On
English, And How It All Started
It was during the third quarter of 2016 that I was handed my
very first book to read by a colleague at the language center where I had just started
teaching English. I had been student at the Pentagon English Academy for the
past several years, and finally, after completing my rigorous course of
learning English, I was appointed a teacher there. English is learned with high
enthusiasm and by high number of students in Hazara Town, Quetta, where I come
from. Nowhere else in Quetta could one find such many numbers of students
trying to learn and master their English language. And the Hazaras, my
ethnicity, have been both learning and teaching English for a couple of decades
now. My elder brother himself was a teacher at Pentagon, and prior to that,
years-long student like myself, when I started my English learning there.
Despite not such high fees, both my brother and I too, got in on some form of discount.
Where my brother gathered another four of his friends, went as relatives, and
got in for free on the ‘relatives package’, for me, it was much easier. I
didn’t have to convince four of my friends to join me for the academy, I got in
free because my brother was a teacher there, on the ‘teacher’s package’.
However, unlike my elder brother, I wasn’t an immediately bright student. From
the lower level classes all the way to Level 6, which is the second last course
on English taught in Pentagon, I was but a mediocre student at best. The title
of this blog might have given it away that I have always been an introvert, and
alongside it, very shy too. Quiet, obedient, and risk aversive, I went from one
class to another without even making myself noticed either to my class fellows
or my teachers. I even think they might not have even realized I was their
student or classmate a few years later, had someone showed me and asked them
about it. Class participation, from asking questions which I had the privilege to
avoid and I always did, to the compulsory ones like small presentation and
participation in other class activities, were always a nightmare for me.
Actually, as I am reflecting back now, I feel quite sorry for the teenage-me;
not that I am any different of a student now, I’m still as hesitant and
aversive to voluntary participation, as I was before – but what’s changed now
as compared to then is that I feel much more comfortable in my own skin.
Anyways, each of term in Pentagon was of three-months duration, and by time I
was in Level 6, and having repeated Level 6 for four times, I was quite tired from
all the past years’ of learning and now feeling stuck at this level. So, I quitted.
It wouldn’t have been an easy or independent decision for me
if my elder brother was here, since he was the one to put me into it, push me
throughout those years, and make me repeat Level 6 even though I had barely
cleared it the first time – but by now, he was in Australia as a refugee, and I
could take a few of the decision myself. But as it turned out, it wasn’t such a
bad decision after all. And it wasn’t a bad decision, or so not proved to be,
because I was an introvert. Any extrovert, given the chance to quit, would’ve
gone off to start gym, or outdoor sports like football, or hang out with
friends, go on trips since they didn’t have to be in Quetta for three months at
a time, but for me it wasn’t all that – I was an introvert with not so many
friends. However, I did continue playing cricket, which I had been playing
since my childhood and had gotten quite good at it, more now that I had the
extra time for it. Besides that, what I found myself invested in was also what
prepared me to come back into the academy two years later as a changed
youngster: movies. My elder brother had just sent me his laptop filled with
favorite Hollywood movies, and looking back now, they are my favorites too, and
some of the best in Hollywood. It included titles like: Shawshank Redemption,
Pursuit of Happyness, The Book Thief, Dead Poets Society, Harry Potter, Pirates
of the Caribbean, The Yes Man, and many, many more. Not only did I watch all
those movies stored on the laptop, but by the time I had run out of it, I
started downloading more on my own. I was, by then, an avid movie-consumer, and
had built a taste which made me choose movies that I am absolutely grateful to
have watched. Not to brag but by now I have watched around 600 Hollywood movies
(I took on the task of counting them) and the fact that I remembered all those
movies should tell something about my seriousness and sincerity around watching
movies; whichever movie I watch, I watch with full attention and an open heart,
and then that movie stays with me far longer than its runtime.
Now, before we return to my return to the Pentagon, I would
like to thank my elder brother, because if you’ve noticed, he’s been the only
person to be guiding, and pushing, and opening doors for me ever since my early
adolescent, which will prove to be the foundation-stone of everything I am
about to write, so: ‘Thank You, Akram. You are my earliest, and therefore
everlasting inspiration to grow and keep growing.’
As I mentioned earlier, I returned a changed boy to the
academy. The movies I had consumed during the two-years break had only kept me
in touch with English, but also improved it. Not to mention, all the
intellectual and emotional growth it had taught me which I didn’t even know at
that time, but now can see and appreciate for its worth. I returned and went
straight to Level Advance, the last course for completing your English learning
journey at Pentagon. And for those wondering, I had cleared Level 6 in my fourth
time, after which I had called it quits. And do bear in mind that I was regular
student too. I was in school until my 10th grade, and then to
college for my 11th and 12th grade, so it wasn’t only
English that I was learning, but it was because of English that I am writing
this blog today. Level Advance: what can I say? It was a blast for me. Probably
the single class, ironically the last one too, that shaped me for my following
years of life, all as a student, as a person who had found his calling, and as
a boy who now knew how to deal with his problems - alone. Unlike the majority
of the students to who reach Level Advance, I found myself quite well equipped
for the challenges of this last course. And the biggest challenge of that
class, was of course, writing. If you want to clear this class, or in a broader
sense, if you want to show that you’ve learned English well, you’d have to
write well in this class. Essay writing, precise writing, discussions,
seminars, vocabularies, paragraph writing, almost all of the activities in
Level Advance either focus on your writing skills or are bettered because of
your writing skills. Then of course, other challenged included, at least for
me: class participation which I did quite more often given the small size of the
class and my increased self-esteem, which I’ll talk about in a minute; seminars
where you have to talk on any topic of your choice for 15 minutes in another
teacher’s class; competing with other students who are better than you, but I
didn’t have to worry much about that; and finally, clearing the Advance class,
which most of the students, quite miserably, failed to do so – over and over
again.
I can pin my own extraordinary performance in Level Advance,
given that it was my first time taking the class, to one very particular
moment: the day when our first Essays were returned, checked. By that point, I
wasn’t at all determined to achieve what I did later on, or hadn’t even thought
about it in the first place. I had returned, but with no real conviction. But
that day, everything changed! I had scored a 19.2 out of 20 in my first essay.
That’s a bloody good score, even I will boast about it. But it wasn’t the score
alone that sparked something inside me, it was the teacher, now my supposed
mentor, Sir Khadim Hussain’s, remark that inspired me all the way to the end of
that term, and have kept me inspired till now, and hopefully will keep inspired
in nows that are to come. He silenced the class and mentioned my excellent
score (told you I will boast about it) in the essay and with it added how good
the essay was, and how unlikely it is to score such near-perfect marks. Right
there, and then, not only did I enjoy the full attention I was getting,
followed by some envy too I guess, but also I felt a potential, a drive, that
given my holidays at home (I had just finished High School or College) I could turn
this success into a chain of successes in all my performances during this term.
And so, I did! (I’d like to quote Tonya Harding here, from ‘I, Tonya’ movie: ‘And
to all those who said, I couldn’t do it – well, fuck you! I did! *excuse me
for the language, but IT IS SO GOOD!) And yes, this was the esteem-booster for
me as well, and quite possibly, the mark and beginning of my passion for
writing. First position in my Class (82%), first in the Essay Competition, and
(this was a surprise!) first in Seminar presentation – there you go, three
first positions in my first time ever taking Level Advance. I was just
catapulted into my passionate journey of learning, reading, and writing that is
alive and well today, has given way to some of the fulfilling achievements of
my life so far, and is still catching on more fire! And only the Almighty knows
the paths this passion would take me to.
On
Reading, And How It Grew Larger
And while my passion for writing could be traced back to my
first essay, high-score of 19.2 (okay, this was the last time) in Level
Advance, and to the overwhelming achievements that followed in that term (God!
What a period that was!), my reading journey, which then turned into an even
more exuberant passion, began with my very first book given by a colleague as I
mentioned in the beginning: The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak.
Shafak’s mesmerizing novel, jeweled with profound lessons and stories, and
convincingly inviting for any first-time reader to fall in love with books, did
just that for me: it made me fall in love with books. And since then, there has
been no stopping me from reading. Even depression failed to stop me from
reading (*wink, wink! But more on it later – this is going to be one lengthy
blog).
Something worth mentioning here is my childhood attachment
to reading. When I was in 5th or 6th grade, I used to buy
small books of short stories. I remember taking my collected amount, even as
low as 10 rupees, to the stationary and get about 5 of those short-stories
books, since each costed only 2 rupees. They weren’t anything intellectually
feeding, but then again, at that age I didn’t even know what intellect was, and
the short stories on Tarzan, and some Prince and King tales were the perfect
reading material for me. However, they were in Urdu, and although know I tend
to avoid reading Urdu novels and books, by then they were the only source of
reading for me. I can’t quite remember what inspired me towards reading from
such a young age, for there was nobody prior in our family, or in my friends
circle, who was a reader and therefore could’ve been an inspiration for me. My
elder brother Akram did read books, but not to an extent where I might be inspired
from him. But that early childhood attachment to reading books didn’t continue.
I gave almost all of my short stories collection to one my friend, and while he
and his family shifted from their home in our street to somewhere, he later
came and apologized that he had lost them all amidst the sea of things. And
after that, the stationary, Arghoonia Stationary, from where I purchased these
little books of short stories, stopped bringing more of them. Cricket became my
new passion as I grew into my adolescent, and reading became a thing of the
past. And by the time I was in my 20s, not only did I feel no interest towards
reading, I also thought of reading as something boring and an unnecessarily
long process. Where I could watch a movie in just a couple of hours, and watch
three in a day, why spend weeks on reading a single book? I thought, ‘who has
that kind of patience and stamina?’ So, in a sense, movies had answered to my
needs as an introvert and had accompanied me in my solitude while fueling my
intellectual and emotional growth at the same time.
Thanks to my prudishness, when I was offered The Forty
Rules of Love to read, I didn’t turn in down. And having accepted it, I
felt an obligation to read it as well. So, I did. I started reading it, and
soon enough, I realized I actually like reading, like my childhood-self did; I
had only been out of touch. I didn’t face the basic reading problems other new
readers tend to face, like not being able to contextualize, looking for the
meaning for every new word they didn’t know, forgetting about what they had
read last time when they resumed reading – courtesy of my English learning, I
was able to pass through all these basic problems with reading early on, and
even through boredom. However, as every new reader, I was excited to share what
I was reading – especially when you have social media. And at the same time, it
also worked as a reading motivation and an antidote to boredom. I noted down
page numbers and line numbers when I came across any excerpt or quote from the
book that I liked, and later when I was done reading, I used to copy all those
lines that I had noted down, turned them into beautiful quote-images and post
them on my Facebook account. So, while reading may have proved to be slow and
boring too at times, this rather tiring activity of noting lines, turning them
into images, and then posting them online alongside reading became a motivation
of its own. It kept me reading, for I went to read the book to find more of
these beautiful and inspiring lines – and Shafak’s beautiful novel never really
disappointed. Although I eventually stopped this tiresome, and monotonously
unrewarding act, rewarding in a sense that I hardly had any comments or even
likes on those posts, yet both of these traits have continued with me from my
first book all the way up to now: the habit of note taking, and that urge to
share and expect appraisal from the peers. And the first of these traits has
given me a lot in term of reading and retaining what I’ve read. For the lines
that I noted down for each book I read contained the jest of it. Reading them
later on reminded me of what that book meant to me, and how I felt about those
lines the first time I read them. The latter of these traits, however, has been
a constant challenge for me. Being a human, and introverted human, I couldn’t
resist the idea to share glimpses of what I am reading and what I’ve learned
from them. A natural human instinct and under the influence of social media’s
availability, and also as an introvert, it was a silent call to find a
companion out there somewhere, who would come closer to me based on what I am
reading. It was both an instinct for sharing, and a lingering hope for finding
company in the, sometimes, lonely world of reading and being an introvert.
While I may have adjusted and found my peace with reading and its solitary
nature, I do, however, still seek, not out of such desperate needs but from a
hopeful hope of finding more readers and learners out there and connect with
them.
Completing my first book took me a couple of months, but by
the time I had finished reading it, I knew I had found a new hobby, a new
interest, a new activity in my life – reading – that has now become, safe to
say, a lifelong passion. Then it’d also be safe to say that after reading The
Forty Rules of Love I had fallen in love with books and what a great, great
source of pleasure and wisdom they are. I returned the book to my colleague,
and then realized I had none of my own to read next. Fortunately, I had went to
Lahore in those days to be with a friend for a month, and found the opportunity
to buy as many books as I had the budget for. Be the witness of my innocence
that I didn’t know which books to purchase, or which print, most
importantly. I remember being very excited for my first book-shopping, and it
was late evening that I went to a nearest bookshop with my friend. And there, from
the array of books, I started choosing books that appealed to me (and still, my
fellows, that excitement of walking into a bookstore and shopping for books
from the wide range of books available – it just never gets old!). However, at
the counter that excitement was overcome by a shocking surprise when we heard
the total price of the books we had selected. Excitement turned into despair,
as our budget wasn’t even a quarter of the total price. We excused ourselves,
saying we will visit on our way back from the market. Expressing our
disappointment and surprise, we decided to visit some other bookshops,
especially the ones that sold second hand copies of books. And there once
again, that excitement was revived, because not only did I find most of the
titles I had selected previously, but for a price that I was, and have ever
since been, more than happy to pay for. I emptied my wallet that evening,
during the 1-hour book-shopping, and by the end of it, I had bought books that
I still own, and have read and loved most of them: Harry Potter and The
Cursed Child, In The Line of Fire, To Kill A Mocking Bird, Lolita, A Thousand
Splendid Suns, The Kite Runner, The Devil and Miss Prim, Three Cups of Tea,
Tuesdays with Morrie, and so on. Back then, I didn’t know anything prior
about the books I had purchased other than the praises and blurbs at the front
and back of these books. And for more than half of my book-shopping, I’ve found
books by surprise and books that I came to like at the bookstores or
book-stalls itself. By now I own over 300 books, and have a small cupboard for
books, what I like to call my ‘home library’ – but better, since it holds the
books I want.
By the end of 2016, I had managed to read 11 books. Not bad,
considering that it took me two months to finish the first one. And by every
other book I read, my interest in reading grew stronger and diverse. I read
from all genres that I had the books from: fiction, non-fiction, memoirs,
biographies, philosophy, poetry and so on. Although reading itself is a very
rewarding and therapeutic activity, one if you continue to stick with will
become more fun, more responsive, and more inviting, however there were other
activities around reading itself that made me become such an avid reader.
Writing reviews, collecting books, browsing about books, sharing books (which I
mostly avoid), talking about books, inspiring others to read books, and most of
all, respecting the books for what they are – for what they are! They aren’t
just books, like one my friends had responded to my intense reaction when I found
out that he had lost my book he had borrowed recently (yeah, that’s why), they
are more than ‘books’ when you make ‘book’ sound so lifeless, negligible,
one-timer, and straight-out worthless. A book is an author’s years of work; a
book is a piece of history; a book is a man’s best companion that he never
imagined he could get; a book stores life and its aliveness even when the
writer is long dead; a book holds wisdom and passes it on indefinitely; a book
heals pain like none other; a book calms and makes everything okay; a book
expands and glorifies reality that is to say it completes it; a book becomes an
escape when the world turns dark; a book then brings light back into that dark
world and helps us keep walking; a book nourishes the mind in ways otherwise
unteachable; a book becomes a life-savior; a book can change one’s life; a book
becomes a man’s most invaluable asset; a book is where the author pours his
heart and mind and countless readers benefit from it; a book is sometimes the
purest of joys; a book allows the reader to live more than once, in many places
than the mundane reality, with many emotions otherwise unfelt, in times of both
future and past and even other dimensions, and with a depth that one’s own
life-experiences is deprived of; a book becomes a source of empathy; a book
opens hearts; a book connects; a book is timeless; a book makes you awe; a book
brings you tears and laughter out of nowhere; a book can be a reader’s biggest
and most moving adventure while he’s merely sitting; a book slows one down and
teaches the art of noticing and appreciation – a book! A book isn’t just a
book, a book is lives retold, lives revisited, lives made better, and lives
relived. With such sincere depths of respect and understanding of the
profundity and timelessness of books, I pride myself for having continued
reading. I feel the gravity of each book I read, therefore I read it with the
best of my abilities, and then review it with the best of my thoughts and
words, so that not to cause any disrespected whatsoever to the book itself or
to the authors. And if I’ve learned anything so far from reading with such
sincerity and devotion, it is that when you give yourself with your heart and
soul to something as generous as reading, it pays back – and it pays back
tenfold.
Reading has become a most intimate part of myself. If one
has to guess about me doing something any time during the day, it would more
often right than not to guess that I am reading. And I am happy that, by now,
some of my friends always ask me what I am reading, not if I am reading. That
in itself, I guess, is a sort of achievement. Towards the end of 2018, I had my
first major episode of depression. Briefly speaking, I’d only say this: it was
terribly threatening and lifeless, but equally as rewarding in its aftermath. I
suffered a lot during the 5-6 months of my depression; I started overeating, I
didn’t know what was happening to me, I didn’t talk to anyone, I contemplated
about suicide many, many times, I gained too much weight, and I couldn’t read
either. It was the only long period since I had started reading, 5 months, that
I didn’t finish a single book. I tried to read a couple of times, but either it
seemed too heavy to continue reading the book and my back started hurting, or I
was too preoccupied with my merciless thoughts and scattered focus to even
think about reading. However, when it passed, which happened gradually and
overtime, I read Andrew Solomon’s book on depression ‘The Noonday Demon’. I
had discovered this book during my depression but was unable to read it. Although
I never quite agree with the bold claims that book-readers tend to make about
‘books that have changed their lives’, but The Noonday Demon was such a
book for me that specifically made me a better person. I not only understood
what had happened to me, and what might happen again, but also what the
significance of it was, and in which ways can I benefit from such a tormenting
experience. Towards the end of his book, Solomon talks about ‘how depression
had become the most fundamental part of him, and that taking out the depression
from his life was like taking away his most intimate part’. Well, reading has
become that ‘most fundamental part’ of me. I can, with most absolute certainty,
always bet on myself that I wouldn’t stop reading. Reading is not only
something that I do, it is what I am now. Throughout my adolescent, I started
to know that I was different – in bad way, that is. I was, in the outer
world, unusually quieter than others, solitude seeking, intense with my
moods, highly sensitive, overly shy, and a loner of some kind, an outcast. This
not only troubled me throughout my adolescent years as my consciousness was becoming
aware of itself, and as I started to notice myself and those around me, but it
also shaped me as an individual going into my twenties. And later on, when I
discovered my inner world, I came to know the strengths of my weaknesses,
that is to say the power of being an introvert: I felt deeply than others, I
spent more time thinking, I had more alone time to know not only myself but
others and my surroundings as well, I was attentive to details and had an eye
for the good stuff, and I was what most others were not – and accepting that
helped me characterize myself differently, as one should, than the countless
others out there. As one my favorite writers, and philosopher, Alain de Botton
says: “out of solitude, a character is born.” Movies first, and then reading
had become one of the biggest powers of my being an introvert. It only helped
me utilize my alone times in the best way possible, but helped me also find a
companion in the form of books that would always be there with me, and teach me
things that I never could’ve imagined knowing. Reading is telepathic as it
takes you into the minds of the writers and in the worlds that they have so
neatly and meaningfully created; and I am happy to say that I have been to many
such places, and all of them have been invaluably worth it. It is so hard to
find a company that suits you, that adds to you, and that changes you for the
better, and almost impossible to find such a company who would also never leave
– books have become that impossible companion for me. And that is why I read;
and that is why I shall keep reading.
The way I read has evolved from one year to another, as it
has kept growing. After reading 11 books in 2016, I read a total of 19 books in
2017, 21 in 2018, and 28 in 2019. If you are thinking how I’ve managed to keep
a count of these books, and if I’m being too self-possessed to keep such a
list, well let me explain. One of favorite websites, Goodreads, proved to be a
new and better platform for me as a reader where I can share, discover, and
reviews books that I have read, after my disappointing experience on Facebook.
Not only does it help me keep a count of the books I’ve read, but it also sets
you up for yearly challenges of the number of books you will read that year. Besides
Goodreads, I’ve also kept my habit of writing book reviews. This is something I
think all the readers should do, since I’ve experienced the benefits of writing
a personal review of the book you’ve just read firsthand myself. Whether or not
as a reader you are interested in writing or in becoming one in the future,
writing reviews is the best way to reflect upon the book, to write your experience
of reading it and the things you learned from it, to save your thoughts about
that particular book and make the luxury of returning to that review whenever
you want, and also to appreciate and respect the efforts of the writer and the
content of the book. Now, as far as being too self-possessed goes, I think it
is right, but also for the right reasons. I’ve never been keen on the quantity
of books I read rather than the quality of reading books. I’m not against
reading more books, if anything, I’m a bit envious of those who do read many
more books than I do. There’s so little time when it comes to reading,
especially for the avid readers, and so many books that are definitely worth
reading, while more are being printed every year. But getting lost in numbers,
and in the robbing effects of it could take away the love and slowness required
for reading, and also the intimacy and respect from your relationship with the
book. It is all about the motives behind your reading many books: is it just to
show-off the numbers, and numbers only, of the books you’ve read without having
had a deep and moving experience with reading any of those books, or is it
because you couldn’t stop from yourself from reading more as you loved each
book you finished and started the next. It is not for anyone else to judge, it
is always between the reader and his connection to and towards the books he
owns and reads.
Let’s now talk about how I read these days, and how it
compares to my reading in the past. I started reading, like all readers do, to
see if it is for me. And it didn’t take long to figure that out. Then, I had no
real plans for reading except to finish the book I was reading, write a review
of it, and then start another one. I didn’t know much about the books either,
the genres, the popular ones, or the famous authors. I was just reading, and
that was it. Not a good strategy to read, if that’s a strategy at all, now that
I reflect back. But again, I was alone in my newly found quest for reading. However,
as I kept reading, I gradually came to know more about the books, the reading
experience, and the authors as well. And why knowing all these is important for
a reader? Because knowing all these makes for a more aware and complete reading
experience. I was a slow reader at the beginning, but really attentive towards
the pace at which I read. Then during my second year in university, I became
friends with another reader, and it was in conversation with him that I
discovered and started thinking about reading certain number of pages in a day,
and how it helped you become a more organized and passionate reader. There are
other ways to set reading goals for a day, like reading by chapters of the book
which varies for every other book, or reading a certain number of hours in a
day, which too is an ineffective method for reading more. Setting a certain
number of pages works because there’s no escaping it. You can read, say the fifty
pages set for the day, in an hour or throughout the day in small reading
periods, therefore it is not time-bound. For me, reading a set number of pages
in a day has been the best way of reading more and has helped me read a lot
more than my early days of reading. All the more useful, when I have many more
unread books than I have read ones.
Furthermore, certain genres require different reading pace
and reading concentration level. Reading a fiction is the most enjoyable, also
the most moving, of all genres. Therefore, for any one interested to become a
reader, it is encouraged they start with novels. Non-fiction requires some
deeper concentration, and sometimes specific note taking as well. That’s
because its content is more practical and particular than fiction. An hour of
uninterrupted reading in a quiet place will allow reader to concentrate and
therefore extract more from a non-fiction book, and that is how non-fictions
must be read. Philosophy, although not everyone’s cup of tea, is a different
story all together. I love philosophy, but I haven’t read a lot of it. Will
Durant’s ‘The Story of Philosophy’ was one of my most anticipated books
to buy, and the buying it from a local bookshop was one of the happiest moments
of my book-shopping experience so far. But reading it, despite my off-the-roof
excitement, was one of the most challenging and tiring experiences ever. In my
review of it, I ended up saying, “it is a book not meant to be read, but
studied.” Since I haven’t read much of philosophy, I am not one to give guides
on how to read philosophy. But what I know is this: philosophy requires an open
mind, that is to say, a mind open and active to ideas that might seem
unfathomable, boring, and even irrelevantly silly at times – and with an open
mind, patience is equally important. The profundity of philosophical texts, and
of philosophers that we read and hear on the internet which usually is why
readers get excited about reading philosophy, is never front and center in the
books of the philosophers. One has to read a lot of not-the-nutshell-one-liners
and difficult to grasp content in philosophical books before one becomes used
to it and starts understanding what these great thinkers are saying. However,
reading the books on philosophers is always a less challenging, equally as
rewarding, and a more pleasant reading experience, like Alain de Botton’s ‘The
Consolation of Philosophy’. Poetry reading is another tricky one, since it
too doesn’t come easy to readers. Poetry is not prose (wow! Did I just say
that?) and therefore one finds oneself thinking how should I read it? And since
each poet writes differently, one has to read each poetry book differently.
There are the historic poets like Rumi and Dante whom we only read on social
media; there’s Shakespeare with Thou and Thy; then the
Romantics filled with nature and extreme subjectivism; the beloved classics
like Elliot and the much adored and difficult to read Dickinson; and finally
the contemporary Insta poets, which I’ll hold on my judgements on. Reading
poetry, as I’ve heard and come to understand myself too, should be taken in
doses rather than in one bulk. It is different than prose because it requires
an even slower pace of reading. One may not understand and relate to all the
poems, or even most of them, but to be able to understand each poem isn’t
really the task of a poetry-reader – we should keep reading, or reciting, each
poem to ourselves and feel the music, rhythm, and playfulness of the poem, and
cherish the ones that stick to us.
Lastly, a few words about finding one’s favorite authors.
Reading a single book from an author could only extend to understanding that
book and the ideas of the author in that book alone. Reading more books from an
author instead, enables a reader to understand not only their books, but the
author themselves. We feel more connected to our favorite authors, whether they
are alive or not, as we’ve read them in many of their books, and might know
them even more than those who know them outside of their books. My favorite
authors so far include names like: Khalid Hosseini, Elif Shafak, Orhan
Pamuk, Kamila Shamsie, Arundhati Roy, Milan Kundera, Yiyun Li, Ali Smith, Kazuo
Ishiguro, Malcolm Gladwell, Karen Armstrong, Mark Manson, Alain de Botton,
Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Jean Rhys.
There’s a lot to read for me in the future, and what shines
promisingly is that I’ve made pace with reading and am reading more books than
ever before. As I am writing this lengthy blog in August of 2020, I’ve just set
a new record of reading 10 books in a month, beating my recent record of 7
books in a month, in May 2020. Thanks to the Pandemic, I got even closer to
reading and to books, and having been forced to rely on them in these strange times,
I’ve grown to understand, value, and appreciate books and reading even more.
I’ve moved passed the greedy stage of wanting too specifically something back
from the books. My passionate reading no longer relies on any external
motivations or rewards – it has become an internal part of me. Reading provides
such timeless joy in normal times, and such unfindable relief when life becomes
hard, and with such certainty and consistency that I’ve yet to come across
anywhere else. And so, in the words of my great teacher, now mentor, Khadim
Hussain: “For some reason, or no reason at all, I shall KEEP READING.”
On
Writing, And How It Continues
Writing! I knew nothing about it growing up. I had no
writers in my family, not anyone interested in writing as well. And so, like
much of my journey, I can trace back the origins of my humble writing from
Pentagon academy. Till Level Five, the students are taught the English grammar
at Pentagon, and with such detail and comprehension that everyone by then are
able to construct their own sentences using parts of speech, from simple to
complex sentences. Level Six is, then, a big shift from the usual routines of
previous levels, for it starts focusing on writing and speech, rather than
grammar. So much so, that in Level Six and Advance, we hardly read any grammar
at all; instead we have our weekly vocabulary lessons, essay assignments,
precise writing, and class discussions. I repeated Level Six about four times,
and never before had I repeated any class. But during my last attempt, I was
very keen on passing through that time. And something happened in that class
that I still remember, and has worked as a paradoxical inspiration for me ever
since. I had written an essay and the teacher was about to collect our them, when
one of the classmates asked to read my essay. I quickly handed it to him, and
he started reading it, or more likely, skim-read it. Then he turned to me and
said, ‘such a childlike writing you have’. Being my own worst critic, and his
very direct comment about my poor writing in such a higher level, really
doubled down on me, and I felt a deep shame for not being qualified enough for
this level – especially in an area that mattered most - writing. But of course,
I didn’t read his essay, or anyone else’s to know what an ‘adultlike’ writing
looks like, since I was too sure that his declarative statement about my
writing being ‘childlike’ must mean that he himself is a better writer than me.
Although by that time, I hadn’t liked writing all that much, and just saw it as
another thing for learning English, his criticism really left a consuming mark
on me, which for the better, became an inspiration for me to become better at
it.
A couple of years later though, when I returned to Pentagon,
Level Advance was a totally different story for me. Not only because I was more
into English after having watched so many Hollywood movies for the past two
years, but also because our teacher was Sir Khadim Hussain – the director and
the most admired and beloved of all teachers in Pentagon. And rightly so,
folks. The man is a master when you get to know him. And call me lucky if you
will, I just happened to have been inspired by him in the only class of his
that I took, and not only I came to know him, but went on to become one of his
life-long students. Calm, wise, and a great teacher by profession and in daily
life, his teaching and mentorship has not only been an enlightenment to me, but
to many, many others - my elder brother included. He was very clear about the
importance of writing from the first day on, saying he wanted to make writers
out of his students by the end of that class. And as I look back, I think he
managed to at least make one - for sure. Being a great writer himself, he
taught in a way that was not only understandable for us, but also applicable.
And when he returned our essays, we knew that he had checked each one of them
very specifically and had an eye for spotting the buoying talent within those
rough and elementary pieces of writing. Time was in my favor as well, since I
had plenty of it not being a student at that time anywhere else. I gave each my
essay plenty for thinking, or brainstorming, little bit of researching, draft
writing, and then writing the neat and final version. Whether it was the
sincerity I showed to writing, taking of the emphasized importance of writing
by the teacher himself, or the feedback that I got when each one of my essays
was returned, I soon found myself enjoying writing the essays. Maybe it was
both of those factors contributing to my newly born interest for writing, and
by the middle of term, I had started to wait eagerly for the essay assignments.
And while I wrote final version of my essay on paper at the beginning, by the
end, I had started to type them since they had gotten so lengthy. Benefitting
from the no-word-limit, I used to write essays of 2,000 to 3,000 thousand
words, where I manage to fit in as in an organized manner as I could, all the
ideas and research data I had for the topic. Maybe I was getting ahead of
myself, but Sir Khadim never complained – maybe he once joked that it took him
half an hour to check my essay only. Now was that a compliment or a complain,
you guess. In the last weeks of the semester, when our final essays were being
returned, Sir Khadim used to read an excerpt out of my essays in front of the
class; and you should’ve seen my face at that time, bright with pride and red
from blushing. Thanks to those honorary remarks by our teacher, my essays had
gotten pretty popular amongst my classmates – even though I was my only real
competition in that class. However, by the end of that term, with the first
position in Essay Writing competition under my belt, a writer was certainly
made out of me – and writing would go on to become my passion and my next
favorite hobby.
As I have grown closer to writing, I’ve managed to see how
powerful and close to one’s elf it can be. First of all, it is a very intimate
act. As you write, you put out the thoughts and feeling and emotions from
within yourself, onto the blank paper. Not only that, writing also compels you
to do it an organized manner, which is totally opposite to the squeamish nature
of our minds. Taking the very example of this blog, I can see how cut-off it is
from everything else that had happened in my life during the times that I
studied at Pentagon, but thanks to writing, the sole focus of this blog has
remained on my journey so far that I wanted to present. So, writing is both
therapeutic as you write down whatever it is that’s going on inside your head,
which itself becomes the most ideal form of sharing, and also a joyous
exercise, since writing helps you organize, and therefore, help you find relief
in that organization of your once jumbled thoughts and emotions. Writing,
whether it is writing an essay, a poem, or this blog, also has the ability to
surprise the writers themselves, which I find very ‘surprising’ in itself. To
surprise oneself is a very difficult and weird idea, but sometimes as you
write, you dawn on things that you never knew were a part of yourself, and that
these words and ideas behind them have been living inside of you. Writing, then
in this sense, becomes a sort of self-discovery. Here, I would also like to
elaborate on writing being ‘the most ideal form of sharing’. We all know that
sharing our happiness and sadness, and everything in between, with people helps
a lot in not only finding a solution, an answer, but also in finding a relief,
an ease that ‘now somebody knows what I am going through’, that I am not alone.
But humans can be flawed, even at times that we need them most eagerly to be
angels. Your family doesn’t understand you since your parents are too old to
believe the severity of modern problems, your siblings are too busy in their
own issues, and your friends just want to have a good time with you – hence, no
one has the time or the patience to listen to your weepy tales and allow
sadness any room to be felt. In a society where humans find themselves
increasingly lonely and sad, it is quite contradictory that we try to push down
our feelings, and seek the escape and relief in the bad pleasures and
distractions, like videos games, social media, drugs when alone, and having pointlessly
funny conversations when with friends. When the first thing we owe to another
fellow being is listening, since it is through listening that we can penetrate,
imagine, and feel the life of others and what is happening there, and then the
very act of listening becomes as severely absent from our lives – not only do
we lose the intimate connections and the important exchanges that happen
through these connections like sharing, sympathizing, helping, etc., but also
we would find ourselves increasingly lonely and unbearably isolated with our
own problems. So, while writing presents itself as the most ideal form of
sharing, it also becomes, in our modern times, one of the most vital and
liberating skills to have. While those around us have forgotten how to lend us
their ears, a blank page offers you infinite listening time; while we feel
lonely and disconnected in the presence of others, writing on a page becomes
one of the most intimate acts you’ve ever done, where not only the page
listens, but it also invites you to say all the things you’ve never been able
to say; and while your miseries could be taken advantage off by others, writing
is your best confidant and the most understanding of all listeners. For it is
with writing, that we begin to understand ourselves.
After getting my diploma from Pentagon, I began to fall out
of touch with writing as I found it difficult what to write about. I had no
essay assignments, nothing particular to think about, and share my ideas on it.
But I did feel the urge to write because it bothered me that the skill that so cherished
my traits of introversion and helped me find the thing I was passionate about
is no longer being practiced. Nevertheless, the calling was too strong that I
couldn’t avoid it any longer, and so I started writing diaries, started my own
personal blog, and started writing poems too which I adore deeply. Diaries gave
me a second life as it gave me the chance to revisit my past life again, at any
given moment. Writing diaries is something everyone can, and should, do. Not
that one is aware of it while they write, reading your diary shows you how look
at the world, what you make out of your experiences, what you cherish and mourn
about, and how you write your own story. Although my own diaries, since I turn
to them in order to find solace, are filled with melancholic entries of
heartbreaks, loneliness, obsessive crying sessions, inescapable sadness, and so
on, I still hold them of high value for it shows me of what I’ve been through,
and legitimizes and celebrates when no one else might, my present day self and
his achievements. Writing blogs was, in some way, a replacement of the essays I
once wrote. There I poured with new enthusiasm all my reflections about life,
my life mostly, and my ideas about different topics. I wrote about love,
successes, failures; I wrote poems, short essays, and articles; and then I also
read them when enough time was passed and reading them felt like someone else
had written them, and since that ‘someone else’ was me from the past, it
brought back intense memories along with it – some amused laughs, some
bitterness of having written it not well enough, some tears, and some sympathy
from the present to past self. Last year, I started a weekly blog by the name
of ‘5 Bites Friday’. A short blog in which I reflected about what important
things I had learned in the past week, from reading, to listening, to watching.
It quickly became my favorite thing to do for two reasons: not only did writing
the blog give me a pleasurable feeling and
helped me stay productive, bringing to deeper into the world of podcast,
reading articles, and collecting and reflecting upon some great quotes, it also
became the first time that I shared my writing with others. In that productive
period of mine, since I’m not always productive being a sort of bipolar and
finding myself unnecessarily depressed most of the time, 5BF became my best
companion. Not only it encouraged me to share what I had written and therein
make new friends, but also kept me on my productivity which helped me learn a
lot more.
Before we move on to my experience of writing poems, I want
to write some more about the two innate things about writing, at least for me:
hating one’s writing, and the hesitation of sharing it with others. Let us go
back to Pentagon, and to Level Advance once more, since there I can remember
the first time I shared my disability to like my own writing. Our essays had
been returned, and Sir Khadim was going to each student to discuss their
essays, and listen to their concerns about it. When my turn came, in a very
grim and dissatisfied manner, I told our teacher that I know I can write much
better than what I have ended up writing here; and that it frustrates me that
the ideas I have in my head and the ability I can feel in me to present those
ideas as beautifully as possible onto the paper never matches my final draft,
no matter how much I try. And he looked at me and said, ‘it is natural for a
writer to hate his own writing’. (Just like only a couple of days ago in our
meeting, he looked at me and said, ‘it is natural for you to feel the pain of
heartbreak that you are feeling’, and maybe I should come to realize how most
of the things that happen to us are natural, and that we are not cursed in any
specific way – that to accept things, sometimes, is the wisest thing to do.) And
that loathe towards my writing, that frustrating and disappointing gap between
the articulate, eloquent, and neat version of my writing inside my head and the
humiliating short-fallen version of it on paper, still to this day is present
and bothersome. But I have managed to accept and expect it every time I write
something, this blog included, knowing that it is natural for me to hate my
writing while others, at different occasions, certainly have liked it, meaning
it is not objectively bad. I once read a quote which said, ‘a blank page is God
saying how difficult it is to be perfect’, which matched quite well with
another quote, ‘no writing is as perfect as a blank page’; both these quotes
reminds me not to fall in the perfectionist’s trap while writing. The only
thing desiring perfection does is to stop you from achieving it. Write away,
folks, it doesn’t have to be perfect. On the other hand, sharing what I write
is even more worrisome for me than writing itself. Sharing my essays was
another thing all together: it was academically written, it was checked – and
praised, and I had no vulnerabilities to hide in those essays. Yet ever since I
have started writing blogs, it has become very personal for me. It is like my
‘digital diary’. Even the poems that I write have elements of my own life, and
they become the weak-points that stop me from sharing them with others.
Self-loathing of writing kicks in too, and I think I’ve not written well enough
for others to read. I can witness both the signs of self-loathing and fear of
other people, and also the perfectionists trap, in hesitating from sharing my
writings, but it is also because I hardly ever write something solely for
others. Even my book-reviews are very personal to my reading experiences and
offer nothing valuable in objective terms for the readers. So much so, that my
reviews are more about the reading of the read and everything around it, than
about the book itself. Read my latest review of ‘After the Prophet’, and
you’d know exactly what I am talking about. However, similar to my essays, I
didn’t hesitate to share my weekly 5BF blogs because they were short, therefore
less room for errors and criticism; they were written for others; and were
quite fruitful overall for the readers. And rightly so, I received good
feedbacks from the few who read the 5BF. And that’s another fear of sharing
your writing – that people wouldn’t read it at all! But following in the lines
of another, very recent, favorite quote of mine, told by Sir Khadim, that
‘Virtue is its own reward’, I too take reading and writing, for better or
worse, as their own rewards for now.
Poems instantly became my next favorite thing to write,
although I still hesitate to write more of them. After I wrote my first poem, which
is probably my own favorite poem, titled ‘If only you move on now, you’d look
back and smile’, which came out to be ‘surprisingly’ good, I knew I will write
more poems. Actually, why not share the poem here as well!
If Only You Move on Now, You Would Look Back and Laugh
"I remember the back then,
Dark and Hopeless back when,
The days a mess; nights sleepless again.
I just thought that this was the end,
Like being stuck in a damp sand,
Reaching out for help, but no hand,
I just thought that this was the end.
But he told me how poor you are,
For you cannot see, but I see just far,
That all this pain and all these scars,
Will lead you somewhere bright as star.
And witness how long, how strong I last;
I see how beautiful is this contrast
That if you're going through hell, keep going fast!
For when you will finally be able to witness the vast,
You will smile and know that you've now surpassed,
All those empty nights and days overcast."
I’ve written a few many poems since then, amongst which, I
happen to have some more favorites too. Poems surprise me more than any other
form of writing. I might think about writing a poem about a particular thing,
for example the above poem was a celebration of moving on and getting to the
other side, but I never know how the poem will turn out to be, what will it
say, how will it say it, and how surprising it might sound, even to my own
ears. I wish I could encourage myself to write more poems, for I have the
glimpses of beautiful and profound ideas now and then that would make an
equally beautiful poem. But whether it is the weight of writing a poem that I
feel or the my almost zero education about writing poems, I don’t succeed in
writing enough poems. But of all other forms of writing, poems rests closer to
my heart than any, and I am sure that I will never stop writing poems or the
idea of writing poems – and that I will learn the basic rules of poetry that
will encourage me write more of them. Good ones or bad ones, or even childish
ones, like the above, I shall not stop writing them, for each poem I write, the
words for it come out of the vast, otherwise unreachable, realm of the heart,
and reading them again, showers me with the blissful feelings with which I once
wrote them with.
And so, writing is how this journey will continue. A journey
I never knew I was setting out on, and now a journey that I can’t even think of
abandoning. This journey is its own destiny; with every book I read, every
review I write, every new idea I think, every new poem I write, this journey
meets its destiny in them – over and over again. As cliché as it might sound, I
have that life-long dream, goal, of one day writing my own novel, like that of
Khaled Hosseini, or like Elif Shafak, or Jean Rhys, or Orhan Pamuk – and for
that I have to read, and read more, and more. I don’t know how much a writer
has to be read before he/she becomes one, but I know that it is too many. And
that too many seems too few, for reading each one of those many books is a
fulfilling achievement on its own. And it is in reading, I believe, that I
writer is born and feels at home. While my brother started me on this journey
years before, Sir Khadim is the one who propelled me deeper into it, spotted
the gift of writing in me, helped me hear my own calling, and inspired to
follow it to the point that it has now become a non-detachable, fundamental
part of me – after which point the passion feeds itself. With a warm heart, and
a firm handshake (which we share in common), I offer my honest gratitude, Sir,
for helping me find meaning in my life, which otherwise got close to falling
apart at many instances. The gift of reading, writing, thinking, and the wisdom
of your teaching and mentorship, is what has sheltered me from harm and lostness
in the past, gives me joy and serenity now, and will continue to drive and
aspire to keep growing in the life that awaits me. Thank You!
On
Being an Introvert, And How It All Comes Together
I have been lonely. I am lonely, too, at this point. Maybe I
hadn’t realized until recently how lonely I have been, how much love and care
I’ve missed out on. One late night at 2 am, I was sitting with my other friends
out on the street, we had just smoked shisha, and we were now in deep
conversation. Both the emptiness and chill of that late summer night, and the
effects of the shisha, we started talking about things friends usually don’t
feel comfortable talking about. I broke down as I started talking about how
lonely I have been all my life. It is very uncommon for the boys to cry, let
alone in front of others, but that night, I just couldn’t hold my tears back.
That was when I realized that how lonely and hard I have been on myself. A year
or so later, one morning while I was done jogging, I sat down to read ‘The
Radical Acceptance’ by Tara Brach. I was unusually tender those days, had a
very delicate and ached hurt, I had just gone through a breakup. And as I was
reading this book, which is about self-awareness and most importantly,
self-acceptance, a line came through, and it hit right at the tenderness of my
heart, and I broke down again, right there and then. I remember wanting to cry
for hours, to cry all the sadness, lovelessness, pain, and unfairness out of
myself that day. That line was, ‘Amy, you are a good person, and I hope that
one day you can believe that’. In that moment, all that happened, happened
spontaneously, without any warnings or reasons, and I didn’t know why that line
had resonated with me so much. After that incident, it has become a norm for me
to cry for myself, whether alone after watching an emotional movie, or in front
of others who showed some love and care. I would realize a later on the reasons
for ‘why such pities for my own self’. Why, indeed? I have always lacked a firm
belief in own myself, unless someone else believes in me at the same time. And
while that sounds okay, because I will always have someone who would tell me
that I am able to succeed at things, you know like my parents, siblings, friends,
teachers etc. But the problem arises when that lack of self-belief and
nourishment applies to almost all the other areas of life, and not just
self-confidence. Then, it would mean that I also cannot love myself, appreciate
myself, adore myself, encourage myself, see the good in myself, and overall,
just cannot live sufficiently on my own unless someone else is there to provide
all those emotional and mental necessities for me. And that’s where it all sums
up, nobody has been or will be there to provide all those necessities –
instead, I’ve been lonely and possibly will be too. Now, that is completely
normal, right? Most people are lonely for most of their lives. They have
friends, family, social life, etc. and so do I, but when they aren’t with any
of them, they are alone, just like myself. But what happens in my case is that
I am introvert, which means less people in my life, and by choice too, and
recently, it meant that now I had started to realize how lonely, and having
realized that I cannot provide for my own emotional needs myself, how loveless
I have been.
It is quite an odd thing for an introvert to complain that
they are lonely. Isn’t lonely how you introverts are supposed to be? Well yes,
and we choose to be lonely, which too is because of our peculiar and inherent
personality needs; so, I don’t think we qualify for this complain. But when it
gets hard, one becomes unable to see logic behind the things that are
happening; one starts to hate oneself because they feel cursed to be born that
way. At that time, I don’t think logic has any real say in the emotional
well-being of that person, all he/she wants is love and an understanding ear.
But I also love being an introvert – that is, ever since I
have to come to know, understand, and accept that I am an introvert. Before
that, it all felt like a curse. Why am I so shy? Why don’t I feel the need to
talk to others? Why don’t I have friends? Why am I so lonely? Why is no one
else like me? Am I weirdo? And so on… And once again, I feel enormous sympathy
with my teenage self, who suffered so much, for he didn’t know, didn’t
understand, and was therefore at the mercy and judgements of those around him –
who knew and felt even less than him. I first came to know about extrovert and
introvert personalities when I was a freshman in university. So late, right?
But I finally knew what was wrong with me, and after I came to know about it,
it turned from being something ‘wrong’ with me, to just ‘being me’, which was a
big relief early on. Then I started reading about these personalities, and how they
behaved and dealt with this big, wide world, that is now infinitely connected
through a messy thing called internet. Being an introvert in the 21st
century has its own novel problems, to which I felt inadequately resourceful. I
quickly came to know about Susan Cain on the internet (well internet has its
perks for introverts too, except the social media), and started following her.
Her famous, and almost singular book, ‘Quiet (the power of introverts in a word
that can’t stop talking) instantly became my single most sought book since my
becoming a reader, and thus my obsession with book collection. But by then, I
didn’t know where to purchase my books, and especially the ones that weren’t
available in the second-hand-books market. I searched a lot, but couldn’t find
it. Then, after a while, I found the PDF of the book, and I quickly went to a
nearby photocopy shop, and asked if he could print the soft-form of the book.
There’s something about physical books that even back then I
felt the urge to get a hold of. E-books or audio books have never really
appealed to me, although they are much more efficient ways of reading in this
fast-moving world. I even tried, and finished a couple of audiobooks, and a few
e-books too, but I quickly realized that they weren’t for me. Where listening
to an audiobook accompanied me in my long commute to my university, I lacked
the joy the of sitting down, opening a physical book in my hands, feeling the
book and looking at its pages and words, and reading it immersively. E-books on
the other hand, lacked the very same things, and since it had to be read on my
phone (can’t afford or find Kindles here) I hated the idea that on a device
that I do all the other things and feel so consumed by it that I need to escape
from it in my reading time, should now read my books on it as well – not for
me.
Anyways, the photocopier said he could print the book, but
it’d cost me two thousand rupees. And as much as I had fallen in love with
books, living on a tight budget in another city where I went to university,
spending two thousand rupees on a single book wasn’t an option at all. But as
they say, all good things come to those who wait. A few months later, I went to
purchase some books with a membership card which gave a solid 50% discount. And
after I was done with my browsing and selecting books, near the cash counter my
eyes went to the pile of newly arrived books, and there I spotted the book that
I had been looking for. For almost a year now. I felt ecstatic! And although I
didn’t purchase it (a confession coming up!) since I had found a way to become
a book thief without being caught, next time I visited the bookshop, I managed
to steal it. The book I so badly wanted, I didn’t purchase, but stole. I felt
both guilty and not-guilty afterwards. Even though it was stealing books, which
I longer thought of doing again, it was stealing nonetheless, but on the other
hand, I felt, amidst the overflowing joy of finally having owned the book that
I had so eagerly anticipated all this time, almost indifferent towards the fact
that how I had got the hold of it. Anyways, with that confession out the way,
let’s return to the introversion, and my journey from this point on with Cain’s
book ‘Quiet’ in my hands. The subtitle of it says it all, although I love the
title ‘Quiet’ just as much (Quiet, so introvert-like, isn’t it?) which says:
the POWER of introverts in a world that CANNOT stop talking. POWER of
introverts: it lies in accepting that we are different, not only in our
immediate surrounding, but from a whole majority of the world’s population. And
since we are different, and on such a huge level, we have different needs,
behaviors, gifts, and importance than our fellow beings, the extroverts. Not
only did this book explain these different qualities of the introverts as a
large, and therefore mine as an individual as well, but it also cherished them
for their uniqueness and importance for the progress of human beings and the
world as a whole. Now, having read this ‘life-changing book’ (a phrase I hate
to use, but have to on this occasion) not only did I feel justified living in
this world as myself, but also felt obliged to harness my unique gifts as an
introvert, and bring a mild or more-than-mild change in my immediate
surroundings and hopefully in the world too someday. CANNOT stop talking: while
before I felt small, inadequate, and negligible among my extroverted peers,
after reading this book the tables turned so dramatically that I felt proud of
being an introvert, and kind of sympathetic towards my extroverted peers who,
poor souls, just cannot stop talking. And while they may dominate a world, that
(uhm) is made to suit them, they unfortunately lack some of the key introvert
qualities that makes living much more worthwhile – like slowing down, going
deeper, thinking richly, spending time alone, having better ideas, feeling
deeply, reading more books, self-awareness, introspection, reflection, care for
others, and so on and so forth. So, while together combined we lead the world
towards a better future while trying to maintain a good enough life in the
present, I don’t think either of us, introverts or extroverts, gets to decide
who is better over the other. Susan Cain has given us introverts that important
power of being ourselves.
What else does being an introvert include, other than being
lonely, stealing books, and reading books? Well, a lot more, I think. But it would
be hard to show since much of it happens inwardly than outwardly. However,
let’s get the outwardly things out of the way first: a lot of alone-time, going
to restaurants alone, going to cinema alone, going to picnic places alone,
wanting to be alone, being at the lonely places like libraries, less visited
sights, and toilets, talking to oneself all the time although we try to hide
it, finding it difficult to fit in with friends, being moody, being confused,
and again, so on. Yet what goes inside an introvert’s mind, speaking out of my
own experiences, is far more interesting, admirable, and important than what
appears on the outside. One of the key distinguishing features of introverts is
that we prefer less stimulant environments, where not much is happening, and we
feel at our most calm and productive in these places. A beautiful metaphor to
explain this, that I came across in ‘Quiet’, was that while extroverts feel
more alive and driven under the big bright lights of a nightclub with a lot of
crowd, introverts, on the other hand, feel at their most alive under a
lamp-light in a quiet room. And the reason we feel most alive in those moments
is because we get the time to be with ourselves and do all the things necessary
for us. In these quiet moments, we recharge, we sit and reflect, we think about
everything that is on our minds, we read and consume the things we read, we
write and let out what’s inside, we think about other people, we give our fears
a look and a hearing, we also yearn sometimes for someone to text or call us,
we watch sad, old, and different movies that nobody else would watch with us,
we cry and empty our hearts, we plan for tomorrow, we organize ourselves and
our thoughts, we go and sit in the toilet for hours and talk with ourselves, we
take long hot showers, we properly miss those who have left us, and we also
prepare for the next time we go out to face the world. All of this may sound
jarring and exhaustive, but since we have been doing it for suc all our lives,
it is quite natural for us. So much so, that all of it, from separating
ourselves from the crowd to going to our room or finding a private space, happens
naturally. As if the body or the mind is operating us. So, while there remains
a gap between the introverts and extroverts, the only way to reach to each
other is through the bridge of understanding. Despising, neglecting, and
denying each other’s differences will only increase this gap. But once the
understand is built, not only would we be able to appreciate each other, but
also ourselves.
Ever since reading ‘Quiet’ and then delving in the vast
world of introverts that this book opened to me, I’ve only come to know myself
more, and therefore appreciate myself where I need to be appreciated. This has
given me a sense of belonging, of importance, and of humble pride. No longer do
I feel cursed for being the shy one in my family, no longer do I feel small and
separated from my friends, no longer do I feel specifically alone, and no
longer do I feel that I was born in the long place and time; what I instead
feel is proud for being the different one in my family now that I have found a
passion for reading and writing, and now that I own a small library of my own;
I now feel important and contributive in my peer group; I now feel more
satisfied in my own company; and I now feel a sense of responsibility to change
the world I was born into for the better, to show other introverts how special
they are, to help others find their own calling alongside their usual lives. In
the words of Spinoza where he says, ‘to be free one should learn to understand,
for to understand is to be free’. I feel like that’s what happened to me. I’ve
come to understand myself now and therefore I’m free of the cruel judgements of
the society, and the unfair treatment that goes on in it. Both reading and
writing have helped me a lot in making this new me, in forging a meaning out of
the otherwise scattered knowledge, and in building an identity through which I
feel deserved for everything that I’ve been given - for existing. They have
also accompanied me in my loneliness, and have given me mattering moments of
relief that I couldn’t find anywhere else. While in reading Jean Rhys’s ‘Good
Morning, Midnight’ I came across another melancholic loner’s story which
made me feel less alone in my own world, writing on the other hand, has helped
me pour out all the pain, anguish, misery, and loneliness onto the paper, which
as always, took them without any complains, and listened. What three years of
reading can do! Looking back three years prior, I couldn’t have imagined that I
would be my present self. And while books are a man’s true companion, it has
proved to be even life-saving for an introvert like me. And it is through
writing that I am able to transfer these words out off my head onto the paper, where
they remain as a second life. For if life passes into anything, it passes into
pages.
PS: I had planned to write this blog in celebration for achieving my first milestone in reading, reading 100 books. While that didn’t happen because the town’s library was closed due to the lockdown, and by this day, I have read another 18 books which makes my reading count to a total of 118 books, I finally managed to write this ‘love letter to myself’ in the past week. Other than the title and its sections, I didn’t know what I would write in this blog, or how long was it going to be; what I knew was that I wanted to surprise myself, and let myself free when writing it – no word limit, like those essays which I wrote in Pentagon Academy. Lastly, it wouldn’t be a complete letter without a postscript, (right?) and definitely not without some love to the one being written to – so, dear Ejaz, I love you and will always love you (and when I say always here, I mean it. I won’t be like your ex-girlfriends, trust me.). And I want you to know that I am proud of you and what you have achieved so far. And I know you have unsurmountable doubts about you, but I want you to know that you are a good person, and taking some help from the movie ‘Help’, let me say this: you is smart, you is kind, you is beautiful. And so, we embark on the journey ahead together, where new books will be read, new things will be written, new love will be found, new pains will be earned, new people will be met, new experience will be learned from, and so on… but remember, whatever it will be, we will be there together to face it. With a weak smile, a strong handshake, and (come on we deserve a hug) and with a warm and long hug, your own loving self, Ejaz!