#sadness – Penfluky

YOU: The Symbolic Life.

On a Thursday morning, I woke up to the sound of my alarm. Then I picked up the most loyal partner I ever had for two years, my phone and checked for notifications. I made my bed and went to the hall. I saw my mother doing her chores. As soon as she saw me, she raised eyes as she saw one of the most disgusting guys on the planet. I don’t think they have any exceptions on me.

It is the normal thing to me, as I told I’m getting too tired of the job I had and want to follow my passion. We had fought for almost every day for the past six months. Even my dad is on mom’s side, they always cuss me and force me to find another and higher corporate life. I get ready for my work and leave for the office.

Ahh, office, the birthplace of my slavery and fake respect. I go in, and all of my colleagues greet me, throw a fake smile at me and show some phony respect and I reflect the same and go to my cabin. I open my laptop and start working. Few hours pass by, and I take a break thinking about aspects of my life. One of my colleague and friend Teja walks in.

Teja: What’s up, man! Why so gloomy? What’s wrong?

Me: Nothing man, just thinking about life; it is becoming tough and challenging every day. I don’t think I will be able to take this anymore.

Teja: Chill, bro! You got 52 clients in the past three months that is like a world record! You are the best performer consistently. I sometimes feel jealous and want to live your life.

Me: Life is not about only professional life, my man! It is just a part of it. I hate this life. I want to perceive my passion. But I cannot, and it hurts a lot. You know how my parents treat me; it is not good. Sometimes I feel I should be the “man”. You know the macho types, the “alpha male.” Like fuck everything who cares and don’t feel anything.

But I’m not that either I’m the opposite of alpha, what is the last letter in Greek letters? Ah, fuck I don’t even know that. Sometimes I feel I should believe in a supernatural deity. So that I can find someone to blame all this shit and ask for answers. Fuck it! I don’t even believe in spirituality to find so-called “peace.” I’m concerned my man. I don’t know even know what the fuck is going on.

Teja: Calm down, bro! Do you trust and respect me?

Me: Of course I do! Why do you even ask that?

Teja: Nothing I know this person who claims to cure life problems, I will make an appointment this Saturday. Meet him, and he will surely help you.

Me: Those are conmen you stupid bitch! They just take the money and do nothing. You moppet headed fuck! Please don’t believe them and I hate them.

Teja: Calm down! He claims to use Science, you said you respect me, you should go there. Now shut the fuck up! It is getting late, let’s go to lunch.

Teja and I leave for lunch, and I keep thinking about this conment Teja told me. I went to many doctors; there is nothing wrong with me. They said not to take everything upon me, give things time and everything will be fine. But what will this guy tell me? Will he just loot me? The only way to find that is wait till Saturday and meet him directly.

Finally, the day had arrived to see what the guy tells me. And I wake up and get ready to meet him. Teja texts me the appointment details and his location. I take my car and drove toward him; the site is 12 kilometres away. I reach there, and the name of the place intrigued me. It said “Science Helping Center.” I thought this conman is using Science in the wrong name.

I went in and showed my message of appointment. They have asked me to wait in the waiting area till my name comes up. I went into a room that said “waiting room” and was awestruck! It had the best books and science journals possible. I was, is, and will always be a science nerd and I started reading a few and travelled through the cosmos. I felt so relieved after many days.

Few hours pass by, and I’m having the best time ever! My name comes up and its time to meet him. I go in, and I see a man wearing torn jeans and has a dark style look sitting on a chair with a huge table. He sees me, smiles and sighs me to sit. I sat there in silence, waiting for the conman to arrive. The man in front of me is reading something, and his eyes are rolling very seriously.

After a few minutes, he put the thing he is reading down, looks at me and starts speaking.

Him: Hey! My name is Munna, and I’m the one who cures people here, this is your file I have been reading. So you got house issues and issues with people and stuff. I get that, no problem, I will help you.

I was in shock, how can a conman dress like this and speak like this? After a few seconds, I gathered myself and started talking.

Me: Never thought a conman would dress like this to get more people in. You are using science name to lure people in and gain money. Now, what are you going to do? Indulge me into spirituality and say giggle? I know you all, you are the biggest liars on this planet.

Munna smiled and continued.

Munna: I don’t give a shit on your spirituality, neither I won’t give a rats ass on your beliefs. I’m doing the thing I know to help you. If you want to get help, do as I say, or else you can fuck off. It is as simple as that.

I startled for a moment and agreed to do whatever he is giving me.

Munna: Okay, here is a drink. Once you drink it, you will be knocked out for ten days. You won’t even know what is happening around you. You will wake up after ten days and then follow what I ask you to do.

I thought for a while and decided to drink it. It tasted peculiar; the worst thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. I drank it all in and within a few seconds, it felt drowsy, and I dozed off. Days passed by and finally I woke up and was feeling very hungry and weak. I searched for my phone and couldn’t find it around my bed. After a few minutes, a lady came to me and asked to freshen up and meet Munna.

I freshened up and went to meet Munna. He signalled me to sit and was a reading a paper again. After a few minutes, he looked at me and said.

Munna: So, you are done with stage one of the procedure. Now I want you to go back to your everyday life and observe how people are with you. Don’t call people till you meet them. I want you to note these things you find in them and meet me after two days. Don’t forget to collect your stuff while leaving.

It felt strange, but I accepted, I took my things and headed home. After precisely two days, I came back with my observations. This time I can directly meet Munna without any waiting because he wanted to see me as I came in. I walked straight to him. He signalled me to sit and talked to me.

Munna: So, what are your observations? How did people behave with you? What did you observe? Tell me everything you did and make sure not to miss minute essential details.

Me: Okay, as soon as I left this place, I reached home. My family was like we thought you ran away for your passion and tried to search you, later we thought you would be back eventually as you feel will hungry. Next day I went to the office, but the faces that usually greet me were laughing at me. They didn’t have a greeting or a fake smile.

After some time, my boss walked into my cabin and asked what do I think of this company? He doesn’t give a fuck if I’m a top performer or anything. I should answer the phone at least. He asked me to quit and gave a termination notice. My friends were like, where were you, man? We missed you a bit and asked not to live without saying. You made my life messier now you dick face!

Munna had a chuckle, and he noted down everything I said. After writing, he saw me in the eye and started speaking.

Munna: “Now, rewind your life a bit. The past ten days, even you didn’t live your life. They went into the oblivion, and you cannot get them back. Your parents thought you just ran away and didn’t even bother to inquire. They thought you would just feel hungry and come back. Your office where you were working for four years, who hails you as the best guy, hard worker etc., removed you like you were nothing.

All the emotions you felt came from other people reactions to you. The most important thing here is “expectation.” You expect your parents to be understanding, your boss to give you less work, people to stop hating you and be a friend so and so forth there are many.

I’m not saying don’t expect or expect, and I’m not the one to say it. You expected and that is fine. But when the people didn’t reflect your expectation, why are you feeling sad? Why don’t you respect your expectation on yourself? Why don’t you like yourself?

It is effortless to kick a person when he is low, and this so-called “society” tend to do it. In your case, your parents tend to do it because they know you cannot say anything back or stand up for yourself. And in the case of your office the same people who greeted you smiled at you didn’t give a rats ass when the boss is yelling at you.

If we go back a bit, before that ten days you missed. You never liked yourself. You always blamed yourself for all the abuses and cusses you got. Slowly that self-blame turned into self-hate. Now you think everyone around you hates you. Let me tell you a small thing, people are very busy in their life and can feel the emotions.

You might have small fights, misunderstandings, ignorance, etc., but eventually, they will realise the good you did to them and will be with you and stand for you. Unless and until you murdered their family or did some hideous crime, no one will really hate you. It is you who hates you and think that everyone does too.

If you start standing up for yourself and start liking yourself for the way you are, these things don’t bother you much. If you are depressed, wants to be alone and not share anything with anyone, how will anyone know you are suffering from issues. Remember, there will be rough days and sadness, but when you are having a good day, you need to smile and share the happiness the same way you are sharing sorrow.

If you stand up for yourself and be expressive with the people whom you like and share things, you will have much better days coming forward.”

After listening to this, tears just came rolling out of my eyes. This time these were happy tears. I hugged Munna and headed back home for a better version of myself.

The Pragmatic Suicide Note.

It is past 3:00 AM, and John is sitting on his chair and is thinking something very deeply. He takes the last sip of the energy drink and throws the can away. That is the day John decided to end things for him; he planned his suicide. As his family has different health issues, there were all kinds of drugs in his house. He picks a bunch of them puts in front of him and decides to end it.

Before that, he decides to write a suicide note explaining why he is ending it. He searches for a pen and paper and gets them. He thinks on what to write, and many thoughts are bouncing over his head. He gets confused and gets emotional. After some time, he gathers himself and decides to write. As it has been days since John wrote something using a pen, he fumbled a bit at the beginning and continues.

“Hey, so I decided to end things,
Day by day, life made no sense.
It has been a journey of 23 years,
I have nothing left but tears.”

There is a chill down his spine, and he falls back on the chair and wipes the tears. He sits there, holding his head for some time. He then gathers himself together, holds the pen again and continues.

“The past few days were like living in a pressure cooker,
Each and every moment of it made me sicker.
Every single day felt like a dog chewed bone,
By thinking it, I had my brain blown.”

A tear rolls down the cheek of John; he wipes it and pauses for a moment. He then gains a bit of confidence and continues.

“I know life is not a bed of roses,
There will be happiness and sadness.
My life has nothing but a colossal sorrow,
By thinking of it every moment I felt hollow.”

John couldn’t hold his emotion now; he stops for a moment and starts weeping. After some time, he holds the pen and continues.

“There were people who would listen to my sadness,
But I don’t want to tell them and disturb their peace.
Any sane mind will lose it if this is heard,
They would feel terrible, and tears would shred.”

John holds for a bit and thinks of his friends and the moments he shared with them when he was feeling low. After a long pause, he continues.

” I got many suggestions when I shared a few, yep,
But did I follow them and try making my situation better? Nope.
I always thought they want to stay and or go away from me,
But I never shared a few laughs or happiness and invited them to thee.”

By this, John gets a ray of hope. He takes the note and keeps it safely in his closet. He Puts the medicines back and goes back to bed, hoping it would be different and goes to sleep. Let’s hope the same for John.

Hey Sad Guy, Not Today!

Hate when people say let go of all the negativity; like negativity is some force or energy that I can shed off. Wish it was that easy! Ironically it is the people that put the negativity there in the first place. I want to call this negativity as a ‘mood’. This negativity they talk about is a bad mood, and you need to keep away from it to have a good day because it is good days and multiple of them that forms a good life.

What ‘good’ is depends on one’s definition of what ‘bad’ is. If you know what’s wrong for you, you should avoid things that make you feel bad for the rest of your day. Unfortunately for us, multiple aspects make sure of spoiling your day. It is like someone coding a few bad mood inducers in a day, trying to mess up. All you got to do is to be resilient to such inducing agents.

Such agents can be objects that remind you of bad memories or can be people who are already having a bad day. You can avoid looking at and going to the items that make you feel bad. But it is unfair to say “get lost” to a person who is having a bad day. It is in human nature to go and console those people in sorrow.

You can console them if you want to, but it’s not that you are a bad person if you don’t. It is a choice, and if you choose to console them, it is not that you are good, it’s just that you prefer to comfort sad people. Everyone has ‘sad guys’ in their life. These sad guys are the inducing agents of bad mood. They don’t know that they are doing that, they are in sorrow themselves, but their grief passes on through their facial expressions, responses and words. Words of a person in distress, given the right vocabulary, can make every listener sad.

woman in gray tank top — Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

So, when someone told you to let go of all the negativity, they indirectly mean to dump these bad mood-inducing objects and people. They may not mean that, but it is the process behind letting the negativity go. In real life, we have energies that make us work, but this positivity/negativity are not one of those scientific energies. They are a figure of speech meaning mood. Let us not consider vibes as some invisible waves transmitting from minds of people, but let us assume vibes to be words, responses and reactions of people.

If you see a person in sad expression, you would at least feel like asking them what’s wrong, depends on you if you don’t. But you at least think ‘Why are they sad?’. You drift away thinking about what might have made them sad, and you keep on relating it to your life, reminding you of your own set of painful or bad memories. It might trigger sadness in you; hence the vibes passed. Butterfly effin’ effect! That butter eating kid with the bad mood in California can create a chain of bad moods till Syria and make a militant blast himself! With the internet and sharing thoughts, it is even more possible..

To these sad guys that make our day terrible by being sad, it’s not your mistake, but you should be aware what your mood makes you speak and how those words impact the listener’s mood. You are not ‘vibing’ through invisible waves of energy, but you are passing on bad mood through your facial expressions and your blabbering lips. All you can do is telling the sad guy not to be sad, offering them a solution. Yet, it is their call to take the solution or stop being sad.

You can’t just vibe out the sad guy the way they vibed you into a bad mood. But you can help them kill their sadness gradually, and it might help you get back on track with your ‘positive’ mood. This help is to feel good for yourself, and there is nothing noble about it. But if you choose not to help there is still a chance that you are in a bad mood, thinking about your own set of memories triggered because of that sad guy in your life. You need to understand that if you can not help the sad guy, and if there is nothing you can do to make them positive; you need to drop the trials. You should stop trying and care about your own mood. Your failure of a trial should not make you sad. Because if that made you miserable, you are a ‘sad guy’ in someone else’s life.

This is how the chain works, passing bad moods, being a sad guy in someone’s life. It is not voluntary, and it is not a choice to get low. But how you react to a situation is your call. After you receive an event, it might trigger sadness, happiness or thousand other emotions, but how you react is a choice. Not right at that moment, because at that moment you might respond in an emotional rush. When you are in an emotional rush, you should let it out by either speaking out or acting it out. If you hold on to that emotion, it carries forward throughout the day, and again you become the sad guy.

Not finding an outlet to let your bad mood out, makes you loathe about it all day and you end up moaning, whining and being a guy that speaks out negative words. You even react and respond negatively to almost everything. These responses hurt people, and if they didn’t let that out, they become you, the ‘sad guy’!

We need to break the chain of passing on the bad mood. A bad mood is attractive because it adds some weight to your character. You think it gives you some definition, but it won’t. For breaking the chain, you need to be aware of your mood, reactions and expressions. Do not suppress your inner emotional rush; that is not what I’m trying to say here. Ironically, suppressing your emotions will make you whiny and sad. Act when you want to act, let it all out. Do not carry the burden of emotions and feelings that you can’t lift anymore. Be open and expressive about your feelings, make sure every emotion is justified right, and you won’t carry it forward. Avoid the sad guy’s sadness impacting your mood. Even if you console them, you need not take it personally.

Tell the sad guy of your life, “Not today!”

The Difference Of Living And Leading

The Human mind is very mysterious,

With loads of emotions and thoughts;

It is always curious to learn things.

It helps to think and get elegant solutions,

But we always overthink and create complex problems.

The definition of life is a reality to be experienced,

One of the most vital things required to live is emotions;

Without emotions, life cannot be balanced.

Two of the most important emotions are happiness and sadness.

Instead of expressing sadness as an emotion, we get addicted,

When emotion becomes an addiction, it is madness.

Sadness is nothing but a situation, which didn’t go as planned,

When we feel sad, we share it with our loved ones;

Some times they get bored, that doesn’t make them bad,

You want them to listen to your tears, without expecting solutions;

But if we don’t accept the moment, none can change our mood.

In the end,

We may feel dwelling with thoughts in the calmness of night may give a sense of peace and understanding to life. The only difference between living a life and leading a life is accepting the moment. The squeaky cry of the heart may be unheard at night, but the musical sound of birds chirping in the morning will always give the energy to start everything fresh.

Annoyance of submission, halting the progression!

What are we? What is our purpose? We don’t have answers for that! But what we are trying to do is to progress in life. And what is progression if you don’t move forward? Is time linear or circle? We don’t know for sure. But what is circular is your thought of mind. What you face, you return to that, and you become that again. Your sadness, it makes you come back to it, rot in it. Because I guess that is what it is! You get victimised, and you become the perpetrator either for someone else or for yourself. First, there is a catalyst, someone or something saddens you, making you rot in your dark hole. But for the next time, when you think that you are out. You somehow will start finding your way back to that stink, by hurting yourself for finding ways to get hurt once again. I want to call it emotional masochism, and you can consider the following article as my case study, maybe.

Foreword: Sometimes, I can’t help myself becoming too objective by treating everyone around me as subjects for my little experimentations and observations. Wish, I could stop that, but that helps me be objective when I’m faced with unexpected twists of life. So you can see that I’m using the word “I” a lot, to make it personal. Because this write-up is ‘me’ and telling ‘you’ directly about the things I’ve observed.

Case of Stockholm Syndrome:

We see ourselves submitting to a lot of things; cigarettes, coffee, tea, pleasure, control and sadness. Those last two might look odd one out, but no! Looking at multiple cases and subjects, I have come to the conclusion that there are people who submit themselves and love to be in someone else’s control. They can’t be judged for not sounding logical, because they have grown fond of that oppression; they need that. They need a dictator to control, abuse and treat them as property.

I have seen many women get attracted to the ‘macho’, oppressive guys. Is it dad complex? Are they looking for someone to replace their overprotective dads? It sure is a probability! But regardless of what complex it is, few really return back to the very person who has hit them pretty bad. They also seem to get defensive when anyone tries to protect the girl from beatings. It’s almost like they are craving for that abuse. Is it not masochism? I never really thought we had so many masochists around us, but here we go, almost every 3 out of 5 women I have run into since my observation had begun were such masochists who crave to be submissive.

I was judgemental, and those words they speak always shock me. It’s not like they tell me directly, but their behaviour, it can be deduced to masochism. It is nothing but Stockholm syndrome because they seem to get a liking towards the abuser, and sometimes surprisingly miss the chokehold on their neck and spanking on the butt.

Of course, the majority of the subjects whom I have seen suffering from this syndrome, are women, there are men too. Some men want to be controlled by very leading and manipulative women. They get attracted to the woman who validates their every move. These men cannot and will never dare to do anything without their pseudo-MAMA’s approval. No matter if you try to help them drag out, they find their way back to the claws of such dictators.

Case of emotional masochism:

Now, this is a peculiar case, and I’m one of the subjects too. I can say the number of emotional masochists is a lot higher, and every 2 out of 5 humans are such. They don’t have anything, they are suffering from ‘normal-life’ syndrome. I was affected too, it is boring, and the boredom kills. We, the subjects, search for the meaning of life in different places, we find nothing, as there is nothing. But, we crave for depth, a character arc in our stories. We want our lives to not be flat and something that has a meaning, we are almost obsessed with this search. So much that we find the most comfortable way out.

Depression! No, we don’t have clinical depression, not at the beginning of course. But that is the climax of the path we head to. Somewhere in our life, we, the subjects understood that sadness can be easily achieved. In fact, it is the sadness that made us awake and coming out of it, we began this hunt for meaning. We had a purpose, some definition for ourselves when we were sad and loathing. We had reasons for being like this. We had everything to blame, and when we are not worried, there is nothing but ourselves to blame for things we do.

A friend of mine hinted to me about this ‘addiction to get depressed’. I instantly got connected to it, I know that I’m heading that way. I already had clues about myself liking the sadness. When I’m sad, I feel I had some depth. It was when I’m messy and scratching the un-groomed beard that I felt like an enlightened being. It made me feel superior to others; like no one knows what I’m going through. It was false, everyone is going through their own shit and feels the same way. I only knew that I liked to get sad until I came out of the thought.

When I was sunk in it deeply, I had the tendency to surround myself with all the tragic news, sad memories, betrayals and overthinking. It took me months to recover from this sort of emotional masochism that I had become. I still find the remnant residual waste of sad-craving ideas in my mind. It cries “the moment is here for you to get sad, go cry” once in a while. I just try to divert myself or make jokes about it because it will run away. You can be a self-loathing sadness craving person almost at every corner, few have periods of such phases once in a while, and few are always craving for sadness.

I cannot be a judge and say that this is ‘wrong’. If it gives them a purpose to live, maybe we should just let them be. But it is really annoying to be a consoling person for the guy who is emotionally masochistic. And also the guy who always tries to save people from abusive relationships. I have been both, and some people were annoyed consoling me when I was an emotional-masochist. You don’t need to stress yourself, give thoughts about them. Neither should you empathise and try to change them because they won’t. You can hunt them, but it is up to them to change. I changed because I want some other things in life. If you are one of those masochists and you feel like doing some other stuff, do change for the sake of yourselves.

The minds of those have been burdened and tired, those who have tried to protect these masochists. They must have spent sleepless nights thinking they have to save these people. This is yet another problem, the saviour complex. This is not masochism but an equally irritating super-hero syndrome. But at least, these super-saviours don’t halt progression, they boost it but at the cost of their peace of minds. One thing I want to say to both saviours and masochists is that the progress of life is what we want. Being sad, being in an abusive relationship it makes you stay in the same place for too long. Too long that you almost waste your entire life before you even realise that you can do a lot more things with your life than getting choked or walking in a dark abyss. It takes you nowhere, that path is circular, a void where the end and the beginning are just a hole. All you need to know is that there is a hole, and you can just jump back to the world. Do not take the easy way out, you can do a lot of things with your life.

Let’s talk about more submissive ideologies and phases in our next article. If you are familiar with more such humiliation-craving masochistic ideas to live, you can comment or mail us at penfluky@gmail.com.