WARNING: the following article may contain ideas, philosophies, thoughts which may make you ponder endlessly over the next few days. I said ‘may’. Although I hope that it does make you ponder, I can’t deny the fact that you just may not. Afterall, I’m an amateur writer and moreso an amateur student in the lesson of life. The following piece may or may not(lemme jz mention may not too) cause dizziness, depression or melancholy. You might get the sense that I’m shoving my thoughts too far down your head which is not what I’m trying to do. All I want to do is take your hand and take you to a place where you wouldn’t dare wander alone. That’s what the ‘The Doors’ frontman used to do to his fans. Now, I’m no Jim Morrison but a man has to try. The following content won’t be healthy for kids and their parents. Again, its not necessary for you to read it, you don’t have to critique it or nor do u have to understand it. I’m not trying to scare you, just reminding you that you might not and most certainly, will not get what you’re expecting. Feelings of being pissed-off might also make its appearance after you’re done. So, read on only if you can tell yourself to accept whatever it is that you start thinking after reading this article. Wait, you must be now reading ahead out of habit, I’ll insert a fresh paragraph after this sentence, so that you can think over it and then decide what to do.
If there ever was a writer’s religion, I’d definitely be outcasted. After all, the main purpose of writing is so that you shall be read. And here I am, telling you not to read in about 260 words at the start of an article which has no title! Well, fuck it, I’ve been an outcast all my life. Sometimes I feel like that’s the only way I’m comfortable being wherever I go, whichever group I’m a part of. An outcast for life. Its like if you live in hell long enough, it’ll eventually be home to you. That reminds me, I want to clarify something. An outcast is not a hero. Movies across generations, languages, soceities have all celebrated outcasts or underdogs. The guy who suffered through the hurdles of life and the lack of understanding from society, finds a great gift and wins it all in the end. Real-life – not so much. I sometimes feel these movies are like wishful dreams made true on celluloid by the real-life outcasts in the form of filmmakers. Afterall, its everybody’s right to hope, hope for a better life in the future! Everyone does it, so do you. Yes you too. Where do u think you would be in the next couple of years? right now, you thought of something, maybe for a fraction of a moment, but yu did. Take some time and think about it. Yes, this is silly but I’m serious, think…. It was something good, wasn’t it? You were at a better position in life than you are right now. You may or may not be satisfied right now, but you saw something better, didn’t you? If you carefully look inside, you mite realize that you would even want your tomorrow to be better than your today irrespective of whether you are contented right now or are completely devastated.
A wise man once told me(I always wanted to use that line) about this theory that works inside people’s head, knowing or unknowingly. He had drawn four smiley faces on the board. The first was a happy smiley . He said that was the phase of your life when you are more or less getting what you hope to get. Then there was a sad smiley . He said that was the time when things don’t go as you planned them to be. You get sad, disheartened and upset. Then he drew up a smiley which I cn’t possibly draw. It was a straight face smiley but with a finger scratching his head. He explained that phase to be the time when you analyse and accept your situations. You have cried enough over your spilled milk and now you realize that things have gone wrong and there’s nothing u can do to undo it. The exact time when you hit this phase varies from person to person and situation to situation. Could be days, years or just hours or decades, but it comes; If it doesn’t come till you die, then probably the cause of your death must be suicide! Ok, I just thought of something, I think I’m being too preachy at this stage of the article. You think so too? Hmm... well, I just pointed it out before you would, so even though now u think it to be preachy, was it really you who think it? For all you know, I just put a thought in your head and you accepted it as your own.
The fourth smiley was a slight happy smiley with a thumbs-up. What? Yes, I am continuing with my anecdote, you can mull over the fact whether i’m preachy or not and then decide if you want to continue ahead. Seriously... I’ll wait. I’ll also end this paragraph right after this sentence for you, but we both know whats going to happen, don’t we?
Alright… I won’t ask you whether you thought I was preachy or not, lets just leave it and enjoy each other’s company while we still can. That phase, he continued, is when you decide to start your life afresh, forgetting all past mistakes and failures. Now you make new goals and aims, this time may or may not learning from past disappointments, and you decide you want to be sad no more and aim to be happy. Again, all these phases happen consciously or subconsciously, so you might not exactly trace them but they happen in the same order. Then he took a marker and drew a badly shaped arrow from the fourth smiley towards the first smiley. And the cycle goes on and on, he said with a gleam in his eye of a show well put on(sounds all right, doesn’t it?) I remember noticing other people’s reaction to this theory, they seemed like delighted little children who think they have found the answer to everything in life. I wasn’t left so orgasmic by the idea. I wasn’t quite sure whether the cycle going on and on was necessarily a good sign. To me, it seemed as if it’s a sick game that we are being made to play over and over again. Aim, succeed, aim again – aim, fail, aim again. Wtf?
No, I’m not gonna explain the last couple of lines. You’re gonna have to figure it out on your own, its pretty self-explanatory though. I’ll wait.
Another thought has just struck my head. This waiting for you to think thing is getting too cheesy now. I feel I over-used it, isn’t it? Hmm.. do you think I should edit some out when I’m proof-reading it? Well, maybe I won’t proof read it at all and serve you the raw un-touched version of my work! That has always been my dream. To let my audience read the first draft that I write of my stories. With all the grammar mistakes, punctuality error, many spelling mistakes almost like drunk-typing, overuse of colloquial terms, unpolished language and some notes in brackets for my future self. And with all the plot-imbalances and lack of fluency to the story. Basically, it would be the most honest portrayal of my thoughts which mould themselves into words and later on into proper sentences. It has always been a delight for myself to read such ‘original’ documents. If you are a writer too you’ll know, its like masturbation for your mind. See, ideally I’d edit out the previous sentence when I read this article again, because I know what my publishers, agent, wife and all the others who review my work before it gets finalized into a book, would say to me.. ‘this part won’t fit here, is it a good idea to confuse our TG(target audience) at this stage of the plot?, when people read your name on a book they expect certain things, you’re a brand and so you must never divert from your core identity and blah.. blah.. and what not!! I’m an outcast who has found a curse instead of a gift. I’ve lost more than I’ve achieved by my literary successes. I miss those old times when I could write according to my whims and fancies and people who read it would admire it just on the basis of that piece, and not on how well the TG will take it or how well will the book fare with the book critics(that seem to have been crawling out of every nook and corner these days). For once, I wish I could tell them all and their TG’s to take their opinions and shove it straight up their whiny asses. My work is for me first!
I know you didn’t need to think but the last paragraph break was not for you, it was for me. I went into a nostalgia there for a while. Follow your passion they said, do what you love and you wouldn’t have to work for a day in your life they said, dream big they said and they said much more, those brain-washing writers of best-selling inspirational books! But why doesn’t anyone ever tell you that you can never have it all? If you gain some, you are gonna lose some too. I had found my passion in writing because it gave me the freedom to express, a freedom to share things as I saw fit, a freedom to tell things my way. And now, I feel I tricked myself into giving away that freedom for a success that is as much an illusion as the voice in your head, without which you wouldn’t be able to read right now! Did I make sense in the last sentence? No, I didn’t, I know. Ideally, in the ‘proof-reading’ time, I’d divulge more into it so that the reader won’t hate me for confusing him/her. Afterall, I write for my ‘TG’! I think passion doesn’t like to be showcased in front of all, it relishes itself in the privacy of its possessor. Like a shy Scorpion girl, who’d hide her true sexual beast from the public and would unleash it only onto her lover in the sanctity of their bedroom. I did it again, I know.. but this is kinda fun now. I feel this article to be a silent revolt of my passion against the chains put onto it by its mass-consumption. The more confusing sentences I write, the more liberated it feels! Because somewhere I sense that someone else, apart from my usual victims, is going to read this particular write-up. Is it you? Are you new?
Jerry McGuire! My head is filled with the thoughts of that film. I can’t think of anything else right now. Jerry McGuire! He could do it, so can I. Yes. I’ve always related to Tom Cruise’s role in that movie, how he, in his nervous breakdown, sends out letters to his colleagues at work explaining how reckless and wrong the sports management company’s attitude towards business is and how they should all ‘reform’ themselves and treat their clients better. Wait, Is that what I’m going through right now? A nervous breakdown? depression? No ways. Why would being depressed bother me? writers, especially the ones like me, are perennially depressed. Depression for us is like a professional hazard. No, this is something else, nd it is strong. I think I’m gonna do it. This article is going on my blog right after I say yes to MS Word when it asks me if I want to save it. Den I’ll tweet about it, for the whole world to see. No re-reads, no edits, no ‘corrections’… the raw untainted image of my fragile mind, for everyone to judge, because that’s what everyone does doesn’t it? Judge? Jerry McGguire got fired for his little stunt, but that’s when his character took off its arc. Its time for me to experience change, I think. A smile has come upon my face. I feel even you, (someone new), are smiling right this moment. If you weren’t smiling in the previous line, you are now. I feel quite younger too. Hmm… Maybe coz grown-ups don’t play silly pranks. Or do they?
Unfaithfully and unpredictably yours,
Your writer.
