Floating.

It has been over a fortnight that I have written anything for work or pleasure. And guess what? It ain’t a writer’s block at all. It is, what I call, floating. Strange as it may seem, I feel like I am floating on a limbo of redundancy. Suddenly, everything is annoying and unnecessary and everything else is a luxury. In our modern society, where success is measured by the hours you put in at work and by the brand of clothes you wear, where success sometimes is nothing but a pitiful existence and minimal living on a bed of timed luxury, where you develop abilities to please people you like by changing into what they like, where you might even stoop down enough to pretend that you don’t care if people like you just so the people like you, living is a gift. With me so far?

Over the years of interacting with fellow humans, you meet types. Different types of people, each type as different from the other as chalk from cheese. Yet, deep down, you know that they are all the same. The same physical features if not attributes, the same emotions, maybe differing in amount and the same needs if not the means to satisfy them at the same level. I remember, in an episode of Modern Family, where the mockumentary discusses ‘change’ and at the end of the episode, Mitch declares “15 percent. That’s how much a person can change.” and I believe him. You see, we’re creatures of habit and comfort zones and once we are settled in our zones, we’re highly reluctant to move out of it. Now, I am not saying that there aren’t any people who like change. Believe me, I love my comfort zone but I love the change too. Change is necessary but is changing? That’s the question. You’d gladly take off from work and family for a week and go off with your college buddies to a faraway place to experience change. Maybe even for a fortnight. Or a month. What about forever? Would YOU change? That’s the question.

Now, like many of my other rants, I have no idea where this is headed and I am hoping that, like all the other times, my readers will make sense of my blabbering. 

Today, I am thinking of change. Since graduating last year, I have been functioning as a freelance content writer working from home. Relentlessly. Why, I have no idea. I just like the idea of work and working too. So much that my family, friends and boyfriend forced me to slow down and take a holiday. Which really didn’t happen until earlier this month when I took a fortnight off and went on a trip to Bangalore. But, my behaviour over the past eight months made me ask myself who I am. Am I the lazy reader I was in high school? Or the compulsive social media whore I was in college? OR this? This work loving couch potato? So far, I don’t think I know.

But what I do know is that we adapt. We may not change but we pretend to. Sometimes for people we love. Sometimes for people to love us. And at other times, for the accusing eyes that look back at us from inside the mirror. Sometimes, we change so much that our old selves melt away somewhere deep down and we ask ourselves if that side of ours really existed or was that a mask we used? Sometimes, the answers are easy. But mostly, it’s buried with the change. Floating somewhere out of our sight.

P.S. I missed two Sunday Stories due to my vacation. Not that you should care.