Storytellers are strange fellows

An amateur writer sat on his bed, his electronics scattered around. There’s barely room for him to sleep on his bed, yet the convenience of having your laptop trumps the beauty of a clean bed. The peculiar warmth of autumn has filled the room throughout the day, but in a while, the night will make it cold. It’s the time just before the winters, when the nights are pleasant, while the day bears the brunt of the lingering summer sun. Although if you think about it, nights are always far pleasant than the day. Mars is supposed to be visible in the skyline tonight. He peeks through his window, but all he sees are ugly and lifeless buildings, blocks of concrete that incite no feeling in one’s heart.

Gregory Alan Isakov sings “If I go, I’m going” on his old laptop, the out of date speakers somehow complement the slow music.

After spending the entire day trying to find something to write about. He recalled his old stories and articles and what all people said about it. How they enjoyed it all, he wants to write something they can enjoy again. Otherwise, he would just be someone who had a writing streak for a month and then disappeared.

That’s not what he wants, so he reads short stories, watches videos on existentialism, and goes to the deep end looking for inspiration, yet he finds none.

Writing is a hard business.

And inspiration can’t be simulated, it has to come on its own. So, he waits and grows desperate by the second. He searches corners of the Youtube comment section and Reddit in hope for a good story, something to write about, and when that fails him, he turns to his past. Surely there must be a heartbreak of a bittersweet memory that can be turned into a story. But he finds nothing. He recalls how easy it was to write when he was hurting or when he was still dealing with his issues. All he had to do was pour out his soul and boom he had a story, a poem, an article, anything. He could work with anything right now. But the container lies empty, there is nothing left to pour. He recalls how easy it was to write when he was falling into love and then again when he was falling out of it. Right now, he is doing neither of these things.

Who knew that well-adjusted emotions are the number one cause of writer’s block.

His mind keeps getting clouded with restlessness. He desperately wants to write something, yet he has no clue what to write about. He has no muse. Amateur artists rarely do have muses. He grows anxious, and then it hits him.

Not inspiration, of course, something else.

Why was he so desperate to write? He remembers when he initially started writing, it was a fun process. Something that made him feel good about himself, The only thing that mattered was writing. But now? It makes him anxious, where did he go wrong?
Why was he so desperate for people to read his work? Was he seeking fame? That’s ridiculous because barely 100 people read what he writes. There’s no money in it so, that’s not it either. Is it the thrill of having someone look at your work? Could be, but then he should be excited about writing, not anxious.

It was none of those things because it was something far worse, far more sinister.

When he first started writing, He was a conceited ass. He thought his “takes” and “perspectives” are going to be so different from people that he will blow everyone’s mind. But things took an opposite turn. People liked his writing not because it was different, but because they find it relatable. And that’s when the mirage broke, the idea that he had nurtured since he was a kid suddenly felt apart. Well sure, the details of his experience in life were different, but his emotions? The way he thought? The way he felt? It was not something unique, It was something common and relatable. He should have been furious when the mirage broke but, he wasn’t because, for the first time in his life, he felt as if he understands a part of people. And they understood a part of him. He felt vulnerable as he wrote those stories and, it felt wonderful to shed his hard shell. He was happier than he ever thought he could be. So he wrote and, he kept writing as long he had inspiration, but then he had to stop.

Responsibilities and families rarely care for the hobby of a child.

He didn’t write for months, and as the day passed by, he kept praying for the opportunity to write again, and when it finally came after 98 days. So he sat on his bed, his electronics scattered around him.

But he had no inspiration, no story, nothing to write about.

He closed his laptop and picked up his phone, shuffled through the same 3 social media apps for a while, and got irritated because everything seemed stagnant. Here’s the thing if you are on your phone all day, it would stop being exciting after a while. He opened his contact book and scrolled past the names of people he knows he would never call until he reached someone he might call. But an anxious mind prevails and he gets bombarded with thoughts like “ What if she gets irritated?”, “What are you even going to talk about?”, “You really wanna call her on a weekend evening?” and he puts his phone down. Had he written something it would’ve been so easy, all he had to do was ask them to read it and then they would keep talking from thereon. Is writing just an excuse so that he could talk to people? He is deathly afraid to be deemed boring or irritating by his friends, so he keeps writing, as long as he makes something they would find interesting.

It’s such a flawed logic.

Friends aren’t people you have to keep constantly entertained. Sometimes life is boring and there are no stories, even a romanticist can romanticize everything to an extent. And a friendship where he has to constantly work to keep things interesting isn’t a friendship. It’s an audience-performer relationship without any pay. But the fault doesn’t lie with his friends, the fault lies with him. They never asked for a performer, they asked for a friend. And yet when he is performing he feels he is most vulnerable and as a consequence, that performance is the most meaningful conversation he has had with his friends. I mean he could just call them up, he doesn’t need an excuse to talk to people and yet he searches for them. He could just call them and tell them he misses them or that he has nothing to talk about but he would like to talk for a bit because he is lonely. He can do that and be free from the drudgery of trying to write without inspiration.

In a moment of frustration mixed with irritation, he picked up his phone and called her. And almost immediately regretted it. But before he could overthink further and hang up the phone, she picked up. They started talking and the conversation just flowed, he didn’t even have to think about what to talk about. They just kept talking.

He felt far better than he had been feeling, the thought of writing doesn’t make him anxious anymore. If he feels like he will write and if he doesn’t, he won’t.

Reaching out is always the hardest part, but surprising things could happen if you do.

“Are you writing anything?”She asked.

He fell silent for a second.

“Yeah…… I guess I am writing a story.”

“Cool, What’s it about?”

“It’s a story about writing stories,” He said and laughed.

Storytellers are strange fellows.