"Trust me, it only gets better from here...", said he as I declared the onset of twenty two. You wouldn't believe, I've re-read my own writing over and over so many times only to wonder why I started writing in a particular way and why I stopped. I usually look for answers in circumstances but in this case I haven't found one. On the other hand, since the last post I've grown quite a bit. I've grown almost supernaturally in self consciousness.
It's how you are peeing one day and realize there's something so different about your nose and that day onward your nose has never gone out of sight. It's right there between your eyes. Or, like a really late late funny feeling one gets while uttering a word that one has spoken forever. Try saying 'schedule' almost twenty times with consistent pronunciation and not feeling embarrassed even once. (You can either say it the American way or shee-dewl it. Eww.) Another, I really don't know how - you know when people start discovering the books or music that you used to love a few years ago? You know you've made that journey but they won't listen to you. Everyone has to make their own journey I guess. Similar with Murakami. (I hope you who made your journey before me, are reading this one.) From Kafka to Sputnik to Dance... I had dismissed him so wildly until I read the running book. Note to self - never write something/someone off completely.
In fact, similar is with oneself. I still remember miserably sitting through a lot of drawing exams desperately wanting to make something good on paper. It just didn't happen. There were some who used to draw brilliantly back then. But age is not a bad thing. Suddenly, over the past few years of growing I feel so much more capable of facing the world. I can draw with definite control over the lines now. You must try it, really. Revisit things you couldn't do well as a child and do them well now. That will make for a much bolder future. That way one sheds baggage. I've been doing similar with singing, running (thanks to Murakami, btw books *do* inspire, you have to have faith), drawing, clicking pictures and telling time (I am almost there on this count). A few years later I hope to be more confident about cooking, shooting in video and writing, perhaps.
I do get angry these days too, I've had fits of nothingness in the recent past. All due to the new experience of getting a full time job. Maybe I don't digest new experiences without absolute resistance. I've also discovered the word that describes me best in such situations - awkward. Lesson? Endure it, like really, hear each drop of nothingness, stillness, resistance, failure and confusion fill you and flow through you. As father says, "Nothing is too big. Ever." Sure, as I often say, these experiences take bits of us away, like Horcruxes that will never return (especially the breakups) but is there a better way? I don't know. Right now I just feel ready to take in more. Defense points - 100.
There is so much more I can go on writing here. The last would be language and visuality (note to self: always end notes on joyous realizations, academics affords plenty such!) It's good to be studying visuality in times when all you say (metaphors, similes, analogies, even forms like poetry or prose or travelogues) is basically just word pictures. Can we say anything without drawing a picture of it? I know it's corny but we've been instagramming in words ever since! Such is the power of optics in language. Twenty two has begun.
[Note: I have obviously omitted my profound thoughts on marriages, relative happiness, the dilemma of being eaten away by ambition and the thickening of one's fat + skin as one ages and a strong urge to have children. You've heard enough of that if you've met me recently]
(Photo: 'Fleeting joys' by me, featuring the apples of my eye aka Coolest Cousins)
