Frivolous

What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?

It took sometime for me to write on this prompt. At first I thought of the following which I always carry with me :

1. Wisdom

2. Conscience

3. Emotions

4. Soul

But these are intangible. They are important but subjective. I may be carrying them within me but I use them situationally. If I am using my wisdom I set my emotions aside. If I am driven by my emotions I may not be dealing wisely.

Conscience, I guess, activates and combines both wisdom and emotions. It is always there. I need not carry it in my tote bag.

In our religion, the ultimate truth is realized through a process of negation. We are not the body…not the mind…not the breath alone. Breath links the mind and body to the soul and soul to the Supreme Consciousness. So, spiritually speaking, it is this Supreme Consciousness that is within all of us. But we are all like the mirror which has a layer of dust spread on it. We have to wipe the dust off to see our image reflected in the mirror. So do we have to meditate deeper and deeper and internalize our unwavering focus to experience our true self – the Brahman or the Supreme Consciousness.

Thus we don’t carry the Brahman but require to be always aware of it. Awareness and carrying are not the same. Thus, in the process of elimination, existence of my core is not negated but it is not to be ported either.

Therefore, I look outward. What is it that is the most important thing for me which I cannot do without? It’s pertinent to mention here that I carry the world in my shoulder bag. But one thing that is extremely precious to me is my handkerchief. I go berserk if I lose or misplace it. Mind you, it is not the dainty kerchief the Victorian ladies waved fashionably and which came handy when the delicate beauties swooned over trivialities. It is a medium sized hand towel, a little shabby, being washed clean several times and used till it shreds off to pieces. Yes, I am that possessive about my hanky. Older it is I am more comfortable with it.

But why? Because I sweat profusely. Also I am allergic to many smells and eatables which can subject me anytime to bouts of sneezing and coughing. I have a habit of wiping my face quite often. But more than anything else a hanky is something to hold on to, cling to, clutch on to – a kind of anchor …an indispensable support…a balancing stick. Strange… isn’t it?

Does it mean I am the nervous kind? No…I am the anxious type who carries within herself a load of insecurities. Are these insecurities important to me? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, I am driven by them. Perhaps, I identify myself with them. I am proactive, preemptive and over cautious in work as well as domestic fronts because I am always trying to ward off calamitous conditions.

Laughable or laudable, but I believe, efficiency and sincerity are not virtues by dint of their intrinsic worth and presence. They are bi-products of imagined or experienced implications and a habitual tendency to circumvent the need to make amends before catastrophe arises.

The hanky aka hand towel is just symbolic of that constant inner urge to maintain equilibrium, to prevent anything going amiss, to cross the bridge before it comes.

It’s important to me because I am built that way – all the time tirelessly indulging in boundary management. If I am restrained from doing so I feel ill at ease, disorderly, unorganised – as though I have not discharged my duties properly, concluded a job flawlessly or given shape to something misshapen.

Funny ?

Frivolous?

Imputing meaning and significance to something inconsequential ?

Judging myself unnecessarily?

Whatever you may infer, the fact is this is inexcusably and unalterably me.

That’s it.