2016 and its promises

The new year passed me by very quietly. The old year was all about work. A lot happened in my actual and virtual social environment but I felt everything was nothing but routine. There was very little push for writing poetry much as I promised myself to come up with a second book of poetry immediately after the first publication of my poetry collection.

We had one death anniversary after another. And before the year ended one of my brothers died. It was a sad time for the family but I wondered why even my grief went with the routine. It seemed something inside me was missing – the zest for life which I always felt was second nature to me. My zest for life manifested itself in different shades of emotion about day-to-day stimuli. For instance, I had that feeling of wanting to leap with joy when a task is finished or when friends remember my birthday even if I removed my birth date from my FB page. Or when I see a favorite dish in a restaurant, see the fresh green leaves of plants around me after the rain or hear that my writer-friends have published a new book.

I was questioning the feeling that all of life was routine, explaining to myself that maybe there is something wrong with my adrenalin glands or maybe one who is past 60 surely will have to go through this feeling of aridity. On the cerebral level I could explain the dwindling of passion which I had so much of many years ago. Was this lack of passion coming from my total acceptance of the hurts and disappointments that are there for the taking every day? Or was this something that the physical aspect of aging offers as a challenge?

As a mitigation of the hazards internally threatening my verve for life, I turned to the internet for inspiration. The life of the oldest yoga teacher, Tao Porchon-Lynch impressed me no end and yet the inertia that I was looking for had not returned. I went on looking for inspiration. I returned to reading the works of my favorite writers. The same sense of wiltedness inside was annoying me. Nobody knew it because inside me I was dealing with it. It was as if I was sick of something I could not define. Not depression. Of course not.

I didn’t believe in writer’s block but there I was, not being able to write something that I could proudly own as my work. Nobody knew the annoyance I was living with every day. I did several things to claim back the passion that I was described by friends of having a lot of. Friends and loved ones didn’t know I was looking for a needle in a heap of hay as far as my inner life was concerned. And then I stumbled on several videos online – from youtube , ted.com and other sites. Somehow, the condition I was in was not mine alone. Other people experienced it as far as the accounts online that I found out were concerned. And so I thought I should just be patient and look forward to 2016 with hope.

I will continue working with poor communities with the hope that my anger at social injustice will claim my passion for life back.

I will continue connecting with people with a sense of suspended judgment and deal with the complexities of relationships as I go along.

I will continue to write even if I find my writing not good enough at times..

I will continue singing in my quiet corner because singing nourishes the spirit. Singing is not about the power or beauty of my voice. It is about me, a human being with a vocal chord just any other human being.

I will continue to write poetry even if they don’t sound good when I read them.

I will continue to pray because millions of people all over the world are praying for me and because of those prayers the good vibes that I get every moment are connected to those prayers.

I may be rambling in this hub but this is my way of claiming back the promises of the new year.