Well, it's been a long quarantine.

 

  

Image courtesy: unsplash.com. No copytrights whatsoever, brilliant pictures. 


                         Good day to you, reader, welcome back to my tiny corner of the giant and sprawling Web. The corner that's given me, a teen in the final throes of teenage, a place to gather my thoughts and put them - hopefully to be able to look at them and laugh in the distant future, and you, a few minutes of hopefully good quality reading. I haven't been putting this blog to as much use as I'd like in the recent past, thanks to schedules (schedules!! Me having to schedule my time at home, to a T - that's how you know apocalypse is approaching) and the infamous writers' block (see, am brave enough to call myself a writer). Anyhoo.

It's 12:30 now, as I start typing, my favorite time of the day. Quiet, calm, with only the sweet drone of a hard disk, two CPU fans and the clickety-clack of a mechanical keyboard interrupting the flow of thoughts in my tiny little noggin (there's some quality redundancy right there).

    well, that's a quality face-palm. 

 What a roller coaster this quarantine has been! From being something in news headlines that I did not give much thought to, enter 2020, to now, over 6 months into this fateful year, this year has so far been something of a highlight in the lives of everyone. People are sitting in their homes, some in dire situations, some surrounded by infected people, others relatively safe, all trying out new and different things this holiday. The perfect time to take up a new hobby, or renew a new one, or something. Time being spent on new inventions, positive actions, rage quitting video games and fighting over console choices. Or, maybe, who knows, you can risk going out and try saving people by breaking up 5G towers (or, ahem, take a look at this wonder of marketing: https://www.wired.com/story/5g-usb-stick-covid-19-qatar-livejournal-security-news/).    

Going back an year, today would have been a casual Monday, with me clamouring to get back into early morning routine after enjoying war spoils, a precious holiday. Waking up late, powering through the morning chores and doing my best to land myself in the morning college bus. Just like every other Monday. Today, here I am, sitting in front of a monitor, sans sleep, planning my next day at home. Class at 9, followed by more classes, a break, lunch and so on (am pretty sure a lot of you know about what I am talking about, no need to reiterate and spike your heart rate) until it's evening, where, exhausted with all the sitting and listening, and it's break time, welcome time spent mostly in staring at other screens. 

Weird, for someone who craved to spend every waking minute in front of a computing device, just an year back. I would have gone on to meet hundreds of other people in college, taking classes with actual people, from actual human beings, traveling back by train. Tut tut, that's all in the past, isn't it. Let's get back to the present. 

For someone that was supposedly very self reliant, someone that didn't express himself much in public, quarantine must have been much more easy. Ya know, get some books going, a movie or two, throw in some good home cooked food (and hey, take a moment to congratulate Le Cook(s)) sit home all day, taking classes, enjoying the solitude and the pleasure of staying home. Did it go like that? Lol (and excuse the language).

 credits: someone on Pinterest.

And here's the reason for this post, me grossly misrepresenting what quarantine might mean to myself. Did I imagine I would crave human contact? Did I imagine I'd lose some friends, rediscover old friendships and make several(!) new friends? I'd be lying if I said yes. This lockdown has been a revelation, showing me who I am.. what my strengths and wants are, and at the same time, my pitfalls, all in glaring light (someone please teach how using my weaksauce pinkie for the 'a' key works, please). 

Here's something I learnt from a dear friend of mine, admittedly a while back, that has started to make more sense with every new day of the lockdown. Let's call it the Onion model of friendship, and you'll see why in a minute.

Here's a day from the lives of our hero, whom we're calling Mr.X (Nemo? That actually means 'nobody', translated into Latin). He studies in a college, travels home everyday and has a lot of contacts everywhere. He values his friendships a lot, more than most people these days do, and that... well, that is a problem. You see, he's also very emotive, definitely not good soft skills material. 

'Why do momentum considerations require that the partial derivative of psi be continuous?'

It was one thought that kept eating away at his brain all the time. Haha, not really. Coming back, courtesy his large pool of contacts, X also had a large number of good friends. The trouble, you ask? He was not at all good at letting go. At recognising and bowing to the ultimate end. Here he was, stuck in the glories of the past, hoping against all hope that things would go back to how they used to be, that he'd have his friendships back, that they would be better than ever. In short, he refused to accept the new normal. Eventually, this all started to pile up, generating a negative aura that repelled new friendships and life slowly started falling into ruin.                                   *enter fairy godmother* And one such day, it happened. He was told about the onion. It was pretty simple, and you being my readers, would already know about this. Still, it's not wrong, brushing up... It goes something like this: 'Our life is an onion. At the core, just like the core of the onion, there should be you, wrapped by layers of relationships, friends and family, people you meet in the course of a day. Even though it seems absurdly simple at first glance, there's a lot of depth to this. No matter how many layers are lost, the core always remains intact, refusing to give in to anything. Even though this concept seemed foolish to X (I mean, why would friends stop talking to each other? They're friends afterall)  he was assured it would make perfect sense one day.

And boy oh boy was that needed! All through quarantine, with no real life conversations and other factors, the layers began peeling off, new layers growing, doing their best to bring something new and fresh to the onion, a whiff of new perspectives, glowing with dopamine inducing conversations. 

What's the takeaway? Well, there's an onion, it makes you cry and when cut into four equal halves, the layers then cooked in oil until they brown, it tastes like heaven. Seriously. Want to make something that tastes like restaurant food? Cast your mind back into the distant past, bring up memories of the whiff of delicious soy sauce aroma attacking your brain, memories of Babycorn Manchurian and Dragon Chicken artfully plated, sauteed in hot woks with luscious brown onions and capsicum. There, get the shape now? Squares!

  Now you know what I was on about all this time! (slightly larger = better though)

 Thank you, for taking time off and reading, and congratulations! You've persevered and reached the end (no, I can't afford any gifts for this, yet ; ) ). It's 01:27, eyes are streaming and it's time for a cup of hot water (tea? coffee? new quarantine habits) and hopefully wholesome sleep, and it's back to the races again. See you then, another day, with yet another topicless random rant.    

*O mighty reader, if you chance upon any mistakes in grammar or tone, please excuse thy blogger, I follow a type and read once before publishing policy. Please feel free to comment and finally bless me with your subscriptions (and no, they're free. You just get an annoying e-mail from Google the internet overlord when I post something new).