Think Pieces
I haven’t written in such a looong time. I find myself in a series of back and forth over the years, writing and stopping, telling myself I would write again and yet failing to do so. Telling myself I only need the perfect atmosphere, the perfect laptop, pen, the perfect inspiration, and a whole lot of excuses. I would yet try and somehow I would stop, seemingly unable to continue, my thoughts, write-ups, stories, littered in half, never dreaming of completion. I at some point resigned from the thought of ever writing again yet something always called forth but in my stubbornness and maybe non-desire to go through the mindless pursuits and routine as I have been doing over the years, I willfully ignore and refuse to indulge. I fear that even this piece which I now write might end up just like the others. But I’ll write again anyway and maybe someday I will find that consistency again.
I used to be consistent, on Facebook. I even had quite the following. I would post my thoughts on trending issues and the banter would begin, some agreeing, some not. Some however angered at my disposition would proceed to block me, and me, returning the favour. However over the years, I do not know if it was some new awakening of some sort or some keen observation and maybe a willingness to no longer partake in it, I have come to realise that a lot of people do not want to have a conversation. As a creative and not just a writer, I know that I often feel deeply about my work and maybe my ego often feel bruised to have people slander on the things I have conceived or maybe it is the continued lack of logical thoughts and the need for people to drop think pieces and savage responses that make me feel less inclined to engage them.
I have observed that a lot of people simply just want to sound right (even myself I daresay) which I think is an inherent need to validate their ability to form logical thoughts even when they spew nonsense. I have observed a need to sound like you are deep, speaking so much intellectual jargon (i would say, speaking plenty plenty english. It causes me a lot of headaches to be honest), a need to feel like you always know what you are saying even when clearly you do not understand it. Twitter people would say, fake deep or being ‘woke”, whatever that means.
To be honest, I quite miss the banter, the healthy ones, of course, I miss the genuity of just sharing thoughts and admitting that in the end, we don’t have it all figured out the way we think we do, I miss the honest admission of our bias and also the admission that it is not the right or wrong way. We all see things differently. You can be right and I can be right, multiple truths can exist, we can indeed have a conversation and not cower in the face of confrontation, resorting to big words and insults as some would. You can have all the facts and somehow still be wrong because every circumstance is unique in itself. You can have all the facts and be soooo damn right, and nothing anyone says would ever change your position.
I think what is even more daunting is how like me, many of us have chosen to repress ourselves because we are simply afraid. There are so many think pieces and in the midst of all these, a lot of us are not only tired of the sensationalism, we are afraid because as soon as you have a contrary opinion, the world will come for you. You become too careful, too careful that your creativity now suffers for it.
Like twitter comrades would say, 2 secs everywhere don burst and now they must feast on this violence.
I once spoke with someone about a topic that is still trending till date and will continually be one and I had to be honest. I do not have this fire that you have. Not that I do not want to talk about it but I don’t have it in me anymore to do so. In my heart I think that fire died because the more you talk to people about it, it feels like everyone just wants to fight, shout, sound right and no one is really listening. Another person spoke about the same issue and i asked some questions, logical ones i believe and i asked to be shown a new light backed with facts of course and till date, i never got a response but everyday you see posts filled with justified anger and a dangerous one-sided view that is not open to anything else. It is exhausting, to be honest.
When I talk to someone and I sense that craze or they start blowing big big grammar that do not make sense, I remove myself with immediate alacrity.
Maybe there was a time I too used to be like this and I felt and possibly did some of the things they do. We are not all perfect too. I, too, make mistakes.
I think what i am simply trying to say is i miss talking without the constant need of a judgement even though i know that we would eventually toe that part, i miss conversations with healthy banter, logical assertions and facts (i have this with my siblings a lot and boy, are they some of the most interesting conversationalists. Interestingly, we hold our positions nevertheless, we hold our biases and think it’s comforting to note that in the end, we do not always have the answers).
So yeah, this is my think piece like many others.
