While at school, which was a very long time ago, I read a quotation in some magazine, which went something like this: "of all the arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well". I was really hooked into this statement. Perhaps because at the same time, I was falling in love with writing. Not just that, but I had also realized that writing was how I could express myself. The written word was for me the chosen form of expression, or adolescent expression, given that at that time I was in the 10th class at school. This realization was prompted by, I am quite sure, by another realization, that I was not good with the spoken word. I had accepted this fact, though not happily, if I can remember those times well. But being able to write well, I could express what I could not speak. This love of writing continued all through till the end of school, and even beyond.
Now we move forward a number of years. A large number of years. I am presently in Germany, for the last three and a half years, and still struggle with german language. Of course this is more due to the fact that I have not invested, or could not invest, sufficient time into learning the german language. However, I can understand quite a lot of german, and speak more than a little. But not enough at all. Not only is this bad, this situation has had a side-effect that is worse. Somehow I have been progressively losing my expression in the form of the written word in english. There could be a number of reasons for this, though I guess the main reason is that I have not written much for the past too much time, and to be able to write well, and fluenty, you need to write a lot. I have also lost quite a lot of my really good vocabulary, and sometimes now a german word comes to my mind first than the english word.
So when I write now, I face quite some difficulty. I recently wrote an article, a technical article, and I had to spend too much time on that. Morale-boosted by this, I wrote another one. The topic I chose was not so straightforward, and so required more adequate handling. Which I just could not manage. So many times the editor sent me the article back with his comments, till his patience sapped, I think, and he wrote that even his comments have started repeating themselves, and that I needed to read every sentence I wrote a number of times to see it conveyed what I wanted to. It was deeply embarrassing.
However, I plan to write an article every month, hopefully, and once I get back into writing, I'll regain the flow of words that at some time was so easy for me. Though the passion inside me that had fuelled this flow of words the first time around is not there any more. But about that maybe some time later.
