I was reading some of my old work today.
Some of it was just about okay, at least given that I was young then.
And some of it — outrightly terrible. I was so damn embarassed that I deleted quite a bit of it. Okay, a whole lot of it. Especially, stuff I had written as love pomes. Yuck!
But today as I find them to be bad, I also remember how, that once upon a time, I seriously used to believe I could write. When the reality and the fact of the matter was that I was churning out some very mediocre literature.
Most of us sometimes do not know how bad we are. We are so quick to judge and analyse others. But when we have to judge ourselves, we truly believe we can be objective. We are not conning ourselves because we earnestly and strongly believe we know our work good enough. Some of us know we are not perfect but we think we are pretty okay.
What if what we think is decent is not good enough?
What if we are more mediocre than what we think we are?
What if we are outrightly sub-standard?
What if we are stupid enough not to realise it?
I get pissed off everytime I see what I think is shoddy work. I hate mediocrity and have often felt like shooting sub-editors point blank, everytime I see how they’ve chopped my copy without seeing reason and applying logic. Even when I’m in a non-violent mood, I poke fun at mediocrity.
Today as I see my mediocre creations from the past, I am gripped with a sense of fear.
I’ve always believed that there is a lot to learn and the only way to learn is on the job. And that there is no such thing as perfection. I have believed that I have made a million mistakes. And that I’ve learnt a million lessons.
The problem is: looks like there are another eight billion lessons (just randomly eight, don’t ask why!) waiting to be learnt.
The tragedy is that I’m already halfway through life.
Failed relationships have only strengthened this theory. At 28, I have not found the right person for me. I tried over half a dozen times. I’ve got it wrong every single time. Maybe it’s just this temporary phase of insecurity. Maybe it’s time to take to the discman and cut off from the rest of the world. Maybe it’s time to disable the comments section. Maybe it’s the time for a movie marathon session and seek what I need most: Escape!
P.S: I’m disabling comments for a while. I’m perfectly fine and I don’t need counselling or advice. It’s not that bad yet. 🙂 I just want to left alone.
Cheers!
MADRAS INK. 