Writing as Meditation
I’m crass, shortsighted, and many days self-criticism gets the best of me. But I hold on to what I believe is right, and I’m simple that way. Whenever I’m silenced by beauty in the quietest moments, when the weight of my world stains my eyes with tears, when everything dissolves at dusk and sleep seems so, so wrong, I open a notebook and write. Here, the toll of the world is dramatized, controlled, and finally conquered — here, I found my voice.
I grew up selectively mute, trapped in one long moment, undivided by seasons. I could only record its moods, and chronicle their return. Terror stalked my world, but the loneliness crippled me. An intensity surrounded me until I became numb, cold, desperate. I couldn’t understand why to laugh or smile because the world I lived in was black and white, and the love I felt within me was directionless and volatile. But that’s all I wanted. I fled past thoughts in heightened tension, all with my head bowed, forcing smiling and pretending like nothing was wrong. But at my prayers at night, I’d beg my God for any release, physically shaking. I was all too aware that, without my conscience, I could step into the darkness, become vengeful, someone who would just yearn to watch the world burn under him. Worse, I knew I could grow apathetic to the suffering of my people that I saw around me, that no one else seemed to notice. I watched the eyes; I noticed the smiles. I looked between the lines to find whispers of the beautiful people inside that they’d forgotten, whispers of who they were beneath the surface, and it terrified them. In one wrong step, I could let the hate and hurt burrow itself into the fiber of my skin, and blind myself from the wonder of the world; by succumbing, I would lose my God, my caring, my will for a better world. I would sacrifice my sense of wonder, and the music of my song would fade as I would grow older, angrier, more bitter.
And then what would I be? A shell of evil, sworn by revenge? An apathetic, distracted utensil, thrown around by others and so unwilling and confident in himself as to hasten his own destruction? A hedonist of motivation, emotionless, bound by the disconnection he feels with his world?
No.
The boy who hoped for a life he never lived… he would remain the same, against all odds. He would keep the faith. He would walk alone each day to prove to himself his own worth, all so he could love better. He would endure the taunts and his own fears that repeated in his head, questions that tore through his core. He would continue his ancestors’ legacies, walking against the current, keeping a dream close and dear to his heart.
I figured that writing would tell my story, would prove to them — my peers, my teachers, myself — that I was worth it. I figured that if no one would hear my message, even after the silent days, I’d write them down so I wouldn’t forget them. I’d retain who I was, at my greatest moments, and sharpen my motivation; I’d discover why I felt the emotions I felt, and how to react appropriately. I would do what no one else wanted to do; I would go. I would walk that shore because there was a light I saw in each and every other person I met, a light that I had to find alone. I would go, taking my sensitivity, my awareness, my faith, and my love to a horizon that I saw in the distance — the dream of who I could be, and the happiness I could feel.
It obsessed me.
Every day, I would retreat into my room to write for hours on end. And as the years mounted, the pile of faded, ink-smeared notebooks swelled, throbbing with passionate antiheroes that represented different aspects of my personality or my past. With every word, a meditation formed in my heart, until I was helpless but to break myself into the components that defined my very core, to accept gratitude. Billions before us have lived, died, laughed, cried, sacrificed themselves in the name of love or God, fought, toiled in quiet desperation — and then there was me. All of our emotions will be lost to time, like tears in the rain. Anything I feel, there is someone who felt it greater.
This humbled me, it broke me, it gave me peace. Gratitude does not come easy to me, but respect drew me to the conclusion that I had a purpose, that I was bound to help others see the light within them, to lead into reality the dreams they forgot. To open a door within them and watch their light blossom as I try for a better world. For me to be.
It was real, it was beautiful, it was true. My writing matured. It never was never just about me, I realize now. It was a cleansing, a baptism, binding me with my true purpose. I knew then that I never wanted recognition, glory, power — all I wanted to learn was myself. Those words, my voice- I gave it all I was. It gave me my life back.
That’s something I’ll never be able to return in kind. And that’s why, in my darkest days and my brightest moments, I record the beauty that I see in others, the passion in their eyes and the curves of their smiles. I’ve come this far, and I’ve watched my peers grow and make mistakes; I’ve loved them. When I dream, the words aren’t missing anymore.
Dramatizing my personality into words produced a narrative to guide my identity. Fictionalizing my emotions grounded my dreams. My memories remained in the inside world that I created, that I loved — memories of my joys, my fears, the sounds of music, the people I loved.
That’s why I’m throwing my words around. Writing is the catharsis that releases me from the demons that haunt at night, the will that shakes my bones to dust and licks them clean. It is the testament of reality so real, so vivid, that it blinds my inhibitions into dumb subservience. It slashes my self-doubt and strengthens the rough steel of my heart, tearing me from any delusions that I am any better than anyone else, affirming my love for our people and toughening my resolve to shape this world for the voiceless.
I’m crass, shortsighted, and many days self-criticism gets the best of me. But I hold on to what I believe is right, and I’m simple that way. I care too much. I will always, always speak up for the silenced of any kind, not with loud words or sympathy, but with human empathy. The strength of my inner voice bound me to the passion of my love, the clear design of my direction, and the understanding of my destiny.
We are a people of purpose, and mine is to nurture the forgotten dreams in others. You cannot love a person unless you know them completely. And once you know them completely, it is impossible not to love a person. Rewriting yourself is the most precious thing you can ever do for yourself. In the end, nothing will matter more than this love story from you, to you, a love story that will make you whole.
That’s what it means to write.
