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Abstract

the need to ponder on those thoughts. This particular instance of deja vu for me was lingering around, just like the smell of coffee in my head.I picked up my preferred coffee, which to say is the most boring kind in large quantities, and found a table in one corner of the cafe to make myself comfortable. The first sip of the coffee, even though I have it every day, multiple times, always tends to bring a feeling of incomparable calmness.The coffee only compounded my feeling that I have lived this scenario before and that the lingering emotions are recycled from similar previous situations. I tried to ignore the feeling, to go on with my day as normal, enjoy the coffee, and look at the rains smashing the glass window next to my table.<figure id="f71a"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/0*G7oXBu4tTCctQWtX"><figcaption>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@nicopic?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Nicolas Jossi</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure>The rains always took me back to a familiar place. Growing up, I dreaded the rains, staying in a small one-room apartment, humble dwellings in the large, busy city of Mumbai. Every time it rained, and it rained a lot in Mumbai, the city was flooded with rainwater while my heart was filled with anxiety and fear. The fear that the stormy rain might tear the roof from above my head, flood my home, destroy whatever little belongings I had managed to gather for myself.As a kid that was my biggest fear, losing a bunch of belongings that I had managed to build my world around, and friends.The rains always managed to shut the port city of Mumbai down a few times in the summer, which was a relief as a school-going kid. All the mixed emotions of anxiety, fear, and relief were too much for a kid to handle but did a good job to prepare me for adulthood.The anxiety and fear always took precedence even as an adult, the long waits and nights being stuck in traffic caused by the flooding of the rains, the thrill to make it through and reach home to find that cup of coffee and the relief, which I was struggling through when I left my apartment earlier in the day.It didn’t surprise me to find that we associate certain emotions with certain elements in nature, but it feels unsettling to notice the vivid details in which I could associate my feelings and situations. It made me wonder, do things change at all, or are we in some kind of loop, living through

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the same emotions in a different setting. The same loop of anxiety, fear, and relief lived in different phases of life only to find that nothing ever really mattered but for you and those around you that you care for and those who care for you.I dreaded being alone, not because there are monsters in the dark waiting to pounce when the lights go off on a lonely soul. My philosophy in my life, growing up was to do things and be at places where I always had a friend to live and enjoy those moments.As time passed, I realized that everyone has to follow their path and not everyone is lucky enough to have the same sets of friends through every phase of their life. Sometimes you get lucky and few of them manage to stick around. Every time you move for one of many reasons in your life, the anxiety of the new place, fear of not finding like-minded people, and then finally the relief when we do make new friends.I took another sip of coffee and let my eyes wander around the cafe to see any change in the setting, but as is with every coffee shop, the layout may be different, the mood and scene are always the same. I fiddled with my phone and texts, nothing, then glanced a look out of the window to see the rains still lashing the glass pane being assertive in its demand to enter the enclosure.I made my way back to my thoughts and there it was again, the familiar feeling of anxiety, fear, and relief. The layout of the life might have changed but the scene and the emotions felt eerily similar. The kid grew up but managed to hold onto its belongings.Lost in my thought, I sensed a familiar feeling emerge in the cafe. I was lost in my emotions, all the way to the beginning of the day, feeling a bit anxious while making the decision, the fear of not finding a shelter to this moment of relief which I was feeling now.In life, these fleeting moments and emotions are part of finding yourself, all the while embracing the anxiety and fear of loneliness to the relief of watching a familiar face walk in on a rainy day into a familiar setting of a cafe supplementing the coffee-filled nostalgia.Even though the setting has a warm feeling of comfort, here I am sat semi drenched holding a warm drink, staring into a set of eyes, sometimes merciless and most times soothing, just like the rains, invoking a sense of excitement and anxiousness in me, simultaneously. I might be living in a loop filled with the same kind of emotions, but as long as the setting is changing, there is little cause for an alarm.</article></body>

Whirlpool of Thoughts

All that I am feeling, I have felt it all before

Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize. ― Haruki Murakami

The rains were pouring down, and I was struggling to find a corner to shelter myself from the downpour. When I left my apartment, the weather forecast said that there was a 70% chance of rain, but I thought to myself, am I among the 70% or 30%? Risk it.

Even as I decided to walk out of the apartment without an umbrella, I got a sinking feeling that I was making a mistake, the cause and origin of which I always questioned, obviously failing to get an answer. As I was frantically looking for a shelter, I saw a little coffee shop around the corner and heaved a sigh of relief.

I started splashing the puddle of water with my steps as I jogged myself toward it, all the while thinking if only I hadn’t ignored the weather forecast, but then, knowing myself, I would have always taken that 30% chance rather than be safe and lug an umbrella for that other 70% chance. Looking back, how many of these intuitive warnings have I ignored? Would I have been better being among the 70%, or am I who I am now because of the 30% of those chances I did take?

There is something in the warm smell of a coffee on a rainy day. I stepped into the cafe, semi drenched, promptly attracting gazes of some of the fellow coffee drinkers in the cafe and that of the server. She immediately showed me the way to their restroom, where I had a chance to sort myself.

The smell of coffee was still strong in the air, and it was quickly filling up my lungs to the point of nostalgia. I saw myself in the restroom mirror while I fixed my disheveled self. Something of this entire afternoon feels deja vu -Esque.

I know and without any confirmed hypothesis, experts say there are 60% to 80% of the population of the world who get a feeling of deja vu regularly. Usually, the feelings of deja vu last for few fleeting seconds, enough to make you wonder but then make you forget without the need to ponder on those thoughts. This particular instance of deja vu for me was lingering around, just like the smell of coffee in my head.

I picked up my preferred coffee, which to say is the most boring kind in large quantities, and found a table in one corner of the cafe to make myself comfortable. The first sip of the coffee, even though I have it every day, multiple times, always tends to bring a feeling of incomparable calmness.

The coffee only compounded my feeling that I have lived this scenario before and that the lingering emotions are recycled from similar previous situations. I tried to ignore the feeling, to go on with my day as normal, enjoy the coffee, and look at the rains smashing the glass window next to my table.

The rains always took me back to a familiar place. Growing up, I dreaded the rains, staying in a small one-room apartment, humble dwellings in the large, busy city of Mumbai. Every time it rained, and it rained a lot in Mumbai, the city was flooded with rainwater while my heart was filled with anxiety and fear. The fear that the stormy rain might tear the roof from above my head, flood my home, destroy whatever little belongings I had managed to gather for myself.

As a kid that was my biggest fear, losing a bunch of belongings that I had managed to build my world around, and friends.

The rains always managed to shut the port city of Mumbai down a few times in the summer, which was a relief as a school-going kid. All the mixed emotions of anxiety, fear, and relief were too much for a kid to handle but did a good job to prepare me for adulthood.

The anxiety and fear always took precedence even as an adult, the long waits and nights being stuck in traffic caused by the flooding of the rains, the thrill to make it through and reach home to find that cup of coffee and the relief, which I was struggling through when I left my apartment earlier in the day.

It didn’t surprise me to find that we associate certain emotions with certain elements in nature, but it feels unsettling to notice the vivid details in which I could associate my feelings and situations. It made me wonder, do things change at all, or are we in some kind of loop, living through the same emotions in a different setting. The same loop of anxiety, fear, and relief lived in different phases of life only to find that nothing ever really mattered but for you and those around you that you care for and those who care for you.

I dreaded being alone, not because there are monsters in the dark waiting to pounce when the lights go off on a lonely soul. My philosophy in my life, growing up was to do things and be at places where I always had a friend to live and enjoy those moments.

As time passed, I realized that everyone has to follow their path and not everyone is lucky enough to have the same sets of friends through every phase of their life. Sometimes you get lucky and few of them manage to stick around. Every time you move for one of many reasons in your life, the anxiety of the new place, fear of not finding like-minded people, and then finally the relief when we do make new friends.

I took another sip of coffee and let my eyes wander around the cafe to see any change in the setting, but as is with every coffee shop, the layout may be different, the mood and scene are always the same. I fiddled with my phone and texts, nothing, then glanced a look out of the window to see the rains still lashing the glass pane being assertive in its demand to enter the enclosure.

I made my way back to my thoughts and there it was again, the familiar feeling of anxiety, fear, and relief. The layout of the life might have changed but the scene and the emotions felt eerily similar. The kid grew up but managed to hold onto its belongings.

Lost in my thought, I sensed a familiar feeling emerge in the cafe. I was lost in my emotions, all the way to the beginning of the day, feeling a bit anxious while making the decision, the fear of not finding a shelter to this moment of relief which I was feeling now.

In life, these fleeting moments and emotions are part of finding yourself, all the while embracing the anxiety and fear of loneliness to the relief of watching a familiar face walk in on a rainy day into a familiar setting of a cafe supplementing the coffee-filled nostalgia.

Even though the setting has a warm feeling of comfort, here I am sat semi drenched holding a warm drink, staring into a set of eyes, sometimes merciless and most times soothing, just like the rains, invoking a sense of excitement and anxiousness in me, simultaneously. I might be living in a loop filled with the same kind of emotions, but as long as the setting is changing, there is little cause for an alarm.