Ideation -  a catharsis

Sometimes, I am alone and lost in the moment — lost in my playlist, my work, drifting between my conscious and unconscious realities — and then I get this ‘aha’ moment where (forgive the cliches — I thought of nothing else) something just clicks. At that time I am aware of exactly what and how I feel, I have clarity in thought, and I have an idea. That idea is enough to spur motivation and I get this need to note it down somewhere, explain it, lest I forget. This pull is unlike anything that else that has motivated me — not when I want to prove myself nor when I have an impending deadline just hovering over my head. It is more a call of action and heeding to this call has never failed me.

Like I said, I need to write down whatever I am thinking — as an article or just as a paragraph on Notes. I begin writing and writers’ block is no issue. As I write it down, I feel this load being lifted, not off my shoulders but just lifted. With each breath, a soothing sensation follows the air, diffusing along my torso. With every line I write, another sprout into mind, and my mind’s temporarily sorted chaos is mapped key by key, word by word. No thought is too small and no point is skipped.

But this magic seems to work its wonders only in the night, in the midnight hours post 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. It is at that time, the house is quiet, my family is asleep and the world outside quiets down that the inner cogs start spinning. Most recently, those gears spat out my previous post, “1:30 A.M.”. As you might guess it was posted at 1:30 in the morning and it is the post I am most proud of at the moment of writing. This might be because maybe, like this post, that was unfiltered and a blunt portrayal of my thoughts that I was satisfied with, maybe because of the validation of the opinions I expressed there by my friends and everyone who read it, maybe because it was my most read post or maybe all of these reasons — I can’t tell. But I can tell you this, I was happy with what I wrote — I was relieved and satisfied knowing that I did something that I felt was necessary, that was “good”.

And these feelings I mention in the last two paragraphs are what makes this sort of act of writing so pleasurable for me. I love thinking about what could be and so many times, I never get around to doing anything. Me and you blame procrastination and lack of time but I also know that I lack motivation. But when I — or you — do get that motivation though, remember to grab the opportunity tight and just do it (unfortunately marketing can be motivating too — thanks Nike).

Sometimes doing and sharing what you feel is right is absolutely liberating. I mean just the best feeling ever — being at peace with yourself, satisfied with yourself for a brief period of time, freed from the shackles of expectations and self-doubt.