It’s not just difficult going back to words written when one's profession requires words spoken at a constant pace, it's daunting. What do i have to say that others have not already expressed? What do I have left to argue that others have not already pointed out? But how does that lessen my experiences in any way? I never started this blog to gain popularity or gain followers. I knew that I needed to spread my words out into the world. How many do even follow me and follow blogs anymore after all? I wouldn't even consider a single person. and maybe that's why it's much easier now to write what I wish to - knowing that hardly anyone would be interested and reading this. Isn’t there a certain masochistic pleasure in knowing that no matter how much you express, nobody will ever understand what you are trying to say?
I’ve been within my house for the last 5 months and still counting. If anybody reading this doesn't understand the significance of that, you are lucky. Either you are oblivious to what is happening all around, or you did not bother to check the date on which I am writing and publishing this post. These are the days of Covid19 pandemic. Period. Nobody requires any more explanation.
I have always been habituated with a a considerable amount of sound and noise around me. I have lived in the suburbs but the kind that is trying to make its name in the list of urban areas with a lot of ambition and resilience. So naturally, we have had an alarmingly rising number of horns honking every year. And then I moved to a more urban and sophisticated part of the city which, ironically enough, is eerily silent after sundown. We have a shopping mall about half a kilometer from our house, and that's about the only place in the neighbourhood that sees any gathering. So the first one year or so in this neighbourhood was enough to make me doubt my auditory abilities remaining intact. However, just as any other cockroach surviving on the resources received, i too got used to the lessened noise and hushed tones.
The last 5 months have been different, for obvious reasons. Since the days of my starting with school, i had remained at home, without any occupation, for only three months at a stretch and that had driven me to almost insanity. These 5 months have not done that, i hope, as i still have my vocation and remain busy for the better part of the day. But it has definitely made me afraid of the voices in my head. Now I completely refuse to believe that only the cuckoo ones hear the voices and the better part of the population does not. i am a firm believer that most of us hear the voices that we consciously try to avoid, just that we are not confident enough to accept that we do actually hear them.
So my escape-route has been adding external noise to submerge the internal ones. By the way, I never deny that I am an escapist. And I don’t even take it as an insult if anyone else calls me that, for after all the greatest knowledge is knowing the self, right? All the while, as I am working or cooking or cleaning or even brushing my teeth, I keep some music or audio book or sometimes simply old movies playing on my phone. Needless to say, it drives my partner crazy, but I suppose it is better that he turns crazy before I do! Sadist meets masochist, you see!
