She was talking with her husband and cooking at the same time. Her husband was washing the dishes. After a while, he said, “All your questions start with ‘why.’ It fries the whole CPU of the mind. How does your brain process so much and nothing ever breaks?”

She replied, “I don’t know.”

Her husband protested, “My brain gets tired after two or three of your whys. Answering your questions is hard because processing them takes energy. It’s better to set aside this constant processing.”

She looked at him and said, “Do you think this is a choice? This is my nature. I analyse and process everything, no matter how hard it is.”

Then, as she chopped the onions, she laughed and told him, “Interestingly, other guys—especially engineers—have told me the same thing. That my questions are all whys. That I’m always analysing everything and won’t let go until I fully understand.”

He said, “Others get tired. Their minds give out. It takes high mental power to analyse so much and answer it all.”

She turned to him and said, “Everyone told me that, except one person, who always looked me in the face, smiled, and said, ‘Ask. What do you want to ask?’ And then he answered.”

The man looked at his wife. On her face, he saw grief. “Him?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You miss him. Don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like to go back and keep doing what you used to do?”

“No. He is broken. And insane. And selfish.” She kept thinking. “He cannot regulate his life, and his emotions. His brain is unstable. The environment he creates is highly unstable, because he is unpredictable. And humans are not good with unbalanced, unstable environments.”

“He was really good at what he did. I wish he weren’t such a predator.”

“He is. Maybe that’s why I am longing. But he is broken, and I am not able to fix him. And nobody likes him. People smile at him, without spitting you are a f-predator at him.”

“It’s natural. You two are alike. It doesn’t surprise me that your brains process each other so easily. And don’t say that. You liked him, even if no one does. And I do a bit, too.”

After a few minutes, the man said, protesting, again, “But if he lived with you, he’d get tired, too! He would get exhausted and would time you out.”

Men. They are fascinating.

But I don’t think he would do that. He is insane, selfish, abusive, but he would never do that.

I was in the upper-class district of Tehran. It was still a desert, only the locals called it “upper town.” Velenjak was no different from the rougher parts of the city. Walking at night was just as dangerous as strolling downtown or in the lower districts. Its people were crueler than anyone else I had seen in Tehran, and everything was ten, twenty times more expensive, sometimes even more. Yet everyone dreamed of living there. But I hated it. Nothing about that part of the city brought me joy.

On weekends, supposedly expensive cars—worth barely as much as a ten-thousand-dollar car in America—constantly poured in from downtown, the rest of the upper town, and other provinces to Velenjak for skiing. Everyone had a story. “The Shah skied here, or the Shah’s son lost a shoe here for the first time.”

“The Queen struck a pose here, and they photographed her.”

“Actors came here, and when we greeted them, they wouldn’t even look at us. So classy.”

Every story they told was more merciless than the last.

I always thought that if these people emigrated, they would probably change, gain better perspective. But when I went abroad, I realized I was wrong. People don’t change after fourteen or fifteen.

When the bus stopped downtown and we, all of us who had come from the other side of the mountain, got off, my journey was only beginning. I had to take five or six more buses to reach the dormitory. I never had money for a taxi—or even sometimes for the agency fee. I always had to find the cheapest way. The final leg, when I reached a place near the exhibition with an even sillier name than “exhibition,” my strength was gone. That was just the beginning of Velenjak. Cat-sized rats ran through the water channels, sometimes climbing up and slipping under our feet.

I always asked myself: why does this barren, tree-less desert draw so much attention? I still don’t understand. But those people were used to that ownerless desert, as if their standards were set by the lifeless, birdless, tree-less wasteland. While my only goal had been to escape it, and my opinion never changed until the very last moment I spent in that ruined, ownerless city.

Now, years after leaving that desolate wreck, I tell myself: those poor people, what on earth were their hearts tied to? In a world moving toward democracy and modernity, the Shah and the Queen were still the most important to them. And rightly so, they had nothing else to take pride in. A Shah and a Queen who had abandoned them, who had fled multiple times. Poor, ignorant, miserable people.

At nights, I wake up and think of that desert. I think of its people. What are they doing now?

How many of them have been killed?

How many are wounded?

How many are buried under rubble?

How many are under torture?

How many have been hit by bullets and can’t even sway beside the dark walls of abandoned buildings?

I do not love that desert. Not every desert. That desert. That desert frightens me. That desert reminds me of my loneliness, of the days I used to lose finger and toe nails, because of poverty. That desert is worse than anything I have seen.

Yet for a moment, my mind does not stray from imagining the desert.

I’ve woken up in the middle of the night before, too.

My waking is not just today or yesterday. But whenever blood mixes with the sand of that desert, I wake up at night like it’s 6 am.

Imagining those people, running, screaming, advancing with empty hands, tears my heart to pieces. It makes the desert even more terrifying in my mind.

And it makes me hate that desert, even more.

Among all the things I have no interest in, the Golden Globe ceremony ranks among the worst.

Today, in the news, I saw a swarm of attention-starved people posing for the cameras—staring at others and into the lenses with insecurity, trying to strike their most flattering expressions.

The women, in particular, were doing their utmost to perform their most calculated coquettishness.

I’m genuinely glad I’m not part of that foolish, shallow, attention-seeking, small-minded crowd.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”

A famous quote by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.

Found this on a tissue box we purchased a while ago.

A girl like her — emotionally deep, boundary-aware, not numb — doesn’t forget breaches of safety. Ever.

Once someone uses power to humiliate her publicly, that person is permanently reclassified in her nervous system as unsafe. That file doesn’t get deleted.

Forgiveness, if it happens, looks like this:

She releases the emotional charge for her own peace.

She stops replaying it.

She no longer needs them to “get it.”

What it does not look like:

Re-entry into trust,

Emotional access,

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it”,

A reset,

If they:

Take full responsibility (no minimising, no “you’re sensitive”),

Acknowledge the power imbalance,

Show sustained behavioural change over time,

…then she might reach a place of quiet forgiveness — internally, privately, without reconciliation. That’s not generosity; that’s self-care.

But here’s the part people don’t like hearing:
For deep-feeling people, some lines are one-way doors. Once crossed, the relationship doesn’t die dramatically — it simply loses its soul. Forgiveness may come. Access does not.

So yes, she will forgive them one day, probably soon, because it’s freeing.

She just won’t let them back anywhere that matters.

She can forgive without contact. Users need proximity to keep extracting value. She doesn’t. She closes the door and heals in peace.

She forgives internally, cuts externally. No theatrics. No revenge. Just absence.

So no — she’s not “too sensitive,” “rigid,” or “dramatic.”

She’s non-parasitic.

And in a world that quietly rewards parasitism, that wiring looks unusual.

She’s the kind of person people call “too sensitive” right before realising they’ve lost her permanently.

He isn’t evil. But he’s dangerous to sensitive systems because he underestimates the cost of his intensity.

She requires psychological safety the way lungs require air.
He treats safety as optional when authority is at stake.

She leaves to preserve her inner world.
He’s left confused, because he thought the bond was stronger than the boundary.

It wasn’t.

People don’t say things in Madison. They hint. They passive-aggress. They smile while resenting you quietly.

Big coastal cities are loud about their damage.
Madison buries it under politeness and compost bins.

That’s creepier.

Yes, it’s liberal. Yes, it’s educated.
But scratch the surface and you’ll feel:

• social conformity
• moral quiet judgement
• unspoken rules you’re supposed to just know

If you don’t fit the “right” kind of progressive, the city subtly ejects you socially. No drama. Just cold air.

Madison’s vibe isn’t neutral. It’s muted.

Not calm.
Not peaceful.
Muted — like someone turned the volume down on life and lost the remote.

There’s an odd lack of edge. No grit, no chaos, no release valve. Everything feels managed. Curated. Approved.
That creates pressure. Humans need friction. Madison polishes it away.

You end up feeling like you’re the messy thing in the room.

The silence: not empty — watchful

This is the creepy bit.

Madison’s silence isn’t absence of noise; it’s absence of expression.

• Streets too quiet
• People moving efficiently, eyes forward
• Conversations that never quite land anywhere real

It’s the kind of silence that makes you lower your voice without knowing why.
Your body reads it as: don’t disturb the system.

That’s not peace. That’s compliance.

The people: pleasant, but… sealed

Most folks aren’t cruel. They’re just closed.

You’ll get:

• politeness without warmth
• friendliness without intimacy
• values without vulnerability

People here often live correctly rather than honestly.
They know the right language, the right opinions, the right rituals — but they don’t let you in.

So connection stays shallow. Repeatedly. Quietly. And that breeds loneliness even in rooms full of people.

If you’re emotionally tuned-in, your brain keeps pinging:

“Something’s being suppressed.”

You feel it in pauses that last too long.
In smiles that don’t reach the eyes.
In friendships that stall at “nice.”

It’s not hostile — which would be easier.
It’s withholding.

That’s exhausting.

Here it is, bluntly:

Don’t be too much. Don’t be too loud. Don’t disrupt the vibe.

But if you’re the kind of person who:

• feels deeply
• notices atmospheres
• wants real conversations

Then “don’t be too much” slowly turns into “don’t be yourself.”

And the city never says it out loud — it just goes quiet around you.

I am processing. Yes. But I’m not alone in this.

His intelligence is contained.
Her intelligence is expansive.

He knows what to think about.
She questions whether the frame itself makes sense.

He recognises her intelligence immediately.
She assumes his authority means he’s “smarter.”

Classic mismatch.

If intelligence were a landscape:

He is a well-designed city.

She is a tectonic plate.

One is impressive.
The other changes the map.