A touch of insanity

This post originally appeared on medium.com/@kannarkk before I consolidated my writing here.

For full ten seconds, hold your breath. Now wait till you cannot hold any longer. Do not release your breath until the brink of an explosion within. Then, release it to feel the heartbeat return to normalcy, and to feel alive and kicking.

Sometimes, there is zero emotion running within us for a long time that we become strangers to the very sense of emotion. We are so preoccupied within a busy world of our own creation that we forget to feel, to sense and to experience the world around us. In the moment when you released your breath, there was a rush of many things; and yet, it felt like a single emotion, the feeling of relief. And it felt strange, didn’t it?

Too often, we live on the surface of the waters. We wake up, perform our jobs, manage deadlines, and we go to sleep, as though the next day is no different. There’s a thought of duality — one that says we often go to sleep hoping for a better day, while the other that says we often go to sleep expecting more of the same routine: jobs and deadlines. I think both are true. Even though hope is an emotion that is often too blind to note reality, buried under heaps of work to do, we often stay on the ground, not even caring to hope. And that’s where we forget to emote or even express.

Being sleep-deprived in grad school, I sometimes feel I am a zombie. I have used that term several times, even though it’s technically inaccurate. But I come close to being a revived body that walks around without emotion, fueled by caffeine. There are moments when I’ve felt a loss of memory, even though it’s there, but inaccessible in those moments. That feeling of emptiness is fleeting, but incomprehensible.

We are so caught up in our complex worlds that we barely even begin to understand the complexity of complexities. In fact, we don’t even care, since we do not engage. We are so lost in our own worlds devoid true emotion that living on the surface feels easier. We convince ourselves that we are truly happy, or that we are truly enjoying, while in truth, there is sheer emptiness. Had we stopped to comprehend our emotions, perhaps we would have understood this emptiness better, or even better — feel something other than emptiness.

When was the last time you truly felt the warmth of a hot cup of tea, or an embracing hug? Or the thrill of doing something unexpected? When was the last time you let the ice-cream melt in your mouth not gulping it down hurriedly, and experience the chill climb up the nerves? Or when was the last time you felt an effusion of emotions so myriad that it was too hard to explain? Or the feeling of being unlimited, boundless and infinite?

That’s why I want to go insanely mad. Do things I care about, and not because I have to. I want to ask myself what it feels like when I do anything and everything. Perhaps, this is what living in the moment must be — the feeling of being aware, the state of congruence, and the sign of harmony. And perhaps, it’s not insane after all. But to the person I am now, it’s hugely insane and unfathomable. And a touch of insanity, marking a departure from the normal train of thoughts and actions would be a welcome change.