Writers' block means opportunity to read

The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self lives in light 

Sometime back I wrote a post about my writer's block. I just couldn't create a new piece of writing. Although there were thousands of thoughts jumping inside my mind but I was unable to latch onto one. This inability leads to frustration which made the process even more difficult. Anybody would tell this period of inactivity is unavoidable. And my mind has been under the influence of this atrocity for over a month now. The coupling of helplessness and uncertainty leads to stagnation of not only intellectual growth but the emotions took a beating as well. In a writer's life these periods are as common & unpredictable as the seasons in a year!

The last post was about the symptoms and after effects of this disease. In this post I would walk through the cure for this. I must admit the inspiration behind this post came from my father. On reading my previous post he said something that stuck with me. He described writer's block as the opportunity to read. Maybe it's the time to take a short sabbatical from writing. Time to venture out and observe others. The time to explore what's outside my comfort zone. My comfort zone is a small room where I feel the warmth of security and happiness. It keeps me privy from mental/emotional infections floating around my room. But this room insulates me from influences that could expand my horizons and bring me newer sources of happiness. It does let me take a peek outside the windows but most of the time I lack the courage to open the door and venture out.

The "room" I am referring to is my ego. The greatest force keeping me within this confinement is my own ego. This feeling of consciousness of my own identity although necessary but many a times; but most of the time it causes more harm than good. Frankly I want to be aware of my "self" but not merely my self. And therein lies the rub. Whether to hold onto this feeling or let it go? Some of you might argue that it's the ego that fills in the levels of self-respect and self-confidence inside us. But herein I would ask the question does letting go of the feeling of self-consciousness in any way subvert the concept of "I"? Or it gives me a chance to stay conscious of my surroundings as well. I don't want "I" to suffer because of "I"! I cannot prevent "You" to harm "I" but I can definitely preserve "I" from the ire of "I". Getting a bit complicated, eh?

Let's un-complicate this thing. There are far too many constraints around me but if I can loosen the constraint most closest to me. The constraint is my ego. All the problems of the world would disappear if only people can understand other's point of view. A bit of naivety slipping in; but smaller dosages of humility wont cause any harm to me. The "windows" I spoke about earlier are emotions such as humility, patience, compassion that seems to have got lost in the whirlwind of ego and  superficiality. But how do I slip in these pills of humility into my consciousness? The simplest way is to do things that I have kept distance from for all these years. Some of the things that have helped my were like watching a foreign language movie, learning a new instrument, reading a book I haven't heard about, asking questions that may be boring or even trying to write on something that's challenging!

The commonest of emotion in all the above said acts is vulnerability. I am a bit like Alice falling through the hole not knowing what's going to come next. I am fully aware of my surrounding because I am expecting the unexpected. I am flexible and grabbing onto as much inputs as I can. In an interview Dustin Hoffman compare acting to sitting on a hot pan. As I would jump off immediately if I accidentally sat on a hot pan. Similarly in my life I avoid "issues" that bring in emotions that are weakening. As Peter Bregman said in a recent TEDx talk that you have to fall down and take a beating to learn. Same has to be done to my ego to learn, fall and then rise. So I wish I keep falling and rising until the day I say "bye bye, blackbird".

On my part I picked up a book by Tishani Doshi, watched a Afrikaans movie (Liefling, die Movie), listened to my criticism from a friend and would try to learn guitar soon. I am going to ask these questions to me pretty soon:

• Did my ego took a beating? 
• Did I feel uncomfortable?
• Did I learn something new?
• Would I continue to do this again and again?

If I answer yes to all of these I would be happier than I was a moment ago!

Ek lewe! gemaak om na liefde te strewe. ("I live to strive for love")


Caption Source:  Katha Up. Part 1, 3:1, p. 88 in The Upanishads. Trans. Eknath Easwaran. Tomales, CA.: Nilgiri Press, 1987 and courtesy of http://www.onelittleangel.com/