Life as we know it
Can you think of any reason why anybody would want to pour out his or her feelings in the form of writing? I had always thought the reason was simplistic; it was either the sought-after relief, or the avoidance of invasion of privacy, or maybe a little bit of both.
It had never crossed my mind that some people out there were not so fortunate in keeping their options open. Sometimes writing was the only way to cope with intolerable circumstances; like a 13 year-old Jewish lass named Anne Frank whose flair for writing may have kept her sanity intact while she was living in hiding during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Every now and then, I also find that nothing can come out of talking things out because more often than not, our thoughtless burst is more likely to hurt some people than it is to ease our emotions.
So really, the possibility is vast.
In my case, I often find myself verbalizing my feelings through written words when nothing seems to make sense. Perhaps I think that I could find some answers by outlining and delineating the obvious; perhaps my procrastinating habit has resulted in some kind of clever attempt to quibble; perhaps I just need the time to contemplate pangs of feelings I never knew I had in the back of my mind just to see the bigger picture. Nonetheless, I usually write a journal when the feelings left suppressed and unspoken have become so overwhelmingly unbearable that I feel the urge to somehow assuage the bubbling anxiety.
It all started when a bunch of relatives on my mother’s side came for a visit. Admittedly, we have not been very close, since we live hundreds of miles away from each other, and we have nothing in common except for the fact that we are related by a common genetic heritage.
During their visit, my grandmother on my father’s side passed away. Everybody was really taken aback; it was a dreary moment for all of us. We knew it was going to happen all along, what with her countless stroke relapses that had been going on since 1988, the year I was born. She had been able to endure it most of the time but 2 years ago, the damage of the stroke had extended to her nervous system and it left her completely paralysed and deprived of memory. At a time like this, the other side of the coin usually emerges; there is always a part of us that feel relieved that she is in a better place and no longer has to suffer.
Anyway, the rest of the week went by so quickly I almost didn’t get the chance to fully grasp what happened. The whole family decided to hold a 3-day memorial service, after which the cremation service would be conducted. So for the rest of the week, we practically dwelled in the venue. This brings me to my next point. My late grandmother was an avid Confucius believer and that only meant one thing; there was bound to be a series of rituals, which consist of erhu-ridden, ear-splitting chanting, that went on intermittently throughout the rest of the week. In my opinion, however, the whole nuance felt highly appropriate. My late grandmother would have loved the attention, the pinkish-white-hued decoration, and the fact that she brought people together. I know that didn’t make up for the loss, but at least it was heartfelt enough to soothe the pain.
Alas, the death of my grandmother brought my whole family together. More relatives on my mother’s side who knew my granny came to express their condolences. There was also this one guy who tagged along; someone whom I’ve only met no more than 5 times in my life. I didn’t even know he was close to my late grandmother, let alone willing to come all the way from Malang just to pay respect. So I blatantly asked my mom why this particular person would do that for someone he barely knew. Completely abashed of my question, she told me that it was inappropriate of me to ask such a question, saying that I was immature for misconstruing his noble intention. She knew I did not mean to make it sound so wrong, but when the words slipped out of my mouth, suddenly everybody thought I was some inconsiderate, douchey kid.
To this day I don’t even know what I was thinking that day; I might or might not have insinuated a hint of inappropriate scepticism. But truth be told, if I were the one to fill those shoes, I would most certainly not go to such great lengths to pay respect to someone with whom I only met once or twice. How cynical and bitter is my outlook on life that I just find it hard to believe that a person could have compassion and empathy of that magnitude? My mom once told me, people may have endured unspeakable pains over the course of their lives, but that does not make it all right for them to be a pain to everybody else. I’m exasperatedly trying not to be one.
The whole experience over the past week shed some light on a lot of things, so much so that I can’t remember the last time I fervently dwelled on thoughts. One of the best, albeit fictitious, forensic scientist named Abigail Sciuto once said “DNA doesn’t lie; people do”. I could not help nodding in agreement upon hearing what seemed to be a principle that this scientist lived by. The funny thing about it is that most people lie unconsciously; they lie to themselves, bending over backwards to convince themselves that the inconvenient truth isn’t real. Only a handful of people are emotionally secure to confront their real emotions and come to terms with them. What about the rest of us who succumb to insecurity? We feign identities, or feelings, or whatever it takes to make all the inconvenient truths in the world go astray. We bury them, get on with our lives, unknowingly alter all the anguish that life has to offer to a brand-new set of excuses and made-up truths, and we never look back unless we absolutely have to.
Every parent imbues their kids with a certain sense of value and morality. Kids, being the blank slates that they are, always take everything their parents say at face value. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact, it is a job for every parent to pass on just anything that they deem appropriate to their child. After all, it’s for the child’s own good. There is just one problem, though. Morality, or truth for that matter, isn’t as black and white as it appears to be; it is by all means elusive. What is right for one person may be wrong for another. But kids don’t know that; they grow up with those principles embedded in their identities; they develop predetermined moral compass that may or may not change over the course of their life; that is contingent on the life-changing encounters they are destined to have.
There will come a time when one’s moral convictions and sense of identity are turned upside down. At some point in life, people will come across a whole new set of feelings or ideas that go against everything they stand for, posing a threat to their sense of identity. Most of us cannot stand this convoluted confliction. Then what do we do? We begin to change our attitudes, beliefs, and actions. We start justifying our actions, live in denial, or put the blame on others. It is easier for us to convert undesirable thoughts or feelings into the opposites rather than to acknowledge them ourselves; it is more convenient to repress the unknown rather than let it out in the open. We do all these things because it’s the only way we know how. That’s the inconvenient truth. Maybe someday we could find solace in what life has to offer upon digging deeper and dredging up all these submerged emotions. Who knows?
Sometimes, the more you learn about the truth, the more likely it is for you to lose a part of yourself. And more often than not, the amount of knowledge you’ve acquired and the extent to which you know about the truth still can’t make up for a part of yourself that you’ve lost. Nevertheless, if I were given a chance to regress to the good old days of innocence, I would not, for the life of me, abandon all the knowledge I’ve acquired. I would not trade it for anything else in this world. But sometimes, you just can’t help wondering what it is like to remain in the dark, and yet still feel blessed and contented for as long as you want.
It had never crossed my mind that some people out there were not so fortunate in keeping their options open. Sometimes writing was the only way to cope with intolerable circumstances; like a 13 year-old Jewish lass named Anne Frank whose flair for writing may have kept her sanity intact while she was living in hiding during the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands. Every now and then, I also find that nothing can come out of talking things out because more often than not, our thoughtless burst is more likely to hurt some people than it is to ease our emotions.
So really, the possibility is vast.
In my case, I often find myself verbalizing my feelings through written words when nothing seems to make sense. Perhaps I think that I could find some answers by outlining and delineating the obvious; perhaps my procrastinating habit has resulted in some kind of clever attempt to quibble; perhaps I just need the time to contemplate pangs of feelings I never knew I had in the back of my mind just to see the bigger picture. Nonetheless, I usually write a journal when the feelings left suppressed and unspoken have become so overwhelmingly unbearable that I feel the urge to somehow assuage the bubbling anxiety.
It all started when a bunch of relatives on my mother’s side came for a visit. Admittedly, we have not been very close, since we live hundreds of miles away from each other, and we have nothing in common except for the fact that we are related by a common genetic heritage.
During their visit, my grandmother on my father’s side passed away. Everybody was really taken aback; it was a dreary moment for all of us. We knew it was going to happen all along, what with her countless stroke relapses that had been going on since 1988, the year I was born. She had been able to endure it most of the time but 2 years ago, the damage of the stroke had extended to her nervous system and it left her completely paralysed and deprived of memory. At a time like this, the other side of the coin usually emerges; there is always a part of us that feel relieved that she is in a better place and no longer has to suffer.
Anyway, the rest of the week went by so quickly I almost didn’t get the chance to fully grasp what happened. The whole family decided to hold a 3-day memorial service, after which the cremation service would be conducted. So for the rest of the week, we practically dwelled in the venue. This brings me to my next point. My late grandmother was an avid Confucius believer and that only meant one thing; there was bound to be a series of rituals, which consist of erhu-ridden, ear-splitting chanting, that went on intermittently throughout the rest of the week. In my opinion, however, the whole nuance felt highly appropriate. My late grandmother would have loved the attention, the pinkish-white-hued decoration, and the fact that she brought people together. I know that didn’t make up for the loss, but at least it was heartfelt enough to soothe the pain.
Alas, the death of my grandmother brought my whole family together. More relatives on my mother’s side who knew my granny came to express their condolences. There was also this one guy who tagged along; someone whom I’ve only met no more than 5 times in my life. I didn’t even know he was close to my late grandmother, let alone willing to come all the way from Malang just to pay respect. So I blatantly asked my mom why this particular person would do that for someone he barely knew. Completely abashed of my question, she told me that it was inappropriate of me to ask such a question, saying that I was immature for misconstruing his noble intention. She knew I did not mean to make it sound so wrong, but when the words slipped out of my mouth, suddenly everybody thought I was some inconsiderate, douchey kid.
To this day I don’t even know what I was thinking that day; I might or might not have insinuated a hint of inappropriate scepticism. But truth be told, if I were the one to fill those shoes, I would most certainly not go to such great lengths to pay respect to someone with whom I only met once or twice. How cynical and bitter is my outlook on life that I just find it hard to believe that a person could have compassion and empathy of that magnitude? My mom once told me, people may have endured unspeakable pains over the course of their lives, but that does not make it all right for them to be a pain to everybody else. I’m exasperatedly trying not to be one.
The whole experience over the past week shed some light on a lot of things, so much so that I can’t remember the last time I fervently dwelled on thoughts. One of the best, albeit fictitious, forensic scientist named Abigail Sciuto once said “DNA doesn’t lie; people do”. I could not help nodding in agreement upon hearing what seemed to be a principle that this scientist lived by. The funny thing about it is that most people lie unconsciously; they lie to themselves, bending over backwards to convince themselves that the inconvenient truth isn’t real. Only a handful of people are emotionally secure to confront their real emotions and come to terms with them. What about the rest of us who succumb to insecurity? We feign identities, or feelings, or whatever it takes to make all the inconvenient truths in the world go astray. We bury them, get on with our lives, unknowingly alter all the anguish that life has to offer to a brand-new set of excuses and made-up truths, and we never look back unless we absolutely have to.
Every parent imbues their kids with a certain sense of value and morality. Kids, being the blank slates that they are, always take everything their parents say at face value. There is nothing wrong with that; in fact, it is a job for every parent to pass on just anything that they deem appropriate to their child. After all, it’s for the child’s own good. There is just one problem, though. Morality, or truth for that matter, isn’t as black and white as it appears to be; it is by all means elusive. What is right for one person may be wrong for another. But kids don’t know that; they grow up with those principles embedded in their identities; they develop predetermined moral compass that may or may not change over the course of their life; that is contingent on the life-changing encounters they are destined to have.
There will come a time when one’s moral convictions and sense of identity are turned upside down. At some point in life, people will come across a whole new set of feelings or ideas that go against everything they stand for, posing a threat to their sense of identity. Most of us cannot stand this convoluted confliction. Then what do we do? We begin to change our attitudes, beliefs, and actions. We start justifying our actions, live in denial, or put the blame on others. It is easier for us to convert undesirable thoughts or feelings into the opposites rather than to acknowledge them ourselves; it is more convenient to repress the unknown rather than let it out in the open. We do all these things because it’s the only way we know how. That’s the inconvenient truth. Maybe someday we could find solace in what life has to offer upon digging deeper and dredging up all these submerged emotions. Who knows?
Sometimes, the more you learn about the truth, the more likely it is for you to lose a part of yourself. And more often than not, the amount of knowledge you’ve acquired and the extent to which you know about the truth still can’t make up for a part of yourself that you’ve lost. Nevertheless, if I were given a chance to regress to the good old days of innocence, I would not, for the life of me, abandon all the knowledge I’ve acquired. I would not trade it for anything else in this world. But sometimes, you just can’t help wondering what it is like to remain in the dark, and yet still feel blessed and contented for as long as you want.