“Ah fluke, not again!” he muttered under his breathe, still very much in the delusion of his sleep. He could hear the wake-up call crisp and clear, a loud cacophony that he wished he could erase from the facade of the Earth. Life for Joseph has always been this dull monotony, a life which he didn’t know where it led or how it could be turned around for achieving the middle-class dream. After the usual pondering of how he came to be like in this state, he awoke from the insides of the quilt. He picks up his smartphone to see how much people have been ignoring him. For some god forbidden reason, he likes to wake up with a gentle reminder of how lonely he is.

Empty inbox.

With the limited mobility he has, he walks around the top of his house. The long barren terrace, which emanated mild heat from the morning rays, made his morning walk refreshing. He plugs his headphone into his smartphone and lavishly wastes several minutes to get the right music to accompany his morning mood. With some deliberate effort to find new music, he resorts to the old playlist called “On Repeat” (any Spotify users?) which is his happy place. He wanted new music, he likes the novelty that new music gives but the comfort of old music was just irresistible to ignore.

After some sunbathing along with soft pop song gently ringing in the insides of his heart, he starts his morning ritual of meditation. Meditation is a spiritual exercise that connects the insides to the outsides in a seamless way. Or, that is what the great rishis and spiritual leaders claim about meditation. But Joseph is modest in his spiritual self; there’s no fancy abstract meaning for meditation. He considers meditation as nothing. Literally nothing. Meditation is sweeping clear the “inbox” of his mind. And this “inbox” will eventually get empty after carefully manifesting each and every mail. And then finally effacing them.

Emptying the mind has always been his favorite activity. The latter is always superseded with reading, he likes to fill his empty mind with the thoughts of other distinguished authors. Sitting on the edge of the terrace with a mild breeze helping his hair dangle around his forehead, he was pondering on what to read. Then he came across a book called The Courage To Be Disliked. The title invoked curiosity.

Gee, why would anyone want to be disliked?

He immediately went off to type double U double U double U dot book-store dot com on the address bar, a place where he knows he might find the book. After a few scouring, he got the book in his palms (well, on his kindle, to be more precise). Ten pages into the book, he was very curious about how the book would go on. The book was a conversation between a wise philosopher and a skeptic young man. There itself the book broke fundamentals of the usual self-help crap, which made him more interested in the book. Halfway through the book, it says something absurd about human problems. It says human problems are just inconveniences that we fabricate in our head, an excuse that we project just so that we could avoid doing it. Humans are by default equilibrium-seeking beings (homeostasis); we hate change. But does it apply to our inner demons and our crisis? To some extent Joseph agrees to it. But would it be true for serious mental illness? Some of the frequent mild crises we all face are arguably just excuses. Impostor syndrome is being used to second guess ourselves and as a way to mask our fear of failure. All the “I don’t think I’m built for it..” “I can’t do it at all, I’m too dumb for it..”, these are just mere excuses. Excuses that we make to avoid failure/discomfort. He kept on contemplating this revelation about how we warp our fears and comforts into excuses.

Three pages later, he realized the courage to be disliked is freedom; it liberates us from the tangles of other people’s opinions.

At this point, Joseph, deciding he had enough information for the day, shut his kindle off because further reading might invoke a brain freeze. So he stood up and went downstairs to have a cup of chai.

Now sitting on his clunky chair, Joseph begins to ponder again about millions of other things. The pondering done in a state of panic because he had pending chores and works to do; but the degree to which Joseph procrastinates made him completely useless. One of the trains of thought was about the 2-year long pandemic. He begins to ponder on how much pandemic affected his life. How much everyone took the liberty of going outside, without rubbing the stinking alcohol on their whole body, for granted. The liberty of talking to a stranger freely without the eyes of suspicions (Is he infected with the virus?). The immensely claustrophobic-free social life, which now, is residing in a tiny cubicle. When telling someone about being sick didn’t invoke a sense of fear in others.

Will things get better? Of course, it will not, or it may. It all depends on what you choose to see. You know what they say, it’s either half-glass full of vodka or half-glass filled with air, both unequivocally optimistic (Yes, I obliterated the popular proverb with a bad joke).

“Ah yes, a masterpiece!” Joseph said, gleaming at the silly story he wrote just now.“

I should get into the novel writing business…” he said, plopping himself into the chair.