The Cost of Sanity

Now that the dust has settled in the happy land of ‘no assignments and no project submissions’ aka Real Life, the little green monsters, formerly concealed, begin to emerge and I realize not all is glittering and sunny in my new found world. And I realize that the source of this non-glitteriness and non-sunniness is, in fact, (surprise surprise) me. While assignments and projects gave me plenty of reasons to crib, they took away valuable time that I could have to used to do said cribbing. And time to discover any more things to crib about. Life’s tiny compromises were always hidden by the fact that there were larger things looming on my horizon to worry about. Now that the larger things have been dealt with (temporarily), the little things start their gnawing at my attention. Big God and Small God as Arundhati Roy would have said (Yes, I quote her a lot these days, especially since I am rereading the God of Small Things). So the Small Demons in my case, start rearing their head now that the Big Demons have wandered elsewhere to demonize (and I seem to be able to track their progress from the phone calls I do not get and the words I do not hear). And irritation oozes like a common stench through my days. People piss me off more than they used to and my patience with them bleeds away faster than it used to. I hate them and yet I need them and I hate myself for hating them and I hate myself for needing them. Even my dreams seem to be restless and unfocused and I wake up disgusted at myself, my memories of reality tainted by my subconscious. So it is a lot of hating and a lot of negativity that brought me here, writing like a therapy while searching for productive things to do. In school, when I felt hatred rising in me, I would go to the gym and punch out a few calories while listening to loud music. Not only would that release some much needed endorphins, it also served s a subconscious incentive to not be negative (my mind can conjure up reasons to not work out), I believe.  Now, with no convenient outlet or release and not wanting to make it obvious that I am annoyed, I turn my annoyance inwards and sit passively with my laptop in my hands, crawling the web for a distraction. Until it becomes obvious to everyone that I am annoyed. That is the problem for us extroverts. We can’t shut the world out as easily as the rest of the world can and contrary to popular belief, we do need our vacations from the world, as much as the other person.

Space. That is the problem. And the fact that it is a relative and ever changing factor in the equation of personal happiness and sanity.

This is why I write. The fact that although it offers no answer, sometimes, I can figure out the question.