I, is somebody else.

"You don't write as much as you used to anymore?"

Recently, an old acquaintance dropped me a text, asking if I was doing alright. It's been over eight months since I wiped my presence from all social media. She asked me this question in one of her first texts. She mentioned how she loved my poem "The Scent of a Woman." I had almost forgotten I’d written that. She told me how comforting my writings had been for her, an escape as she got back from work. A smile appeared on my face as I read the message. "Yeah, I'll write," I replied rather blandly. "You should. Your writing is great!" she responded immediately.

In that fleeting moment, I was reminded of the time when I used to write multiple poems in a day. I used to craft short stories and plotlines with ease. For a few seconds, my soulless eyes twinkled, as if someone had refueled them with the 'soul' that had been missing for months. For those few seconds, I smiled uncontrollably. I smiled at a version of myself that I believed had vanished into thin air. I could see the excitement of an innocent child in his expressive eyes, the smile that never faded even in the hardest of situations. I saw that young lad who used to shoulder responsibilities with passion and perseverance, never resting until he was done. I could see the dreams he dreamed for himself, the drive in his steps, and the inspiration in his speech.

But he faded again after those few seconds, stealing the genuine smile stiffening on my face. I was back to who I had become. The colors around me drained through the corners of my vision; the darkness crept in. It was dull and gray again—yet I was unfazed, accustomed to the dullness that bright colors had begun to bother me.

"You don't know your potential. You don't know how intelligent you are," my father told me once, in between my sobs over a phone call. My father has always been a support system for me, as has my mother, but a father knows his son better. I had always been a driven student, always wanting more from something (probably from everything). I allowed myself to lose, but with immense control, meandering into different fields like an over-enthusiastic child in a grand toy store. I aspired to do my best, to learn everything I could, throughout the naivety of my childhood and the confusion of adolescence—until many months ago. I seldom shied away from aiming big, pushing myself into a vicious cycle of working extremely hard and striving to be the best in whatever I ventured into.

Ambition was everything to me. Passion, to me, was an attribute of ambition. Hard work was an attribute of passion. Intelligence was never part of the equation, as I never considered myself intelligent. If anything, I always thought I was the dumbest in the group, and to excel, I had to work extremely hard. Every happy milestone in my life was the result of ambition and its attributes, and prayers.
Now, I stand in the kitchen every morning (sometimes groggy on a rainy afternoon), holding a cup of coffee and rethinking certain life choices. 

I’ve become so used to looking at myself in the mirror that I forgot to actually observe myself—to talk to myself, to breathe life into me. Recently, I looked intently at myself in the mirror in my room. I couldn’t recognize the person I saw. I was someone else: the dark under-eyes, the scruffy beard, the roughly combed, medium-length hair, and the ill-maintained mustache. Eyes drooping from a lack of good night's sleep, almost as if they’d given up on me—and so had I. I stood in front of that mirror, observing myself for a full minute. I stood there, sans ambition, sans soul, sans happiness.

"I is somebody else"—Arthur Rimbaud. I'm not there.

 

I wish to run like a kid in an open field, arms wide open, welcoming the winds.
I wish to swim against the most violent tides with all my might.
I wish to hear the same old hardcore guitar strums when I take on a challenging task, instead of chickening out at the very sight of it. But I'm stuck in a vicious cycle, on a vast and empty track of void. I stand there, sans ambition, sans soul, sans happiness. Though I see a fence, now, I dream of one day racing along the track, competing against the chaos within me. I dream of crossing the mighty hurdles as they grow bigger and bigger, and then—finally—leaping over the fence.

I often whisper words of resilience to my current self, trying to summon strength and rekindle the flame of passion, perseverence & poetry. In the revolutionary words of the great Tamil poet, Mahakavi Bharatiyar:

Lurking around, scavenging for food.
Prattling gossips and preaching petty tales,
Worrying myself with thoughts,
Harming others with selfish acts,
Growing senile as my hair turns gray,
And—
Becoming fodder for the relentless march of time.

pala vedikkai manidharai pole, 

naan veezhven endre ninaithayo?

Note:
This post is a bit different from my usual writing. It's a personal reflection, a deep dive into my current state of mind. I’m aware that many of you may be navigating similar dilemmas at this stage in life. If you find yourself in such a place, I hope these words bring some clarity or at least remind you that you're not alone.