My writing is a self-watered garden…
Writing is a form of my self expression; to lose it would be to lose air; or lose steam; or lose a critical existential function of my being. It’s an amazing gift. I know I am an excellent, articulate speaker, just as much as I am a great writer. But I never think that I can speak, as well as I can write. Writing would be miles ahead of speaking.
The beauty of writing is the extensive mental dialogue that enables me form my thoughts and coherently communicate them…
Writing gives me the opportunity to deeply think before I engage; to interrogate and investigate my own thoughts, as if under a microscope; to listen to my own inner pauses; to challenge my paradigms and intrinsic frameworks; to ruminate over and over again; to pull apart the pieces and peel back the layers to reveal the core of whatever subject matter; to strip my emotions bare and dare to be vulnerable in the amalgamation of the pieces; to sit with myself and ask those difficult questions that may make others squirm.
Believe it or not, I can be socially awkward sometimes, and I’ve spoken about this in close circles with friends and family.
I am dominantly extroverted, but I find that I sometimes struggle to connect with people. I struggle to engage — I do not know how to handle myself in large crowds, even though I am a master of large crowds; and as much as I enjoy meeting, networking and interacting with people, networking sometimes also gives me lowkey anxiety — like the networking session I have to attend later today. Sometimes I just need to unplug and recharge, and my internal workings do not always give me a pre-warning signal of where, when and how that would be…
Why? Because I am not sure if I can connect with people well — if there is space in my soul to want to reach out to others, and also allow myself to be reached into. I do not know if I can energetically mix up, or communicate about my life, work and passions with enthusiastic clarity. It’s just awkward.
But writing, writing frees me. It helps me more than I help it.
Writing allows me to thoroughly articulate my thoughts with a fearful dexterity that eludes even me. I am amazed at the clarity of my own thought processes as I write and pour out the byproducts of my self-dialogue.
It is a magical divine mystery of immense gravity. Writing is a master; I am only a conduit; a servant; a minister of this gracious gift so generously poured upon me without measure by God, and I wonder whatever I did to be offered of this great gift. I never can know how well I can write a piece until I’m done writing it; this is how I know that this ability does not come from me; it is far beyond me.
I am always privileged when people ask me to speak; but I know that I can give them so much more than what they ask of me, when I have the free range to arrange my thoughts and write.
My mind and this writing processes is a vast, nuanced universe; a deeply self-watered garden, the depths and extremities of which I am still daily discovering.
#robbiewrites #radiantrobbie 22.1.23
PS: Click the link to read a blog post I wrote last May about “Why do I write”. I promise you’ll enjoy it! Apparently, I write because without it, I would go mad — I do not know of any other potent outlet for self expression, especially on the good days and the bad days and all the days in-between..
Sometimes I wonder at how open and vulnerable I should be when I share my life, thoughts and intimations with you all. I think about what parts I should hold back; but then, I think about how much I’d wished that I had an honest, open and authentic voice that is a repository of knowledge, experience and kindness. I think about lighting the path for others, just as others have lighted my path.
I have become so unashamed about my journey. Let the world see me for who I am, and let me bask in the contentment of being fully myself; fully happy and fully free with intermittent splashes of life’s challenges that make me both stronger and softer in this world…
I love to write. I was born to do this — This gift; this garden replenishes itself day by day. A well, self-watered garden that waters others…
