Shystoryteller

Let me start by saying that I haven’t written in a long time. These words are coming out of me after over a year, if not more. Honestly, I haven’t been in an excellent state of mind to notice what has been going on and what I have been doing.

But even in all the chaos going on in my external and internal world, there is one thing that’s been obvious. I have been missing writing more than many other things I know I should be missing.

So, when I ask myself this very basic question – why I write – it’s so that I can say everything I want to.

You see, I have come to a simple realization. I love to talk. But that comes with a very big caveat. I love to talk only when I feel comfortable with someone. Sometimes I have connected with someone in just a matter of minutes and sometimes I can live with someone for years and yet never feel comfortable enough to talk.

Right now, if you ask most of the people in my workplace, they would describe me as someone who barely speaks. There are many people in my team who have not yet even heard my voice. And if you ask my family members, they would tell you how I can’t keep my mouth shut.

I just love to talk. I crave to have someone with whom I can share even the tiniest thing that happens in my life, no matter how mundane and trivial.

But as I age, I realize that it’s not a healthy expectation to have someone who will listen to my blabbering. So, I write in my journal. Not every day, but when I feel like my head is overflowing with random thoughts, I take to pen and paper and bleed my heart. Blank pages are the most accepting listeners.

So what am I doing writing online? Well, I have to admit that filling blank pages can sometimes feel very lonely. It’s like talking to myself and sometimes the thoughts get stuck in an echo chamber.

I am not sure what writing in public does exactly. It’s not like many people read what I am writing. But sometimes I will see some likes and call me selfish, but it does feel good to see that someone somewhere reads and connects with what I am writing.

I guess it’s the same reason why people love social media so much. Vanity and need for social validation.

I am no different. Rather, I have this need to feel like I belong. Like I am not all alone.

That brings me to another point regarding why I love to read all sorts of things.

Sometimes I read something and it connects with me and makes me realize that no matter what I am feeling right now, there is someone else in this world – real or fictional, where someone has experienced something just like this. Somehow it gives me so much comfort, especially during the nights I am unable to sleep and I just lie in bed staring at the ceiling.

So, when I write, I think of some unknown person who will randomly come across these silly words and find some solace. I won’t even get to know that person ever. We would never cross paths again. They might not come across anything else that I write. But for some fleeting moments, there will be a connection.

I don’t think I can express my emotions well in other ways. Words are how I express. Rather, words are how I understand emotions to begin with. I feel deeply when I read and the written words bring out emotions that I didn’t even know existed.

So I write because I need to write. It’s that simple.

Growing up, I never thought about writing. I mean, I wrote school assignments and essays and enjoyed doing that a lot. I even wrote a few short stories. But most of my life I just spun random stories inside my head. Now I realise spinning stories is my way to deal with difficult things going on I my life. It’s always easier to imagine a fictional character going through what you are going through and let the said fictional character deal with it in the safety of your mind.

I kept all these stories safe inside my mind. I was never a very vocal storyteller. And the thought of writing down the stories living rent free inside my head came very late in my life. I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if I had started writing when I was in school.

I finished my schooling, went to college, got my first job and till that point, I had never thought of writing. It took me another degree and another job to start thinking about writing.

Next few years I did my best to learn all about writing. I never had any formal education in writing and it wasn’t easy. I was terrified of making mistakes. Fear of failure kept me frozen for a very long time.

Even when I left my job and thought that I am going to make a career in writing, my fear of failure kept me paralysed. I did make some progress during those long years, too. But I do regret not doing more. I had a wonderful opportunity, but I didn’t write enough bad words.

My theory is that we need to write at least a million bad words before we get to writing anything good. Like how we need to let dirty water run out of a tap before clean water starts coming.

Well, my fear of failure just slowed me down. I might not have written all the crappy words in the years I was without a job. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t get it all out, eventually.

Now I am back in the corporate setting, working ridiculously long hours and having no clue how to get my life in order. But I know that I am going to write. I know I will write really crappy things. I will write things that will make absolutely no sense and I will make numerous mistakes. But that’s all part of the path. I need to go through it all to get to a stage where at least my writing will make sense to me and then perhaps one day will come when my words will connect with others too.

It will take time and I have all the patience in the world. Slowly, I will move forward.

The thing is that these days we come across so much messaging wrapped in motivational and inspirational tone that keeps telling us that we need to hustle and do this and do that and do it right now. That tells us that we need to conquer the world cos if we don’t, then someone else will. That someone else will defeat us.

That is another kind of fear.

And every fear is an opportunity for someone to sell you something.

At least thats what I felt constantly. I would feel insecure about practically everything and then look for things that I truly believed will change my life. They may not be all material things. Even the positive self-help stuff had that allure to make me think that this next thing is just the thing that will finally change my life. And the moment I got to that thing and realised that it was nothing but a mirage, I would get trapped by the next shiny thing.

I don’t even want to think how much time I wasted in that vicious cycle.

What has that got to do anything with my writing? Well, it was always the next book or course or something else that would magically change my writing or even make me write consistently. Maybe it was this particular habit tracker or maybe this system that my favourite author claims to follow that will finally transform me.

At this point, do I even need to tell you how that all ended?

Evey plan, every promise t myself failed. Every planner with 80% unused pages, every tracker abandoned after a few weeks, every failure would reinforce in me that I am such a loser.

Now I am learning to embrace that. To embrace my failures, to join hands with the constant critical commentary going on inside my head. There is no point in ignoring them. No point in doing useless affirmations – at least useless for me. It’s better to enjoy and go with the flow.

Not focusing on the destination, but rather enjoying the journey. Cos the journey sucks at times. We come across bottlenecks, potholes, and all sorts of nonsense on the journey. It’s not easy to enjoy the journey all the time. So, I have decided to enjoy the cribbing too. They might make for good fodder for my writing.

At least thats what I am telling myself right now.

Like all the shitty things that happened in the last two years, I am not yet ready to write about them yet. But maybe one day it will give me a lot of things to write about.

Healing through writing is another thing I am hoping to achieve.

But basically, even if I don’t achieve anything at all from writing. Even if no one reads, even if I am never strong enough to write about painful emotions, even if I don’t end up writing all I want to, I know that right now writing these words is enough.

One word at a time. That’s how I want to proceed.

To summarize, this rather random stream of thoughts – writing is something I need to do to survive this life. I can go for long durations without writing, but that won’t make it any less necessary for me.

I know I self identify as a shy storyteller. And both are important parts of me. There might be a storyteller hidden in me, but the shyness keeps it from coming out completely. And no matter how shy I may feel, the storyteller in me won’t shut up for long.

This is who I am – Shystoryteller

Identity matters. What I believe about myself will define what path I take. If I believe I can do something or can’t do something, I am correct in both the cases.

I write because I am a shy storyteller. That’s what I do. What else can I do?

There are people who express themselves in so many ways. Be it music, or painting or dancing or even sharing memes, everyone has a way to be themselves.

This is my way. Writing things that matter to me. Thinking about random stories, seeing the world in the form of stories, and then sharing them the only way I know how. That’s what I do. That’s what my life’s purpose is.

I might fail miserably. If I listen to my fear of failure, then it will do everything in its power to make me quit completely. But I know another thing about myself is that I am resilient. I don’t give up easily.

I read the below lines somewhere, and it stuck with me –

If you can’t run – walk
If you can’t walk – crawl
But no matter what, don’t stop moving.

It’s the same thing with me. I will make plans to write every single day. But if I can’t write every day for whatever reason, I will write whenever I can. If I can’t write even when I have time, I will still write the moment I can. Be it daily, weekly, monthly or even once in every 20 years, I will still write.

I won’t give up on writing. No matter what.

The timelines don’t matter. How and where I write do not matter. The only thing that matters is that I embrace my identity as shystoryteller unapologetically and completely.