Category: Myths and Absurdity

CAN I RENEGOTIATE WITH DEATH?

In memory of our loved ones when they pass

I know you’ve lost someone, and it hurts. The feeling of falling apart, like your heart is halted all over again just by the sudden rush of unpleasant memories. The sound of the heart being smashed into millions of pieces, sending chills over the body. And after so many years of getting over this heartbroken phase of life, one day you suddenly find yourself standing right there in the middle of every misery that caused you so many sufferings. You never actually get over the miseries that changed your life.

Dying possibly is one of those things that almost no one seems to want to do but everyone has to do eventually (someday). It’s difficult, even for grownups, to understand why this must happen.

Still, it’s quite a risky topic of discussion.

Missing my chance to say goodbye — and longing for her last words.

“For about a week after my grandmother passed away, I couldn’t cope up with the truth but always found myself going back to the last night I spent with her. She was sick and pale. Barely had enough strength to talk. Following dusk, we had our meals and sat with her – talking and laughing, trying to make her feel comfortable with the environment and herself. Around midnight we went to bed with happy faces. Little did we know that it was our last conversation. Eventually, the next morning, she never woke up. She suffered from cardiac arrest. Now, when words were spread about her demise, relatives began to pour in, some were offering condolences and some were sitting in silence. I went to the room where she was lying lifeless. I wanted to see her for the last time to imprint her face in my mind and heart forever. As I went near her, accidentally I happened to touch her hand and for a minute I froze there. She was cold as ice and corpse. I was in complete denial. Pretty soon I realized that death can, and often does, strikes without warning.”

I dream of her often and still miss her. It has been almost 7 years already, but it still feels like it only happened yesterday!

The last lesson that the old lady left me to figure out was Death. I’d never been through it before. I was 16 and, up to that point, my family had been intact. The very first faceoff with the disheartening reality of life was – death. I call it the season of misery. Though rain kept on pouring and hence, leaving no difference between the raindrops and teardrops.

Can I decide to forgive you? I’m not there yet, but I’m trying.

I see you come to everyone. Maybe it was her time.

Maybe in the spiritual world, we made this agreement with you. I’d like to renegotiate.

Here’s a thing about death that there are many things I do not know and may never know. But I do know that it will happen, someday, to all of us.

Can I renegotiate the way I feel about you, Death? Or are you my forever enemy? You’re the taker, but do you have a benevolent side?

It doesn’t matter. You took her from me, Death! You snatched her while she slept, happily packed to come to see me.

Damn you, Death! I’m angry at your cruelty. Why did you take her from me?

You left me in a miserable state, it’s harder to forgive you – I’m trying.

I was in a phase of panic and anxiety and feelings of unreality with intense sadness, which felt overwhelming. I even worried about my existence. It took me so long to get back to the reality of what we call life.

I mourned about almost everything I could relate to.

I know it’s important to let one grieve in their way. To learn how to work through grief. It takes a hell of a time. After all, it’s finding out who I am once again without the attachment to her.

Making peace with the nature of life.

Take care of yourself. With the loss of a relationship comes the loss of love emanating from another that one has felt all along.

I’m still accepting you, death!

When this happened, the best I could do is accept death as a fact of life. It happens, and I can’t do anything to change it. The truth about death lays plain the harshness of the grave… but also the true beauty of the life we already have.

Death, you made it harder for us to say our goodbyes, how do you do this to families?

Death, you’re the awful thing to ever happen in all of existence. But I believe no one should worry or wonder about it for very long. There are too many wonderful things to experience in the many, many years ahead.

Death – I forgive you. That’s me practicing.

Life is a precious gift we are unable to recreate once it’s gone.

No one is assured tomorrow. The only thing we can count on is today.

Therefore, in the end, I always have believed in’ Death takes the body. God takes the soul. Our mind holds the memories. Our heart keeps the love. Our faith lets us know we’ll meet again.

MEN AND MASCULINITY

Dear Men,

Everybody knows it, but nobody talks about it. So, here I write to you and for you, consider me your inner voice. I’m trying to make an effort to reach out to your actual inner man.

Men cry.

Men breakdown.

Men have suicidal thoughts.

Men die by suicide.

Men suffer from mental illness.

It’s not unmanly to struggle.
In his book, What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business: Opening Up the Heavily Guarded Alpha Male Playbook, Christopher Flett claims men don’t often exhibit emotion “because they are taught that it is weak to do so. Men don’t cry! Or if they do, they’ll rarely admit to it. The truth is they do get emotional; they just don’t show it. Their fathers pull them aside and tell them to be two-faced: a private face they have outside of the public eye, and a public face that shows no weakness.”

“Big boys don’t cry” and “Take it like a man” sounds familiar.

In my previous blog, I wrote about inspiring girls and that they should empower themselves mentally. A friend of mine asked me to pen down something similar for men, emphasizing the psychological facts. So, I logged in to my Instagram account and checked for some pages and hashtags for the men’s community where I found some facts and personal feelings about what men go through and their personal experiences. Sadly I couldn’t find any. I could have Googled it but then a question rubbed my mind, why only women are discussed and written articles about, why not anything about men and their feelings. It’s rare, why?

Well, our culture is indeed developing for women’s rights as to that of men. But what is being ignored in the process is Men and Their Emotional Parameters.
All this does not happen because men are “more naturally” aggressive or violent. It happens because we teach young boys that they have to be a certain way. We teach them that certain character traits are not for them. Boys are not allowed to cry, boys are not allowed to play with dolls, boys are not allowed to like pink glitter unicorns. Children receive a constant narrative about girls being emotional princesses and boys being strong, wild, loud heroes. Men grew to process to suppress their emotions. Of course, they become toxic which is not only harmful to others but mostly to themselves.
By this, I don’t mean that masculinity is a bad thing. All I am saying is that it is unhealthy for any person not to learn how to cope with emotions and suppress their feelings. Character traits and emotions should not have a gender. Gender roles are harmful to everyone, men included. And I honestly wish more men would see that, accept that feminism is not only for women, and start an open and honest conversation about masculinity.

Therefore, you should know that masculinity isn’t about being emotional and it’s all about –

  • Weeping and trying to find comfort in hugs and accepting the fact that you are mentally broken.
  • Letting others see your weak side and letting go of the uneasiness and suffering by opting for an easy way.
  • Feeling happiness and sadness and accepting your emotional breakdown.
  • Shoving off the society and putting down the tag of manhood i.e. “Real Me Don’t Cry”
  • That you can unveil your emotions.

Because I Understand. We understand that whether or not you are a man or a woman, you do feel every emotion. Being strong doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions. The best people are both strong and soft! It’s that absurd idea that being emotional isn’t ‘masculine’ but that’s also not true.

So, the next time you see a little boy crying or a man who is broke emotionally or your brother/friends suffering from mental illness or your father or uncles stressed up don’t take that shit as a manly hormone (as of what we are taught, he’s a man so he should stay strong and not weep like a woman, it’s very unmanly of him). Rather sit with them and talk about it, consolidate them of whatever the matter is, spend some time with them. Make them realize that being strong doesn’t always mean holding on to the pain and suffering in silence. Show them that busting down the patriarchy is not only beneficial for women, it’s beneficial for men also.

Bust down this idea that it’s weak for men to seek help, or to be emotional. Bust down this idea that men have to “man up”. Allow space for men to be vulnerable. Allow the space for men to seek help.

P.s. – To every man reading this, you’ve been doing excellent so far. Be a man in ethical ways. Look out for yourself and keep smiling you stunning human.

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