We've now reached the third year of the decade. Strange to think that I've been alive for more than twenty years. Life feels like an hourglass, especially at this time of year. As more years pass, the stressors of time really start to wear you down. Days, months, and years go by faster but you're left static, inert. Towards the last days of cold December and the first week of January, those are some thoughts occupying my late-night mind.
I have to admit that I've been staying up late for many-a-week now. Perhaps it has been months, I seem to've lost track. Work is constant and uni is lingering there in the background. Spurts of writing occasionally come out of me and it's usually at night that these happen. I know it's a bad habit, especially when it's 2 am and I know I have to wake up before 7 to get ready for work. But I love the solitude in those early morning hours. It's so liberating, liberty which I don't often feel in waking hours. The house feels empty, no sounds but music in my ears playing at half-speed. I wake up in darkness to go to work, I leave work at the end of the day and it's still dark outside. I feel the minutes slip away like sand between my toes. The only glimpses of sunlight I see are coming through the glass door at work if it isn't raining. When your days are filled up with other things, I think it's only natural that you seek to catch up at night on what you've missed out during the day.
For the new year, I'm looking for change. Not a radical one, but soft and gradual. I want to start getting myself "out there" more, start being braver in myself, and do things that I've always been wanting to do. As much as I enjoy reading and listening, I haven't really written much poetry. That is something that I'd like to improve in the coming year; write more poetry and learn to express myself in that medium. Maybe even have the courage to read it aloud (but I highly doubt that).
Been glancing at Jack Kerouac's 30 rules for writing, too. Perhaps I should take note of him and be more spontaneous, as cliché as that sounds. Whenever I write, I plan too much to the point where I don't end up doing much writing at all. I sit down with a clear image in my head, yet it is extremely difficult to produce it on the page because it will never live up to the view of the text in my head. "First thought, best thought" — I should have that on a piece of paper in front of me and see if it inspires me.
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| Belief & Technique for Modern Prose by Jack Kerouac, from the book Beat Poets (2002) |
Come what may, I'm still scared and terrified of what's to come in 2023. But I'm also hopeful that things will turn out okay. And I wish the same for everyone else.
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