Theme Clarity

Initially I started writing about political topics. Then I also included the economic and foreign affair topics. Then my attention shifted to the individuals who had mass following, such as Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. Gradually I realized that these themes don’t go well with me. This was the first increase in my understanding about what I wanted to write about. In addition, I also witnessed that I needed to follow daily news to actually write about such themes. That meant, I needed to be judgmental in my writing. The force was outside me, not within me. It is the force on which my writing nurtures, sustains, grows. Writing on such themes was not coming naturally to me and for every write up I had to look a newspaper. This of course was, and still is, a challenge for me. This clarity about theme guided me to easily drop the theme itself.

Now the question was what to write about. I came up with an idea of writing about writing. Thus I started to write about essay writing. I realized that with every write up, I should get in touch with some experts of this theme. Since I had not written on this theme before, I thought that it would be wise to build a network of co-writers, experts and teachers. This led to a conclusion that I will once again set my force outside me. Suppose if one day I come up with a great idea on essay writing, and there is no expert available, will I stay with that till it is filtered, refined, and almost approved by an expert? This was a great realization about setting the base of my operations, which would have been outside me, not within. With this thought I dropped this idea of a theme of writing about writing.

This was the gradual increase in my understanding of myself: something like self discovery and self realization. Next was the theme of life experiences, learning from the great ones, such as the Buddha, and sharing my learning. This theme has a risk of losing the readers, whatever little number of readers I have a present. Since sharing my own experiences and learning may not be interesting for many of you; then I said to myself that if the sharing is powerful, it will have its own magic and keep my readers, increase their numbers, and make me independent of a force that lies outside me. When writing about my experiences and learning, not only will I tap into a large field of self knowledge, increase my knowledge, but will also not depend on newspapers and a network of experts. I will save my energy, direct it from going outwards to going inwards. This theme of self discovery, tapping into myself, resonates with me the most. With this theme, I feel energized; I feel passionate; I feel happy; I feel reaching to the core; I feel I am living an examined life; I feel like doing something worth. This is how I gained this small but significant theme clarity.