#selfawareness

Ave says I should print this out and sell it because people need motivation in life hahaha. But anyway, I wrote this uber long reflection out after reading one too many fantasy books and wishing my life was as exciting. And there was also the problem of reading Jane Austen's meta-meta-meta "Northanger Abbey" in which some critics argue that she's laughing at the people who apply the logic of fiction to real life and end up blurring the lines and making fools of themselves. Writing an essay on Northanger made me review my self. So I took a long hard look at my life thus far. 

It feels like I've done absolutely nothing with myself. Like I've wasted 19 years (and I'm not even 19 yet) putting my time to no purpose. I've taken the train like all the others, not lost my ticket to higher education, but it seems like all this education has gone for naught. Alex the Great was 16 when he started pushing into Asia Minor and conquering distant lands until a mosquito got him (or so it's said). I want to not die in oblivion (see A Fault in Our Stars). I want to do something with my life other than study dutifully.

Also, am I supposed to be ashamed that I've probably used fiction and books to learn how to navigate through life? Heck no. I'm not. I love books because they present some sort of conundrum and then proceed to tie up the loose ends neatly. They present the horrors and the beauty of life in the most exceptional situations, and characters slog through them. The situations might be melodramatic, but the feelings and lessons are all as real as they are in life. There is heartbreak, there is sadness, there is fear. There is love, there is friendship and persistence and bravery and the daring to be reasonably different. And then there's the happy ending they've worked so hard for- at least in the books I like to read. (Kafka is a whole damn different ballgame, everything is screwed and absurd to say the least. I do not enjoy reading Kafka.) I love happy endings.

So here was me (there was I) trying to study for the dratful finals and wishing my life was plotted like a story, like a fairy tale with ups and downs and peripeteia and everything in between. I wanted something to happen to me, something large and eventful that would come to me on the "windswept platform of an electric tram" (see A Room with a View) and this is what I wrote:


Today I was wishing for the things that happened in books to happen to me.
I wanted to be the princess fleeing from the clutches of wicked pursuers. I wanted to go on a quest to find a golden egg, climb a beanstalk, fall in love, marry my prince. I wanted to be swept off my feet by dragons, outwit them with my superior intellect. I wanted to discover my hitherto hidden talents and gifts: to heal, to charm, to be dazzlingly important; to spring the deus ex machina in my story, to be the saving grace.
I wanted an adventure.

I didn't want to be fat or scared or ugly. I wanted to be brave, confident and bold. I wanted to be utterly and truly myself, no more and no less. I wanted to walk with a spring in my step, jaunty black eyes, and shoulders back. I wanted to be utterly and truly at ease with myself. And I wanted to love.

I wanted to love passionately and romantically; to fall head over heels and tumbling down before a man who loved me just as much. I wanted a sane kind of love, fun and gentle and sweet. I wanted to be told a thousand times over how beautiful I was in his eyes even if I wasn't at all beautiful at all in my own. I wanted someone who would understand my soul (perfectly)- full of the dark and rotten but also of stained glass thoughts and moments, knowing full well of the taut rope that runs through my whole being. I don't know what to call this rope. Determination? In any case, it is a rope that slackens often, but tautens and holds me up in extreme conditions. I wanted to be extraordinarily special to someone.

I wanted to love with every fibre of my being without pausing to judge if that person was worthy of my love, because that is not love, but self-adulation. I wanted to be able to embrace people without fear. The way Pope Francis hugged the man with boils. I want to look at people and recognise them as persons, as truly people of dignity and honour, in the way Jesus saw Zacchaeus, the way the Good Samaritan saw the injured man. I want to look at people and not recoil in fear at the thought that they might want to harm me or that they are secretly judging me for not being acceptable enough- too shabby, too unfit, deserving of contempt. I want to look at the people who sell tissue on the streets and not feel like they're cheating me of my money or that I should earnestly pity them. I want to be kind (if only) because kindness is an immutable part of my existence and to deny it would be to deny my being.

All these wishes and desires got me thinking. I've always wanted an adventure, but I already have it. My life is my adventure; if I want to be the brave hero of my own story, then I've got to start looking for these adventures. I can't stay at home and lock myself up, wishing for something to happen to me. I can't be Rapunzel waiting for someone to show up as I pace the walls of my self-contained prison. I've got to be the sister who goes out looking for her brothers turned to stone, taking the time to listen to an old man's advice. I've got to be Cinderella, taking whatever shot I have at my own happiness to get to the palace. I've got to be brave.

So I figured, I'm going to do great things with my life. I'm going to learn to be a person I can truly be proud of.

I've been grappling a long time with my studies. A huge part of me screams out that everything is useless- what I learn will never be applicable to my future and how they're all irrelevant to my life presently. This is the hormonal, existential part of me that needs to learn how to shut up. But this is also the part of me that I need to learn how to love and accept. Because I am not a dualistic creature. I don't have two opposing forces of good and evil within me that are in constant conflict. I am a person. I am a person who has been wounded and hurt by soft slights. I stay awake at night fretting about the decisions I've made throughout the day, and worrying that I've done wrong in my eagerness to please everyone, myself included.

When my pessimistic thoughts jump up, I try to beat them down or I side with them. I berate myself because sometimes all I can see is a tiny whimpering creature drenched in and blinded by dark, sticky goo. Sometimes all I can see is someone who will never be good enough for anything or anyone. I call myself coward, slob, lazy, unmotivated, stupid, pathetic and disgusting. And when I do this, all I can see is how deeply reprehensible I am. And try as I might, I can't see anything worth loving about myself.

When I do this, I forget that I'm a person. When I do this, I see myself as an object to be scorned. I forget that I too am worthy of love, that I myself possess an innate dignity no one can take away from me. They may hit me and jeer at me and injure my self-worth, but they cannot cut it away from me.

When I fail to recognise my person-hood, I forget that all these ugly thoughts are just defense mechanisms to protect myself from further harm. It hurts much less to be excruciatingly aware of your own faults and failures than to have someone else point them out and drive them into you.

So before I can be proud of myself, I've got to make peace with the insecure parts of myself that I'm exhausted by and ashamed of. I've got to love myself as a Child of God. I've got to love myself precisely because I have failed, because that's the best time to love. When you've stumbled and fallen and you're hurt, that's the best time to be loved without judgement.


This is what I want of life.