Maybe this is crap.
There comes a stage in life when you finally realise that the mistakes you are committing over and over again become too blaring to ignore. The realisation sees a literal and symbolic transformation embarked upon by several ink-blot tests that would among themselves elicit and defeat attempts at conclusive explanations of the mistakes.
It can be just about anything. It can be screwing up an interview. It can be flunking an exam. It can be yet another bad date. It can be crashing your bike into the bumper of a car. Anything.
There are several things in your mind that are so deeply ingrained that going back and doing it differently requires mental courage and the ability to think laterally. For example, you can support a local clean air initiative and see to it your garden is fresh and green and yet still own two cars, drive 100 miles a day and live in houses that leak energy like sieves.
You focus on solving problems in a book so intently that you fail in switching to creating what matters the most.
You picture yourself in a loving, mutually respectful relationship with someone so pretty that coversations with unpretty people seem famliarly unfulfilling.
You cannot, for the life of you be at the right place at the right time.
I am not aspiring to have been at Mozart's Vienna, the Italian Renaissance or even the beneath the magnolia on a typical twilight. I just want to shed my inhibitions and go do something on stage. Anything.
For how surprising it is, I've hardly ever been on stage.
The biggest crowd I've performed in front of would be back in sixth grade when I won a Whats-the-good-word contest. The whole of sixth grade turned up, teachers et al. My partner kept thrusting a hanky into my sweaty palms every now and then!
The medals and certificates won at sport meets, essay, word-building, drawing or poetry contests kept Mom and Dad from complaining.
This apart, no stage acts for me. No debates, no elocutions, no comperes, nothing. Throughout school I expertly shadowed myself from being involuntarily selected for skits, dramas, dance programs and the like too. It is positively staggering that the stage-fear self-actualisation is affecting me only now.
My mistake was enjoying the view from the audience seat way too much. Resigning to an idea that it is a life off the spotlight that I can glimpse in for my most perfect moments. I realise I'm wrong.
I blew a chance one time, to get into the school cricket team. A month later, the team flew to Singapore to play in a tournament. I've never been on an aeroplane as yet.
The only fun in this is seeing rocket science fly past me periodically. (Yes, puns galore!). Sigh!
The mistake here is procrastination. An overdose of it. It still visits me very often.
There it is: I'm tongue-tied on stage, I was twisted to realise it so late. I feel like an earth-bound misfit. And I simply have to learn to fly!
Bless Pink Floyd!
P.S: The sequel to this post should hopefully see a less hurried ending. I'm way too caught up with work for my liking.
It can be just about anything. It can be screwing up an interview. It can be flunking an exam. It can be yet another bad date. It can be crashing your bike into the bumper of a car. Anything.
There are several things in your mind that are so deeply ingrained that going back and doing it differently requires mental courage and the ability to think laterally. For example, you can support a local clean air initiative and see to it your garden is fresh and green and yet still own two cars, drive 100 miles a day and live in houses that leak energy like sieves.
You focus on solving problems in a book so intently that you fail in switching to creating what matters the most.
You picture yourself in a loving, mutually respectful relationship with someone so pretty that coversations with unpretty people seem famliarly unfulfilling.
You cannot, for the life of you be at the right place at the right time.
I am not aspiring to have been at Mozart's Vienna, the Italian Renaissance or even the beneath the magnolia on a typical twilight. I just want to shed my inhibitions and go do something on stage. Anything.
For how surprising it is, I've hardly ever been on stage.
The biggest crowd I've performed in front of would be back in sixth grade when I won a Whats-the-good-word contest. The whole of sixth grade turned up, teachers et al. My partner kept thrusting a hanky into my sweaty palms every now and then!
The medals and certificates won at sport meets, essay, word-building, drawing or poetry contests kept Mom and Dad from complaining.
This apart, no stage acts for me. No debates, no elocutions, no comperes, nothing. Throughout school I expertly shadowed myself from being involuntarily selected for skits, dramas, dance programs and the like too. It is positively staggering that the stage-fear self-actualisation is affecting me only now.
My mistake was enjoying the view from the audience seat way too much. Resigning to an idea that it is a life off the spotlight that I can glimpse in for my most perfect moments. I realise I'm wrong.
I blew a chance one time, to get into the school cricket team. A month later, the team flew to Singapore to play in a tournament. I've never been on an aeroplane as yet.
The only fun in this is seeing rocket science fly past me periodically. (Yes, puns galore!). Sigh!
The mistake here is procrastination. An overdose of it. It still visits me very often.
There it is: I'm tongue-tied on stage, I was twisted to realise it so late. I feel like an earth-bound misfit. And I simply have to learn to fly!
Bless Pink Floyd!
P.S: The sequel to this post should hopefully see a less hurried ending. I'm way too caught up with work for my liking.
posted by Manu at
2:23 am
13 Comments
