A Calling….To Come Back Home…
Writing.
Writing was my hobby back in fifth grade.
As a kid, I had a lot of stuff going on in my head. I could easily put things to imagination easily. There were always several storied being cooked up inside of my head.
Although there was a point that it had started getting harmful for me. I was getting detached from the real world.
And that was when I wrote my first book, back in fifth grade. It was me, and 3 more friends. We had officially announced this in our class, and we were given special status as the “creators” of the class.
This charged me up, and I faced the “fame complex.” ?
On one fine weekend, I rushed and completed the book. The next Monday, I proudly walked in, and wrote on the blackboard, “Book Launch – Today.”
No one responded. No one gave a SHIT.
I was disappointed and felt bad for the book I was so excited about five minutes back.
This is was feedback. I was too young back then to understand. And even today, I find it difficult to receive feedback. And let alone receive, I have problems identifying the “blessing in disguise.”
Many years later, I started writing again. And this time I started professionally. I had a blog, an active Medium account, and was working on two books.
All of that came to a standstill when my higher school appeared in front of my face. 12th Grade, the most crucial stepping stone in Indian education system.
I had to park my writing, and that was when I had started whining. A lot. I used to miss my routine, my posts, the social presence that I’d started to enjoy.
And more than writing, to be honest, I was missing the dopamine dose that I used to enjoy on every like, or every follower. The busy life, the social attention and all, it had got into my head.
And on one fine day, I was brutally smashed down on the surface. It was my Mom who did this. (And I’m thankful to her for that.)
She gave feedback. It was like a bowling ball that felled all the unstable skittles. My ego was hurt. The ego that had latched itself to many pleasing supports.
I was broken. I was told that I was writing trash all over the internet and nothing else. I was very dishonest and had started to preach being a high-school student myself, who had no experience of many things yet.
There is more. But I wouldn’t want to dig it up now. ?
A few months passed, and something crossed my mind, it was anger. It was a weird complex that couldn’t accept the “allegations” made by Mom, so it shifted the blame over to writing.
Writing is a wild goose chase.
Writing is nothing but foolishness.
There is no such thing as a passion.
People who are following their passion are fools. ?(sorry people)
And the list goes on, but I think this gives an idea of what had inhabited my mind. A complex, as mentioned earlier. ?
Followed by this complex, I destroyed all my social accounts. I deleted my blog and my Medium account. I do regret doing that even today.
Although I couldn’t figure out clearly why this happened, but I did get a vague idea.
It was my ego trying to defeat Mom. That I didn’t give a shit and I could ditch all my writing and everything, I was not addicted in any way and now I hated it.
Pure foolishness. ?
After a long year of studying and clearing up my 12th grade, I was left with nothing to do. And that was when I shifted over to writing suddenly.
I was not writing on the internet. I just had a notebook and a pen with me. That’s all. And I had started with my favorite genre. Fiction!
And that’s when I came back home.
I felt writing in its purest form. It was creation. It was not followers. It was not the likes. It was not the publicity.
It was just writing.
And that’s when the complex poison poured out of my mind. I got clear, and I got hopeful for the writer in me once again.
I dropped all stupid action points of never to write again. I dropped the hatred, and all the waste egoistic ambitions attached to it. I confessed my foolishness in front of my mother and father.
And now, it’s been a few months, and I am still writing that novel.
And I’m home…feels good…feels cozy…