Hubris

Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/)

noun

‘Excessive pride or self-confidence.’

Despite starting this blog almost four years ago, it has come to a standstill. I do not post as often as I can, and I do not display my best work. But why is that? Why don’t I put more effort into something that I genuinely love? After all, writing has been the one constant in my life. 

At first, the reason I gave everyone, including myself, was that I did not write for an audience. Writing was something deeply intimate for me; only the people I trusted and cherished saw what I wrote. It was a window to my soul, and it was not open for everyone. I believe that whenever you procure your art for an audience, it ends up having capitalistic undertones. There’s competition, monetization, advertisement, a race to be more accessible, more widely known, better monetized. But when you get paid for your art, does it remain the same?

My logic was ironclad, and even I could not find what was wrong with it. And then, I came across the word ‘hubris,’ My problem was not with the monetization and ultimately the capitalistic aspect of blogging, or even the fact that I only wrote for myself. My problem was pride. I do not take criticism well. And putting your art out there into the wild world is the same as offering yourself to a pack of hungry wolves. Sure, there is a chance that you will survive, but there will be claw marks on your previously perfect skin. I had too much pride to get myself hurt like that. 

I told myself hell would have to freeze over for me to put my art out there, to be vulnerable. And then it did. Fleeing from a country in under seven hours, being quarantined in a room for a month, not being able to step out of the house for three months, and having an actual curfew made me realize a lot of things. One, I am not as introverted as I believed myself to be. And two, you do not know when life will take an unexpected turn. 

I did not know that my first year of college would come to a disastrous end; forget the end of year parties, I was scrambling to find a seat on the first airplane out of there. And as I sat in my once comfortable–now confinement–bed, I realized that there is nothing that could happen to me that was worse than a pandemic. Optimistic nihilism is the key. Since nothing matters and everything must come to an end, you might as well do what you truly want. If there is no point in the world, and all of our desperate attempts to engrave our initials on the walls of the world are a moot point, then I will do what I have always wanted to. I will encapsulate my personality, my writings, my art, and immortalize myself. Even if deep down, I know that is just a beautiful delusion. 

So, here it is, my proper attempt at blogging, immortalizing my words. And all it took was a pandemic.