Writing, Among Other Things
It has been about a month since I wrote anything on the blog. This is in sharp contrast to my goal, which is to post at least one post on the blog every week.
I know I am not alone.
There are numerous bloggers out there who, like me, set goals for themselves but soon find that they are not able to meet the stiff targets they had set up.
Why does that happen?
When I was a child, the thing I wanted to buy most was a typewriter. I used to write poems (or at least what I thought were poems) and short stories on paper, and wondered when I would be able to type them out on a typewriter. The typewriter, to me, was that one thing that would complete my life. Of course, I had no idea about soulmates back then.
It was by mere chance that one day I got a chance to use a typewriter in my father’s office. Typing my first poem on that machine was one of the happiest moments of my life. But, I never bought a typewriter of my own, because by the time I had enough money to buy a typewriter, no one was buying one.
The typewriter had been replaced by the computer.
Yesterday, a friend said a strange thing to me. He said that he had read many of my blog posts, and some of my short stories, but – before I could thank him – he added that he felt most of them were quite simple, as they were based on events and incidents that happened in my daily life.
My first reaction, naturally, was one of indignation. I felt that my friend was accusing me of lacking imagination and creativity. But, at the time, I decided to mull over the whole thing before reacting to what he said.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that he was right. My ideas did originate in the events that were happening all around me. All I did was take these little, ordinary, incidents and weave a web of words around them.
But, isn’t that exactly what writing and creativity is all about?
One of my New Year resolutions was to write something everyday. This shouldn’t be hard, I told myself. After all, writing is something I love to do. Yet, it hasn’t turned out to be all that easy either.
Why is it difficult to do something that we love, everyday?
The answer, I think, lies in this one word: Distractions. There is always something, or the other, that keeps us from doing what we want.
Our world today continues to have 24 hours in a day, but the number of things – useful as well as not so useful – we can do in these 24 hours has increased exponentially. Some of these things can be avoided easily, but some others seem absolutely necessary for our survival.
There were a lot of things that I had planned to do in 2011, but most of them never happened. There was too much to do and it seemed that there was simply not enough time. I guess there never is enough time in our lives to do all the things that we want to do.
But, the funny thing is that when I look back at 2011, I can’t help but wonder: Did I do the best in the time that was available to me?
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