I wish I could go back to the time when the biggest impending change in my life was getting a new Math teacher or the fact that a friend was moving to another neighborhood. But life cannot be ctrl-Z`d, so here we are.....coping with change.....
I have grown to realize that I am very widely a creature of status-quo (I don't think habit is the right word). I take comfort in in-transient phases, even those that aren`t necessarily good, I just fall into a rut and work towards improving the situation. Then, as I just fall into routine doing it, and wake up too late to realize its probably not in my hands at all and wasn`t in the first place. Hence, impending change, even good, tends to send me into long-drawn out bouts of rumination (rumination of the mixed feelings type). And as the universe holds out for me, major changes in the past few years have been very few and they certainly did not seem good then. To name one, I have been in the same place - in a twenty mile radius since I landed in the US 5 years back! But this time around - deep within, I get this gut feeling that change will be good - for the most part. Why for the most part? - because the rest of it is just "fear of the unknown" - which again - is a small part.
The past week has seen the heights of solitude from my side - due to cell phone failure. Not that I am surrounded by people otherwise or I am on the phone all the time. But it gave me a lot of chance to wallow in my own thoughts - I do that otherwise too, perhaps not on such a long drawn out scale.The first 36 hours without the phone seemed good, after that I couldn`t take it myself. (Digression. Back to the post.).
Also, did not help that I was reading the "Unbearable Lightness of Being" at this time. I am reading it as slowly as I can. Because I seem to stop reading and start thinking. And that happens more than actually reading it. I don't obviously identify myself with the characters of Tomes or Tereza, so far (I am only half way through the book - I like it already!), but I can feel a kind of kinship with what they are going through. There is a direct correlation to what I read, what I think and what I get from any book. I have known to interpret books differently from the different times I read them - in different states of mind, I would think its the same way for most. For example, Life of Pi. I read it first time on a train (I like to call this the "the control"). Next I repeated it while in the US, during a high-stress project period at work, while sleep was eluding me. The results of this duplicate experiment was quite surprising!! It required a highly overworked state of mind to get the whole essence of the book. Control experiments are great - even to get to my own psyche!
Otherwise...been sustaining regular, intense workouts (Shh!No jinxing it!). Actually even eating right (except this past weekend).
Currently playing on my list: Petty, Pearl Jam and Raavan!
Keeping up with my track record, all it takes is one exam the next day to inspire a deep post!!!
Over & Out!
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