The Spaghetti Principle

I’m sure a lot of my frequent readers are opening this page right now, and if you’re one of them, then I bet I know what you’re thinking.

What black hole had she disappeared into for so long?

What kind of black hole? One which many of the writing community would sympathize with.

Writer’s block.

No, not the writer’s block we’ve all used as an excuse at some time or the other to get out of English homework, but a legitimate block.

And when it comes to how the writer couldn’t write stories, that is a story in itself.

It started on the 5th of June.

I had come back from my adventurous trip to Bhutan and the guests who were staying at my place had packed their bags and were on a one-way airplane home. 

At first, though I missed the constant buzz of people and activities, I kicked back, enjoyed having the TV to myself, and even studied a bit because I felt up for it.

What a paradise, I had thought to myself, after binge-watching seven or eight episodes of a sitcom. 

But, as I found out the hard way, no good thing comes for free, for after two days of sheer couch-potato-ness, the after-effects of it all kicked in. 

A murky gray monster with saggy skin and lifeless jet black eyes. I tried to avoid it, to beat it, to pretend it didn’t exist, but it was everywhere one of those cartoon monsters would be — in my closet, under my bed, out my window, lurking in the corners of my head.

I decided to name it Boredom.

Living with Boredom was painful. It seemed to sap the energy and the will to live life out of me, leaving me as soullessly dull as it was.

I tried reading until my eyes blurred and words were blotted onto the back of my bed. I listened to music till I could hear those songs in my dreams. I tried coloring, logic puzzles, researching random facts, studying, and all sorts of other things. 

Worst of all, I was consumed with the guilt of leaving my dear Spaghetti Principle and its two dozen loyal fans hanging. 

A day or so later, I picked up my overly stickered laptop, and perched on my beanbag, started writing a blog. Though it barely qualified as one. It was poorly written, cliche, a half baked idea with thoughts spilling out the side, an idea which had collapsed in on itself. 

I stared at the white-blue glare on my Gdocs screen. My fingers hovered over the keypad.

I then proceeded to backspace everything.

I tried again, a different idea, a different style.

It still sucked.

Looking back now, I realize what went wrong with my writing.

I was expecting too much.

My earlier blogs drew inspiration from big events, weddings and treks and depressed friends and whatnot. My life was drab at that moment, though, so I was grasping at straws for something, anything, to write about.

And then when I ghosted my computer, avoided writing entirely, I suppose I was waiting. For what? Maybe to get magic powers, or be struck by lightning, or suddenly become the chosen one in some YA fantasy novel I would’ve loved reading. Anything that would be a good premise for a thoughtful and mildly funny blog.

But the truth about life is not everything is going to be dramatic. Not every moment is going to be filled to the brim with adventure and liveliness. Some moments will be quieter, calmer.

But that doesn’t mean that those moments matter any less.

Because a moment that’s calmer is not equivalent to one that’s boring. 

And the smaller moments — the moments that call less attention to themselves — often shape who we are.

Small things, like playing badminton with your mom, hearing a joke you’ll call lame but laugh at lame, your pride after finishing a perfect coloring worksheet, making a thousand rupees from selling baked goods, those small things, they make a difference.

Because that’s the thing about boredom. You don’t feel it when you observe the little things. You don’t feel it if you forget the need for constant thrill and enjoy what you have.

You don’t feel it if you love the small things enough, and let them blossom into big things.