I realized that I haven’t posted one of these in a long time and I decided to give you all another draft that has been lying around for a while now. The best part about this series, ‘Forgotten Drafts‘, is that I get to put my writing out there in a more raw state. It’s not polished, it doesn’t always make sense and yet somehow always sounds relatable.
I started ‘Forgotten Drafts‘ as a reminder to everybody out there incomplete things can be beautiful too. Of course, I mean it from an artist’s point of view. Most artists have a hard time juggling the multitudes of ideas that live rent-free in their heads More often than not, these ideas are left incomplete along the way because they don’t bring the same kind of joy that they did when they were being made initially. I just want everyone out there, who is trying to create something, to know that it is okay to let your imagination run wild, and it is okay to start working on something new while you still have tons of WIPs left in your drafts. I hope reading my forgotten drafts brings some kind of comfort to you.
This particular chapter is titled ‘Odd’ because most creators have a very different way of looking at the world, and to somebody who likes to see things as they are and not as they could be, the world is more often than not, an incredibly boring place. I would have loved to go ahead and complete this draft, but I realized that it is perfect just the way it is. I hope you like reading this:
“What is an artist, if not a little bit of an oddity?
To see things not as they are,
But as they could be!
A very long time ago, I made a sketch of a mermaid floating through space. The concept made no sense to me. I could have just as easily turned the background into water to make the sketch seem more realistic. But here’s the thing: the concept of a mermaid in space kept coming back to me. They say that the outer space is far more explored than the oceans are, and it fascinates me because the oceans are a part of our own world and yet, they manage to terrify people who want to explore them deeper (pun intended!). Even after reading a lot, a handful of whatever we know about the oceans happens to be just a bunch of wild guesses. Coming back to the point, I decided to put a mermaid in space because surrealism doesn’t have to make sense; it is derived from the way we want to see the world. That’s one of the things I love the most about being a writer and an artist. I can create worlds that do not really exist with my art and I don’t have to explain myself or my art to anybody.
Of course the world calls us writers and artists an ‘oddity’; we do live our lives with our heads up in the clouds the entire time. But the truth is that the world is an infinitely more interesting place when you choose to look at it from a perspective that is anything out of the ordinary. I’m not saying that it’s unique because you never know who else out there shares your thoughts. But I do know that anybody who loves to create has the ability to see the world a lot more differently and that’s not the kind of thing everybody can do. And to people who choose to see the world just as it is right now, the ones who choose to see it as it could be seem a little odd because our ideas are never practical enough for them. And maybe that’s fair.
But after years and years of being called ‘odd’ and ‘ridiculous’, you begin to embrace those very traits because they are an inseparable part of you. And when you think about it enough, the most renowned works of art have been created by people who were once called an ‘oddity’ by society. Who knows what your work might end up meaning to people someday! Remember that the ideas that you find the most ridiculous are probably your best ones yet.”
Hey guys! I hope you liked this post. Let me know in the comments below or share with someone you might want to show this to! You can also reach out to me and say ‘Hi’ on Twitter and Instagram. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by Iva Rajović on Unsplash
The Shubhster Diaries 
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