My journey with words so far…

As a child, I was a very average student. My English was not very great. I was not fond of English lessons, especially the ones around poetry and writing essays. My relationship with poetry was purely academic, learn it the way the teacher explained it and be done with it. I haven’t read a single poem outside the school syllabus (and the ones in Inifinithoughts, until now when Rumi happened!). I always used to wonder why poetry was even part of the curriculum. English language was always a burden and never a flow. Writing was never my thing as a student. Ironically, I loved to read novels, mostly mystery. I read them for the plot and rarely for the literature. 

As a working professional, in my initial years, I have had very bad experiences in writing reports. There have been days when my boss would sit with me and edit my work line by line, giving me an earful. These did help me learn, but again they reiterated my belief that writing was not my thing. It was during this time that subject plus happened. We had to write our speeches for subject plus. It was my very first-time experiencing writing outside exam halls and deadlines. It was the first time I used words to express what I feel.

Baby steps here and there. I got better with words, my expressions got better and as a professional, my emails got better. I wrote mostly to wish loved ones on their special days. I wrote my understanding of Mahatria’s teaching. This is all I thought I could do with words. My loved ones kept pushing me to try writing and that’s when I took up the WoW workshop. It is only during the workshop did I realize that writing is not just about the expression of my feeling. But writing is to understand the different emotions even within me. This realization is dawning on me that the 1/8th of the mind can access and understand the 7/8th of the subconscious mind through words.

As I am writing this there is so much self-discovery that is happening. It was during subject plus that I had the first glimpses of the writing flow. After my first HDB, I think for some time I became the flow. It was the very first-time poetry flowed and I remember being flabbergasted and surprised beyond anything. I attributed it all to the soul touching and life-changing experiences I had in HDB. I did not think of it as anything to do with writing and me. While my relationship with writing started getting better, I still did not think writing was for me. I did not even think to pursue it as a hobby, even though I enjoyed it. I guess such was the mental block I had towards it.

With this background, reading my work in WoW1 and WoW2, moved me to the point of tears. While I felt some of them could have been done better, most of them especially the poems felt so well done. Some of it I marvelled at how I could think and write so much. I felt very proud and happy for myself. For a person who never liked the language or the genre of poetry I am humbled, I am grateful, I am stunned, and I am at loss for words. Humbled that writing chose me, grateful to be the instrument, stunned that so much was within me and a loss for words simply for this understanding. I guess I am understanding a part of me that I never knew existed. When I think of how each article flowed… that in itself is such an amazing process. When I start to write a piece, I have mostly a vague emotion, an ambiguous feeling, a person, an incident or a word in mind. As I write words flow revealing so much of my thoughts to me. What I start and what I end with are so different and until I end, I don’t know what it will be. Even this sharing here, I had no idea so much would flow. I did not expect to write about how I felt about writing all my life… and yet it flowed. Helping me understand that I need to use words to understand the 7/8th of my mind. 

I also realized that there is an understanding we have about things. But the depth of this understanding keeps changing as one grows in maturity and goes deeper. Even while doing WoW1 I felt writing was revealing me to me… I still feel the same but a lot deeper. One video, one picture, one word, one feeling could bring out so much of a writer in me. I am excited to explore most and more. This is the very first time in my life I have written consistently weekly. It is also my first time ever to write for writing and not out of a sudden emotional or intellectual impulsive overflowing need to express. When did I grow? When did I bloom? When did I flower? When did I become this feeler, this lover, this romantic with words? Ah, what a life, to think you are not that only to discover a few years later how much of that you are. His ways!

I started compiling my work in a blog two weeks ago. It felt very nice to put each article up. Every word, every emotion expressed and unexpressed was taking me somewhere. To a place deep within… and it felt like a new beginning… 

It flowed I wondered,

It revealed I was awestruck,

Oh, how can something be,

So simple yet powerful,

So mundane yet so profound,

Like the heart that beats and feels,

Like the mind that thinks and believes,

Words express and yet reveal.

Words, the language of within…