These days I worry about the act of writing, I agonize over the form and the format, I want to learn more about writing, the art, I am no longer caught up in the self sown skins of never reaching out and living with the conviction that whatever of worth is there in me, is there. I don’t have to look for anything around, outside of me. A classic situation of inflated arrogance deflated confidence and minimal practice.
Whenever I read works, great or otherwise, with whom I can relate to, about whose authors and their lives I spend many hours contemplating about, I don’t give the author or their works a chance to live in me beyond that moment. What I mean is, it is easier for me to think that the author wrote the entire book, poem, etc in one sitting not allowing for moments of casual, mundane existence in between. I find it difficult to give the authors a chance at their lives. For me, when I am reading their works, that is all I have, that is all I think about, that is what I live for. I turn off to the entire world and to think that the same author spilled wine on carpet or tried to score with one of the hot chicks at a party is nothing else than repulsive for me. How can they do it? I give so much of myself and all they can go and do is lead a ‘normal’ life?
At least I used to think like that. I sometimes still do but I am beginning to relax and give the author credit beyond the book. In doing so, I have been able to understand the whole process of writing better. Writing is a creative act. It requires intensity, emotional courage, physical perseverance, and just simple consistency. There are writings, poems, prose, and ideas, essays, which can be thought of in the moment and written in that moment. However, with most of the writing, one needs to re-visit. I understand it now. Writing is also an activity, like any other creative practice, which needs patience. And more than that, the ability to go back to one’s work and tear it apart to mend the gaps. I did not have that faculty. If I wrote something, it would always be in an intense moment (if there wasn’t any, I would force the moment to its crisis), and I would never have the courage to go back to it. In doing so, I think I was exposing, by vehemently holding on it, my under-developed self-confidence. I could not believe that I could go and engage with my work, my writings, outside of the emotional peril I had to situate myself in to write. I did not have the confidence to write what I wanted to without being in an intensely emotionally cathartic situation. This sort of explains why I was not ready to give any other author that space as well.
These days I think about writing, I read what other authors have to say about writing, I hear people who have something to say about writing. I am not involving myself with these issues to learn the perfect format, perfect syntax, perfect tense to write the perfect book but there is an intense desire to understand the process of writing as it is stands for others. In reading, listening to these accounts, it brings about a more humane view of writing. I always used to think writing is something which should take you away from the world but now I am convinced that my vision was very narrow, writing should take you closer to the world, the world you live in, the world you imagine, the world you love.
Emerging from all these is the realization that it is not anti-creative to be calm, comfortable and relaxed. Before this year, I was unable to write if I was not pulling out my emotions from the depths of depression or melancholia. If I was comfortable and relaxed, I just wouldn’t be able to write. I felt empty and drained. I felt as I my entire existence was defined by the fluctuating modes of depression, agony, anxiety, melancholy, and loss. In doing so, I carefully cut down the borders of my own world. I could not see, feel the beauty within and that made it impossible for me to embrace it outside of me. In the three decades of my existence, I realize now, I have harbored only pain. I allowed only pain to reside in me. Love, I showed it the other way.
Now, I have embraced it.
I am allowing for the beauty in me to blossom, I am allowing myself to love with a conviction that I am safe, I am allowing myself to let the beauty around me undress me.
And in return, the myself in me is allowing me to write, think, live, without any prejudices and pretensions.
Whenever I read works, great or otherwise, with whom I can relate to, about whose authors and their lives I spend many hours contemplating about, I don’t give the author or their works a chance to live in me beyond that moment. What I mean is, it is easier for me to think that the author wrote the entire book, poem, etc in one sitting not allowing for moments of casual, mundane existence in between. I find it difficult to give the authors a chance at their lives. For me, when I am reading their works, that is all I have, that is all I think about, that is what I live for. I turn off to the entire world and to think that the same author spilled wine on carpet or tried to score with one of the hot chicks at a party is nothing else than repulsive for me. How can they do it? I give so much of myself and all they can go and do is lead a ‘normal’ life?
At least I used to think like that. I sometimes still do but I am beginning to relax and give the author credit beyond the book. In doing so, I have been able to understand the whole process of writing better. Writing is a creative act. It requires intensity, emotional courage, physical perseverance, and just simple consistency. There are writings, poems, prose, and ideas, essays, which can be thought of in the moment and written in that moment. However, with most of the writing, one needs to re-visit. I understand it now. Writing is also an activity, like any other creative practice, which needs patience. And more than that, the ability to go back to one’s work and tear it apart to mend the gaps. I did not have that faculty. If I wrote something, it would always be in an intense moment (if there wasn’t any, I would force the moment to its crisis), and I would never have the courage to go back to it. In doing so, I think I was exposing, by vehemently holding on it, my under-developed self-confidence. I could not believe that I could go and engage with my work, my writings, outside of the emotional peril I had to situate myself in to write. I did not have the confidence to write what I wanted to without being in an intensely emotionally cathartic situation. This sort of explains why I was not ready to give any other author that space as well.
These days I think about writing, I read what other authors have to say about writing, I hear people who have something to say about writing. I am not involving myself with these issues to learn the perfect format, perfect syntax, perfect tense to write the perfect book but there is an intense desire to understand the process of writing as it is stands for others. In reading, listening to these accounts, it brings about a more humane view of writing. I always used to think writing is something which should take you away from the world but now I am convinced that my vision was very narrow, writing should take you closer to the world, the world you live in, the world you imagine, the world you love.
Emerging from all these is the realization that it is not anti-creative to be calm, comfortable and relaxed. Before this year, I was unable to write if I was not pulling out my emotions from the depths of depression or melancholia. If I was comfortable and relaxed, I just wouldn’t be able to write. I felt empty and drained. I felt as I my entire existence was defined by the fluctuating modes of depression, agony, anxiety, melancholy, and loss. In doing so, I carefully cut down the borders of my own world. I could not see, feel the beauty within and that made it impossible for me to embrace it outside of me. In the three decades of my existence, I realize now, I have harbored only pain. I allowed only pain to reside in me. Love, I showed it the other way.
Now, I have embraced it.
I am allowing for the beauty in me to blossom, I am allowing myself to love with a conviction that I am safe, I am allowing myself to let the beauty around me undress me.
And in return, the myself in me is allowing me to write, think, live, without any prejudices and pretensions.
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