renascens fruori: To Reawaken Joy

This is going to sound overdramatic. The feelings behind it, though, aren't characterized by 'anguish', 'disappointment', or 'rage'. More like 'lethargy' and 'ennui'. Born out of a general listlessness and expressed with a deadpan look and a half-hearted yawn.

The things I used to enjoy and the things I was interested and enthusiastic about; the things I found myself willing to give time and effort for--they have become irrelevant and, well, petty. Almost hollow, even. It's not the kind of thing that would plunge you into the deep dark pits of depression, but it's the kind of thing that makes you think what now? (Yes, I say that a lot, don't I?)

After all, it's important to have something to love and enjoy and aspire to, and when you don't have that, it's hard to keep a grip on other things; like your enthusiasm and outlook on life in general. Maybe I'm not the only one thinking this way? I got off the phone with a friend a few minutes half hour ago, who shared my sentiments. Even then, we only discussed it in passing. That's just how little it matters now.

I think I used to be passionate about this. I used to love stringing the words together into phrases, phrases into sentences; sentences into entire narratives and articles that reflected my thoughts and opinions. My contribution to the world.

Now when I run my eyes down the page of a book I acknowledge the presence of something missing. Perhaps it was the way I used to revel in the words and the phrases; how I would find myself smiling as I turned it over in my head. Maybe it was the giddy rush I used to feel when I turned the next page. Maybe the unbelievably real anguish I used to feel for the mishaps of the fictitious characters. Now when I run my eyes down the page of a book I register the story word for word inside my head, and it sits there, piled up and undigested; experienced but not enjoyed.

What do you do in a situation like this? Even books like my all-time favourites--Smoke and Mirrors, Water Babies, Joy Luck Club--are difficult to enjoy. Even the beautifully strung poetry of Sapardi Djoko Damono only manages to float feebly about in my head, and even then, only in passing.

It's also difficult for me to write (apparently this is also an alarming problem for other people I know). There are increasingly longer pauses where my hands twitch above the keyboard; where the pen floats a hair's breadth away from the page; where inspiration lingers just out of reach. Like right now.

What's happened to us? (Us this time, and not just me.)

A possible reason someone proposed to me just today is that our heads are full of a lot of other things that are "more important". Due dates, projects, essays, tests; the rigid lines of routine that had never mattered before as much as it does now. I'm not proposing to throw all that by the wayside and do what I love regardless of anything else. Especially because if I'm being honest, I have a lot more time on my hands than I'm willing to admit.

In my defense, that handful of time flows past unnaturally. It feels like there is some gigantic, gaping mouth into which huge chunks of that time are tossed. But this insatiable black-hole of a mouth is a messy eater, and leaves us with small grains of hourglass sand that tick by torturously slow; five minutes that are too brief for us to use for anything meaningful--too long for us to ignore and let slip.

One of these days I'll learn how to appreciate these crumbs of time. One of these days I'll finally find it in me to place them on my tongue (the way you do a snowflake or a drop of rain) and taste the fragile, fleeting sweetness of stolen time. Isn't that the kind of life you would love to live? The kind of life lived from moment to moment; loved for the mere experience of it and treasured for the memory of it.

That's the way I hope to restore my love of words and poetry and prose; suddenly, unexpectedly, with the kind of infant joy that awakens itself at the sight of falling snow or the whisper of long-awaited raindrops.