Yet Untitled 091: "It's like being on the front lines".
Finding better language to encourage each other with
Dearest Yet Untitler,
A friend had written to me when I lost my father in 2020. She had said:
…you are now on the front lines.
She meant well, but I really feel my friend’s words haunting me now. In the shadow of these words, I feel that recently, the world has shown me in more and more ways that less and less stands between me and its sharp edges.
I’m 43. I catch myself thinking that this is inevitable and I’m late to the party. I look at my brothers - at 52 and 54, they too clearly feel like they have recently found themselves a bit more vulnerable before the world than in the past.
I catch myself thinking about whether this continues all the way till we face that inevitability that all living things face - the D word - the ultimate vulnerability. I also catch myself thinking that when we do, we face it alone.
Dearest Yet Untitler, I catch myself thinking - that I can’t keep thinking like this! That damn metaphor led me down a bloody dark path! I find that it’s trapped me in a conditioned response to adversity - always treating it like a battle!
I really want to break out of this trapping where - when met with a challenge - I end up thinking of myself in the trenches, alone, with shells and shrapnel flying over my head. It’s not done. I concede that the metaphor of battle carries with it a sense of urgency and make-or-break-ness that can be useful. But, all of life cannot be likened only to one long metaphor of war. I demand of myself to find alternative metaphors to lean on.
I’m remembering times when others have said other things to me; times where a battle metaphor might have done but wasn’t deployed. The encouragements used in these instances were surprisingly different, and they affected me in surprising ways.
Let me share some of these instances - for you and me to keep. For those inevitable rainy days.
“This is a pivotal moment”
Someone said this to me at a time when I was struggling to make sense of my life in my early 20s. Even when they said it, nothing felt pivotal, it all just felt dismal. But I clearly remember my two friends saying this to me, smiling.
I remember considering: perhaps they know something that I don’t know. Even if I wasn’t comforted right then, I remember this utterance 20 years later, and I look back and agree - it was a pivotal moment. Things fell to shit, but many of the choices I made thereafter led me to much that I value in my life at the present moment.
“They turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life”
I remembered this line from the film ‘Lost in Translation’ around the time I became a parent. I remembered while swimming an a mire anxiety about how my life will change as the dad of twins.
To be fair, my friends and family were enormously supportive then, but no one gave me anything as substantial to hold onto at that time as Bill Murray’s character from Sofia Coppola’s film.
“Your life, as you know it... is gone. Never to return. But they learn how to walk, and they learn how to talk... and you want to be with them. And they turn out to be the most delightful people you will ever meet in your life.”
I like that this guidance isn’t trying to sugar-coat its perspective of parenthood for someone who’s seeking assurance. I think that the hard truth of the first sentence lent this dialogue its gravity made me feel deeply assured when I heard it.
I like that it just didn’t stop short at telling me that I’ll simply be entering the trenches and will remain there for the foreseeable future! I like that it went further and helped me see beyond the trench.
“You can come back if you want to”
My parents said this to me when I was having a terrible time at boarding school. I was being bullied that year and was simply hating my life at that point.
It was surprising to hear this coming from them, especially from my father. I was attending one of the top boarding schools of the country, and the other schools back in my home-town just didn’t offer the opportunities I was getting while there. I know that my parents knew - going back would be a setback.
This was an apt place for a battle-metaphor - “Son, sometimes you just need to fight it out…et al.” But that didn’t come. Instead, I heard - “You can come back if you want to.” This was brave of them.
What happened? I chose to stay, and battled it out, but of my own volition.
I think there’s great power in this - being told that you aren’t stuck in any particular decision. I know this from writing Yet Untitled! Almost every week, on Saturday - I face the question “to publish or not to publish”, regularly questioning each instalment’s readiness and my own capacity to push through. I always tell myself - “It’s ok. I won’t if I’m not ready.” And invariably…I end up publishing!
Who’d have thought!?
As a parent, I understand the imperative to teach our children that life is a battleground, because it so apparently is. I understand the imperative to “equip” them for the world by giving them weaponised ideas that that can add to their preparedness.
Perhaps what I’m really writing about here is how we equip our kids - our world - for peace through the language that we deploy. Language changes the way the utterer and the listener think; it can take both to a new place, to new perspectives. I believe how we say things helps us shed old patterns and consolidate more relevant ones.
I think of my friend Shonali, who, years ago, lost a teenage son to an unfortunate accident. Today, she celebrates his dying day by cutting a cake, much like birthdays are celebrated, totally commandeering the usual language of birthdays and growing and appropriating it towards her chosen interpretation of her son’s death - which is beautiful, hopeful, real and awe-inspiring.
Language is powerful, dearest Yet Untitler. I think what we do here, on this page, is, thus, important.
I leave you with some language that I hope you can lean on when you need to.
"Quietly Brave"
I feel quietly brave.
I’m alone and wonder whether it matters at all
Will I be able to feel so when the sky falls?
I pay this no heed,
Because, for now.
I need to, and do
Feel quietly brave.
There’s quiet in this feeling.
This quiet, perhaps, another could use.
Maybe my courage isn’t transferable
But this quietude instead could be
The very thing that matters:
Just a silence in which to think right,
To know that you've done your best -
So that in that feeling you may linger,
And in that feeling you may rest. Thank you for listening!
Lots of love,
V
Thank you for writing this, Vasant. It spoke to me in so many ways. I remember when I was in the 9th month of my pregnancy and was on a walk, I met a lovely filmmaker. We were acquaintances. He saw me and said "Forget your old life for at least 25 years now!" Of course, he meant it as a joke, and he meant well. But with each passing year, I feel that sentence even more. Being a parent, one has to constantly evolve. Everyday, we are burying old selves and giving birth to new selves. Some days it's great. On others, a struggle. But we strive on. Like your friend said, we are on the front line. Behind us, the children feel safe precisely because we are on the front line. When our self-belief won't see us through, the Universe will.
I like changing those stories. We are never in it alone but so often my story says I am. Also, you know Vikram Seth? Author of my favorite book of all time? (A Suitable Boy)