Random Thoughts From a Wannabe Indian American Woman

Stream of consciousness:

What does it mean to be American? Indian?  Woman?  Can I be culturally Christmas but religiously Diwali?  Addendum: Can I be religiously spiritual, and culturally agnostic?  Addendum: Can I be eternally questioning yet inherently all knowing? Is our life supposed to be a perpetual paradox?

I thought I was simple, but it was fake.  Because I used to take any feelings that didn’t fall into “conducive to moving forward”, box them up, pack them away, and hide them in the crevices of the body, mind, soul.  Turns out, eventually all the boxes need to be unpacked. Unpacking is complex. Unpacking is messy.  Unpacking leaves a mess.  Unpacking takes time.  But unpacking is necessary.

I think the goal is simple, but simplicity is surprisingly hard to come by.  Complexity seems to be the gold standard nowadays, people like to be complex, but maybe because we like to think we’re special.  But complexity isn’t special- complexity is inefficiency, it’s average, it’s normal, it’s a mess.  It’s unpacking without cleaning up.  Simple means struggling through the complex, and reaching the land of the simple again.  Simple should be the gold standard.  I don’t understand why it’s not.

I’m somehow obsessed with Paris.  I think I am going to go there in May.  I also really want to learn French.  I think it’s somewhat frivolous, but how can you define frivolity if you don’t even know what the goal is?  What is the goal?  Maybe it’s just doing something for yourself.  Like learning French.  And going to Paris.  I think it’s a luxury to care about details, and aromas and languages, and art, and culture.  I grew up feeling that way, I grew up trained to think that way, I grew up Indian.  Is that Indian?  I grew up, poised to join the rat race.  Too bad that didn’t happen.

My M.O. is masochism.  I am coming to terms with that.  Most people do things because they enjoy them.  I enjoy doing things that I don’t think I can do.  Things that are inherently out of my comfort zone.  I want to become a master of the Indian Stock Market.  Mostly because I want to shoot myself whenever I look at balance sheets, but I can see improvement, and I can see myself learn, and I can see myself becoming something I never thought I could become

I think the love child of masochism is new possibilities.  For me the two are linked.  Out of pain, comes something new, something you never saw yourself doing before.  I think that’s beautiful.

I want to go on creating different incarnations of myself, house them in one, and pull them out when needed.

I want to be so many different people.