Mushroom Sauce

I do not want to write.

It isn't because I have lost my love for writing or that I have "Lost" it or anything. It's just that I have suddenly turned anti-social. Now the problem with using a word like that is that it has a very negative connotation. I'm no terrorist or anything, far from it. I'm not homicidal or suicidal. It's just that I'm having a hard time dealing with people right now. I feel like a quiet entity that's aimlessly floating around. It's so funny how little one's existence seems to matter to the rest of the work.

We're like little specs of dust really. We could spend all our life, just drifting along from point A to point B with nothing in particular on our minds. I got into college as a drifter. I went into IIT because it was the most obvious choice for any kid with any ability in math. And here I am still flowing about, like liquid wax... gooey and uncomfortable.

I've always had a fear deep in the back of my mind, behind a very confident facade. I've always known that I never really found anything that I would die for. I manufactured a lot of things to stave off that fear for as long as I possibly could. I told myself that business was in my blood, that I was a genius at finance and economics, that I wrote like a natural, that I could act with a lot of passion. But in they end all they are are hobbies. Period. Things that I'm quite good at but wouldnt really give up my life for.

I know I'm being a romantic by behaving like an idealistic teenager and that I should've grown up by now and realized that life isn't all black and white. But I somehow feel a deep sense of loss whenever I think about it. Somehow it feels like I'm cheating myself everytime I do something that I'm "good" at but I wouldn't die for. Which is the whole reason behind why I stopped writing.

at first I didn't know what it was. It started off as an uneasy feeling whenever I hit the keyboard and tried to write something. I dismissed it as writer's block and decided to wait until my muse returned or whatever. But slowly as time went by, I realized it wasnt writer's block. I would find beautfiul mental images everytime I took a walk or had a conversation with a niece about the games they'd play as kids. And I could see the post, in its full form, beautifully structured, perfect cadence. Something... complete.

And everytime that happened I'd run to the keyboard thrilled to bits about what I'd seen. Right up to the moment I reached the keyboard my eyes and heart would be full of that lovely full feeling that I get everytime a beautiful idea hits. But this time around it was different. Everytime my fingers touched the keyboard and I thought about what the reader would want to see, or even what I would want to see on a computer screen or on paper, my chest would deflate like a saggy balloon. And I would feel a little nauseated.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry so much.

I couldn't for the life of me give life to those beautiful images. Something that I thought I loved to do. And somewhere I'd never really understand why I allowed myself to walk away. It was a very uneasy feeling everytime I hit the keyboard. It was a strange sort of guilty disappointment. Almost as if I had cheated on someone.

I spoke to Pi about this and he told me all great writer's wrote not for themselves but for their audiences. He was talking in reference to great writers of graphic novels like frank miller or alan moore. Real geniuses they were and I really liked their work. And I was told they developed a particular style based on what the cult liked. Refining their own signature until it went hand in hand with taste. And they really liked what they were doing. Refining their style was like honing their craft for them. And they loved it.

Heck, lets even talk about the idealistic writers who were not appreciated when they were alive, evern they wrote because they loved it. I write just because I think I do it well. I like writing, I might even love it, but my life would go on without it. And I know that's not reason enough to stop writing but there something in my hard wiring that just hits me.

I feel guilty for not having anything that I love more than my life. I didn't feel that way when I was in love with a girl, or when I had thoroughly convinced myself that business was my life. But now, I have opened my mind. And I find that I have a lot of options before me. And somehow that's killed life for the moment. I loved being in love with something. I loved being ready to die for something. Now my life seems like european food... Classy, good-looking, expensive... but bland.

I am now Chicken Steak in Mushroom Sauce.

I'm going to be walking into the office of my dreams on Monday morning. The office building of DSP Merrill Lynch in Nariman Point, Mumbai. I will be working in an investment banking firm as an intern. The office of my teenage dreams. No less. And I'm nervous, no I'm terrified. Not about whether I'll do well or not. I know I'll be fine. I'm afraid of the fact that at the end of two months I'll know whether I want to do this for the rest of my life or not. And if I come back disappointed. I won't "Know" anymore.

And then passions will die. One by one. And I'll live life being brilliant but bland.

I'm scared. Somebody make me fall in love again.

With something. With anyting.