September, 2017

I sit in the psychiatrist’s office, waving my hands around trying to draw on air how it is like in my mind; how I feel. “I’m floating, almost touching the moment but never actually am, Dr.” – I was aiming to move the scene into her perception of how I always watch people in the moment and I am just right there rising above it by quite a few centimeters and no matter how I try to reinforce my-self into it, I always fail. After a few trials, she got somewhere near the scene and made me leave her office with a prescription of Prozac 20 mg. She told me antidepressants were there to help make our trials hit the right buttons, and I believed her, but something was missing from the picture. I quite suffered from symptoms of depression and general anxiety; I perceived things on a much more absurd dimension than what a normal human being would do, but the entire prologue of the book of my suffering was ripped off. She missed something which I didn’t. The bigger part of the picture was existential distress (as Dr. Viktor E. Frankl calls it in his book Man’s Search for Meaning) rather than a mental disease– most significantly, meaning was absent. My hands were knitting threads of agony instead of identity.

I did not know how to either live or be still—I did not know to be!

The feeling I was aiming to explain earlier to my psychiatrist was that of isolation. I never felt like I could be drawn or, let alone, be attached to life; something, and something mighty, stood in my way each time I tried to lean in. The pace was too quick to pin down and savor; I always felt like everyone was running and racing through their ways around me, as if there are not enough years to live, let alone fully live. They almost seemed mad in my consciousness, I, on the other hand, was not able to drag my feet to even walk in a similar pace. It was quite simple, I never found the reason to. I never had the joy of being.

Being.

I quit the purposeless search for meaning, and thought I should just breathe.

There were no magnificent epiphanies; meaning came through with time, patience, and resilience. I desisted, closed the gates and kept any further cognition outcast. I took the time to reflect and feel what is right up front of and around me, so that I could sense gratitude filling my senses.

Life, by it-self, is hideously fast, and what I figured I ought to do is take – longer time – to – do – simple – things; bring back the spirit of craft into my daily life – building a system of serenity and fullness. Modern time implies that the longer the to-do list is, the more accomplished and complete we will be; but truth is it is about doing whichever one desires to, but with precision and pleasure.

And so I had created a new philosophy to flow with for the next while of my life…

January, 2018

I wake up, head to the kitchen to make my-self a warm drink. I turn on the aluminum-made electric kettle and as I watch my reflection on its surface I decid on turning it off, and bend down to grab the old red stove-top tea pot. I give it a good wash, fill it with water, milk, black tea and an eastern wind kisses my cheek as I’m standing—so I add cardamom and cloves before I put it on the stove. Ten minutes pass by before it starts to boil, and I pour it into my white and blue clay mug.

Indulgence

Had I spent every morning of my life making milk-tea using the electric kettle, not in once it would be as whole and aromatic as the older way. It takes more patience, attention and appreciation; a process was there for its warmth to reach my palms. And just like that, my morning milk-tea transformed from a speedily gulped-down drink to a blissful ritual of getting in touch with the moment – a state of being.