There was once a boy who sang very well. His was gifted with the ability to hold on to a tune like a train holds on to its rails. His voice was like petrichor—like the smell of approaching rain, his young voice signalled a time in the not too distant future when his fully developed throat would produce a voice like velvet.
But the boy knew he wasn’t as gifted as others perceived. He knew he had to learn other trades. He started going into the forest with the others, learning how to chop trees and sell wood. He earned a little money and bought himself some toys. They were reward for working so hard, for enduring cuts and bruises and constant back-aches. Yet, he carried on, growing better and better, earning more and more, until one day, he bought himself his own cycle, just for fun.
On a typical day, he’d trudge into the forest with the others early in the morning. After working hard all day, he’d return home late in the evening, freshen up and go riding on his cycle. He soon made friends with other boys in other parts of the small town, and then a couple of girlfriends too, who taught him how to do more things with his lips than just sing.
And life went on.
One fine day, it rained too heavily. Many parts of the town got flooded with water, and everyone was advised to stay indoors. The boy was no longer a boy but a hardened man now. His hands were rough, and his face was smoothened by years of winter wind blowing against it. With nothing else to do, he made himself some tea and sat by the window, tapping his foot absentmindedly against the chair’s leg.
Suddenly he realised the tapping was rhythmic. A simple tap-tap-tap, tap-tap. What a strange thing. But the rhythm began to fill him up, from toe to head, until he found himself nodding his head as soundless music welled up inside him. Suddenly, he had the urge to sing, something he hadn’t done in years. He hummed the forgotten lyrics of the verse until he reached the chorus, and when he opened his mouth to sing—
He spat out his tea.
He tried again, and then he threw away his cup, staring at it as if it were filled with poison.
Yet he tried again to force words out of his mouth in a melodious manner, but all that came out of him was an untamed voice, wildly out of tune, uncouth. He sputtered and fell to his knees, clutching his throat desperately.
But it was in vain. The music had drained out of him, gone like the trees he had cut away. The demons of neglect had stolen his gift from him.
I am that boy. I am he, at that stage of my life when the writing is going out of me. All I think about is work, my salary and Football Manager. I am losing touch, losing my magic. I have not been inspired to write for the longest time, and I am afraid it’s slipping away from me. I look back on it now—writing used to give me satisfaction every time I wrote something awesome. Now, that source of satisfaction and happiness has gone missing. Writing a blog post is one thing, but writing something romantic (for lack of a better word) is almost therapeutic. Where has my imagination gone? I hope, having locked it away for so long, I have not lost its key. Then why, something inside me screams, am I not writing? Why am I not getting ideas about what to write? Why am I not randomly typing away on an empty Notepad or Word document, to find at the end that it’s beautiful and brutally honest? I WANT TO WRITE! A story, a shamelessly amateur poem, anything at all! A random literary stream of consciousness that could mean anything to anyone reading it, and something entirely different to me, because I created it and only I know what I meant.
What strikes me hurtfully is how much I’ve sold myself out. Whenever I write a blog post, I’m concerned about the fact that it will appear on Facebook, it might attract readership and comments. If my writing is a bit of my soul baring itself to me, I’m putting it up for display to the world. Am I ok with that?
This is not the first time I’ve written about writing something under the watchful eyes of the Invisible Audience—hah, I think of it now…the number of times I’ve written praise for it. Yet, I contradict myself…my audience is not invisible. It’s made up of people I know, people I studied with—colleagues and potential colleagues, bosses and potential clients. We’re all judged by everyone else every minute of every day. But come to think of it…instead of that fact becoming a point of worry, shouldn’t it raise a question, i.e. why bother? How many of these people mean anything to you anyway?
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