Susan Sontag on Love

Either here or there.

I don’t know which one’s better – to be on your own and not give anyone the power to move you or to be happily in love and give yourself completely to someone. Both make you feel great and lousy, whenever they have to.

I’ve always maintained the fact that we *can* control our feelings, we can stop ourselves from going beyond that line only if we be a little more observant of our actions but now when I’m in the middle of something, none of that makes sense. I know I should control but this time maybe I don’t feel like it and why should I? Why should think before doing something because it might not turn out well in future? Why should I get in all the complications that being practical entails and spoil what I have now?

You can never be both. You’re either on this side, loving hopelessly or you’re using your head and just staying out of the madness and when you try to act fancy by juggling both, you must know that you’re in deep shit because you’re hanging and we know the thing about hanging – it ends with you falling flat on your face.

What is it, really?

How do u let go when all this time you've just conditioned yourself to 'control'?

Being calculated and controlled makes you feel safe, sure .. but that's all that's there to it. Then when you're finally settled in the whole idea..enters someone who's not even close to being that way. And that's when you realize how addictive that feeling is.

That's the thing - there are no rules and in our whole attempt to find rules and the dos and don'ts in every situation, we screw up what we have. And that's not worth it. That's not even half of what we thought we would be left with..
--
And, hello! :)
It's been so bloody long.
More than a mere writer's block, there was just so much going on in my head ..I really couldn't find the time or the exact words to explain the situation. 

It's a strange thing..

"It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them - and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on - this desperate need - and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other."
  - Madeleine L’Engle

#NoteToSelf.

I need to calm the fuck down. 

Like breathe. Relax. Take it slow. Stop over thinking. Quit being so hyper. Eat thoda less. Stay away from alcohol. AND JUST CHILL. 

Also, a tad bit more of confidence won't really harm. You know?

That's it.

It's back and I'm not surprised.

I’m back in that phase where I’m sulking about my ‘uncertain’ future. You know what this feels like? I feel like someone who’s of marriageable age and everyone around her is getting married and I’m this lonely cow who to begin with, doesn’t even know if she wants to get married. That said, I hope I don’t have to see such a day too.

I don’t want to hear about who’s getting admission where and who’s doing an internship in which company because I don’t give a tiny rat’s ass. I have way too much shit to deal with in my life to look into someone else’s.

Everything boils down to the fact the I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if its okay to be this way. I don’t know if its okay for a 21 year old to be this way. Even if its not, I just need to be told that it is okay. Ya, I’m asking for just that.

Is it media or investment banking or journalism or MBA in finance or MBA in marketing or advertising or what? FAAACK. I DON’T KNOW. In times like these, I wish I was born in the 50s when there weren’t so many options, when no one expected much of you, it would have been so fucking simple. But no!

Sometimes I feel useless, like I’m not cut out for anything. Do I even have the aptitude for what I want to do? Maybe not. Maybe how much ever I push myself, I won’t ever get there. And what is aptitude anyway? And what is this whole deal about hard work? 

Wow. Perfect. I think I should just dig myself waaaay below the ground and die.

--

I’ve noticed that whenever writer’s block strikes, the next morning life gives me something to write about. I don’t know if I should be happy in such cases that I have something to blog about or upset what about happened. 

Don’t be me and start advising me on being positive. I am an optimist and it would be great if I get your permission to be this way on some days. Thankyouverymuch.

I see Rahul Dravid reading out his retirement speech at a conference and I feel like crying. THAT IS HOW MUCH TODAY SUCKS. 

Before Sunrise.

I watched London, Paris, New York yesterday and got reminded of this lovely movie called Before Sunrise. LPNY was of course a lame, Bollywood version of Before Sunrise ..actually it didn't even come close. So anyway, all those who haven't watched this one ..please do :)

Also, watch its sequel, Before Sunset. 

Before Sunrise is a beautiful and a really 'believable' love story. The whole movie is nothing but a conversation between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and you realize you just can't get enough them and all that they talk about! It's one of those movies that you wish never ended.

--

Celine: I’d say to my Dad, “I want to be a writer”, and he’d say, “Journalist.” I’d say, “I want to have a refuge for stray cats” and he’d say, “Veterinarian.” I’d say, “I want to be an actress” and he’d say, “TV newscaster.” It was this constant conversion of my fanciful ambitions into these practical money-making ventures.

Jesse: You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? It's when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like "Hey, I'm glad you're gone.”

Celine: I always feel this pressure of being a strong and independent icon of womanhood, and without making it look my whole life is revolving around some guy. But loving someone, and being loved means so much to me. We always make fun of it and stuff. But isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more? Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?

Celine: People can lead their life as a lie. My grandmother, she was married to this man, and I always thought she had a very simple, uncomplicated love life. But she just confessed to me that she spent her whole life dreaming about another man she was always in love with. She just accepted her fate. It's so sad.
Jesse: I guarantee you, it was better that way. If she'd ever got to know him, I'm sure he would have disappointed her eventually.
Celine: How do you know? You don't know them.
Jesse: Yeah, I know, I know. It's just, people have these romantic projections they put on everything. That's not based on any kind of reality.

Jesse: I kind of see this all love as this, escape for two people who don't know how to be alone. People always talk about how love is this totally unselfish, giving thing, but if you think about it, there's nothing more selfish.

Jesse: Why do you think everybody thinks relationships are supposed to last forever anyway?
Celine: Yeah, why. It's stupid.

Palm reader: You need to resign yourself to the awkwardness of life. Only if you find peace within yourself will you find true connection with others.

Jesse: I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens.

Celine: You know, I have this awful paranoid thought that feminism was mostly invented by men so that they could like, fool around a little more

Perfectly imperfect or Imperfectly perfect?

He sends you flowers and chocolates and cards. He tells you he loves you and shows you that he cares. He makes it a point to see if you're alright after a horrible day. He stays on the phone for hours together when you're travelling back home alone. He does all that he can to make you happy because he says seeing you happy, makes him happy and you just realize how you've never met someone who cares so much.

In spite of all that, you feel something's missing but you tend to overlook that and tell yourself that he's just so 'nice' and you better start falling for him or he's done so much for you, that you can't afford to break his heart. But this feeling doesn't go and you don't know if it ever will.

You've just been blinded by his overly caring nature which often misleads you, making you believe you're on the same page but deep inside, you know you're not. You wonder what's holding you back because everything's just so freaking perfect. Maybe this is the closest you can ever get to having things like this but when you look at the way you feel, you realize that there's more to just having things perfect. Something you can't give a name to at the moment, something that goes beyond all this.

And if you feel that you'll just quietly "make" yourself feel the way he wants you to and no one will ever get to now, you're wrong. You're wrong because such arrangements don't work.
They don't for me at least. 

Maybe it's a phase or maybe it's just me.

It's quite funny and interesting to 'discover' sudden changes in yourself .. randomly. Especially when you never intended to change and you don't know how, when and what made you change to such an extent. Maybe it was shaping up all this while and you never knew. You only come to realize when you're made to face it and then you see that what you thought you wanted ..is no longer what you want now..

For the longest time, I remember being so open about myself to people and the whole idea of love and stuff ..it would just excite me. And now, it's so weird. I haven't completely shut myself out ..but I find great difficulty in expressing myself. I can feel the wall around me and see how I'm no longer interested in anything that involves any kind of dependency or anything at all that holds emotions at stake ..mine or the other person's. 

And I was never ever the 'wall person'. Seriously. I was more of the types who would look at such people and go "HOW!"

But I still don't know ..is such kind of a behaviour subjective? Like, does it always depend on the other person or can every person under the sun be categorized as a 'wall person' and someone who gets easily attached.

--

It's all there in front of me ..but something stops me from going ahead and just grabbing it and making it mine. I'm going to trust this feeling and just let it be for now. For once I don't think it's just me over thinking..

Our time here is over.

I'm one of those who are really slow in realizing the importance of what they have while they have it. And when it's finally gone, reality dawns over me and "happy realization" it is!

We had our graduation ceremony today and I was just thinking about how everyone's going to cry on the farewell day and I won't even feel half as bad because hell there was a time when I couldn't wait to be done with this college and the travelling and the early morning classes and the guilt pangs! Just when I thought I would be relieved, I realized maybe that's not it. Maybe I will miss this college and my friends and our class and everything that came with these three years of my time spent there. 

Sure life was hard when I initially started off. I hated that place. I hated every bit of it. I couldn't wait to run out of college every afternoon and be with 'my' people, the familiar people. But that's how it is right? Even when you don't want to face some things, life some how just pushes you to and you realize that you can face it and that it's not as bad as you had imagined it to be. It was all so unexpected and it's amazing to see how things worked out because I actually thought I'll turn out to be some miserable wreck by the end of these three years. 

I seriously don't know if this feeling's got more to do with the fact that college is over or that it's that time when the 'big change' comes knocking at your door. There's no 'we'll cross the bridge when it comes' because this is it, the bridge has come and there's no turning back. This is where we take off. This is where it starts all over again.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Maybe not.

We all have all kinds of people in our lives. Everyone is there for a purpose and you share something different with each and every one of them. Even though "purpose" sounds very crude, that's what it is at the end of the day. But how do you know if you're talking to that person because you're just plain used to him/her or because you genuinely can't afford losing that person and that he/she is actually irreplaceable. So, where do you exactly draw the line?

As ironic at it sounds, I think the only way you realize is when the person leaves for a while. Leaving to return? Maybe yes or maybe that's just the end of it.

Very random and convoluted thought. I know. I guess I just ace the "skill" of ruining things by dissecting every emotion and every thought that crosses my mind.

Of love and fear.

There are times when logic just goes out of the window. When you don't give a damn to the pros and the cons and the hows and the whys. When you're way too happy doing things because they make you happy. Why is it that I can't remember the last time I felt that way?

Hell I don't even remember the last time I slept for long without feeling guilty? There's always this voice in my head which tells me I'm not working hard enough. And I know I'm not but then again, I only talk. I just talk about what I don't do and what I should and what I want and what I don't and after all the talking ..I go watch TV. Yes, I go watch TV like nothing happened.

If it's not the voice inside my head, it's the voice outside which happens to in the form of my dad who's just so overly concerned that it scares me. It scares me that all my life I'll be trying to become the person he wants to see and fail at that too. Sometimes I wonder, if I'll ever be able to get my thoughts to reach him. If he'll ever know the kind of person I am, keeping his preconceived notions aside.

I never imagined that our relationship would be so complex. I think I was so busy getting scared, there was no time to actually love him. He doesn't scare me. It's just all in my mind. So much that when I talk to him, a part of me shuts down and I'm never able to put my point across. But all I know is, when my dad's happy, I'm happy and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure it stays that way.

Indifference is indeed the opposite of love and I certainly don't wish to find myself there.