Threads of Connection: Part 3- In the Void

I stared at the blank screen for the longest time, just waiting for the words to flow, maybe waiting for them to find their way onto the screen in a way that describes exactly how I feel. Well, I stared for a bit too long and still felt empty, so here I go, just writing whatever comes to mind. I believe that’s how you start too, it doesn’t really have to make sense.

Well then, I want to share something. Not really that big of a deal, but something that made me feel as such. I work as a desk assistant, and the hall RD kept a Rubik’s Cube for the assistants so they wouldn’t get bored. For the longest time, I have been a fan of it, maybe not just me. I find it cool. I find the idea of it cool, like people who can just take the cube and solve it within minutes.  I have always been an admirer of people like that. It’s not about being smart, but more like-damn, you enjoy the idea of it, you actually put your time into learning this? The reason may vary.

As a child, I have always found people around me cool, and somewhere in those eyes of mine was a wish to be able to do the same. The smallest things would amaze me, creating a sense of want or a wish to do the things they could. My brother could solve cubes of different dimensions. He taught me once, but the longest I ever give anything to learn is a few minutes, and that’s where I pause.

I just thought of things that I find cool and that I could surely learn within days, but didn’t, simply because I lack the patience. It felt scary. The Rubik’s Cube has been one of them, and maybe there are so many more. Even thinking about that created a void inside me. Am I really taking this to my grave, that I had this whole life and couldn’t solve a Rubik’s Cube?

Then I thought of things I have wanted to do but know, for a fact, are quite impossible, at least in my head(for now). One of them is the urge to look at Earth from space. Maybe not just me, but many of us. The other is learning how to play vidha, learning Bharatanatyam. It’s not like they are impossible, but for them to happen, my circumstances would have to be molded. And speaking frankly, it could happen, it could be done, but the difference is, I wouldn’t feel bad if it didn’t. It would remain somewhere inside me, not as sadness but as a void, something I would yearn for even after I die.

Coming back to the things I could possibly do, I feel like I understand why they say life’s short. Well, there are too many perspectives, but for a heart that wants to learn everything, why is it so short? Why is it full of situations and obstacles that entangle you with the world and don’t let you easily do what you want to? Or maybe, if those situations were favorable, would I still have this urge? If not, then I would rather yearn than be ignorant.

Well, making a list of things you want to do or learn can either make you happy about it or more depressed, because it’s probably a never-ending list. And to be honest, yes, that’s a valid question. But it also depends on your perspective. Either you say the glass is half full or half empty, it’s on you. For me, I understand the fact that there could be millions of things I want to do, but I did hundreds, and I started, right? That’s what matters. I also believe it’s important not to mess your head up with these desires, because the whole point of doing them is contentment, and if it results in disturbance, then is that really why you started? It’s important to reflect and to understand.

There’s another conflict I have about doing and learning things I have always wanted to. It’s not something I came up with, but probably something I was fed, Jack of all trades, master of none. Growing up, I always feared I would be one, because people put a label on my creativity. It’s like an invisible expectation of turning your creativity into a product. You can simply do things because you want to, not because you want to add value to the economy, like stop.

Even some days I sit and reflect, is it really fruitful to just try everything, to learn different things? Then I ask myself, why does it even need to be fruitful? Even in doing things we like, why do we seek benefits? I say I want to learn piano, not like a crazy artist, but at least someone who can play their favorite song. I want to paint, not something extraordinary for an exhibition, but simply to reflect what I feel, to put it out there metaphorically because that skill helps me do so. I want to dance, not like the best ones, but simply some steps that would help me express my inner world and let it all out through those movements. Something that could free my rigid body, not just the physical one, but the spiritual too. You don’t have to be the master of everything you do; you simply need to understand why you are doing it in the first place.

With this, I had a question: the desire to express yourself, where does it come from? Where does the need to simply write down poems, songs, paint something, or create something come from? Are we really trying to create something, or maybe fulfill the void we have within?

It struck me, I feel this intense need to learn things, yet I have never sat down to think why. What is it that my heart lacks, or what is it that it misses, so it’s wandering around like a lost soul, doing everything just to feel the bane of its existence? I feel like a wanderer looking for a way to find something that would simply fill that void.

I have always felt the universe is amazing, even the symmetry of our human body to the Fibonacci series in nature simply amazes me. To me, not being able to learn things feels like not really getting to feel connected with nature. I feel like the void is nothing but my attempt to feel connected, to feel understood, not just with people, but with everything.

Maybe I am constantly looking for the feeling of being seen, of being heard. Maybe it’s not just me, and that’s what makes it amazing. How we all have this desire to be connected. It’s like we all are the same; we just find our own unique ways to do so.