For the longest time I have wondered how the above statement could be true. How can having too much money be a curse, or for that matter too much empathy (or any other emotion)?
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And then I began facing a challenge that psychologists eloquently describe as Catastrophisation – a word that most spell-checks still do not recognise. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. For a long time since my personal bereavement almost a decade ago, I became aware of a gnawing fear of future loss. A nasty bike accident made it stronger as did a few other stray incidents. It was almost as if I was creating a worst-case scenario for the future and willing it to happen.
What’s more, it was as though some voice within my head was convincing me that I had the power of divining my future, and maybe those of others who happened to be part of my ecosystem. Each time a piece of information came to my notice, a similar occurrence or instance from the past would bubble up and I would involuntarily join the dots to create the same outcome like last time. If that is difficult for my readers to comprehend, I don’t blame them. It is a mental health issue.
The ludicruousness of this exercise would pop out at me at most times, save for those where the force of historical context would push me towards a wannabe catastrophe. It happened in the past, and all of the data available now points to a repeat. Where was this coming from? An incident from this very day gave me some clarity and lots of hope that things aren’t as bad as I thought they would be.
During a conversation, I recalled instances from several years ago, which I promptly shared with my interlocutor. The only response I got for my efforts at unearthing a piece of information was “maybe, I guess so.” I was incredulous. ll those years back, it was my present interlocutor who had furnished me with that bit of information. Now the person claimed no memory of the same. WTF??? The person has no memory of it and here I was narrating it out. During this exchange, I also sensed a feeling of discomfort over the “frivolity” of my interlocutor. I mean how could they forget something they told me?
And then it snapped into place. The piece of information was irrelevant to both of us today. It may have had some relevance all those years ago, but didn’t serve any purpose now. And the person who had no recollection of it was in a happier place, not the one who carried it around in the depths of their memory. And in doing so, I suddenly became aware of how this very capability consistently helped me connect the dots around complex economic, political and geographic facts and events as part of my profession.
This was a habit I cultivated as a professional journalist back in the time when there was no Google, no internet and heck… no computers. Remembering data from a previous article helped me immensely while crafting a new one. Those days my pals used to describe it as the “Cow and the Coconut Tree” technique. This story revolved around a kid who uses her smarts to write about the latter when the examiner wants an essay crafted on the former.
In my house, the cow is tied to the coconut tree, she says and goes on to write a masterful essay on how the coconut tree is everything to her family.
It was indeed a blessing to have those days. However, today the very same habit has become a curse. One where the very same faculties that assisted me are causing me to connect the dots into an imaginary universe and then waiting around fearfully for their fruition. Events, incidents, words – things just come back swirling out of the mental mist when I least need them. Yes, you read that right. When I least need them. They make no sense and have no logic and not even an iota of emotion. They just spring up and convert a perfectly happy moment into one of mild panic.
So, how does one turn the curse into a blessing once again, I wondered. There is no easy way to do this, because when I try to break this pattern, it stops for a while. For that particular instance. Only to resurface with a new memory that’s long been buried. It wriggles out and fits perfectly into whatever it may be that I am processing at a particular moment. The stream flows on until something happens to distract me from that particular thought. The pattern repeats without my discretion.
So, what should I do? I asked a friend and mentor. The answer was simple. Stop running away from it. Just stay with it. Let it play out. Watch the thinker.
As I said there’s no easy way to overcome this. The only way is to observe the thought. Because there is no way one can silence thought.
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