Being Jack.

The Importance Problem of Being Jack.

Considering where I left off in my last post, starting off on a dejected note, subsequently finding solace and eventually making peace with a fact of life, I haven’t progressed much.  I am being crude. Nothing more. It is not stagnation, but a plateauing that has become the humdrum of life.  Perhaps, it is in this representation that I find refuge in an attempt to justify my own inaction in being able, or rather trying, to break the shackles.  I seem to be meandering off from what I intend to write about today.

I’m not much for dates, anniversaries, birthdays and other hoopla surrounding special days.  This time of the month, when people are busy forming resolutions, preparing to bring in the new year, I prefer giving it all a pass.  Doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t join in on the fun, just that I’d much rather spend a usual day without much ado.  Grinch! I hear you. I wouldn’t deny it either.  This indifference, today, made me introspect a little (I blame the holiday season setting in and all the ‘reflecting back on the year gone by’ talk doing the rounds).  So here I am, pondering.  When did I become so bitter?  When did my posts lose their comic streak and become a sob session?  Mid-life crisis?  Too much to do and too little time?  I have been desperate for answers, seeking deliverance from this solitude, not as an attempt to gather sympathy, just a long due outcry. 

And in this moment of introspection, it strikes me. 

Life used to be simple.  I liked something, I’d pick it up and just get on with it.  Expectations rose.  Oh, you’re good at this, why don’t you make something of it, they said.  Why, yes surely, I always agreed.   Never a moment’s doubt or hesitation.  It started with writing, thus came into existence this blog, moved on to poetry, a collection of 210 odd which eventually became ashes, photography, a DSLR Nikon D80 became my best friend, a guitar, one of the most heartfelt gifts presented by my friends because that was something my father always associates with my childhood, now lying in its case under my bed gathering cobwebs, driving, riding a bike, because that’s something I should experience, eventually still unable to do either.   They’d tell me, “You’re quite something, once you put your mind to it, there’s no stopping you.” Made me feel very special, that.  I won’t be humble since it would solve no purpose, I really am good at what I put my mind to. 

The problem with my mind is I just have one.

And this is where I failed, the Master of his Trade tried becoming the Jack of All.  People ask me now, professionally and personally, where do you want to be, what do you want to do?  I draw a blank.  I always thought, and actually blamed, my confused education and choice of degrees for my inability to place a finger on that flavour of life I want.  Truth be told, am clueless, and that really is the reason for this muddle, the impossibility of choice.  Somewhere along the way, I lost track of what and who I am, unable to reconcile how far off I have wandered.  Such is the irony that I have not done justice to any of the things I picked up. 

I yearn for singularity of purpose, to have an aim and goal to work towards, to be able to identify what I want to do, and be content with it.  To no longer feel disappointed for not having gone the distance with my indulgences.  It is with this hope and longing that I sign off this crappy 2013 and hope for a rejoicing 2014.

Happy New Year folks!  Watch this space for more muck in the coming 365!

PS: This post comes with a special courtesy to Ludovico Einaudi’s I Giorni for serving as an apt background score.