The amber bluish flame that bragged about its own brilliance, swayed on its place, dancing on the melodies of the silent stream of wind. There was the molten wax that was silently fueling the flame by mixing with the oxygen in the surroundings. The radiance of the candle, touched all hearts with its brightness until a seemingly cruel creature imprisoned the candle in a bell jar. And within seconds, the flickering flame mumbled its last words with a trail of smoke that disappeared in the vacuum.
This Science experiment demonstrated to us by our teacher seemed to resonate with my condition in life for the past few months. There was a time when my inner voice whispered streams of words that flowed out on paper to shape up a decent piece of writing. And I was able to feel the radiance of the words that sparkled on the papers and electronic screens. But gradually, life started imprisoning me in a unique kind of a jar. The concealed jar wasn't made up of conventional materials like glass or porcelain, it was accidentally invented out of an emotional barragement on life. The anxieties and tensions of life being the foundation of the jar, the various other layers included all other befuddling emotions. And the vacuum that the invisible jar of life created, soon extinguished the flames of my inner voices.
The befuddling emotions included a kind of complex that made me feel that my voice never mattered to the world because everything I had in mind was written somewhere at some point of time. So in the quest to do away with commonplace ideas and find a new thought to create a masterpiece, I wasnt even able to put down on paper simple everyday ideas. I felt like I had fallen in an abyss that led to nothing. My thoughts were making infinitely long ladders to help me get out of this condition. But the fear of hackneyed phrases and cliches was collapsing the steps of the ladders as soon as I begin scaling them.
That is when I stumbled upon a term "Writer's Block": a condition that could affect writers or people with a penchant for writing while they are putting an effort to produce a marvelous piece of work. The vacuum that is generated in the mind during Writer's Block seemed to be the same like mine. The short film by Brandon Polace helped me understand all aspects of this condition. Anxiety, fear, restlessness, uselessness and such negative notions of life seem to dominate all positive ideals when this Block affects an individual. So by googling about this condition and trying to look for ways to get rid of it, I realized that I wasn't the only person suffering due to the block.
The remedies like Brute Force or Calming Mind, did not work for me. The more I was trying to dig through the layers of my mind to find a passage to help thoughts flow out fluently, the more was the Block layering sediments to obstruct clear thinking. But gradually as I tried to find the answers within myself, I realized that the external factors played no role in putting me into this condition. I realized that "My negative thoughts were blocking my creative thoughts".
The cogitations about how people would judge me on the basis of my writing or whether critics would really find my pieces appealing or in the most negative sense- whether anyone would ever bother to read what I write, all these polluting thoughts were hampering with the positive ambiance of my mind. The reason why I was striving for a masterpiece was pretty simple after these realizations. The fear of being mocked by people, the fear of not sounding authentic to people, the fear of my writing not being able to reach to people, all these fears revolved around the most commonplace word and being : people. I was trying to keep in mind how my thoughts would be received by people rather than keeping in mind how I wanted people to think through my writing.
All these thoughts were trapping me in a nutshell and I was just procrastinating every time I pick up a pen or open a Word Doc or an online writing space. I was just trying to avoid opportunities to write, which was a sheer contrast to my earlier way when I would grab all positions that would give me a chance to put forth my views.
| PC: Google Images |
But once I understood all this, I just decided that if I want to gain back a grip on writing, I am not going to think about the end result, rather I would focus on thoughts and techniques that could help me enhance my creativity. And as soon as I pledged to focus on words and contemplations rather than readers and comments, I started gaining back the power from the source that voiced my inner voice. And again the thoughts started flowing in rhythm creating words, sentences, paragraphs and this article which I would be posting after six long months of having given up writing.
The candle did not possess a soul and hence, it did not rekindle itself in the Science experiment. But just as Rene Descartes said that Humans possess a soul and this soul sometimes controls the material body (a machine) , I feel that all the while I suffered with the confusing and depressing Block, my soul was not intervening with my machine body. But as soon as it took control over the machine through self realization, unlike the candle ,I could rekindle myself and light the vacuum of darkness and get rid of it. (Though this theory of Dualism has been updated and replaced with modern ideologies, I could use it to justify my revival.)
This kind of spirit that I have imbibed now is something that could help anyone to revive from mild psychological conditions. When a blank and confused state begins bothering us, just trying to find the roots of the state could help us find a way and maintain a healthy mental life. Overcoming such conditions would allow more pieces of work to become a part of the Creative Dimension of our world.
