Whatever happened to my opinions?
This week, I started reading my old diary. Or I should say diaries because now I intend to read all of them.
The one I’m currently reading spans the period from 2002 and 2005 and documents perhaps the times of my life which I thought were the most profound, so far. I have previously avoided reading them because I didn’t really want to relive those times. Also in some respects I wasn’t sure if I would be able to gain much from them.
In the early days I wrote so much. Almost everyday. Later I only wrote every few months. And now, rarely if at all. But now I feel almost inspired by them. Inspired to start writing again. I guess the fact that I’m now studying journalism has also encouraged me to read them.
For a long, long time, I thought they were incredibly cringe-worthy and not worth reading. Granted the one I am reading at the moment is written a lot better than the other two, so right now I feel slightly in awe of myself. Is that even possible? Apparently it is.
To begin with, they were. Incredibly cringe-worthy I mean. The topics they dwelled on were my teenage years and focused on the teenage things. I didn’t adhere to much punctuation and had little care for spell check. At the time it was just a matter of getting my thoughts down. But it surprised me. The quality of writing, I felt was good. Maybe I’m just enticed by the promise of reading about myself.
The other thing which also surprised me was the range of topics I covered. I’ve only read 10 entries so far but they went from ideologies to legal ages. I had in fact forgotten about those thoughts! And it’s amazing how much my ideals have changed from what they were. I’m not saying that they are completely different now but I would certainly disagree with myself in some fundamentals. Maybe I’m just more jaded now.
This is the last thing which struck me. Some of the avoidance of reading these diaries has been to avoid the pain that they contain. Maybe I just haven’t quite made it to those heart wrenching parts yet. But right now, I am reading these words and they mean very little to me. I have the memories so I know what I was talking about but the emotions, they just don’t seem to exist any more. It’s like somewhere between then and now, the emotions have been lost.
I sat on the bus and reflected over what I had read and I just thought, whatever happened to my opinions? Why am I almost never surprised about the things that I hear? It’s almost as if I just passively absorbed everything around me, going through the motions. These things, feelings that I was so eager to banish, I can’t find any more. I feel asleep. And I wondered what will stir me from my dreamless acceptance.
