Friday, July 2, 2010
For the love of monotony!
"May you live in interesting times.." is a Chinese curse. I coudn't agree more! - with the fact that it is a curse, I mean.
Well, change is good, the only constant - as the cliche goes; the ups and downs and the variety that add spice to our lives...but there's nothing more I crave than monotony. The comfort of the predictable, the straight line without blips - the sizes ranging from mole hills to mountains in my life!
I know I can't take stagnation, and I feel stagnated every quarter. So I should be the the last person to say I crave monotony. The condradiction in this is evident, bordering on schizophrenia.
The constant change, growth, ambition, activity, Type A personality have probably reached the peak and is now gowing down... the adrenaline rush is bound to be followed by a parasympathetic trough.
That is probably what this is. A simple physiological phenomenon. Well, atleast if this is the explanation, I'm at peace.
People go through mid-life crises and do things that often shake up their entire beautifully well laid out clockwork lives. The escape from monotony at any cost. The reassurances that we seek through change. Attention from a different man/woman after decades of a committed relationship reassures us of our appeal and sexuality, the change of a job or career reassures us of our skills and abilities. A crazy hairstyle sometimes is enough to reassure us. I know some women who change hairstyles right after breaking up with a boyfriend. This is for reassurance and resurgence: "I am still attractive and lovable".... (and at the same time) "this is the new me" (subtext- who will not date losers like these!!)
This is ironic. Change, that shakes up and shatters the world as we know it, can be so reassuring at times.
I, in my crises, want monotony. I seek it for the same reassurance and resurgence, though. The parasympathetic trough is now reached tidal proportions and is impatient to reach the stability and predictability. But this is again the same craving for change and movement from the current constant, isn't it? The schizophrenic contradictions recur...
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Very beautifully written....and very authentic experiences.....I feel that we carry ourselves wherever we go....into every new situation and somehow turn it back into something like the old situation we left behind, through our own agency, exactly because we are what we are as persons.
Newness or change on the outside merely balances and reflects a constancy within. The more the external 'changes' a person can take, the more the experience of the balance within....and vice versa. The more the stress with external changes, the more one experiences a lack of balance within....and there is no causality effect to this. Its just connected to each other.
In times of stress, one has two choices. Either go completely external and effect changes that gives a short lived and probably painful experience of renewal with a cost (the least one talks of tattoo, the better it is).....or go inwards and seek that constancy and balance within that provides the strength to deal with all physical changes.
The world changes, contexts change....but we don't change (except very very gradually....and more and more painfully, as one grows older and more vulnerable)....we take ourselves to every new context....with the hope that it will give us a balance within....a new house, a new relationship, a new job...
but real peace evades external changes....it only comes by accepting oneself....while going deep deep down within...
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