Quality of life....
So I guess every time I have a “moment” I show up on this blog… well that’s what it’s here for! Read on at your own risk!
So today started out with a thought on the quality of my life. It seems like no matter what I do, how I do things, the quality pretty much does not improve in my head…. The reason? I don’t seem to have a proper relationship with my parents.
To take an example, folks came over to Coimbatore for a few days to kinda take time off, relax and apparently to spend some time with me. In the past 3 days, I have not had time to sit with them and talk or even have them think about spending some quality time. From the time we landed, it has been complaints of rats in the house, how to keep things clean, what not to do with dishes, swami, clothes, sheets, plants, yada yada yada. This house is great… there’s a nice garden, brilliant design for fresh air, terraces that are spacious and generally a relaxing feel to it. How much time has anyone spent in enjoying it? Zilch. Wake up, clean… get breakfast ready… get lunch ready… coffee… second coffee… tea for people… is there nothing else mothers can think about spending their mornings on? And it’s not an enjoyable task… my mom has no bleeding clue on how to live a stress free life… everything is a race to get things done, listen to bull comments, get pissed at something, control people and the whole nine yards. I got up this morning, tried to get my chai done and the only conversation I had with mom was what to clean and how to do things. What happened to good morning… how are you… let’s sit for 5 minutes like a civilized family and alteast pretend to be interested in what crap comes out of your mouth? Instead, it’s a running stream of etchai, patthu, dirty… and the growing concern of how I need to be fed… look at me god damn it… I have enough crap in my body to keep me alive for weeks without food!
I guess it comes down to what you perceive as a relationship. So far, it has been transactional. I tell you something, it gets done, or I make you feel sorry that you didn’t do it and get it done by eating your brains off. Here’s food, eat and go do your own crap. Here are the groceries, make me more crap. Here’s the laundry, do dry it…. We tend to feel good that there is an occasional please and thank you attached with requests and is comforting that a yelling does not accompany it always. If there is one meal without some stray comment or bickering, it’s a great day. When does it ever move from measuring life by what is not wrong to what is great in life? Why do we want so much control over what happens in life to be able to feel good? What is being content? Ever since my head came down from being an inflated jackass, I’ve wondered about having an open, meaningful relation with my mom. Be able to tell her everything in life… be able to sit down and have a genuine effort to get to know the “person” as opposed to her role - “mother”. It has at some point become a middle ground of where I tell her things and she ignores what she does not like (which pretty much is everything) and when confronted, throws out the punch line “I should just not talk because nobody likes what I have to say”. WHAT THE FUCK MAN! Am I dumbass to confront you if I don’t give a rats ass about you? I guess this is where I understand the term “art of conversation”… it’s an art to be able to converse and not discuss anything important, nothing personal, nothing meaningful and at the end feel completely happy that a bunch of lines have been exchanged.
The most popular approach is to just ignore and run away from it and convince yourself that people are the way they are and live a lie by thinking you had a wonderful relationship with the parents. This also seems to work like a charm… after a few years, you know how to nod at the right times, say the right things and be happy. I guess that’s where we are driven to… frustrated and dejected. It’s great that we try to connect with people and throw out gyaan on how to do certain things without knowing shit about how they lead their life and who they are. Yes… I feel good that I told him to stop being an idiot and eat less fried food and cheese… It’s great that I got an opportunity to tell him to make his bed properly and torture him to sleep early to get more rest. Whoopdedoo! Congratulations! Live in your own damn bubble.
In the end… all I really want is to show them that life is more than rushing to keep people happy… make yourself happy. Go sit on the terrace in the morning sun, have a chai… don’t worry about the dust / dirt… go for a walk… enjoy the fresh air… pick your flowers, sit in your swami sanctuary, cook what you feel like, eat happy and have a life without bickering! For me, that’s quality of life… how many times in a day do you look back and wish it was different… wish things were better… wish you had more than a transactional relationship with people called family… wish you were just plain content with life. For now, I guess it is shitty… but maybe sometime… in the distant future… before we lose our marbles, we can sit down and talk because it makes us know each other better and feel that a family is what we really were.
So today started out with a thought on the quality of my life. It seems like no matter what I do, how I do things, the quality pretty much does not improve in my head…. The reason? I don’t seem to have a proper relationship with my parents.
To take an example, folks came over to Coimbatore for a few days to kinda take time off, relax and apparently to spend some time with me. In the past 3 days, I have not had time to sit with them and talk or even have them think about spending some quality time. From the time we landed, it has been complaints of rats in the house, how to keep things clean, what not to do with dishes, swami, clothes, sheets, plants, yada yada yada. This house is great… there’s a nice garden, brilliant design for fresh air, terraces that are spacious and generally a relaxing feel to it. How much time has anyone spent in enjoying it? Zilch. Wake up, clean… get breakfast ready… get lunch ready… coffee… second coffee… tea for people… is there nothing else mothers can think about spending their mornings on? And it’s not an enjoyable task… my mom has no bleeding clue on how to live a stress free life… everything is a race to get things done, listen to bull comments, get pissed at something, control people and the whole nine yards. I got up this morning, tried to get my chai done and the only conversation I had with mom was what to clean and how to do things. What happened to good morning… how are you… let’s sit for 5 minutes like a civilized family and alteast pretend to be interested in what crap comes out of your mouth? Instead, it’s a running stream of etchai, patthu, dirty… and the growing concern of how I need to be fed… look at me god damn it… I have enough crap in my body to keep me alive for weeks without food!
I guess it comes down to what you perceive as a relationship. So far, it has been transactional. I tell you something, it gets done, or I make you feel sorry that you didn’t do it and get it done by eating your brains off. Here’s food, eat and go do your own crap. Here are the groceries, make me more crap. Here’s the laundry, do dry it…. We tend to feel good that there is an occasional please and thank you attached with requests and is comforting that a yelling does not accompany it always. If there is one meal without some stray comment or bickering, it’s a great day. When does it ever move from measuring life by what is not wrong to what is great in life? Why do we want so much control over what happens in life to be able to feel good? What is being content? Ever since my head came down from being an inflated jackass, I’ve wondered about having an open, meaningful relation with my mom. Be able to tell her everything in life… be able to sit down and have a genuine effort to get to know the “person” as opposed to her role - “mother”. It has at some point become a middle ground of where I tell her things and she ignores what she does not like (which pretty much is everything) and when confronted, throws out the punch line “I should just not talk because nobody likes what I have to say”. WHAT THE FUCK MAN! Am I dumbass to confront you if I don’t give a rats ass about you? I guess this is where I understand the term “art of conversation”… it’s an art to be able to converse and not discuss anything important, nothing personal, nothing meaningful and at the end feel completely happy that a bunch of lines have been exchanged.
The most popular approach is to just ignore and run away from it and convince yourself that people are the way they are and live a lie by thinking you had a wonderful relationship with the parents. This also seems to work like a charm… after a few years, you know how to nod at the right times, say the right things and be happy. I guess that’s where we are driven to… frustrated and dejected. It’s great that we try to connect with people and throw out gyaan on how to do certain things without knowing shit about how they lead their life and who they are. Yes… I feel good that I told him to stop being an idiot and eat less fried food and cheese… It’s great that I got an opportunity to tell him to make his bed properly and torture him to sleep early to get more rest. Whoopdedoo! Congratulations! Live in your own damn bubble.
In the end… all I really want is to show them that life is more than rushing to keep people happy… make yourself happy. Go sit on the terrace in the morning sun, have a chai… don’t worry about the dust / dirt… go for a walk… enjoy the fresh air… pick your flowers, sit in your swami sanctuary, cook what you feel like, eat happy and have a life without bickering! For me, that’s quality of life… how many times in a day do you look back and wish it was different… wish things were better… wish you had more than a transactional relationship with people called family… wish you were just plain content with life. For now, I guess it is shitty… but maybe sometime… in the distant future… before we lose our marbles, we can sit down and talk because it makes us know each other better and feel that a family is what we really were.