WRITING, SELF-AWARENESS AND OTHER THINGS

“Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.” — Sylvia Plath

It’s strange, realizing that you don’t like what you write anymore. Your self-awareness, presumably disguised as some unseeable, rigid force, never really lets you write. Even if you somehow manage to put your thoughts into words, something inside you constantly—and effortlessly—tells you it’s not coherent enough, it’s unformed, it’s underwhelming, and most cruelly—it’s ugly.

And when you start writing anyway, you keep thinking how did you write all that without tearing apart the page that holds all your spirals, shortcomings and drawbacks where you persistently keep holding back yourself, and not tossing it into the basket that silently lies beside your ankle.

Either way, it becomes difficult to fathom that you wrote all those words down without even pulling back once, without even feeling culpable, without even telling yourself it’s too confrontational, too vicious. And suddenly you realize maybe this is why you kept writing it—realizing there was, somehow, a resilient force deep inside, hiding underneath.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve always found writing to be a rigorous task, though some call it an escape—an escape from the world outside, from the painful reality that one is unwillingly a part of. Still, I assumed writing had to fall into certain archetypes, bound by rules, precision, and coherence. And when mine didn’t, I’d crumple them up. But, I suppose, you can never really crumple up words.

So, it fascinated me—artists crafting art while fighting the urge to destroy, annihilate, or shred their pieces in the process. Some succeeded, and others didn’t.

I remember coming across Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, a Russian novelist, in my early teen years. In truth, it wasn’t an ideal time to read Russian literature, but it was difficult for me to put down an unread book I had just discovered. However, it was a book critiquing Russia’s socio-economic structure while capturing moral decay in beautiful pieces of prose, mixing realism with the surreal. And after publishing the first part, Gogol fell deeper into religious mysticism and guilt. Blinded by fanaticism, he began to believe that his work was sinful—morally culpable. Soon after, he burned his manuscript, presumably wanting to redeem himself from spiritual decay.

I remember my 14-year-old mind thinking, What kind of fool burns his own manuscript? And now that I think about it, it's funny—ironically. My precociously naive teenage self labeled the self-destructive act as 'foolishness'; I wonder what she would think of me now. However, Gogol fasted himself to death right after burning the manuscript of the second part. I suppose, instead of redeeming Russia from exploitation, he redeemed himself. So, I couldn’t get to know the complete story despite really wanting to know the end of the protagonist's journey, the corrupt Russia, and how everything comes full circle. But his manuscript—the words in it—were crumpled, crushed, and burned by the creator himself.

I think the words that have once been thought, spoken, or written stay, cling, and linger, even if they haunt you. They sit with you and watch you choking them. Even if you crumble, shred, or ignite them, they just stay. But once you die, the unwanted, undocumented words also die with you.

Nowshin Bhuiyan Nuha is a Bangladeshi student who loves satire, reading widely, and exploring the little ironies of life — pretending she totally gets them. Send her some of these at nowshinnuha26@gmail.com.