A Pocket Full of Fireflies

Some memories don’t serve a purpose. They don’t move your story forward or lead you anywhere. And yet, they stay. In this episode, I talk about a dream in Scotland, an imagined life in Italy, and the quiet, strange things I return to when life feels heavy. They don’t fix anything, but they make it a little easier to breathe. And sometimes, that is enough to keep you going, to show up again, to do the things life asks of you.

We live in a world that wants everything to mean something, to become something, to lead somewhere. But not everything needs a goal. I call these small, personal moments fireflies. They exist just for you. This episode is about holding on to them and honouring them. Because sometimes, the smallest lights are what help you do the biggest things.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the fourth episode of Fireflies. This episode is special because this was supposed to be the first episode of this podcast, and um this was the first episode that I had written, but somehow I I never got a chance to release it. To give you an introduction about this episode, I'll just give you one line that not every light in your life needs to be a lighthouse. Some just need to glow like a firefly. So, yes, like all the underprepared kids around the world, I tried to pull an all-nighter. I spent the entire night praying to the chemical demons, dancing in my school books, trying to appease them in some way to follow me in the examination hall. Sadly, and as expected, around 5 in the morning I dozed off. And then I saw one of the most lucid dreams of my life. In the dream, I was sitting at the bottom of a small staircase in an old castle. It looked straight out of Harry Potter, like the ones you see on National Geographic specials about castles in Europe. It was that place. In the dream, it was still me, and I knew in my heart that I was in Scotland. The feeling was soft and warm. It had just rained, so there was this slight wetness in the air. I could feel the rain on my skin. That place had no roof, and there were a few broken pillars in front of me and an arch down the road. Everything was dark grey, the sky was dark grey, but everything had that soft shine that rain brings. It was beautiful, and I was alone and I was at peace. I remember sitting on the steps, staring at the green grass growing between the stones beneath my feet. The grass, fresh, green, heavy with raindrops, looked happy and was dancing softly in the breeze. I remember smiling at the beauty of the contrast of the coolness of the grey stones and the vibrance of the green grass. Then a hand appeared from my right side and softly covered my hand. Our fingers entwined, and I could feel someone's presence behind me, as if someone was sitting right behind me. And I just leaned back. And the dream ended. I think this dream is one of the reasons I want to travel to Scotland at least once in my life. And maybe also why I love the combination of the grey and green so much. It was such a profound and emotional and soft moment of that. That memory is so pure for me. This dream is so important to me that if I ever tell my story, it would definitely make the director's cut. Though it doesn't serve any narrative purpose in my life story. Still, it's profoundly important to me. It's been decades since I've seen this dream, but I still. that moment is so important to me in the entire you know entire narrative of my life. Maybe because I have revisited this memory whenever life felt heavy. And it has lit my path on the darkest of nights, like a firefly glowing next to me. Not a lighthouse, not a star far away, but a small silly glowing being offering some of its light to me. You know, like a firefly glowing next to me. At least I can tell you the origin story of the Scotland of the Scotland firefly in my life. But I don't remember when and how I picked up my Italian dream. I went through a tough phase emotionally, like almost everyone does. You know when life happens to you, when things fall apart for no rhyme or reason, when life shows you the mirror and then pushes you in a dark cave. You walk alone with the memory of your old self and you keep walking and walking and walking, hoping to find the end of the cave, some light, some joy. All the while you're holding on to the memory of yourself, you know, the last visual of yourself, and you're just walking. Your journey becomes one challenge after another, and you just don't want to be yourself anymore. These fireflies walk the journey with you. These small happy memories, they just walk with you. So I don't remember where I picked this one up, but I'm sure it was during the lowest years of my life. So whenever I'm feeling dark internally, and I still do it, uh, you know, those emotional low points I'm sure you everyone knows about. I do this one thing. I get onto my computer and I go to websites that sell old homes in the villages of Italy. The ones that you can buy, rebuild, and live in. I completely immerse myself in the process. Like I'm moving there next month. I look at the pictures of the houses, the rooms, the balcony, the roof, the floors. I look at the view from the house, the cobbled street, the uphill roads. I just imagine myself living there. I shortlist the homes I like, calculate the costs of buying the place, of the cost of renovating it, then watch YouTube videos of people who have actually done this in real life. I give I go all the way down the rabbit hole. And somehow it makes me feel so much better. It heals something so primal in me that I cannot make any sense of it. On the other side, I know it this is just a dream, not even a goal, a vague fantasy, it's pointless. And the time I spend in engaging this ritual could be spent in doing something productive, but the thought of buying a place that has felt the winds of time in its bones and walking those pebbled paths just make me happy. And that is another of my firefly. Again, an integral part of my life story, again, no narrative purpose. These dreams, fantasies, hopes, or whatever you want to call them, serve no purpose in my life story except that they keep me sane enough to take on the world for one more day. And I guess that's the point. Staying sane for one more day. We live in our heads and it gets heavy every once in a while. We go through heartbreaks, failures, accidents, depression. Sometimes our health gives up on us, and sometimes people do. For days like that, we need rituals, like me planning to buy a home in Italy, or a memory like the Scotland dream, that carries no pressure of a goal, no purpose in your story, no definition, no reason to exist, except to remind you of what peace and joy looks like. They're deeply personal, they're thoroughly yours, they're selfish and they only serve you. I think of them as fireflies that swarm around me when I take the take on the journey of life. I know they are around me, and when the sun sets and there are no fires of love or companionship, I will still have my fireflies, and there will always be light around. These days I want an elephant, a baby elephant. No, not a soft toy, a real one. A grey one with angry strands of hair on its head and a trunk completely out of its control. And I and to clarify, I do not have the resources, the law in my favor, or the political or religious cloud to get one in this lifetime. It is an impossible dream. Still, the thought of having an easy access to a baby elephant fills me with such genuine joy that it can brighten my mood instantly. Like instantly. Baby elephants, and I'm happy. Write about them, record them. You know, open the notes tab, the notes app in your mobile or uh in your phone and or maybe create a notebook and just write it down. Make a record of it. We live in a world that asks every thought, every plan, every wish to justify itself. We've become obsessed, attention-addicted zombies who have stopped noticing things that carry no tangible value. Not every memory or dream has to push you forward or pull you towards something. Some are meant to simply exist. Like a wildflower, not planted for a reason, not waiting to be picked, just quietly adding beauty to the day. Your fireflies don't owe anyone an explanation. Their value is in the light they give you, not in the destination they take you to. And honestly, your firefly could be anything. A food you loved as a child that transports you back to the warmth of your childhood. Remember Ratatouille? It could be an episode from your favorite sitcom, a coffee mug with googly eyes on it, or your comfort watch movie. It could be a song that instantly puts you in a good mood, the smell of cupcakes from a bakery on the way to school, or planning a holiday to the Himalayas. Anything. The only thing that matters is that it warms your heart. We all have them. What I'm asking, what I'm saying, is just record them, indulge in those, indulge in those memories and those fantasies, honor them and keep looking for more. I call them five flies, but in reality, they are an emotional reserve of joy that our nervous system recognizes and feels safe with. Trust me, knowing that you can tap into a ready source of joy can help you regulate your emotions. It's a tool that makes you feel safe. And when you feel safe, you allow yourself to let your guard down, to be emotionally present and take risks. In life, once we experience darkness, it's natural to spend our lives fearing it. We carry the essence and shadow of those tough days even into our good ones. But to know that you carry a bottle of fireflies in your heart, a source of light who will light your way no matter what, is so empowering. So I hope once you finish listening to this episode, you take up pen and paper, you know, open a new note on your phone and make a list of your fireflies. Keep adding to it. Just remember one thing: it should be something that makes you happy. But it's not necessarily tied to a goal you want to achieve. It is not your vision board, it's not a goal that you're chasing. It is silly things that make you happy without any reason. The goal here is simply joy. That's all for this episode. I'll be back with something that makes life a little easier, a little better. Something that makes you think. Thank you for listening.