Restlessness

"Youth's narrator, a student in 1950s South Africa, has long been plotting an escape from his native country. Studying mathematics, reading poetry, saving money, he tries to ensure that when he arrives in the real world he will be prepared to experience life in its full intensity, and transform it into art. Arriving at last in London, however, he finds neither poetry nor romance. Instead he succumbs to the monotony of life as a computer programmer, from which random, loveless affairs offer no relief. Devoid of inspiration, he stops writing and begins a dark pilgrimage in which he is continually tested and continually found wanting."

Thus read the blurb of 'Youth' by JM Coetzee. I had randomly picked the book up at the English Book Shop. But reading these lines made me impatient to read it at once. Maybe I could find myself in the book! It was the autobiography of his youth, and his story seemed so similar to mine, it had the same keywords- aspiring artist, reading vastly in search of salvation, a monotonous humdrum existence, living one life, but wanting another, and continous disappointments and dissatisfaction.

That was the time when I was working in JWT as a trainee copywriter, and was deliberating over whether to join Infosys or not. The words "monotony of life as a computer programmer" had especially resonated with me. I did buy the book.

I read it. Coetzee writes in a sparse, journalistic style. He is a Nobel Prize, and a twice Booker Prize winner. And he describes how during those years of his youth (his 20s) all his philosophies were continually found wanting, and what an insignificant cog in the whole scheme of things he was. He so wanted to write poetry, but he continually found himself unable to write. So much so, that in a whole year, all that he wrote was a couple of lines.

I could so much identify with that restlessness! That is what I am going through. This is my 'Youth' in making. I so want to write! I have so much to write on! The voice continually speaks in my head. The sentences echo at random times. The syrup is just getting thicker and thicker inside. And yet, somehow, it's not flowing out.

As a result of this, my mind is in a continual state of distraction. I find it tough to focus. As a matter of fact, I have my Comprehensive Exam tomorrow morning. It's already half past ten in the night. I have a pile of topics left. Yet, here I am, on this blog, mulling over all these intangibles.

It's not coming out, and it's not letting me do anything else either.

Anyways, let me paste the quotation to publish which I had come to the blog in the first place.

"Coetzee is a man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication. He does not drink, smoke or eat meat. He cycles vast distances to keep fit and spends at least an hour at his writing-desk each morning, seven days a week. A colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not a single word."

It is such self-discipline that I badly need now. The 1 hour of exercise, and the 1 hour of writing. It's just so vital. And, I am not doing it. ('Not being able to do it' is not really acceptable). And, this is making me so restless.