Dilettante

A half-hearted attempt at creating something new...
Maybe it's the sluggishness, maybe the hollow
Or maybe, it's just temporality.

With heavy eyes and a mind debilitated,
I sit here with a will undaunted...
Much cherished, once returned.

But the will remains sans consort,
Much to the reflection of my soul tonight...
Sweet delight, I rejoice.

A word here, a thought there,
A step up, a step down...
The rollecoaster ride I'm set upon.

For now, it's another half-hearted attempt
at something still unknown...
In the unknown lies the invaluable.

BLEH!

Belligerence won't do,
but maybe a new language.
A word salad of all that's wrong,
But the cogency still remains. Or not.
So what is it now?
Need some diplomacy.
No lights, no color, no sound, no smell!
And too much of this and that, all that never mattered.
An imbalance, do we see now?
So why doesn't it all fall apart?
Because it's Utopia, they say!
Where are the Salvages then?
Those humans preserved?

Days / Daze

Not quite here,
Never quite there...
In the land of in-betweens

Reminisces of what could have been
Ruminations of what could be
Always a flight from what is

A sudden twitch and a sullen smile
Nostalgia leaks through the cracks
Sense? There is none.

Where do we land when we want to fly?
Do we land at all?
Maybe it's eternal trajectory, into an empty space.

Sometimes you don't neet a title

There is a nagging itch in your fingers and you want to come up with some mind blowing masterpiece, disconnected from its reality for you... but it's just one of those days when words won't dissociate from your thoughts. And yet, words never suffice. So... what do you do?

Listen to some Dylan and Rolling Stones, looking for some ideas to straighten out the web of thoughts in your head. Doesn't work. Then, you finally get your ass moving and make some hot chocolate with embellishments, because you need the comfort of the thick texture and the aroma that comes with it... so there goes the last of your fresh mint leaves... But you're still fishing for some words that just elude you... just elude you .... as you lose yourself behind the smoke rings.

The tug of nostalgia doesn't stir you because it's not nostalgia. It's what you have internalized. You wish for it to pass so that you can retrace the steps outside of it. But the bitch that this life is... it always brings you back to the mess that was created long ago. So what do you do? Haplessly wait for the day when you'll be in the hot seat and the madness just spills itself out. You know it's a crash in the making... and you know it's inferno en route... but what do you do? The only answer lies in the defenseless purging that is yet to be.

Psychic determinism: People get stuck in the circle of their personal tragedies, and remain so.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!!!

The silent protest of overkill...

The calm or the chaos? It's all but one

It's difficult to explain,
The madness of a silent mind
Words fall short when the angst comes pouring out
What is left is broken frames of then and now
Revisits and remembrances,
Spurting in sporadic sparks as if from a rusted spout

What happens of the insanity?
The shrill screams and the silence in vain?
It's a melodrama of the pain of quiescence
It's the schmaltz of the comfort of gash
Beyond, into the serene numbness
The peace in its elusiveness

It's a journey from the peaks to troughs
and the peaks again, and then the troughs
Untill one day you hit an empty space
Thereafter, it's just a buoyant calm
As you gently float through the infamies and the adulation
And all the rest that never stays!

Something to think about

Over the years, Evolutionary Psychology has become a subject of keen interest to me. It is fascinating to see how every human behavior/ drive/ instinct/ emotion can be explained in terms of Survival and Procreation. It sounds simplistic, and perhaps it is. And that is the beauty of it!

A very important factor to one's survival (and sanity, to take a retreat to the familiar road) is the locus of control - the belief that things are in one's control. It has been well studied that the level of stress one experiences is correlated with one's locus on cotrol - an internal locus of control results in low stress levels, as opposed to an external locus of control, that causes high levels of stress and anxiety.

So what does it mean to have an external locus of control, and when and where does one delineate between its multitude manifestations as 'normal' vs 'abnormal' - or to use more civil words, as bearable vs unbearable?

If you lose a job in times of an economic crisis, the locus of control is externalised. Thus, high anxiety levels. But would you necessarily call it unbearable? Perhaps if it causes the individual to become inert and passive. Even so, there is a component on internal locus of control - he/she may decide to apply for jobs outside of his field of choice, he/she may decide to take advantage of the situation and go on a vacation, or volunteer for a cause they may have felt strongly for etc.

If you lose a loved one... There is no component of internal locus of control. But, coping with its loss takes a different turn in bereavement. It follows a different coping process.

So what does it mean to lose the internal locus of control? How about Psychosis? Or perhaps Bipolar Disorder? Or even a Personality Disorder?

To the supporters of CBT, it may seem absurd if I associate the loss of locus of control with the above. But imagine having to fight a war with yourself every single moment of every single day, not being able to predict what's coming your way, and not knowing or understanding how to control it. If the city's hit by a hurricane, you can choose to be vigil and take control over the situation to assure your safety. If there's a forest fire, you stay away from the forest. But what do you do if one moment you are content and happy and then suddenly a dark gloomy cloud takes over and you can't see anything clearly? Where do you run to? What do you run from? It suddenly explains suicide rates among Bipolar!

Coming back to my still in infacy fascination with the simplistic explanations, one can do more with the core affective and instinctual and cognitive dispositions than with investing in fancy MRI researches and drugs and PET scans and whatnot...

If we can just find a way to instill hope, to help these individuals regain a sense of control, of dignity, of stability, so much more can be achieved, and without the devastating effects of medications!

JUST ANOTHER SUBLIMATION

You transcend beyond the realms of reality
And thereafter it’s just approximations
A masochistic thrill in the tug of war
A narcissistic pleasure in revelations

What do you make of the connection in the disconnect,
And the distance in proximity?
What is it all but illusions?
A trance, a rhapsody

You crave for the simpler existence
But you have plunged over the edge
Hereafter, it’s a plummet
You go down, and you go down… perish in another’s pledge

It’s the turmoil beneath the sullen clouds
The current beneath the calm seas
You expand till you explode,
Till rendered a speck of dust in the breeze

What sense does it all make?
Permanence, sustenance, ambitions of naiveté
In the end, we’re all stardust
It’s just moments in brevity