It's been a while since I've last blogged, even longer since I've last felt the impulse to pen something down on anything—paper, receipts, corners of random books, whatever — that when I started again a few days back, I felt like crying.  

My mind is always in a rush, even in moments of peace and silence. My thought tracks could never keep up. My mouth gave up without scarcely attempting. Ironic, isn't it, that I have so many regrets over words I've said.   

Currently, I'm on a semester break and this time should be spent on learning new skills or forging memories to blanket the silent nights. I have so many of those. Nights where everything and everyone around me is full of noise and chatter, but it's all silent and mute in my head. Those still nights are when I needed the happy memories the most.   

I read this book called Silent by Erling Kagge and in some pages, I cried. In others, I resonated. Silence came easy for me. I could foster it in moments of extreme chaos, a hollow white noise on repeat, to escape or bathe in. It's like a religion. Most times, it's all I could think about. Yearning, craving, needing.   

Despite that, even when I knew I needed new memories to decorate the silent nights with noises in my head, I discover myself hibernating. It's a cycle when I realised it to be what it is. Whenever I'm on my semester breaks, I disconnect from the world and shut myself in and up.   

So, it's a welcome surprise when I went out today with Durrah to explore an art gallery in Publika. A decade of masterpieces from Fadilah Karim graced the walls of the spacious room, and I was transported to another time of years back where in the middle of a gigantic art gallery in Zurich, paintings surrounding every radius of four walls and there I was with a sketchbook in my lap and my right hand itching to draw everything, anything.  

Every so often I think, visiting art galleries isn't so much about understanding arts, but a space of time of breathtaking silence. The vibrant and muted visuals bursting through the cadence of white noise always tug my heartstrings. In those moments, I constantly wonder, I understand why and how I can be so ecstatic only to be so depressed. For upon realisation that this —the silence, the colours, the noises or rather the lack thereof, all in its kaleidoscope — is what I've been searching for. Regrettably, it lasts only for so long until invisible hands clapping to disturb that silent. Almost as if snapping oneself out of reverie.   

Therein lies the problem. I don't think, and I habitually think this way, that I ever wanted to be snapped out of reverie. There's a disillusioned feeling to be soaked in the noise and chatter, especially when they're unwarranted. And yet, it's insurmountable, I've come to admit, to be constantly lost floating in oceans of imaginations. Veto players will surely haul you out to the shore, and here's the bitter hard truth. Life Reality is cramped of noises and chatter and crappy stuff to be done. I try to find comfort in that.    

By Fadilah Karim

I like to think that whatever the real message is behind this painting, its essence is rumination.