Intermezzo

On what motivates me now to share what I create, and a segue into what is to come in my life.

As of this day, it has been 13 months since I touched down in India to begin a new and different life from the one I had in the West. When I arrived, I told many in my life that I was taking a year's break from my academic pursuits in physics to recalibrate my interests and career choices. Such was the language, the vehicle of pretension I had to use then, to explain my choices to people who I felt could not understand or accept the deeper, idealistic aspects of my personality. In this and many upcoming pieces, I will shun this empty, practical narrative that benefits no one, and restore my romantic idealism to my words.

The reason for this shift in my tone, which exposes the true nature of how I make sense of my own life, is not only that my heart demands authentic expression, but because I have found the answer to a question that has bothered me throughout this last year: Why must I share with people, what I create? Not why I must express, but why I must put it out there.

I began writing for myself in 2021 and forayed into poetry first. My poems were born with a complete lack of intention to write, from a desperate need to spill out and give form to uncontainable feelings. Since then, self-expression has become a necessity, a way to approach life itself as I experience it. But this expression has always been for my own consumption, food I make to nourish my own soul, and I never sought to validate my feelings through others. In the words of the poet Leonard Cohen, 'I learned to write what might be read, on nights like this by one like me.' If I forced myself a little bit, I could share day-to-day joys and sorrows with others, but I felt defeated by the idea of communicating bliss, ecstasy, grief, and all those multi-dimensional feelings that are always most emphatic only in the moment of experience itself. I wasn't sure what I stood to gain from sharing it all if I even could.

And so arose a paradox that has existed all through last year too - that I cannot live even a single day without self-expression, but I cannot perceive those intangible rewards that sharing is supposed to give me. I have journeyed across realms, devouring everything in my path, searching for a reason beyond validation, beyond passion, beyond career and money, beyond the social status or lack there-of of being an artist, a reason to share the treasures I have gathered, to really express it all and bare my true self. To add to the paradox, all this while, I have lived entirely on the words of other artists, of painters, philosophers, photographers, social leaders, and all those individuals for whom, like me, creation is a spiritual path, the stepping stones we build out of ourselves, upon which we walk our own lives.

And what could the world possibly benefit from my own spiritual journey towards grasping what it means to be on this planet with a restless spirit? From that of any individual who spends time crafting a road that only takes them deeper into themselves, seemingly away from the rest of the world? And what does the individual even stand to gain from shining a light down their own path for others to see?

Sometimes, it takes years of living to feel the crushing weight of a few words, and I have found the answer to all these questions in the prophetic words of yet another artist.

"Most people live in almost total darkness... millions of people whom you will never see... live in a darkness which... if you have that funny, terrible thing which every artist can recognize but no artist can define... you are responsible to those people to enlighten, and it does not matter what happens to you. You are being used in a way that a crab is useful, the way sand certainly has some function. It is impersonal. Because only an artist can tell, and only artists have told since we have heard of man, what it means to survive, to die, or to have somebody die, or to be glad... The trouble is that although the artist can do it, the price that he has to pay himself and that you, the audience, must also pay, is a willingness to give up everything... to realize that nothing, none of it belongs to you. You can only have it by letting it go. You can only take if you are prepared to give... It is a total risk of everything, and this forever, forever." - James Baldwin.

I, too, have lived in this darkness. We are all born in the darkness. And when the darkness stretched me in a hundred different directions at once, I, too, found a light within me through the grace of other artists who cared to illuminate their own paths. And thus began a quest to see where my own light leads me, to explore the darkness of my own being and the darkness of this world we inhabit, where each one of us is totally blind in the face of life, of what is about to come ahead, and all that we have in this present moment, is only us - our own selves, and each other for that very sake. So it is that fledgling feeling of fraternity, of unselfish love, that I have discovered in myself repeatedly this year, that has proved to be the only satisfying answer to those questions above. I am now driven to grow this feeling until, like every other feeling in my life, it is not distinct from my core self.

The path of spirit is full of extraordinary contradictions. It is an entirely selfish endeavour, undertaken with the certainty that there exists a higher authority within, a governing voice that does not submit to the orders of the rest of humanity. And yet its goal, its destiny, is to dissolve that voice, to dissolve the ego, to become insignificant in order to enter the harmony of the external dimension, of the universe. And so everything that goes into the making of this ego must eventually be released back outside, albeit in a repackaged form, left untied by the loose threads of love, which if you look at it from afar, is your authentic contribution to the chaos of the world, not done for any purpose other than living itself. A true sign of your own life, fleeting in lifetime, limited in its influence, insignificant in the grand scheme, and yet as utterly important as that crab, the sand, the tree outside on the street, as important as every human who has ever lived to see the stars.

And what the world stands to gain, is what I have gained too. Its own self. My own self.

This is the principle by which I enter the second quarter of my life now. It never fails to amaze me the countless blessings by which I have surfaced in this world in my present form. Just enough intellectual ability, clarity of thought, and articulacy to probe the frontiers of my knowledge and illuminate the corners of my mind; just enough love in my character to open my heart to the experience of beauty; neither too much so as to obstruct the other; more than enough love and support showered on me by my loved ones; more than enough resources at my disposal to seek enrichment; and above all, the tremendous privileges that the lottery of birth has rolled my way, by way of my location on this side of society, which exists by the unspeakable horrors it inflicts on the other side, by intent, ignorance and everything in between.

So these blessings by which I have realized the fruits of peace, love, and freedom, by which I now tread the path of art, also demand that I spread them, that my actions and art lead only to an increase in the sum total of freedom and responsibility in this world, in the words of Albert Camus. And the only place where this cry for freedom can be heard by you, where responsibility is the only option you have because you follow no one else, is within yourself. Then it is not only your duty as well as mine to regain our true selves in full measure, but it is also the only collective remedy for the wounds we inflict on each other, and those inflicted on us by life.

It might sound like I speak from a place of pompous virtue and privilege, but I assure you, I am nowhere enough on that side. If anything, to go back to Baldwin's words, I am aware that I must be the first one to pay the price myself, to be willing to risk everything to take it all. That before I can give you some warmth, I must burn. That in order to fill my words with life, I must first live my life by those words. This is the path that lies ahead of me.

When I decided to give up the routines of a comfortable, stable life, I was nervous about whether I could handle the intensity of my choices, whether I could wake up every day with a churning in my stomach, not knowing what the day had in store. Of course, I have completely enjoyed the support and care of my parents who tolerated my directionless pursuit and gave me all the financial resources I needed when I came back home with no money and a million desires. I had asked them to give me one year's time before I started sustaining myself, and by some luck, exactly at the end of this year, I have started earning enough for my current needs. My values, morals, and ideas have all gone for a toss this year, but the first and most basic principle I began with has remained rock solid - that I will fully trust my five senses and my heart, and rely on my own criteria for truth and beauty, in all my pursuits.

It is with this principle that I have decided to embark on a few more years of random exploration because I am unwilling to give up my freedom and time for any other practical need or social norm. Now the challenge is to truly make ends meet with my own money and it fills me with fear and excitement. But why random and for how many years really? Why not do another degree in journalism (which I honestly wanted to do) and do something useful, have something to show for the huge gap in my CV? What if I take a wrong turn and sacrifice all the practical values I have gathered - my degrees, awards, and potential jobs?

"And everywhere an indecent haste prevails, as though something would be missed if the young man of 23 were not 'finished', did not yet know the answer to the 'main question': which occupation? - A higher kind of man does not like 'occupations', precisely because he knows he has a calling... He has time, he takes his time, he does not even think of getting 'finished' - at thirty you are, in the sense of high culture, a beginner, a child." - F. Nietzsche

Nietzsche, the legendary German philosopher, said this in 1889. It is 2023, and as a society, we fool ourselves into thinking that someone in their twenties can truly look around and fathom the complexity of the world we live in, and find the best role they can play in it. Perhaps today, it is at forty that you are a beginner, a child. I am doing precisely that which allows my mind to fly in full freedom. The best thing that my parents ever did, was to make sure they took every single burden off of me. So why must I squander this chance to risk everything I have, which is nothing, and go right to the bottom of all I can explore? Why must I be judged or limited by what the average person is capable of enduring, in terms of failure and suffering? These fears stem from a basic assertion that life might bypass me whereas, from my position, I see that this is the only way life runs right through me.

In this era, where all the knowledge anybody can ever have is available a few clicks away, I have come to distrust many social institutions, degrees, education, and careers, simply because they are by the many for the many, and they meddle with my fundamental principle, my integrity. Armed with the same principle, I will now continue the outward exploration of understanding the various ways society operates, and gain an intimate look not through books or classrooms, but directly in my encounters of life. I will take my time to sensitize myself to political reality, figure out the power I wield, and maintain a critical lens of myself and the world through my work. And all of this is part of that duty towards the sum total of freedom.

Contrary to the randomness of my outward explorations, I am highly ambitious. I do not merely want to write stories and opinions and take a few photographs here and there (although people don't understand how profound that can be compared to a slavery to modern systems), but I have set my eyes on impossible targets, to carry the tradition of literary giants, to envision new paradigms of thought and craft. Whether I am capable of such a tall order never matters, because the purpose I have in my pursuit is my reward. I do not do this for anybody other than myself, and that is why I believe it can be of use to others. I am willing to risk years of wandering before I try exporting the value of my work to others. And during this time, I will try to maintain this personal channel here between you and me, where I am untroubled by the circus of social media. This is what is to come in the near future.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude, particularly to people who have reached out to me to say that my words offer something of value to them and that I must keep writing. Sure, ideas and tips to live, stay healthy, and boost productivity are useful, but I am tired of the self-help fad. Perhaps necessary to survive, but useless for the soul. People want to 'solve' quarter-life and mid-life crises before they even fully feel the crisis in the first place. The best thing I can and will do, is impart you with my restlessness, to bring you out on this uncertain field where, before you build your life, you are forced to confront and accept the unsteady surface. That is what you owe yourself.

"Walker, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more. Walker, there is no road, the road is made by walking. Walking you make the road, and turning to look behind you see the path you never again will step upon. Walker, there is no road, only foam trails by the sea." - Antonio Machado