Sunday, February 17, 2008

Inertia

The American writer and editor (Thank you, Wikipedia) Dorothea Brande once said,

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this:

Act as if it were impossible to fail.
That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success.

This week one has been wholly consumed by the process of writing what could well become one's very first book ever. One must reiterate — could become; One doesn't claim that it won't and one sure as hell will not say that it will. But somewhere along the way, the process of writing, of putting down thoughts and attempting to weave them into a meandering plot, while adhering to the style in which one tends to most flourish (Thank you Harry/Luke), while attempting to meet a ridiculous deadline, does tend to suck the fun out of it all.

At face value, it's not all that much. It's a story of a person indulging in some travel and assorted stupidity. But then, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas could also have been described by an utter philistine as being just that. The deeper essence of this book one finds oneself slaving over is the culmination of three years of weird and wonderful experiences, understandings (new word alert, one thinks) and learnings. All that stuff condensed into one story! Amazing, one likes to think of it as being.

However, what this does is to bring the stark reality of 2008 nearer one's face, in that it's time to climb out of the groove and do new things, find a new routine (as someone very recently said in her blog), discover new people and places even. The warm and loving grasp of inertia is one of the hardest things to fight. Moreso, when one is surrounded by persons who are actively doing so, in terms of plotting the course for their next phase of their life: whether that be career-wise, location-wise or as is the case with certain sick-ass rat bastards, planning their next conquests... probably (one finds it beneath oneself to elaborate).

Taking stock of one's priorities, goals and ambitions is a simple enough process. Actually moving oneself to do something is quite another... As one is discovering... very slowly... and finding it bloody effing hard to act like it were impossible for one to fail.


And yes, one realises one has been using the word 'one' a lot on this particular post. One just wanted to speak like the Queen of England for a change. One likes doing that once in a while.