So on Friday I took the highly unusual decision of sharing this blog. I won’t go into the why and how of that decision, because that’s another story and that’s anyway something I would rather not think about (the sharing, i.e., and the implication it may have on my own honesty as I vomit here).
But one of the results of that decision was me reading through all my blog posts, right from now back to where I started.
How did I feel as I read through the numerous entries from 2003 to 2006, the sparser ones of 2007 and the occasional ones from 2008 to 2011? As if time stood still for a moment; I closed my eyes and a whiff of a particular emotion, of a specific smell belonging to some post came back to me, bringing it with a plethora of memories and moments. I indulged in each of one of them, savored each one of them, smiling at something warm, giggling at something silly, appreciating the play of words that gave incidents a life that they sometimes didn’t deserve.
Bull shit.
Mostly, I just cringed at how self-indulgent, narcissistic and childish I sound most of the time! At the sharp polarity of emotions that were on display, usually tending towards the negative. At the whiny tone. At the badly structured sentences and inappropriate use of some words. At the use of brackets in every second sentence, which usually acted as unwelcome speed breakers. At the cryptic notes without context, which I am sure sounded like a very intelligent idea to me at that time.
Not that it wasn’t interesting.
One of the things that struck me was how cyclical life tends to be…and more than life, what we go through. Despite vastly different circumstances, I can see a repeat pattern in what I do, feel, think, which indicates how much of baggage we continue to carry despite our believing it not to be so. Mistakes are repeated too – I keep going through this oscillation between “I am a lonely rock” to “I am all about people”, rarely finding that middle ground. Look at what I am doing right now – what’s the difference between this and what happened 13 years ago?
There is a difference though. While I may still appear to be a yo-yo, I do feel that the extremities have lessened. For example, I no longer seem to have the tendency to fall into a crevice of depression after every single disturbing conversation, which is something that many of my posts are about. It also means that I have become a little more guarded, a little more toned down in my expectations – which I could take as a sign of diluting my self, but I won’t. I think it’s just a sign of maturity. It doesn’t mean I have the lost the ability to feel great or be exuberant or relinquish control – that still happens, though more rarely J
Another point I tried to delineate was the change in my opinions on many subjects. I can sense such a departure from the black & white approach I used to adopt earlier. Others sense it too. D keeps commenting that I am far too relaxed in my assessment of movies! I have a couple of friends who have lives that would have had me running to the nearest spiritual center to find holy water in the old days; now I am a little more compassionate. I don’t even get so angry at some of the behaviors I see senior leaders exhibit, the way I used to earlier – there’s now a sobering acknowledgment of the vast majority of their pressured lives that I don’t really know about. So there’s a lot of grey in my opinions now. I am still damn opinionated though. When I look at the expression in some people’s eyes as I voice my opinions at work, especially if they are new, I am reminded of what Rajul said when he and I went out for a movie for the first time in 2006 – “do you have an opinion on everything?” I of course responded with a simple “yes”.
What I really did treasure were the rediscovery of some poems that I had recorded in the posts. For many years I had been copying my favorite poems, as and when I would stumble across them, into a word document. Which I lost when my hard disk crashed! So it was so good to re-read some of the earlier ones I loved. The Tree of Song. The Dirge of Music…I recently kept thinking of the line “I am not resigned, I do not approve” and couldn’t remember where it came from. Now I do. I hope this spurs me to read more poetry.
And even on the style and quality of writing – yes, while I did cringe most of the time, I need to accept that I was much younger etc. etc. And there definitely was an improvement over the years. In fact, much as I despised the “corporate-y” influence in my writing, my experience at work has certainly helped me articulate complex thoughts in a simpler manner, present compelling arguments based on the audience and structure a large assemblage of ideas without boring or confusing the reader to death. I still don’t feel I have it in me to produce a book, something that several of my friends believe, but maybe I will get there someday.
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