How is it that when it comes
to writing, I sit brimming with words and yet empty? How is it possible that
when I have a new idea that I want to jot down, I am bouncing off my chair in
enthusiasm, yet holding my pencil over the paper in sheer apathy? Why is it
that when I have finally written something, I feel victorious yet lost? Why is
writing, when I think about it, so pleasurable yet so intimidating and
uninviting? Why am I afraid of failure, even though I have not even tried? Why
am I scared of what the reader will think when he is not seeing it from my point
of view? Why is it irritating, nevertheless pleasing when someone comments on
my work? Why is it good yet bad when someone asks me to edit it? Why may I ask,
when writing should be easy, it becomes arduous?
You know how they say it
right, that anyone can write but not everyone can be a writer. So this
questions my grounds, and shakes me, making me all obscured and conscious- am I
just writing because I have time to, or am I a writer? You see, every person
goes through this initial phase of anxiety and insecurities, of feeling lost
and bubbling with questions. There is this point in time where we are so bundled
up, so astray that that we are nowhere
to be found, that our work is as devastated and vulnerable as our emotions. And
it is not just a writer, but everyone that has an imaginative psyche, for example,
a painter, or a lyricist or a composer, or maybe an inventor gazing at the
sheets of his research work. The field where mind has to create something out of its fascination, where you are
daring to make that dream come true
through your project, is the line of work where you have to struggle and fight
with yourself. I personally have a strong belief that more than people outside
who criticize me, it’s my own inner sentiments that put a leash around my neck.
For example this novel (The Third World: CONSPIRACY) that I have been writing
from the time I was in 10th grade, is still a draft of incomplete
five chapters and is locked untouched in the files of my laptop, and I always
find an excuse to dump it rather than working on it. When you are lost in the labyrinth
of your own uncertainties, which is the biggest block on your augmentation, you
need to come out of it as early as possible. Feeling lost is nothing alien, but
not finding your way back is almost lethal.
Sylvia Plath, a famous
American poet said, “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” So well,
here it is- question and answer, lost and found. Self doubt is as torturous as
standing on a Lego and unable to step down. When something you love should be
so personal and precious to you, why does it become a suffering, a frustrating and
painful cause? It happens with me, when I would just look at the rough drafts
of my articles or story and I feel that it should be erased, both from the computer
logs and my mind. However, it is equally painful and I just cannot bring myself
to click ‘yes’ when the screen prompts the permission to delete it, and somehow
I also believe that this is how it is with every person who makes an effort to
give their piece of mind. I can imagine people loathing and whining and trying
to fix this, because it is almost a nightmare to not let out that thing you so lovingly carry with you. It
just keeps on building inside you, even though you are constantly trying to
brush it off, until it is heartrending and you cannot carry it any further. That
is the time in your life that you are in crisis that letting it go or letting it
out would mean either death or salvation to you. So what do you chose now, now
that you know?
You see, you will always be
lost in the thing you love. You will find yourself there too.
-a
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