For my Master of Applied Positive Psychology, we had to do an assignment where we wrote a piece of literature for a week. I wrote a poem every night for five nights.
It’s not that I haven’t written poetry. But the last time I wrote a poem, that I felt inspired to write a poem, was in 2024 – almost two years ago. Back then I had the space. I had time. I had the capacity to feel the emotions, the emotions from which a poem could be born.
And it’s a feeling I haven’t had for a very long time.
It let me think through, let me process thoughts that have been floating around in my head for a very, very long time.
As my teacher, Professor James Pawelski, said, “The humanities are not in a hurry.”
I love productivity and efficiency, but sometimes I forget to slow down.
I think that’s because I’ve met so many people who are, for a lack of a better way to put it, unmotivated. They use the spiritual and woo-woo as an excuse for not doing things. They use phrases like “does not resonate” and “it’s been a week of drama” and “someone did something I didn’t like” to be irresponsible and unreliable. They claim their rights are trodden upon or that they have no capacity or that it’s a heavy period so that they can be lazy.
And I keep conflating “slowing down” with being irresponsible, simply because I’ve met so many people who use “being mindful” as an excuse for being unreliable.
But that’s not the case.
There are spiritual people who are reliable. There are woo-woo people who are responsible. There are people who slow down and get things done.
It’s okay to slow down, to be spiritual, to feel things.
To have some time to sit down and be quiet and craft a poem has helped me to articulate my feelings, to develop my thoughts, to understand what my beliefs really are. It’s been a canvas upon which I’ve been able to create my future and make sense of my past.
And it’s why I like writing so much.
As a scriptwriter – the scripts I’ve loved the most have been the ones where I thought of the situations and characters that I had encountered in my life. The episodes where I’ve put my own experience into it, and then had to resolve it as part of the story, as part of the episode, and when then gave me the chance to resolve it personally for myself.
There was an episode where a tragedy happened to a victim, and I put someone who had abused and tormented me for years as the victim. I thought it would be cathartic, to finally see that person get their just deserts on TV.
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t cathartic. It didn’t make me feel that the world was just. It just left me feeling hollow. And it made me realise that revenge, that vengeance, isn’t the way.
It’s nice to fantasise about people getting what’s coming to them (or so I think). But when it does happen, when bad things happen to them – it doesn’t feel all that great. It doesn’t give the satisfaction, the fulfilment that I thought I would have.
As time passed, and I processed more and more things through the scripts I wrote… I found that it didn’t have the same impact that I thought I would. My scripts became more about dialling it in, and creating a story that would move people, move audiences – but not move myself.
It’s important that you’re moved by your own writing. It’s important that your writing impacts yourself. It’s important that your writing loves you, just as much as you love our writing.
I write a lot, but it’s all been functional. Situational. (Yes I’m preaching the importance of your situational writing, kids). I haven’t written for the pleasure of it for a very long time. I used to write for the pleasure of it – secondary school classmates can attest to that, thanks for letting me flood your inboxes – even if it didn’t get me the best grades.
Writing a poem a night has made me remember that I love writing. And yet I don’t do enough of it. I don’t do enough writing for the love of it. I don’t do enough of the sort of writing that is for myself, that is for the sake of it, that moves me.
I love writing, and I miss it.
And I will write more, I promise.
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