Yet Untitled 042 - Ghostbusting, politely
Thinking about change and how to be less anxious about it.
Dearest Yet Untitler,
The year is winding down but seems like I’m winding up! New work shit has come to light - something that promises to be all consuming. I’m thinking about how to sustain the things that are important to me over this upcoming busy time. There seems to be a narrative that says - “you’ll need to stop everything else during this time”. I keep saying “No, I want to challenge this.” Where the two narratives meet, there is anxiety: a palpable trepidation about the upcoming changes in my life.
But hasn’t this always been the case - anxiety in the face of change? Listing a few big changes I’ve experienced in my life below:
Transitioning from day-school to boarding school.
Moving from Delhi to Mumbai.
Ending formal education.
Marriage!
Kids!!
Somehow, I felt the least trepidition about marriage! Likely because I knew so little. Of course, I’d seen a lot of marriages up close from the outside (mostly ones that held together), but I don’t think I knew jack about what it meant to completely share my life with another person. So I danced my way through to it, and then of course came the attrition of getting to know each other, the effort to find a new groove and then, the sudden hairpin turn of kids! Vani and I knew even less about raising kids than marriage, so we danced our way towards becoming parents (Vani danced till she felt the weight of the twins in her belly).
Before boarding school, I did not dance. I had paid too much attention to the details of boarding school life from the conversations of my two elder brothers. The physical regimen, the strictness of the teachers - none of it was very inviting. I felt a hollow pit below my diaphragm all the way till the school gates and, when my parents left I remember feeling like I wanted to disintegrate.
In retrospect, it feels like the experience of transitioning depended on what perception I had decided to attach to it. When I got my first job in Mumbai, various people I knew had told me things that should have made me feel worried about taking on this job. I’m really grateful that I somehow didn’t allow those to become my predominant perceptions, and reality proved to be quite different.
Perception vs Reality
I very often run an impromptu check in my head of perception vs reality once I have transitioned into the reality of my experience. Invariably, I marvel at how big a difference there is. This often happenes before holidays - anticipation of the impending vacation makes me play with pictures in my head - how will the hotel bed feel? What will the walk on the beach be like? What will the days feel like?
And when it happens - its all completely new and surprising!
Here’s a poem I wrote in 2006:
Ghosts can hurt you
Sometimes, I wrestle with ghosts.
Airy nothings that just ain't there.
But, then again, I feel their blows, They cut me and make me swear.
And then comes the dawn And wipes the day clean
Of these vampires and spooks;
And there I am, hurting still
Singing of them in the blues.Give me a moment to laugh at my 26 year-old self’s choice of words 😂, but I still recognise the feeling behind this one: the ghost of perception meeting the ghost of anticipation and them both love doing a scary dance on my head, trampling my skull with their heels.
The dance of such ghosts robs me of sleep.
I would like this to stop.
Can it stop?
Maybe it’s a survival thing - the brain cooking up scenarios to anticipate change in order to protect the body - prepare it so that it doesn’t…die?
The usual response to ghosts is to flee from them One time, I didn’t. Let me tell you about it
Don’t ask why, but once I spent the night alone in a lonely house that used to belong to a celebrated occultist (I referenced this in YU Lite 009, take a look). The place was full of altars, shrines and very frightening portraits of intense, occultist people. I even slept under one staring down at me! I was very sure that I would meet a ghost that night, and this was robbing me of sleep…
…until I decided to talk to any ghosts present and tell them that I meant them no harm, hence they should leave me alone. I did this quite directly - walking around the place with my palms open and visible by my side saying, “look, see me and meet me now if you have to; none of this chain rattling business in the dead of night.”
Surprisingly, I was able to sleep after that. And I was around, thankfully, in one piece, in the morning!
There’s a lesson here. When I spoke to them, I think the ghosts became less ghosts and more people to me. Essentially, they changed classification in my head - from floaty, occult thingies to elements of life. Life is strange, but the strangeness of life, I can deal with. The strangeness of the unknown - that’s harder to deal with, but my Buddhist practice reminds me: even the unknown is Life. I just don’t know it yet.
I used Reason to my aid in the haunted house. Reason can predict, though not exactly. My reason tells me that polite, respectful behaviour likely gets a similar response from life.
The exact moment I started trusting Reason
I remember once in a geography exam, I was asked a question about calculating the time in two different parts of the globe using only the longitude readings. I had not studied this.
I remember, first, the panic. Then I calmed down and did a quick calculation, using reason to deduce that each longitude, if there were 360 of them standing lines (as there were in any spherical object), would represent (24 x 60 divided by 360 = 4) minutes of time. And then I got the right answer.
Experience tells me that my mind tends to use reason better when it’s calm. That’s why I like getting up early. I feel calmer when I have more time.
But what about when I don’t have time?
Life serves up all sorts of uncomfortable situations - less time, less sleep, bad weather…
I spent an entire prep leave practicing math for an upcoming exam, only to crash and burn during the mocks because I never gave myself a timed trial. Then I started doing timed practice papers one after another. After that I ended up doing a lot better.
Some aspects of what I do as a filmmaker are that are not so easy to simulate in everyday life, so I’m going to have to practice by doing those things over and over again on the job.
Here’s what I’ll do…
I’m reminding myself to projecting a little less into the future, because - for better or for worse - reality is going to be different from anything I conjure. If I succeed, I’ll lose less sleep.
I’m also reminding myself to remain polite and respectful - whether to man or ghost - because it has held me in good stead in the past.
I’m also reminding myself that things will get better as I go along, as they always have.
Thanks for riding with me on this very self-therapeutic edition of YU.
Lots of love
V
PS:
What do you do when you see a big change coming?
Do tell me. I would love to know!
More than anything, I’d love to hear from you.