I don't speak much. There are days that go by when I don't utter a single word from my mouth. Like on those days my lips meet each other only to check if they are still there and my vocal cords throw in a fit of cough once or twice to see if the sound is still coming or not. My body parts are very insecure. I remember this one time when I was taking a bath, soap went inside my eye and I was so tired that I just kept it shut for a few minutes.

I was in no mood to wash it. But after a minute, my eye thought that it had lost its vision. By soap. How can your functionality be affected by soap? Like your whole job is to be out there and see danger and if you think soap is dangerous, then you are really dumb. But there was no convincing it. So I had to wash it and once I washed, it felt okay and acted all cute being red and all. I wish these organs had brains of their own. Because sometimes it gets to be too much managing all of them. I am just one guy. Give me a break.

And then there are some days among these days, where my organs are also tired. Like my ears are sick of hearing, eyes just want to stay shut, thankfully the nose doesn't stop working but everybody else takes an off. Those are the days when we (all organs plus whoever I am) think about life. Like where it's going or whether it's going anywhere or not, or if it wants to go anywhere at all because hello, no one is forcing it. We are all fine with whatever it wants. Just take us along wherever you are going. But why would it listen to us?

Anyway, where was I? Correct. As I said, I don't speak much and this font eleven has been reduced to font three during this pandemic. Like it's barely visible in the sentence: I don't speak much. Who to speak to anyway? During the work calls the only person who speaks the most is the one who is scared to lose their job. And I am very secure that way. By secure I don't mean that I am very good at my work and no one will ever fire me, I mean I wouldn't care so much if they do fire me, hence I'm never scared. And anyway I freelance, so half my job is to listen to the agency guys only. The other half is writing which I can do quietly. So when to speak? I don't find any reason.

Friends? I have made friends very wisely. I literally have zero people in my life who would share their problems with me and I am very glad about it. They have their other friends for that. It's not like we aren't close, but it's just we are working on a different level of friendship. You meet, you booze, you leave. Sure if some serious stuff happens, we talk, but those days are super rare.

Why am I explaining all this? Just agree to the premise of me not speaking much, please. I don't wanna explain more. Where I wanted to go with the premise was this- since the past few days, I am feeling a little scared that this pandemic forced thing of not speaking has been slowly building into a dangerous habit. I don't feel like speaking anymore, even if things are urgent. I look forward to not speaking. I would just be nodding and saying yes or no or I don't know and just moving on with it. In the era of everyone speaking every possible shit that comes to their mind, I am not sure if this is a good habit or bad. Is it harmful, I don't know. But it's peaceful for sure. Like my thoughts are quite clear nowadays. The less I speak, the clearer my thoughts are, the better I observe. This is of course what I feel. It's not like I don't have any opinions, I have. I keep them to myself.

There are certain stigmas too which come with speaking less. When you speak less, people think that you are sad. There is no way to convince them otherwise. Which makes us sad. So either way, you are ending up being sad. On the contrary, you are wasting less time arguing or debating and as a result, you get a lot of time to read books. Even those difficult-one-sentence-a-page ones have become easy reads. I cook while listening to songs and I eat while reading Conde Nast Traveller. I watch a movie when I am bored of doing all this. Rinse and repeat.

Life has become much simpler. I don't know what will happen when life goes back to normal if it ever does. I sure as hell have become a stranger version of myself but is it even Covid-19 if you aren’t changed as a person. I wonder if Buddha lived in these times, what would he have preached? Would he even sit under that tree? Would people even listen to whatever he has to say? Would he give up on us?

I think this is the most I have spoken. I read out loud while writing so today's quota is done. Or rather this week's. Now, I am looking forward to more silences for the rest of the week. My fingers are tired so bye. I sometimes wish other people also spoke less. Just do your work, and log out after 60 years.

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The Chaddi Things

I don't speak much