It is the evening of yet another Sunday, and it is now that I finally sat down and took a breath. The errands are done — not all of them, just the urgent ones. The courses are done — not all of them, just the urgent ones. You get the idea.
For a couple of weeks or longer than that, I’ve felt myself in an autopilot, of sorts, and not in a bad way but a rather exhausting one. It is only in the course of these weeks that I’ve learnt yet again that good things can be exhausting too.
I haven’t been publishing lately but I have been writing. In fact, as you read these words, there are three creative pieces stuck in the draft-limbo never to make it out, I guess.
At this point, I think I’ll be better of writing them again or not at all. You see, I’ve learnt this little trick about writing over the years. There is a particular time, a very precise interval which if missed, makes you lose the piece forever.
If you come back to a piece about a journey months after the journey was made, you have already lost the feeling of what made the piece truly yours. Yes, you have the memory. Yes, you have the details. Yet, none of the two make it different from anything ever written about a journey.
The feeling makes a piece yours, and once you get involved with the daily errands, and the routine again, the journey is lost and by extension, so is the piece sitting in your drafts or a notebook, written but incomplete.
I find it funny or perhaps, even impossible for me to recollect stories from my life as some writers do. Perhaps, I’m not as skilled as them. Maybe, we’re all different kinds of writers, each slightly different from the last even if they appear very similar.
The autopilot of the rut is real though, and it is only now that I’ve realised how difficult a healthy and balanced life is, and how the artists and the creatives have it easy.
You see, the idea of the road not taken is merely choosing the road less travelled by. The irony though is that if everyone takes the road not taken, it becomes the road that is trampled upon.
In today’s world where everything is overwhelming, the easier option is to up and leave and escape into the mountains. The tricky part is coming back. That is where, I firmly believe, the answer lies.
I’ve always been conflicted with the two sides of how I function. The very logical and pragmatic side which seems to be in control now and the creative daydreamer who loves walking about in the city cluelessly.
Perhaps, my words from an earlier post on Instagram do more justice to the idea that my lazy attempt here.
That said, my resolve now is to find a balance, just like the one you see in the picture, where no side is dominant. It will take some time because for now, I feel like the most violently stretched elastic band in the history of elastic bands but I shall find balance.
Until then, I guess the words should be slower but present.