There was, or there were junctures in the past when just about anything can inspire me to pen a jumble of either nonsensical, profound or passably read-worthy thoughts. Riding a cramped bus, the feel of gritty sand cascading through my fingers, the sunset, or even just a broken pencil–a lot of things used to switch on for that tap of words to spew forth.
But when you’ve ridden too many cramped buses, witnessed so many sunsets and broken a lot of pencils, you get jaded. Everything becomes unimpressive that you seem to blend with the dull. I still tried to write by resorting to refer myself in the third person. I got my dog to do it. Imaginative–not.
With the monotony that I managed to accept as life, hours can be killed by drowning into my secret abyss. Tuning out literally and figuratively from everything alive that’s happening around. People in buses stopped being interesting and sunsets became monochromatic.
But some things just happen to awaken the dormant mind. A stimulating conversation, waking up on the right side of the bed, that encouraging prod from someone close to you. Suddenly what seemed normal becomes engaging. Like this sign that I’ve mindlessly passed every morning to work for the past 202 or so days, it spoke to me for the first time. It had meaning again. I just had to see. It reminded me that next time I get on the bus, I would offer my seat with extra kindness. Not that I begrudged before but this time, do it wholeheartedly. I can start with that.
Maybe if I knew music, I’d create. Or if I knew art, I’d Cezanne myself my own “Boy in the Red Vest”. But no. So I must write. I must revive the appetite for searching things which are beautiful and be compelled to imprint them in words. To remind myself that humanity is interesting and thus I ought to be kinder. And that every sunset is different from the one yesterday and that I ought to be inspired.
I can restart with that.
