Work has been very stressful now for a very long time...short breaks used to help me unwind but nowadays thats not happening, we invariably return to truckloads of work and issues which removes all the joy of the break within a day....in short, fed up. I guess this is what is stress.
My entire outlook on life is changing. My hitherto interest in my work is also lessening. I do not feel like arguing even if I am right, its so much simpler to just agree, anyways most matters make no difference to anyone or anything, I would like to go away by myself for a month maybe to some place which has no or negligible number of people...somehow I am developing zero tolerance to gatherings/crowds and noise...maybe we are all stressed out by the 24x7 lifestyle (sic). The City doesn't sleep, yes, but is that a good thing?
I prefer a quiet evening at home with soft music in the background and a good book to going to a party or a function, in fact today driving in the evening rush hour to reach anywhere and finding parking there is so daunting that I honestly wish people would not call at all.
Road rage, rage against neighbours, anger and intolerance against people building or holding functions is today a given. Loud and brash youngsters with little care for others' sensibilities blast away music and have such noisy parties that your brain just stops working. I have stopped wanting to go out on weekends - there are people no, its a huge crowd everywhere, roads, malls, theatres anywhere - there is no personal space at all, I actually fear that either someone will stamp on me or I will elbow someone else. Its claustrophobic. Add to that the incessant chatter of people talking on their cellphones all around you and vehicles belching smoke and honking everywhere, it's is driving me up the wall.
There is no charm left in any of the things I used to enjoy as I am beaten by the sheer numbers everywhere - even a quiet dinner out at the poshest of places doesn't work...even these are crowded and invariably with young people with little children who are noisy, yelling and destroying the ambience completely. I am not an ogre, I love kids but when I am looking for some place to unwind...where do I go?
Cell phones destroyed what little peace was left - thanks to dad's health issues I have to leave it on 24x7 and calls, messages, advts. are never ending. I remember life when it was simple....when we would go meeting friends on weekends or to a movie and for a dinner once in so many months, maybe...getting a much awaited book was reason for happiness for months, just chatting with friends was fun, clothes were something to wear to be comfortable to play and not make a fashion statement. As teenagers - happily not tell parents and go away with friends/boyfriend knowing very well that I would be taken to task when I returned home but for those few hours, I was incommunicado hence blissful. Small things - a book, a call, an ear ring could make me happy...gadgets were neither there nor desired. Listeing to Binaca Geet mala, and then with the advent of TV - a movie on the weekend with friends in somebody's house - all these gave us endless pleasure. Today movies, songs, games etc are available freely and all the time, but somehow it doesn't give the same pleasure. Earlier when we didn't have money - we didn't have money. Today, there are avenues to live without monies, on borrowed monies - which, to my apparently old fashioned way of thinking - is quite silly, but today it is the norm not an exception.
Midlife Crisis today I am told is Quarter Life Crisis with people in their twenties and thirties experiencing it. If I look back, in my twenties I was an innocent person who was looking forward to life eagerly and on the threshold of starting everything, today, people have already been there, done that and nothing holds anybody's interest longer than a few moments. In fact this attention deficiency is apparently a syndrome today - its called ADD and is acquiring epidemic proportions! The biggest casualty of today's times, I feel is innocence...such a thing doesn't exist even in children, thanks to the information overload through TV and internet there is nothing children don't know...even young kids have such old, knowing eyes and by the time they are teens or tweens, their faces have a jaded, much older look, which in so many ways is very sad.
Maybe I'm stressed out by the rapidly changing Bangalore - today I don't recognise this city...I would like to live a simple life in a silent place and do what good I can in anyway I can - I guess...I am seriously getting old or dotty or both :-)
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