Some days I’m very restless. A feeling that bubbles up in my body that is hard to describe. If I had to talk about it, it would be a swirl of feelings, like stringy cheese – pulled across the body. A swirling whirlpool, it keeps going round and round, like a wild shark trapped in an aquarium tank. It keeps moving without a form, like a jellyfish floating through the waves.
Now, this greasy feeling does not have a name (none that I know of). But I do know it when I sense it. The churning sense of seasickness where you crave the moist grass and damp wind without the crusty sand and the ocean salt. Just like the crusty sea salt mixed with your dried sweat, the greasy warmth oozes out of your sweat pores. The skin I wear and the clothes I choose don’t seem to like each other anymore. Every brush of the fabric against the grain of your skin sends itches across your bones. Bones and muscles, tendons and ligaments crease against each other in throbbing pain. A pulsing throb resonates in every joint—the pain making it come alive, a life of its own. The grumblings in the stomach grow along with the pressure—a beast in the belly that rises without a care from the mulch of the masses. Tiny volcanoes erupt from the composting manure through the delicate skin. A delicacy so soft, it’s hard to resist a touch. These bumps don’t make it easy to comfort oneself.
This corruption does not stop with the corporeal entity. This greasy feeling percolates through every ounce of my body, seeping into my soul. My soul feels dirty. The heart that pumps skips a beat every now and then, unable to keep up with the sooty tar that flows through my blood. The music of life that should have been played on my nerves resonates diabolically in a frequency inaudible to the human mind. The flow of energy rumbles like a tornado unattended by the Gods. All you’re left with is the feeling that something is wrong in your body. That something is wrong with your soul. This grease slowly engulfs everything that is meant to be you. Everything that meant something to you. My soul gets tainted slowly but surely like viscous honey mixed with water. It’s hard to notice once it’s blended in. It’s hard to separate once it’s mixed in. This can only mean one thing. That something has to be wrong with me.
The grease invades your life with a force enough to tear through a city. It rots with the pungency of a back alley dumpster. It takes over your weekend party with stinky cheese and rancid wine. Like an apocalypse prophesied in the ancient texts, this nameless, formless entity vanquishes my routine chiseled in stone over a lifetime. The hands on the clock, just like mine, are stuck in time—unable to learn from the past, unable to move forward. When a life gets swallowed whole without any crumbs left for the birds, how can one gather the courage to fight back? How can one tame a beast of unknown origins? How can one faceoff against a deadly stare? What do you do when there’s no way through?
I tried various ways to tame the game. I tried drowning the shapeless energy, shaking it off like a ritualistic shaman, shushing it to sleep, stuffing it down senseless. And I kept getting sucked into this muck. As I was being wrung of my life force, I noticed something: this oily mucus has the lifespan of a fruit fly. If you can keep your head above this quicksand, it releases you. If you can resist fighting it back, it floats you to the top without being asked. Center your body, calm your mind and balance your soul, the grease bubbles up to the top. And in one focused scoop, you skim this grease off and pull yourself out of this trap. Do not control it; get consumed by the grease. Don’t hold on; let go. The secret is to sink, not swim.