Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Growing one's armour back

 So I had decided to look into improving the writing for one of my poor drafts and landed here. Of course, this was bound to happen.

Ambition is all very good and nice but I have realized that it should never be driven by anything negative, like an inner void, an inferiority complex or a simple lack of things to do in life because these drives are not sustainable. Not that I would know anything about true ambition, of course. My work hours have shifted and 'I don't know how I feel about it'.

'How do you feel about it' was recently raised in a work meeting and I felt like replying, I didn't know that I got paid by my feelings, but again I kept it to myself.

Recently I have rediscovered Poe and the guy is a master story teller. I simply love sitting in front of the heater or lying wrapped in my blanket, reading a Poe story. A friend was once disturbed by his story about one guy's hatred towards another's blue eye but I think what she overlooked in her horror of the extraordinary is that Poe has extraordinary skill in conceiving of plot, putting them into words and creating a story with a remarkable flow. It is absolutely heartbreaking that he was destitute in his life and died so very young. My personal biases aside, I do think that writing just isn't an art for the young and if anything it gets exponentially better with life imbuing experience to it.

Reading Poe made me realize that there are some universal themes in story telling; perhaps they spring from the commonality of the human spirit and all its associated longings, desires, aspirations, hopes, dreams and fears. One such theme is treasure; you just find something extremely valuable. Another is the idea of having an entity that is separate from oneself but is in many aspects a mirror image of one, mentioned in a story about William Wilson I think. Poe seems to have had a remarkable imagination and this makes some of his stories an absolute treat to read, such as the descent into the maelstrom. He is also well-versed in the peculiarities of human nature and maybe he does not equal Chekhov in this but he is brilliant in his own way.

Guy is extremely underrated, say I.

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