is only about building up muscle in the lower body and not losing the tone in the upper. Other patterns, I guess I am going to yet reflect on as I don’t know the destination of where my plane is going and when I/it will arrive.