Shall I Burst Some Bubbles?

The ancient Greeks were well aware that a paradox can take us outside our usual way of thinking. They combined the prefix para- ("beyond" or "outside of") with the verb dokein ("to think"), forming paradoxos, an adjective meaning "contrary to expectation."

Source : Merriam Webster Dictionary

Hi there! I am surprising myself by coming back here already. There is a lot going on at the present so I will have to take several breaks while writing this post. I will try to keep this short.

Bursting someone's bubble means shattering someone's illusions or simply put, showing a person that their beliefs are false (not in a very gentle way I suppose). So you see, these cheerful images of me playing around with bubbles don't quite match the title. Perhaps now you may understand why I began this post the way I did (right on top if you have a questionable attention span :P).

Looking at these pictures my first thought was - 'this one is going to be one hell of a cheerful post!' but I instantly backed off because it didn't quite align with what I was truly feeling. The bubbles took me somewhere else. They reminded me of all the times I had been naive, ignorant and blissful only to be followed by an event where I landed flat on my face to realize that my bubble had burst. A lot of you might have experienced the same- believed in someone, thought something of yourself or had your own perceptions of life and one fine day it all came crashing down. When reality hits us, it could be devastating but it is always about what we do next- the immediate next action and then the action after that and so on; one step at a time. That determines which path we will be taking, where we are headed and whether we have learnt our lesson or are we going to get ourselves stuck in a loop?

Time to burst some bubbles:

1. We struggle with expressing. That is because most of us are not good at thinking and are worse at articulating our thoughts and feelings. To be the most conscious living beings on earth and to not have the ability to fully comprehend ourselves; to be the ones gifted with language but finding ourselves unable to communicate as we'd like to; shows that we have a long way to go. Our strengths as human beings also seem to have the potential to become the source of our biggest weaknesses. One hell of an antithesis right?

That doesn't mean we should go back to being animals though. Sure, it would be a lot less complicated, but why go backwards as if there's no hope? We are just slightly different from the rest of nature. That slight difference has a significant impact but that doesn't mean our existence is wrong. We just haven't figured it out yet or else we would be Gods, and we aren't that either.

I believe we're getting somewhere, or at least we are trying to, and we must try to be closer to the ideal.

2. We often suffer more in our thoughts than in reality. That doesn't mean all our scary thoughts are baseless and have no connection to actual possibilities. In fact, the problem is that we do not particularly ace at keeping a check on our chain of thoughts. One of the tasks fulfilled by he act of thinking is that we can access our memories to remember what might have harmed us before and to prepare to protect ourselves from any imminent danger. The problem is, some of our unresolved past issues might have had such a long term impact on us that without even realising, a small trigger which might not even be a problem, would put us on our toes ready for battle, use up our body resources that were meant to be saved for future threats, thus exhausting us. To put that entire experience in one word - ANXIETY. Big letters because anxiety is such a common and bothersome problem. Most people struggle with it but very few talk about it.

It is not a bad thing, this anxiousness. Every emotion we experience has its own purpose. Understanding its significance and being as self aware as we can be is important to help us not lose ourselves to how those emotions make us feel. Notwithstanding this, constant anxiety uses up our resources which compromises our immunity and eventually affects our health. I would like to dive deeper into this topic some day but for now here's what I think-

Anxiety becomes bigger if we let it consume us. If we can just try a simple act of saying out loud what it is that is making us anxious, it releases some of that indefinite pent up fear in our chest and paves a clearer way to becoming calmer and addressing the problem at hand. It makes that big problem in our head become smaller the moment we articulate it because now we have something much more definite in our hands to work on.

3. Confrontations or arguments aren't necessarily bad. If anything, concealing or tolerating too much can be dangerous. This is similar to my previous point as well. By not addressing the issues, we not only expose ourselves to becoming more resentful, defensive, aggressive, depressive or even lunatic, but we might also cause a lot of harm to many meaningful relationships and to the people involved in them.

Call a spade a spade. Discuss or confront with the intent to solve and NOT TO WIN. Argue to arrive at a solution and not to prove yourself right. The moment your intentions falter and your ego becomes bigger and your intent of finding common ground, rather than you actually listening, understanding and solving, your arguments go south. That is when stupid fights happen. Just take a deep breath and listen that's all. Don't be in a hurry to speak or react. It is always best to remember that the person in front of you, no matter who, might know something more than you do (and that's always true).

4. There is darkness in us, as there is light. You can't ignore it. Acknowledge it, accept and understand it.

You have the ability to unleash your darkness but also to choose not to. And if you choose not to, that's what will define you as a good human being I guess, to know you can be bad but to choose to be good. If you are born nice, you are nice without much effort (but you never know what that can breed). However, the challenge is unsurmountable if you have a dark side and knowing that you can easily give in, yet to have the will to fight it and keep it in check for the sake of humanity. In my opinion, that's what a great human being looks like, the ability to sacrifice a part of yourself for the greater good.

5. Your word is your honour. If you break it, it breaks you and everything else that matters to you. Stop lying, at least to yourself, to begin with.

Just like drinking sufficient water is the most fundamental solution to most health problems and despite knowing that since childhood we keep forgetting or ignoring, same goes with honesty. It is the fundamental solution to most life problems and the easiest one to ignore. Our talent for deluding (us and others) is incredible. Creating a false world comes easy, but reality will always find a way to crash down your simulation of this false world.

Hmm.

The number 5 seems to me like a decent integer to stop at. Hope I didn't lower your spirits with this post. If I did, you probably are pretty deluded in life. Oops, I did it again. But why sugar coat anything when you can simply speak the truth? The truth that may first dismantle you and then throw upon you a glint of perspective with a dash of hope so that you can restructure yourself in a way that fulfills you? If you could take this piece of writing with a tinge of humour, I think you are doing pretty well. Pat yourself on the back. Ya ya, go on! You are free to draw your own conclusions, accept or reject everything I said. I'm not the Lord, my word is not the Bible but if you could relate to this even a tiny bit then hey, we're definitely not alone in this! :)

Wishing you the very best for the new year that's coming. I hope you get closer to reality and yourselves this year and then of course to your loved ones too.

Love,

Megha.

Photography - Sushant Junnarkar

Hair - Shraddha

Makeup/Styling & Concept - Megha Ray