It
has been ten years since our ‘double’ lives of India/America began. I want to
describe my dual-life of US/India but when I am tired and jet lagged, it is
very hard for me to focus on my delight –detail -- and feel inclined towards
abstractions, a general description of the geography of my soul. I think it is
a natural tendency in tired moments and in aging to move towards greater
abstraction, the kind that is the source from which we are born into so much concrete
specificity. It why the brain tends to forget to pay attention to the essential
details in the business of living,
and I misplace things and spend hours trying to find them. I have come up with
a method that works for me.
When
I put something somewhere consciously (this is the hard part! Generally we do things blindly, unconsciously) I do a mental repeat, and say to myself,
remember, you have put this here. And whenever I do this, I have no problem
locating things. I have also taken to making, in addition to mental notes,
lists of where I put essential items like keys, sim cards, etc before I leave
one life for the other. In the six months away from one life, I happily forget
everything about it. It is only when I return to it that the things that were
of no importance whatsoever, suddenly assume an alarming relevance.
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