alex who writes

It seems to me that feeling negative emotions, rather than positive ones, trigger change. The bigger the feeling or the longer you have felt that feeling, triggers the bigger change. Hence you could argue that negative emotions are positive, or even further, that emotions do not have a ‘charge’ and emotions are just emotions. Maybe this is why people don’t go to church anymore.

In the case of myself, envy has driven a change in me. Perhaps not a definitive change but certainly a small change, hence me writing this blog … or whatever this is. Blog doesn’t quite work but its more firmly in the lexicon of the world than ‘Writing something creative and witty to try and show I am able to write something creative and witty’. Upon reflection this seems to be the true definition of blog.

Feeling envious of others twice in one day has driven me to write this note. For the past year, I have dreamt of becoming a writer. The dream most certainly started long before, I have long loved reading and remember trying to write novels as a child, but it has only been this year that I have rediscovered that dream. I have sputtered and strained at trying to write a little in the mornings, to turn my thoughts and imagination into words and paragraphs. I have struggled.

I often fall into the lie of blaming my job for this failure. I dislike my job. It’s not the job’s fault, it’s what it represents. It pays well, it can be interesting, it’s at a large well-respected institution and there is scope for advancement. But at the age of 29 – soon to be 30 – my worst fear would be blinking and at 40 I am still at the same job. Being seen as successful by society but having failed at trying to do anything I truly want to do – spending ten years being a prisoner to the expectations of the world around me.

Yesterday, I met the first subject of my envy on the way back from my morning coffee. He is a friend who lives around the corner from me. Friend is probably a stretch; he is the partner of my partner’s friend. We have known each other for about two years. I would like to be his friend but I’m not sure he likes me. He is a writer. He was going to a coffee shop to work on his book while I was going back to my home office to work in my job that I resent. It felt like a distorted mirror in time; I was watching a shadow of myself walking to where I wanted to go in the opposite direction to me.

I smiled while he talked about the progress he was making on his book. I have so much respect and admiration for the effort and commitment he has given to finish his three hundred thousand word book. It is a huge achievement. I am equally envious of him.

The first time I heard that he was writing a book, I was blown away, shocked. It was an awakening. It was the first time that the possibility even occurred to me that I could write a book. Yes, this does highlight a small character flaw of mine; an arrogance and self-belief in myself that if someone else can do it, I can do it too. Given in this flaw, I’m not sure who I thought wrote books, but they were certainly not written by normal people. They were written by gods, people with intellect so high that it would baffle us mere mortals, hence there was no way that I could write a book. I had never met a writer in person before. I equate the feeling to the people who saw the wheel for the first time, it’s so obvious once you have seen the wheel but before you saw it no-one thought of it. It caused a complete re-wiring of my brain. I have a lot to thank the first subject of my envy for.

The re-wiring was as follows. I have generally coasted through life and often followed the path of least resistance. This served me well in my twenties when I was discovering the person who I am. But upon the realisation of that coasting, you feal a desire to make your own path. I saw someone unashamedly following their passion and I was shocked. It broke the cycle. Someone else has being playing at my life and now it’s time to try to take back control. But coasting is easy, hence it’s sweet temptation.

Later in the day, my partner sent me a blog post from one of her friends who has just moved to New York. She is second subject of my envy. She is a beautiful writer – I wish I could write like her. She, in my mind, is the personification of someone who was good at English at school. She was always talented at writing and studied English to A-Level standard and could – and should – have studied it at university. I, in comparison, was very poor at English at school. Writing is not easy for me. I imagine it is easy for her. It was her blog which led me to start writing this piece this morning on the train on the way to work.

So from envy, I move to action. I worry that I step on other people’s toes and encroach on their areas of interest. Is this something I really want for myself or is it an attempt to copy another? I don’t know. We shall see.

A rather negative start. Maybe it will lighten up. But for now, this is a beginning.