A writing exercise to help you meet yourself

Usually, when we set out to write, sounding coherent and polished are our central priorities. We may think hard before setting anything down, we may keep and eye on spelling, we may go back and correct words that do not feel entirely right, we may delete a paragraph or two - all in the hope of eventually reaching a point where what we have articulated seems accurately to reflect what we truly think.

But there is another philosophy of writing at large, this one with a very different understanding of what "good" writing might be. This technique proposes that our best chances of reaching genuine thoughts lies in making every effort not to think too much, not to agonise about every word, not to go back and correct anything - and instead, just to write down everything that comes into our minds the very moment it does so, without any interest in seeming logical, elegant, clever or even very sane. Our focus is not to be grammatically correct or make much sense. We are just writing speedily and without examining each thought.

This approach, known as "stream of consciousness writing" asks us to begin by picking an important emotional topic - for example, "My Mother"; "My Father"; "Myself"; "What I really want in life" and the like. Then we underline this, and begin to write as fast as we possibly can, for two minutes straight, without a single pause.

When we stand back and read what has tumbled out of us, our feelings about our parents, partners or what we truly desire may emerge as very different from what we had presumed. We might discover layers of longing, envy, fear or sadnes and anger that we have kept at bay day by day in the name of appearing sane and "normal".

This technique of writing will not make us into "great" writers; but it will do something far more useful still: it will liberate us from some of the insincerities that are making us more troubled and restless than we should be. Our chaotic intense two-minute essays will help us meet the person we have been, but were too scared to get to know, all along.

Kindly let me know if you did this exercise and how it made you feel in the comments section. Let's enjoy an amazing weekend together.

{Inspiration: School of life}