Bakuɭ

I was sitting at my favourite spot that evening, doing what I usually do when I don’t want to rush my thoughts. Watching the sunset. Holding a cup of ginger tea. Folding paper, slowly, without any particular outcome in mind. That’s when this question came up. Too much or not enough? It felt familiar. Like something I had been circling for a while without naming. Somewhere between conversations, late-night thoughts, and the constant stream of advice online. Lately, everything seems to come with a label. A warning or may be some sort of excuse to avoid accountability.  Care openly and you’re clingy. Express affection and it’s cringe. Pull back and you’re detached. Ask for effort and it’s princess treatment. Accept less and it’s the bare minimum debate all over again. I see how this plays out in everyday moments. Like when your love language starts feeling like too much simply because the other person doesn’t value it the same way. What feels like care to you becomes excess to someone...

The phone rang. It was one of those unplanned moments when my friend decided to call another friend, just to surprise him. The call connected, and before I could think, I said, "hello." What followed was a burst of recognition on the other side. My name, said with a kind of innocent, childlike excitement that instantly makes you smile. I didn’t speak for a few seconds. I just listened.  That moment stayed with me longer than I expected. Maybe because of how something as ordinary as a voice could feel so deeply personal. It made me think about how much sound shapes the way we experience life. We rarely notice it, though. Sound is always around. The sound of a ceiling fan, a song playing faintly in another room, the chatter of people passing by. Yet there are certain sounds that seem to rise above everything. The ones that reach you no matter where you are.  Like how you suddenly notice the birds on a quiet afternoon, only because the rest of the world has gone still. How, duri...