Behind the scenes

Arjun’s note: Welcome to Edition 19. I write about the work behind the scenes and how people reward you in public for what you practice in private. Please share the newsletter (linked here) with your Whatsapp group chat and ask them to subscribe 😄 

The stage is not for everyone. They’ve come to see the spectacle, not you and your efforts. The production is on show, not your grit and determination. The red curtain separates the audience from the performers, and the black curtain separates you from the performance.

You will spend countless hours in the dark, in tired lights and in stuffy rooms. The shadows will grow long and your temper short. Grandiose dreams look black and white from your vantage point. The only thing technicolour about your struggle is the colour of your bruises. Everything is in reach if you can find the key to the unlocked door.

No one wants to know what happens behind the curtains. The beauty on screen owes to sacrifices made behind the scenes. You will miss life events and serendipitous encounters in your drive to make a thing of beauty. The art will mask unraveling relationships, deteriorating health and low pocketbook balances. It will cover almost everything but the desperation burned into your retinas.

You know this and still you do not stop. You cannot halt with the opportunity cost ticking faster than the hands of the clock. It’s a race against better judgement and in matters of art (and love), you choose recklessly. The odds do not factor into your math. You have begun the journey and will see it through to the logical end. It has the smallest possible chance of success and that is all you see through the narrow aperture of life.

This delusion might owe to the lack of ventilation. Your lightheadedness sets you on a path without possible return. You work without rest with abundant courage well into the early hours of the morning light. If you give yourself no choice, it clarifies your waking hours. Your success is divinely ordained and it will take what it takes from you.

This flow state is in everyone’s reach. You can turn on the switch if you have the nerve to pay the price. Undenominated in coins or currency notes, it will leave a mark. It will sap you of strength and then ask you to pull further till the finish line. It’s harder still with your effort encumbered by the dark. You cannot see three feet ahead of you but you have to keep walking.

You can work on it day and night and still stay unrecognised. You will hear about lost potential and the tattered remains of a once bright future. They will talk about you in the past tense till your efforts add up. This valley of despair can absorb you and overwhelm if you do not break through.

You know this, fear failure and still force your way through without climbing equipment. You give yourself no choice but to reveal the kind of person you can become. Only that person pulls through while others wait for help which is always a day away.