Writing as a student isn’t something to be proud of
How I manage to write and edit articles for other publications, along with my law school studies.
The other day, I was reading this cool article on Substack. It talked about making something ‘heavy’ v. making something ‘light.’
That concept in itself was amazing and appealing. It left me in awe because of how closely I could connect to it.
It gave me a new perspective to look at the already confusing labyrinth that was my dilemma for writing, and this constant tussle of managing a thousand different things, along with writing online.
Before you say, ‘Oh, Vritant, then just stop writing online and focus on your studies, na.’ Let me tell you how much it has helped me in tough times.
I am in law school. Arguably, the best one in the country. Wait, should I put it better, like studying one of the vastest curricula ever? Maybe. And if this was not all, just months after coming to this what-seemed-at-first a stressful place, I lost one of my closest friends. Then one more.
It was a bleak time for our college, along with all the students, professors, and staff. We witnessed three suicide cases. The whole legal fraternity was in shock. My friends from other law colleges would regularly check on me to know if everything was okay.
I was not feeling my best, obviously. And then writing came to my rescue. I could not find my way out, and then… out of nowhere, there seemed to be a way out. Bleak, unpromising, but it was there.
I wrote about this dilemma in one article:
“Not even a couple of months had passed since our college started, and we have lost not one but two of our classmates. Though my fingers are shaking and I don’t want to write any more and let everything go on in my mind, I simply can’t.”
I am glad that I have something that I can call my haven, my safe home. A place where there’s no one to judge me, no one to deny my stay. No matter what ruckus is happening in my life, I come for peace of mind here.
Then my mind tinkers about how I am managing this, although not managing it as ideally as I can. College is a task in itself. Attending classes, doing assignments, applying for internships, and a million other things can take up the entirety of someone’s mind.
After thinking so, my inner self started brimming with happiness. I start to take pride in the fact that I write. How usual yet unaddressed that fact is, don’t you think? We all subtly take pride in the fact that we are creating something of value.
But that happiness was short-lived, and fortunately so. I came across this article on Substack titled, Make Something Heavy, by Anu Atluru a couple of days ago. It opened my ideas and filled me with happy realisation, to say the least.
It talked about how we all, deep down within ourselves, think of creating something ‘heavy’ but more often than not end up creating something ‘light.’ With heavy, the writer meant something that takes all the effort and time in the world, something that is not scalable or systematic. A masterpiece.
Take, for example, writing. Something light would mean a story or an article that you have written in one go. With minimal editing, formatting, and thought. With some music in the background as well. Like this one.
Something heavy would mean a write-up that would stand the test of time. Its purpose isn’t to top the charts or win hashtags. It’s simply timeless. It will be as relevant a decade from now as it is today. Something that took months, if not years, to come to bloom. A sweet fruition.
This made me realise how almost a hundred percent of my writings are simply ‘light work.’ Almost a hundred, not everything. There are a couple of write-ups that I am so proud of. And reflecting on the retrospect, they are easy to spot and differentiate.
In the end, writing as a student isn’t hard, and it isn’t anything to be too proud of oneself.
After all, most of the time, I create (or write) something ‘light.’ Maybe someday I’ll build something ‘heavy.’