Our
deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?’-Marianne Williamson
The
story I told myself time and time again was that I was a late starter in life,
maybe because I was not a very brilliant kid. But it still baffles me that even
in my childhood I was above average, thus when and where it got stuck in my
head that I was not good enough is not clear. As I began to take cue from
people, get advice and seek validation, all I was told and come to realise was
that I was not good enough. Alas in reality I have a lot of potentials locked
up in me. Potential hidden under religious cloak; there is a difference between
religion and spirituality and in my society to separate stupidity and
spirituality is almost a rocket science. So I got missing in action; I became
another fraction in mathematics. I became an insignificant value that can be
rounded off to another significant number. I became obscure and I sulked at the
lack of recognition for my talent. I blamed everyone but me for my woes and I
was simply mad and angry with my environment.
The
fear in me magnified and the ‘me’ shrank as people told ‘me’ I could not, but
in the real sense of me no one told me I could not. I told myself I could not.
I read the signs; the half sign of failure wherein lie opportunities, I read it
and got the miscue that I was headed for failure. I was not sure; in fact I was
not sure of anything. Life was a very complex mirage in which the belief in the
almighty only confines me to stupidity. As I grew up, I saw God more as a means
to an end than the end in itself. I saw God only when I was in need and every
opportunity was an act of coincidence. I saw God in my need and not in the
magnitude of His greatness, I confined Him to the box of my situation and I am
always in constant mood of belief and unbelief
I
read books, I mean loads of them yet when I hold my pen to write, I feel
inadequate. I tell myself who am I to dwell in the space of Wole Soyinka? Who
am I to even try to imitate the great Chinua Achebe? The great me deserted me
as I shrink in comparison with the great ones on whose shoulder I should have
stood to see further. The ‘me’ shriveled as I saw less and less of me and more
of them. I refused to check my mirror because the boy in me was growing into a
man, the man I desired to be but I refused to see or acknowledge it.
There
is a journey I need to embark upon. I need to be somewhere great but I get
scared by the challenge of getting there. I get scared of my ability to cope
when it get tough. I am scared of getting there because I am too scared to
admit or recognised the greatness in me. All I need to do is to start and each
day I will realise I have more than the energy needed for the day. Each step
leads me to a journey of no return as I won’t be where I was yesterday and I
won’t be the person I was yesterday. The ‘me’ today is my journey so far and I
am desirous of more escapade and adventure.
Now
I sit down to do what great writers do. I read- I mean loads of books. I read for
few minutes, I read into hours and now, into days. I sit down to write and
sometimes I have nothing to write and I just sit there on my desk. Sometimes I wake
up to think, and yet my thoughts are not adequately formed and sometimes my
thoughts are not properly conveyed by my pen. Then the moment of magic and
inspiration; those three moments or more converge. The reading, the desire to write,
the few drafts, sketchy and tardy and the thinking; all converge and my
thoughts, hands and flow, sync into the graceful moment of endless flow of words
and I write till by thought is exhausted. Now I am a genius. Yet I do not
acknowledge how good I am or how far I have gone. Religion again kept me humble
in the day of my glory. It is not humility, it is simply stupidity. I am a
genius, I am a god. Now I live in the real me; not in the shadow of any man.
Did
I say I wanted to be a writer! Hell no! That is too small to be me. I want to
be good at many things. I want to be a great man, a loving husband, a
responsible father, a renowned diplomat, an academic of repute, a life coach, a counselor etc. So I am! I can simply do anything I lay my hands on and do it
excellently. I am a god
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