Monday Musings: Between the Stoic and The Sponge
He was not too unaccustomed to separation or the small lump in the throat that emerges out of it. Those who have lived sufficiently long enough and seen reasonable life, find many ways to deal with this pain. He knew two types. The first were the Stoics – those who could deal with such pain or at least put a brave face to it; second were the Sponges – those who absorbed the enormity of the emotion deeply and completely. All his life he wondered which of the two was he.
Some mysteries remained so. Lives oscillate between what is and what could be and between what we are and what we want to be.
Stoics are better he thought – at least there appears a calm around them. They seem to be able to be above human agony. Moving away from people in whom you have invested your most vital part – your time can be a huge sense of let-down. An investor who has lost money on an asset becomes a recluse on all investing. It’s not that only that particular investment has gone wrong; in a way it’s the act of investing itself which has gone wrong. The investors disillusionment is understandable.
He wondered how the stoics could overcome this. He had ended up becoming part cynic and part admirer about the stoics – cynic because he was growing to believe they were fakes and admirer because he knew in his heart, he wanted to be like them. As a child he was in awe of the strength of parents, intelligence of teachers and the aura of importance most elders carried with themselves – he grew up to know that all were facades in most cases and fakes in some. There was a part of him that believed that stoics were like that – it was just a matter of time when he would discover their façade or fakeness.
Yet in other moments he liked the sponges more than the stoics. He marvelled at the magnanimity with which sponges absorbed everything that came their way – sometimes to the extent that the sponges acquired the nature of what it was absorbing. Those who absorbed longing and ache of the heart started to look like that anguish; ‘’But at least they are authentic’’ he counter argued. He knew that the sponges live all emotions naturally.
He was in awe of the sponges too. He knew that sponges allow experiences to enter every pore, every sinew every part of their being. He was envious of the sponges because he felt that they know the unbridled joy of being in love, the sharp hurt in the middle of the chest when heart breaks, the dark abyss of hopelessness that stares you when a separation in impending, the sleeplessness that comes calling, the absolute loss of zing from the act of living even when practically everything is intact. The sponges knew all of it because they do not run away from feeling anything. They are allowing life to happen to them as purely in agony as much in happiness.
He was arguing on both sides. He did not know if he was a stoic or a sponge. He oscillated like the pendulum.
He was arguing on both sides. He did not know if he was a stoic or a sponge. He oscillated like the pendulum.
The pendulum however is its own prisoner. It is important for the pendulum to realise that, while it is its ambition to stretch from one extreme to other, while it must stretch its hands farthest to grab something that lies just a shade beyond where its reach ends – it is its destiny to be pulled back to the opposite end just as strongly; it must now try to stretch as frantically in the opposite end.
The pendulum must realise that its destiny is swinging from one extreme to another – not in trying to touch the extremes. His question though remained unanswered: when the pendulum will realise this and its heartbreak, will it deal with it like a stoic or like a sponge??
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