I’m breaking a mental block : Writing

Sreyas Sriram
Sep 9, 2018 · 4 min read

I began writing this post at 8:10 PM yesterday a few minutes after ordering food for the family,It took me three sittings and a night of sleep to get here. Each time I sit down the blank screen leers at me.

1.1 Ask kids to write about UFOs

My first brush with writing started in school . If you grew up as a student in India, you probably went through an exercise in English class to instruct you on“being creative”. Here’s a sample exercise from grade 6,

It was a beautiful evening , a cow grazed merrily in the field under the shade of a mango tree — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

One had to employ the constructs of English language to create meaningful sounding essays .I can recall describing a scene of an alien abduction and how my victim : the cow reacted to it. The essay borrowed some elements from my favourite TV show at the time : Dragon Ball Z (It had Frieza and his cool looking spaceship).I remember being marked down on this essay , because it was outlandish.

Growing up , writing exercises did not teach me a lot about creativity but what faculty did not want to see while grading essays.

1.2 Fast forward a few years.

I’m in college and go through the most frustrating phase of growing up : Being on my own , building an environment for self-learning , handling money , making and losing friends.

At around this point , I started jotting down and unpacking some of the experiences I went through :

1.Experiences narrated from my viewpoint

2. The dynamics between the characters involved

3.How I saw dialogue lead to an event’s eventual outcome

You could call it a strategic map of a situation, for real. I made sure to reflect on bias and identified constraints with respect to my model of the world.

For real

1.2.1 Showtime- Reflective writing as a tool

I tried sitting down and having a dialogue : first with myself and next with people close to me .

Some found the exercise to be intense and distasteful.They saw past experience as fluid beings with capricious character . I only partly agree with this version of reality. I feel this position is defensible (but only to a certain extent ) because only a small fraction of us deliberately design our lives : most of us are drift wood on a stream and build meaning as we go on. An event like being promoted in a job could mean different things over a span of time say 6 months , 1 or 5 years. Our narrative is constantly evolving and hence so is our relation to the past.

Their contemporaries felt quite the contrary, they found human expression on paper to be enlightening. It helped them identify biases ,flaws in logic and blunders made that led them down a certain path . Sometimes events are completely random, and the experience of reflection helped them come to terms with that. Inscriptions (a reflective essay, a comparative study or even a poem)help you see things better : You might not see reality in the process but are likely to identify a path to seek a higher level of truth.

These experiments with thought and logic led me to look at the self as a blend of beliefs working at cross-purposes and driven by a shaky resolve . Simply put , I was a man with mask. I could be anyone or anything, by merely tweaking a few variables governing my conscious self.

1.2.2 Writing therefore became infrequent and private

The exercise gave me a new meaning to writing (and to life). I couldn’t write as easily for public view anymore. I soon stopped writing as an exercise entirely.Took me a year to kick-start writing again.

1.3 I’m challenging myself again

I maintain a list of insane things I want to do, and writing about my journey took one of my top spots. I believe in rewiring the mind to focus on the process rather than the product. Let’s see where this goes?

1.4 To conclude

Here’s what I hope you take back ,if nothing else:

1.This isn’t my first attempt at writing. I have about 11 rough drafts on an array of topics resigned to the confines of my editing environment on medium.

2.Reasons as to why you don’t want to write (do anything for that matter) might differ. In my case,I’ve always believed the act of writing to be intimate and something I should not share (Constraints).

3. I believe there are others like myself who refrain from sharing online for an array of reasons: Spelling and grammar , the fine line between writing about personal Vs professional topics ,having a wrong opinion or repercussions for a poorly received essay being a few examples.

4. Giving it a shot could give you the clarity about the process. Remember the process is everything when it comes to starting something.

Sreyas Sriram

Written by

Sreyas is a human being , like anyone else. He’s here to explore interesting ideas. He calls himself the modern day renaissance boi.

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