Have You Found Your Place In The World Yet?

Have you ever felt that your life ticks all the right boxes, yet a little something is missing from your being?

A part of me used to be perennially dissatisfied with my life. As much as I cherished my identity as a lawyer, I did not believe that it was all I brought to the table. Motherhood thrilled me, but it did not put a stop to my yearning either. Being a lawyer, mother, wife and daughter, all together, could not lead me to my real place in the world.

My place in the world seemed like a far-off star

I had written poetry or the odd short story during teenage, but lost the streak when life started picking up speed. By the time the pace stabilised, I had figured that writing was the piece missing from my life. Yet, I couldn’t get myself to restart writing.

I tried to motivate myself into writing again. I read books on creating better ‘habits’. For days, I tried to sit down with my journal aiming to write a page a day. And when that didn’t help, I ended up feeling guilty about my lack of will and determination.

I compared myself to other writers. Especially to Natasha Badhwar. I used to read her column in the Mint. And time and again, I used to think of the similarities between her life and mine. Like me, she held a job and then quit. She seems to love being a mother to her girls. She has a liberal bent of mind as well. Then why couldn’t I write as she did?

Writing should have come easily to me. But it didn’t. I was frustrated. I had almost given up on writing.

And then I found Quiet

My husband bought me a book titled ‘Quiet’. The tagline of the book was ‘The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’.

Now, opinion (including my own) was somewhat divided on whether I am an introvert. At school, I had many friends and was participative. My best friend from school does not agree with the suggestion of me being an introvert. At home, my complaints against my husband were usually about him not listening to me talk. Yet, at work, I found it difficult to talk about myself when it came to self-promotion. I was very comfortable drafting legal documents and pleadings, but would get jittery before arguing the same cases.

I decided that I was an introvert. Obviously, the book intrigued me. In her introduction to the book, the author revealed that she was an introvert as well. What she went on to say in the third chapter of the book struck me like lightning. The chapter was titled ‘When Collaboration Kills Creativity’. The author argued against team work in the chapter. Her premise, as I understood it, was that introverts prefer to work alone. And that many artists and inventors are introverts. So creativity gets stifled when teamwork is promoted at the expense of individuality.

The book spoke to me

It was the following words that made me see what had been holding me back from writing.

“[S]olitude can be a catalyst to innovation…[I]f you’re in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you’re more likely to have an apple fall on your head.”

Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Penguin Books, 2013

The author was referring to Isaac Newton, who too was an introvert. I was not even hoping to discover something pathbreaking like him. But these words made me wonder. When was I really alone with myself, to write creatively? In fact, I was not even alone enough to think originally about my relationship with writing. I was actually thinking from the point others saw me. Writing was given a secondary status. Thoughts of how to better my performance in court crowded my mind. I kept pushing myself to become a better orator. I was investing my energy in sharpening skills I didn’t own in the first place. Being more of an introvert, I strived to prove myself as an extrovert. Doing otherwise didn’t seem befitting to my law degree.

I have always been a better listener than talker, but now, I was being a sponge. I was absorbing every voice I was hearing around me. So much so that I couldn’t hear my own. Even when I was not working or doing a chore, and was idle at home, I was no longer able to do my own thinking. No wonder I could not write even a single page, even though I had figured writing as my ‘calling’.

Lost And Found

The book made me realize that to be able to write, I needed solitude of thought. I had to separate my own thoughts from all else in my mind.

The book also made me realize that other writers are able to write because they own their journeys. They do not live out lives that were handed to them. I too had to live my own experiences and go through my own revelations, like this one. And perhaps that’s what I was supposed to write about.

Which is why many of my posts so far have been about my own experiences. My experiences belying the voices in my head, quieting them down. Silencing the conditioning that sits deep.

Through this blog, the eternally dissatisfied part of me found peace. I am still a lawyer, mother, wife and daughter. But these parts of me are a little smaller in extent now. They have made space for the ‘writer’ part.

Sometimes you do not realise when you lose your most intrinsic part to the outer world. You must find it back to find your place in the world.