This is probably the last post from Mumbai. Something about eating so much junk food that I can smell the cheese in my sweat.

…whether I truly hate the “rat race”, or whether I’m just malicious to those who are constantly performing, constantly competing, constantly doing something productive just because I can’t be that way, and I label them as rats and scoff at them.

I’ve been struggling to come up with this metaphor for quite some time. I like thinking we’re all like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. We figure out others who complement us and stick together, we form groups. The purpose of a jigsaw puzzle is that it fits in, it belongs with others. That’s the problem I’ve been facing. I see myself as a particularly complicated piece that doesn’t quite belong anywhere, like it’s out of shape.

I’m quite sure that I may not be as mis-shapen a piece of jigsaw puzzle as I think I am. I have a cynical, pessimistic approach to life that I seem to be proud of. I see the world in all its black, white and grey glory, and I seem to find myself attracted to the blacks. People disappoint me, petty and squabbling as they are. And yet, my contradiction arises from the fact that I want to be accepted. I find that my ideals resonate with very few people; maybe that’s why I try so hard to find people I can be myself with and be accepted in my entirety.

My other problem is that I look for perfection in everything. I hype things up, because I like thinking that we’re all living storybook lives, that we all count for something, that there’s a big picture in life. Maybe there isn’t. Maybe life’s big picture is a collage of all the small things. Maybe there is no ‘maybe’.

Anyway. I’m digressing from what I wanted to write about.

There’s a girl. I like the way she thinks. I want to like her, but I don’t know her well enough. That’s about as much background information you’ll need.

What I’ve been thinking about is why I’ve been thinking about her so much, why I’ve been hyping her up. I think I’ve highlighted the answer in this post, hidden behind my incoherent sentences somewhere. (The incoherence wasn’t on purpose, by the way. I guess I’m just not very good at articulating the not very well formed thoughts in my over-active brain.)

~Fin~

What would you call it if you neither wanted to go to sleep, nor stay awake, because it wasn’t worth it to remain conscious, and sleep provided no haven either? In wakefulness, you frown and exist like a burden, and then when you think about it at night, sleep becomes the burden, weighed down by insipid dreams.

I am selfish, I’ll admit. I look for others to love me, appreciate me, and I miss it, because I left behind one who did. You don’t really realize what you’ve lost until you lose it.

Logic tells me that all I need is a little time. Things work out, like they always do, in one way or another. The first year of engineering wasn’t amazing either, was it? Somebody always comes along. All I need is a little time…a little time.

Until then, I admit…I’m homesick.

I’m a romantic, I’m a cynic. What am I? She said I’m special, unique. Everyone’s unique. No, I’m different. I cannot be stereotyped. And I will not be modest enough to deny that. But I’m a romantic and a cynic, and I’m a perfectionist. What am I?

I don’t know.

Sometimes, I think I think too much. Do I? Maybe. I comfort myself by saying that I’d rather be this way than not. I’d rather think a lot and find wisdom and the pride that comes with it, but I often find myself craving the bliss that comes with ignorance. Should I want to be like someone else? Should I want to be satisfied just a little easier? There are people for whom the smallest of things become the biggest of things, and the little things in life are all they care about. I dream big. I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with a partner for life, I want a soul-mate, I want that one that’s been made for only me.

A juvenile idea, that’s what it is, I know. But I’ve already professed I’m a romantic. And I’m a cynic too, because I know that stuff like that only happens in movies and books, in a world that’s only meant to entertain and enthrall us, make us wish we were the characters in a story with a perfect ending, and we’ll live happily ever after…but I know we won’t.

Settle for something less, settle for something reachable, settle for something practical. Yes, I know that, thank you very much, because I say it to myself every day. But I’ve also been a firm proponent of the idea that we have almost no control over the way we feel, sometimes. We have control over our actions, but that’s different. I have no control over what makes me angry, but I can control the urge to smash the mirror or to throw a rock at someone. I can’t control when I feel sad, or get a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Another juvenile, childish, clichéd phrase, I know, I know.

I also cannot deny that just as every end once had a beginning, every beginning is the beginning of an end, at some point. The honeymoon is over, and the relationship is bound to change. I’ve been preparing myself for this all along. Have I not experienced something like this already? Why then does it bother me?

Is this irrelevant to what I’ve been writing so far? If you’re reading this, then yes it is. If I’m writing it, then no, it’s not. I don’t blame you for not understanding. If you wrote it, and I read it, I wouldn’t understand it either. This is just a free flow of thoughts, condensed, beaten, moulded against their will into words, for thoughts have no structure, no words, no shape or colour or touch or sound. And this is why I cut my writing short, because as the thoughts flow from one to the other, they end up dangerously toeing the line of incoherence. And this is where I’ll stop now.