Expressing oneself
Following is an email I received from a friend of mine (S) . I want to share it here (with her permission...after which I will tell you why. Here goes...
This was supposed to be a comment for one of your blogs, just turned out too personal, so I’m mailing it.. :) I’m not in the best of moods, so it turned out kinda random now that I read the whole of it, but too bad…
Good work at the blogging medha… although, I’m amazed, that not one blog pays homage to your love for music… (ignoring suffocation here :)… )
I kinda liked the one where you talk about growing up, about finalizing your principles, attitudes, etc. I was trying to figure out if i ever went through a phase like that in my life. Where I felt like, this is it. These are my principles, this is what I stand up for, and this is what I don’t stand up for. Cos everyday, I feel like I’m changing. I’m evolving. And I’m never going to stop evolving. I’m comfortable with the idea. But what makes me uncomfortable is the fact that my principles change with my situation. What makes me more uncomfortable is that given the situation, each one of them makes sense to me at different points of time in my life. Is that good or bad? Right or wrong? Ethical or super duper unethical? I have no clue. But it makes me uncomfortable.
Anyway. What I’d initially set out to do was to write something for you on a song I was listening to today. Not meaning to fill the gaps in your blogspot, but just that reading yours made me want to pen down something I felt this morning. I was walking towards class. Its about a fifteen minute walk and I prefer doing it alone. I like taking in the hustle bustle on campus each morning… visually… but the sounds I like to block out with my ipod… it makes me feel like I am part of their world, but I still have my own space… kinda random, but I like it somehow.. anyway.. so fifteen minutes usually allows about two and a half songs.. I try and tailor it to my mood.. but this morning I just let it run on its own… the ipod chose janie’s got a gun.. I don’t think I’ve heard that song since I was fifteen or something…at that time, it was just one of those songs that I loved cos it was the closest that I could get to rock and it was the closest I could get to sharing my brother’s supreme taste in music… today when I was listening to it, there was this one line in it, that aerosmith sings with full conviction and full throated… “run away.. run away from the pain..”
I stopped for two seconds when I heard it the first time.. It made me uncomfortable.. like it wasn’t aerosmith, but someone inside me that said that… serious.. no kidding.. it was like an inner voice thing.. I ignored it and walked faster… two seconds later aerosmith, convinced that I hadn’t heard him loud and clear, sings it a zillion more times in a wide variety of ways.. and u know medha, I just really really really wanted to turn around, not go for class, and just run in the opposite direction.. full speed.. it made me wonder if I was hating this part of the world so much that I really did want to run away from it sometimes.. when I said the people were pretentious medha, I really meant it.. I really did…they’re all really nice, but that doesn’t take away the pretense from their conversations and actions.. I hate it..
"
Now the reason I paste this here, is not for its content which is relatively irrelevant. It's for the style of writing. Now S is not someone who is known for her penmanship or anything nor in fact does she herself think she's got an flair in that area- but this I think was a beautiful piece of writing. And the reason for that I believ is that it was nto planned, not thought out, not forced not even I should say intended. And that is when I believ people write the best- the creativity just flows out. You express your thoughts and emotions so naturally that you give the reader a sense of what you felt- what in fact you were feeling- at the moment you wrote it. It's personal..it creates an immediate link between the writer and a reader and it's beautiful. No matter what the content..because emotions are beautiful.
Which is why I don't understand people who sit down and write poetry. I don't disrespect it, I just don't understand it. I would love it if someone explained it to me, but right now, I just don't get it. I mean what do you do- think of rhyming words??
I love raw torrid passion or listless peaceful submission or hapless senseless meanderings or smiling through your tears or dreamy-eyed foolish as can be romanticism or wanting to pull your heart out so it stops aching..... write it as you feel it and someone else will feel it with you!
PS 1: In the context another piece of writing which I believe supports my point is this.
http://bilbobloggins.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-hate-my-life.html
It's something I loved reading. You don't need to know the person or anything about him or her. You need no context no background.
PS 2: For S, I would like to say this. Most of how I would respond to your e-mail is too personal to write up here but I loved reading what you wrote and I felt like at some time or the other I wanted to run too. You could have been describing my feelings - some other date and time! :)
This was supposed to be a comment for one of your blogs, just turned out too personal, so I’m mailing it.. :) I’m not in the best of moods, so it turned out kinda random now that I read the whole of it, but too bad…
Good work at the blogging medha… although, I’m amazed, that not one blog pays homage to your love for music… (ignoring suffocation here :)… )
I kinda liked the one where you talk about growing up, about finalizing your principles, attitudes, etc. I was trying to figure out if i ever went through a phase like that in my life. Where I felt like, this is it. These are my principles, this is what I stand up for, and this is what I don’t stand up for. Cos everyday, I feel like I’m changing. I’m evolving. And I’m never going to stop evolving. I’m comfortable with the idea. But what makes me uncomfortable is the fact that my principles change with my situation. What makes me more uncomfortable is that given the situation, each one of them makes sense to me at different points of time in my life. Is that good or bad? Right or wrong? Ethical or super duper unethical? I have no clue. But it makes me uncomfortable.
Anyway. What I’d initially set out to do was to write something for you on a song I was listening to today. Not meaning to fill the gaps in your blogspot, but just that reading yours made me want to pen down something I felt this morning. I was walking towards class. Its about a fifteen minute walk and I prefer doing it alone. I like taking in the hustle bustle on campus each morning… visually… but the sounds I like to block out with my ipod… it makes me feel like I am part of their world, but I still have my own space… kinda random, but I like it somehow.. anyway.. so fifteen minutes usually allows about two and a half songs.. I try and tailor it to my mood.. but this morning I just let it run on its own… the ipod chose janie’s got a gun.. I don’t think I’ve heard that song since I was fifteen or something…at that time, it was just one of those songs that I loved cos it was the closest that I could get to rock and it was the closest I could get to sharing my brother’s supreme taste in music… today when I was listening to it, there was this one line in it, that aerosmith sings with full conviction and full throated… “run away.. run away from the pain..”
I stopped for two seconds when I heard it the first time.. It made me uncomfortable.. like it wasn’t aerosmith, but someone inside me that said that… serious.. no kidding.. it was like an inner voice thing.. I ignored it and walked faster… two seconds later aerosmith, convinced that I hadn’t heard him loud and clear, sings it a zillion more times in a wide variety of ways.. and u know medha, I just really really really wanted to turn around, not go for class, and just run in the opposite direction.. full speed.. it made me wonder if I was hating this part of the world so much that I really did want to run away from it sometimes.. when I said the people were pretentious medha, I really meant it.. I really did…they’re all really nice, but that doesn’t take away the pretense from their conversations and actions.. I hate it..
"
Now the reason I paste this here, is not for its content which is relatively irrelevant. It's for the style of writing. Now S is not someone who is known for her penmanship or anything nor in fact does she herself think she's got an flair in that area- but this I think was a beautiful piece of writing. And the reason for that I believ is that it was nto planned, not thought out, not forced not even I should say intended. And that is when I believ people write the best- the creativity just flows out. You express your thoughts and emotions so naturally that you give the reader a sense of what you felt- what in fact you were feeling- at the moment you wrote it. It's personal..it creates an immediate link between the writer and a reader and it's beautiful. No matter what the content..because emotions are beautiful.
Which is why I don't understand people who sit down and write poetry. I don't disrespect it, I just don't understand it. I would love it if someone explained it to me, but right now, I just don't get it. I mean what do you do- think of rhyming words??
I love raw torrid passion or listless peaceful submission or hapless senseless meanderings or smiling through your tears or dreamy-eyed foolish as can be romanticism or wanting to pull your heart out so it stops aching..... write it as you feel it and someone else will feel it with you!
PS 1: In the context another piece of writing which I believe supports my point is this.
http://bilbobloggins.blogspot.com/2005/08/i-hate-my-life.html
It's something I loved reading. You don't need to know the person or anything about him or her. You need no context no background.
PS 2: For S, I would like to say this. Most of how I would respond to your e-mail is too personal to write up here but I loved reading what you wrote and I felt like at some time or the other I wanted to run too. You could have been describing my feelings - some other date and time! :)
posted by inconsequential at 9:55 am
1 Comments:
Hi Medha... It is a funny chain of events that made me land up on this page and also made me read your posts. So, I guess, you could now be grateful in that ungrateful way you mentioned.. :-)
The reason I actually overcame my apprehensions about arbitrarily commenting on the blog of someone I used to know a long way back in skl is exactly that... to overcome my apprehensions about blah blah blah... :D
No, but seriously speaking, it was what this post deals with, coz this is just what I had been thinking of sometime yesterday. I (too) am not exactly revered for my adroitness in writing, neither do I pretend to be so, but I certainly believe that when somebody writes from their heart, when they are not exactly trying too hard to write well, that is the point when their scribblings become truly meaningful . And quite beautiful as well. Like the piece by our friend. Like the piece by my friend which had actually made me think of this in the first place.
Post a Comment
<< Home