While the Sambar Boils

I have been thinking, and I realised I don't do that much, think that is. I don't know what is happening right now at this stage in my life. I don't know where to start. I don't know what I am writing about or why I am writing this, but I just know I need to put this out there for myself. 

Hopefully, nobody reads this, but if you do, you can listen to this to keep yourself occupied: Reanimator by Joji.

I think Joji is perfect for the things I want to talk about. 

Do you ever just get periods of prolonged loneliness, an extended period of time when you realise that you indeed are alone in life, maybe the people who have loved ones to care about might not be able to relate to what I am saying? I am talking about missing emotional intimacy, being wanted, longing for connections. Being a man, and being a brown Indian man at that, talking about all of this is seen as a hit on masculinity. 

Well, I am going through that phase in life, but the best bit is I know it shall pass. Because I have realised I will never know love in my life, the kind of love that you could see in the movies, or the kind of love that people aspire to have, a partner who you can share your thoughts with, someone who accepts you for who you are, does not want you to change, does not push you to fit the norms set by society, who will be your side when you need them the most. I have accepted the fact that the kind of love I talked about, while it may exist, is something I will never find. 

The thing that kept me going through all of this was the fact that I had a lot of friends. I might have been trying to fill a void, a void that must have formed because of how I was brought up. Well, they say that your character traits are a result of your trauma and experiences. 

I was thinking today, thinking about how big of a people pleaser I am, and what would happen if I just stopped doing that. What if I decided to stop texting first? What if I started saying no more often? Before I thought about what if, I tried to understand the why. Why was I texting first? Why was I such a people pleaser? 

I think I found my answer, I think, whatever I did was for attention, I mean, everyone likes attention, everyone craves attention. Maybe my craving for attention stems from unresolved childhood trauma. But guess what, I have decided to stop texting first. I know there are people in my life who will reach out and text me, people who give a darn will continue to give a darn. I will continue to give a darn about them as well. 

The other thing that was on my mind was my identity crisis. I am 23 now. I was thinking about what I have achieved in life. The thing is, now I get a lot of time to think, because things are relatively slow at work. We don't know what to do right now. We think AI will take over and screw us all so everyone is just chilling. We've been told to do whatever we want/ start something of your own if that's what you want. 

And I was wondering what I wanted to do? Is travelling what I want to do? Is making money what I want to do? Is it something else I want to do? What do I want to do in life? What have I done in life? 

The more I pondered all of this, I understood that I don't know what I want to do in life, nor have I done anything in life. While people say I have all the time in the world and that you make the most amount of money in your life after you turn 35, I can't help but to wonder if I am just sitting here and wasting my life. 

Who am I? What would be my sales pitch if I were to sell myself? Should I say that I am a pseudo-intellectual who likes to take pictures and assume it's art? Or should I tell people that I am a generalist, which means that I don't know what I am? How is either of them wrong, tho? Both should be right? Right? 

You might be wondering why I am posting about all of this on the internet, well because if I have ever learned something in life, it's the fact that whatever emotions you are going through right now, someone else in the world is also going through the same thing, and this is intended for those people. 

Well, now that I know what is wrong, I don't know how to fix this. But the truth is, does it matter?