My Voice in These Words

“You cannot tell your stories if you’re

ashamed of them.” -TedTalk

I like watching TedTalk’s videos. I started watching because I wish to learn to speak English better. One of the tips that I’ve gotten is that in order to speak fluently, you got to observe how great speakers communicate and try to do it like them. However, after plenty of videos and unexpected realization about how all of them speak with different styles and accents, I no longer tried to copy their speaking styles. I turned to the BBC podcasts instead and tried to sound more British. Which I embarrassingly, never succeeded in.

Now, putting that aside, what I want to write about is not how to speak better English. Rather, it is about what I found out from all those TedTalk’s videos. It is that each of them shares one common thing – that the contents are real, they are stories experienced by the speakers themselves, and they are being shared to the world who are willing to listen.

I came across to this one particular video, where the speaker said roughly this, “You cannot tell your stories if you are ashamed of them.” I resonate with that so much and this sentence becomes engraved in my head till this day.

Perhaps, it is because I love writing and reading so much. I feel that when I do write, I want to tell stories. At the same time, I seek to be as authentic as I could and write about things that I honestly feel about.

I mean, don’t all writers have that desire for their voices to be heard from all those pages of words and lines?

My favorite columnist in a newspaper commented, “to be read is in itself a privilege.” Indeed. But I believe it will be more amazing if a reader can relate to a writer’s feelings. It is always something that I attempt to achieve. Over and over again. Still, until today, due to lack of skills and practice, I haven’t managed to do that.

What always stop me from writing though, is when I tried to be as genuine, original as I could. But still, there are certain stories of my life that I do not wish to be told to people. I yearn to write so badly, but I just could not bring myself to write something that does not feel real to me.

Eventually, it becomes a wall that separates me from my dream of becoming a writer. I know a label is not a big deal. I mean in today’s world, anyone can call themselves a writer. So maybe the only reason I was not succeeding in becoming a writer, is because I could never finish any piece of writing that I tried to write.

I have long known that I like words better when they are written. So, if I was given a choice between a phone call and a text message, without doubt, I would opt to the latter. There are reasons for this though. I was not the best speaker and I often stumbled over choosing words in order to express myself better. But with words on papers or on screen, I always feel that I could express myself easier and more naturally.

Personally, I think that the best words are when you could feel the emotions of the writers when you read them. When I finally learned to read between the lines and to feel the emotions behind a writing, I started to dream to be a writer of this kind.

Before I found my dream in writing, reading stories itself have a personal meaning to me. Growing up in a small family that always struggled financially, I was beyond blessed that I found my joy in reading, instead of over fancy toys or dolls. Once in a while, when I was about 4 or 5, my parents would buy my brother and I coloring books or storybooks. In the course of time, whenever we went to the nearby shop, we would ask for books instead of toys from our parents. But, by the time I entered primary school, buying books became a luxury we just could not afford. So, throughout my primary school, the library located in a kindergarten, which was a 15-minutes’ walk away from my house, became my brother’s and I’s spot for hanging out. What was funnier was that when my friends came to play, I tried to turn them into readers and asked them to follow me to go read in the library instead.

Those were the times that I discovered the various different world inside books. I was able to go to places I never been to and went through fun adventures with the characters in the books. Those were the times I did not even know the joy of writing but was only amazed at the beauty of words that I read.

Fast forward when I was 14, my Bahasa Melayu teacher, after reviewing my short essay, came to me and say, “Your essay is good. You should really work on writing cerpen (Bahasa Melayu’s short story). Try writing any and let me see it.” I was happy hearing it because to me, it felt like affirmative words.

When you are around that age where fitting in and being somebody matters more than ever, having someone to tell you that you are good at something have really great impact and you somehow just felt appreciated. It was more meaningful to me because those words are implying that I might have had potentials in writing. And hey, writing was something I actually enjoyed doing. Maybe I could be like Enid Blyton or Usman Awang.

But later when I picked up my pencil, tried writing and got to halfway of the story, I stopped. Regrettably, that was the last time I made an effort to write a story. Aside from having to write essays as homework, I never again tried to write any story on my own. I stopped because I felt I was failing miserably. When I tried to continue, I just couldn’t think of anything to complete the story. So, I was convinced. Maybe I was not that good in writing. Maybe writing was not for me.

Somehow, this memory became a piece of heavy luggage I carried till this day.

Once in a while, my mind would bring me back to that day. It was all vivid in my head. How that teacher made me feel like I was actually good in something that I liked, and how he had tried to guide me to become better. I often wondered that when I was stuck halfway of writing that story, had I insisted and fought through it, later on actually finished writing it no matter how bad the story was, would things be different now? Would that teacher point out to me all the bad things that I should’ve improved and what not? Would the choices I never take bring me a step closer to my dream?

Truth is, I never knew, and the fact is, I would never know. It was a regret that I never want to repeat again.

Then, throughout my high school, when I was studying Chinese just because I really like the language, my Chinese teacher always said this to me, “Maybe you are not excelling in Chinese like other native students. But your essays are always meaningful, in a way that you used simple words but with great emotions. Keep it up!” Wasn’t it was my dream for people to understand my emotions when they read my writing?

I know praises are not convictions. More often than not, people praise others just because it is a nice thing to do. But when the same words were repeated again and again, I started to think that maybe they weren’t all empty words. I started to make them my convictions. Maybe the only issue is me with my own doubts that keeps stopping me again and again.

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Now that I am older, hopefully, wiser than the old me, I think differently. At nights when I go to bed, I think of the same thing again and again. That sentence from the TedTalk’s video just convinced me more that if I want my voices to be heard, then I shall never doubt them ever.

If that dream to be a writer did not whiter away even when seasons changed, if writing has always and forever been my comfort haven, if even until now I still long for the pleasure given by freely expressing myself using words, then, I guess, no matter how terrible I am, no matter how ashamed I am to tell the world of what I feel, shouldn’t I start and do something about it?

I mean, I ought to really start now, isn’t it?