My Year of Writing With Reckless Abandon

What I’ve learned, loved and am leaving behind

Photo by eleonora on Unsplash

In February, I disconnected from social media and sold the tickets to several personal development and online marketing events that I had enrolled in.

I was feeling saturated by the information I was taking in and wanted to reconnect to the stillness of my inner world—to cut out the noise, so that I may hear and trust the wisdom I’d forgotten and, should it have become unintelligible to due to continued neglect, try and build it up again.

Writing is a favoured companion in the unearthing of one’s truth. It’s at once meditative and unpredictable, “safe” in that one can feel like they hold the reigns, to an extent, until the flow of thought comes to shake one’s understanding of themselves, of the world … and everything in between.

In 2021, writing has taken over my life

Following my desisting from social media, I resuscitated this account on Medium and began publishing more regularly, in addition to filling pages upon pages in my journal on a daily basis.

Writing took over my life, yet I don’t have any tangible proof that would support the boldness of that statement — no impressive stats or an awe-inspiring number of articles written. I’ve only got my sincere confession of this fervent truth: in 2021, I wrote with reckless abandon, with not much to show but lots to tell.

By springtime, my writing had become a sort of self therapy that amplified the actual therapy that I was going through, then.

• I put away the non-fiction books I’d been reading for years — about spiritual awakening, productivity, marketing — and returned to fiction or, at least essays, by authors I admire like Zadie Smith and Joan Didion. Bathing in their sharp lucidity inspired me to go deeper in my own written expression.
• In summer, I stumbled upon an email correspondence of almost 2000 love letters and felt inspired (compelled?) to work them into a book that’s currently clocking at about 1500 pages—and I’m merely halfway through. Investing my time in this epistolary love saga has been healing, enthralling and disturbing in the magnitude of effort I’ve invested in it. The plan is to…