T a k e - a - B r e a k

Kit-Kat, Ross-Rachel, and a pile of text to help you take a break

Break Dance

Kit-Kats come in 3 sizes. Breaks come in 81. Can’t take long vacations? Take deep breaths. Can’t quit your job? Take more naps. Take walks, take water breaks. Mandate breaks from sitting and speaking. Take tea breaks and tealess breaks. During workdays, while dishwashing, mid-conversation. Cranky? Break. Angry? Break. Take a silly face 🤪 break when things get too intense 🤯. Throw your phone screen down on your bed and let it sleep for a while. A break from breaking news won’t break the world more than it is already broken. On F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Rachel merely suggested to Ross, ‘Maybe we should just take a break’. Ross thought it was a breakup. We are all Rosses, and our bodies are Rachels, we don’t trust we will come back from a break, we think stopping means quitting, so we go on and on until our bodies break down. ((((((Today, I am not doing paragraphs. You have to read this big wall of words.)))))) Stamped as LAZY when you were a kid, you can work your ass off for 33 years and never believe you deserve a break. If I organised your birthday party, I would write SLACK on your CAKE with pink frosting. And I’d make you cut yourself some!! You dislike breaks because someone broke your swollen heart. You think breaks are ugly. Ever seen an egg break at daybreak? My mother breaking green chillies with bare hands, throwing them into hot oil? Coconut cracking open? Chicken pieces napping in spiced curd? Your subconscious is always marinating, there are poems brewing on your backburners, app ideas, short stories, lesson plans, big dreams, big goals. But your conscious brain? Your RAM is full honey. Your energy is so low I see a deep red battery shape flickering on your forehead. And it’s not just the work. It’s not just the chores. You are tired of pleasing unpleasant people. You are sick of who-attacked-who and who-slapped-who. ((((((Are you suffocated yet while reading this pile of sentences? That’s how life looks without breaks.)))))) To take a break is to take 1 step back so that you take 11 steps in a better direction. To take a break is to respond freshly. Be a TV show. Have a cliffhanger every night. Don’t resolve all the tension all at once. Be a movie. One intermission every three hours. Be a poem. Break after each line, stay intact. There is no making without breaking. Ask the potter, ask the expert toymaker who was first an expert toy breaker. In the name of the moon, take a goddamn break. In the name of Halley’s comet, take a longer one. In the name of the earth, go slow. Smell the mud. Listen to the parrot couple’s conversation. Play with pets, pots, paper planes. And don’t get offended when I suggest all this. I know you are the busiest bee of Bangalore, the ever-diligent spider of New Delhi, the most laborious little ant in the fictional town of superproductivitia. Whoever you are, you are in a human body these days, you know? Don’t break your back. Break patterns. Silence. Cycles of trauma. Barriers of caste. Shackles of gender. But not that gorgeous neck. Fuck commercial breaks, insist on non-commercial breaks. Shake the capitalism out of you. Lie down once in a while. Let your bum loose. Remove your bra. Drop the shoulders. Unclasp the jaw. Become a pillow. Yes, like that. ((((((Okay, fine, let me end this paragraph so we can take a deep breath together.))))))

Phew! Sigh! Allaluiakuia!

Listen, a break is not a sequel to productivity, but a prequel to it. So go take it.

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Aesthetic Anime

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Wrapping up Season 2

Speaking of breaks, this is the 17th and final edition of ‘Evolving & Enough Season 2’. To date, we have covered 27 essays, 3 poems, 1 zine, and 1 cozy, wholesome gathering!

Thanks for every like, comment, reply, and for sharing it with your closest. I hope to come back with a whole new season, menthol fresh, from a cosier location, and with more zeal.