There are some days where I do not feel like a writer at all. Most days, even.

The higher power (God, Allah, The Universe, really whatever you want to call it) ensured I never forget I am a writer at heart by allowing my father to decide, and my mother agree to name me Baudelaire (he really wasn’t a fan enough of Charles Baudelaire to credit that with why he chose the name, which is why I give the credit to a higher power). It is fate that I was named after not just a great writer but a morbid one. I believe it was to remind myself both of my capability and the always possible outcome of failure and despair. Not necessarily in a depressing sense (though when I do suffer from depression it doesn’t help) but just the reality that is more likely should I become stagnant.

I remember when I first felt that feeling of reading Charles Baudelaire’s work and thinking I am nothing like this man and never want to be, but at the same time loving the challenge (given to myself mostly, I don’t think anybody feels that kind of connection to their namesake) of improving myself and staying as far away from that image as possible. Self improvement and the improvement of my surrounding, is a commitment I have made a lifelong one and throwing in the reminder that I am named after a literary legend, is a bonus. For on my best days, I feel I am also a great writer. From the uncomfort incurred from the two instances in my life (both strangely being in the past year or so) where people recited Charles Baudelaire’s poetry in French to me in public upon finding out he was my namesake (If you know how dark at times Baudelaire’s poetry can be, you would see how this can bring about an awkward moment), I gained a comfort in my destiny. Now Charles Baudelaire is not my favorite writer, or even one of them (Richard Wright being my favorite and James Baldwin being my greatest inspiration), but I do appreciate more than perhaps anybody knows or can understand, being named after him. It is an honor I wear proudly.