II.I.I – Stasis
II.I.I
STASIS
I’ve always been somewhat of a living paradox. I’m not saying it in the quasi-pretentious way – you know, like those attention-seekers who always make it a point to highlight their own uniqueness and individuality only cause they’ve got nothing better to do. Or maybe I am – I am the main character of this story after all.
For the better part of my life I was stuck, and I’m not talking ‘stepped on chewing gum’ kinda stuck. I’m talking being ‘trapped in a coma for the better part of your life’ kinda stuck. What I mean to say is that for a long, long time it felt as if the entire world was moving and I was just lying there, immobile. I had finally found something that grounded me; medicine, and I was finally setting some roots for the first time in my life. As a result, everything else had become secondary.
I remember being asked about my plan B. You know, just in case medicine wouldn’t pan out. Well, there was no plan B. Being a doctor was the only acceptable future to me. Nothing more, nothing less. Screw the charming inn by the forest, screw my one big family and screw the deer and the hummingbirds. All I could picture when it came to my future were blood and guts and brains. That’s it.
“But what if you can’t practice medicine?” friends would ask. Simple. Medicine was the reason I lived. No medicine, no life. I know it must sound like something only an immature brat would say, I know. But that’s exactly how it felt back then. If something were to happen and I wouldn’t be able to practice medicine, there’d be nothing left for me. In retrospect it seems a bit naïve, childish perhaps, but to feel so strongly about something was something I had never felt before.
It might sound like a load of BS to most, but in Plato’s The Republic, Socrates himself went on and on about this very same thing, referring to a carpenter who “… has a job to do, and if he does not do it, life is not worthwhile” So yeah, that’s how I used to feel. And I really don’t blame myself for that. Because back then I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know I’d find other things that would give my life a purpose.
Back then I had a monomaniacal obsession with medicine. It was my comfort zone and my life revolved around it – nothing else mattered. All other aspects of my life had been cast aside.
I was smoking like a chimney (nicotine temporarily boosts your concentration skills so it was the perfect excuse), eating all kinds of crap (who’s got time to cook healthy food anyways?) and drinking like there’s no tomorrow (I mean come on, it’s the weekend and I’m still young!). Miserable though I might have been, it seemed to be working for me. I was doing the thing that I loved and I was doing it well. Not to mention, I had always been the melancholic type, or, as Meredith would put it, dark and twisty.
Back then, the bright and shiny persona I’d put up would just be a façade, nothing more. It’s not like I was actively faking it or pretending to be happier than I was, it was just a natural reflex. I’d smile and joke and laugh. But back home, in my own room, in my own comfort zone? I was miserable… And I loved it. There’s just something about misery… Something so romantic to it. Rainy days, sad songs, cigarette smoke and solitude. How very Lana Del Rey right?
I mean look at all the great artists. Do you think it’s bliss that inspires them? They thrive on misery, grief, pain. Pain is art, pain is beauty, pain is bliss. And so I too thrived on that same misery. Given the choice between misery and bliss I’d always choose misery. No questions asked. Letting in the solitude, the nostalgia, the grief, the loss, the tragedy of everyday life. That misery was my bliss. That same misery was my comfort zone. I thrived on it; that was me at my one hundred percent.
For a long time, I believed that that was my baseline and that no matter what I’d do or who I’d become, I’d eventually end up gravitating towards it whether I wanted to or not. I justified my misery by saying that happiness is for the mediocre and all I wanted in life was to be extraordinary. Who the hell needs happiness anyways? Anyone can be happy. And to this end I was forcefully keeping myself from change. Because change could disrupt my productive yet miserable routine. Why change if you’re comfortable, right?
This is why I said I’m a living paradox. What I just described is the complete antithesis of what I believe in. Change is a biological imperative. Hell, change is the only constant in science. Therefore, without change there is only one thing – a complete state of stasis. And there I was, barricading its way…