Life is About what gets You High!

I have been juggling many life choices in my mind. I took a month off from Hyderabad. I went home. Before I left, I was in an internship that changed my way of looking at things. I realized, either I am not willing to accept ‘reality’ or I am not meant for jobs. I cried many times in my office washroom. I was frustrated that I could not read and write in that period of time. When it was over, I went home - away from the environment I usually live in, away from the people I usually interact with. I went home to discover myself.

In the one month I spent at home, I read five books. I did not write anything worth publishing on my blog. I ended up with a few drafts nonetheless. What I liked the most at home was, the way my parents looked at my reading. Every time my mother talked about my reading habits, I could sense pride in her voice. I challenged my father at reading books. I had a good time. Every other day, I used to tell them about a strength or weakness of mine that I discovered. Instead of observing things around me, for once I chose to observe myself and discovered that of all things, what drives me is the ‘high’.

I am neither a smoker nor an alcoholic but I have tried them at one point of time as ‘things you should be aware of to be not fooled by anyone’. I have not smoked weed for the ultimate high. When I say this, I am not judging anyone who gets their high in any of the above ways and beyond. I have known the high that comes with such things. When I used to be high, I laughed. I laughed a lot. When it was all over, I used to ask myself, “Why did I do it? What’s the point? Does it make me feel any better? No.”

Having said that, I have been high on other things. One of them being the research that kept me up and awake for days in my final semester. It was a project work. I wasn’t supposed to discover anything; I was supposed to report the research on topic of my choice. Everyday I found an article online that contradicted the one I found the day before. Scholars, hundreds of them, had spent their time and resource searching and reporting on this one topic. When the four months period was over, and I had the project report in my hand, printed and beautifully laminated, I realized that I had been high the whole time. It made me happy, but not satisfied. I longed for more sleepless nights, more scholars, more journals, and everything else that I had not discovered. For the first time, I found meaning in my life and when it ended, I suffered from withdrawal.

I needed my high, you see. What I did next was - fixed my lifestyle. I called it Adulting. It kept me going for a while but I could not stop thinking about the knowledge out there. I read, I read extensively. I did not remember everything that I read, but it kept me going. Later, I began reading books with madness. I panicked at the thought of my inability to read faster. I read, and I did not stop. Like I said above, I read five back to back books in a month. I usually do not prefer back to back readings. I am sure I have been passively addicted to books for some years now. Their absence in a room makes me restless. When I step out I carry a book knowing I won’t be reading it. 

What happened in the one month at home is that, for the first time I wanted to write. I did not just want to rant or use writing as a therapy. I seriously wanted to write, which explains the many drafts and none of them making way to my blog. One evening when I was home, I was hit by an image, I did not write it. It stayed with me for two days before I sat down to write it. I got up six hours later with a thirteen-page short story. That evening gave me a never-experienced-before high.

I haven’t opened that draft again; I haven’t edited it. Since that evening, writing has given me the high that I had been looking for. Although it is nowhere near researching, it is one hell of a satisfying feeling. And, as I spent the whole day today sleeping till four in the evening, I realized I am no longer juggling choices in my life. Yes, I want to get into a research fellowship, I want to read so many unread books in my shelf. My parents are waiting to hear from me about the choice I need to make - to get into research or get a job. And, of all things, I have decided on writing because that gives me an amazingly satisfying high. I have come to believe that if someone is existentially haunted, then they find the desire to live through their high. The only challenge is, to channelise that high into something productive!