Things I remember from 6th of December
If you sleep over it, there’s a good chance you might not pick it up from where you left it when you wake up;
The new day brings the promise of possibilities & it takes a conscious decision to carry the lessons of yesterday to today;
That requires rehashing yesterday and I don’t like doing that, so I just, repeat every day;
Exploration takes courage, will & remembering why you started.
Before Ananya, Nabhojyoti & Pulomi arrived, Nishant asked a question that gave me the courage to empty my mind & set the tone for what I have on this paper :
“Does art, only have to be beautiful? What is beauty? Does it always have to be symmetrical? Can’t it be ugly & out there?”
The reader’s mind is a lot less forgiving than that of a watcher or a listener;
My pursuit of perfection has often left me paralysed;
To create a product that pleases form & function, I often get consumed in choosing the right words for the presentation, than actually even creating a product.
This, by no means is a testament to either of that;
While I finally sat down to write all of this, I asked myself countless times “What is the point of any of this?” & well, quit.
If you couple procrastination & existential dread & instant gratification, you get a bunch of big words that mean too little, take up too much space & get very little work done;
Maybe the idea is to stay at it, despite the pointlessness of it all.
I looked back at all of these words I’ve written, narcissistically patting myself on the back for having filled an entire page.
I like taking indulgent breaks of admiring myself;
It’s obscene.
What I’m trying to do here now, is maybe complete a verbal contract between another man & me, to create value for my word.
And now that I have fulfilled my need to talk about myself, I think we can get down to what I remember from the 6th of December.
It started with a lot of expectations & ended with the realisation that I talk too much;
But in the middle of it,
Artists (who make money) have an interesting way of dealing with stupid clients:
They sell their soul to the devil;
Or find a fulfilling link between themselves & the output they deliver: Money.
(I got distracted here; This might not make a lot of sense; I was being talked about in the background)
Why are you an artist? Is all your work a self-portrait or are you looking outside? How do you not destroy everything?
The urge to destroy is a creative urge.
I’m at a cafe right now, one of the few times when I’m pretending to work & actually manage to get some done.
How do people work in a cafe? With an open laptop at a Starbucks, all I’m consumed with are checks on whether I look focused or not? Has my table been empty for too long? Are people looking at what I’ve ordered? I worry if people judge me as harshly as I judge them.
And then I have to remind myself that I’m not at home all the time;
I’m not always going to be the single child at the centre of the universe;
(the number of “I”s & “Me”s is making me pukish in the proofread)
There’s a researcher who questions;
Has a sense of humour in them;
Put contradictory clauses together & leaves us with a laugh, sometimes with a question;
Like the wisdom of the clown & the sense of humour of the saint;
When do you stop?
‘‘When I can’t answer my own questions,” he answered.
But aren’t your questions why you started? Questions of yourself that you couldn’t answer?
When do you, really stop questioning?
I’m a TYPE B personality; I have a generally acceptable rationalization for my laziness;
I stop when I feel like it.
There’s a psychology student who works as an active listener for an ambitious startup: iHearYou : A free, online active listening platform & cooks when she feels like it;
It’s easy to give up;
It’s easier to give up in the unknown; Acceptable, almost.
To not give up;
Requires tenacity & intention.
To hold on, to what you feel is right while you don’t see anything to support it;
To be guided in the darkness with a rearview mirror of your memories;
Requires courage.
To endure loss; Nobly
To not be consumed in your self & lose sight of what’s being offered after;
Requires strength.
To silence yourself & listen to what’s being felt;
requires a heart between the ears.
To serve a decadent Makhni Paneer;
requires meditative dedication;
& blended ground nuts; of course;
& being okay with a few dishes, charred by Charizard.
What is creativity for you?
Zoning out.- Aman
