Should I fight against my continuing detachment from reality?

Is that even realistically possible? Do we really have free will? Can we ever overcome our biological conditions such as falling in love that will not be requited?

My continuing detachment from everyone and everything around me is making me ask some hard questions. Has it something to do with ageing? Or my psychiatric medication to deal with my Bipolar Disorder condition? Or does it have wider implications such as a sense of me being individually helpless to bring about good changes to the conditions of the society I live in which seems to be deteriorating every passing day?

I will be 48 on September 11, a tragic date when close to 3,000 innocent people were killed. Close to half a century of life on this problematic planet, lately I have been doing a lot of self inquiry, introspection, and reflection because some people say 50 is a person's middle age.

So I have retired from journalism although some of my blogposts may take that form. I have effectively exiled myself to my blog and Instagram and don't regret rejecting offers from 7 newspapers over the past 10 years, the last rejection been just 3 days ago.

My friends support my stand saying that I have contributed enough to Maldives’ journalism, overworking myself to the extent of burning out. Therefore, they feel that I desire this early retirement from journalism and explore other areas of work and recreation that I haven’t explored yet as my old age may catch up before I can engage in new areas of life.

So I don't regret abandoning my journalism career even if my first degree was from that field. I am happy I am now freelancing and therefore can dictate the terms of my writing and deadlines according to the mental pressure I can cope with.

Don't know what's happening to me but recently I have been feeling very withdrawn, introverted, and detached from reality whether it's other humans or the environment that I am in.

I now spend more time reading books, both fiction and non-fiction, and absorbing information from the Internet after a 10 year hiatus from learning, self-education, and self-enlightenment.

I am now updating myself with a lot of information I have been ignoring for some reason after I "graduated" from higher secondary school.

So it's been a while after I last "studied" Government and Political Science, and World History, from London University and have not bothered to update my knowledge in current affairs of contemporary politics. This is another reason why I can't work in newspapers anymore even though I may occasionally blog about international politics. I have decided not to write about Maldives' politics in any way whatsoever.

Sometimes I do wonder whether I should "waste" time on learning about, say, world politics like the Ukraine war.

I did read upon the recent developments in US politics ever since Donald Trump embarked on his presidential campaign because I was dumbfounded how people, especially the so-called liberated and progressive Americans, can support such an evil personality like him. But then again, even a majority of Germans at one time did support Adolf Hitler too.

Digging into US politics, I found all the "ideologies" too messed up, sophisticated, complex, or complicated, resulting in me unable to make any sense of it. Yes, there is little difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and their character comparison to Pepsi Cola and Coca-Cola are not too off the mark.

And where my learning process was concerned, something I recently realized was I can't understand high brow literature such as Tolstoy's works even though critics say those were excellent English translations.

I wondered whether my problem is it's because English is not my mother tongue. But then again I thought there must be a reason why even Sri Lankan and Indian authors have won the Booker prize although English is not their mother tongue.

I am also now concentrating on absorbing information about subjects like Science, Technology, Health, Food, Nature, etc.

Understanding science is really tough when scientists, for instance, say that "atom" is just a word to refer to something they don't know and can't explain. Hence, it's not a surprise that Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" went way over my head.

But I have decided to watch all the 6 seasons of “Black Mirror” on the recommendation of a British girl friend who says that the series is “my science” and that it will definitely blow my mind away.

And most recently, I noticed that when it comes to blogging about the things in my mind (whether it's philosophical or not), I find that I have only half-formed ideas which doesn't progress to an extent that I can blog about them.

But some friends say that not every idea needs to have any conclusive ends and therefore I should write about those ideas and leave them with open endings for people to draw their own conclusions.