Silence is golden

 

I don’t get why some people feel the need  to talk. I mean, they are afraid to allow a single second of their lives without talking about something or the other. I know people who can talk for hours, about various things, about the same thing over and over. It doesn’t matter what about. The important fact is that they do not shut up. As is they are afraid of silence.  

I don’t think silence is anything bad. On the contrary. I could live for days without talking to anyone. I would just mind my business in peace and I will be okay at the end of the day. Or week. Or month. It doesn't mean I am upset with someone if I don’t talk when they talk to me. It only means I don’t feel like talking.

My mom always gets mad at me when she wants me to tell her how my day was, for example, and I mumble something then go do something else. It doesn't matter if it was a good day or a bad one, if you do not feel like talking there is nothing anyone can do to make you talk. Mom is one of those people who can talk for hours.

It happens, on lucky days, to be able to hide away from the world, working in the garden or just taking a walk up the hills, when the only time I would speak is meeting one of my cats or the ducks. Or just speaking to a plant I especially like. A word or two. I know how it sounds. Lonely. Pathetic. Stupid, maybe? Don’t think so. I am well aware they will not answer and me talking to them means nothing else but giving my thought a voice. For one moment. Then back to silence. To listening to the world around you while your brain is a stormy sea, each wave a thought, bigger and stronger with every second you spend on each of them.

There are two types of silence for me. One, if you’re lucky enough to ever get to that stage, is when your mind is clear and you can just enjoy being. The other is when you want to be alone with your thoughts, when you need to think things through and do some cleaning in your head. There’s a lot of dust piling up during a day.

Of course I like taking to people. Certain people. There are times when you can ask me anything and I will talk and talk without restriction. For about half an hour or so. Unless I really , really enjoy the other person’s company. However, I find more pleasure in listening to other people and if I have an opinion I might speak out, I might also keep it to myself. Because I value my silence more.

There is so little peace in our lives nowadays.

Stream of consciousness (1)

I had so many things on my mind this week I simply cannot list them all. Every time I saw something a new thought was born, a new thought that would eat away at my brain until a newer thought came along and replaced the now old thought. It is exhausting sometimes. It keeps me up at night. Literally. I cannot sleep properly. Someone I know, she teaches biology, says it is because of the unusual weather at this time of the year, that our bodies suffer because nature is not healthy. I am not the only one with insomnia, it seems but I think the causes for my problem run deeper than just a poor adjustment to weather fluctuations. I also know people who are just fine because they don’t spend that much energy on thinking. They just do things, let the animal part of our being run the show and all they are concerned with is food, shelter and reproduction. That is why they are happy. Because they don’t need much to be happy. Whereas, us over-thinking people always need more, always have to overcomplicate things that are in fact very simple.

Humans experience all sorts of emotions in a lifetime, depending on the type of life they are leading. Some people will never know what love is, what being alone feels like, what having a family is like, what hunger is, what having too much looks like. A simple mind will never thing about those things they don’t have because they have no idea how life is with those things. And they will be happy. Of sorts. There are , however, those people who will always wonder what would it be like if the situation were different, if they had this or that thing, if they lived here or there, if they  knew him or her, even if they never had any of it.

All this begs the question: why the hell do we want more that we can carry? Why the need to be more than what you already are? Why can’t we just be contend with the little we got (a little that for some is quite a lot) and be happy already? And, if we are in the existential questions category, why are we so unhappy when all the so called improvements to our way of living are supposed to make our lives better instead of more miserable with every passing day?

Of course I want more. Who doesn’t? More clothes, more desert, more friends, more love, more everything.  I want it. You want it. Everyone wants it. Can’t have it. It is my firm belief, if we had everything, we would immediately find something to want, to be ahead of the person next to us, to be better.

The sad part is that all we want is palpable things. We don’t want stuff we cannot see. What use is knowledge if you cannot display it in a golden case? What good will intelligence and a rich imagination do if we cannot sell it; show it off somehow for everyone to marvel at?

You know what? I want things I cannot touch. I want information. It will not help me much to know what a person I haven’t talked to in a while is doing. It will not change the course of my life, it will not kill the virus I am fighting, but I still want to know. I want to know they are okay, they are happy, they are where they want to be and they have everything they need. That knowledge would make me happy, even if for just a second. Have you noticed that when you are sad and you find out someone you care about is okay, somehow things seem better all of a sudden? I feel sorry for those who are happy when they learn someone is in trouble. They say things like “I am glad I am not the only one who is miserable.” I have done it a few times and I feel sorry for myself for needing that to make myself feel better. As if it ever helps. When I cross the street, I sometimes wait until there is someone else crossing with me because, is a car speeds by it will hit us both/all. Stupid, right? Don’t know why I am doing it but I do it almost every time I need to cross a street. Almost.

 

Thinking too much can hurt, I think.

That is why so many just don’t. That is why those people will live longer than over-thinkers. Because they are not in pain all the time, because their dreams are simple; because their sleep is not disturbed by endless hours of thinking about how to make the world a better place, for themselves and fro those around.

Even if I know I will die in pain, I don’t want to be a mindless robot without any real expectations beyond food, shelter and procreation. Maybe I am wrong, maybe those three things are the only things that matter. Maybe that is why all the cultures of the ancient world, after creating so many wonderful things, died. Maybe it is better to be stupid.

 

Some thoughts about loss.

Losing someone always hurts.

It hurts the mother when her little girls grow up and don’t need you anymore. There is a sense of pride in that, they can take care of themselves now but it hurts all the same because they are no longer your little girls.  It hurts when your baby leaves the nest, ready to fly the dangerous winds of life on her own.

Losing someone you love (keep in mind, there are many types of love) hurts because you lose a part of yourself, however small, because once you had that part, without it life will never be the same. You cry like an idiot, you hope like an idiot, as you watch the thing you love die in front of you. You are powerless to stop Nature. Nature cannot be stopped. Nature can sometimes be prevented.

Our addiction to other human beings is deadly. Our addiction to companionship of any kind is toxic. It drives you insane; it eats you from inside out. It makes no sense. We are very capable of doing everything by ourselves yet we insist on having someone to help us.

Losing something you never had hurts even more because whatever you will do, you will never have that thing.

Loss is inevitable. It is the way of Nature. People come and go. We are careless.

Loss, even for a short while, hurts.

Think about it before you take anything for granted. Or not.

New season/at the doctor’s

At the beginning of February an old fever of mine started to burn. Cross stitching. I love it , I just don’t have much time nor an excuse to spend hours hunched back over a piece of canvas, a needle and a lot of colored threads. I found the perfect excuse in making tokens for March 1^st.  This country of mine has this custom on the first day of March to give small tokens (broaches, but mostly useless plastic or metal or cloth tokens) accompanied by a red and white tread that is tied in a bow. ( I have the feeling I have mentioned it once before, not long ago.) On March 8^th, when it’s the International Day of Women, or something like that, at school and everywhere women get gifts in the form of flowers, chocolates, whatever. I dread these days. I dreaded them when I was little when I had to give my teachers tokens and gifts, I dread it now when there are chances to get one, the other or both. I simply dread going to school because I know there is a chance I will get into one of these awkward situation where I will hove no idea how to respond. I am good at faking emotion and surprise, but behind all those smiles  there is only dismay and horror. My mind screams HELP ME!!!! from all my being. Luckily, the custom is fading in our parts, but not entirely so the danger still exists. I cannot help but feel uncomfortable in such situations.

I know, I know. Am I crazy? Free stuff. How can I not be happy about it? My mom tells me all the time. She if of the opinion that if someone choses to give you something for free you must take it. I suppose she is right and I try to think like her when it happens but it doesn’t make it any easier.

I distributed handmade tokens myself today. I made them. Put my soul into them and gave them a value beyond commercial. (though I am perfectly capable of selling them because I do a pretty good job, I might add)

Today was easy. Little awkwardness because, in recent years, the custom to give boys/men tokens on march 1^st grew strong. I only gave to my teachers  (who are now, strangely enough, my co-workers) to the headmistresses and everyone I consider friend, more or less (the definition of friend is a tad different with me)

 I fear the next Tuesday when its march 8^th. I just don’t want to think about it.

**
Because I have been feeling this unpleasant, not too powerful but recurring pain inside my left ear I decided to visit the school nurse and ask her about it. She said it could be an infection and that I should pay my doctor a visit. So I did, after I finished classes at three. The waiting room had a few people in it, among them an old lady, a mother and her son, man and two little girls or around 6, a boy from 12^th grade and some other people that came and went. My hope was to get out of there by 4 because I wanted to catch the bus home. The next would come at 7 in the evening, after me waiting for hours in the station.

Anyway, I went in, I sat down and , to pass the time, because I get bored very easily, I started reading a book on my phone. Olivia Munn’s SUCK IT, WONDER WOMAN! is the title. Fun book to read .  during the chapter about the robot invasion I had to stop reading because I was starting to lough to loudly and soon I would draw unwanted attention. They others were still recovering from listening to one of those girl’s screams of agony and despair and her declaration, upon exiting the doctor’s office, to never come back again. They gave her a vaccine with a small needle that doesn’t hurt a bit. We cannot mess with the power of a little girl’s fear, however. Never. Ever.

The 12^th grade boy left at one point because everyone was going in before him, even those that came after. I supposes he was trying to be polite a few times and let a lady go in first but the situation must’ve gotten over his head because he seemed rather upset when he left. And he was right. When you go to a doctor in a small town like this be prepared to wait forever because there are some people who think they must go first even if there is a dying man waiting to be admitted. The category consists mainly of old ladies who are supposedly so tired and sick they cannot possibly wait a few minutes, officials from the town hall that are too important to wait, and gypsies who, if you do not give them priority in everything, start yelling they are being discriminated and play the victim card. That is why I missed my 4 o’clock bus. That and the fact that the doctor takes too much time with explanations no one really understands.

Also at the doctor’s, a woman came in at one point and after a few minutes with talking with everyone else she turned to me – I like to stay outside people’ s line of sight to avoid such encounters – and said “ Ah, Stella! I almost didn’t recognize you.” (Which is funny because I haven’t changed much in the last 14 years of my life. ) She said she had heard I am working at school now, asked me how that is. How I am. What I’ve been doing. I answered, politely, to all her questions, smiled and everything, all the while wondering who the hell was she. I don’t remember my highschool mates that well by name but I think I would remember a face. Perhaps I met her in a different capacity, I just have no idea. Happens all the time with me , for people to talk to me as if they know me and for  me to pretend that I know them, but sometimes it’s just downright annoying.

Never mind that. It happens, we move on, hope to never meet again that person.

At 4.30 I finally got my face to face with the doctor. He used that thingy to look inside my ear, decided it is an infection and gave me a prescription. I left, bought a few things from the grocery/bakery then went to the bus station fully aware it was gonna take a while until I would get home. And it did take a while. Luckily, the bus station is right across the street from a restaurant with Wi-Fi. I have the password from a girl I know and I was able to not be bored by the waiting. Much.

 I almost forgot about the date and about what is coming. Which is good. Too much stress.

Gotta go to the pharmacy tomorrow to get my prescription because by the time I left the doctor’s  all two pharmacies in our town were long closed. Because no one needs medicine after 4 p.m. in this town.

Truth is, everything sucks sometimes.