Anatomy of Chaos

“I accept chaos; I'm not sure whether it accepts me.”- Bob Dylan

Let’s talk about chaos

Disorder, Disarray, Confusion, Anxiety, Delusions, Turmoil, Mayhem, Disorganization, Pandemonium. How do we simplify chaos into simpler terms for a better understanding of that unrecognizable and constant feeling that we fail to resolve into a resting state?

The reason behind this constant feeling of chaos surrounding our minds could be numerous and a bit difficult to be bracketed into a defined and specific terms, let’s just say our thoughts that continuously trigger reactions from us, and kindle the fluctuating behavior that we express. The things that we are deeply passionate about, and circle our subconscious mind entirely, but when those ideas, thoughts are downright rejected, ignored, or not acknowledged, or if we look through the other side of the picture, when we are unable to clearly demonstrate our feelings into properly structured sentences, this is the point where chaos builds up in our minds.

It is certainly not important, about how we quantify our thoughts into two compartments of right or wrong, rather how we should perceive them through different scenarios, which would give us a more unambiguous means to rethink, reevaluate and to have a fresh approach on how we perceive ideas, thoughts and feelings. I am assuming life as a deep complex system with reference to the theory in Mathematics to get a brief insight (Self-understanding) into the feeling of chaos.  

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash 

A theory in Mathematics states that Chaos is based on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly vulnerable to change. Now, the dynamical systems in this context are our individual transcendent thoughts, which literally could be about anything; Love, Books, Movies, Politics, Science, Arts, Poems, Technology, Ambitions, Hopes, Positivity, Spirituality. The sensitivity to change occurs when those thoughts are manipulated by any means possible, and by that, I may assume that the change that is discussed here results into deviation in the core reflection of those thoughts. The change is a direct consequence of the chaos; it changes our perception about those thoughts, we tend to look things through different perspectives, positively or negatively, through hope or through despair, all subjective. Well that is just my fictionalized part presenting, in a different scenario, change resulted due to chaos generally causes the system to undergo butterfly effect.    

The noticeable unpredictability of thoughts in our life, is continuously erratic, you never how which irrational thought would come and pay you a visit; during traffic, at work, at lunch, in a meeting, at gym, at night where you’re vulnerable to the old memories, but it does makes complete sense, the randomness is what makes the feeling of chaos an absolute unquantifiable and impulsive in its nature. There comes a time, when thoughts develops a pattern, a constant loop of repetition, self organization, and ultimately leading to a point where we begin to live with this regular feeling of disorganization. Those set patterns of thoughts is similar to a butterfly flapping its wings in a regular motion, and changing the dynamic of another system. The change in this case is the modification in the sensibility to perceive ideas in its truest aspects without any other boundaries.      

The Chaos theory principally concerns itself with the deterministic systems whose behavior can be predicted, and there is no involvement of randomness in any form whatsoever while developing its future state. In this case, there is totally an opposite condition where we have a comparatively more problematical model, a model of “Human Life”, in which thoughts are always present in the state of randomness, but actions are certainly not, and while developing the future state of life, we function in accordance to the unsystematic pattern of thoughts triggering an action from us. Chaos in life, at any given point of time, leads to ambiguity, because we are not aware of the degree of randomness in our thoughts and until the time, the arbitrariness is associated with our thoughts, it is bound to cause bewilderment, in our actions. Hence, it becomes a tricky argument for us to predict the future of the dynamic system called “Life”.

 Randomness of Thoughts

I try to assume another approach to simplify chaos, by dividing it into two forms; External and Internal, and their collective effect on our actions. So the chaotic system that exist into the world is out of our control, because it involves N number of individuals, Multinational companies, United Nations Headquarter, Share Markets, Highly organized Science Laboratories that every day are inching closer and closer to discover the reason behind our existence, these are the points which control the outer chaos in the world.  The chaos outsourced from external world directly influences our internal belief, and disrupts its system. The internal chaos, on the other hand is a result of a more personal way of life, and is born out of our actions, be it guilt, failure, rejections, regrets and experiences. It develops because of our pretentious assumptions or thoughts of an ideal life or a world. Internal chaos is more about the template that we have assumed to be sort of a reference code of behavioral model existing in the world.

How do we differentiate between these two different worlds, which are interlinked to one another?

I guess, the one which is not on our control should be left as it is, there is no logic taking the external chaos with yourself to the bed, which probably does not even concern you exclusively. Internal chaos is a bit more personal, and tends to point at our Narcissistic tendencies. The inflated sense of self importance leads to a situation where we are our own reference code, and the degree of goodness or badness is measured through a similar point without realizing that it will lead to genuine anxiety, where a similar sensation of the flapping of wings of butterflies is felt, not like the kind you feel when you feel something special for someone, but in a weird way that will eventually lead to a more weird situation in our lives.

However, there is also a situation where we can link the internal chaos surrounding us to the one described through Mathematical theories. An initial step is in which a preserve set of emotions, are vulnerable to changes, ability of those set of emotions to evolve with time and space, and lastly to perceive actions generated through those emotions in a wide spectrum. 

In totality, it all comes down to our perspective about the way we identify our thoughts, Chaos will always be there through desire to achieve maximum, lust to expand our status, the aspiration of reaching at the top; Chaos will always surround us, sometimes we would recognize it, sometimes we will realize it much later. The more effort we make to filter the randomness of our thoughts in a specific pattern, the less distracting the chaos will be for us. Maybe I am over thinking, as I usually do about constantly trying to write and potray the feeling of chaos in to words; all the comparison to the theoretical virtues of the chaotic system is a bit complex way to understand, and also highly inaccurate, because sometimes you just cannot assume certain entities to be something else without taking into account the true nature of the medium.

Chaos is unstable, so are our thoughts. Chaos is unpredictable, and so is life.   

Insomniac Diaries: The Oscillating 2017

“Ain’t no Shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things too”

 Bubbles, The Wire

It has been a tough year; professionally and personally. Many dreams on which I dedicated important years of my life got shattered (Needless to say, they are just delayed, I will accomplish them someday), and life is a total mess on the personal front. 2017 started with the diagnosis of mild anxiety disorder and chronic insomnia by a qualified Psychiatrist, and by the end of it, I can confirm I haven’t really worked my way out of those stages, but I have been working on it throughout the year; weight loss, sleep hygiene, listening to calm music before sleeping, and only when all the methods fail, I feel like going to the one who has been my constant companion this year; Alprazolam. 

I made some tough/bad choices this year, well actually this year has been full of bad decisions, and have come to the conclusion that I just wasn’t at right place at the right time with the right frame of mind. However, it is not an excuse that I am using as a false hollow shield to hide my failure with, Yes, I was an utter failure this year, perhaps I have been for a longer time but this year made me become aware of it. How did I become aware of that, because I was turning bitter, I guess failure and rejections at crucial junctions of your life does that to you, it turns you into a bitter person. Now it is upto me that how I proceed with all the bitterness filled in me. Failure and rejections are very subjective, and difficult to classify unanimously; a failure for you might not necessarily be the felt from the same point of view by someone else. The stakes are different; the yardstick for the measurement of the extent of failure varies. However, the drama unfolds in almost in the same scenario. The emotions get restricted with times; the mind is in constant search of anonymous solace, the unsolicited reminiscence uninterruptedly surrounding us, the usual practice where we end up analyzing the failure to its core. 

I have lost a lot this year, important people in my life, mentally and physically as well. I have seen both scenarios, timely and untimely death of loved ones. On one end, I saw someone accepting death against a rare form of cancer, and just simply waiting for the misery to end. I never experienced something like that, seeing someone anxiously waiting for death to knock on the door. On the other end, saw a premature death of a close friend, you are planning for life, living in poignant moments, and suddenly death strikes, and it is all over, just like that within a snap of a finger. The thousands of memories generated into those millions of neurons end in a moment. I just could not sleep after that, I had nightmares, that is something I will never be able to able to get out of, and my grandmother repeatedly tells me that we never make peace in our heart with the loss of someone important, we live with it, hold onto the moments of happiness, and move on with the grief. She tells me that we humans are processed that way, we move on. I heard this beautiful line in a TV series “Ain’t no Shame in holding onto grief, as long as you make room for other things too”.   

Saw some great films, that long stayed with me, the characters constantly raised questions about my perspective on a lot of things, read a lot of books, fiction, non-fiction, personal memoirs, saw some great TV shows. I will try to highlight some of those moments which i filled along with grief:

Meri Pyari Bindu is without any doubt remains a charming film for me; it gave a new perspective of love, Bubla Roy’s notion of love left a long lasting impact. My memorable moment in the film remains Bubla's monologue expressing what Bindu meant for him, comparing her to the sad words of Gulzar, Sachin Tendulkar’s straight drive, more heartbreaking than the last ten minutes of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand, Geeta Dutt’s voice and many more of extraordinary figures.

Meri Pyari Bindu

Arjun Reddy an iconic character with his flaws and imperfections manages to grab our attention and makes his point about love crystal clear. The film will surely gain cult status in the coming years. The film, which almost feels like a documentary on this fascinating protagonist, always keeps you engage. The scene where Arjun is feeling the heat of his raging hormones, and yet  does not get a chance to fulfill it, he then grabs a handful of ice and puts it into his jeans to calm himself. In another scene, he compares his state of mood swings to a women going through PMS, and makes a point that one should take care of him rather than telling him that it is all in the fate. I wrote a post on Arjun Reddy, Please do read The Journey of Suffering with Arjun Reddy 

Angamaly Diaries, a stylish gangster film with moments of utter chaos, madness, barbarism, delicious food, screeching of pigs below knife, business of pork meat. In a scene, a man wraps his hands around a tree while tying a bomb, with a hypothesis that even if the bomb explodes, his hands would face the casualty, leaving his face and body relatively safe. The film is raw and rustic in its nature, and so is the outstanding soundtrack, which forms an important part of the film. The film features an 11-minute long take climax, which became its highlight, but apart from that climax, the pre-interval long chase is equally adrenaline driven.  

Angamaly Diaries

Newton, I have been to the rural parts of Chattisgarh, I have seen the blankness that resides in the mind of the people. They do not give a damn about democracy or any ideology, for them the quest for survival is the important agenda.  The difference in opinions and ideology between Newton Kumar and Aatma Singh is what made this film interesting. The scene where Sanjay Mishra tells the rookie election officer, Newton that “one should not be arrogant about their honesty, it is expected from them and it should make you feel lighter, not burdened” is my favorite moment in the film.

Vikram Vedha, the template of Baital Pachisi styled into a neo-nor action thriller with an honest and equally dangerous police officer going against a ruthless gangster.  The entry scene of Vedha in the film reminded me why I fell in love with movies. If you have ever heard, read or watched the stories of Baital Pachisi, you’ll realize the film does follow every trait from the folktale, but in a contemporary fashion. Be highly attentive while watching this film, you do not want to miss anything, because the devil lies in the details. The film is oozing with intelligence, and puts you in a dilemma while questioning the morality of a good person versus bad person.

Vikram Vedha

The Wire, I never thought I will watch anything better than Breaking Bad, but I was wrong, I watched The Wire, which aired on HBO from 2002 to 2008 and consisted of 5 seasons. The story is set in a city of Baltimore, the post 9/11 era in the United States where we understand how the impact of drug on various important elements in the society, from the streets of Baltimore, to the docks, from the schools to local newspaper, each entity is equally impacted and embedded. It is not a dramatic show; it forms its roots in organizing realism as well as empathy. The Show is about the flawed American war against the drugs, and the makers go up, front, and tells you how flawed the American Society and its politics are. In season 1 of the show, there is a communication going on between two cops, when one of them tells the other we are up against the war on drugs, to which the other cop replies, it’s not a war on drugs, because war’s end. The show has one of the coolest anti-hero in the form of Omar Little, who also happens to be President Obama’s favorite TV character.   

Books, I have read considerably less in 2017, but this year I discovered some classics, and great books. Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” remains a personal favorite. Murakami’s writing is simply therapeutic and spells magic through his words. I also read Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, which I liked and was slightly disturbed by certain scenarios in the book; maybe I am just too immature to understand his books, which are full of symbolism at its deepest layer possible. Gulzar Saab’s “DO LOG” turned out to be yet another remarkable work from the legendary artist.  Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird: Some instructions on Writing and Life” was the book that I wanted to read for a long time, and finally I did got a chance to read it, it was funny, to the point, and does gives out some important words that one should follow in life. Bill Hayes’s “Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me” was extremely personal and leaves you smiling with a hint of sadness. It talks about grief in a very different manner. Reading has been an important part of my life, and for the time being it takes me away from the grim reality of life. I am looking to explore more genres, more authors, translated works, novels in Hindi, Punjabi Literature. 

I’ll end my post by quoting George Jung from ‘Blow’ “But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition will exceed my talent”……

Thoughts on Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me by Bill Hayes

“O: ‘The most we can do is to write – intelligently, creatively, critically, evocatively- about what it is like living in the world at this time” 

How will you react if someone looks dead straight in your eyes, and tells you in a firm voice that “At this moment, you are the most important person in the world.”

A sense of formidable assurance will hit you at the sweet spot of your heart; the much-wanted comfort in that firm voice will give you a sense of relief that no matter what, you are special and your presence does make a significance impact on someone’s life. 

This is one of the underlying scenarios, which forms the crux of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me written by Bill Hayes.

Set in the cosmopolitan jungle of New York, we do not read about the New York, which might be on the verge of an invasion from aliens. We do not read about the magnificence of Stark Tower complex located in midtown Manhattan. We do not read about the carnage that the several members of Avengers have brought in on the city. We do not see the New York, which Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver made us see through his eyes. Rather, we visualize a closer reflection of life in New York.

As the title suggest, the city never sleeps, there are always curious souls wandering aimlessly around subways, parks, on the streets and one such insomniac soul is Bill Hayes who, in his late forties makes a life changing decision and moves into the city of New York. Early in the book, he throws a familiar scientific term by the name of Agrypnia Excitata, a medical situation characterized by persistent Insomnia, over activity, mental confusion with dream enactment. He tells us that if we were to diagnose New York, it would surely be going through this medical condition, which he himself confirms to be going through mildly.  

Spring Shadows, Photo by Bill Hayes

The book starts with Bill narrating a devastating personal loss, the irony of which will make you wonder of how unkind being an insomniac can be. “Suffering a devastating loss is like suffering a brain injury, you walk around like a zombie, you can’t think straight, you feel drugged,” someone tells Bills, to which he thinks, “Sometimes you are drugged” it’s such a minor exchange of words filled with a sense of consolation which are so pure and genuine in their nature but at the same time, anecdotes like these is what made me think more about my own insomnia and the moments of personal loss. Bill meets many interesting people, who share some interesting aspects of their life, like using the term “disappear” in place of death, it made me wonder about the analogy of terms we use, to explain about the death of loved ones, surely it does represent a deeper connotation of our association with the person on a very personal level, they leave us physically but with a plethora of memories and moments to look after. Bill moves on in his life and discovers something on his own after his countless isolated nights “A thousand days is a thousand nights is a thousand chances to dream about him”  and recalls an out of the ordinary aspect from the Greeks; The god of sleep (Hypnos) has an identical twin, Thanatos, the god of death.     

Then what starts as a formal correspondence through letters between Bill Hayes and Dr. Oliver Sacks over the former’s book The Anatomist organically grows into something excessively special. It was the zest and the natural curiosity of discovering novelistic persona that shapes the bond of mutual admiration between the two. Dr. Oliver Sacks’ ability to look through Bill’s photographs from an altogether perspective, like comparing bare tree limbs to bundle of neurons in a closed system. Bill decides that he needs to get a fresh start, gets a one-way ticket, and like millions before and after him comes to New York, not specifically in pursuit of anything, but just to celebrate life the way he wants it to be.  Insomniac City is Bill Hayes love letter to two of the most important companions in his life, New York and Oliver Sacks. 

At Home, Photo by Bill Hayes

Bill Hayes explores New York and simultaneously his life. The unplanned encounter with strangers in the streets of New York yields him so many stories to remember. The weather of New York in which the multi color template of clouds play an important aspect throughout the book, the iconic Empire state building, the subways, dirty streets, cold nights, and taxicabs stuck in traffic, they all play a major role in Bill’s life, since he gradually transforms into a New Yorker, and accepts the city with all its detriments. Random stranger writing a love poem for Bill and coincidently meeting the same person two years later, this time the poem is about the sky under the stars. Preferring to stand rather than sit on a subway, never dozing off, never reading, as doing any of those things might make him miss a surprising site. There are many more such stories that Bill share with us. He deeply embraces New York and its people, and lives in optimism that city will repay him in some form or another, and eventually it does. He makes us see the city through his lenses (quite literally, since he captures many photographs). He captures moments of human love, people, strangers, lovers, acquaintances quite artistically without dramatizing the moment. Bill Hayes sees, values, experiences, untangles the simple yet the delicate complex nature of human emotions in New York.  It is the wonderfully expressed writing that one does not get a sense of time and space in accordance with the book, the random people coming into the life of Bill and leaving with an impact and a certain memoir of their own to share in future. The illustration of human emotions through photographs gives us a glimpse of how he intends to celebrate life in New York, both the photographs and the anecdotes of New York runs in a parallel narrative style of storytelling.  

Lovers on the Grass, Photo by Bill Hayes

"It requires a certain kind of unconditional love-to-love living here. But New York repays you in time in memorable encounters, at the very least. Just remember: ask first, don't grab, be fair, say please and thank you- even if you don't get something back right away. You will.” 

Dr. Oliver Sacks (O), the genius neurologist, writer, professor forms the significant draw in the book. The way Bill portrays him through his personal journal entries (idea of which was suggested to Bill by Dr Sacks himself that he must keep a journal) gives us a subtle hint of the kind of relation both of them shared. O didn’t know what or who the phenomenon known as Michael Jackson was, he had no attentiveness of the contemporary pop music, he didn’t owned any computer, didn’t use email or text, rather favored using his fountain pen. He spend almost three decades in celibacy, spending majority of his time in work, reading, writing, unlocking the mysterious mechanism around the captivating aspects of Neurobiology. He works on the principle of not fearing death as much as wasting life. For O, writing is more important than pain. He redefines intimacy in such an extraordinary manner that you cannot help but get amused by his notion of intimacy, love and romance. He wears swimming goggles while opening the bottle of champagne because, first he has never done that himself and second “just in case”.  

“I just want to enjoy your nextness and nearness,” says O.

He puts his ear to my chest, listens to my heart, and counts the beats.

“Sixty-two,” He says with a satisfied smile, and I can’t imagine anything more intimate.  

The conversations between O and Bill appear so simple, yet it is their normal routinely conversations that sparks the inquisitiveness to know more about them, their world, the way they visualize the importance of the clouds in the evenings, they way they tend to look from a scientific perspective to describe normal human activities.  The way O suddenly mumbles “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could dream together?”  The conversations at the opium den, where O gets stoned and exhibit his vast neuroscience knowledge and enjoys the coming out of the regular boredom, and discussing the thin difference between happiness and pleasure. The difference in both of their personalities can summed into a minor conversation where Bill point out that he has seen fireflies, to which O responds that swallowing more than three of those would result in death due to luciferase. Their relation is an ideal paradigm of the perfect balance between Science and Literature. Bill’s words and feelings are the poetry whereas O is the scientific instrumentalist of those words and feelings.

Throughout the deeply personal conversations, Bill Hayes gives us an unparalleled access to their love, to their world, and in a way tells us about the restrictions of human endeavors brought upon by time, space and medium needs to be respected. The acceptance of death at some point in life, holding onto grief, and then going on to celebrate death, and much more importantly celebrate “Life” is what makes this book extremely memorable and a delightful read. Perhaps I am not able to precisely explain what made reading this book a charming experience for me, but the writing is so personal and intimate, that you appreciate the beauty of it. If you want to celebrate life in ordinary moments or want to connect yourself again to the times we live, then Insomniac City awaits your attention. Bill Hayes awaits your attention.  

The Insomniac Diaries: yearning for break of dawn

“The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world”

 Leonard Cohen

“All bad things must come to an end”

 I read the line from the breaking bad poster stuck on the wall, just in front of my bed. I broke out of the comfort of warm blanket and immediately felt a twinge of coldness in my knees. I washed my face with cold water just to alert my senses.

I went to the balcony and thought about the various things going in my mind for the last couple of days. I ended a five-year long relationship with the girl, I thought I was going to marry and get old with. I had expressed extreme sympathy for a friend who became a victim of domestic violence. I resurrected a person from attempting suicide; I had a cousin brother in London who was battling with life with a blood clot inside his brain.

Words like guilt, love, expectations, frustrations, loneliness, mental tiredness and many more frequently used terms from the same genre became a regular part of my life and now I treated them merely as tools to express my emotions.

My life was like boxer standing in the ring and trying to defend the incoming punches, I was standing in position where I had no time to recover and get stable to give my own knockout punch.

I went through a lot of mixed emotions, guilt of not being loyal towards the person who cared for me, being a little selfish about my own affection, lonely off being not able to find a single person in my phone contacts to share my feelings with, sensible of not letting someone end his life just because he failed in his life.

I got restless, decided to get back inside the room to place myself again under the comfort of the warm blanket. I stared at the static fan and off-white colored walls and thought about the various nights I had spent thinking about improving my life and making it a better place to live. The very next moment another thought struck me, about how in all those aspects I was a miserable failure.

My life was slowly becoming an amalgamation of despair and sadness, where all I did was live my life in two images. One where I presented myself as a person of how the society wanted me to be and secondly the person I wanted to be. However, now come to think of it, we all are living our lives in the same pattern of duality.

It was not the lack of sleep that was turning my thinking process into a more complex system, it was the lack of hope. Lack of happiness that you get from little things you go through in life, the atmosphere of an early morning cool breeze, sunshine in the dawn, a moment when you see flock of birds twittering their way into the blue sky not worrying about the destination. People going for their usual morning walks and being internally happy that they are taking care of their body, The huge crowd assembling near the tea stall for their early morning tea, mothers preparing lunchbox for their children, that little kid crying his heart out in a emphatic way to tell his parents that he doesn’t want to go to school. I missed these small ordinary moments to be cheerful.

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

When Life starts throwing random punches towards me, I should behave like the great Jake Lamotta- let it beat the hell out of me, but not be able to knock me down. With that thought, I realized how true the breaking bad poster stated, that all bad things must come to an end and so will my sleepless nights would one day see the end of darkness.   

Death: The Undefined Space

"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace."- Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost

It is another insomniac night, and sleep has been a distant dream, the moment I try to close my eyes, I have this sudden burst of anxiety (In whatever chemical form it is found in our body) rush through my veins. The group of butterflies in my stomach elevates my anxiety to its peak level. I feel like a student sitting in an examination hall about to give the most vital exam of his career. I think about random topics to ponder over in order to occupy my mind, because that is the most appropriate pastime for an insomniac, TO THINK.

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash 

I randomly browse through various topics in my mind, that I wanted to think about, but I could not stick to a particular one, like my insecurities, my anxiety, my fears, my ambitions. I opened Twitter, just to divert my mind, I scroll through my timeline, desperate in search of something that stays with me through this silence, which have become my companion. A national award-winning lyricist and writer, I follow had tweeted few hours back 'Dying in sleep would be such a calm and hassle-free way to leave this world and end your journey', I immediately knew, that this is the topic I am going to ponder over and put my thinking neurons on work.

As Dr Sheldon Copper suggest, that during such period of analysis, we must put on our thinking cap, so I do the same, and ponder over DEATH.

Death is inevitable; we all are going to die; the mediums might differ but result would be same. Heart will not pump the blood; oxygen supply to the brain would stop. Whenever someone in a Punjabi family die, people communicate the news to each other by saying “O Poora Hogaye” literally meaning the person is complete. I recall an instance asking my grandmother what this sentence means, she responded with an elaborate explanation that how Sikh consider life as a cycle, starting point being their birth, and ending point being their death. She further went to explain me how death is an impartial phenomenon. It does not discriminate humans on their religion, gender, age, social status.

I recalled another memory, which made me a bit uncomfortable, I tried to re-frame the entire scenario in my mind, my grandfather came to his room, sat on his moving chair, asked a glass of water, closed his eyes and within moments he left us. In a chaotic world, dying in silence and peace would be such a pertinent path to complete our journey.  Mike Ehrmantraut, one of the coolest characters in Breaking Bad, ignores Walt’s apology and tells him and to shut the fuck up and let him die in peace. It is one of the subtlest sequences of a person accepting his death and trying to find solace in it. 

Mike Ehrmantraut finding Peace in Death

Mike Ehrmantraut finding Peace in Death

I try to analyze death,

Is it a sensation leading to permanent desensitization?

Is it a form of sharp sound waves that arrives with a crescendo of music piercing our eardrums? 

Does it seem as an angel calmly whispering in our ears that we are going to a better place?

Or does it appear as a devil disguised as an angle trying to con us in the lure of a better place? 

Is it the transporter that takes our soul into the field, which is beyond the idea of wrongdoing and rightdoing that Rumi, has talked about?

Death, on many instances does not seem as easy and peaceful; it often is brutal, heartbreaking affecting not only a single person for whom it is meant for at the first place, but also to everyone related to that person. It build’s organically into your mind, taking your body and mind through the path of loneliness, pain and slowly leaving your body and mind to wonder around in an undefined space.

I try to create a fictionalized scenario on death (if that’s an fitting way to present it), if a person is on the verge of death through any means, be it a pathological condition, or a psychiatric condition or simply through an aging cause, slowly their organs would stop functioning properly leaving the subject under extreme physical disturbance, and emotional distress for their loved ones, few lucky one’s would be able to bid good-bye to their loved ones, other’s won’t be able to say a proper goodbye to their loved ones. The moment body stops responding and physiological function stops, the soul leaves the body taking along with itself a jar consisting of thousands of emotions, be it guilt, heartbreak, happy memories, rejections, moments of utter loneliness, moments of pleasure. The soul enters the undefined space, wandering around and seeking another medium to encompass all the emotions with it.

Does the undefined space act as the divider between Heaven and Hell?

Does the undefined space form a minuscule portion of the gigantic universe, where the soul rambles around?

Does the undefined space keep the soul, and later prepares it to be transmitted into another body (acting as a medium), by loosely forming the basis of consciousness through the jar of emotions the soul has kept?   

Another thought hit my mind, what happens when a person dies a premature death, does the scenario post death remains same?  Does their soul wonder around the undefined space seeking out an appropriate medium to transfer the large chunk of emotions?  Another scenario is that the point of soul-searching for another medium might come from the fact that my subconscious level makes me want to believe on the perspective of reincarnation. May be the undefined space acts as cloud storage for the emotions when a person dies leaving the soul wandering around the universe. It is an indication that once our journey ends, there is no alternative route to start the same journey, the road end there.

The advances made in the Quantum theory has led to development of many novel theories that try to put different perspectives on death, life after death with respect to consciousness, time, space and the universe. I try not to go deeper into quantum aspects of death, instead I try to focus on my fictionalized scenario and stick to it, and indirectly telling myself that I had an eventful insomniac night analyzing death.

I try to rewind the entire self-mediated thoughts on death, and get answer to several odd questions from myself, the nature of death (Not suicidal, but in widespread reason), the self-created undefined space, which even I am not sure how to characterize it, the soul containing a jar of emotions, the basis of reformation of consciousness to lend the soul into another medium. 

I go outside my small room, and walk into the verandah, it’s about to dawn, and I am far away from understanding death,

Do I really need to? I ask myself, probably no, and that reassured stimulated ‘NO’ comes subconsciously from the fact that we have to accept it under any circumstances.

I take off my thinking cap, look at the sunrise, and still seek out sleep.