Meta-Writing – Page 2

077 – complete the things you’ve started

Unpublished. Unreleased. Words that will start giving me a headache if I sit on my work for too long. If you keep things under the wraps for too long, they can go stale. I know that I’m enjoying creating and making things but how will I get better at completing things and shipping them? Why can’t I combine all the single, lonely, paragraphs sitting in various separate notes into an essay? Would they be happier in an essay? Or do they want to be left alone? Do they feel complete already?

Or can they create more when they come together? More impact? More.. something. More of what, though? Why is it important that I complete things and ship them? What am I hoping to accomplish with all this? What will creating impact get me? Whenever I go down this train of thought, I don’t generally like it. But it’s important to think about this too, from time to time. Obviously, I suppose, someone resonating with the things you’ve written can make them feel… something?

Someone once told me that some of my notes were a healing experience for them and that of course, was quite incredible. Generally, I write because I can’t not. So what is it, then? Why am I stopping here? Why do I get stuck here? In this tension between “I do it for myself” and “I want it to have some impact on others”.

What if it wasn’t a tension, though? What if it was “I do it for myself” and “I want it to have some impact on others”? What if both those things are true and I just need to work a bit more on bridging the gap? What if there are many ways to bridge the gap and I what if I just haven’t looked at this space with a broader mind?

What would impact look like, to me? What can I hope to achieve with the stuff that I write?

Inspire, guide someone the way my heroes have inspired or guided me
Make someone see something in a different way— which might lead to them learning something new
Help someone get in touch with any of their own feelings, feelings they may not have been able to make space for otherwise— and as a result create some resolution in them
Evoke new feelings (because sometimes we consume art to of course— feel new feelings)

I suppose this makes sense. I know this is pretty generic, but these are just measures. I’m not trying to convert them into targets. Or I’m not trying to “achieve” these. But these would be good ways of measuring impact, if I wanted to do that.

So, yes, if I want more impact, then I would want to “complete” things and ship them. Of course, completion will look different in different cases. I don’t always need to do long-form writing. I know that short-form writing (especially in today’s world) can create impact too. And I’m okay with the process around this. I know when a piece feels complete, and when it doesn’t. I guess the tricky part is when I think I’ll “come back” to something but then I mostly don’t. Maybe then it’s important to regularly review the incomplete things and see if they can be given life. Maybe I don’t want to always be starting new things. And I do enjoy going through my notes anyway. In another essay I wrote the other day, I did come to the conclusion that completing things can be worth it for two reasons:

It allows you to start new things with more joy
It has the potential to create more impact

But it’s still a bit of a “brainy” “work”y activity. It’s not joyful in the same way as simply the dots and the scribbles are. But then the answer to that is always that the more you do it, the better you might get at it and ultimately— completing things or shipping might start becoming easier too. OR, I just accept the fact that #1 is reason enough to do it.

That is to say, if I want to keep creating, I have to complete the things I have started. Maybe a version of my hell is all of my abandoned ideas floating around me. Maybe my task is to just complete ideas and ship them, and just accepting that only 60-70% of the work will be joyful. But that 60-70% of the joy might be good enough for me to put in the effort for the non-joyful aspect of the thing.

And it can be, actually, more joyful too. For instance, I spent an hour earlier today doing some organisation and that was actually not unenjoyable, once I was engaged in it. The right tools, I suspect, can make the organisation, the completion, and the shipping sufficiently enjoyable.

I suspect this post is in fact a result of some of that organisation. Because I made some space in my brain, I had some more ideas today, so I realised I was starting new things without completing previous things. This is okay, too, because I’ve at least made a note of the things I do want to complete.

Or maybe I’m realising that the brain space gets filled up regardless of what you do. I’ve had this thought before too. That being better at todo lists may or may not make life easier. I mean, I may get “more” done but it’s not necessary that that will provide sustaining or persisting comfort. Ultimately, the comfort has to come from other ways. If currently writing and “doing more” is my reaction to filling the voids, that’s okay. But I may need to be more aware of what the voids are saying too.

075 – must I write // pt 2

Pt 1: Here

We’re on the way to being 75% done. I’m doing some reviews because this is the last quarter of this goal. I was looking at annual insights and I actually only wrote 5000 words in 2022. (Compared with 35K in 2021 and 25K in 2023). Wtf was I doing in 2022? I know Feb-May was pretty busy with the move but I’m surprised that I barely wrote throughout the year. I remember 2022 being okay too. I don’t know then. Maybe I was doing other things. Maybe I was living. Maybe I was growing? Is what I want to think, but I’m not a 100% sure. 5k words is like a seventh of 35K words. This is just incredibly surprising to me. Maybe at some point I just lost awareness of this goal I had in mind?

I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I am a bit sleepy so I must write fast tonight.

I am clear that I like to write, a lot. Quite a lot. I’ve gotten better at it too. I like writing in short spurts, in flowy afternoons, on anxious days, on depressing days, on great days too. I do prefer writing in a notebook than on a laptop but of course I can do longer-form writing on a laptop.

Authenticity is a value of mine. Which needs clarity. Which needs writing. So I must write.

I’ve been doing more poetry and songwriting lately too and all of it also flows easier. I don’t know if these type of posts directly contribute to any of it but I imagine they must. How could they not? At worst, they’re reducing the gap between your brain (you) and the words coming out of you. And I’ve noticed this happening when I’m doing songwriting, I’m able to come up with truer-sounding lyrics without thinking much about it. So I suppose, that’s pretty great.

But an evaluation on why you must write is also an evaluation on what you want from life, at least in the medium-term, if not the long-term. Since I perceive inner and outer life through writing, these are the questions, problems, opportunities I want to explore in the next medium-term phase.

My relationship with gender, sex, femininity and masculinity
My relationship with courage— how do you find more of it, how do you build capacity, how do you balance it with not pushing yourself too much
The balance with myself, my creative pursuits, my “search” for love and maintenance of existing relationships
The balance with music, writing and limited time
The balance with creating things and sharing things (most recent explorations here)
Do I want kids? If so, do I want to bear children or do I want to raise children?
Do I dare to dream? Dreaming has become a little scary lately, do I want to be a realist instead? Or where do I want to be on this spectrum?
I feel a sense of responsibility towards my parents and (sometimes) the society. How much can I take? What are my values here?
There are certain things I don’t even imagine I can do based on the version I have of myself. What are these things? Knowing them wouldn’t hurt. Whether or not I choose to pursue any of these (based on #2 and #7) will be a question for the future me, but it might be worth exploring what kinds of wants and desires I have. (Soul-based, not ego-based).
I’ve been enjoying reading a lot more again (over the last 6 months). I want to continue to read more. What kind of books should I look for. I want Ocean Vuong and Sally Rooney type of words since they always really inspire me to write more. So I think this is worth looking into.

Maybe that’s it for now. I think writing is the easiest way for me to get in touch with myself. I used to be critical of why I go through these qualitative analyses and evaluations when I should be jumping to lists and action items immediately. But now I’m realising these explorations, rambles, etc are the equivalent of what two or more people would do in an ideation and brainstorming session. What are the things we want to be working towards, what is the general vision, etc. Filtering all this down into action items is a separate task. Writing is the first step. Writing is what brings things from inside into the conscious awareness, at least.

I know I may be repeating myself a lot in this post but I think I need to write the truth over and over again to make sure I can (eventually) internalise it. I may or may not have said this before, I cannot remember.

If I wanted to, I can write everyday for the rest of December and wrap this project up. I used to always maintain that this is a “quantity first, quality later” project and do I want to change tact at this point? Why should I worry about the quality now? If I wrap this up I can also start thinking about the other projects in my awareness. I don’t know, let’s see. I’m not sure yet. I was in survival mode the past week so I don’t want to push myself too much either.

This wasn’t fast and it took me slightly over an hour. But we’re done and that’s a lot of progress too! Happy Monday, folks. 🙂

071 – find ways to get over yourself

I realised why I haven’t been feeling the same amount of satisfaction on my music account lately (as I used to earlier). It’s not about the validation or the lack thereof. It’s about the fact that I’ve been holding off, a bit. I enjoy the freedom I have on this blog, I really do.

But I think because more “known” people follow my music account, sometimes I tend to hold back. I should accept that my style is verbose. I’ve been trying to “play” a part. I wanted to appear a certain way. But I think I’m happiest when I’m posting as much as I want and in the ways that I want. That’s always going to be the primary purpose. Even when I have secondary and tertiary purposes (ie connection, more engagement, good “quality” work etc) the primary purpose is still sharing your art AND YOURSELF in the ways that YOU WANT. This is my account and it’s only tracking my journey.

Being verbose actually helps me a lot. It helps me free my mind of the clutter. I also have really fresh learnings from yesterday about how new ideas sometimes only come to me when I make space in my brain from them. This actually literally means thought-dumping in all the various ways I need. Yesterday, it looked like finishing a song (even though I didn’t end up happy with the “final” result— more on this another time), making a couple of covers, journaling a few times, going over some of my older stuff and taking it a bit forward (even when I couldn’t reach too far), and then going out and sharing some of my thoughts on all this with a couple friends too. (Luckily there were people around me who like talking about stuff like this.)

I think about my first really great software engineering internship experience. I had a superb mentor. He was great at most of the things I needed help with— code reviews, technical advice, prioritisation stuff, debugging— all the jazz. But do you know what he was excellent at? Teaching me how to get the fuck over myself. He didn’t phrase at this way. He was gentler about it, and I’m glad. One of the questions that I would ask him on a recurring basis was, “Oh should I just ask other people for help directly or should I spend time by myself on the thing before that?” As an intern or a new grad, some of us tend to be very afraid of bothering people. We tend to be afraid of looking stupid. And yes, there’s a balance to be struck with all this, I’m not saying you want to be the person who’s walking up to one person 20 times in a day. But here’s the thing: You want to get over yourself because the work that you’re doing is more important than you. If you zoom out, everyone you’re sharing the space with has a common purpose, and you have to trust that everyone around you will remember that as well. (I’m going to write more about this in a more structured way).

But the point is, my social media accounts are currently PRIMARILY there to serve me. If they can serve me, I can get better. If I can get better, I can perhaps come up with and share more ideas with the world. Maybe there are people who are naturally able to directly serve others. But for me, serving myself is the only way I’m able to serve others.

So, I’m going to do this. I’m going to post more on my music account in the ways that I want to. Not hold back, because I don’t want to follow a template. I want to be my verbose, journey-loving, process-loving self on there. Whatever people think about that, I’ll leave that up to them.

Because if I really had to be succinct about my goals on my music journey (and really all creative journeys) at the moment, they’re just:

Making a lot of things
Understanding myself better

—

Anyway, that’s that. I’m a little hungover from going out (and drinking a lot) last night so that’s going to be it on all that. I’ve been feeling a few unpleasant feelings since I woke up today so maybe I’ll just share those and get rid of them.

I don’t like this feeling that comes when you’re hungover. I don’t want it. So I’m going to make it a point to stop at 2-3 drinks OR if I really do cross my limits, I really need to make sure to hydrate before I go to sleep. Definitely don’t want to be doing the early 20s kind of drinking anymore.
I also get triggered when I see too many couples doing couple things and I want to find a better cope for this.
I got a rejection from a portal for online tutoring that I’d applied to. It’s only a small bummer by itself but it opens up a bigger question. Obviously, part of me wanted this perhaps a bit “easily”. If I want to apply to a few places (or a few times) then I really need to decide whether this is the thing that makes the most sense for me to “try properly”. [for part-time paid work]
There’s a friendship I’m lowkey struggling with. We’ve been sufficiently close friends since college and this is perhaps one of those friendships where I feel close and intimate enough with the person to share a variety of stuff and we have a good amount of fun together and yet there’s something missing. Maybe I just want more quality time. Or more attention. I don’t know what it is exactly, and this is quite interesting. I gotta come back to this.

069a – passive writing, intentions for the week

I want to sleep before 4am today. Because I really want to wake up before noon tomorrow. Which means writing a word-vomit now, doing some reading and then literally just switching off the lights by 3:45am. Had some friends over today and realised I really care about them. One of them I was meeting after more than 6 months and he’s been going through a bit of tough time. Him getting me upto speed is when I realised how much I really felt for him.

I’ve been a bit triggered about lacking a romantic relationship over the last couple days so today was a bit of grieving the last person I dated. I thought I was mostly over them but today brought some new (old) inner feelings out, I guess. It’s been over a month since we ended things and I expected this much time to be enough for me to grieve. But maybe I need a few weeks more.

I’ve decided to purchase an electric and a semi-acoustic guitar soon but the research part of the purchases is not very fun.

I think I definitely want to complete 2 more songs before the end of this year. That’s doable, I think.

I haven’t taken a flight in a while. I think I’m missing the feeling. Even though flights and travel give me some anxiety, I think even WITH the anxiety, the overall feeling is nice and interesting. Maybe I’ll go somewhere early December.
I guess I used to think the net feeling in a moment is the “sum” of your positive and negative feelings but I think it’s not really that. It’s not [happiness minus anxiety = less happiness]. It’s just (happiness, anxiety). This is actually quite interesting to me. (#epiphanies)

This word-vomit is slow because I keep getting distracted. I’m really tired today though I don’t know why. I’ve slept enough and I didn’t do much. Maybe it’s just that. I didn’t do anything refreshing.

Do I really not have any thoughts at the moment? How is that possible?

I have many tasks to do this week, most of which I’m not looking forward to. So, then, what am I looking forward to, if not those tasks? How can I make this week a bit nice? There’s an open-mic I could sign up for potentially, but I don’t know what songs I’d want to sing. Okay yes, I think I can do this. It’s a task that’s the right amount of challenging, plus it’ll also be nice to move towards my medium-term goal of doing ten open-mics by the mid of next year. It’s also at this queer/mixer event type thing so it could potentially be nice to meet some new people, and I’ve been meaning to find ways to do that anyway.

I want to get back to 1000-word posts because I think more stuff comes out when you write 1000-word posts as opposed to shorter ones, so yeah– that’s something I’ll probably start doing soon. I’ve also decided I’m not switching to substack until I’ve written 10-long posts/essays that I’m actually satisfied with (where the satisfaction rating is at least a 7/10). Alright, these conclusions feel good.

067b – the inherent insecurity of an artist

Something that I always keep coming back to is labels. I know that it’s important to me that I accept certain labels (from myself, for myself).

What are these labels, you ask?

Well, to name a few: artist, photographer, writer, poet, musician, singer, vocalist

I want to be able to use them for myself without scoffing.

I know exactly when I started rejecting these labels (I actually picked it up from someone else who was rejecting labels because they didn’t feel deserving of them, and because I thought that this person was actually much better at the craft than I was at the time, I internalised “well if they’re not even calling themselves a photographer, how can I?). And I applied the same reasoning to all others labels as well.

HOWEVER, there is only so much time and brainpower. It gets tedious to go through this dialog which almost always goes the same way.

Oh but how can I call myself an artist?
> Oh but you are an artist.
But I’ve never made any money out of my art or I don’t even know if any of my art is good!
> Yeah but that doesn’t matter.

So, obviously, there is a push and a pull here. There are two parts that are fighting with each other.

Maybe rejecting these labels served me a purpose AT SOME POINT OF TIME. Maybe I didn’t want to come across as overconfident, or cocky, or lacking self-awareness, etc etc. I was afraid of judgement, basically. But is it serving me at all anymore?

If I write -> I am a writer.

If I click pictures -> I am a photographer.

If I paint (sometimes) -> I am an artist.

If I write poetry (sometimes) -> I am a poet.

If I play or make music -> I am a musician.

This SHOULD feel true. This SHOULD feel enough. But why is it that it still doesn’t? I think it’ll take some practice.

Let’s look at some definitions:

noun: artist: a person who creates paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby.

noun: musician: a person who plays a musical instrument, especially as a profession, or is musically talented.

noun: writer: a person who has written something or who writes in a particular way.

You get the gist. I think it’s always the “especially as a profession” that I would hang on to as the main reason for rejecting all these labels.

Yesterday at a poetry slam somebody talked about the inherent insecurity of an artist. Obviously I really related to that and we talked about it at length, but couldn’t really come to a conclusion. I think over the last few years, enough people have given me the gift of putting these labels on me and while it always feels magical to hear someone call you a poet or a musician or an artist etc etc, I know that what I really really NEED is for me to give myself the same gift, again and again.

So okay, there is a clearly an inner-critic who is not ready to give this to me. Maybe I can think about the benefits of these labels, instead, then?

To be honest, the only benefits I can think of for now are just more efficient and optimal conversation, I do think second-guessing everything you say can get tiring for someone listening to you. And then that (ie more confidence, surity) allows for quicker connections with potential collaborators as well.

Maybe you’re thinking, how the fuck does this all matter? Call yourself whatever you want, just do the damn thing. But I’ve found that loopy dialogues like these are exactly what prevent me from doing the damn thing. If I’m thinking about this insecurity, then there’s a reason for it. I feel strongly about it, and I do feel a need to resolve it.

Maybe that’s enough. Maybe I don’t need 100 benefits to a thing to adopt it. It feels true, it feels resonant. I know I revel in labels like woman, queer, demisexual, ambivert, etc etc. So why is it that I feel so undeserving of these other labels?

I still don’t know. Ah, I don’t know if I got anywhere with this.

But I’ll end this with one more point to my inner critic: maybe it’s just realising that calling yourself a musician doesn’t mean that you’re implying that you’re a good musician. That is something you cannot decide. You’re passionate about these crafts and you’re also cognisant about the subjectivity of art, that is all there is, actually.

065a – doubts, fears, inadequacies re: writing

“I thought I wanted to be a writer, turns out I just wanted to write.”

I imagine I’ll be saying this a few months from now. Thinking about money or monetisation from my art makes me anxious. I definitely need to find a day-job. I’m not ready to give up all my time yet, so I plan to start looking in February. I imagine it might take up to 3-4 months for me to be able to find one, because I’ll also have to do some research on the kind of jobs I’m willing to take.

But I want to make 10 complete songs before I start a job, and I’ve only made 2 so far. Will I push my “start looking for jobs” date if February arrives and I haven’t made 10 songs by then? I guess we’ll find out. I’m open to it, but we’ll see.

Why do I want to make songs? I don’t know, I just feel like it’s a very fulfilling achievement.

The college-student I teach on Sundays has been giving me a similar answer when I ask him why he doesn’t like Delhi. I’ve been teaching him English to help him with job interviews. He says “I don’t know but I just don’t like it”.

Personal writing feels like a very selfish pursuit. Or the kind of art that I gravitate towards (ie MY feelings and MY thoughts) feels like a very selfish, self-obsessed activity. Which then re-opens the questions I haven’t taken the time out to think about, yet. Who will my audience be? I imagine I can figure that out on the way.

I am definitely not someone who can quickly adjust to trends and what the world needs “right now” and drop comments on it. I do it sometimes but I can’t do it regularly. There was a time when people were more interested in the music I was putting out (although it was mostly covers) and they kept asking me to share stuff on streaming services but all of it doesn’t get as much engagement anymore.

I do wonder lately if you need to be more “gifted” or “talented” or willing to make more compromises if you want to stand out with all of these things.

But I haven’t really given anything a REAL shot yet. A real shot will have to be more planned, more patient, more sustainable. That’s fine, I can live with that for today.

I am still interested in this problem-space. That is, I want to write, I enjoy the process, are there ways I can be better and find overlaps between the things I want to write about and the things people want to read?

Maybe I need to go out and live more, also.

063 – on “introspective writing”

As I’ve stated many, many (MANY) times on this blog already, lately I’ve been getting more in touch with the joy I get from writing. But because I have a brain that is anxious and hyper-sensitive, I’m often troubled with the problems that still remain.

(branch // re: on focusing on existing problems) [Because I realised this was a bit of an internal judgement] {

I don’t think that will ever change, to be very honest, since we never reach perfection, and it’s almost part of my nature to be very aware of what’s missing.

However, what has changed, and what I am working on changing more is how I feel about whatever is missing. As long as I don’t feel upset about the missing stuff, it’s actually very good for me, because that’s what gives me direction, that’s what tells me how to grow. Or even if I do feel upset but can recover quickly from the feelings of it, being aware of what’s lacking is GOOD.

Yes, this reframe is important because for years I’ve heard from the external world that “being TOO focused” on what’s not good makes you a “negative” person. But it’s not that I’m not grateful and happy about what’s good, maybe voicing it out was never as important as voicing out the things that were lacking. At least in these aspects. If people wanted more appreciation and gratitude about THEM from me, they could have always stated their needs. But if it’s just a “general preference” thing, then I think it’s okay if that is an incompatibility. To each their own. I don’t need to internalise this. (As a child, teenager, etc, maybe even an insecure adult— I must have— but I’m going to work on internalising this reframe instead.)

}

So anyway, one of the “problems” I’m currently thinking about is how I only gravitate towards introspective writing. The book I’m currently reading ie The Highly Sensitive Person mentions that it’s pretty typical of HSPs to gravitate towards a LOT of introspection.

(branch // re: HSP ) {

Bear with me as this might show up a lot in my expression for potentially a few days, weeks. I’m only starting to learn more about this right now and because it seems to explain a lot of things about myself that I’ve often questioned (sometimes subconsciously)— I might talk about it a lot.

Of course, all psychological research AND labels should be consumed with a grain of salt, and I’m going to be mindful of that (I read some reviews earlier which made a little skeptical) but maybe the whole point IS that if I’m getting affirmed by what I’m reading, then there’s nothing wrong with that as well. If I fall exactly in the target audience of the book, maybe that’s okay.

So, yeah, I might be VERY HSP and maybe I’ve been needing a lot more affirmation and validation than I might have realised so far.

}

So, alright, heavy introspection is a part of my nature and that’s likely not changing. And I have one great example of someone who does a LOT of introspective writing and has managed to make that useful for people as well.

So why is this a problem, really? Why do I think this is a problem?

Because CURRENTLY I don’t have an audience, I suppose. Or currently, I don’t know how to make my writing useful for people.

But is this really a problem right now?

Well, yes, because over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about exploring writing professionally as well. (Even through internships and such).

Phew, it actually feels very stupid why it took me so long to get here.

(branch // storytime) {

I was talking to a friend a few days ago and when I mentioned that I do think I enjoy writing a lot and I might want to explore that professionally as well but that I’m worried about who I could write for or whether people would find value in it, in an effort to comfort me, she said something like “well you don’t actually need to worry about this right now you can just focus on sharing whatever you’re writing right now”.

So.. her statement was very well-meaning, however I’m realising that the reassurance did not help me. This is something I’m trying to remember about myself: Other people’s reassurances will not help me in the long-run. There’s a specific way of deliberation and reassurance that works for me, and I need to go over it all, my mind does like to have gone over the ten different questions of a thing for it to be okay with proceeding. Also, I don’t think that’s procrastination. For me, that’s just the best way of minimising regret over anything. Deep deliberation.

}

So, anyway, it’s okay that I want to carve some time out thinking about who the audience might be. Even if I decide not to explore writing professionally right away (OR ever), even when you’re doing creative work as a hobby, I don’t think it’s wasted effort to think about who might see, benefit from or resonate your work.

I guess, all this to say:

I do like a lot of introspection and naturally, introspective writing is what I do the most. But this is okay.
I’m often focused on “what’s missing” or “still not great”, and that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for what’s good, but a focus on “what can be better” is okay too, since it gives me direction and aids growth.
I probably need to be careful with taking reassurance from other people since it can often set me back.
I don’t have clarity around whether my writing does or can have an audience. Although I have many examples of great writers who do do a lot of introspective writing, it’s still worth doing more research on this. Until then, it’s okay to not have this clarity since my primary goal with writing is still that it helps me (it’s almost a need, really) and that I find immense joy in it.

(Wrote a 1000-word post after v long! V happy)

060a – making things vs sharing things

It’s all quite painful. But sometimes I genuinely think I’m meant to feel so much (especially the negative emotions) so that it can fuel my creative work. Which is also something that I think I’m meant to do.

A lot of the creative results/outcomes I’m truly proud of have really come out from moments of deep suffering. I don’t think I can yet come up with melodies without feeling deep pain or deep negative emotions. I hope this changes though. I really want to work on making more original music (I don’t know why, yet) and I wish I can do that even without so much pain.

Brain-chatter around “motivations for making art” have been at all a time high.

Lately I feel really called to music and writing.

Most of the time, I’m happy to “just be creating”. I’m happy to just be making things. Whether it’s a blog-post or a song cover or even doodles, surprisingly enough. However, I’m spending 20-30% of my active brain-power on the question around sharing the stuff that I make.

The sharing aspect is not something I enjoy very much.

With writing however, it’s low overhead, this blog is pretty easy to manage, and the more artsy write-ups sometimes even end up on Instagram, and overall it’s easy.

With music though, the overheads are pretty high. Recording stuff just takes so long, and for some reason I don’t enjoy it very much. Add to that the engagement on my music account has been pretty low lately, so that then adds certain amount of negative feelings and you have to regularly keep recovering from it to continue to keep posting.

Sometimes I think it’s okay if I don’t share the things I make right away as well. For instance, I wrote a bunch of poetry around three years ago which I shared with friends at the time, but I only started sharing it at open-mics and on socials a few months ago. And it felt.. okay. Almost right. Like it was finally time for it to be shared. And it’s also saying something that if you look at something you wrote three years ago and still felt like sharing it, that’s good signal for yourself too.

I also think maybe I have certain icky feelings around the sharing aspect because parts of it overlap with the “how can I monetise my art” aspect and I’m just not ready to address that question yet.

This helps for now. It’s almost 6 am, so I must attempt to sleep.

058a – must I write?

I was reading “Letters to a Young Poet” once again (after almost a couple years) since I was going through a pretty strong “I’ve no idea what I’m doing” week and I’ve been meaning to come back to it for a while now.

At the very beginning, Rilke asks the young poet (and I suppose all poets, in general) to ask themselves a very basic question — must you write? And only if the answer is a resounding yes (a “fuck yes”, if you will), should you continue. Only if “you can’t not”, should you continue. And if you really must, then you should give everything into designing a life for yourself that allows you to write.

For the longest time now, I’ve been very clear about the fact that I do need to write to feel happier. I like to write (in various forms) and I know that I’m more at peace when I regularly get to do so. Yet, when I asked myself this question again, for the last few days, I’ve been doubtful. Must I— really— write? Can I survive without it? Even if I could, would I like to? I don’t know.

I know that I see things more clearly when I write. Whether it’s events that are happening inside me, or outside me, writing is the one tool that allows me more perspective. Of course, words can only takes us so far, and they’re not a substitute for the lived experience or the event itself, but they’re the next best thing, for me at least.

And now that I’m here, actually writing, I think.. yeah, I can’t really live without writing. I mean, I can go without it for a few days, but I can’t imagine not writing at all for a whole week, definitely not for a whole month. I’d probably go crazy. Maybe I shouldn’t second-guess this. Socrates supposedly said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. And I think I believe that. And I think writing allows me to do that the best.

Speaking of, I’ve been sick almost for a week now and it’s really taken a toll on my mental health too. Recovering now, though, although I do have some hard questions to return to once I fully recover. There are a lot of parts of my life that I feel aren’t working, or that I’m not very satisfied with, and I’m at the point where changes do need to be made, otherwise the frustrations might just get unmanageable.

Hope your week has been better than mine!

054b – updates + upcoming projects

So, it’s been roughly 2 weeks since I moved to my own place and today was the third time I came to my parents’ place to spend a night. It was great in terms of me finally feeling like my decision to move was not stupid at all. (I’d been having doubts earlier.)

I think we all tolerate each other much more and better when we have enough distance between us. I genuinely like coming over and hanging out with them once or twice a week. My mum’s more patient, my dad actually takes out more time to sit with me, even for a couple hours, and it just overall feels much better. I think this will definitely be good for my relationship with both my parents.

My apartment is in a much better state now, apart from a couple medium/small problems, but hopefully they’ll be resolved soon. I’m feeling much safer overall, sleeping better, and that’s been great.

Had my 6th drums class today and it was an absolute blast. It’s been so much fun and I can’t wait to play more regularly. I hope the new instructor that I find (I need to find a new one that’s closer to my new place) is also as good. I didn’t have the best impression of him initially (he was a little too talkative for my taste) but over time I’ve warmed up to him and he’s definitely a good teacher and a good drummer, for sure.

I finished watching Heartstopper Season 2 and it was absolutely mind-blowing. I remember liking Season 1 a lot but I think Season 2 just completely knocked it out of the park. The production quality, the character development, and so many “social”/emotional things handled so well. Just fkn amazing.

I had an emotionally tough evening yesterday, but was able to get through it by talking to a couple of close friends over the phone. Coming home today also helped with the reset. (This is definitely important data). I think overall I’m okay now, my top projects need to be the following over the next 2-3 months (the order and prioritisation is yet to be figured):

Quitting a certain addiction
A card-game entrepreneurial idea that I have
Music stuff (needs to be broken down)
Dating
Remaining house-setup

Oh, in other news, I started taking some extra lessons for school for this kid from downstairs, and that’s been kind of fun and fulfilling. He’s a pretty curious kid, and we’ve only had 4 lessons so far but so far I’m quite impressed.

I don’t feel like publishing this one. I’m not sure why, maybe because the quality / style feels off to me, or I feel like I’ve generally just been posting updates for a while now. But as I say this, I realise that that’s fine, because yes, journaling/blogging isn’t always going to be stylistic or creative, that’s barely the point.