The Metaphysicist

What was the first conscious thought you had today when you woke up? Can you still recall it? Chances are that you can’t… but sure enough, you remember what you felt. It’s not by happenstance — emotions have a way of subtly defying our thoughts and defining our way. Longing has long lived in my heart, often surfacing at the most inconvenient of times, stealing from me, at occasions, the better part of the present — like while walking up a crowded escalator at the metro; when sitting across colleagues laughing at some joke Rachel made; when staring into nothing and everything, looking at an art piece hanging on the wall of an art street. Memories bubble up like soda pop when you least expect them. They burst open the lid of isolation that you try so hard to put on your inexorable self. Do you remember that memory from your childhood, when you were playing on the swing at the playground below — just back and forth and back and forth and back again — the sky just within the reach of your ...