Earlier this evening, I opened my mouth to ask the Starbucks barista what happened to all their pastries; there are only cakes left in the display shelf.
I croaked.
And then I realized that that is the first time I spoke to anyone properly since I left the office last Friday. I almost didn’t recognize my voice. I sound like a frog. A frog that just swallowed a fly. Whole. (Frogs never chew in the first place, do they?)
And the reason why I was croaking is because (1) I am having a cold, (2) I haven’t had human contact for the past 2 days, and (3) I have not said a single word the entire day. And I am slightly ashamed that the first words I’m using is to ask for pies!
So, I have been in self-exile ever since I came back from my holiday last week and fell ill. I think it was the climate change. Or maybe it was what Toi predicted, “You just didn’t want to go back to work lar”. I did go to work the next day I arrived and worked very hard for the next 2 days indeed, and promptly fell sick on Friday. I suspect it was my body telling me, “You are still on holiday. Go back to bed.”
So I came home last Friday afternoon and I have not left my bed since. Until this evening (approx. 48 hours later) to fulfill an insane & outrageous craving for pie and coffee. I got that craving from one character in the shows I was watching on TV who was eating that. That is how I ended up croaking at the Starbucks barista. :S
Anyway, although I spent the last 48 hours in bed, I only slept about 12 hours. The rest of the time was spent awake and : (1) Watching an entire set of Korean drama series starring Rain (too many gratuitous shower scenes), (2) one British movie starring Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend, (3) half a episode of Rachel Ray (she sounds like a frog too) where she was demonstrating how to make Rock Soup, (4) half a Cosmopolitan magazine, Aussie edition, (5) a few chapters from A Road Less Traveled by Dr. Scott Peck (I called him Dr. Pecker once by mistake, eeks!) and (6) surfing the Internet.
I have never spent so much time surfing the Net before. I never surf the Net outside of work. In fact, typing a blog post on a Sunday night is categorically not me. Typing 2 blog posts on a Sunday means I am REALLY spending way too much time on the Net.
I discovered many, many new things online I never knew existed. The internet is a devil. Even when I am stuck in bed, sick to my stomach, I can still shop. Curse those online shopping sites with their attractive “You can only get this price online” marketing gimmicks which I fell headlong for. There is no austerity in being ill and decrepit.
I also discover that you can find ANY damn information you want online. There are “women only” sites featuring erotica stories WITH images to boot (Phwoarr!), language sites teaching colloquial cockney slangs (now I know what a brass monkey is), videos teaching you how to bun your hair (erm…I am just preparing for next time when I become a Datin) and I also caught up with all the blogs I have been following or meant to follow. I also (finally) checked out how Twitter works after reading so much about it in the newspapers especially how it helped the Iranians communicate during the recent electoral riots. Sadly, I maintain zero interest in ‘tweeting’ because I cannot imagine anyone having any interest in knowing when my toilet break is or what kind of bread I am using for my sandwich.
Going back to some of the interesting stuffs I was reading in bed, I got quite caught up with Dr. Peck(er)’s analysis on the theory of “love” from a psychotherapy perspective in his book, The Road Less Travelled. He deduct that the concept of “falling in love” is not real love, but a specifically sex-linked erotica experience. (Case on point, you do not fall in love with your children.) He also derived that you cannot “fall in love” permanently. The bloom of romance will always fade. And how this work, and why it ends, has to do with the ‘ego boundary’.
He has a chapter long definition on what is your “ego boundary” but (my summary is that) it is essentially a personal concept of your place in this world. It is what you define yourself, as an individual, apart from the rest of the world. When you fall in love, you let your ego boundary merge with the recipient of your love. This merging is an omnipotent and powerful experience. You feel that you can do anything, solve every problem, and tackle any obstacles whilst you are in this state. But sooner or later, in response to daily living, the individual will reassert itself. You realize that you are not one with the other person because each individual have their own personal wants and desires. That is when your ego boundaries snap back into place again.
That ending is not supposed to be dire, though. He explain that although falling in love is not real love, it is the necessary first step to finding genuine love. His next few chapters talks about managing ego boundaries and exercising discipline on love. (Erm, I fell asleep at some point so I can’t tell you more... :S)
Apart from reading, watching TV and surfing, I spent an inordinate amount of time just lying in bed and thinking about nothing and enjoying the nothingness of it all. It may sound strange (and extremely lazy) but it felt very good. I was sneezing every 15 minutes and feeling light headed all the time but other the physical discomfort of having a cold, I was a happy bunny. I was cocooned in my duvet like a caterpillar, except I have no intention of morphing into a flying being anytime soon. I was even hoping the gestation period will never end.
But the gestation period is ending because it is past midnight now and in a couple hours time, I have to get up and fly to work. Sigh.
Happy Monday, folks. Tweet tweet.
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