Blank Space💗

A clean white sheet of paper, no crumples, neat and flat, and a pencil kept beside it. Imagine you are locked in a room which has nothing. No furniture, no electronics, no objects except for these two little things on the floor. A sheet of clean white paper and a sharpened pencil. No phone, no Instagram, no Facebook, nothing. What is the first thought that comes in? 

There can be varied responses to this hypothetical situation. Some might start getting impatient and anxious at the disconnect and isolation. Some might just sleep around the two objects, ignoring them completely. Some others may get gripped by loneliness and sad thoughts. Some may be content with the quietness and tranquility. Some may actually lift the pencil and use the paper. 

Each one of us has a different response to every situation. 

To me, a blank sheet of white paper is like an invitation to my mind. Be it, even during a busy phone call, or over a wireless conversation I am having with someone, if there is a paper and a pencil on my desk, I unconsciously begin to either draw a doodle, or just scrub the pencil/pen, or write a couple of words. My purse sometimes gives me these mental delights. Sometimes when i am clearing up my old purses, I upturn them in the end for the junk to fall out, and amidst the junk of dust and chewing gum wrappers, fall a few of my blank notes to myself. A small visiting card with a two-line poem written on it, or a used paper from my printer machine with a detailed doodle explained on it. I remember vividly, at a time when I had fallen for a man at work, I trusted him so much that I had his telephone number scribbled on a used piece of document, crumpled and kept in my purse for years together. 

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Until one day, I decided to get rid of the memory that was now no longer relevant in my life. 

Where do these doodles and scribbles actually come from? Do we plan them? Do we align them logically inside our complex brains? No...not at all. 

I call these, the printouts of our sub-conscience. The person you love the most, the people you trust the most, the emotions you feel the most, all of these, gift wrapped into the sub-conscience, like feathers inside a soft pillow. 

I call that soft pillow the blank space. The blank space which we feel is imaginary actually exists inside each one of us. The blank space is a potential of peace and pause. 

The pause we need, to unwind our brains, that are wired into other people's lives and opinions, and are now so complex that we ourselves have forgotten what is it that we exactly want in our lives. 

Try reading the following sentence:

Haveyoueverfalleninlovesohardthatyouforgotyourselfintheprocess?

Did you enjoy it? No? Why not? It is a long sentence filled with so many wonderful alphabets. You should have bloody well enjoyed it. But you didn't. Why? What did you miss? What is that one thing that is missing from the sentence? What is it that adds life and knocks sense into the bunch of logical words?

The Blank Space.

Once in a while, amidst the rush of the rat race, that has the one stop destination of nothing other than death, pause and gaze at the blank space of your mind...What is it that adds sense to your existence? What is it that makes you feel alive today?

Take a peep, and believe me when I say this, you will need no other space in this whole freaking world, once you fall in love with your 'Blank Space'

Snehal Shrivastava

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