A Few Brown Plants & Stability

It’s taken me months to pick up the metaphorical pen again. While typing out this line, I realize how sad it is that the pen has become metaphorical for most of us. I must purchase a regular notebook and feel a pen in my hand.

I’ve had ideas mulling over in my head, but for some reason, I have been unable to express them into words. I do this quite often. When conflict brews in my head, I often stop thinking at all.

There is something going on, something I can’t place a finger over. I just find myself not feeling enough. After weeks of feeling like this, I’ve decided it’s time to confront it - by writing it out and in the process, discover what exactly it is. Be prepared for a lot of ‘maybe’s in the coming paragraphs, as I flesh out my thoughts.

I have a pretty good job at a place with good work culture. Weekdays are a whirlwind for me, as I stick to the same schedule. I wake up before 7 a.m., my house help rings the bell sharp at 7.01 a.m., I water all of my four house plants who never seem to have taken a liking to me. Maybe it’s true, what they say about plants responding to love. I’ve never been able to love them, despite having a profound sense of love for greenery. Now that I think about it, I didn’t buy even one of them. Maybe that is what’s missing. Maybe I need to find some plants I fall in love with at first sight, plants that make me happy and not just help add a splash of green (now more brown) to my space.

I spend the next hour giving instructions on my meals, figuring chores and troubleshooting (sometimes the milk has expired, sometimes we’re out of tomatoes, sometimes there’s a power cut - the woes of living alone have recently presented themselves to me in all their glory). I get ready for my workout next, stretch a little and then 8.00-9.15 a.m. is when I’m in punching mode. I scurry through the rest of the morning, wolf down breakfast in the middle of my 10.00 a.m. call and scoot to work soon after. Work is a battle zone in many ways - a flurry of stimulus designed to get an introvert like me worked up. I’ve slowly learnt to navigate my way around it - ignore unanticipated calls or messages until I’ve gotten a grasp of the day, say no to things I simply cannot take up, laugh about people who request the most absurd things and sometimes just seethe in silence when it all gets too much. I pass out by 11.30 p.m. and the next morning, this cycle continues.

I’m actually quite certain that I like this schedule. I feel most satisfied when I’m productive and stick to plans. I allow for some change during weekends, add in some dancing and cafes. I’ve even somewhat made peace with the ongoing heatwave. Which is why I cannot seem to understand this feeling of restlessness. Are we as humans, designed for drama?

I ask Google and all it seems to point towards is relationships. I read an interesting article - ‘Why safe relationships can feel boring after emotionally abusive ones’. It hits home. But it’s not just relationships, is it? I next google ‘Why are we addicted to dopamine rushes/kicks from life/spikes in emotions?’. None of these searches lead me to an answer. Maybe I’ve managed to baffle Google. So I decided to write out my hypothesis. Here it goes.

I think we all want to feel something. Stability in our lives can be described as a flat line in a graph of emotions. And when that line goes up, we’re hit by dopamine (or one of the other chemicals like serotonin, endorphins, things beyond the scope of this very personal essay). When the line goes down, we’re morose. But boy, does it feel great when it comes back up. The spike is higher and the chemical response feels fantastic. It’s probably why we’re thrilled by the chase, and not as much by stable relationships. It’s probably why I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship for years. And now stability just feels like the lack of something.

A friend recently told me that most people have no answer when asked why they want kids. It was a legitimate question. Why do we all want to bring in more people in a world riddled by more mouths than it can feed? He asked me the question too. ‘Is it only because it’s something you’ve always imagined doing?’ I thought about it. I’ve broken away from a lot of things I always imagined myself doing. Why couldn’t I break away from this? I think I know why. It’s that feeling of being all-important and irreplaceable in someone’s life. Giving birth to someone who you get to mould into something. Even if you’ve done nothing right all your life, you’re still lauded for making babies. That baby will still consider you the most important person in their life, whatever the world may think about you. Is it all really just a base desperation for self-validation all over again?

I’m beginning to get some clarity now. It’s funny how everything always circles back to the same thing - self-validation. I seek it from the outside. I believe deep down that I need to earn love for it to be valuable. I am disturbed by stability and the lack of external validation that comes with it. A simple ‘I love you’ or ‘I respect you’ does not compare to unfettered displays of love that accompany the making up phase. Feeling a sense of achievement is only possible when you’ve overcome a blow of some sort. Stability requires us knowing that we’re worthy, we’re successful and we’re just fine. It does not offer us constant proof of the same.

But dopamine (or one of the happy chemicals) is important. How do we get access to that? I know of a stationery shop a 100 meters from the cafe I’m currently sitting at. I’m going to purchase a thick notebook, the kinds writers write in. I’m going to buy some canvasses and paints. I’m going to paint while listening to my ‘replay mix’ and at the end of it all, I will reticently post a picture of my accomplishment on Instagram (that much validation is certainly allowed). Creating a life full of little accomplishments is actually quite easy if we don’t wait around for things to happen to us. Great love is often just two people trying to create moments that bring them out of their rut. ‘Keep going’ seems to be my takeaway - stopping and stagnating need not accompany stability. Maybe stability is actually what allows us to do things that we never end up doing when we’re caught up in the rigmarole of conflict and stress. Like painting, or writing poems, or playing football. ‘Keep going and keep growing’ is my final takeaway from it all. I hope it is the same for my plants too.