I am currently thinking about how I will evolve and where. It’s become obvious to me I need to move on (both for my own growth and because I cannot stand the routine, have gone way above my limit of round-trips to this business park I both hate and love.)
It’s frustrating that I know no details of this impending change: no how, where or when — and the only answer I have as to “why” sounds feeble even to the kindest ears:
“I am tired.”
“But why, you’ve got everything over where you are. You’ve got bosses who always say please and thank you, who give you books and buy you croissants and respond in kind to all the jokes you make. Besides, you don’t even hate your job. You wanted to be a writer.”
I know. I know. I know that I have it good, that it could be much worse. I know I could be job-hunting for months, like my friend is, or hating my crappy job like my sister does. And in the grand scheme of things, I have very little to complain about and so much to be grateful for, starting with the fact that I have a home, food and even a job.
Yet I cannot silence this qualm I have, this feeling; a far-reaching boredom, an exasperation with the smallness of it all, the lack of zing and pizzazz and excitement.
Everyday is predictable, following the same script from the day before, like an endless rerun of the same old sitcom. I feel like a goldfish sometimes, circling a bowl, forgetting every 5 seconds —in my case every weekend— what the week was like so that I can endure the upcoming week better.
I hate that I don’t love it anymore. Not when less than a year ago it gave me so much joy.
And the worst part is I shouldn’t even be posting this here. I want to be a writer, but I don’t even know what to write and for whom. All I know is some part of me insists on being a writer and I am helpless to it. It insists even after all the criticism I put my writing through, staying alive as nothing else ever has.
And I want to listen to this persistence more than I need to. I have to see where it takes me. I have to try even though I do not know the littlest thing about it: what it wants to write, how it wants to write or even why.
All I have to go on is one stubborn sentence from this unhinged desire. You see, this desire/persistence/annoyance/passion throws tantrums like a petulant child, one who will not see rhyme or reason and who answers every legitimate question with:
“I want to be a writer!”
and a huff and a pout and an attitude that says “We do not negotiate with people who do not want to write.”
As exasperated as I am with this, I also know that it is a sign. If I cannot be ‘happy’ in a work environment that gives me everything I need, then maybe it’s not meant for me. Or maybe it was but now I’ve outgrown it and I have overstayed, simply.
I want to be a writer.
It doesn’t mean that I am ungrateful for what I have. I am, endlessly. But this shouldn’t stop me from reaching for other things. Other riskier ventures, where people will not be as kind and life not as easy.
I want to be a writer.
Six words and here I am: ready against all reason to be pulled apart by this feeling, to follow this utterly ridiculous demand to the ends of the earth.
Note: Yes, my boss buys us all croissants from this lovely French bakery whenever he drops by. And gave me books he no longer had space for. And is generally a really cool human being along with my other boss.
Young Adult, Old Soul 
I can totally understand your discontentment and an incessant demand for more from your life as I was once in similar shoes, or maybe I continue to be in them. Every single day, it’s the same fight of whether to dwell on this island or take a plunge on to another.
At some point of life, you just want to be in a situation where you wouldn’t be dealing with every small thing, every little problem and you would have enough to be in a position that can be called stable or well settled. But when you reach it, you enjoy that platform for a while but then this voice in the back of your head grows louder and louder. ‘Don’t stay! move on. Look for a more’ – like it’s for you to be a better writer and it’s for me to be a better engineer.
Now, I have come to look at it as it is righteously so. For once, you get to decide where you want to be – is it the highest pedestal you see yourself on or are there more steps to climb? And believe me, Ilah, if anything I have learned from my own experience, it is better to strive for more, work equally harder and take that leap when required than continue to be stuck in that enervating loop. I sincerely wish you all the best in whatever decision you make. Remember, youth is a battle without a guide, so you gotta write your own rules.
And trust me when I say this – I was just about to message you. Yes, I don’t why but I felt like telling you something today after so long and I opened my mail just for that and there was the notification for your post at the top. Anyway, I read something which struck me something to be aligning with your posts on ennui & slow living, so I’m sharing that with you – http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190708-indias-all-is-well-approach-to-life
Have a great week ahead! 🙂
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Thank you for sharing, Chandan 😊. I sent you a little email to make the reply a bit more legible lol
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I feel all the gravity of your words: discontentment, a feeling of nothingness, or perhaps of emptiness and ephemerality that now pervade the very things you cherish and are grateful for.
You truly are a talented writer, and this gift will need all of your willpower to avoid becoming, with time, merely a tool of self-complacency that leads to a type of hollowed-out writing – one that, as a writer I admire said, is done for the sake of “cooking words” -, and not one that truly tells, narrates, describes, bellows, chronicles, propounds, decries… even when all hope but in the act of creating is lost (this isn’t at all to say that I think this will happen to you, as I am certain of your nurturing your gift – I’m talking about my personal experience, so as to advise myself and others from making mistakes I’m much too prone to making).
Thank you for this engaging read, keep writing! 😊
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You’ve said it better than I could ❤ You are such a wonderful writer too and the insights you provide never fail to amaze me (And I've said it before, but your vocabulary is just so on point! As is your ability to synthesise complex ideas, actually) I truly appreciate you sharing your experience with me. As I've said, your insights help me see a new dimension to things, and this time around is no exception 🙂
In sharing some of the things I share, I also hope that hearing about my personal experience may help someone else with theirs, so I totally understand what you mean!
Thank you for reading, as always ❤ And I am hoping to read you soon (although no pressure there! ^^)
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At some point it is inevitable that some will acknowledge the elaborate ruse of the collective seriousness with which we run the world – whose material purpose has long gone beyond the food in our bellies and the roof over our heads.
And instead listen to a subtle voice within them that does not use words but instead throws us hints of synchronicity, a sense of deja vu and a vague inkling that informs itself as a natural urging.
For some it could be the call to be a writer.
But from whatever little you have written that i have read, it appears like a beautiful voyage of self discovery – to dance to your own music.
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I always wanted to be a writer. I wrote a book and it was a great joy to write. It doesn’t sell. But that is OK. I wrote it. Now I just write a blog. I only write when I have inspiration. I write for myself, but then I want to share, so I do. I never felt that artists should be paid for their work. I always felt like it was something they had to do. Nice if they can make a living at it, but most don’t. Writing is the reward in itself. If you can stand in that space, then you will feel free.
my blog is here: https://nomaury.blogspot.com/
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Ahhh of course, of course. The moment one starts writing for others is the beginning of a corruption of one’s art, I believe. One can’t help picturing the gaze of others and this is, of course, reflected in what one creates. I will be most happy to read you from here on out dear Maury 🙂
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