When I was a kid, we moved to a new house. I used to do this thing where every evening, I would drag a chair, put it against the main door and look through the peep-hole. Outside, in the corridor, there would be other kids from the apartment playing. They would shout and I could hear them through the door and I watched them through the peephole. I never went out. I wanted to play with them! My parents kept telling me to just go and play, they offered to go with me and introduce me to them but I never went out. I wanted to observe, you see. I wanted to know what all their names were and what games they were playing and what each of their timings were. I wanted to make sure that when I do go out, I don’t embarrass myself by saying something stupid. As stalker-ish as that sounds, I have always been someone looking for knowledge because knowledge would mean control. And control in turn, meant that I would be good at it.
When I started this project of blogging last year, I told myself I had a lot of things to say and that I wanted to say them - of my own accord, in my own time. But once I wrote a couple of pieces, I became that little kid standing at the door and looking through the peep-hole again. I stopped writing to learn how to write from people who were already writing. Of course, anyone who has ever tried to learn to write knows that there is no end to it - is there? So weeks became months and the new year came and I had not written a word again. All those things I wanted to say suddenly felt not so important and anything I tried to write felt not good enough.
Only yesterday, did I go back to the website I created and looked at what I wrote about the blog itself! Of how all I wanted to do was suck at it and of course I laughed at myself. If all I had to do was suck at it, why am I so worried about writing?
The answer was right there, frankly: I have always been told that if I cannot do something perfectly, I should not even try to do it.
I have been told this by teachers and professors and bosses and sometimes even friends and parents. I don't blame them, they intended well. They grew up in a competitive capitalist world, after all, where only the best survived and those of us who were not so good were well, nobody knows, do they? We do not know about the average people, the ones who try because they want to and fail because they can't do it well. Maybe we hear about them after they finally succeed at something but never when they are still average. But h
ere I am, an average person by all counts of the word, with no one to look to, no reassurance, and very little self confidence that I can actually write anything.
The truth is, I should have gone out on day one to play with those other kids because, because on day 34 (I am guessing), when I did go out, I was not perfect, not even decent. I did not know any of their names, or the games they were playing. I ended up going out way too early and had to leave before everyone else. I tripped on a flat surface (that probably is the only thing I am perfect at!), and everyone laughed. But I went out again the next day and I was a little better. I never became best friends with any of the kids, I never won at any of the games, I always hurt myself. And eventually I became too old to go play with kids in the apartment! But it is still something I remember fondly and smile about.
My point is, I should have just kept writing, simply because I want to. Maybe 15 years later, I will smile to myself about a blog I used to write, but I think that that’s worth it. Something that makes me smile now and later, seems like a thing I should be doing.
In a very long, roundabout way, what I am saying is - I AM BACK!
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