Today, somebody told me they didn’t read any of the poems I put up on this blog, but they continued to read these daily posts. And I was super conflicted about how this made me feel. On one hand, I was really grateful that somebody was reading the posts. But on the other hand, I felt like they should be reading the poems too. After all, it takes some effort for me to write them. That’s when it hit me – that thinking that way was exactly the opposite of why I started writing in the first place. Whether somebody reads these thoughts of mine or not is something I’d like to remain indifferent to. The engagement is something I enjoy, in terms of having to understand criticism of my writing, or even heading some praise from time to time. However, whether someone is reading or not is not a metric I want to factor in while picking the subject-matter or the style of my writing.
I’d rather just write to improve my own standards of writing through continuous effort. To feel that flow of words come easily and feel satisfied at the end of it. I’d like to do that. It’s something that clearly needs a lot more work. I’m fairly confident I’ll get there one day though.
Tejas Rao 