Getting past my own self-righteousness

I have been a very private person for most of my life. So believe it or not, I have a lot of hangups in expressing myself directly.

I have never felt comfortable identifying myself as a Nepali in public and expressing myself as a Nepali. That is why writing in this blog feels so new and different. It's not that I was ashamed of being a Nepali. It is just that for most of my life I didn't feel the need to make a statement by publicly declaring myself as a Nepali. Now I do. Now I want to identify myself and write as a Nepali. I am proud to be a Nepali. But this has not always been so. I am sad that this has not always been so. Perhaps I will tell you why it is in posts to come.

Similarly, I have never felt comfortable revealing my particular existential perspective. I didn't feel it was anybody's business to know. I felt that it was my perspective. My private belief. And for many years it remained as such. I didn't believe in imposing my will on others with my perspective. In fact, I have felt that there was something inherently immoral in influencing others with my existential perspective. I didn't believe in shoving others into my sacred space. I believed that everyone was entitled to discover their own sacred space by their own volition.

I believed all that until I had a paradigm shift in my life. I observed the dynamics of the Journalist, the Magician and the Common Man. And then I realized that influencing others through the arts was a part of human life. If the imposition of will through expression of art was violence, who was the exception to the rule? All of life is violent.

As I write all of this, I feel my ego stir. I feel uncomfortable. It is so not my nature to express myself this freely in public. It feels too certain. It feels too forced. It feels too eager. It feels too strong of a voice to utter the subtle voice of truth that I feel within me. I feel that my sure and certain voice couldn't possibly serve as a vessel for the sacred voice of truth that I feel within me. I feel so apologetic in expressing it.

I feel a lot of hesitation in my writing. I am afraid of saying the wrong thing. I am careful to articulate my every word. I know that this paralyses my spontaneity. To a certain extent it is good. It means that I am serious about my craft. It means that I am not just expressing gibberish. There is something to be said about being contained and constrained.

And in expressing all of this, I know that I am simply setting the mood for what it is that I really want to say. I am setting the mood with my audience. Lord knows that most have probably fallen asleep by the time that they read this sentence. Most people don't foreshadow the things that they want to say with an elaborate introduction. Nope. They just say it. Simply.