Transitions are not easy. From a rhythm, you jump and cross the space till you find the next rhythm. I am making one such jump!
The previous act had a nice rhythm to it. Newspapers, magazines, internet, reading, writing, learning, catching up with friends, no responsibilities, no worries, and no cash either. It was a headache, but it was an unworried, unhurried life, slowly, gradually working towards the exam. Watching in pleasure as you make the pieces fall in place. One by one. Bit by bit.
So, now. The exam has been given. And we are all waiting to know if we have written enough to reach the next phase.
I like reading books that have vivid descriptions. That is because I myself like visualizing. I visualized my life events often. I often visualized the exam preparatory phase I went through just recently. It was like jumping between two major continents separated by the Ocean of Uncertainty. The Ocean of Uncertainty is not a homogenous one. It is fed by many rivers and the waters never really mix. Uncertainty is predominant, but not the only one. There is hope and there is despair, there is happiness, and there is sorrow, success and failure, sweet and bitter times, optimism and pessimism. There are humans who once fell into the Ocean and chose not to swim back to the place where they started, but instead to remain there and begin coaching institutions that worked like sweat shops.
When you decide to give the exam, you stand on a piece of land and you strive to reach the other major piece of land. The exam is the jump. You make the jump in three parts.
This the peace time visualization. That is, when I am doing normal. There is another visualization I have imagined up, when I am feeling uncertain, anxious and scared about the decision to jump. It is that of a strange looking contraption going down a very steep cliff. A free fall, totally out of control, and without any guarantee or certainty, where I am both the driver and the passenger rolled into one, and the only one interested in knowing the fate of the journey.
Oh, I started talking about transitions and ended up in visualizations. One transition I underwent recently is when I decided to try my hand at a couple of things that I have never tried before. Like the Legal Profession.
This transition has been kind of harsh. It seems to leave with me very little time for anything else. And energy. Give me a holiday, and I sleep in. Like I did today. Till the afternoon. My room is a mess, still. I have got to clean up. I am not a neatness freak, but I am not a shabby person. But shabbiness is the only word that would even begin to describe the state of affairs inside my room.
This mixing together sweaty clothes with the freshly laundered ones, this tossing of smelly socks into the basket and letting it be there for an eternity, of not sorting stuff on the table, of not dusting the many layers of dust that has settled on everything inside the room, of not scrubbing the bathroom till it becomes the epitome of dirtiness, of sleeping in between all the mess, of waking up and not caring about the way things are, of not wanting to care, of not wanting to touch the newspapers, of not wanting to reply to mails, are all part of a rhythm I am all too familiar with. It is what I do when I want work piling up and then plunging into it.
May be I was just meant for hard physical labour, and not for intellectual labour as these. May be I must respect that dictum, and stop blogging now, start cleaning the mess up.
The previous act had a nice rhythm to it. Newspapers, magazines, internet, reading, writing, learning, catching up with friends, no responsibilities, no worries, and no cash either. It was a headache, but it was an unworried, unhurried life, slowly, gradually working towards the exam. Watching in pleasure as you make the pieces fall in place. One by one. Bit by bit.
So, now. The exam has been given. And we are all waiting to know if we have written enough to reach the next phase.
I like reading books that have vivid descriptions. That is because I myself like visualizing. I visualized my life events often. I often visualized the exam preparatory phase I went through just recently. It was like jumping between two major continents separated by the Ocean of Uncertainty. The Ocean of Uncertainty is not a homogenous one. It is fed by many rivers and the waters never really mix. Uncertainty is predominant, but not the only one. There is hope and there is despair, there is happiness, and there is sorrow, success and failure, sweet and bitter times, optimism and pessimism. There are humans who once fell into the Ocean and chose not to swim back to the place where they started, but instead to remain there and begin coaching institutions that worked like sweat shops.
When you decide to give the exam, you stand on a piece of land and you strive to reach the other major piece of land. The exam is the jump. You make the jump in three parts.
This the peace time visualization. That is, when I am doing normal. There is another visualization I have imagined up, when I am feeling uncertain, anxious and scared about the decision to jump. It is that of a strange looking contraption going down a very steep cliff. A free fall, totally out of control, and without any guarantee or certainty, where I am both the driver and the passenger rolled into one, and the only one interested in knowing the fate of the journey.
Oh, I started talking about transitions and ended up in visualizations. One transition I underwent recently is when I decided to try my hand at a couple of things that I have never tried before. Like the Legal Profession.
This transition has been kind of harsh. It seems to leave with me very little time for anything else. And energy. Give me a holiday, and I sleep in. Like I did today. Till the afternoon. My room is a mess, still. I have got to clean up. I am not a neatness freak, but I am not a shabby person. But shabbiness is the only word that would even begin to describe the state of affairs inside my room.
This mixing together sweaty clothes with the freshly laundered ones, this tossing of smelly socks into the basket and letting it be there for an eternity, of not sorting stuff on the table, of not dusting the many layers of dust that has settled on everything inside the room, of not scrubbing the bathroom till it becomes the epitome of dirtiness, of sleeping in between all the mess, of waking up and not caring about the way things are, of not wanting to care, of not wanting to touch the newspapers, of not wanting to reply to mails, are all part of a rhythm I am all too familiar with. It is what I do when I want work piling up and then plunging into it.
May be I was just meant for hard physical labour, and not for intellectual labour as these. May be I must respect that dictum, and stop blogging now, start cleaning the mess up.
very insightful Gayathri! a good capturing of your interesting thoughts. Keep writing.
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