I did everything right…

I practised when I was young.

I took subjects that revolved around my passion and I did well in them.

I did a degree in the thing I loved, received a decent grade in it.

And I fell out of love with it.

TerryPratchettQuote02

Exams, coursework and writing to a specification that has been used by 30 students a year since 2005 (original work still expected though!) bought about the slow crushing of everything that was joyful and beautiful about writing.

I won’t get into the how and the why because I’m not throwing a pity party for myself here. Suffice to say, education murdered my faith in myself, my writing and caused me to question my desire to persue this for the first time in my life.
Maybe I’m too sensitive…

Maybe a system that cares more about teaching us how to pass an exam than nurturing understanding and passion is the issue. Not to sound like a nerd but I loved the things we studied and I enjoyed learning but how I loathed the way it was taught. If it wasn’t for the odd couple of truly fantastic teachers, I might not have chosen to do this degree in the first place.

 

Falling back in love with it:

Whether you attempted to persue the thing you were passionate about or not, it takes some time and some effort but the important thing is to get back to doing it just because it made you happy and work from there.

You don’t have to finish what you start.
It doesn’t have to be good.
It doesnt need to be shown to others yet (unless it’s something like a team sport or performing on stage because that does require other people fairly early on).
It doesn’t matter if other people like it or approve.

It’s about doing it for the sheer joy of it.

 

This post is not intended to be whiny, it is a reminder that life can get in the way of doing things that made us happy when we were kids. I love reading, I love writing and that is good enough for now.

Now, if you’ll forgive the brief philisophical moment, the usual cycniscm and bragging about travel will resume in the next post.

Also, credit where it’s due, the little printed cards with quotes pictured here are from this site: Literary emporium

 

 

Current book update:

As promised: the book I just finished reading is Perks of Being A Wallflower Book info

I’m also reading at the same time The Shadowhunter’s Codex book info