To a special friend

So the way it works for me is that I listen deeply. When you talk, I don’t analyse anything, I just listen.

Then I leave it to my unconscious to process whatever has been shared. And what you share starts coming back to me as thoughts, insights, and ponderings throughout the course of the day.

A few things have been coming to me which I’m penning down. I don’t know whether I’ll share with you or not since I don’t want to impose anything on you. You’re anyway so bogged down by everything I don’t our interaction to be a bother to you in any shape or manner.

You’re in a lot of pain. That much doesn’t even need to be said. Somewhere it seems to me that you’ve linked your pain to doing well in life. You repeatedly say to me that you believe each one of us owes it to the world to do our best at whatever we do. And I feel like you believe that keeping the pain close to your heart is the way you’re making sure of not losing track of what life is and what the core of life is.

I know this thinking. This feeling. I was exactly the same. I never even allowed myself to have fun as a child. It felt like a waste of time if I wasn’t pushing myself to grow. And grow I did. I topped our matriculate examinations all India. I was invited by the President of India to watch the Republic Day parade with him in the President’s enclosure. All that was just the start. I accomplished much more.

But I was very lonely. Very miserable. But I barely tried to question my misery. I took it as an inevitable accompaniment of trying to be the best possible in a world full of mediocrity.

I see echoes of myself in you. That’s why you don’t annoy me dear. You arouse great love in me. It’s like I’m loving myself.

I have tons to say on this topic to you. But I know that you’re not in a mood to listen right now. And that’s okay too. I have no agenda with you. I’m happy to just be here for you. Be here with you. To just let the conversation happen. 

But I do want to see more smiles on your face. Even despite all the truth of everything you say…I’m not going to stop insisting on this one illogical thing - Yes! it’s still possible to smile despite everything. For only in that lies the victory of the human spirit over all that nature throws at us. And that is the only intention I have for you. :)

Love,

Nikhil