LXXVI. Fatalistic Fate -

A mantra is defined as a Vedic meter style that aims to translate a human will or desire into a tangible action.

I still regard mantra with cynicism because verbal monologue only seems to perpetuate inaction. Inaction paves way for mantra to be classified as an annoying habit. The annoying habit then becomes promoted to the only remaining rung on the step-ladder, and that is placebo. Meditating on a self-imposed doctrine, mantra, boosts the ego.

How sweet is the sugar cube that provokes thought.

My mantra, since having embarked on a career path of journalistic writing:
CHECK YO'SELF -

The above bold-faced colloquial phrase is short, concise, authoritative, and quirky. It was and is my own.

What the statement invokes is the need to edit. I needed to extract the substance and rinse out the excess cerebral fluid that consists of every micro-detail that I find necessary to give the reader for him/her to relive what exactly had provoked me to write that which they are reading.

The basis for journalism is to craft my experience in such a way that rather than acting as the lens of a camera which is controlled for magnification and exposure, thereby cropping out or including in certain features according to some bias, I must act as a completely transparent, (though inevitably speckled by the motions of the air), lens that serves to project.

I was asked recently if I believed a picture was worth a thousand words.

I was jolted from my otherwise lethargic stance on the floor, partially due to the cut-off blood circulation of my legs that were being sat on underneath my own weight in an attempt to retain modesty since I was wearing a slightly above-the-knee dress.

No, I said. Clichés do not hold any weight for me; they mean nothing and in turn, a picture is a picture, not writing. A picture is not interpreted, but presented.

Writing is undoubtedly interpreted, assessed, and when it serves a journalistic purpose, writing is crafted.

‘Crafted’ does not necessarily mean to embellish, or add more of. Crafted means edited by someone, in an attempt to communicate, or share knowledge.

I was then asked if I could write a thousand words about a picture. Without hesitation, I said yes, but as it stands, clichés are but the annoying preachings of people who manage to create impact despite not being respected by at least one person, who is in all likeliness, myself.

I could write a thousand words about a picture.

These words would be random and ill-conceived. It would be fluff, and a commitment made in service of the person who created the cliché.

But, as I told my father just the other day, I will not be a civil servant.

There is a vast difference between a foreign diplomat and a foreign correspondent.

There is a vast difference between an image and text.

There is vast difference between line about to give way to the letter “I” and a line about to give way into a square.

There is a vast difference too, between a line about to give way to the letter “L” and a line about to give way into a square.

The letter is finite, the hand must, at some point, be lifted off the paper.