Nothing

One year and 20 days (55 weeks) later, I have nothing to write about. Absolutely nothing. Embarrassingly empty mind when I sit down to write. The only thought beating down in my head is the thought that I have no thoughts. And that thought provokes another thought on why I have just that one thought and nothing else, questioning my current existence. And that snowballs to another thought and then another. “Snowballing” is a more season-appropriate term for it (people in the Southern Hemisphere, if you’re reading this, forest fire might be a more season-appropriate term here, I guess), but “spiraling” explains it better. And yet, not one thought that I can claim worthy of a topic to write about.

Surely, most of us are familiar with how horror movies usually progress. There needs to be that once-hip-and-happening location, some cobwebs need to be in place, they need to be cleared, giving way to an audience (however small) witnessing horror within the confines of said location. But the most vital part to the entire screenplay is a backstory that ekes some emotion in the audience. I think the current state of this publication provides the perfect setting for a backstory (the only emotion you might feel in the end of this could be mere confusion and if so, congratulations, you get how I feel).

People change like seasons — not just from good to bad or vice-versa for there are more than two seasons (fellow Chennai people, I understand your visible confusion). And I am no different. From someone who was able to write multiple ideas down that seemed to be of no real relevance to my life sometimes — t-shirt quotes, interior design, camera angles, stories, topics to discuss via articles and so on, I saw myself slow down on that adventurous spirit. And one day, I stopped.

No explanations, no excuses. My mind just stopped. My best guess was that I cried wolf on implementing some of those previously mentioned ideas too many times and I didn’t come through. I was now stuck with a bunch of half stitched woolen clothes but nothing to cover myself in the thick of winter. The hope of finding that missing needle to stitch the rest was fading away too, for I searched way too hard, way too quickly.

Having watched too many cartoons all my life (on TV, I mean), I always visualize an angel and a devil residing in my head rent-free. “You give up easy! That’s just laziness, bud”, said the devil. I expected the angel to fight him and let him know that I was doing the best that I could. There he stood opposite the devil, cross-armed, head down, no words, no defense. “You lazy angel”, I muttered to myself. I tried to reason with the devil that I was probably taking time to recalibrate my priorities, search for a better answer for this torpor. But all I got in return were snide comments mocking my approach, telling me that the angel lead me to this point and that I ought to listen to the devil more often.

Side note — my devil always sounded like Him from Powerpuff Girls. I wonder why that is.

If only my angel had talked more in my support, if only I had gotten to my ideas fas…oh!

Mental note — stop watching so many cartoons!

If only my angel had talked more in my support, if only I had gotten to my ideas faster, if only I detailed my ideas better to the point where I could lay them out and execute each one of them in autopilot mode, if only I had more energy, if only I had more time in a day, if only I could have slept lesser, if only I did not have as much work, if only COVID had lesser ideas on a comeback, if only I had a source of inspiration that exactly fit what I was looking for, if only circumstances had worked out in my favour more often, if only I had made different decisions leading up to my current state, I would have never found myself in this mental black hole. Or so I led myself to believe.

Taking time is good simply because time heals. Clichéd, I know, but clichés are clichés because there is some truth to them. We’re often led to believe that taking time is bad — right from our childhood. We’re made to stand up in front of an entire class and answer a question almost spontaneously. If we don’t eat fast, that’s not good table manners. If you don’t write fast enough, you won’t complete an exam that tests your knowledge — even though you might know the answers to the questions you couldn’t attend due to lack of time. And today, we are required to prove to complete strangers within 45 minutes to an hour that we are good at what we do by not just answering whatever questions they feel like asking that day but also answering them fast. We have ridiculous expectations set on turnaround times in all fields. Expertise does not always convert to speed. Being slow could mean treading carefully. But who’s ready to listen to that side of the argument!

As I said, people are like seasons. And post a chilly winter comes warm sunshine. And that takes time. Until then, the cold makes one realize that if you can’t find that needle you used to stitch the rest of your incomplete clothes, it makes more sense to get another needle instead of continuing to search in vain.

“We’re not doomed. In the great, grand scheme of things, we’re just tiny specks that will one day be forgotten. So it doesn’t matter what we did in the past, or how we’ll be remembered. The only thing that matters is right now, this moment, this one spectacular moment we are sharing together.” — BoJack Horseman (Season 3, Episode 11)

If time is what is needed to make the clouds disappear, for the sky to appear clear, then so be it. We all have a devil and an angel inside us. And sometimes, we can listen to neither and just zone them out to enter a world of nothingness. A world where you don’t have to run behind a clock, fear getting trampled if you don’t run fast enough and feel threatened even when you’re at your best. And taking that time for yourself might provide a fix or at least simply provide better insight into your situation.

It is quite natural to perceive that world to be a black hole but it could quite possibly be just a vacuum with nothing in it. For in the grand scheme of things, nothing really matters. Nothing.

Huh, I guess after 55 weeks of no writing, all that I had to do was to write about nothing.