I write as I am…

Anyone who’s connected to me on WhatsApp (or to a lesser extent anyone who’s seen my social media posts recently) would be aware that I’ve been going through a really dark space lately. Some of it has to do with legal proceedings in South Africa (civil not criminal) involving close relatives, while another major factor is a collection of unrealised hopes, plans, goals etc…

I’m not necessarily going to unpack the details here, but a while ago I realised that (apart from being really good at articulating my thoughts or ideas verbally) I’m somewhat adept at expressing and simultaneously processing some things while writing. Over the years, I’ve mostly kept this writing to myself, especially because I have a tendency to ramble.

Also, it was easier just to write for myself… why? Well, when I think about something, I tend to look at it from a range of perspectives in order to make sense of it. As an educated polymath (accounting, theology, sociology), who happens to be interested in and/or has read up on a range of other (seemingly unrelated) fields of interest, including (but not limited to): films, music, literature, philosophy, linguistics, politics, current affairs, geography.

So, while the interconnectedness of ideas are obvious to me, because I can see the spiderweb-like connections in my mind, it takes more effort to make myself understood to anyone who doesn’t “dig deep” (something a friend said about me recently) as I tend to do. As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of a quote from a TV series called “Numb3rs” from a few years back:

I failed. I failed to make myself understood. Sometimes there are things in my head that are so purely what they are that when I try to turn them into words, there either are no words, or just don’t know how. And you can’t imagine how that feels. How hard it is to have an idea and not be able to share it.

Dr Charlie Eppes (‘Numb3rs’)

While I’m not inept with numbers, I have more practice than the character ‘Dr Charlie Eppes’ at putting thoughts and/or ideas into words. And, somehow using words, whether written or spoken, has often helped me make sense of certain aspects of and/or events in life, even with all their complexities.

I’m going to end off with one last thought on the usefulness of words, once again from a fictional character, but one that is probably more familiar to anyone reading this:

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”

Albus Dumbledore (‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow: Part 2’)

That’s all for now.