The Curious Mind.Me

Every creator shares their happiness with you.

Let me be unique and share my sadness with you guys (what I will tell you today will help you solve your sadness!).

I usually wait for my partner till his shift ends post-midnight before going to bed. I can sleep without hearing his voice, but I just don’t feel like sleeping without hearing his voice.

So anyways, like one-third of my nights nowadays, I was sleep-waking (clearly sleeping but in a mentally alert way; don’t ask me how it works). I planned to wake up at 01:30 to do some more blog, but I must have over sleep-wake’d.

I receive his call at 2; he is out of office. And I am out of emotions.

Usually when I greet him back to life, I am joyously alive, even if I don’t have a reason. I just gossip about my day and find one.

But today he heard a dead, lost, confused and numb me picking up the call. I was out of energy, and figuring it out doesn’t make him a genius.

He asked me what happened, why I was down and such exploratory questions, and all I answered was ‘I don’t know’. He usually digs deep to understand me, but when I go off like this, he knows he won’t get a thing out of me. I had put up a wall around my heart.

So like the absolute Führer he is, he demanded that I perk up till 03:30 and call him back. When I very smartly tried to weasel my way out, saying I won’t wreck his mood if I am sad, I got a very clear warning to call back anyhow (he is more of a weasel than me, the raticate).

He received a call at exactly 03:30 from a happy girlfriend demanding food in the dead of the night.

And like the very smart and cruel person he is, he said no.

So what helped me perk up from an energyless, soulless, void of emotion to my usual I-will-talk-till-your-ears-bleed girl?

I sat with my discomfort and let my emotions tell me my problems.

A case against the misrepresentation of emotions

Too many people today think being sad, depressed, passionate, frustrated, bitchy, intense, ‘too happy’, or angry is the problem they face every day.

It has, in fact, been made out to be such a big problem that we have a whole industry solving it!

It’s not even one technically; formally speaking, it’s many industries – psychological, pharmaceutical, life coaching, motivational content creators and even religious organisations (I have literally seen them advertise their bhakti programs with ‘emotional calm’ as the key benefit) – helping you live better, happier lives.

These industries mentioned above take their roots from science and belief systems, two bodies of knowledge seemingly devoid of similarities. Yet curiously enough, each of them gives the root of the problem as ‘modern life’.

We are told we just can’t handle the stress of this hustle culture world; only they can help us unlock our ‘inner peace’.

Common folks are common folks, but why are they not happy?

Why don’t they just study their own self-paced course with practical examples and follow the easy step-by-step guides?

How the modern world tried ‘modernising’ emotions

The problem is that emotions are not the problem. They never were.

The problem is the real problem.

Biologically speaking, emotions are natural chemicals released by our brain to motivate us to take action on the things we need to do.

We see lots of food lavishly presented? Hunger. Drool.

We see a beautiful person of the opposite sex? Excitement. Go ask their contact.

We see a tiger approaching us? Fear. Run.

It functions similarly in the modern world too. Just our triggers have changed.

Whether it is an ancestor making double efforts to find food before sundown to feed his hungry family or a corporate dude frantically meeting deadlines to bring in food for his family, what does it matter? The unfavourable result is, in the end, still starvation; the boost in working abilities is the same, and even the emotions are the same.

Just because our world has changed doesn’t mean humans also have, as a species.

We may live in concrete houses now, work in fancy offices on the 13th floor of a 24-storey skyscraper, and meet clients in a cafe instead of the hunting ground to catch our prey, so why does it matter?

The basics are the same.

Here is a diagram I made after observing how the problem-emotion-solution cycle operates:

The emotion is not the problem – the problem is the problem

Breaking down the cycle, we notice that emotion isn’t actually the trigger for our problems.

The reason behind an emotion is the trigger.

The purpose of emotions is to motivate us into solving the problem. In fact, emotions are our magic motivation drugs produced naturally.

When we curb our emotions, we are not solving the problem, the root cause making us miserable. We are burying our problems by cutting it down symptomatically.

This is the reason why people can take the best-selling coach’s fast-track to happiness one-on-one guidance program and still be wretched, miserable beings - they only feel happy when in the treatment. As soon as they step outside their bubble, the external world crushes their bubble, hence making this program something they need (at all times).

As for the businessmen POV, do you see why this business is ever-profitable?

By making people dependent on you for feeling satisfied with their lives, these people are using an infinite money glitch. Their followers and customers don’t realise that happiness is a choice you make for yourself by solving problems, and these gurus take full advantage of their ignorance.

In a slightly unrelated context, we all know how social media hacks dopamine. We don’t really think much while scrolling IG reels, but the moment we get off we feel a sharp pang of guilt - a lot of our time has been wasted.

While scrolling through the app though when dopamine secretion in still ongoing, we are addicted to it. The guilt signals us that we need to do some actual work instead of the mental masterbation we practice on social media; however our brain cannot differentiate reality from dreams and imagining yourself with that Porsche, the boost in status and mating opportunities that will follow is what we all crave inside us. This is the reason why we can’t just ‘not open it’.

Basically we are addicted to an overdose of dopamine without doing any real work.

For giants creating these apps, we click on random ads they they are being paid to expose us to and in a way this online ecosystem has reduced us to Pavlovian dogs - we are salivating from the food we see on the screen.

Factor in our mindless work for a higher corporation profiting exponentially profits from us grinding our asses daily, this world is reduced to nothing more than a training ground for dogs meant to work hard, effectively.

Free will and independent thoughts are discouraged, efforts and loyalty to a corporation which thinks nothing of you is idealised, even though we all know how Kafkaesque this cycle is.

We are trapped in a world deluding us on our freedom. The worst part is we unconsciously contribute to killing freedom by using 1word-of-mouth advertisement for 2slavery to bring 3people down. It's a sad world.

You are free and capable, but the world profits on your failures

Here is something I wrote sitting in a club with flashing lights dimmed by the dullest people I ever saw in my life:

You are not sad because the world is getting sad.

The world is sad because sadness can easily be profited from.

There are a lot of industries that thrive off your sadness – fast food, mental health, nightlife entertainment, dating – most industries today, in fact.

And that's why the first and most important action you can take to fight the system is to live happily.

We all are made to think sadness is a disease. No, it is not. Sadness is natural.

When someone close to you dies, your grief does not need therapy. Your grief is valid and should exist without being made ‘pathological’ by people who depend on your sadness for the food on their table (I am looking at you, psychologists).

If you stop working because you are grieving, you are marked ‘dysfunctional’. But isn’t it normal to just not work if you are deeply sad? It doesn’t mean you will never work again; it just means you need some time off.

In fact, I would say being sad is not only natural but also a very logical action to take.

We are sad when we lose something, when we miss someone, when we need something, when we feel helpless, etc. Anger, frustration, irritation, coldness, and isolation – all these feelings have a reason behind them. Your brain takes the pain of feeling these emotions and lets you be hit by them to signal that something needs to be fixed.

If you are thinking about what can be fixed when grieving for the loss of a loved one, let me answer it for you. Your life.

Someone’s death is a good time for the community to bond and help each other through it, reminisce about their memories with this gone person and think about the lessons their life taught you. You remember their words, the advice they gave, and their hopes and dreams, both fulfilled and unfulfilled – you are supposed to feel these deeply to make your own life better.

Your sadness is a mark of what a great impact they had on you, and the life you lead going forward shows how they taught you pearls of wisdom even in their death.

Instead, what you are being told to do is to go to therapy and ‘resolve the trauma’. People can’t sit with their pain and assume you can’t sit with yours either. Was their life so traumatic to you that you need the help of an external person to ‘resolve’ it?

If you will not grieve for them, if you will not learn from their life, who will?

People have literally lost all ability to process emotion on their own, like all healthy and mature adults are supposed to. Some people are so far gone as to think that only therapy can help people heal, that any signs of discomfort or sadness warrant therapeutic intervention. These are the same people who won’t seek therapy themselves, by the way, because their problems are not ‘big enough’.

These are also the same people you will always find miserable because they think ‘they know’.

We humans are a resilient brand of monkeys; we can take a trauma or two no matter how deep. In fact, sitting with our emotions of all colours and hues is something we must do to grow as creatures possessing higher intellectual abilities. Pain is the price you pay to get better. When you accept pain, you also accept the flaws in your personality and the need to work on it and improve.

Aka You accept that there is a problem in your life and that you need to solve it.

Emotions are not good or bad

By accepting a problem for what it is, we are halfway there to solving it. In fact, in my own experience, most of my problems start sorting out after this step.

Our unconscious is so happy that we are not ignoring it that the solution to the problem becomes a part of our personality; we solve our problems by just being there with it, and the end result is the growth we all need in life.

People today label emotions as good and bad, healthy and pathological.

There is no such thing.

Emotions are signals from our brain symbolising a change. If the emotion is comfortable, it is a positive change, but if this signal feels uncomfortable, the negative change requires a responding action from your end. Failure to handle it will lead to worsening your emotional state until you hear what your unconscious brain (and heart and gut as well, which are core parts of our unconscious experience, hence why you feel like ‘my heart says’ and you have ‘gut feelings’) has to say.

By giving away the power to tell you what emotions you need to feel to anyone - your loved ones, the society or even your therapist - you are effectively giving them the keys to your life - your problems, your motivation triggers and who you are as a person. Our identity for ourselves is strongly defined by our problems and how we solve them, after all.

Note:

I don’t entirely discourage therapy; I feel a trusted guide can help you lead a better life. The problem arises when people trust therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists blindly, even if they charge exorbitant amounts and you go to them for years and years without significant improvement (it is in their interest to keep you as their client for as long as possible).

In fact, the fastest recovery stories I have heard are from people who took the responsibility to redefine their life themselves; the best example I have is of myself (except for EMDR, I have heard it is crazy effective for the traumatised). 6 years as a psychology patient who was always suicidal and 1 year as a healing person who has learnt to live, laugh and ultimately fight my weaknesses on my own - it is obvious why I passionately advise against psychological interventions.

If you need a psychologist, go for it. But screen them thoroughly before trusting them with yourself and your future, and remember, psychiatric conditions can be cured; they don’t have to be managed like an ongoing burden. You are not paying them to keep you alive anyhow; you are paying them to help you live freely again.

Here is an excerpt from my first book, a short section in which I wrote about identifying a good psychologist.

Problems are solvable - but you must solve them

To conclude, I want to assure you that problems are solvable and that the world isn’t as hopeful as we are made to believe.

Every problem can be solved; humans are not made of fragile glass. We are much stronger than we think we are. We don’t have to submerge our problems to stay positive; we just need to accept them.

Motivational quotes teach precious things about life, but only our emotions can motivate us to fulfil our potential.

Positivity is not what we think it is; positivity is embracing happiness when it is there and accepting darkness when it isn’t. Positivity is loving ourselves when we deserve it and loving harder when we think we don’t deserve it.

Positivity is loving our loved ones not because we don’t have a choice, but because they are shitty human beings trying their best like every one of us, because they think they have nothing to offer and still they stay, battling their inner discomfort.

Positivity is not just looking at a half-full glass of water and thinking that it is half-filled with water; positivity is filling it with more water and letting a thirsty child drink the water and nourishing the world with whatever little we give.

You don’t have to live through your problems.

You can solve it all alone too.

And you definitely don’t need a person to tell you how ‘ill’ you are for feeling like all humans do; different emotions are like heavy keys to the problems in your life. You take a key, find the chest with the linked problem, solve the challenge and unlock a better life.

Good luck, adventurer.

Wrapping up

It is ironic how I wrote this feeling down myself (I love and -_- my partner for showing me my flaws and strengths so clearly).

At this point, a part of me is always amused at how I keep believing even through my periods of darkness, perhaps because I have seen and fought and won enough to understand that everything will get better without me even trying (sometimes), if I keep believing in myself and this world, and my loved ones if I fail myself.

When I constantly wanted to die, I used hope as a last-ditch effort to stay alive. But it wasn’t a very wise thing to do; I was burning sandalwood to keep myself warm for an hour.

Hope is not supposed to be my last option. Hope is the first motivating factor I need to use to unlock my hidden potential and to live the life I am proud of.

This newsletter will be paywalled from next month onwards

But don’t worry, I will keep releasing these editions for free! After a one-month delay, though.

I believe knowledge should be free and realised too late that I need money to buy food, so in my own knowledge letters I decided to use this reward for the paid users model. I want to transition into writing such stuff full-time, but commitments to my freelance clients really slow me down a lot.

Writing this newsletter requires a lot of time investment; I spent around 5 hours on this issue alone, for example.

The last time I posted about it, a reader told me they would buy the subscription when the new publication comes out - that made me really, really happy, and he is half the reason you are getting another issue so soon (thank you, Akash!).

I priced it at just Rs 250 / month for now, and although you cannot pre-book it, you can be my patron by sending me any amount you wish to on this QR code (email me at gamma321800@gmail.com or send me an Instagram message at username @AuroraLexica if you make the donation with a screenshot).

You can send as little as Rs 10 or or as big an amount as Rs 1000 and expect to receive the first month’s subscription of the new publication for free AND a written piece dedicated to you or your loved ones from me, something like what I am sharing below:

You can check out more such work here.

The second thing that motivated me to write another issue within a week is the feedback I received; my partner greatly praised the previous edition of the series, which meant a lot to me coming from the first fan of my writing who dedicatedly reads all that I write. Three more readers shared examples from their own life that helped make the issue relatable to them, they offered me their opinions that helped me get a fresh perspective on this topic.

Here is what another reader had to say about that same newsletter issue:

So please do share your feedback for these newsletters as well, I want to bring the best of my frameworks that can practically help everyone lead a better life. You can email me your opinions and perspectives at Gamma321800@gmail.com or message me on Instagram at @AuroraLexica.

If you are curious about that edition but missed out on it, no worries. Read it here and don’t forget to like and add your opinions in comments!

Originally published on Substack. View Discussion on Substack →