Frustrated Inc.

It is so easy to let frustration build up. You never really know where and how it started. In fact, I don’t even realize that it has started until it sets in.

I get frustrated when I hear sounds that I don’t want to hear or when I heard things that I don’t expect to hear. These can range from mobile phone buzzes and notifications to Blu meowing to attract attention. It can be the next-door neighbor’s kid screaming or it could be the fight between two women from the slum behind my building. It could be the sound of the air-conditioner malfunctioning or the drip from a faucet that is not closed properly.

One of my wishes is to be in an environment where sounds are absolutely under my control. Almost like have a mute or a kill-switch button for everything that could possibly create sound. Something like a sound-proofed studio for a living environment. I guess I am still okay with ambient sounds, even those that are characteristic of a city like Mumbai. But they have to be nondescript. Something that can be figuratively swept under the carpet of my fucked up mind so that I don’t feel accountable righting the things that are wrong.

As a musician, feeling frustrated with technology seems like a given. I am also starting to feel like I’m getting old enough to feel like an older man who finds any new things in the environment frustrating. When I’m working on a song on my digital audio workstation, I get frustrated when I’m unable to achieve what I want quickly. Because I haven’t had formal training in audio engineering, it is easy to get lost in the maze of parameters and controls and lose sight of the art that I’m trying to create.

I get frustrated when I make typos. I’m increasingly making typos in whatever I do. I fee like my dexterity on the keyboard (for typing) and my ability to pick errors that I have made are waning. It is such an embarrassing situation when someone who has had over 20 years of touch-typing experience and over a decade of experience in academic proofreading and copyediting make mistakes after mistakes after mistakes.

These are some of the sources of frustrations that I have. Right at this very moment, at least the noise and typo frustrations have set in. Blu is begging for food after being fed and J is on the phone in the same room, getting some work done. He has moved out into the other rooms a couple of times, but he still starts conversations in my auditory range.

Maybe I should work on this pervasive frustration issue with my therapist more than anything else.

So much to say

There is a lot of that I feel like saying. I don't know if I will be able to say them all. But I feel like I should give it a shot.

Over the last several months (during the COVID-19 lockdown), life has changed for me. Some for the better, some for the worse. I'll start with the better before moving on to the worse.

I have learned so much more in music production. Finished a course and I'm just starting my last in the series. Wrote some songs, produced several others.

I upgraded my home studio setup. I got myself a powerful laptop, monitors speakers, a good electric guitar, and a cheap MIDI controller (that's not working too well).

My home studio setup

 

My new guitar

I have at least two active projects, both of which might end up releasing songs to the world soon. I have been working on songs for close to two decades, but haven't ever released something substantial in a trusted platform. I had a couple shots at it -- one solo and another with a band -- but both didn't quite materialize the way it did.

Now, with about 50+ full songs in the bag, about 300 more rudiments that could be fleshed out into full songs, and the ones that I could write moving forward, I think I could start the process of releasing them consistently over the next several years.
 

One of the projects is with a band, the members of which are part of another band that I love dearly. Over the last several months, we have been working on these songs remotely and some of these are starting to come to life.
 

The journey forward is challenging for me because I think I will be exposing myself to social situations where I'll need to spend a lot of time working on this music as a producer and engineer for this band, which I think is not my strength. Plus, I'm decidedly an introvert at the core, and spending long periods with people (even if they are my friends) will be extremely taxing.

So overall, this seems ambitious but I think it is doable. All I need to make sure is that I should not burn myself out, which I have a tendency of doing.

I have watched a lot of quality content, both movies and TV series. These are the things that generally inspire me to be creative, and I have conceded to the fact that they are not merely entertainment for me. These things make me think in ways that other forms of communication and media don't.

Among these, I must mention my dive back into the wondrous world of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, and the charm of good-quality Malayalam cinema. I still remember the time that I started watching Stargate with my friends and work back in 2014 or something, and they ended up finishing the series (the whole pantheon) in a year or so, where I languished in SG-1 for several years until I picked things up earlier this year.

I have rediscovered my love for gaming. I have started off with explore Xbox Game Pass on my Windows PC, but I think I am headed the way of purchasing an Xbox console when I can.

But I haven't been able to read too much. That's something I want to fix. I'm still stuck in Judas Unchained by Peter Hamilton. I have managed to read a few hundred pages in the last few weeks.

Amazingly, I started this book on New Year's day in 2018. I haven't read much other than a few non-fiction books and comics then. I want to finish this off before I start something new, something that will inspire me.

At work, I have gone from the manager of a team to someone who is primarily involved in creating, ideating, and troubleshooting. I'm currently in the last phase of creating an online training course for copyeditor trainees who join my company. This involved a lot of creative processes (with a lot of opportunity for seeding, farming, and harvesting self-doubt, which has more or less brought be back to a phase of full-fledged depression and anxiety.

To add to the mix is the work pressure and stress. I love working but I seem to have a problem with taking care of myself. This sort of thing has been happening at work for over 3 years now, and I have contemplated quitting or seeking other opportunities (less stressful). With my music revenues drying up during COVID-19 lockdown, with very little hope of things getting back to how things were before, I need to have this job to sustain myself and to work on my music.

Working from home might be easy in the sense that I don't have to travel or meet people. But it is difficult to plug yourself off the grid. Plus, after a 10 to 11 hour day of tiring work, I have to spend time to do the household chores. Then there is the music work. This leaves me with not enough time of rest, relaxation, sleep. I am trying my best to achieve that balance by trying to take short breaks to do some chores in between my work tasks.

The one aspect of work that is challenging but sufficiently rewarding to balance the negative effects of stress is the talks that I give to students from various universities about the academic publishing industry and related topics. These tend to be the highlights of my otherwise productive, but stressful and self-doubting, weeks.

I have had a relatively steady state of therapy sessions over lockdown, and I have decided to step up the fortnightly frequency before to a weekly one, considering that I almost fell apart in the last few weeks.

During the lockdown, I spent a LOT of time holed up in my apartment with my partner J. Before lockdown, I never thought I could comfortably spend more than two days with anyone, especially J. We had a stretch of about 4 months together. We were with each other night and day without any breaks!

We were both surprised to find out that we could hold out for this long. Of course, we had fights and arguments, but we also had wonderful shared moments, with lots of wonderful food and shared TV/movie experiences. We regularly had our evening tea on the balcony, with the backdrop of mountains and clouds (on good days) and the cacophony of avian noises at dusk.

For this duration, however, I lost my sense of personal space more and more, and that also has contributed to my triggering of stress, anxiety, and depression. My apartment is tiny by world standards and average by Mumbai standards, and I need the space for my music and to feel free that I can do things I want to do when I want to do. When I am with people, I give away all my space to them. They become the primary beings of the shared space. This is probably why I could never be with people for over a few days.

During the lockdown, I gave up my bedroom and desk to J for most of the day, which limited my access to my recording setup. He might do the cooking, but the cleaning responsibilities were harder and took longer. There was less quiet overall, and J was more or less in charge of the auditory environment.

When I'm alone, I usually have a variety of states where I'll play loud music or have absolute quiet, and I listen to podcasts and talk radio when I am not concentrating on text-based work. This world is shattered when another person shares the space with me. I don't feel like I should destroy their peace by auditorily invading the shared space, which is something that I don't usually get reciprocated for. This builds the tension and anxiety of losing control of the space. I don't know how to get out of this or have the feeling of a truly shared space.

I have finally started finding YouTube useful, especially to learn more about technology, music production, and my niche interests. I often dive into the YouTube maze and come out with learnings and best practices. This also happens with podcasts. In fact, the fact that I'm writing this post is because of the simple strategy that a songwriter espoused on a podcast.

They recommended starting the day and working on something creative. Maybe listening to music or writing. Writing songs or prose.

Because of the work-from-home situation, and because I want to try and finish my work as soon as possible, I end up starting work as soon as possible, which leaves with less creative energy at the end of the day. Today, I wrote some lyrics for a song that I'm working on, recorded a scratch version of it (both for the course), and I felt like writing this blog post.

Some of the lessons that I learned from the things that I read or seek out is how to do music production better. But the problem with knowing more is to find it difficult to get more done with less time. You tend to get lost in what you think you should do instead of what you should do. I used to wrap up demos in hours. Now, that has gone to days, if not weeks. That's not good and I need to figure out a way to make things manageable in terms of time. The latest course that I'm doing has an exercise that mandates that you set timelines for finishing a project. I will try to implement that moving forward.

My therapist tells me that I should try and stare out at nothing (or something pleasant) for short periods during the day. During our sessions, I found out that this activity made me feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my body. My eyes started feeling relaxed and I felt like drifting off to sleep. This morning, I did that by staring at the mountains for a bit. I need to make it a point to do this more often than I have been doing.

I have been finding it difficult to fall asleep at night, especially when I am with J. I don't know why it is that. I tend to feel sleepy if I'm reading something or watching something, but the act of needing to switch off the TV or put away the book and switch of lights wakes me up.

One of the reasons could be the anxiety/stress overall, but I think the frustration of not feeling like I have done anything meaningful in the day is a constant contributor. Thanks to my wonderful upbringing, I have a tendency to feel I'm not good enough for anything or that I haven't done enough to merit existing.

This is both for things at work as well as my music. I know that I'm doing good work, but I always feel like I am not doing enough or that I could have done way better. At work, there is hardly a system where such anxieties are considered and taken care of. Many have left the company because of the unaddressed issues, with more leaving soon. I feel for them, as much as I should be feeling for myself. But as I said above, I need this job at this time.

Over the last year or so, I have more or less pulled out of most social media. The only thing I check occasionally is Twitter. I have also stopped sharing photos. In fact, the joy of photography has somehow been sucked up from inside me. I guess I should treat this as a phase too. Or maybe it is because I don't get to get out of my house anymore.

I am planning to switch of 8-year-old Nexus 5 to something more modern. Something with a decent camera and photography software. I'm not sure if I should go for Pixel 4A or something more expensive and flagship (like the OnePlus 8T or some version of the iPhone).

During the lockdown, I have rediscovered my interest in writing (physical, literal writing) with fountain pens. I have refurbished the ones that I have and I have purchased a couple of good ones. Now, I can even write lyrics paper with real pens!

My not-so-good handwriting

One of the unsettling aspects of lockdown has been finding out that I relate and empathize with the heinous characters in some movies. These characters show psychopathic characteristics. They are murderers, cannibals, and sadists. I don't think that I have any of these characteristics, but I have the sociopathy. What they say about human beings, their sufferings, and how things should end resonates with me.
I'm talking about Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played by Sir Anthony Hopkins) and Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill, played by Ted Levine) from Silence of the Lambs, Tavis Bickle (played by Robert DeNiro) from Taxi Driver, and the young woman (played by Jesse Buckley) in i'm thinking of ending things.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter

Jame Gumb

Robert Bickle

The girl in i feel like ending things

I haven't talked much about Blumenthal. She is as pretty as ever. As I write this, she has gotten under the covers after having had her mail meal for the day.

Blumenthal in all her glory

So that's where I will end this for the moment. This was fun. This was refreshing. Maybe I'll follow my own advice and do this more often.

I wrote about photography earlier. Since drafting the post, I added some photos to it. These are the ones that I feel I should share or I should have shared.

Six Months

It's been a long six months. Six months since the last time I wrote here. Six months since I thought things had changed. They indeed have. The world is not what it used to be. I'm not what I used to be.

COVID-19 is here to stay. It has changed the world. It's been almost four months since lock-down was first imposed in India and in Mumbai. We are still working from home. Possibly forever in some way or the other. Walking around without a mask, commuting for leisure, going to the movies, performing and watching live music, dining out, and vacations/travel all seem so unattainable. Maybe we'll never go back to how things used to be. I don't think my plans to pursue higher education will ever materialize. I don't think I will be able to move out of Mumbai/India.

J has stayed over at my place most of these four months of lock-down. It started as a regular weekend stay over at my place. Then came the lock-downs. Initially, we both struggled to come to grip with sharing spaces with someone else, with both having lived by ourselves alone most of our adult lives. It took a while for us to settle into a routine. The routine itself was fun, sans the arguments and stress. We watched a lot of good stuff, the best among which was the sensational TV drama The Wire. He had so many wonderful meals. On most days, we had tea on the balcony with the backdrop of a cleaner, quieter, and greener Mumbai. During these months, J did help me put together a lot of things that have improved my workflow, both for editing/writing related work and for music.

Work-from-home just means more actual work hours than ever before. At work, I'm working on creating a course for junior editors. This means that I never feel I have done enough. This coupled with the fact that I am trying to put in a solid 3 to 4 hours of music or related work most days and have almost 2 hours of cleaning housekeeping to do every day, I am sleeping less and I'm more stressed and wound up than I have ever been before. Maybe it is the stress of having lived together with someone for so long after so long. No matter how much ever I seem to be doing better, I just seem to get more an more unhappy and unsatisfied with what I do. As my friend put it, I will never ever be happy. I'll always figure out more things to worry about and feel unhappy about.

I got back to some of the Berklee courses for music production that I have been meaning to finish. I have also invested in some good quality gear for my home studio. Finally, I am learning more (from better quality sources) regarding music writing and production. All of this means that I am writing better music than ever, and I'm getting better at production and mixing. Hell, I'm even getting better at singing. And yet there is no certainty in when I'll be able to release the music that I have been writing. Just before lock-down, things looked promising. My close friends who I write and perform with for a project had finalized on a producer/engineer, who was excited to be working with us. We were expecting to cut several EPs starting in May 2020. Considering the way things have turned out, nothing is certain. Maybe this is how things will be. Or maybe I need to figure out getting even better and release some music of my own. All-in-one and DIY.

It's been over a year since my Mom passed. Two years since my father did. I thought their passing would make things more straightforward in a very selfish kinda way. I won't have to worry about them falling ill or needing to reschedule things to be with them. That sounds so wrong, and yet so right. Even though I winced while I typed this in, I long for a clear path (the home run) to my immediate goals, and I thought not having the added responsibility of taking care of my ailing parents would make things easier. It might have but I don't feel it one bit. Life seems to be more challenging than it has ever been.

My sister started writing for fun. Not a book or a blog, but simply writing to express herself. It started with a piece that she was expected to write for a college reunion. She did the drafting and I did a substantive edit on it. It was fun for me to read her thoughts expressed in the way that only she could, especially because they were vivid memories from my childhood and adolescence back in Kerala. These days, I don't get to talk to her much, and the occasional communications that we have are around these micro-journal entries that she shares with me, often in Malayalam.

I have been working on text generated by two of my travel mates and close friends. Blummer is writing an autobiography, and the couple of chapters that I have had the pleasure to read were such windows to his remarkable life! Mickles3 has sought my help in putting together a chapter for a scholarly publication. Both of these, along with the experience that I had with my sister, make me want to start writing again. Maybe I need to aim higher than a blog. Maybe a book or two? Maybe.

Along with that...

• I have fallen in love with fountain pens all over again.
• I feel inspired to write Bowie/Depeche Mode type music.
• Blu(menthal) is just gorgeous but is an arsheole.
• I'm not young anymore.
• I want my sister/friends to know that I want a do-not-resuscitate order if I get severe COVID-19.
• I want to read books, but where do I find time?

All I want is solitude

I honestly don't remember how I felt a few months back. I think I might not have felt great, but I had the drive to do things out of what I would consider my main professional role. I was taking courses, planning trips, writing/recording songs, and what not. On top of it, I was doing a series of satisfying/rewarding tasks at work, most of which involved teaching or helping researchers/scientists draft and fine-tune the textual representations of their life’s work. With all of this, I was able to keep up with the demands of rehearsals and gigs of a busy multi-instrumentalist.

On the personal side, I had finally put together bits and pieces of my domiciliary life and I seemed to be on my way to stitch them together into a dependable quilt that I could snuggle under when I wanted to. My partner, who was a pillar through the quilt-making process, and I were getting along okay, having navigated the tricky 7^th year of our relationship without much turmoil. I was enjoying cooking and learning new recipes. On top of this, I was actively considering the scope of continuing my academics—hell, if I can help people get their research perfected, why on Earth can’t I do it on my own? I made some significant strides on doing research on that as well.

Although I was never too social to begin with, I was still able to maintain a decent relationship status with my friends (almost entirely virtual—and there is no shame admitting that in 2019), family, and acquaintances. Social media was still relevant and useful, at least for sharing memes, practicing on being clever/funny, and keeping up with how people were framing their thoughts on things.

I don't have to dig too much to find enough evidence to suggest that I was a highly functioning individual. I might have been juggling a bit too many things at any point in time, but I don’t think I was messing things up too much. There were warning signs. The usual, “You got too much on your plate, and you will go on a tailspin sooner than you know it” type comments from people who cared enough about me and knew enough about my life was—which works out to a rounded one person.

Then—sure as honking in Mumbai—things changed.

Not sure exactly when. Maybe in October. Because that’s when I was officially transitioned to a managerial role at work, with some limits on the other roles that I was already doing. At work, there is always too many things to do and too few people to do them. This equation is a great template for someone like me to divert most of my energy/attention to doing things—not getting things done, as managers are supposed to do.

There must have been that evening when I thought that there were too many people craving for my attention. There must have been this one day when I found myself too exhausted to come back and work on a song. There must have been that one weekend where all I wanted to do was to sleep. There must have been those two weekday mornings when I could not fit in therapy. There must have been those days when whatever I seemed to cook tasted terrible. There must have been those two weeks where I didn’t want to meet the guy who was helping me with some documentation stuff. There must have been that month when I didn’t care to finish the last two weeks of a Coursera course that I have been paying for.

That brings me to me to now. I have stopped meme-ing. I have stopped interacting with people even on instant messaging and social media. I have not written something or recorded something in a few months. I have stopped wanting to meet my band mates for rehearsals. I have stopped working on my personal growth. I have stopped doing research. I have stopped meeting people, including the handful that I might have wanted to meet. I have stopped thinking about traveling to places that I might have wanted to visit purely because of scenic splendor. I have stopped wanting to be with cat. I have stopped checking for movies to watch.

The only thing I have not stopped is to finish things I have to finish at work and to do my live musician duties whenever they are called for.

My personal malaise for creativity has given me sufficient room for consuming others’ – which means that I have series like Better Call Saul and The Walking Dead under my belt. Probably not the worst things to spend time doing, but maybe not at the cost of not doing the things I used to care for.

I have never looked forward to being a manager, and I was not too sure how things would pan out. Going by the simple parameter of how good one is in delegating tasks and getting work done by others, I guess I’m a terrible manager. And going by how much torque is on my tailspin, I could bore a hole through solid ground and never come out. On the positive side, people are at work are aware of my state and are cooperative to look for ways to fix this. I hope to restart regular therapy sessions thanks to the insistence of my partner and my work manager.

I still don’t know when I will be back—if I will be back. Until this probable possibility becomes a reality, I’ll try to pull through another exhausting, creativity-less day at a time.

An update about Neverlast

Blogging seems so late 2000s these days, at least for me.

Until about 6 years ago, around the time I met J, this blog used to be where I opened my heart out, and let loose all the shit that my brain came up with. I'm not suggesting that the outlet that I had on this blog has somehow been replaced by a man. No, not at all. Yet, I admit that we do have strange conversations. But that's not why I stopped writing here.

Life became packed. Dating someone within the same geographical boundaries means that your social life kinda doubles. Plus music. Gigs, rehearsals, gigs, and more. Plus, ever heard of social media and podcasts?

Yet, a few years ago, when I was visiting my parents in Thiruvananthapuram, I scratched that itch to write again. Write blogs, that is. I had just started exploring Tumblr and I thought, Why not? Tumblr had a nice app which you could easily draft posts in. It was more intuitive for sharing images/gifs. Why not, indeed? That's how Neverlast was born.

Strangely enough [with three heaped scoops of irony], Tumblr became my desirable source of erotica. Anyway, Tumblr, for some fucking reason, does not let you have multiple user accounts on the app. That was a huge dampner to my blogging efforts. Since then, I have linked  my Instagram to Tumblr, and Neverlast gets all my instas, yo.

Coming to the point -- I'm back with my parents. Some slight changes, though. They are in Chennai. My father is in his deathbed. My mother has become even more complaining and talkative than she was before. I'm here helping my sister out to manage my parents. I'm somehow able to meaningfully communicate and spend time with a child (my niece)! But I have become even more averse to talking on the phone to other people (like J) and share what craziness I'm going through.

This means that all day I go through an exquisitely frustrating ordeal of managing chaos, noise, interruptions, while attempting to work from home. This is indeed no fun. I get my shit together once my Mom goes to bed around 10 pm. And today, I have work to finish. So I took a shower to rinse myself off all the frustration. And in the shower, I thought - Why not, indeed?

So I am going to try and microblog on Neverlast once more. You are welcome to check it out.

The story of Ugly and my response

*For some weird reason, My friend and fellow book club member forwarded me a story of a cat called Ugly (see attached image). Although the story is graphic (in a negative way about Ugly being treated badly), it ends with the author(s) being positively influenced by the valiant cat.

(*Edit: Since I published the post, my friend and I had a conversation. She thought that despite the sad story, this was a a good example of unconditional love by an animal, which I would related to because I'm a cat lover; of course, her intent was not to make me feel bad or to trigger traumatic memories. This conversation happened on the book club group chat, and one other member pointed out the perils of feel-good stories: "Always missing the point that not everybody reacts to the same to a scenario."  A very valid point, I think.)

I have had a storied life of being traumatized by experiences of cats in peril. Ugly's story thus forced me to respond in the following manner:

Sorry for the essay response, but I had to.

I don't know if you know this, but I have been at the wrong end of cats being mauled. In Kerala, I have always had cats/kittens with me. Some of my dearest cats have died grueling deaths thanks to packs of dogs mauling them. I would be woken up in the middle of a rainy night just to hear the last part of the fight, and I would be so bitter and upset with myself of not having been there to help them. The next day morning, I would have to find their bodies and bury them. Happened to me at least thrice, and I have always had a problem trying to get over this.

In fact last year, there were a couple of nights when I couldn't sleep because I thought Spock (image below; Spock with KiKi), who was a kitten then, was getting mauled by dogs (or other cats) and I have been out searching for him late in the night, after apparently hearing sounds of a cat in distress (which others didn't hear). I eventually found only his mom and his litter mates and would come home and be on the verge of a panic attack and would have had trouble falling asleep. None of the others would "get" my feelings/panic. J would realize that there was something that had triggered me like very few other things do, but was unable to exactly understand the gravity of the situation.

Both of these Spock nights had a happy ending (so to speak) because I would leap out of my bed at dawn and go out to search for him, and I would find him safe and happy somewhere. However, these did trigger a few of my older (PTSD-triggering memories) and have been the focus of a couple of my therapy sessions.

About cats dying in my arms -- yes, I have had a couple of such experiences as well. They were not directly due to mauling, but because of infections because of mauling or abuse. Those are such strong memories, and I think, just like how this story describes it, are life changing.

Unlike the author in the story, I have never really gotten over these in a positive way. What this has made me is to be fiercely protective of the people/animals that I love, which sort of manifests in me being extremely aggressive toward people to mistreat animals. At least people who were at the table at the last Annual Meeting party would remember how I was about to pick a fight with a waiter because he was trying to shoo away a cat that was rubbing up against us under our tables.

In conclusion, I don't know why you specifically tagged me, but it made me revisit a strong/painful series of memories. But it hasn't evoked a panic response yet. So I guess it's all right. :)

Welcome to my strange mind

Parties are something that most people with at least a shred of extroversion look forward to. Even I, with my combination of introversion and social reclusiveness lurking in the background, look forward to parties as special gatherings where you find may find avenues for conversation that won't be available in a much more intimate setting.

Three weeks back, J had his birthday party at his apartment. There were about 15 people invited to make merry on the occasion. I was, as is usual in such situations, caught in a dilemma as to how long I should spend time with an individual or a group of individuals in conversations. I guess I want to be always on the move, thanks to a a mixture of my overenthusiastic host-itude, interest to explore options, and my hesitation to expose myself in in-depth conversations.

So I took the opportunity to carry around trays of the famous J cheese/onion dip and the assorted chips that go with it. This gave me options to introduce myself to strangers with warm introductions "Hey, would you like to try some of this? This is the dip that you keep hearing about." This would followed by the obligatory "Oh, you are so kind to bring it to us" and "Oh, wow. This is a very nice dip indeed" comments. Perfect social lubrication, if you ask me.

After hanging out with any particular group for a couple of minutes, I found that it's easy to slither out and seek another group and repeat the social rewards and positive reinforcement. Of course, I also used lines like "Can I pour you another drink?" to repeat the exercise of pleasantly detaching myself from conversations and getting these social rewards in return.

At the end of the night, during a conversation with J, I realized that I had hardly spent any time with people who might have wanted to spend more time with me. People from my workplace were all together in a group, which I paid as little/much attention to that I did to other groups.

I don't often feel like I need to meet people (even my friends) and have conversations with them. In fact, many people, including my dearest friends, have expressed their disappointment at how I don't make time for them. However, on occasions such as this, I often am able to assign myself a purpose/role (as a host and a nice guy), and thus am able to lubricate/sugarcoat these otherwise-daunting interactions.

During and after such parties, I am able to convince myself that spending time with these people is fun. This makes me ephemerally wish that I would have a more prolonged interactions with them at the party on other social occasions. But when it comes to executing this, I make myself so busy with other things that I hardly ever get myself involved in such situations.

Welcome to my mind. It's confusing, I agree. But that's how it works.

Why inter-generational relationships work

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Initiating conversations about depression

For some reason, I know and/or am close to a lot of people who have known psychological issues, especially depression. For example, Vinokur, my first ex-boyfriend has a plethora of neuroses, including Type II Bipolar Disorder. My second ex-boyfriend Joe has depression, but is still in the closet. My present boyfriend J has been diagnosed with depression and is supposed to be on therapy for it, but is not the most compliant patient.

My sister has symptoms similar to me, but is not willing to take treatment. My dad and mom too have a variety of symptoms. Several of my close friends have depression and they are friends with me because they can freely and openly have conversations with me. Conversations both about depression and otherwise. I tend to empathize with them and don't force them to do things that they are not comfortable with.

So why am I ranting about it? To spread awareness about it, actually, and to share my learning experiences. About my point...

Although being perpetually distracted is a known symptom of depression, it is something that people don't notice too often. Maybe they do, but they don't attribute it to depression. I think it goes hand in hand with the fact that you don't want to seek help to treat it and that you don't want things to change. Plus, of course, if you are like me, you are likely thinking you deserve to be punished for being such a bad person.

I noticed recently that most of the time that I have known J, when I initiate conversations about some chores/tasks that we need to collaborate on to finish, he seems distracted and preoccupied with something else. He behaves like a little school kid being forced to listen to a lecture that he/she is not interested in. I used to think of this a rude, unkind, inconsiderate behavior.

Two nights back, I was at my apartment, feeling nice and refreshed after a relaxing session of EMDR. I am usually hesitant to initiate conversations. But I felt great about myself and I decided to call J on Skype. The conversation started smoothly. J was happy that I called and was playful and clowning around as usual. However, I had to initiate some serious conversation about his health and the things that we need to get done for his birthday party this weekend.

As soon as I did, however, he seemed to zone out. He started picking up things from his desk and shelves and examining them and rearranging them. He was listening to my monologue all throughout. When his turn to respond came up, he did not have much to say. This slowly built up to a point when I waited for a full minute for a response. Of course, I didn't get any.

I decided that it was time to let him know what I thought. And I did. He didn't receive it well. The conversation was awkward and he hung up unceremoniously. This was not uncharacteristic of J and the conversations that we have.

I closed Skype and started working on one of the tracks I was working on, and got lost in it. In about half hour's time, I got a call from J on Skype. This time he acknowledged that he realizes that he has been distracted and he wants to snap out of it. As usual, I suggested that he get an appointment with his shrink about it.

As a concluding note, I feel that I did something good. At the very least, I think I was successful in reinitiating the process of recuperation.