Confessions of a Chronically Lazy Writer

On a mundane afternoon of December 2015, a thought struck me—perhaps it might be best if I find myself projecting my thoughts onto the cyberspace for all the world to see. Maybe then, I already had this grandiose ambition: to find my name etched in gold up in the hall of fame, and everyone will revel in the eloquence of what I had written, and many more will find themselves moved by the universality of my individual experiences. Perhaps it was the naivety of my teenage years, but I envisioned myself being a well-known author hiding behind a pseudonym.

That was the catalyst preceding the origin of this blog, the only one I had ever maintained throughout the years. Or perhaps, "maintain" is quite an overstatement, for just as quickly as this space blossomed into the mold of what I wanted it to be ... it died down just as such. I was but a kid who fell for the allure of a brand new toy, only to discard it after a few hours' worth of play.

For months on end, I would forget this space even existed. I would go on about my life, feeling just as tortured as I always was, and then some poetic happenstance hits me, and I remember the neglected roots of a part of me I knew for sure I couldn't live without.

On many drunken occasions, I find myself declaring: I am not myself without my writing. And then the morning after comes and the alcohol wears off, and I forget everything just as the way it was before. For many a time, the restless thoughts constantly buzzing in my mind are the only ones keeping me company. Then comes the monologue I would act out in great detail as if I were conversing with a person other than I. When something profound enters my consciousness, I make a mental note to attach it here, and just like all the moments before, it fades away like a long-forgotten dream.

By December of this year, this blog would have turned six years already. In that span of time, I had outgrown most of my naive thinking (I think?). I still would like to see my name written off somewhere, but no longer do thoughts of grandiosity cross my mind as often as they did before. The spark, I believe, has died down into smoldering embers.

For many others like me, writers or not, they too outgrow their dreams. Those who wished to grasp moondust with their own hands have now resigned themselves to another life. The older people got, the more jaded they became, and the dreams they held on so fervently during their younger days became more and more like literal dreams that burst into oblivion the moment the light hits their eyes when dawn arrives.

Life just ... gets in the way sometimes. It's a realization that many people have when they consciously choose to give up on their dreams. When the utopia of a perfect life gives way to the harsh realities of this world, a person is said to have come of age. Adult expectations substitute childhood musings, but along the way, it might be disheartening to know that we lost parts of ourselves too.

And thus, a lot might have changed for me, but some things still remain. I still write some things occasionally. That, I think, is a part of me that I probably won't outgrow. Much of this letter has been sent out there to the void with no specified recipient—maybe it'd eventually come back to me; maybe, like a drifting bottle, it washes up on somebody else's shore.

Or maybe, perhaps, much of what I had just said above are mere excuses of a chronically lazy writer who finds it not in himself the willingness to commit towards his once chosen craft. Perhaps if I were as determined as I had made myself out to be, I would've kept my repeated promises to return to this blog and to not neglect it. I probably would've second-guessed myself as I doubted my capabilities and decided to be just out there, creating stuff and communicating my ramblings instead of just merely passively consuming.

But, in retrospect, it might be a bit of both—I might just be a chronically lazy writer who has lost his glimmer to time and resorts to nothing but excuses to cover up his ineptitude—rusty, like a worn-out cog left out in the rain for God knows how long, trying his best though he knows he's probably way past his prime.

All that matters, I suppose, is that I still find a bit of will to stoke the doused flames, and at least, every once in a while, make something for the world to see. If nothing else, at least I could stay true to the belief that I, after all this time, am truly nothing without my writing.