And indeed, one assumes that one has known it all, the sun rise, the rabbit running in the fields of the fall. She has the eyes of a snake, the suddenness with which she is upon you is indescribable, and like the hood of a cobra she turns towards you and mercilessly watches your hesitant countenance. And, I must write now, I must write or I might forget, forget that the flowers bloom, that the lady was upon me, that my friend collects fish shaped pieces of wood and strings them together on the key chain’s tail.
There is the constant shuffling of thoughts in my mind, one moment I am splashing water on my face and the other I am aware of the person inside me (so much so that I realise the person inside me, and see myself for the first time). Every morning I wake up with a completely different person staring at me in the mirror, and go to bed with an incomplete person who invades my dreams playfully. Every moment changes me, I am not what I had been a day before, I am not what I had been when I began writing this piece (merely 2 paras down the line). Such is the screeching intensity with which thoughts and impressions of people and objects are crying wail, a lonely yet shrill cry. And, my mind attends to each of them, one after the other.
I must write now, for I will not remember anymore. I must write that I feel older now, matured and thoughtful. My mind sifts through the impressions and selects but one of them- for instance, now at this moment I am aware of my writing, typing these words; but the next moment, I am not. I have swept the whole world, I have held the planet upside down in my palms, I have seen the sun, the stars and the solar system, I have seen the end of universe (its too far away), I have imagined every one of these events in my mind. And yet briefly between these visitations, I pause for a moment, only for that moment I am typing these words. And the floor is not clean, my hands, the feeling of guilt- I am but for all my abilities cannot get this guilt out of me.
The persistent guilt is eating into me, cutting into my mind space and limiting my thoughts. The guilt of not reading all the poetry, the guilt of not writing so often, the guilt of inability-the guilt of expression (for every expression and phrase could have been bettered, nothing is farther from truth, but the evolution of my expressions is barely palpable). What goes on in that mind there, that person there who is standing lonely by the door, and that one there sipping coffee with his mates and how does it matter, all of this (as Virginia woolf put it) all of this should exist without me, and how it will al exist after me, how can I cope with such a terrible portent.
And how does one feel, how do I feel? I am already quite relieved. If my writing offers me relief from my thoughts, then were all the works throughout history the same. Were all works mere escapades from reality. Oh how I construct my dreams, I plug in a person, pull him out, in my dreams I live another person. And this one is quite a lovable one, he is unhindered, not restless as I am with my perpetual compunction.
I have to drink more water, for I had been drinking more than what would keep me calm, the burden of water I have to carry, and I have to drink my tea hotter and burn my throat. I have to test myself, not sleep to experience sleeplessness. I have to put words to thoughts and write them, ah! So many things to do, and so little time! But I waste my time, wiling away not aimlessly, for I am brimming with aims. And, I have seen the back of my head (someone said that, cannot recall the author). I live in my head (again someone said that). I have measured my life with coffee spoons (T S Eliot), life is not a series of gig lamps, but a luminous halo that extends from the beginning of consciousness till the end (Virginia woolf). My favourite writings in my head, all of them buzzing around and I cannot even sleep well now, for I have to stop reading and only then can I sleep well and dream well.
If I read, all my favourite writings come to life in my dreams, they flood my dreams to the brim and suffocate me, all phrases, loosely connected phrases, and something meaningful, just for a fleeting second enriches my dream, and I remember that phrase only in the dream, for I wake up and I have no idea what that phrase is. If only I can strung up all the words to begin an expression of a rarity that my dreams possess, and then perhaps I would not have been consumed by this. For every word I write, there must be a better word, every phrase can be bettered and every sentence can be rephrased over and over again. Is that good? I ask myself. And here, someone knocks on my door and I have lost track of where I was.
Now I am back again, completely fascinated by the way I hold my thoughts by their tail, all the while protecting (not allowing it to slip through my hands), and when he is gone, I prepare a head (of another thought) and tie up a seamless knot between the former and the later. So is it good? Perhaps it is, for I can always improvise. But how, as E M Forster once said that one forgets words as names of people and has to constantly fertilize them by reading. But again, this terrible guilt, for I haven’t been able to do it all, for I have had time and never really read as much as I could have.
The grammar is wrong, the commas are not at their proper places, save some spellings, a lot of gibberish and glib account of a tragically defaced psyche of an aging person’s rant is all that it was. Truly, sometimes I write with sincere attention to each and every word, I love them, so would not waste them out, I am so fascinated with some words (such as grotesque) that I repeat it in my head, for I like the way it sounds. And, I make phrases in the comfort of my solitude, phrases with the words I like and I wear them as a garland in my head. Then, there are times (such as this one), when I give away complete freedom to my thoughts (or so I think), and I write tirelessly (for it is clearly easy to write this way), but in the end is all repentance, for the work is barely what I wished for. And, I like it sometimes, it just lies there to remind me of my abilities and limitations, that I might aspire to become what my favourite writers were, but I am limited by something or someone. Perhaps it is someone (which is me). If my thoughts were to be pulled out of me (and I will be dead the next instant, for I hate myself without the weight of my thoughts, which I love to host and breed in my head) and plugged into someone else’s mind, perhaps this someone might do justice to my thoughts. Perhaps it is my person that is I, the limitation. Perhaps I should pull myself apart and lose it all. Only in losing identity does thought flourish.
I have merely escaped identity, so the thoughts would develop unhindered. But I haven t achieved what I wished. Which is that I have to lose myself, not escape. For escape leaves behind a nagging discomfort of my existence that is merely there about me, waiting to rest on me. And I become the identifiable identity, as soon as I give in to it. And these spelling mistakes, ah, I must correct them as soon as they occur, the red curly line dissuades my thoughts and I feel impelled by the occasion to correct them. Such is my guilt fashion. My guilt is persistent and ubiquitous. See, I cannot even spell ubiquitous properly (that is second correction in two lines). Now this ‘mosquito bite’ I must go turn the good night on.
The green lines are equally distracting, and I have to go through a lot of them before I finish my work. When I write with close attention to words, these lines never conjure up, it is only in the absence of my authority, it is only in the free flow of thought that these merciless scruples haunt me. Now I am aware that I have already written for over two pages, and I must end it here. But I am reminded of all those works of literature. Those giant and robust pieces of the yesteryears. And, I wonder what must have gone through those minds, was it the guilt that drove them, it could not be. Perhaps it is the free flow of thought. But the major works of literature are so beautifully well constructed. How can it be that a writer would have given way to free flow of thought? It can’t be true. See there I had to make a choice between can’t and cannot. Can’t sounds better, I cannot comment on its readability, but sounds better, in my head.
Everything is in my head, I exist so completely in my head. I measure myself all the time. There are no yardsticks, I measure myself, I recheck my premises, and constantly strive to evolve, I try to improvise. Oh what a baloney! I never did, oh this guilt! It is flaming through my ears and over my head, it is burning me alive. Poetry I cannot write, beautiful prose I cannot write.
No. I can write, see I just did. But not good enough. So many mistakes, all those green lines are crawling up to me and I am left defenseless. Can I write more clearly, can I write more beautifully? Poetry is like a wound (someone said that) and remains, the scars remain, good poetry is so powerful that it pierces through your skin and leaves scars . you will never forget good poetry. And I am so old now. At this age I am still not good enough. I have the thoughts in me. But I am limited, for I haven’t visited as many places, I haven’t known as many people. I haven’t seen so many (ah the spelling mistakes) instances of deep thought. It is the deepest of thoughts that fancy me. And I must write really. Or what would this world have become without poetry and prose. Ah! I cannot even contemplate, my life would have been such a terrible waste.
I have used that expression a hundred times before and I still use it. Where am I growing. Am I even growing? I feel more matured, older, so very old in my head. Each word I type carries with itself san association (of another word, or a phrase, or a complete book, a person, a memory, above all words, a lot of them), and how can I escape this. Is it a disease? That every single word is associative. Cannot recall one single word without its associations, no one word stands apart, all of them are together laced into this network of conduits, through them I rummage and pick one up.
I am not so sure of the word conduit there. See, I cannot even write one full paragraph and hope that it is fine. Such a guilt that exists in me, and I have to serve these words, beautiful words, one after another, nicely decorate them and use them only on the occasions. But here is the trouble, I cannot imagine an occasion without words, every single occasion or a thought or a memory has words in them (few of them). So I cannot dissociate words and thoughts, once I dissociate they are completely meaningless, for I have never remembered anything without words in them. There are no memories of mine that would stay afloat for a long time (for a life time). All these words have to be hinged on some hooks to my mind’s floor, and the hooks are the words. So if words supply themselves along with the thoughts, then how can I frame the thoughts into words. Now there is a situation. And how can I totally unlearn the hooks and the tether that have been holding the thought in my mind’s tent for so long, and pin them down on yet another camp site with completely new words. Will I not forget the former ones (but one must remember words, I must or the guilt would cut and throw me asunder). And, how can I preserve the vestiges or the remains of all those hinges that are left useless, how long, they will wither away with the passage of time. For I do not have the time and patience to control the rapidity of my mind’s flow, and the rapidity withers the left over hooks.
Now that was a good expression, there were some similar expressions, but this last one is good, and now I am satisfied, although the grammar and words can be bettered. I must confess that the expression was a good one. So here I am I have to go pee now, I had been holding up for so long. It’s the guilt, the terrible guilt I have that pinned me down.
I have never seen anyone so comfortable restless as I am, I have a plan. Everyday, every single day is planned well, some I might just not plan at all, that is volitionally of course). So carefully I plan everyday, I must read something tomorrow, I must read something now, I cannot afford to waste my time. But again (someone said this), some are so obsessed with reading that they end up writing very little. So must encourage my guilt to relax, I must not read (volitionally, I make a choice). I must not read at all, for a while. And those are the most terrible times, for I wait my time for some thought to form in my head and once it is there, I sit and write. As soon as I am finished writing, I pick up the reading again. There is a glitch though, thoughts aren’t so easy to come by. And I sit myself down for long periods of time, just pulling the thoughts as a magnet would do iron particles, towards me, and once they are there I proceed to give form, pin words down to express it. Such is the nature of the game I am occupied with all the time.
Should I stop now? It is dinner time. I must stop somewhere. This cant go on forever, yes, I must stop now, perhaps I will discuss my thoughts with some friend (a patient one) over dinner and that would be relaxing too. I can’t (I love the word can’t). this is one of those moments when words precede thoughts, and have to form a thought now, for the word is there.
Any ways. Dinner time. I think I am done here.
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