ordinarypoet.blogspot.com

You know how some bloggers just seem to be able to write those long, meaningful and thought-provoking entries. It seems so personal, so effortless, it always makes me feel like coming here and write something like that, because it always makes me feel like I've got something to tell the world too. Only difference is when I'm at my blogger dashboard, all I hear in my head is this big, inaudible buzz of scattered thoughts and memories.

What used to be something I do to survive the monotony which is my regular London day has now become something I draw inspiration from. Sometimes, reading what others write can be so much more liberating than writing itself. I don't know, perhaps I've never been that good of a writer; friends and acquaintances occasionally ask me to help revise their personal statements, application essays and whatnot, but I've always thought that my ability to help with that has never been so much of one that I would call writing. I may be pretty decent at feeding off other people's ideas and experiences and rewriting them, but I'm quite starved of my own I think.

But the point is, I am finding this process of reading and digesting what others have to say so much more enjoyable, and fruitful at times. Especially when they say something I can relate to. And sometimes reading it is even more satisfying than writing about it myself, because being the perfectionist that I am, I'm always dissatisfied with something I write - language, content, structure, whatever. Maybe that's why people ask me to critique their essays. :P But I like to think that this satisfaction stems from the fact that when someone writes about something I am familiar with, and expresses it so eloquently and honestly... it's like I don't even have to say anything to be heard. Because someone's already been listening all this while. I am understood, just like that.

When I was younger, I thought that university was the place you go that ultimately prepares you for the 'real world' and educationally, somewhere for you to find perhaps your niche, for you to realize which path you're going to be on in the future. As I grew older, university just became another means to an end; or rather, a means to prevent an end i.e. unemployment. Now that I'm in university, I only feel like I'm in an enormous black hole - everything is just being sucked in at too quick a pace for me to even grasp or appreciate anything. A dark spot in a dark sky. An invisible state of limbo.

Is this a phase that everyone goes through?

I find myself deriving greater pleasures from even simpler things as I grow older. A few days ago, I cooked chicken curry for the first time and had it with naan; it was surprisingly fulfilling. Obviously, it turned out pretty well! I was really happy for the rest of the day. Genuinely happy. Like I had accomplished something, albeit the simplicity of the accomplishment! I don't know what to make of that... part of me tells me that it's an affirmation of how uneventful my life has been that I jump in glee over a successful dish, but another part tells me that my celebrations were justified, and perhaps - at the risk of sounding banal, I say this - it's the little things that count.

Posted by Zhi Wei at 1:25 PM Comments