Friday, March 14, 2014

The writer's block

As a kid, when I stumbled upon the term writer's block, I didn't know it was my first oxymoron. No wonder, the word left me flummoxed. I couldn't conjure in my growing mind, how a writer could ever have a block. The want and the need to write is what composed the writer. As an avid writer of short stories and attempted poetry, I always fixated upon the oxymoronic nature of the term. Till a few years back as well, I never could get my head around it. But as I get more wrapped up in my duties as an adult, I am beginning to recognize, how the need and the want to write is not always supplied with the material to write.

I have had and definitely think, will always have this great urge to write. But work, studies and the newly started yoga classes are leaving me drained. I don't have the jump in my stride anymore, the energy in my laughter or the imagination in my thoughts. I get bogged down by worries. I don't make leaps of faith. Instead, carefully analyse everything before "jumping in". 

The wise men have said, growing up is the most horrible thing you can do. I'd have to agree with the wise men on this one. It drains you out. Growing up that is. You become mechanical. You worry about the future. You stop enjoying the present. You party, not to enjoy, but to get drunk and be dead without the commitment. You stop planning a spontaneous trip with your friends because you can't run away from commitments. You definitely stop binge eating because of all the "oh my god! you've put on weight!" You stop with lying in the shallow waters of Goan beaches because you haven't been to Goa since you left university. And the worst of all, you stop writing. Because at the end of the day, you think only sleep can replenish the energy the overwhelming world has drained you of. Never once thinking, that writing is the best way to rejuvenate your mind. And you end up suffering from writer's block. Not because you are so deprived of life experiences. But because of your inability to discover experiences from everyday happenings. Because, if you are not working, you are sleeping and if not sleeping, working. Like a humanized robot. Either way, you are missing out on life and experiences.

Writer's block still confuses me. I understand why a writer could have difficulty putting things of paper. For lack of experiences. But, without experiences, a writer is no longer a writer. Without the ability to imagine people and circumstances above and beyond your current settings, through your current setting, you are just an ordinary human. Utterly incapable of transferring another human to a place far away from his current existence. To make him feel things. And to make him want to do things. To break away and escape. 

I was suffering from what people would normally term as a writer's block. But I don't anymore. Because, I have realized, I don't get any greater joy than writing. I get a surge. An adrenaline rush. A feeling of accomplishment so powerful, it gives me strength to do other mundane tasks. And the ability to find my stories in the slightest of experiences. Like today.

xoxo
The Rambler

No comments: