On my conversion

I had a conversion this week. I did not fall from any horse, nor I did see a vision. But rather it was a mundane walk on a city evening, to the gym of all places, when I allowed myself to be criticised. It was painful - I had to hold back from justifying or explaining several times - but it was like looking into a mirror. My old, tired, failed self in full view, my introlocutor did not see what I was seeing (just as the mirror does not see you, only you can see yourself) - but I saw something. In fact, I saw many things, but one thing more importantly than others - the problem and the solution lie within me!

It is obvious to be a big deal, this discovery, but it is still significant. To submit myself to such a brutal critique, I needed to be despondent. My entire world was falling apart around me. I was beset with doubt about what I was doing. My recent life was crumbling - all that I cared for was gone. I felt old, which I am but the feeling was new. I felt alone, which again I am but confronting it was terrifying. I belonged nowhere, and had nowhere to go to. It was only fitting that I was going to the gym, an institution built for superficial lives and pointless desires such as mine: That journey was meant to be a non-event, I was supposed to be a non-entity, committing myself to make-believe activities.

But such despair possible made my mind fertile for hope. Sinking, even a straw was godsent. The brutality of the critique made it more than a straw, perhaps a whip to wake one up. The skin needed to break for the blood to flow, the pain was needed for me to feel alive. The pointlessness needed to be exposed as a first light of meaning, the past needed to be shed to be born again. And, the mundane discovery of the problem inside me made me in control again: What I created I can change!

I wouldn't belabour the allegory of the gym any more but I needed working out. I realised that there are simple things I need to do. I need to cast away false hopes and wrong friends. I need to focus on simple priorities and goals that I can achieve, rather than spending hours on big ideas and long-term projects. I have always been ambitious and my mistakes have mostly been of optimism. I have seen the better of people and then been disappointed, rather than being cautious and then delighted. In summary, I have mostly done things which are exactly opposite of what my dour manner suggests.

Hence, the conversion: I believe I had a life-altering moment, a life-altering week, of getting back to living. Everything before that is now past, everything ahead can be and will be freshly constructed. It is not just my person and how I spend time, but also what I do, what I write about and how I conceive the future. And, indeed, restart my blog.