vyuti

I am improving. I realised that I was tired and stressed and self-obsessed the last few months and was sleepwalking through life. Now that I am relaxed alert and tuned in to the world around me I’ve already improved a lot. My ability to remember names has gone back to close to normal, the way it used to be. But ‘always’ may be a little too ambitious.

A romantic idea that seems to be at the center of our notion of our good meaningful relationship is that we can share are innermost thoughts with those who we consider our friends or loved ones. It is true but only to an extent. There is line for that too and that line differs from people to people and relationship to relationship. When borders begin to get crossed resentment, boredom, aversion are not too far. Sometimes it takes a bit of overstepping in relationships to mark out the borders and some thoughts ( even feelings) are best kept with us. This realisation is rather painful because we are all looking for a relationship/s where we think we can totally be ourselves. I understand now that it is not completely possible to do that. At some point one will hit the limit and the lines will need to be drawn. The art lies in knowing where in each of our relationships arethose border need to be drawn. Sometimes to retain an intimacy a line needs to be drawn. I seem to have got into the habit of sharing many of my deepest anxieties with a few close friends, I am not sure now whether it should have been done. Shamming is as much part of relationships as honesty. Frost was right – “Good fences make good neighbours.” I need to erect a few fences too, not too tall not too overbearing, smal white picket fences that don’t lock me in but demarcate the borders of my self.

Recently read his novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and read his other collection Underground a few weeks ago.
Looking for hi other books but they are not easily available it seems in Mumbai bookshops, will have to look for them.