One dropped dish
I was going with the flow. My consciousness was slipping into a sub state ever so slightly, like a wet towel in a steam room sliding off a languid limb, heavy with its own weight and ready to succumb to weightlessness by way of a simple yet undecipherable physics formula.
The downside of excitement is exhaustion. While at the peak of excitement, my thoughts were itchy, dry and flammable, in the pit of exhaustion they were vapid, soggy and bloated.
Day in, day out, I was oscillating between excitement and exhaustion driven by the flow in a seemingly forward direction yet lacking a clear course, a sense of destination and milestones along the way.
As a result, my home had turned into a storage place for unrealised ideas and mutually exclusive objects. It seemed that gravity, the fundamental force of attraction, was pulling everything downwards stronger than ever. My reluctance to lift up something which had accidentally fallen down was also growing stronger day by day and the prospect of continuously lifting up the accidentally fallen seemed like a labour of Sisyphus. In my paranoid mind's eye, the floors of my arena were strewn or rather flooded with every possible unnecessary item I owned or attracted, multiplied in dismal disarray. My response to the concept of this randomly accelerated gravity was inaction. I entertained the idea of order and structure but was too lazy to turn theory into practice. In other words, I couldn't care less.
One day, I was cooking dinner and I wished for it to be a good one. Thinking back, this wish was quite inert and passive and didn't come from the heart. I put all the physical ingredients for a good dinner in the frying pan but I didn't put my heart in it. Still, the production seemed quite alluring, a sizzling mixture of various shades and textures of green interlaced with light-brown solid shreds of flesh. I added a sauce and a hodgepodge of herbs to fix any latent disagreement between the veg and the meat. And voilà, the Tuesday-evening broccoli and chicken project materialised in no time! Dinner was ready to be served.
Yet, serving myself was not my forte. My walk from the kitchen to the dining table usually involved a multitude of activities which were unfailingly unworthy of classifying as multi-tasking. Multi-tasking implied a certain degree of coordination and intent. My multi-activities originated randomly and continuously and seemed to be intending nothing but mutual conflict.
I do not recall exactly how this particular attempt at self-serving was executed. All I can recall is a dull, hollow sound and the alarming sight of my dinner turned upside-down on the floor. Undone...in dismal disarray. I was speechless. Gravity had claimed another victim. This time, the victim was my evening meal.
The various shades and textures of green were now interlaced with the hairs of my furry brown carpet and the solid shreds of meat rested exhaustedly on top of my favourite plate's bottom.
Impulsively, I reached for the meat, lost in the gravity of the situation. The meat was mine, my last hope, my ..Then I backed off. I stood still and stared at the right mess for a good 10-minute eternity. It was a beautiful moment of reflection which may or may not have been accompanied by a tiny self-satisfied smirk.
I didn't starve that night. Not only did I survive, I superseded myself. One dropped dish taught me that oscillating between excitement and exhaustion, natural as it may come to me, simply does not make sense. Or sustenance. Instead of focusing on gravity, I could just...focus. Instead of doing, I could be making, intending, putting my heart in frying pans, enjoying my meals. Caring more. For Goodness' sake.
The downside of excitement is exhaustion. While at the peak of excitement, my thoughts were itchy, dry and flammable, in the pit of exhaustion they were vapid, soggy and bloated.
Day in, day out, I was oscillating between excitement and exhaustion driven by the flow in a seemingly forward direction yet lacking a clear course, a sense of destination and milestones along the way.
As a result, my home had turned into a storage place for unrealised ideas and mutually exclusive objects. It seemed that gravity, the fundamental force of attraction, was pulling everything downwards stronger than ever. My reluctance to lift up something which had accidentally fallen down was also growing stronger day by day and the prospect of continuously lifting up the accidentally fallen seemed like a labour of Sisyphus. In my paranoid mind's eye, the floors of my arena were strewn or rather flooded with every possible unnecessary item I owned or attracted, multiplied in dismal disarray. My response to the concept of this randomly accelerated gravity was inaction. I entertained the idea of order and structure but was too lazy to turn theory into practice. In other words, I couldn't care less.
One day, I was cooking dinner and I wished for it to be a good one. Thinking back, this wish was quite inert and passive and didn't come from the heart. I put all the physical ingredients for a good dinner in the frying pan but I didn't put my heart in it. Still, the production seemed quite alluring, a sizzling mixture of various shades and textures of green interlaced with light-brown solid shreds of flesh. I added a sauce and a hodgepodge of herbs to fix any latent disagreement between the veg and the meat. And voilà, the Tuesday-evening broccoli and chicken project materialised in no time! Dinner was ready to be served.
Yet, serving myself was not my forte. My walk from the kitchen to the dining table usually involved a multitude of activities which were unfailingly unworthy of classifying as multi-tasking. Multi-tasking implied a certain degree of coordination and intent. My multi-activities originated randomly and continuously and seemed to be intending nothing but mutual conflict.
I do not recall exactly how this particular attempt at self-serving was executed. All I can recall is a dull, hollow sound and the alarming sight of my dinner turned upside-down on the floor. Undone...in dismal disarray. I was speechless. Gravity had claimed another victim. This time, the victim was my evening meal.
The various shades and textures of green were now interlaced with the hairs of my furry brown carpet and the solid shreds of meat rested exhaustedly on top of my favourite plate's bottom.
Impulsively, I reached for the meat, lost in the gravity of the situation. The meat was mine, my last hope, my ..Then I backed off. I stood still and stared at the right mess for a good 10-minute eternity. It was a beautiful moment of reflection which may or may not have been accompanied by a tiny self-satisfied smirk.
I didn't starve that night. Not only did I survive, I superseded myself. One dropped dish taught me that oscillating between excitement and exhaustion, natural as it may come to me, simply does not make sense. Or sustenance. Instead of focusing on gravity, I could just...focus. Instead of doing, I could be making, intending, putting my heart in frying pans, enjoying my meals. Caring more. For Goodness' sake.
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