On holding on and letting go!

     I've chosen to write on this topic because I was inspired by a podcast starring Josh Radnor and man! Every time I hear him, he just makes me fall more and more in love with him! 

     Let me start by giving this analogy of a wet bar of soap. The soap corresponds to my heart. The soap bar if pressed hard would deform and break and if not pressed enough would slip out of my hands and escape. The analogy, although evident, deserves to be elaborated explicitly. Anything that comes my way, I have to appreciate it, I have to hold my thoughts and actions accountable for what has come my way and be thankful for whatever it is that I have. May it be a good family, good house, good friends, I must be aware of their contributions and let the heart feel the joys of having them around; I am not saying that happiness should become a circumstance of possessing all of these in my life but appreciation for their presence gives a wonderful feeling which is just ineffable and very subjective, I guess! 

     As the wet soap bar would get deformed and eventually separate to pieces when pressed hard, so would the heart on overly attaching the self to anything. It could be a place which I've grown up in and am suddenly asked to move out, or it could be a relationship that did not work out but I badly wanted it to work out, or it could be a school of thought that has become self-claimed denizen of my mind (The last one is the one I've been grappling with recently). In the imminent moment, it might seem cliche that 'time is the best healer and that people move on'. It's partly true but I am not advocating that thought because the entire "time will heal" argument is very vacuous. It will rather cast a shadow on the thoughts which you are troubled with; it will not heal but merely suppress these thoughts which would be locked away and put into some deep corner of your unconscious or sub-conscious mind but a sudden impulse is capable of exhuming these memories out into your conscious mind and if this happens, they overwhelm your tiny heart with massive torrents of painful emotions.

     This is why I shall not let time take agency on this and lock these emotions by suppressing these thoughts into some deep recesses of the sub-conscious or unconscious. But, I would take time to reason out the causes of my attachment and try to invalidate them. This invalidation is justified on the basis of a single argument that it is this attachment that has caused me nothing more than pain and suffering. And if you logic your way out of it, you always have a reason to move on and next time, these memories will not storm you and rattle you and even if they do, you have a solid way of combating them. 

     But a better alternative which only experience and time can teach me is that of not holding on so tight that the soap bar would break . If I would be aware of things and not let them bridle my senses and learn to practice selective disinterest in such things, the pain of letting go will never have to be endured. That does sound more promising but it is easier said than done. That's why practicing acceptance is my motto for every future step in life which one day I hope would be realized into practice.