“And how many have you truly loved?” she asked.
One. I definitely loved one. “None.” The lie was for other reasons, reasons irrelevant to T’s cause. I have become lonelier over the last few weeks, writing as a matter of duty, reading as a matter of choice, and revisiting my engineering courses as a matter of staying occupied. I don’t know what I feel about this ennui apart from the fact that it scares me. And when I’m scared, I retreat further into a microcosm I invent for myself. It is not a fantastic invention as much as it is a bland one. “Windows Vista is not user-friendly. I like it like that.”
On the first day at ACJ, it struck me that I was no longer the writer in/from an engineering college; I was a writer in a place filled with writers, and I was intimidated by everyone I met, accomplished as they were. I don’t think I have the time for love now. It’s not that I can’t give, it’s that I don’t know if I can. I could date, I tell T. Dating is the worst thing to eliminate loneliness, she replies, and I understand why. It consumes time, it isolates me even further.
What do I do? There is a contradicting loneliness I feel during most hours that goes against my reluctance to date anyone. Could I court anyone and feel good about it? A bland option.
I need an identity, D says. I agree. When things with R ended, I felt I had no identity outside of that relationship. I still love R, but it’s something I’m getting over inch after painful inch. The only thing about me that is still “me” is my writing. Do I need to change the way I write? Perhaps. My writing can be overtly intellectual at times, which is fine because I write to concern other intellectuals (although I myself am not one).
I’ve always felt and known that good writing must excite the senses… that it must make the reader feel what I’m feeling, see what I’m seeing, taste what I’m tasting. There should be more than a sense of wonderment, there should be a sense of awe. Good writing mustn’t exclude the reader; on the contrary, it must reach out and envelope the reader in its arms. There is a reader in the intellectual as well, but one whom I cannot see.
“Intellectuals love Dostoevsky” – I know T does – “because his understanding of the human psyche is unparalleled, and that makes him brilliant.” My understanding of the human psyche isn’t. All I know about it is that it’s twisted, dank and corrupt, and I think that’s beautiful. I believe that people should stop denying that beauty, stop trying to cloak it. That is why I can’t write about hope or joy. I’m not afraid of them, just that I find them to be sporadic interjections into the human condition that will soon leave its facade.
There is no darkness without light. Agreed, but the site of my beauty lies elsewhere. The vibrancy seen by D in colours is the vibrancy I see occupying every shade between black and white, occupying black and white themselves. I don’t limit myself from feeling them. Instead of seeing red, I see a grey that is #7299152. Instead of seeing blue, I see a grey that is #4A525A. However, D is right: I see only grey. I neither see the red nor the blue. But do D and T see my greys?
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