On Writing

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My blog writing obscures the trouble I am having in my life, and that is precisely the point of it. With social commitments, a deadline to turn my dissertation in by 7th of September and an M&A situation at work, I have not had a free weekend since New Year, however, still I keep posting a few hundred words ever so often. Indeed, this makes me look non-busy, and creates arguments that I am ignoring the other tasks while I still find time to write. However, for me, writing is critical: It is therapeutic, it is what keeps me sane and able to do what I must do.

I shall not make the claim that I am 'visionary' in any sense (a common description on Linkedin these days); I shall settle for the humble claim of being a dreamer. I keep talking about things that are not there. I live a rather strange life, half in what I do, but other half imagining and talking about things what I wish to do. However, this isn't any hallucination and most of the things I dreamt, I have at least made an effort to do it (some of it happened). Writing this blog, essentially, is about this dialogue of dreams going on with myself, imagining things that weren't and running sanity checks from time to time. 

I have learnt that there are two kinds of religions, locative and utopian. Locative religions proclaim that the human life as it is represents the best it can be, and we should do our best to preserve it in the current state. This is about living with the spirit of the age, and also about accepting the end of history, as the apologists of capitalism do. Utopian religions, on the other hand, see human life in transition and better future ahead of us. For its adherents, it is about changing the world into a better place. In that sense, I am firmly in the utopian category, and believe that we are capable of constructing a better world, one more fair and just, and each of us, including myself, is capable of living a better life. This blog, apart from being my dreamy dialogue, is also my manifesto for myself in search of that better world.

I am no politician, though. My problem was always with perfect solutions. For my utopian friends, the utopian of today is the locative of tomorrow: While they accept that history must move forward, most of them assume that it must end in some form, and proclaim that they know how it will. We have moved from the conception of Hegel that history ends with human will being one and indistinguishable from the God's, but yet, revolutionaries of today wants to become rulers of tomorrow, positing their own wills on others. This is where I failed to sign up to any kind of politics, because I am a conversationalist, and see that human life is essentially imperfect. The only thing that makes us and keeps us human is our search for perfection, our ability to dream, and in no stage of human history, we must give that up. In short, however perfect the life is, I must keep writing the blog.

However, I don't write this blog as a self-advert for myself. This blog has possibly done more harm than good for my economic prospects, because if anything, this is a narrative of fragility and confusion, not the iron will or sense of direction that is expected of an accomplished professional. Indeed, in my day to day life, I don't pretend to be a professional. This has also been a problem: While I was in employment for all of last twenty years, I was possibly difficult to work with for many of my colleagues. Some of them confided that they found me 'too philosophical'; I thought, at the time, I was being useful.

Finally, this is why I write: This is my way of connecting with all others who are like me, who keep the dreamers in them alive. I believe that is most people, if not all. They may not exactly follow this logic, but that's because they had different lives and have different priorities currently, but all of them, somewhere deep down, retain the spark that makes them human. This is my window of sanity, my way of bonding with them. It is a strange feeling, posting this writing online and then watching the visitors, all anonymous, come and go, leaving a geographical footprint but nothing else. Each visit, unattributed, silent, without result, enriches me, through a connection of spirit and conversation of dreams, makes me feel human, and not lonely. This is why I shall steal these few minutes and write something down: This is my way to touch my soul and know that it is alive and well.




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