Verbal Catharsis

The day when I was hooked on words took place long before my little hands could trace the shape of letters with a pencil stub. My eyes then might not have been able to recognize them but my ears knew all too well what they meant just from their sounds. 

When the day I was able to follow longer strings of storytelling came around, enthusiasm and excitement started becoming my close company which has always made sure that I would never lose the verbal-inducing sparks. 

I have always been fascinated by the magical sensation of how every string of words turns into a roll film of images and becomes so alive in my mind. It's just absofreakinlutely ecstatic because it gives me the feeling of being able to peek into a whole new world nobody knows about. 

It became even better when my hands were eventually able to give shapes to every word my ears were so familiar with and that moment marked the moment when I started to also give shapes and sounds to the endless chatter in my head. 

But the funny thing is that my mouth is always slow to catch up and perhaps it explains why my hands do the talking way better than my mouth. It never used to be a problem until life started throwing lemons at me from every direction it saw fit. It was then that I realized that after getting your ass kicked by a reality check, the consolation hardly comes from a verbal release because you need an actual person who can at least give you sympathy or remind you that everything does not have to make sense at the moment.

Alas, words of troubled emotions never sound right coming out of my mouth and the helplessness keeps getting heavier with its toll on me. Isn't it frustrating when you know what you should do but can't bring yourself to do it because you know you will make it worse than it already is? 

And what's the unhealthiest way to deal with frustrations? Yep, you keep distracting yourself and trying to silence the clamour in your head that never stops telling you all the wrongs. 

It took me some time to realize that we can never silence noise with louder noise. The panacea to an unquiet mind is not more distractions or some eardrum-shredding music. 

Sometimes what you actually need is a quick contemplation of the vastness of the universe in comparison with the smallness of your existence to get rid of that distorted anthropocentric outlook. It will give you an uncomfortable truth that everything does not revolve around you and so it's not always about you. 

The truth slap will shut your system for a split second and the quietude will help you listen to the voices in your head and allow you to recognise and give them shapes. That sounds like a herculean task of having to do everything on your own, doesn't it? It certainly does and that explains why the idea of having someone is always enticing and our culture always romantics the idea. 

After all, there is a saying that a problem shared is a problem halved, yet they forget that problem shared could also mean a problem multiplied. That is why living is risky and exhausting. It's much easier to just exist.