The times they are a — changing, and how! You blink, and the world has spun a few times, setting you down in an unfamiliar place. You sneeze, and before your breath steadies, you find yourself in an alien landscape.
Each morning, I wake up into this shifting space, struggling to find my feet, unsure where I stand in this evanescent world. And I know I am not alone. There are countless others who feel strapped to a rollercoaster that never stops. There is no stepping off for balance, for stepping off means being stranded. Lately, though, I feel like an old, rattling Ambassador car on Dubai’s busy highways. Sleek cars and roaring bikes zip past me while I chug along, wondering if I even belong on this stretch anymore. I am unsure whether to look back and take solace in the miles I’ve covered or to look ahead and feel daunted by the challenge of finding my place in a world that feels entirely new. People say, “Live in the present,” but the present too often looks like a fogged mirror. Why speak of other things? Even my writing now feels old-fashioned and dated. The lyrical cadence I’ve long cherished is dismissed as “tedious reading no one has time for.” The eloquent layers I weave are deemed circuitous.What the world seems to want are cookie-cutter pieces — direct talk with no frills or laces. It’s hard to change my ways. It’s also hard to remain the same.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, each day passes in uncertainty, not knowing whether to stay steadfast or join the trend and steal a march. To be laid-back or gregarious. Solemn or pushy. To write for a small audience or pander to the crowd. To be vintage AI (my initials) or become a slave of AI. But then again, not all days need to be the same.
For once, today, I chose to step off the usual terrain of confusion about how to take life forward in this swiftly changing world. You can’t stay in a rut as if it’s your domicile and be condemned to ageing and atrophy. The brass showpieces at home were begging for a polish. They looked older than antiques in a museum, sunk into lacklustre neglect. Their dullness had been vexing me, yet I pretended not to see. Today, I stopped pretending. I realised I was their sole redeemer. No state of despondency should be interminable, not even that of a showpiece. I saw my reflection in their tarnish — my own human condition seeking deliverance from its listless existence. How would it be if the Lord ignored me as I had ignored them? So I took a gooseberry-sized ball of tamarind and rubbed it on the brassware — the traditional, old-fashioned way. Slowly, I watched the dull blur lift from their surfaces, revealing the true colour of the metal beneath. As I set them back with their gleam mostly restored, the sun shone on them through the gauzy curtain, and I smiled at the thought that this, perhaps, was my story and that of many others too. In need of a polish, a varnish, a revival.Later, I turned to a more mundane task: giving the bathrooms a thorough scrub. With our cleaner away on vacation, it felt like a chance to get into the nooks and corners where his eye might not linger in haste. I extended the domestic streak a little longer, dusting rooms and clearing shelves — chores I had put aside while wondering where I stood in a changing world. Finding relevance in small things, I gently reclaimed myself — renewed.
The author is a columnist, independent journalist, and writing coach based in Dubai
