I rarely see my mother these days. I tried to avoid her. I think it was when she told me this -
Me: "I have been busy with work lately. This is what is happening, I got a very good appraisal at work just this week."
Mother: "Really? Is there money in it?"
Me: "What? No, I guess, a few hundred in the bonus. It's not much."
Mother: "..."
Mother: "Do you know how much does your younger brother earn nowadays? He's earning big bucks."
Me: "Oh."
Mother: "Don't you want to change your job?"
Me: "I like my job."
Mother: "Your brother is really earning astronomically."
Me: "I get it."
Mother: "Alright, alright."
Me: "..."
Mother: "Say, your brother has a bunch of clothes he don't wear as much now. Do you want them?"
Sure, I want them to build a parameter around the refrigerator box I will be living in with my meagre wage and they will be also handy to collect rainwater for me to drink.
In Frank Miller's grisly version of Batman (graphic novel) - 'The Dark Knight Returns', when the caped crusader had retired; in his fifties, hang up his cowl and sealed away his cave, his soul would not let him. It drew him and cajoled him.
Particularly in page 25:
"You are puny. You are small. You are nothing a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me. You cannot stop me - not with wine or vows or the weight of age..."
I think a similar voice is calling out to me. No, no to dress up like a rodent and plummeted criminals night after night with my bare knuckles. No.
Something grisly I have helped put away, is returning to -
I don't know what it wants. For months I grew increasingly restless. I paced around like a old bear in a tiny cage. I loathed the mundane stuff and people and conversations. Food devoured without passion or satisfaction. Days went without really meaning anything. I stared ahead hoping that if I try hard enough, I could see.
I tried to trace back to its origins.
I think it started when I thought better to improve my game. Time to nut up and get some serious writing skills, clean up your grammar, plan structure with plot ends, twists and motivations. Edit, edit and edit. Write journals, write to newspaper, write to a bigger audience. Write well. Write clean. Write shit that people read.
And that's when it started to head south.
I wrote hard for official letters and journals. My grammar improved and there were files of characters and plots and motives to fill my cupboards. I joined a writing club of budding writers.
I haven't been able to write the past year. I can't write shit now. Paralysed by anxiety of writing for people, I forget to write for myself. My writings have accustomed to a solid structure that it bored the crap out of me. When I read back my former posts here, even though the grammar and structure had sucked, I wrote lyrically and out of the box. It was thrilling.
If what I write now is better, then I don't want be better. I don't want to be a stick in the mud and buried deep alongside with literary greats. I want to be roaring alive.
