The switch that goes off

It’s 12am, and I’ve finally convinced myself to launch Operation Write Blog Post. A friend’s “I miss your blog” text may or may not have something to do with the sudden itch to tend to this ~quarantine project~. Whatever it is, I’m here! Welcome (back) to Okay Chalo!

It’s been three months since I last wrote “for fun”, but my mind’s still been affixed on understanding the passage of time – its ability to sharply seize some moments, and its nervous frailty in others. On most days, it feels too fragile to touch, as if the moment I try to grasp its essence, it’ll slips further away from my grip. The disarray has been on full drive recently, perhaps an aftermath of six months of house arrest, or a confirmation of the fact that I have, as a matter of fact, lost my mind. But here I am, at midnight, frantically strategizing on how to stretch time to do more, more importantly, be more.

And then, as it always does at half past midnight, a realization struck. Considering the fact that the world was practically up in flames everywhere I looked (with my future lost somewhere in the smoke), what was the probability that I would actually do something that held meaning? (I was contemplating the nature of time in the middle of the night. Did you expect anything less than an existential crisis?) So, if it was indeed highly unlikely that I would create something valuable in my lifetime, why not fully, wholeheartedly and without shame embrace the purposelessness of it all?

And then, as it always does at 1am, the second realisation struck. I knew what had to be done.

In full acceptance of the absurd, I devised a way to waste my time with maximum effectiveness (my troubles with superlatives will be addressed in a future post. For now, let’s focus on this time thing). I was going to spend my time and energy on making something that had no real purpose. Something that had to be built and invested in to succeed in being useless.

Was this a genius attempt to avoid fighting the unknown and purpose? Because getting closer to finding some sort of meaning was scarier than being lost in the dark? Perhaps. But from what you learnt 10 minutes ago, nothing was inherently meaningful, thus, nothing mattered.

And so, I built it. The machine. BEHOLD.

The Useless Box, or as I like to call it, my life, was the materialization of what the last six months have been like. Constant attempts to strive at something, only to be punched in the gut every time. Sound familiar?

Finally, as it always does after spending an hour turning a switch on only to have it switched back off, a third realization struck. Maybe…that has been the point all along. To continue to turn the switch on all while knowing that it will be switched off eventually. No expectations, nothing.

And if that’s what it is, to take life one useless box at a time, then so be it. I’m in.