Lamenting rebirth

I'm quaking underneath a skimpy towel that I have wrapped around my shoulders and neck, offering me warmth on a fairly still Fall evening. I say Fall, but I am lying, because I live in India, and this is not my season. That's worth repeating -- and I pray that you offer it any meaning you desire -- this is not my season. I'm shivering, because the weight of the world is on my towel-wrapped shoulders, and I am unwell owing to a change of seasons (my own, this time) and a host of maladies that plague me from within and outside.

What does it mean to revive my writing here, on this blog? It means I am now a pawn in the game of productivity. It means that leisure must be calculated and add up in the spaces that documents measuring self worth and assessment as I transition from one phase in my life to another. I write this with regret because the neglect that I offered this page on the internet was one of utmost love. This neglect of my blog has been akin to an old friendship that goes unquestioned in silence; where reuniting happens seamlessly and the time cannot be measured. I write with a heavy heart that I will now attempt to compel myself into writing here more often because the system demands that I do so.

Do not mistake me for dreading the writing process. While it is tedious and utterly heartbreaking, it is the closest I am to myself. Perhaps that is why I have been aloof and away from it -- because in it, I might just begin to find who I am, and that is horrifying. Regardless, the writing must go on and the words must make sense. The system demands it.

What of silence? What of the poetry that remains unpublished in a document now tallying 60,000 words? Are the words we write for ourselves not meant to be counted? I will be called a hypocrite for despising the very system I am oiling the wheels for. I fix a glitch, and the machine begins to run again. Of what use is despair, when I enjoy the fruits of this? These are not wrong. Perhaps being a hypocrite is the only way for me to continue to remain a stranger to myself through the years, or perhaps it's the reason I have sustained art, love, and beauty in my life. 

This is dangerous to suggest and a very dark path to tread. The further down you go, the more violent it might get. The idea that you can continue to do what you despise doing perpetuates all forms of insidious practices -- the caste system, for one, where the hierarchy lays down criteria and one must simply follow them. As the Bhagavad Gita often requires, every individual must do their duty. Yes, indeed, a dangerous path (in my eyes) to follow. But hypocrisy is a slow malaise that begins to make itself seen in vulnerability. It is seldom a choice, but a realisation when debilitation overcomes being.  

So where do I lie? Do I remain rooted to these words that are published and on the internet as proof of valuable use of my time, or am I poetry written for myself on evenings when my inner world has imploded? This is far too much to recognise, diagnose, and know. I cannot promise myself answers because the world has already reneged on its own, and I am my only temporary respite. I promise discourse, dialogue, and searching, and I reckon I will keep at it for as long as I can. While it remained a personal act that I reserved for myself, I feel compelled now to expose them and to defend every one with my breath. And defend I will. 

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