Writing can help in healing

I wonder sometimes why I started writing a blog and continued it for more than a decade, that too in English which is not my first language. I tried to find the reasons, but recently I realized that the main reason for this long journey is that my writing helped me to deal with various mental turmoils that occupied my mind since my childhood. That is, writing the blog helped me to heal. It's not that I got rid of all of the trauma, but writing provided me a way to share my vulnerability and struggles with others and realize that I am not the only one who is going through this, there are many like me. Also, writing the blog was a brave act for me, it is not easy to open yourself to the public and share your thoughts and vulnerabilities. I was scared to do this but did it anyway and now I am glad that I did it. 

I have written diaries since a very young age. I still have the diaries that I wrote during my teenage years. They provide a window for me to look into my past and see how my life and the world around me have changed. That writing also helped, but it was personal writing, no one read it or provided me with any feedback. However, the blog is different, what I write here is available for anyone to read and comment. It is open to criticism and praise. I received a fair amount of criticism for some of my posts but at the same time, there was a lot of support and praise. All the support from my readers helped me to realize that there are many who feel like me, think like me, and struggle like me. This feeling of sharing emotions helped me to overcome my disappointments and frustrations. I suggest anyone who is suffering from trauma, depression, frustration, or any other personal challenges give writing a chance. Please write to yourself, to a trusted friend, or if you feel comfortable share with people around you or with the public. You will be amazed by the amount of support and encouragement. This will help to deal with part of your struggles and motivate you to seek more help if required. People used to have a pen friend and share letters with them. But with the advent of social media, the concept of having a special friend just to share handwritten letters became outdated. I still feel it was a nice concept and if you have someone like that please continue the exchange. Social media has increased our frequency and width of communication. We communicate with many and too often, but it has come at the cost of depth or personal touch in those communications. We see so much happiness or sadness around that we have started reacting automatically, we just press emojis and move on. Whether it is a happy occasion or a sad one we have a standard response, many times we don't even have to compose these responses, our phones or computers, and now AI can compose messages for us, all we have to do it to send them. 

I try my best to maintain my individual touch in whatever I share on this blog. Many have criticized the choice of topics, the quality of English, no clear ideological inclination, or the progressive tone of my blogs, but this is how I as an individual think and speak. This blog is not written by a person who is an English major, whose first language is English, or someone who aligns himself with a certain religion or political ideology, or someone who grew up in a privileged neighborhood, hence all this will be reflected in whatever I write on this blog. The blog is about my personal experiences and opinions, and its tone and language will reflect my personality. My experience of living in a chawl in India, studying in Marathi medium, reading many Marathi books, watching movies, witnessing suppression of women, casteism, and my experiences with bullying, racism, socialism, and capitalism, and many other things are going to be reflected in my writing. My writing is the only way I can get all this out of my system. This is another reason why I stopped getting any help from AIs like ChatGPT after trying it for a couple of posts as it didn't sound like me. My blog needs to reflect my thoughts in my language. I hope this encourages others who are still debating if their English is good enough to share their ideas and thoughts. Readers relate to your emotions, language is secondary. If you are someone who has a lot to say but doesn't to how and where, start writing. You don't have to write a blog or publish your writings anywhere if you don't want to, start writing a diary and see if it helps. Find someone you trust and share your thoughts, we need to have some good listeners around us, I am trying my best to become a good listener and happy to help. My writing has helped me to heal and hopefully, it will help you too.  

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

© Vinay Thakur, All rights reserved, Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com 

Eleventh anniversary

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the blog. Eleven years of sharing my reflections with my readers. When I started this endeavor eleven years ago I had no idea how long this would continue. I am not a professional writer and have no training in writing, but I have a lot to share. I always wondered why I got so many questions and why people around me could not provide satisfactory answers to most of my questions. This prompted me to find those answers on my own, and this is also one of the reasons why I thought my journey, views, and opinions were worth sharing. I never regretted even one post since I started writing this blog. Thanks to all my readers for their comments and encouragement. There are more than 550 published posts on this blog on various subjects and issues ranging from personal stories to political and social commentaries. 

In the past few years, I was pleasantly surprised to know that even the younger generation finds my blog posts interesting. I am a lifelong learner, and I have learned a lot from the younger generation, I am glad that I can offer some insights to them through my blog. 

This journey has been phenomenal so far and I am sure the excitement and fulfillment will continue. Thanks again and happy reading. 

Thank you for reading and for your continuous support. 

© Vinay Thakur,  Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com  

Why do I write?

Someone asked me a few years back, why do I write? I am not a professional writer and do not have a huge subscription base, still, I am writing this blog for more than 10 years. I understand that these questions are not out of any malicious intent, they are out of plain curiosity. People wonder, what I get by writing a blog or social media posts where I share my ideas and thoughts on various subjects ranging from personal stories, science, mental health, politics, and religion. I have a straightforward answer, I write for myself. I write because I enjoy the process, any outcome is a bonus. 

Sharing our thoughts and ideas with others may have a powerful impact on some that we may never know. When we share our experiences and stories with others with honesty and sincerity, we expose our vulnerability to them. This is a powerful experience. This can inspire them to embrace their own vulnerabilities or understand the meaning behind something they are feeling but do not know what it is. Vulnerability is a unique emotion. Many people are not comfortable with being vulnerable as they equate vulnerability with weakness. On the contrary, sharing our vulnerability is a brave act. However, it is also true that sharing anything on a public platform can also result in some backlash or trolling, but that is the risk we take in this process. I feel the rewards outweigh the risks in this case, at least for me. 

I do not write to get more readers, or for praise or criticism, these are the byproducts of the writing process, not its aim. For me writing a blog, my diary, or any social media post is an activity I enjoy and find very rewarding. I only write when I want to, there are neither any deadlines that I need to meet nor any projects I need to finish. I do not mean to say that writing with deadlines or for any specific project is bad or not honest writing, I want to highlight that writing can be done just for pleasure. Also, it can be therapeutic, writing down our thoughts and emotions can relieve stress and anxiety. I share my writing with others with the intention that it may help someone to cope with their journey as the writings by others helped me to do the same. I read many books, blogs, and social media posts. My readings have influenced me a lot, but I don't think most authors of those writings have any idea about this as I never had any chance to communicate with most of them. Similarly, I am sure there are some who read my post and find something useful in them, they may or may not be able to convey that to me but I am happy to think that this is a possibility. So, if you are someone who is debating whether to share your stories or not, and want someone to encourage you to take that leap, I hope my experience helps you to take that leap. Do share our stories, storytelling is a powerful tool, and let's use it to help each other. Happy storytelling.

Thank you for reading and please share your views on this topic. 

Vinay can be reached at thevinay2022@gmail.com  

Tenth anniversary

This year, on 5th March, was the tenth anniversary of this blog. When I started this journey I never had any idea how long it would continue, but here we are, after more than 500 posts, celebrating the tenth anniversary of my independent writing passion, my passion for sharing my thoughts and views. Thank you all for your encouragement and support all these years. I don't think writing is my strong point, but that doesn't deter me from sharing my thoughts, I know that many of my ideas are different, they evolve, I am receptive to change and welcome new ideas wholeheartedly. This all made me explore many topics starting from religion, politics, science, mental health, and social issues. I got a great response from some of the readers and some even shared how some of the posts helped them to overcome some of their challenges. I did not write to change someone's opinion or propagate any ideology, I only write to share my opinions and hope that they resonate with some readers and help them to evaluate their own opinions, and also encourage them to share their opinions with their friends and colleagues. 

Ten years is a long time to do any activity regularly, and I am glad that I could do that. During these ten years, many other things happened, I changed careers, went back to school, got another degree, and started working in another field. This all did not discourage me from writing, yes, the frequency reduced somewhat, but it did not stop, and I am really proud of that. Many of the topics on which I wrote came from my discussions with my kids, they educated me a lot about mental health and a few other topics. It was a revelation to learn new things from them. It inspired me to read many books on this topic and I got enrolled in a wellness counseling certification course to get formal training to become a wellness counselor.

I hope to continue this journey as long as I can. Thank you for all your support and encouragement. Keep reading and keep sharing your thoughts. Happy reading.

Six years!

It has been six years since I started writing this blog. I published my first post on 5th March 2012, and the blog has now more than 400 posts. The main aim of writing this blog is to share my thoughts and not to publish articles regularly. This journey started with the intention of sharing my views on various social, political, and personal issues while getting feedback from readers about their own views. It has been a very rewarding experience for me so far. I hope to continue it as long as possible, the frequency of posts might get reduced based on how busy I get with various other things in my life, but the blog will remain an active place to share ideas in the near future also. 

As I already mentioned, so far, this has been a really rewarding experience for me and I hope all blog readers also enjoyed reading the blog. Please feel free to share your thoughts, all of us need to express ourselves in whatever medium we feel comfortable with, this is how we educate each other and learn from each other.

Thanks for reading and encouraging me. I wish happy reading to all readers.