Do it with passion or not at all!

A blogger's story of passion, incapability, efforts, endurance and whatnot!

Aug 22, 2020

Hey fellas, how’re you doing?

Bad times, is it? Nah.. Chin up princess, or the crown slips :)

Well.. who doesn’t remember the legendary Thompson? No, no, not from the NBA, neither from the fiction Tintin.. for the hazy, it’s the infamous Hunter S. Thompson, the pioneer of Gonzo journalism (reporting minus objectivity plus emotions). Thus he said and I quote - “Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing.”

Yes, passion can, undeniably, do wonders. You must have heard of numerous incidents where that ‘killer instinct’ achieved the impossible! But, you know what, we tend to overlook many attributes. While passion can keep you motivated, the execution is possible only if you leave no stone unturned.

But then, it’s the outset and the consistency that determines how far you travel with your wheels of passion. And what goes far, doesn’t come easy!

Well, my passionate blogging journey is premised on the aforesaid lines. Bear with me, this being my first ever piece, I thought of narrating the journey.. though it may seem trivial, it captures a lot. Here, my dear friend, let’s go together from the start . . .

I went to a vernacular (non-English medium) school in the first few years of my schooling. I was pathetic in my academics and worst in English! My parents must have seen me sitting like a novice while their friends’ children recited English rhymes, all mugged-up of course. Then, one fine day, they made up their mind to put me into an English-medium convent school. To be honest, I was a very horrible child, you would have to push really hard to ‘carry’ me to the school.

So, this is 2006, I am in the 3rd standard, first day, new surrounding, new faces, new systems and an intimidating new language! Talking in English used to be compulsory those days (it’s quite liberal now). I seldom talked to my mates, for I knew nothing sort of any communicative English. I sat there with my eyes and mouth gaped wide open. All I did for a year was just figure out how to decipher at-least some ‘parts of speech’. I resorted to Hinglish (Hindi + English, primarily the former). All I knew by the Annual exam was a few principal verbs, a few collective nouns and of course proper nouns as in names of my classmates! And on top of that, I had a very very dirty handwriting, that too a non-cursive. All this gave me a headwind blow in the exams, though I was promoted.

Then, something happened that drastically changed the course of my life. My parents were really worried about my poor grades and predominantly, a poor English-retention capacity. Then, they hired a tutor, an angel who came to my rescue! Truth being told, that man had turned himself into a self-obsessed and passionately insane lover of the language. He trained me 6 hours daily, only in English! The morning session bombarded me with ‘heavy’ grammar principles and the evening went to develop my comprehension and writing habits, all from the scratch. I was supposed to mug-up two essays and one poem everyday and then the following day, I would write them in front of Guru Ji. Gradually, the frequency of the number of essays went on increasing and this rigorous exercise went on for two years. I must have written not less than 1000 essays in that period, all of which I have stocked up in a trunk till today.

Meanwhile, I failed to decode what these monotonous activity could bring for me. I could not see my lexicon improving gradually. I was bored. Two years went by. And to my utter surprise, my handwriting had become praiseworthy among my mates, all of a sudden! The cornered child, the introvert, who once struggled to speak out in the classroom, had become voluble! Not bragging about the same, but over the years, the little share of name that I have gained till date, in and around the city, is due to this writing and oratory skills, thanks to that angel in disguise!

I also had a fair share of the popularity during the college days, all due to the presentation skills, with a number of district level and state level titles in debates and essays! Basically, i was writing for almost anything and anyone and, as they sugar-coat, the rest is history!

But the real challenge was now as campus life was over. If you wished to write, you needed to blog! I had joined this very popular professional networking platform (let’s acronym it LI). I saw people writing with extensive research, finest analogies and of-course brilliant language skills! I thought I could never be able to do that. Then, there were some posts about how young minds should start writing and how they write crap, juxtaposed with each other. I started reading (a lot), curating contents for writing and even wrote a few. It did not receive much traction! I had to improve a lot, and I still have to..

But you know what, now-a-days, there are numerous opportunities you can grab to give a shape to your passion! I found one such way in this blogging platform. I was confused between Wordpress, Medium and Substack. But, going by some fellow bloggers’ opinion, I came here. I don’t know how this might turn out, but no harm in giving it a shot. I love to write and that’s enough to get me going!

It wasn’t easy, it probably never is! But.. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going! This isn’t just my story, perhaps many of us can relate. Not everyone is blessed with a natural talent or a facilitating ecosystem, but everyone has the ability to turn the stones thrown at them into milestones! Consistency and hard work can do wonders! Albeit, remember, everyone has a different story.

And as a Mr. Rajan Singh (someone I admire) notes -

Take the skill of ‘writing’. Clearly, it can’t get more commoditized since practically everyone around us can write.

But then, there are all kinds of ‘writers’.

You have the guy who can’t string together a sentence without grammatical blunders. Then, there is a wide range, from mediocre to awesome. And finally, you have a JK Rowling. Or a Charles Dickens.

Greatness lies in the quality of your art, not in its name.

Saying that ‘I am a programmer’ is like saying ‘I can write’. The question is, how well can you do it?

In most fields, the real game is only at the top. And there is space at the top, for you or for me, because climbing up is hard work, and most give up.

Keep climbing - often, that is all it takes.

So, the primer, coming back to where this all began, it’s just the initiative, the passion-driven consistency and the hard work that matters! Luck, for that sake, isn’t our concern. Everything else follows. This is a wake-up call to all my fellow writers and mates.. buddy, if you are passionate about something, don’t let that feeling fade away in procrastination! Start right away, make time for your hobby, because that keeps you lively. Let’s dare to look beyond the mainstream! Let’s introspect ourselves and find out what’s that gets our blood racing!

Squaring it off, with this quoted statement -

Keep climbing - often, that is all it takes.

This is my first post and I want to thank you for coming this long!

It really means a lot! If you loved this piece, please share it with your connections.

Gen Z's Words

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