Childhood is a precious time of memories. Even the smallest one can turn out to be a treasure for our adult selves, a small little blessing in disguise as we go into retrospective, wondering how wonderful it would be to be able to shrug off all the job, family, relationship, financial and personal issues to be a child again, free of care and concern except for what's the next new thing you can learn about.
We all have memories of being lost, certainly. When as a child, you get so fascinated by the whirling of the miniature fan held by another person that you just followed him and wandered off, your eyes never leaving that thing. All of a sudden, when the curiosity trance is broken, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, drifting alone in the sea of people. There are no familiar beacons of indication telling you where you are - you were too young to understand and memories the route then, of course - and no familiar faces. In your panic, you frantically swam through the sea of strangers, crying out for your parents. Most of the time, after fruitless searching, you stood there and began to wail in distress, until some kind soul came by or until your parents came in their rescue boat to pick you up.
Simply put, being lost is no fun. For the average person, there's always a tinge of despair whenever he's in an unfamiliar place and has no idea where to head to. Where can he go? Who can he turn to? What can he do? Why is he in that situation or place?
That, however, is merely a loss of direction, something that can be easily rectified by a nice person, a good compass, a calm and positive mindset.
The greater loss is in the mind.
Have you seen people who are insane? I have, and whatever the reason, my heart goes out to them. They had lost their sanity, so to speak, mainly because they could not handle the stress that came with the problems in the different aspects of their lives. One would probably have heard the phrase: "He's lost it." When the aforementioned person flies into a rage or starts laughing maniacally or starts ranting and raving like a madman.
Recently, I've been thinking. About why life seemed so boring and meaningless. Why I felt as though I was but a wanderer, walking from one bastion of life to another aimlessly, taking things as they come. Why everything something that I work hard for or really want fails to come, I slump in a corner and felt like that beggar, asking for alms till I got enogh. Or the busker, who has to perform an earn enough in order to get enough coin to travel (aimlessly) to my next destination.
Then I realise that I have lost what I found.
The thing that I first found, the true passion of when I started putting ink on the paper without sparing a thought about how good or bad it will turn out. In this case, it would be letting my fingers dance across the keyboard as though they were performers in a musical, the sound of keys being hit the music, the words flying across the screen like the subtitles of what was being performed, the sound effect as I click 'Submit' like the curtain call, the sense of satisfaction like the thunderous applause from the standing ovation the audience just gave, the reviews like the money that the performance has earned.
But yet, I've lost it. Perhaps it was due to complacency. Becoming overconfident, cocky about my writing, knowing that things needed to be changed but being satisfied with where I was, with the amount of praise I received from Man.
Perhaps, if I may, it was due to circumstances. With people showering praises and encouraging you without concrete action. With people always coming to you about help for their English because they think you are one of the best out there (and that you would willingly help without asking for much in return), with lopsided results that dealt severe blows to your confidence when they really, really mattered.
Somewhere along that route, I've found the passion, the flow that came with writing so freely. With being able to express myself a million times better than when I'm trying to talk to the girl I liked, telling jokes I would never have been able to tell in a group of fun-loving people, making myself heard and my opinions known (which was really refreshing)! Making things that were so fantastic come to life as much as I can.
And then I've lost it. Circumstances took me out easily with a left hook and the lack of confidence, with the right uppercut. If that wasn't enough, certain events dealt the knockout blow before I could even wait for the referee to count to 10. As an author had mentioned in his book about unleashing creativity, life had interrupted.
He's not saying, of course, that writers should be hermits and start living in mountain tops and islands before they can write. No, he's simply talking about the issues, the stress that overwhelmed the creative parts of our minds, making them seem larger than everything else that it becomes our convenient excuse, my convenient excuse to stop writing and stop exercising creativity, just because of this and that. Just because the stupid little prick of a voice tells you you can't do it, that it isn't good enough. Just because people that you thought mattered the most showed lukewarm support.
Looks like it's up to oneself to really get this thing going, support or not. Objection or not. Insecurity or not. In the end, the person that I can really depend on is my King and my very own self. Didn't he say that if we seek, we shall find?
If that's just one verse, or even half a verse, let it be. I don't need so many verses to encourage me. I don't particularly need more people to encourage me either, although more would be nice.
Let me find the passion once more.
And write like never before.
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