What Writing has Taught Me

Manya Pandey,

Editor-in-Chief, Complementary with compliments 

SY. Bsc.

Coming from a background of science, I joined GIPE to learn about the world in a different way than I had previously been trained to. Owing to the hopeless late adolescent energy, to buy a temporary access into the world of ideas, I wanted to forge a mind that could deal with the social abstract. Because I don’t have an expertise in anything. No seriously, I don’t. I couldn’t sing if my life depended on it, I can barely dance, I was great at painting but the CBSE board blues took that skill away, I can only play 5 (okay, 4) chord songs on an acoustic guitar. And although I consider Economics, History, and Philosophy my passion, I cannot flatter myself a scholar. But like (OR unlike) most writers, I want to move beyond knowing only this one “subject,” this one “area”: the act of writing.

So, why do I attempt to write?
To learn to think. Which seems counterintuitive but isn’t. Because I am accountable not only for my learning but for the reader as well. Because my thoughts on anything I write  can no longer only remain to be just a jumble of anguish, hurt, concern or delight. They can become a discourse. Discourse whithin oneself and with the reader.  I can try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and find myself concentrating instead on a flowering Gulmohar tree outside my window and the particular way the petals would fall on the floor. I can string together these instances and as long as the reader finds it worthy of their attention I will have created something of my own.From the bizarre rules of FIFA to Indian cave art to what does a reverse economy mean. Writing for 8:10 is special not only because it is a way to channel these these curiosities but also because for the first time I have met a group of people as committed to this two-bit pursuit as I am. I am sure you would enjoy it as much as we do!