Alone – a surreal experience

Disclaimer: A lot of stuff in the passage of text below is non-fiction. It’s entirely up to you to decide which portions of it are… That might kind of speak in volumes about the kind of person you are!!! The below passage is also meant to have a surreal feel to it and not everyone might be able to digest it, or appreciate it – It is surreal after all.

I do a lot of weird stuff just because I like to experience weirdness! Like most people, I have a dark side. You’ve got to admit it that everyone has a dark side because if we didn’t, we would be incapable of choosing between right and wrong, good and evil, darkness and light and a whole bunch of such contrasting aspects of life.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been writing a lot of stuff that I’ve accumulated and could possibly be part of dark, albeit a pretty good memoir. Highly publishable. Here is part of it.

I live alone. I used to have room mates but I don’t just let anyone live with me. So I started living alone a couple of months ago when the room mate I trusted left.

The best part about the town I live in, which is also the worst part, is that it is quite desolate. I kid you not when I say that during holidays or just general long weekends, I usually don’t see a single person on the streets for days and days together and the only foot steps in the accumulated snow are mine. Spooky.

Living alone has its perks: you don’t have to wake up at 5am just to do your business in the loo before you head off for your 7 am class. You don’t have to pick up after messy room mates. It’s peaceful. Of course, it has its downside: you need to cook dinner everyday of the week as there is no one else who is going to take turns! You’ve got to lug all the groceries on your own rain, sun, snow or any other weird inclement weather conditions. You’ve got to shovel your walkway on your own without much needed help. I figured that you are also more prone to a strange disorder known as S.A.D or seasonal affective disorder. More on that in a future post.

What I figured is that although living alone looked quite attractive initially, it’s a real dark experience. As a social (or maybe an anti-social) experiment, I try to do downright weird things. I lock myself up on weekends and stay indoors for about 50-60 hours ensuring that I have no contact with the outside world. My personal best is staying indoors for 5 days at a stretch. I find that solitude is very therapeutic but could be dangerous if you can’t balance well enough on the thin line that separates the sane from the…. others….

The other rather interesting and seemingly insane activity I indulge in, on weekends, is absolute silence. I utter not a single word for days together. If you try this you’ll realize that when you do speak after a few days of absolute silence, your voice would sound quite strange to yourself! With enough practice I have learned to stay silent for days together.

Soliloquy is another risk that you run if you live alone ensuring an absolute hermetic seal around yourself. I find that I sometimes catch myself talking to myself. I must admit however that the conversations that I have with myself are quite intense and revelatory at various levels. You just don’t want to NOT realize that you are in fact having a conversation with yourself.

It’s a surreal experience. To live alone. You visit the thin line between what’s real and what’s not. To cocoon yourself deliberately. To avoid all human contact. It’s also eye opening. Introspection. But with a high price to pay, if you aren’t careful. Do you want to know what the price is? Can you handle it? The thing that would grip you the most would be

The above passage has been deliberately left incomplete. For the uninitiated, it lends to the surreal feel. Want to know more? Wait for the future post.

A Surreal experience felt and written by Sir Pumpkin

Sir Pumpkin Longshanks

The name may sound funny and weird and it spills over his character too. He prefers to keep his identity secret and we respect his choice. Thanks to a moment of “what an idea, sirji” we have him on-board our panel and don’t ask me more about the idea, it is our kitchen secret but his writings are here to enthrall you.

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Tags: bachelor life, being single, experience, living alone, lonely, personal account, soliloquy

This entry was posted on November 1, 2009 at 8:21 am and is filed under Salt & Pepper. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.