the-caffeinated-utopian

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The bridge of oblivion

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View from the Artist's Window (1825)

Artist: Martinus Rørby (1803 - 1948), Copenhagen

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A dog called blackout

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Not my room

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Europa

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No visitors today

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Three flamingos

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They'll be home soon

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Lemon drop

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My neighbour Totoro

#Ghibli #ghibli aesthetic #gif #my neighbour totoro #the_caffeinated_utopian #magic

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Waking up early for work

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Hidden in the Dunes

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Source

#magic #ghibli art #ghibli #kiki's delivery service #gif

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[the-caffeinated-utopian]

of sombre sunsets

everyone is capable of empathy. 

let me rephrase that - everyone who is not suffering from clinical or sub-clinical conditions affecting their mind are capable of empathy. many people on the extremes of antisocial personality spectrum may be hindered by their condition from feeling a connection with their fellow humans.in this article, i shall talk about those of us whose ability to feel and connect are not modified by any deviation from the mainstream.

thus my realisation - everyone is capable of empathy, except a few. 

this thought came to me when i was remembering certain memories of my childhood. on twitter, an artist (who also happens to be a single mother presently) posted a picture of her toddler offering a flower on the grave of their beloved pet. the tweet read, "his first death'. 

i am in a profession where i see death, loss and suffering regularly, so my feelings about them are numbed. however, i got curious and tried to remember the times before these questionable changes happened to my psyche. do i remember my first brush with death? do i remember my feelings then? 

death, in general, is never discussed in my household. my parents are an interesting mix in this regard - my father is morbidly anxious about mortality, not only his own but in general; my mother tends to romanticise the concept of death and dying and yet, when it comes to the possibility of her losing a loved one, she doesn't react well. since i grew up mostly with my mother, i would often hear lines such as "death is nothing but a doorway to a new life' and horrified shrieks if i ventured into the water even with a life vest tightly fastened around my trunk.

  my first brush with death was at the age of three. i was in nursery school. at the time, my father was posted at his office in a city four hundred and forty four kilometres away from the city i was born and spent the first couple of years of my life in. my mother had moved away from her family to be with him and had taken me along with her. the city was important to me. i started school for the first time in my life at a place where my parents and i were living like a three-man crew on a raft, trying to navigate the currents of life. admittedly, i had very little role to play in the "navigation'. i was only a member who saw much but understood very little.

i still remember the day. daylight was dissolving into the evening. the sun had molten over the western horizon and all i remember is the vast pinkness that stretched all around my tiny self. it was nothing out of the ordinary. my mother loved watching sunsets and it was our daily ritual to watch the sun go down. my mother would hum a tune or be silent. the moment would have its impact on me as well, for i would also stop my chatter for a short while until all the beautiful colours disappeared from the sky. it seemed like a long time then but i know now, sunsets are transient. 

my father is not a part of these memories because he never returned home from work until late evening. i always knew that he was at work but while watching the nature create magic in front of my eyes, i never asked if he had the luxury to take a break for a few minutes and stare at the sky through the window at his office. my limited childish thoughts failed to grasp the true enormity of a magnificent natural phenomenon. now that i am older i know, even if my father did have the opportunity, he would have never been interested.

i remember the day i had my first brush with death. my mother and i were sitting on the terrace. the sun was a red orb in front of us. the air was still warm. the gentle breeze of the evening had not started blowing yet but we knew from our experience that it was just a matter of time. little did we know that we would miss the rest of our ritual that day. 

there was a sudden knock on the door, startling my mother out of her trance. she opened the gate to find my father standing there with an ashen face. my mother asked him what was wrong. he did not reply immediately. he silently entered the house, sat down on a chair and kept staring at her. as an adult now, i can only imagine the apprehension my mother must have felt in those moments. i still remember it as if it is a video recorded inside my head that i replay every now and then.

"tell me,' my mother insisted. 

"you will cry,' my father replied. 

i have never asked what my mother was thinking at the moment. it is rude to keep reminding people of the times when they received the worst news of their lives.

"tell me,' she reiterated.

"your father has passed away,' my father replied in a no nonsense tone. that's my father. he has never been the one who would give someone the time to gather strength or courage to face the impending devastation. he believes in ripping off the band-aid in one go.

i remember my mother silently sinking to the floor. i did not really understand what was being said. being the talkative child that i was, i kept asking both of them about what had happened. no one answered. 

for a long time i did not really understand what had happened. even with my limited emotional capabilities as a three year old, i was very fond of my grandfather. he had always loved me but more importantly, he respected me as an individual, irrespective of the size or age of the said individual. he often indulged me. he never made me feel small or helpless, a feeling that i was familiar with when it came to interacting with my parents and the rest of my family members.

i did not mourn my grandfather then because i did not understand that death is a permanent goodbye. i mourn him a little everyday now. i am certain that he had his fair share of flaws. no one is a saint. however, in the brief three years of my existence, no one had an impact on me as deep as my grandfather. i have faint memories of him, strengthened by the accounts of my grandmother who often witnessed us bonding. i shall always be grateful for the sweet memories that i have.

i started this article with the mention of "empathy'. if you have read so far, you might ask what i am getting at as i seem to have taken quite a lengthy emotional detour. pardon me for that. i wanted to share some of my memories with you.

even though my father broke the news to my mother quite abruptly, i had witnessed empathy in that moment in strange ways. "you will cry,' he had said quietly.this is the same man who has a violent temper, who gets verbally and physically abusive when he is angry or drunk. this is the man whose ego is fragile and the people around him (namely, my mother and i) have to often walk on eggshells not to set him off. he is a man in pain, he always has been. in a twisted pathological cycle, he inflicts the pain he feels on those surrounding him. he is a man belonging to the toxic environment that asks him not to seek help. accepting any help given to him threatens his warped sense of masculinity because the society has taught him so. 

throughout my childhood i have viewed my father as a thoughtless person capable of destroying all good things with his anger. but whenever i look back on this particular memory, my father's quiet voice resonates in my ears, "you will cry.' it gives me hope. while we should certainly take care not to be harmed by people who are abusive or emotionally disturbed, we should not forget that perhaps even inside the depths of the harshest of people might lie a spring well of understanding. 

is it worth staying in an abusive relationship in the hope that once in a blue moon, we might get a glimpse of that ever elusive empathy? 

no. 

my intention is not to encourage dysfunctional relationships but to restore some faith and hope in the nature of humanity.

my mother missed her father's funeral but we reached in time for his last rites. i remember her seeing his shoes on the rack when entering her parents' house and breaking down in tears. 

i am still unsure about how i processed my first brush with death of a loved one or how i eventually grasped the concept of death. all i know is that even in my thirties, sometimes during a day's sombre end, i still miss the warmth of my grandfather's hugs.

my mother has never watched a sunset with me ever again.

#death #sadness #thoughts #empathy #stories of a dysfunctional family #philosophy #the_caffeinated_utopian