Tag: change

What (only) you see

Harkrishan1 Comment

My spirit having endured another few months away from writing, today I am thinking about my younger self and the writer he was.

I once had doubts, but I am now sure that I used to suffer from a hero complex. I wished to save people from what they were going through and I thought my writing (or my words) could do that. It did not stem from superiority, but rather from fear. It seemed easier to write words of inspiration than to address my own inadequacies. Looking around to provide comfort, however well-intentioned, does nothing to untangle our own inner knots.

Today, looking back, I have some advice for my past self.

It doesn’t answer the working on yourself bit. But something equally important. I’d like to tell him – You don’t know everything. You can’t see everything. Write what you know, what you see.

I spent a lot of time wondering how to appeal to the largest readership possible. I didn’t want anyone to NOT relate. I wanted everyone to feel seen, understood, and relieved. Trying to see things from every perspective is a laughable goal. Like trying to see the sunrise and sunset at the same time. We can’t even see what is in front and behind us at the same time.

Naivete is the only explanation. A childish thought: that I could at once appeal to everyone when humans have done such a stand up job drawing borders, dividing cultures and arguing over beliefs. But that’s a whole other sad set of stories.

As a writer, it is upon me to write from what I know. What I see. And only what I see.

Just as I wouldn’t presume to know what a fatigued mother of three kids is going through. Or what a young boy in a war-torn city is feeling. Or even know the person I will become in another ten years, if I am granted the time. I cannot know what any of them feel or need from my words.

I do feel sad that I cannot. Often times, I see my close ones going through something and realize there is little I can do to help. Recognizing when my words must be put away, and replaced with small helpful acts has been a great realization in recent times. This change goes far beyond just my writing. It resonates with what my better half has taught me – helping someone isn’t help when it’s on your terms. It must be about what they need. And whether you are capable of providing it.

A lesson in humility, then. To know what you can do. Accept what you cannot. And for me in particular, to write about what I see.

My goal is to see more of the world. To hear more stories, so I can write new ones. Things I have been shown.

Until then, I write what I see.

Meant to be

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When I look back at how I’ve changed, sometimes it’s hard to look beyond what I’ve lost since then. University, believe it or not, was a time of hope for me. It was a time of possibility and despite living in a small city, nothing felt out of grasp. I did everything I wanted to. 

Now don’t go expecting my list of things to stagger you, but I used to leave the house on a whim but have no idea where I was headed, just to clear my head. I would call a friend I hadn’t heard from in a few days. I would walk all the way to a bridge just so I could read by the water for an hour or so. And I took great advantage of discounts on beer at a nearby roadhouse. 

I took a chance on people, made friends, had some fallouts and every day, I took the bus to school with a different mood. I walked the same trail with about six people on different occasions because it was the only one I could walk to from my house never having owned a car. I read so much and I don’t mean school readings. These were more self-assigned, if you catch my drift. I used to work on my mental health through some intermittent counselling when I needed to screw my head on straight.

And I spoke. I was part of a Toastmasters club and I like to think that I spoke my heart out.

But so much has changed now and to highlight all the ways in which I abandoned the person I used would make for painful writing. Like most of you, I’ve picked up a few demons along the path to adulthood. They might be the same ones you have. I dread Mondays. I worry about money. I haven’t finished a book in weeks. And my writing has been scattered, to say the least. And I go on a walk by myself maybe once in a fortnight and there haven’t been many bridges.

It all sounds so bleak, and I’ll be honest, it feels that way too. To leave some parts of you behind and wonder if they were the best parts of you.

“You do what you have to do, so you can do what you want to do” – is perhaps a sound description of adulthood. But a fatal flaw I’ve found is that doing what I have to do leaves me so tired and aching that I no longer spend much time doing what I want to do.

But I thought of an exercise where I would ask that person I stopped being for advice. And channeling myself from a different, possibly pre-covid age, I would reply – “Of the many things we do, there are some that we are truly meant to do. Our selves are sewn into the fabric of existence because some books need reading, some paths need walking and some people need believing in. There is no grand purpose, except the one where you find your way back to doing the things you were always meant to do. And should you stray from these acts, you recognize that you are lost and try to find your way back. Try and try again because being yourself is and will always be your most important act on Earth”

Despite the changes I’ve made in adulthood, that past-self still exists within me. Unburdened by everything I carry now, he had had some life changing advice under his sleeve. He just didn’t know he’d need to give it to himself down the road.

It is no longer as easy to walk to a bridge and read. But I will try. And when I find a bridge I will sit by the water and read. And passers-by will see a bearded young man reading by the water and have no idea that they are looking at a small part of the universe correcting itself to what it was always meant to be.

The Good Old Days

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There is line in the Office – “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” That is where I am this evening.

All journey’s end. It is an easy and simple fact until you reach an end. Then it seems neither simple nor easy. If you are like me, you will look around in the final days and see all that used to be. It is an unsettling feeling of change. I felt it when I graduated from university and started working. And I feel it now as I prepare to say farewell to Guelph.

In my last days, I find myself going back to the places, the people and the things that make it difficult to move on. 

The places – Never having owned a car, I went back to that same one trail I’ve been on a hundred times. The university that brought me to the city. Places I’ve eaten at and that one movie theatre on my side of town. Guelph has always seemed small and I’ve only ever taken the bus to get places. But I’ve always enjoyed that and it’s part of what draws me to places now. I learnt about myself living here and I’m grateful for that.

Then there’s the people. They’re harder to say goodbye to. I don’t think there is a right way. Can one say everything that they need to and should? About how lucky you’ve been to meet them. How many times they saved you from dark days or rough times. And how they are the reason moving on will be so hard. Maybe they will all read this and know how much they have come to mean to me. And how lucky I feel to have known them. I met a brilliant lady today who I wish I’d met ages ago. In the short span of conversation, she instantly became one of the things I would miss about Guelph. And all I could do was wish we had met sooner. But that’s just how it is sometimes.

And then there’s me – packed (mostly) and moving forward to whatever awaits tomorrow and all the tomorrows after. I will spare you the workings of a mind leaving a space of comfort and warmth. It is enough to say that my thoughts are in flux but I still manage to take a breath and watch the final days pass by.

And lastly we come to the good old days. How do we know we’re in them when we are?

I don’t know. But I do know that we can look around right now. At everything and everyone you have. At everything that’s worked out or is on it’s way to working out. Look at the smallest victories in your day and those you never thought you’d achieve. Look at the people who ask if you’ve eaten and those who ask if you’re okay. These are “good old days” in the making.

And if you take a minute to appreciate them and the people and trails and places you’ve called home, I believe you’ve done it right.