I would like to be an artist. But something within me, stops me from expressing myself freely. I don’t know what I want to express or how I want to express it; but that’s something you learn by doing. It’s not that you think about what you want to express and have a clear picture in your mind and then just copy it on to paper. The act of drawing/painting (or writing) is not just a medium for sharing the thoughts and ideas you want to express; it is a tool that helps you discover what it is that you’re trying to say.

The more you get used to using this tool, the better you get at expressing yourself. But for me, there is some kind of a stigma associated with expressing my inner thoughts and feelings, through any kind of medium or tool. Which means that I fall not at the first hurdle but on my way to the track. I can’t learn by doing because the doing itself is embarrassing for me.

I call this feeling the Indian Middle-Class Guilt or IMCG for short. Children from middle income families in developing nations, especially Asian ones, are supposed to be practical. Study hard in school, get a good job, get married, have kids, provide a good education to your kids and help them get better opportunities in life. Your kids can then think of being artists, which you can take either as an extreme disappointment or an opportunity to fulfill your own dreams through them. If you can make it out of middle-class, then your grandkids and their kids can be free to express themselves, but you, oh no not you, my friend. Your job is to work as hard as possible, earn as much money as you can, and then don’t spend anything and save every penny. For the future. Not your future. The future generation’s future.

IMCG kills (from within) millions of Indians every year. Other developing countries have their own strains of this deadly disease. What does the prognosis look like for me? Well, there is still hope. I also happen to suffer from contrarianism; also known as the Me-So-Different-Look-At-Me disease. So, despite feeling the pressure that comes with IMCG, I quit my great job and didn’t get married and therefore don’t have any kids to take care of. I can’t live vicariously through my kids. There’s no point in trying to be practical now, so I might as well push myself to be an artist.

This means drawing and writing and sharing my thoughts and feelings and ideas, while literally dying of embarrassment inside.

When my mind says, “Who’ll ever want to hear what you have to say?”

I’ll say, “It doesn’t matter. I’m just doing it to get better at using the tool.”

“You really think you can be an artist?” my mind will continue.

“I don’t know man but I can sure try,” I’ll retort.

“So, you’re gonna turn into a pretentious prick who does post-modern performance art or something?” my mind might say.

“Listen mind,” I’ll say, “There’s pretentious pricks and then there are just free spirits who express themselves with childlike abandon.”

“That sounds pretentious AF!”

“That’s just the voice of my social conditioning speaking,” I’ll say.

My social conditioning will be like, “Damn! He’s on to us!”

And that’ll be that!