Shutting Shop

I got this expression from a colleague who used it to describe another fellow academic who had stopped working on finance research after his PhD.  It seemed to aptly describe my current disposition towards creative writing, or the various activities that I indulged in thinking they were creative writing - blog posts, silly emails, a few short stories, a few middles and my unfinished novel.

I wrote most of them as a release from my various frustrations, anger or sadness. I used many of my blog posts in particular to exorcise or fight ghosts from various imagined relationships. 

I have decided to shut shop as far as creative writing goes for three reasons. 

One, as my sabbtical draws to a close I am painfully aware of the fact that I have less than eight years to go as an academic at IIMB.  My academic life, such as it has been, will probably end with that.  I am now possessed by this sense of guilt and angst that these years will pass soon and I will have nothing to show at the end of twenty two years of academic life. 

That said, I dont have a clue as to what I should be able to show or what I might be able to or what I could have possibly accomplished. 

Second, all this "creative writing" has not gotten me any worldly payoffs.  But in the first place I did not expect anything either.  So from a narrow world view of performance it was a waste of time.

Third, I believe that I should come up with better ways of exorcising the ghosts I referred to earlier.  I think I may have, by the Grace of God and the passage of time.

On a related note I have also decided to cut back on reading much of the creative pieces of literature too, to which I allocated a fair bit of time over the past fifty odd years.

Shutting the creative shop will release some time for me.  I have not figured out how I will spend that.  I do not want to pass any grand resolutions yet.  One possible upshot is that I will hopefully sleep more, if I do manage to get more sleep.

Finally, I asked myself if I did decide to shut shop why did I not do so quietly, without this fuss of an announcement? 

Well, to me, the blogs were a way of communicating with each one of you, although the people I mailed my links to varied a lot over time, steadily shrinking to just three people at the end.  I felt that I should let you all know about something as major as shutting shop. 

I wish I could say that I hope that you all enjoyed reading my blogs, stories and whatever else, as much as I loved writing them.  But that would be presumptuous.  I would rather close by thanking you for having indulged me as I wrote those inane posts.

Nanni.....Namaskaram