Fear and delight
Earlier this week, I published my 1,100th blog post on this site. It hasn’t been a long and great journey because it hasn’t been a journey, per se, at least I haven’t seen it as one. After publishing each blog post, I don’t know if there will be another one in future, nor do I plan in advance. All I know is that when I think of something to write about, I write about it. In fact, each blog post has been a journey – from conceptualisation to publishing – and so 1,100 such journeys together is… what? A meta-journey, perhaps.
Many of my readers expressed their best wishes and hoped that I would continue writing. In this post, I would like to express gratitude to myself in acknowledgment of a truth that not many know and even fewer understand. The reason I have never been able to plan any of my blog posts ahead is not because I am careless but because I have never been able to fully control my writing habit.
When an idea strikes, a usually dormant inner self awakens and begins to unpack my bolt from the blue; unlike the conscious self that I (claim to) control and its cluttered internal mind, this inner self draws upon the prowess of an external mind and its own memories, experiences, morals and agency – a mind that manifests almost exclusively when I write, letting me come into a clarity of thought and conviction of purpose that I don’t otherwise possess. Indeed, this ‘super-mind’ vanishes almost as soon as I stop writing (i.e. after clicking ‘Publish’; being in deep thought about how best to articulate an idea between two drafts is also part of the writing process).
And I fear that one day, this inner self – like all good things – will come to an end for no reason other than to further glorify its own lifetime, and its own mortality. Until then, I must get as much writing done as possible if only because the outer self may never be able to glorify itself for anything other than having harboured the inner one. As The Correspondents sang,
You’re an addiction pulling me to a grave end
You’re an enemy who I’m keen to defend
Down the black hole of my lust I descend
It’s wrong but I want you tonight
