Would you rather experience ultimate life satisfaction or be able to sustain yourself, if self sustenance meant that you couldn’t be satisfied with your life the way you want to? The scenarios where we can have both ideal life sustenance and ultimate satisfaction are very rare to find and to those who have them, I salute with the highest stature.

Bukowski, one of my favorite writers, wrote, “do what you love and let it kill you” and I think that this phrase carries so much weight in the idea that following our passions doesn’t always result in what most people’s ideal life looks like. ‘Most people’ being our own family, friends and in large, the society we live in. Some are keener on achieving that ‘ideal standard of living’ and that may be what gives them life satisfaction and that’s okay; while the rest can strive for life satisfaction with one penny a day type of life. It all boils down to whether we can sleep dreaming about running through hay fields in dungarees and rosy cheeks or whether we dream the type of dreams where the ground keeps falling beneath us and we can’t stop running.

I think some would say that that’s just the way life works; that we can’t always have what we want but I choose to stand on the other side because I believe that we always have a choice even though that decision can be the most difficult one to make.

Like how we need the day to have the night or how you need the silence to know sound, and how it takes some darkness to know the light; these opposing entities exist to make us see the black and white in everything. Likewise, we always have the ones who accept things as they come and the ones who decide to make choices. In this way sometimes we want more choices when we don’t have them and when we have too many, we wish for less. Somehow we always want what we don’t have and for that, I say, we always have a choice to either accept that we can’t have it or do something and create a change to get what you want.

Some may say that this philosophy is selfish because we are draining our blood, sweat and tears for something that’s truly and solely for us; but for the self it’s a selfless deed –for selflessly loving ourselves so much that we are ready to do something so earnestly, without knowing fatigue to achieve the end goal. Having options is almost always a good thing but sometimes we find ourselves in complex dilemmas throughout the different decisions we make in our lifetimes.  

In support, I would like to give a very real example- If one day you were faced with the decision to accept the job of your dreams but far away from home and family; or to stay close to home and reject the job of your dreams but maybe get a stable job near home, with family. To make this an even more intricate dilemma, if you had ailing parents or parents who have a proneness to fall suddenly ill or who are often times in need of medical attention, what would your decision be?

I guess the scenario here would be applicable specifically to homes with good parent-child relationships though there exists even more complicated relationships between parents and their off-springs but that’s another blog altogether!

What I’m trying to convey is that no matter what decision you make, there will always be a good and bad side to it from all perspectives. For instance, you take the job and move away from home, then for you, it’s a selfless deed to yourself to carry the burden and heartache of leaving your family behind to pursue your dreams probably to support your family in the future. While people see it as a selfish deed because “you are ungrateful and don’t love your parents who have supported you your whole life.” In the other instance, if you don’t take the job, you’re crazy! You lost the opportunity of a lifetime! J While there may be people who appreciate your decision to reject the job, I think that the lamentations of our parents will supersede our sacrifices, perhaps being reminded on the daily and having to relive that for the rest of our lives. This is the narrative that has been heard and listened to for a lot of us.

So I guess achieving life goals and ultimately, life satisfaction is a selfless or selfish deed depending on the perspective of the self and the outsiders’ view of the self. Although people talk vigorously that we should turn a deaf ear to opinions and views of others and believe in not letting outside opinions hamper our own decisions, we all know that these words tend to stay in our minds; they fester subconsciously and affect our decisions, sometimes without our knowledge. The end goal of this blog is just to let you readers know that you’re not alone in feeling buried alive 6 ft under dilemmas or maybe just to validate that I’M not the only one!!

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When I was in the 6^th grade, I read a poem that said, ‘I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.’ It shed light and paved way for my unending ambitions and goals that changed as quickly as the seasons. Back then, so much of what the world held for me were endless opportunities.

When 9^th grade rolled around, I read about the struggles of a family to keep the water ‘up to the brim’ and ‘selfish little monsters’ who threw away half full glasses of water. I don’t know what I thought then but in retrospect, I think that it perfectly signifies what the world became in a short span of 4 years.

Some would say 4 years is a long time, but I beg to differ. 4 years is still one short of the 5 year plans that the world seems to think of as an ideal growing moment. I think that’s what is so messed up about the world. You’re expected to know what you can achieve in 5 years and who you would be in 5 years when actually that’s such a delicate question to answer. At least for me.

5 years ago, I didn’t know I would be writing blogs and articles about 5 year plans.

5 years ago, I didn’t want to write for people to read.

5 years ago, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be where I was.

5 years ago, I wasn’t who I am now.

‘You have to love yourself, before you love anyone else’– I always thought that was complete hogwash. I hopped on the bandwagon and held their flag as we raced passed others because to me, ‘if 50,000 people say the moon is black, then it is.’ I was a contortionist for the crowd and I was good at it. Until I had to rest my eyes from the dread of the day’s events and I found pools of tears where my eyeliner made the perfect wing. The world was a step down from hell and I didn’t know it at the time, neither did they. All I had to do was look pretty and smile, laugh at insults, and make fun of people who cared. I smiled so wide, my lips were chapped; I laughed loud, I silenced my thoughts.  In a perfect world, I was the perfect being.

No one had to know about the nights my thoughts brought me to my knees; pleading to let it end. No one had to know about the chapped lips and the skinned knees because the world helped you cover it up. All the clothes to hide your scars, all the makeup to hide your tear stains and most of all; the world gave you expectations. And like I said, ‘if 50,000 people say it’s okay, then it’s okay.’

It wasn’t just about fitting in; we had to be different too. “We should be different but not too much that people think we’re weird. We should be like them, but not too much; just enough to make them like us.”

How many more of ‘just a little bit’ until it’s all that you are?

Pulling myself under the covers, feeling the weight of the blankets on my chest like an elephant’s foot atop me, I try to slowly drift into a deep slumber but it rarely ever comes to take me. Lying under my own weight, everything comes back and I’m taken to an awfully familiar place. So the night starts.

5 years ago, I woke up to hypnic jerks every single day. To some, that’s biology. To others, that’s the body’s way of yanking you awake, to keep you alive, if you’re dying in your dreams. I read that somewhere. But to me it felt like I wanted to go where the dreams were taking me but my body wasn’t ready to give up. This was not living nor was it survival. This was me, cutting down the days to go like a prisoner sentenced to life. In kindergarten, I was the little brave one. Fast forward 12 years and there I was, scared of my own thoughts, afraid to be me. I can’t piece together a reason for who I was and maybe I can never narrow it down. You see, life’s like that.

Let’s skip a few years to when I was 19. I stumble upon the greatest inspiration of my life: Bukowski; and in his words, ‘If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.’  

What fascinates me about this line is that he writes “IF” you have the ability to love, insinuating that you may or may not be have the ability to love. It’s the most refreshing thought to the mind if you have been beaten down black and blue by the world trying to shove their idea of love down your throat- to teach you what love is supposed to be or how we are supposed to love, who, and when.

For the first time in a very long time, I doubled down and walked with my thoughts. I bounced on the springboard and deep dove into the darkest tunnels. And no, it’s not an admirable moment, I’ll admit, I was ashamed at what I let the world do to me in many ways than not. It’s not like the movies and the books and the stories where there’s daylight when you finally have an epiphany and after dawn, you’re a whole new person.

“Remember to breathe”- I repeated over and over to myself.

It’s funny because you’d think you don’t have to remind yourself of the most basic human reflex but to me it felt like a subconscious energy just trying to let it all end because the brain is registering immense pain and discomfort from all the poking and nudging into tunnels, boxes and areas marked with big red Xs which have probably gathered dust through the years.

It’s not so easy to change a narrative you’re so familiar with and to negate thoughts that are deep-rooted in your whole being. If tomorrow the world was going to run out of potatoes; just- no more potatoes ever! And of course we can’t know what the future holds so we don’t stock up on potatoes and the world became POTATO-LESS and we’d just have to do without it for the rest of humanity. No mashed sides, no baked lumps of heaven, no fries! Can you imagine living without fries? It’s one thing to never have had fries in your life and another to have it taken away from you. Anyway, what I’m saying is, if you had to do without a potato when all you’ve known is the potato then it won’t be easy to adjust to the idea. Heck, I’ll bet many of us would still order fries at restaurants like a habit that’s difficult to get rid of.

Just like that, when all you’ve known is this narrative, this person and all the things, the stories, and the people who made you, you; it’s difficult. We are all intricately intertwined with each other in so many ways, we may not even realize it now but it’s because of this complexity that changing one’s narrative isn’t easy. What affects you, affects people around you, and around them and like a chain reaction, every little action plays part. Narrative therapy is centered on this idea, to change your idea of you and your life for the better but for that you must able willing to make the sacrifices, to take the blows and to still stand up even when it feels like you’ve broken all your bones in your body.

A humongous amount of conscious effort and 5 years later, here we are. It felt like I was waking up from a terrible dream. Not the kind where you’re jolted awake, no. It was the kind that you wake up from and feel a sense of relief that it was just a dream. It was like I could breathe again and the elephant’s foot was now warm and comforting. So yes, there’s something about being defeated by your own thoughts that break you as a person. But ‘broken’ is not ‘useless’ and I think we often interchange these meanings and forget which narrative to follow. Broken can be repaired; broken is in the past; broken paves way for new things.

The post 5 Years first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

I’m struggling to hold on to my sister hanging from a cliff. I don’t know how we’re in the midst of an Armageddon, running for our lives and fighting off demons. Like quicksand, the ground beneath us is pulling us towards the earth’s core. Each step feels so heavy it pulls our feet down as we try to outrun them. Every time we stop, the ground below us starts falling like the earth was hungry for a million years and now it’s ready to swallow us whole so we keep running. Sometimes it feels like my joints have given up, and I’m only running because I think I am. I feel every little pain; I can feel the small scraps of stones bouncing up and hitting me as I run past it; there are broken glasses, nails and sharp edged pebbles that poke through my worn out sneakers and into my feet. I can feel all the open wounds. I can feel them throbbing. I can feel the blood soaking through my socks.

And then suddenly, like nothing happened, everything comes to a halt. Eerie stillness envelops us, as my breath finally starts to normalize. I turn to look at my sister but I can’t see her. Frantically, I’m crying out her name and looking around only to realize that we’re almost at the peak of the hill. There’s nothing but dust that covers the valleys around us. I hear my name but it sounds like it’s coming from underneath the ground. I place my ear to the ground and slither my way towards the sound. Finally, I’m at the edge of the cliff and she’s there, hanging by a branch. Almost involuntarily, I fling my arm towards her, desperately trying to reach her. I got a hold of her right hand but I can feel my body getting hot; it starts from my head- it starts to feel like it’s going to explode from pressure, then my ears get warmer. I can feel the sweat beginning to gather near my temples, my palms are also getting sweaty. I can feel her slowly slipping through my fingers. I can feel the sweat from my brows, gathering at the tip of my nose, leaving my body and falling. I’m watching it free fall, trying if I can see it reach the bottom, listening for a splatter. I don’t hear it reach the bottom. My heart is pounding right out of my chest. I’m barely holding on with my feet buried in the gravel.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE IN OUR DREAMS?

Before I could wander off into that thought; in a flash, mustering inhuman-like strength, I yank her whole body up and we lay panting and gasping for air. That’s something admirable about dreams. Anything is possible; nothing is impossible. We just burst out laughing for a good few seconds. This feels weirdly wholesome. Like clockwork, it’s 1:00 AM in the real world but I have no way of knowing this because I’ve been told you can’t tell time in a dream. It’s got something to do with our left and right hemispheres; like how one works without the other.

The brain is perpetually in a complicated relationship; sometimes it prefers to work alone and sometimes it’s a needy friend who constantly craves for attention from the other side. I say this because I’ve read that when one part of our brain tries to sleep more quickly than the other, we are jolted awake. Talk about petty!

Right on cue, my body also responds with a jolt. And suddenly I realize that I can’t move.

Oh no. Not this again!

It’s midsummer and I hardly have a blanket on me but it feels like boulders and boulders of rocks atop me. I’m screaming for help but nothing escapes my mouth other than frail breaths. My jaws are so heavy. The pain is excruciating.

10 years ago, at a campfire, my friend told me to “always move your toes” when you feel like you’re trapped or you can’t move or talk in your sleep. And I’ve remembered that even after all these years because I’ve had to use that more often than I would like to admit. I don’t quite understand the logic to it but I don’t think she did either. It’s just one of those things you say and it passes on from one to the next.

The gut wrenching moment comes when I realize that this is happening in real time. I’m awake and aware of what is happening to my body. I can feel the stiffness in my bones. My breaths: short and stunted. I can feel the room- I can feel the breeze from the open window beside my bed, I can hear the rattling of the ceiling fan above me and I can feel his presence at the edge of my bed. So quiet, so tall, he hovers over my bed. I wonder why he isn’t doing anything. I’m anticipating an attack. Isn’t that always the case? The action in itself isn’t nearly as horrific as the anticipating thought.

“It’s always darkest before the storm” because I guess, at least we see lightning in the storm.

My eyes are shut. I don’t know if I’m trying to keep them shut or if I am unable to open them. The darkness somehow, is so comforting. I could turn on my bedside lamp but the horror of seeing something in the light paralyzes me.  My limbs are rigid. I can’t move my body, not the slightest bit; not even to touch my Bible that I keep under my pillow. And I’m thinking of all the ways that I can find comfort if I just reached under my pillow. It’s not that far away- if I just turn, if I just shrug my shoulder a little, if I just move my head towards it, if I just…

There’s just something about being bested by your own subconscious that breaks you as a human being.

I don’t want to give up but as I’m struggling, he’s smirking at my feeble attempts, hushing me, drying my tears. He climbs onto the bed, lies down beside me and holds me. My back is turned to him and he lifts his head, his lips pressed to my ear, and whispers, “never sleep again.” I feel a gush of wind enter my ear like someone tried to blow dry it. Suddenly I can open my eyes. I’m in a fetal position, in a pool of my own sweat. The curtains are dancing with the rhythm of the breeze and I reach under my pillow.

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Think about what you’ve wanted to be as a kid; for most of us, the world was happy and kind and we could be anything we wanted to be. Fast forward and here we are, writing a blog in the midst of a lockdown, reading posts and articles about the “curve” and listening to podcasts and news that tell us everything that is wrong with the world.

Such a downer, isn’t it?

We’ve wanted to be medical health professionals to save someone, we wanted to be educationists to teach someone, we wanted to be artists to inspire someone, we wanted to be in businesses to help someone, we wanted to be politicians to uplift someone and we wanted to be in services to assist someone.

Right now, the world is seemingly vague and with leaden steps, all that we worked towards is piling up and becoming what I would like to call, TRASH.

We’re still pushed towards a lot of deadlines and expectations that seem meaningless now and I think that what we were taught as children: “to follow our dreams” has gone right into the gutter because all I dream about is larger than life cats that birth humans with whiskers and I’m not even a cat person.

What has left me totally flabbergasted is the idea that we have brought these pandemic woes upon ourselves. I mean it’s hard to admit mistakes and own up to what the world says is our own fault but 3 months into this lockdown and I think i’m starting to believe the heavy truth that left me astonished in the first place: we are terrible at this; at being humans.

I don’t speak for everybody and I’ll bet my life on it because even to blog has taken me several years- I’ve always been afraid of what my ideas might sound like to some and I’m not all for “constructive criticism” however immature that makes me sound. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this realization has brought me full circle to look at my own life and see how much time I’ve wasted being bothered by something that is innately us.

So, yes, we’re not the best at being humane towards our own species and that’s another problem altogether. But right now, trying to live with a virus that has the power to wipe out humanity has left me in an existential crisis that maybe most of us don’t want to address and the only way to come out of this still standing strong is perhaps, take a moment and look at the lives that we’ve created and fostered and nurtured into something so terrible that I’ll bet the devil is even afraid to tempt us anymore. Maybe pondering upon this thought will push us to do something a little more than pass the blame and live perpetually smacking our heads and gasping at headlines.

It all sounds so dreadful and I sure didn’t think this is how my first blog was gonna go- a Friday afternoon, sitting in the sun, thinking about a cat that birthed humans and writing this almost depressing post about what it is like to be human in 2020.

The post PANDEMIC WOES first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

I’ve always been a sucker for books and office supplies.

Why do I want to do this?

• Because it’s my outlet
• Because we all gotta start somewhere

I think that in a lot of ways, mental health is a continuum and we’re all there somewhere. Somehow, even with all the worldly knowledge being shoved down our throats, we’ve missed out mental healthcare; on keeping the mind healthy.

I think what I want to achieve through this is just a space to vent and to share my woes and I’m only hoping my woes will be shared by you too

The post AN INTRODUCTION first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.