remember this:
this moment, right now, walking home from Central Square in the humid bat-ridden summer dark. this is the last moment you will be really happy.
it struck me that I'm afraid to move home, afraid that once I get there I'll lose all the intellectual curiosity and whimsy and joy I have about the world this very moment. this is, finally, a good place in my life: I've learnt a lot this year about science and about getting stories out of people, I've made close friends and kept closer ones, I've fallen deeper in love with climbing and mountains, I have a loving and fulfilling relationship with a wonderful man. I'm learning to deal with being out of college, and I actually feel motivated about my career, hungry to hone my skills and keep learning about the world. and I'm afraid I'm going to lose all that - that once I actually get home, regardless of what I'm doing there, I'll be so numbed and deadened by it all that I retreat into a creative and intellectual vacuum. even being subversive gets repetitive. I'm afraid of the boredom that comes with Singapore, and I'm not sure why it numbs me so much.
Yish said, Singapore is all about duty. it's like family. we are obligated to love it, if not like it.
and the cost of non-conformity, of being other in some way, is much higher when you are expected to belong. my mind drifts back to Philip Larkin's 'The Importance of Elsewhere':
The Importance of Elsewhere
Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,
Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech,
Insisting so on difference, made me welcome:
Once that was recognised, we were in touch.
Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint
Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable,
The herring-hawker's cry, dwindling, went
To prove me separate, not unworkable.
Living in England has no such excuse:
These are my customs and establishments
It would be much more serious to refuse.
Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.
--
i'll have to work really hard at staying light on my feet and staying motivated, joyful and alive. which is why I'm writing this entry - a time-capsule, a desperate love-letter to my future self. remember what you have today. remember this. remember me.
it struck me that I'm afraid to move home, afraid that once I get there I'll lose all the intellectual curiosity and whimsy and joy I have about the world this very moment. this is, finally, a good place in my life: I've learnt a lot this year about science and about getting stories out of people, I've made close friends and kept closer ones, I've fallen deeper in love with climbing and mountains, I have a loving and fulfilling relationship with a wonderful man. I'm learning to deal with being out of college, and I actually feel motivated about my career, hungry to hone my skills and keep learning about the world. and I'm afraid I'm going to lose all that - that once I actually get home, regardless of what I'm doing there, I'll be so numbed and deadened by it all that I retreat into a creative and intellectual vacuum. even being subversive gets repetitive. I'm afraid of the boredom that comes with Singapore, and I'm not sure why it numbs me so much.
Yish said, Singapore is all about duty. it's like family. we are obligated to love it, if not like it.
and the cost of non-conformity, of being other in some way, is much higher when you are expected to belong. my mind drifts back to Philip Larkin's 'The Importance of Elsewhere':
The Importance of Elsewhere
Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,
Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech,
Insisting so on difference, made me welcome:
Once that was recognised, we were in touch.
Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint
Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable,
The herring-hawker's cry, dwindling, went
To prove me separate, not unworkable.
Living in England has no such excuse:
These are my customs and establishments
It would be much more serious to refuse.
Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.
--
i'll have to work really hard at staying light on my feet and staying motivated, joyful and alive. which is why I'm writing this entry - a time-capsule, a desperate love-letter to my future self. remember what you have today. remember this. remember me.