Floccinaucinihilipilification

 

The most striking disclosure among the world of people is that we are connected. According to neuroscience, our brain is designed to make us sociable. The neural bridge lets us affect the brain and body of everyone we interact with and vice versa. The more strongly connected we are with someone emotionally the greater is the mutual fondness. Our most vital conversations occur with those people with whom we spend the greatest amount of time, day in and day out and those who care about us the most.

The result of the neural linkups has profound outcomes that vibrate through the core regulating our immune system and triggering the flight or fight hormone. Thus my childhood relations with cousins, school friends and family members had both favourable and unfavourable impacts on my life.

When I grew up I learnt that people who "used to be close to you...who had meals in your house, stayed over with you, enjoyed every celebration with you, travelled to the mountains with you"… gladly walk away when they see you in danger, they don't care if you live or die.

When I make a trip down the memory lane I wonder if humans have a mind to act hand-in-hand, to help others even when it requires their efforts? Or are they, in their very hearts, selfish creatures?

 I think for them life and lust are synonymous. Everyone has a similar hobby, that of collecting money. Even kinship and friendship can be pitted against the desire for large sums of money.

Money under most circumstances can't buy peace and happiness for you. Your Creator will provide just as much as you need for your own personal sustenance because that is what you deserve, asking for more is being greedy and is a punishable offence. We find everyone running after fame, prosperity, wealth and power which results in daily indigestion and therefore they have built-in gyms in their premises to work out, not just to build eight-pack abs by shedding out the extra fat but to get rid of menacing indigestion and get a peaceful night's sleep which seems to elude them always. You become a runner with extra fizz or a singer with a melodious voice without realising the timeless melody of life. There are a range of emotional traffic from sadness, anxiety to extreme joy. Mother's smile is a contagion and acts as a way to uplift the sport.

Neuroplasticity reshapes the brain with repeated experience with various relationships with the effect of either being chronically hurt or chronically angered or emotionally nourished. 

From the time we are infants, we are equipped with the survival instincts necessary to respond with fear when we sense danger or feel unsafe. But sometimes people facing constant challenges develop boldness boosted by the nourishing relations which can also buffer us from diseases. The vital nourishing relation in my life has been my mother. Mum had been exploited and overburdened by her in-laws, yet she had taken care of me and suffered herself as her own kith and kin turned their backs on her.  She had never known soundness, only struggle. With age, she too is getting tired and irritable tackling all the work single-handedly. She needs to be taken care of. She is my caregiver and she taught me to walk boldly through the terra incognita.  As you learn to control life it becomes joyful.

A Warrior Princess I am, 

I wage wars with head held high, 

A warrior, never afraid of wounds, 

A Warrior dies dancing that’s who I am.

 

Trudging hills never trodden by, 

Propelled into uncertain territory, 

Soul deeply wounded by black melancholy, 

Never stooping to fear or sentimentality, 

Chasing desires, not waiting for fate to show mercy;

Flowing forth with random delight in stark reality,

Gloom of doom come what may;

Banished all worries, doubts, 

I moved onward in the track valiantly, 

Imploding yet ebullient in a spree, 

Compounded difficulties, hiemal cold manner can’t faze me,

Benign friends express fervency.

Content with mysterious, meaningless, contradictory, hostile, 

Unexplainably warm and giving,

Fearfully enclosed minds,

I hurtled the absolute randomness, 

On the verge of uncertainty. 

 Proffered relations, friends, unfailing support,

 Bravado, mercy, pity, arrogance,

A loner rushed forth in the path of life.

Halt! Patience!

I hear people cry,

But I'm at a point of no return. 

 

I’m brave, I rave,

Grave only when repressed,

Crammed with memory, hoarding much,

Endured much, weary of wounds,

Feelings which built up in the War,

Hardened and died inside,

Soul searcher I am,

Reality seems absurdity,

Kind, affectionate friends,

Elevate me, eke out positivity. 

 

I still dare to change the things I can,

I resuscitate ceaselessly,

I wage wars with verve

In a point of no return

Yes, a Warrior Princess I am.

Wild bouts upended direction, 

Infallible friends formed my legion, 

Marched with me without regression, 

Flew fearless without reason, 

Melancholy replaced by undying optimism,

Turned to memory,

Worries banished, never looked back in history. 

 

 I welcome change with open arms,

Grow and live vibrantly not in a trance,

Soul dance,

Immense will billow like a towering tsunami;

Summon up the courage to live life once,

Regression dishonor efforts and makes them undone,

Thus I move on with fluency.

 

I hurtle the chaotic reality in Mum's glorious presence,

I resuscitate ceaselessly,

Wage wars from a point of no return.

A Warrior Princess, I am.”

There are few people who are born good, instinctively concerned with the welfare of others and they have realised my sufferings and struggles. I am blessed with a few true friends in India and across the world who encourage and help me. 

A friend is sweet when it's new,

 Sweetest when it's true.

Many thought that by helping a destitute they will use me as their portable step ladder to fame.

Prettify, nor falsify no one,

They are but for a season,

Gathered to escort the lost one,

By way of cosmic expression,

Collective train of thought mitigates privation.

 

Here comes the season

Of faces blurring and fading away

Like a dream, in illusion.

There are also a few doctors who cheer me, while some say they are proud of me others help me out with paying hospital bills or others who are very close listen to me and attend my Whatsapp messages every day. These interactions help me get along better with life. 

These actions are like grasping hands when pain and distress are tearing my soul apart and assuring that the whole world is so beautiful and smiling with me beckoning me to jump up and go watch the sun-kissed world and a spontaneous force pulls strings from within and I find my wounds healed.

 My brother's concern too helps lessen my pain and the daily struggle, his sudden bursts of positivity.

Life is a game of chance;

Granted once;

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! 

Life is so beautiful and precious!

I was dumbfounded to find social chameleons in my life, it was pathetic and ruthless, meanest, greediest, cruellest, backstabbing act knowing in the heights of my lancinating pain and how with my brain riddled with tumours I produced the intellectual property and taking the opportunity of the deathly silence of the pandemic earning their livelihood. I expect everything, the unexpected never happens, printing and training have become a game. " Love thy neighbour as thyself, help them with thy soul and thy mind"  is the eternal saying but days have changed. People with shabby ethics want to swamp a struggling differently-abled patient suffering continuous surgeries from her ailments but they have chosen the wrong soul war which began surely by stepping on the edge, in ‘extremis’ still continues.

Her cogs and circuits malfunctioned

She fought the war unlamented

She faces life uncomplaining, contented

A very long time ago, a lifetime before the present

A dragon came to blaze up her life, push her to perdition

She traversed Via Dolorosa holding tight

Inspired by glorious Mum's might

She fought the demon with Mum’s inspiration

With congested brain but plenty of imagination

Faced the momentous occasion

Putting her faith on Divine Providence

God's intervention

Even in unthinkable pain

She does not complain

All is but floccinaucinihilipilification

She smiles in jubilation.

Sketch by me