Leaving our Shivapadam house at the end of Mahashivarathri, I found myself contemplating the curious phenomenon of tribal detachment. Not a complete severance—more of a self-imposed exile, a deliberate step away from the collective heartbeat. Yet the Tribe, utterly indifferent to my absence, continues its relentless forward march. It recruits fresh blood, elevates new heroes to its pantheon, and advances its grand mission with mechanical precision.
The proper response from someone who still claims tribal identity (albeit from a comfortable distance) would be pride, connection, enthusiastic cheerleading from the sidelines. But this isn't about proper responses or should-be feelings. This is about the messy reality beneath the socially acceptable veneer.
And articulating what I actually feel requires a certain brutal honesty I'm not entirely comfortable with. Yes, I genuinely desire the Tribe's success. Yes, I experience what appears to be authentic happiness when my fellow tribal members achieve recognition. I even permit myself the small narcissistic pleasure of believing I contributed to their victories in some peripheral way.
But then comes the pathetic part: that dull ache of exclusion. That childish disappointment that these victories weren't channeled through me. That these triumphs didn't feature my heroic intervention as the centerpiece. How embarrassingly human.
Some necessary reminders to my sulking self:
First, this sentimentality and false nostalgia doesn't suit me. My present should concern itself with, well, the present—or at most, the uncertain future. Not with the unchangeable past or the fantasy of what might have been.
Second, the execution of necessary action vastly outweighs the subsequent glory-basking. I've noticed this becomes particularly challenging for me when the stakes reach a certain height. When everything seems stacked against success and requires non-trivial effort to overcome. I must remember that my best work emerged when I focused solely on what needed to be done, utterly disinterested in who eventually claimed credit.
Finally, I remind myself that this is actually a magnificent time to be wandering the wilderness. I can feel the tech-tectonic plates shifting beneath not just me, but the entire industry, the whole social structure. And I know that I've earned a driver's seat in this transformation. The ego dies hard.
My return to CBE revealed something about myself—I felt the full weight of these 2.5 years spent outside the ashram's sphere. I'm becoming someone else, slowly and steadily. There was a familiar comforting feeling about conducting that brief technology session, about reimmersing in that volunteer environment. I'll hold onto that image as I bide my time and plot my inevitable return.
Like some tribal dropout who still lurks at the edges of the firelight, watching the dance continue without him.
This blog post was written with the help of AI.
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