Monday, March 21, 2022

See You When I See You.

 It had been a long journey, a journey that I had embarked since my school days to my adulthood, to write. 

One of my friends told me once, sometime in 2012 : Why do you want to act like a Philosopher? We are both from middle class families.

I never understood what she was trying to tell me then, and I still haven’t. To have thoughts, and to share an ability to jot down what flows through your mind, is a skill, a gift in itself. Did she mean that a middle class cannot have thoughts? Over the years, when I wrote, these were the thoughts that came out of my mind, and it shaped who I am and played a bigger role in my personality. What I wrote and how I wrote, was a form I did not try to avail, it just came to me naturally. It was like a guitar enthusiast kid, who saw musicians and learned himself how to play: Of course, I wasn’t the best or prodigal, and one shouldn’t be as well, as long as it makes you happy or you share the passion, do whatever the fuck you wish to.  But, it was a form of liberation, it was a form of consoling myself and it was a form of keeping my character and integrity intact – and most of all, it was a form of words finding me and me playing my fingers on those keyboards. These days, even Rinpoches think that they have got writers in them.

 When I look back, this blog, “Thoughts and Works”, has been a part of my life for over a decade, whereby I wrote about many things: Politics, ideas, expressions, disgruntlements, satire, lame shits, religion, career, works, papers, arts, depression, marriage, etc., - and with each word, each article, I stripped myself naked. One can judge me through my writings, there’s no denial in it. There were typos, and there were good posts, and there were also posts which were taken and paid for, by local newspapers.

But, I want to stop writing blogposts further. I may reconsider this after a decade, but till then, I want to lock it down, and not make the articles public. Of course, at the back, I want to maintain my journals, but I just don’t want to post it anymore. Why? There’s no reason. I just want to keep this personal from hereon and it’s a decision that I have been pondering upon.

There were times, when some people came to me and told me that I acted as a narcissistic prick, that I behaved like an idealistic philosopher and that I wrote a perspective from an Ethiopian approach or just that articles were too negative or that they did not think what I thought : but, that doesn’t speak about me, it speaks about an individual and the phases that they were going through their lives. No matter what you write, good or bad, people will see you through their lenses and not why you chose the curtain of certain colours – it doesn’t have to be blue all the times. And it is weird, at times, that you can be rude to people in person but if you try to challenge their ideas, they get very much offended – I shall never figure out the neuro chemical imbalances in those heads, especially when you start to disagree. Wasn’t everything supposed to be analyzed?

But there were good moments as well, when unknown people with higher status kept their egos aside and acknowledged that they knew me through my blog. They were people that I still cannot believe that they had read my articles. I made many new friends from many countries, different walks of lives, different age groups through writing.

To think of the whole saga, it has been a journey from before hitting puberty: at least some of those articles that I wrote were later published here. I had written about pretty much everything, about adolescence, to hitting adulthood and I have observed many changes in myself as well. I have seen how I lost my naivety, the saddest part as a human has to go through: To lose that innocence.

I was always curious with the world and people in it, and to put it straight, I don’t feel amused by the world anymore, nor do people entice me. People are selfish, people are rude, people are materialistic, people are conniving, people are pathetic and not many possess class in them: one moment they say one thing and another moment, their inner nature comes out, which is simply disgusting. Everybody has a price and everybody can lick your boots, provided if you match their price. We humans ought to do better, and it’s hard to find mentor in this messed up world. But, you don’t have to befriend the world, you only need family, and few handful of your friends, with whom you can talk till morning about every stupid topics below the firmaments. And not all are friends, a true friend will react how you would upon receiving good news or bad. Rest, are all acquaintances, who are members of team surveillance. A friend, is someone who will not exploit you or screw you over. Doesn’t have to be in constant touch, someone who follows the above principle is your friend, and you cannot expect every corner of your lives for their presence, because that’s your selfishness – all people are trying to meet their ends. Anybody who thinks good for you, or thinks that good should happen to you and cherishes you in their heads, they are your true friends. Someone who doesn’t poke you with the spears of jealousy or envy, that’s them. You can walk different paths, and not talk to one another for the rest of your lives, but if you respect one another, keep them in your minds and don’t wish harm for one another, you are friends. You however, are not best friends, just friends.

There were few people, I had never met them, and received words of encouragement from them, to write. To those, we shall meet someday, when we share the same interest: literature. I promise this to myself, that the only posts from here on, will only be shared with my wife and that I will only come back updating the blogposts, after a decade, that will be in 2032. That too, if I feel like updating, but not earlier than 2032. Later? I don’t know. I have certain long-term goals that I wish to achieve, and upon analyzing, I realized that writing formulated an instant gratification approach for myself. Besides, it was exciting journey to write, because I felt in whatever ways I was growing, if I shared about it, folks would be benefited as well. I always thought of growing together, little did I know, that one could be misunderstood and painted as a showoff. If someone had told me how they did what they did, I would follow their footsteps. But I would also learn, that not many share what or how they did it. 

In the end, everything that we do, is just insignificant and the search for meaning of life still goes on, and not all those who wander are lost. It's a beautiful journey and I want to cherish them with my memories, maintaining personal journals or maybe, youtube perhaps? Blogging world, I feel, is also coming to an end. However, writing will not and should not. 

 Not a celebrity, just a common man with his words, bidding farewell. I felt I at least owed this article to those, who read. Thank You. And Goodbye.