I start my scooter and leave for home. I come across a big billboard on my left. It is advertising put on by a coaching institute about the success rate of the students who took part in a national level examination. The photographs of the top scorers are larger than the others. They are made large to draw your attention. Advertisers know how to get your attention. That is what they do. I must also be an advertiser of sorts. I must advertise my message in the most fruitful way possible. Advertising and marketing. Let us not forget what marketing does.

In recent years, with the advent of technology, advertising has changed the way we perceive things. Along with marketing, it has the power to influence our thoughts, which finally seep into our actions. Over the last decade, we have seen how it was used to subtly change the way people think. It is even possible to influence us from a subconscious level, which is frightening. We are not designed for it. If we are, we aren’t ready for it.

We are not ready for the constant stream of information we receive at our fingertips throughout the day. We are not ready for the consistent tiny dopamine hits we get when we doom scroll our way through the various media outlets we have with us twenty-four-seven. We are not ready for the blazing-fast way in which we can communicate and not communicate. We are not ready for a lot of things and yet we find ourselves right in the middle of it. We have thrust ourselves into it. We did it ourselves. I am not sure if we knew what we were getting into. If we knew, we chose to ignore it and go with the flow.

I didn’t know how my world would change in the last ten years. I don't have to look back another decade to see the change it has brought about in my life. This decade is more than enough.

One way it has affected me is by taking out a part of the huge patience I had. I am more restless when I don't get things done in an instant on certain occasions. This is because I know they can be done in an instant but at that certain moment due to some reason or the other, it gets delayed. This agitates me and makes me irritated.

I grew up in a time when such stuff could not even be imagined. I was happy with the time it took for things to happen. I was not so irritated when it took more time. I accepted the fact that it was because of reasons beyond my scope. External factors were in play. I have no control over them.

Now I know the problem is created by external factors. Still, I feel I have lost control. The situation was never under my control in the first place and yet I react as if I had it in my control. Across these years, the stoic take on how we are only in control of our emotions and our reactions and never in control of any external factors has found its way into my life one way or the other - either through books or through social media posts. I know the simplicity and clarity of it. I know what they are saying is the truth and I want to exercise it at certain times in my own life. But I don't. I let my emotions get the better of me. I realize it after the event has taken place. By then it is too late.

I am not a stoic. I have read stoic works and I admire what they say in them. It makes sense to a very good extent. I even want to be a stoic myself. I want to apply some of the principles being talked about in it because I know they are quite true. But I don't think I might be able to apply the rest of it. I just can't. I am an emotional person. And sometimes I want my emotions to take over. I want to cry when I feel like. I want to laugh out loud whenever I feel like. I want to vent my frustration and not hold it back. I want to let it flow. It might be against the principles, but I know what I am and what I can be.

I want to be the best version of who I am. That is what I am striving for every day. I am a work in progress. Every day I am learning something new about myself. Every day is a journey toward knowing a little bit about myself. It is a beautiful journey. I will come across a lot of things. But as always the journey is the best. I don't know if I will ever reach the destination. I don't think I will. I am as complex as a human being can ever get. That is why I believe one cannot know himself in this one single life. It might take multiple lifetimes. Since I am aware of this one life only, I will never be able to understand myself completely.

I reach Chavadimukku junction. My thoughts made the distance feel tiny. It felt as if I had just left the college and appeared here out of the blue.

Normally I would have slowed down and checked for traffic on the main road before I joined it. One needs to consider the vehicles coming from the Kazhakuttam direction while joining the road since the intersection is slightly angled. Now, I breeze through the intersection and join the main road maintaining the speed.

I have never thought of having this junction so free and devoid of vehicles ever. I have never thought of witnessing something like this anywhere, anytime in the future. I have always respected traffic. I make sure my driving is safe and sound for myself and anyone accompanying me. It is a strange situation to be in. Although I always wished to have empty roads to myself, I never imagined such a scenario. This is the extreme version of it. I don't want this. I only wished for it whenever I was irritated with the traffic. If someone has finally granted those wishes, then I plead with them to take it back. I don't want it. I want the traffic back. I want the people who make the traffic back. I want all of them back. Back to normal.

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I am again engulfed by the feeling of loss and pain. I feel the pain of having lost my wife to the great swipe. I feel the angst of being alone in this city. I feel a lot. I feel the agony of this present turning into the future. I feel the tension of being given a task that I might never complete. I feel unworthy. I feel like a loser. I feel lost.

The sun is up and shining. The brightness of the day keeps a bit of the moodiness away. I feel a bit thankful for it not being the monsoons. It would have been really depressing then. The overcast skies and the desaturated surroundings can really play with my head. I know I just dug out a slight positive from the heap of negativity surrounding me. This is what the stoics had to say all along - to look at the bright side of things. As I reach Sreekariyam junction, the emptiness of it washes away the slight positivity that was induced in me.

I ride on straight through the junction. This will take me to Pongumoodu junction from where I need to take the right to enter our lane. I pass through the closed shops as the road takes a small downhill stretch. On my left, my gaze falls on the dilapidated arch of the bar. It was one of our go-to places to have chilled beers back in our college days.

There are a lot of sweet memories associated with this place. The place attracted us because of the ambiance it had. The bar was an old ancestral house that was reworked and converted. The main hall that seated the audience had the traditional wooden roof on top, with wooden planks running through it in perpendicular directions, providing the required strength to support the roofing tiles on its top. Inside, some of the tables were separated by a small wall that broke off waist-high. It must have been a part of a room that was knocked down to make the hall big. I liked how they had thought of keeping a part of it.

The entrance to the house has a long verandah. Here two tables were laid out. On moody days, this was the perfect place to sit and drink. Summers would prompt us to go inside and bask in the AC as we chill out.

The kitchen was at the back of the house. It was not joined to the main building. There were a couple of rooms outside which they had converted into a kitchen and utility area. They had done a really good job with the whole site and made it as nostalgic as possible. This is one of the reasons that prompted us to go back to it even after passing out of college.

I did visit it a couple of times in the year following our passing out. After that, I moved to cities. I came to know that the place had run out of business owing to new rules that were brought into place. I felt bad at the prospect of never being able to drink a chilled beer and have their famous beef deep dry (affectionately shortened to BDF) with my friends. I felt even worse when I saw the state of it after moving to the city last year. The place had a charm in itself. Now it felt like a deserted graveyard. There was no life in it. The place and its feeling stayed alive only in our memories.

Next, I cross the bus stop. It is a familiar place to me. It is very much the same as it was fourteen years ago. Right behind it, a branded clothing shop has come up. It makes its presence felt and draws down all the attention from the bus stop. Not that it drew any attention earlier, but still. I maintain the slow pace that I got into as I crossed the junction.

The road takes a left turn and starts to climb up with a slow incline. I am checking out my surroundings. This was the reason I reduced my speed. I know what the outcome might be, but still, I do it.

I reach Elamkulam junction. The road narrows down a bit. Once again all the shops are closed. The trees forming a canopy blocks the sun for a small distance on the road. As I pass through the shade, I feel a slight tinge of chillness.

I get out of the shade and take the banking right turn. There is a huge house on my left. It is really huge. One can make out the house sitting inside the property at a height slightly greater than the tall walls. The walls themselves are big and stretch out around the entire property. It is an old property. It has been there since the time I started traveling on this route. I have always wanted to go in and explore the place. The landscaping work seems to be top-notch. Good aesthetics always attract me.

I see the supermarket in front of me. There is another smaller one on my right. We usually visit the bigger one. This is the one I was talking about. There is ample car parking available. It also has a clothing store inside it, on the first floor. It is more like a business chain. They have a couple of outlets in the city. Sometimes when we come here for our grocery shopping, we check out the apparel store. If something interests us and is for sale, we buy it.

I see the shutters of the supermarket are down. As I near it, I ride all the way to the entrance and stop. The main entrance is shuttered. I get down from the scooter and walk towards it to check it out. It is bolted and locked on both sides. I think I can pry this open with some effort. I will be needing tools for that. I make a mental note of it and get back on my scooter. This place will provide me with the stuff I need to sustain myself for some time. I will have to visit it sometime in the day.