Love and Writing

So I’m listening to TED talks talking about why you’ll fail to have a great career and about finding work you love and I realize both talks hinge on the same topic – following your passion.

Passion, Eros – that which gives us energy, which makes us come alive. A passionate person is in love with life and is very attractive without even trying to be so.

Well,  I sometimes ask myself why the heck I’m writing this blog  – when probably the only person faithfully reading this blog is me – and my good friends ( bless you!).  Well, maybe because I’m trying to get in touch with my inner passion - given that all the energy in finding Prince Charming is only leading me from one toad to another.( in fact,  I can probably write a PhD thesis titled “The anatomy of the Indian toad”).

Writing helps me deal with the angst of my otherwise mundane and sometimes exasperating work life. Like Toni Morrison said in one of her talks, (check out her talk under ‘authors and poets’ from academicearth.org):

“I enjoyed the process of invention so much… I had a full time job and I had small children so I had to write at odd hours … but writing filled my imaginative life and my inner life so much that I felt able and competent and smart in the other areas of my life because I had this secret thing that I was doing for me. I was the ideal reader; I was the one I wanted to please”.

So often, we keep waiting for the right time to start something, I’d told myself I’d adopt a child at 30 if I hadn’t married by then and now in my 40’s am still waiting for the immaculate conception to happen  once more ( Ok St. Peter I know that is blasphemous...)

Julia Cameron (we share our birthdays!) in her book “The Right to Write” talks of the myth of setting time aside to write:

“If we learn to write from the sheer love of writing, there is always enough time, but time must be stolen like a quick kiss between lovers on the run. The key to finding writing time then is to write from love and not with an eye of product”

There you go again – love and passion!

Brigit: I still want to be a famous writer! I don’t want to be the only one reading my work. I want to write soul stirring stuff that moves people; I want to be featured on Oprah!

God: Well, the world does know my son, Jesus. I think his name also did come up on some of Oprah’s talk shows. He was crucified first though.

Brigit: And this is known as divine encouragement?! Hrmpp!

God: Hey, who says I can’t have a sense of humour  :)