“…And what is done in love is well done”
All my life till now, many people have told me this – “Bhuvanesh, your interests are very scattered. Why don’t you fix something you love and do that thing very well and be successful in that field?”
And every time I heard this, I either told the other person or wanted to tell them that “I don’t do anything that I don’t love and hypothetically, even if I did something out of coercion or out of hate, I wouldn’t be talking about it all the time with you with such zing and passion”
All my life till now, I had to give up one thing to be able to pursue another. When I was in 4th standard, I had to choose DCA (computer application course) over Karate as an extra-curricular. While growing up I had to choose one particular sport – Cricket/ Football/ Table tennis/ Badminton. Table tennis and Badminton went out of my life in the same pace it entered and then I chose Cricket. My close friends would have definitely heard, at least once, about the love-hate story between me, my cricket and the decisions which screwed up my cricketing dreams. I have taken innumerable decisions like that right from my schooling days. What hurt me more was, when I thought of the opportunity cost that I incurred in taking up one option.
What if I put equal effort, time and dedication in all sports? What if I learnt karate from some other academy and not from my school? What if I had chosen the other one and became successful? “What if, what if, what if”. Other issues such as financial factors, transportation, time, etc. added more logs to this. All these anxious thoughts brought down my self-esteem and somewhere down the line and I found myself as just another person who was just average in almost everything. During those days, the parameters of measuring whether you are average or below or above were if you were exceptional in it, whether you being exceptional in it, was a popular thing, whether you have participated in competitions and won any awards.
Things are changed now. The stereotypical questions still linger around me, I still need money to pursue the art forms I love, but my perspective about my interests and passion has changed. People still tell me to “Be passionate about only one thing and be great at it”. But I have started to ignore it as this pressure to be great is what withheld my inner strength all along. I write, I have started to paint and I will make a film someday. But I am not doing it to be a great painter or a great writer or a great film maker. I am going to do it because I LOVE it, because I want to EXPRESS myself and because I really don’t care about the parameters anymore. I believe that if you put in love and if you make art with dedication and if you expressed yourself honestly, greatness will come and knock your doors until and unless someone else with your identity, your love, your pain, your experience and your mind is born somewhere else in this planet.
Bruce Lee said “I don’t fear for the man who practised 10000 kicks once, I fear for the man who practised 1 kick 10,000 times” and what I am trying to say is if you love all the 10,000 kicks, never hesitate to practise all 10,000 kicks, a 10,000 times or more.
People have ridiculed me for this opinion I carry. “Who are you trying to impress?”, They ask and the answer is I want to impress my own consciousness and I strive every day to be as free as I can of the numbing social conditionings in my life. I am going to say this and be done with it – I want to make films; I write and I want to write more, I have started painting, I want to learn Violin someday, I want to travel a lot, read a lot, I want to buy a proper DSLR camera and pursue photography, I want to learn Jeet kune Do someday, I want to learn to cook, I want to set up my own company, I love learning about Firearms and I love flowers as I think they are very personal, beautiful and genuine as gifts ( literally, Guns and Roses 😛 ) and I want to have lots and lots of real conversations with many honest souls. I want to and I’d love to do a million more things.
Bruce Lee said “I don’t fear for the man who practised 10000 kicks once, I fear for the man who practised 1 kick 10,000 times” and what I am trying to say is if you love all the 10,000 kicks, never hesitate to practise all 10,000 kicks, a 10,000 times or more.
Thank you for reading keeping aside all your judgements. If you believe that you will love to do something, then by all means please do it. Van Gogh says – “If there is a voice inside you which says you can’t paint, and then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced”. A few days ago I spoke about this at an open mic and someone came up to me and informed about a quote which has been very highly misquoted. The original quote is – “Jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than master of one”