I love this theory that everything that has ever happened and will ever happen in the universe has already happened. The grammar itself gets tricky in this sentence because it cannot do away with the conventional past, present and future tenses. I’m not a physicist, and I cannot claim to have understood the concept of time that the established physicists claim to be incomprehensible. Regardless, the concept that I was talking about was about the whole universe as a single block happening simultaneously in spacetime, with past, present, and future as mere illusions. The problem is, of course, the speed of light; nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. But we have quantum particles and entanglement that challenge this limit. Whatsoever, even if time travel is made possible, there is still the grandfather paradox. It is a mess! But who cares? When we ask someone what time it is, we are not bothered by the complications it entails. Time, as we experience it, is linear, unidirectional, and once lost is lost forever. And everyone has time till we die, and it began for us with our birth. It is like time is the stage, and we enter and leave.
Nevertheless, what is it like to experience time? Time flies by, the clock ticks, the sun rises and sets, days, months, years, centuries, millennia, go on. If we have to imagine time as a human being, we would, or I would, to be more accurate, imagine the oldest sage with long white hair and wrinkles, who inhales and exhales life itself. I would also imagine time as this infinitely stretchable chewing gum, and we are tiny insects trapped inside. No matter what happens, time goes by, and we are its toys. I wonder what it is like to live in time as a bird, ant, snake, virus, fungus, etc. Growing up, there was only one narrative around time that we never know how much time we have left, so we should make the most of every minute. Do not waste time! As a child, I thought that meant doing things that are worthwhile and meaningful. I found happiness in doing just that. Whatsoever, how can we decide what is worth our time? How can we be sure that our time is not wasted? I will tell you my story.
There is something that my mind needs time for no matter how busy life gets. It is the most important job and I’m not talking about studying hard or helping my mom all the time. It is about daydreaming. I will tell you why daydreaming is considered worthwhile or vital by me
Rejection and Rumination
Even though much later in life, I realised that my mind cannot handle too much information. It can only take stimuli for a while, and then it will turn off on its own, no matter whether I’m in an important meeting or a supposedly fun party. My mind can only respond to certain stimuli and once it reaches its limit it shuts down, and you only hear the utmost necessary sounds from my mouth after that. So basically, I’m an introvert. After having received the information, my mind needs time to process them elaborately. ‘Ruminate’ is the right word for my daydreaming. It is like I have received the data, but it has not been processed yet. I need time to chew the thoughts and synthesise so I can arrange everything coherently. It is easier that way for my lazy memory to access data. For example, things might happen right in front of my eyes, and they can never enter my brain. Many times when I walk by a road, I do not notice half of the things. I’m on autopilot mode but my mind takes care of all the significant things like the safety rules on the road, my destination, and people I need to care about. Despite this filter, whatever enters also goes through a strenuous digestion. If I do not get enough time to chew the memory or my mind decides that a particular piece of information does not deserve a space in my storage facility, there is a good chance that I will not remember it at all. My capacity is so limited that my mind always eliminates names and people’s conversations as its priority.
Another problem with this process is that I cannot tell someone what is going on until I have processed everything. For instance, I cannot report to my mom what is bothering me currently, but only later when I’m at a safe space, having understood it. However, this is only if I believe there is nothing she can do, or I do not need her prepared to hear the news, whatever it is. Another annoying habit of my mind is that it hates redundancy. Now, this might sound contradictory, but I will explain. When something has not been fully comprehended and processed, my mind revisits it religiously, but if it is shelved once, it hates visiting it again. So to reiterate, my mind is a walking filter that lets in only the information it thinks is important that too until it reaches its limit. However, whether the information stays or not largely depends on whether rumination and narrativisation happens after that and how it culminates in the narrative. Now, you might be wondering what counts as my mind’s high priority data? It is mostly worries and problems I need to tackle in my life.
My mind firmly believes it can find solutions just by thinking, and therefore, it is always dealing with the next important thing that needs fixing. It takes breaks between each problem, but the priority is always a high-risk challenge. This is excruciating, because basically, I’m obsessed with my worries. Sometimes, my mind can reject something really important, but not aligned with my nature. The biggest challenge in life then is that I will have to do things that my mind rejects. Doing something like that is extremely exhausting because it is like you are trying to soar and gravity pulls you down stronger than ever. I will never understand why certain things are exciting and others are not, but the truth is, when I say an emphatic no to something, it is because my mind has already made up its mind. It is highly unlikely that it would want to revisit that decision.
It is not always a rejection, sometimes, it likes it, but the issue is that it is running out of battery, so it cannot give the attention that particular situation deserves. Again, it is all or nothing. So it is either not worth my time or I’m not yet ready to give a worthy time to the cause it deserves. When I zone out even when it is important, I try to rationally argue with my mind that it is crucial that I be actively present in that particular moment, or I must study this particular book because it will impact my grades. I have stretched myself to meet normal life’s needs, to make myself do things that are seemingly easy, but hard for me only because my mind thinks it is not worth my time. Nevertheless, I force myself because I need to survive and every time I do it, my mind makes me hate myself. However, this is how I did most of the things in my life.
So after 26 years, what I have figured out is that largely I must give in to my mind’s demand to make my life easier. If it rejects something, I should probably not force it, so I can devote my energy and attention to the one it chooses to yield the best results. I understand that it is a privilege to be able to choose the things I want to do, but my mind will eat me up the longer I persist in those rejected areas. So my task now is to find things that will excite me and are practical too.
Another task my mind rejects is driving. It is an essential skill, but my mind cannot process the long line of stimuli on the road and process them in real time. This does not mean that I completely surrender to this pressure always. I use logic to filter out the things that my mind is absolutely wrong about and force myself to go through whatever it is rejecting. The only thing is that it takes additional energy. If I have to force myself to do something, I should zone out through it multiple times and restart multiple times with a huge amount of energy. Imagine my mind shutting down while driving, and not processing the visual data coming from the road. There will always be things that I cannot make myself do, even with an intense shot of energy, because the process should allow me to cut off in the middle altogether. In the case of driving, it is not possible and it is a matter of safety. So generally, my day gets over in just figuring out what needs my time and allotting them my energy.
Depression
So if you do not know, I’m somebody with depression, and everything I have described multiplies into thousands when you are depressed. A depressed mind filters out all the good things and highlights only the negative aspects of every situation. There is a fixation on the bad things and possibilities. Nonetheless, life itself feels like a total waste of time, and there is this urgent need to finish living as soon as possible because of the energy it demands to just live. Time actually feels like a tasteless chewing gum that needs to be chewed and chewed without a goal. I have been seriously impatient and restless that I cannot live my days peacefully. That is when the idea of past, present, and future being a single block in spacetime appeals to me. Otherwise, life feels like an eternally long saga with me already running out of fuel. My storage capacity has also reduced considerably over the years; the amount of information that my brain can handle is much less, and it takes a longer time to mull over the same.
Often this rumination can seem counterproductive, but for me it is different. Even when nothing can be done about something, my mind believes it can find a way out just by thinking. Daydreaming becomes an act of strength. Whenever something is disturbing me, I get immersed in it, and that is my only way to peace. It is like there is nothing I can control in the real world, but I cannot stop putting my efforts and thoughts are the only place left. It is just to make me feel that I’m still doing something to save myself. I need to convince myself that I did not quit or run away, but faced it head-on and gave it my best shot. People can ask me what the point is when it is practically futile, hence, a waste of time and energy, but that’s how I function. My mind finds answers that I cannot articulate just by thinking, whether there is an immediate solution or not, I rely on my mind to get me through this life. This rumination is my friend and foe, but ultimately it is my true companion. It works in my best interest, even when it gets things wrong sometimes—the only guide I trust and my saviour through darkness, of course, with the help of rationality.
People and I
I have grown to understand that this is not how most people function. Many would distract themselves when there is a problem and think about it only when it is necessary. They prefer not talking about it and believe that there is no point worrying when there is practically not much you can do. It sounds rational, but my mind does not get it. I’m trying to learn and unlearn things. I would sit with my worries and, if possible, talk about them as much as possible. Any distraction would not work, and my mind will make me believe that by distracting myself, I’m not doing enough to fix it. This does not make sense to others. I know! But this is my meaning-making ritual that has helped me survive. I have lived my life like this, and this works best for me.
However, from a young age, I was aware that people would not want to listen to my thoughts. So when my mind was loud with things that I cannot say out loud, I chose to stay silent. It is like I can only be authentic and tell you what is actually going on, since it would be inappropriate for the occasion, I stay quiet, in other words, I do not pretend or perform. The root of it all is my mind’s inability to distract. Honestly, I cannot comprehend how people do that. For me, every deep relationship starts after exchanging my worry trails. That is the entry point, and fun follows much later. Now, I understand that’s not how most people function, and I respect that. I accept that there is a difference, but that does not make it any easier. Not everyone would want an obsession with life’s worries more than a distraction or pleasure. It sounds like nonsense, I know! Not everyone would walk down the dark lanes with me before I reached my sunshine valley.
Please do not mistake that I’m creating a binary of people. That is not true. It is a spectrum, and people exist in all combinations and shades, but it is my problem to deal with the fact that I’m at an unhealthy extreme. I might be wrong about my mind’s stubbornness; maybe it will change and prioritise and amplify the lighter shades one day. But until then, I’m a loner like many people I know. Or else I could find someone, a person who would be worth my lifetime of loneliness. I wait and wait. I hope life will finally feel like it is worth my time.