Why do I ramble

A friend invited me to join a writers’ group. I joined, but the question I was grappling with in my mind was: am I a writer? I ramble a lot; can the rambling of a confused mind be considered writing? I suppose she saw something in my rambling, and so I joined anyway.

 

But that started a journey of thoughts. How did I get into rambling? The first time I decided to ramble was when I was frustrated. Working in rural health care, you are faced with many situations and contexts that disturb, challenge, and confuse you. You talk to your team members, but they expect answers from you, a senior consultant. (I am a late rambler.) The only thing I could do was pour my frustrations out somewhere, and I found writing a good way to put them out there. A frustrated rambler, to be precise.

But soon I realized that there were occasional readers who would get back to me with words of appreciation for my blog. Writers and ramblers need appreciation - but beware, this can become an addiction: the addiction to likes and numbers of readers. (Confession time.) So, I had this great dream: I would become an influencer through my blog. Influencing ramblings. But soon enough, I realized not much was happening. The reason: the ramblings were too serious. There is enough confusing and bad news out there; why should one more rambling add to it?

 

So, I decided to shift my focus from frustration and influence to learning. Maybe there are some learners out there who might want to learn from my mistakes and reflections. And perhaps I could be more open about my confusions, failures, and what I am learning. Did it improve my readership? I doubt it. It was around the time of AI bots. With such easy-to-use LLMs out there, why should anyone read the learnings of a confused rambler? 

 

Yet another learning - that there is so much information out there to learn from, and it is easily accessible. Maybe sometime in the future, my drop in the ocean of information might influence an LLM - a big dream to hold on to, but very unlikely in my lifetime, or even beyond.

 

The next step was to make the ramblings lighter. A bit of humour, some self-directed jest, and a few comics and cartoons to prove a point. Lighter ramblings might interest readers. Did it work? I don’t know.

 

But that is when I realized I had been pursuing the wrong reasons for rambling. One should not ramble or write for others; ramble and write to purge yourself - a cathartic act. That might lead to someone else being cathartic and purging themselves too, but the outcome is not the end. The process itself is the end. The process of rambling! Enjoy the moments of rambling.