Ain't life just the most interesting thing?
I have been living in Melbourne for nearly five months now, how surreal is that? Me, a formerly egoistic, unpredictable, apathetic, lazy, bewildered loner living in some foreign place alone, for five months, surrounded by foreign people? How is that even sane?
But I was excited, for I knew that change was coming; for I knew that this experience will redefine me. It's a new, temporary world that I could explore the depths of my boundaries and humanity, a world optimized for five months of experimentation, and five months of searching for myself.
Five months to humanize my broken mind.
So temporary, yet so everlasting.
Continuing from part 2:
Worldly Desire: Absolute Zero (February - April)
Was I ready to start it all over again?
All the bonds I've formed thus far were well within my comfort zone; I was in my own country, speaking very Malaysian English, embracing the cultures I've been exposed to since I was born. I was in an environment where everything was conditioned for me to do my best in terms of academics and social life. I did rather well in the former, but I was never really a social butterfly. One of the reasons was the lack of a proper heart, which stemmed from the shadows of my past. It helped that I was a very comfortable loner; some people can't handle staying in their rooms all day, but I was (and am still) fine; in fact, I needed (and still need) lots of personal time.
In the past, I would completely reject all social interactions (except essential ones) when I "didn't feel like it". But I couldn't do that during the exchange program, for I knew I would be living on campus, in a large hall with over two hundred complete strangers. If I do not want to sleep next door to complete strangers, I would have to make friends, but to make friends I would have to "feel like it".
No excuses. I have to force myself to socialize, interact with people, understand the lives of others, or these five months of experimentation opportunity would go to shit.
So I arrived in Melbourne. I checked into my hall. I slept. And I woke up. It was the beginning of the two weeks of hall orientation, jam-packed with so many events that the orientation schedule comprised more than two pages. I've eventually came to know that the hall committee planned eighty-nine events this semester. And I'm proud to say that I did not let my five months go to waste.
End of post.
But Alvin, where's the three hundred paragraphs and those huge walls of text like your previous posts? I absolutely love reading your posts!
Truly, this would've been the end of it if all I did was study and think about life. No, I had to break my boundaries, I had to leap out of my comfort zone. It was an "absolute zero" experience for me, when past events and previous impressions of me no longer mattered.
There was no turning back. This was one of my strongest desires I had since high school ended; to start anew, at absolute zero.
So I spoke.
"Hi, I'm Alvin," with a firm handshake and unwavering eye contact. It helps that I never really needed to repeat my name, thanks to those pesky little chipmunks that everyone seemed to know of.
But that was it. I struggled with keeping up conversations, for I never needed to. I was never all that interested in actively meeting people, for I was too comfortable in my own world. Even during the previous "Worldly Desire" chapters, when I claimed to have blended into society, I placed myself too high up a pedestal, so that didn't count. Back then, when society did not accept me, I was too quick to push the blame to them. At absolute zero, in a society away from my home country, stripped away from everything that defined me, I realized that it was because I lacked a heart.
Now, I've been exploring the "heart" ever since last year, but I kept subconsciously repressing it as a defense mechanism. I was mentally weak, and at that time I'd rather not have true friends than to risk having my heart broken again.
As if I did not already hate attachments enough, my past relationship continuously pushed me away from the heart, for there were issues (of which I will not mention here) that affected me to the psychological core, and forced me away from the heart. By relieving myself of that responsibility, I not only presented myself with a fresh start, but also removed the restrictions that blocked me from contacting the heart.
And thus, it was absolute zero.
Autumn was a weird one. At that time, the season was still classified as summer, yet the nights were chilly and the depressing mood of winter slowly started to seep in; like a balance between two extremes, this exchange experience will assist me in discovering my balance; the inner competitiveness and studiousness, with the adventurous and edgier side of me.
Episodic Series is the realization that every day is a new episode, a new chance, and a new life, to break boundaries and explore beyond my comfort zone.
People there were nice, but I struggled with putting my heart into my words and actions, and this is what caused others to lack a heart. In other words, people can feel if you're real, or if you're just faking it all.
To feel if others are being fake or not, is a skill I lacked, as I had no need to, for in the previous "Worldly Desire" chapters, even though I spoke so highly about society, in the end, the questions about pretense and realness were all directed to myself.
I was far, far too high up the pedestal, and absolute zero instantly rid me of this level indifference.
To others, we are all just "people". What differentiates "friends" from "people"?
There is no time to be selfish. Pride is the murderer of the self. Some claimed they hated to "conform" to society, that they are feverishly sticking to being "themselves".
"Nobody can change me."
And I was one of those people.
But throughout the last five years, I've been subconsciously changing to cater to society. I've grown from a depressed, timid, self-loathing loner to...
...this.
I've dragged myself into childish fantasies to cater to society's immaturity. I've forced an indifferent, unemotional personality into myself to cater to society's apathy. I've forged many other personalities in myself to cater to society's various faces. I've strongly advocated myself as an "artist" to cater to society's need for talents. And the previous chapters of "Worldly Desire" had me desiring change itself to cater to society's need for change.
But at absolute zero, society doesn't need any of those.
Why do animals congregate? Why do fishes swim on schools and why do bees fly in swarms?
Why was the ability to "talk" still part of our gene pool?
Humans are born to be part of society. We can fervently stick to being "ourselves", but to change for society is to expand our opportunities, to understand the hearts of others, to tolerate the flaws of others, and the celebrate the achievements of others.
It opens up the world for us.
Society needs a "friend", or we'll be nothing more than that successful, intelligent, yet ultimately uninspiring and unsociable person on the streets.
What is this realization? This is the complete opposite of everything I've advocated for, that we should always discover "ourselves" within ourselves.
But can we instead find "ourselves" within society?
To study overseas used to be impossible. To live independently used to be impossible. To survive five months in a building full of foreign people used to be impossible.
To actually feel sad that you'll be leaving Melbourne in a few months time, and you'll be missing all the great people you've met and all the memories you've formed? Used to be impossible.
But the exchange program changed all of this.
It did. It really did. And it felt so surreal. A temporary pause in continuity has permanently altered my life course. This feels all too much like a dream, like it can be discarded, forgotten, yet this dream changed me, as if the conflicts I had between reality and fantasy were starting to settle down and accept each other.
This is the lucid lapse.
The Lucid Lapse (April - Present)
In the past, I've fantasized so much that I was essentially living in my fantasy. One of those fantasies was to explore the world, meet new people, live life in absolute zero.
Frankly, I did not live life in Melbourne in "absolute" zero, for I had friends from Malaysia coming over with me. I wasn't in some totally strange place, for both Monash campuses (Melbourne and Malaysia) basically run on the same core system; the only real difference being the environment and lecturers. But to me, who relied on the presence of a large-scale comfort zone to explore my boundaries (most notably during the "Worldly Desire" chapters, when I struggled to overcome my excess pride), living in a hall full of foreign people was an absolute zero experience, as it was my home for five months, and "home" is where I recharge from dealing with society. When my home is society, that's when I knew it would be a challenge.
This explains the sudden decline of poems in the past five months (except the month of May, in which I participated in the Malaysian Poetry Writing Month, more on that later). As spending too much personal time kinda ruins the whole meaning of the student exchange experience, I pushed myself to socialize as much as I possibly could; every time I felt socially exhausted, I would get myself back together and start talking with people again. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as I would've thought; last time I assumed that forced socialization would basically mean pretense, but then I realized that I wasn't "forcing" most of the time, socialization just happened naturally.
Of course, pretense was certainly present from time to time, but with my state, I knew that pretense, in itself, is a product of experimentation. Remember, I was an amateur in societal communication, for previously I did not feel the need to actively meet new people. In the "Worldly Desire" chapters, I viewed pretense as a roadblock, but due to my lack of societal experience, the roadblocks were everywhere. I couldn't progress. So my societal skills remained very, very mediocre (and even that's pushing it too far).
But pretense is a speed bump. If I had to pretend, most of the time, it's not because of a serious flaw in my societal understanding or my communication skills, but instead a minor lack of compromise between the expectations of myself an others. My societal wavelength usually does not even come close to the wavelengths of others, meaning that I usually struggle to keep up with topics, or to follow the conversation pace, or to initiate topics that are of interest to others.
Pretense is temporarily altering my wavelength to resonate with others. However, this does not always work, as too much of an alteration will mentally strain myself, and society can read mental strains.
But societal wavelengths are mainly controlled by the heart, so, more reasons to embrace the heart then.
It took me a while, but it came to a point when I actually got sad that I was about to leave my friends behind when I get back to Malaysia. To feel genuine sorrow about friendship was something I've almost never experienced before, for what was my previous life but myself and all my fantasies and all my prides?
I enjoyed the moments spent with society.
But there's one more obstacle.
I've been hiding inside the world of poetry ever since 2011. The "Worldly Desire" chapter exposed me to the real world, but there was always a part of my subconscious that preferred to hide behind the protection of words.
Even though I've enrolled into an engineering degree, there was always a part of my subconscious that kept reassuring me, "you'll be able to write for a living!"
I've overestimated my abilities, and the Malaysian Poetry Writing Month has shot my ego down. I tried writing a poem a day, and I had to force it out my ass. I had no inspiration.
I wrote five poems. Only the first one had any resemblance of a soul in it.
And I realized something. The real me... isn't a writer, nor a poet, nor an artist.
If the real me were one of them, five months of exchange experience would be enough for me to produce a plethora of worded art.
But like many other artists, my abilities are its best when there's inspiration.
I was too busy living a "real" life in Melbourne to be inspired.
But what is reality? Haven't I been living a "real" life all along? What's so special about Melbourne that made it seem more "real" than the other stuffs I've done in life?
Let's talk about dreams. I've always been a heavy dreamer. On most nights, I go to bed not to relieve my exhaustion or to charge up for the next day, but I do so to explore this weird, wonderful, yet blurry, fragmented place known as dreams. It's the only time in my life where I feel invincible, powerful, and in control of everything.
Yes, I'm a lucid dreamer.
Lucid dreaming is this magical state where the dreamer is fully aware that he/she is in a dream, and therefore can actually alter various aspects of his/her dreams.
Now, I don't mean to say that all of my dreams are lucid, but my subconscious is powerful enough to take note of "dream" signs. One of the biggest examples is how I can actually "prevent" bad dreams from occurring; I see a scenario that will most likely lead to a horrifying outcome, and I forcefully alter it, or completely distance myself from that dream, or even use some super powers to just annihilate the entire dream and let my subconscious bring me to a new dream.
Just yesterday night, I had five consecutive dreams, and immediately after that I had a sixth dream; I came across a list detailing all five of the previous dreams, as somehow, during those five dreams, I've been writing a diary about them so that I could remember them.
I didn't actually write a diary during those five dreams, because, one, I wasn't lucid during those dreams, and two, why the hell would I write a diary? Yet on the sixth dream, not only I felt that it was real, but I've also recognized the fantastical nature of the previous five dreams. There's even a quick "flashback" during the sixth dream that saw me actually writing a diary during those five dreams.
But this kind of "layered" lucidity is interesting. Why?
It's been two months since I've left Melbourne. Now, whenever I think back, the whole exchange experience actually felt like a dream.
One of the key characteristics of dreams is its surrealism, the feeling that some things are out of place, the curiosity to explore a messed-up, yet ultimately beautiful new world.
Melbourne was that new world.
To live by myself for five months, to meet foreign people and form bonds with them, to visit places that once existed only in pictures and my wildest imagination.
To socialize with complete strangers, knowing that if I screw up, at least I wouldn't be too embarrassed, because the exchange experience is temporary.
To socialize with complete strangers, knowing that if I formed bonds, well...
They might last forever.
But that's a conflict, isn't it?
The exchange experience is a temporary escape; a safe place to discover myself, to interact with people and the environment, without fear of repercussions, or judgement, or even embarrassment, all because it is temporary.
Like a dream, I felt invincible, powerful, and in control of everything.
Yet, unlike dreams, the memories of the Melbourne, they actually last forever, don't they?
I'll be truthful, even though I've been through so many periods of life where I've been maturing, understanding more about humanity and overall being a better person, even though the "Worldly Desire" chapters had me finally embracing society after years of isolation, I still feared judgement.
We do not fear judgement in itself, we fear the possibility of that very same judgement following our footsteps for the rest of our lives.
Yet, the magical thing about the exchange experience is, like dreams, what happens there stay there.
It's a struggle, even to this very moment, for me to embrace the reality of the experience. Why? Because I actually formed bonds there.
I've made great friends, interacted with splendid people, and has became a person that actually made impacts (even if it's just a little) in the lives of others.
These things last forever.
Yet, until today I still believe that, had I not treat the entire experience as temporary, had I not believe in myself more than I ever did, had I not (temporarily) rid myself of the fear of judgement, had I not pushed social boundaries, there would be absolutely nothing to take away from this experience.
At absolute zero, remnants of my past pride still remained during the first months of the exchange experience. It was tempting, to kick off an absolute zero by placing myself on a pedestal. At that time, I was greedy for control, and I was an addict of making an impact. I wanted fame. I wanted people to remember me.
Yet, that elevated pride did not last long. Years of maturation caught up on me, and reminded me that, indeed, being forcefully extroverted, putting on masks, and injecting myself into the lives of others were never my things. I am not that kind of person.
Who am I? I'm just like everybody else. Humility and empathy were two traits that I've always been trying to escape from; to me, they were the whole reason behind the "Shivering Shadows" chapter; too much empathy towards the most insignificant things, and being overly humble to the point of appearing weak.
But this ain't high school.
Most of us don't even want to control shit. We just wanna live our lives in a carefree manner, letting the world work as it is.
And these are the people I've been meeting throughout my whole life. The "society" that I've encountered are just a bunch of ordinary people who just want to get on with their lives.
A simple truth.
I stopped overthinking. Of course, my poetic mind will never die, but I stopped trying to find meanings for everything. I just wanna live life.
To truly live in the present.
There's no point in understanding everything. There's no point in overthinking.
Yet until today, the exchange experience has never lost its lucidity.
But who is to judge? This is the one life that I will go through.
I'll appreciate my fantastical mind and my real life, as they're all parts of me.
But is the question about who I am even relevant anymore? That, in itself, is overthinking, isn't it?
Even this whole post is overthinking, no?
But to overthink about overthinking... seriously, who the hell cares?
This is me. This is the real me. And I'll live life as it is.
But wouldn't I end up being exactly like the society that I once feared and loathed?
So what?
I'm living life more happily than I ever was, smiling more sincerely and speaking more honestly than I ever dared.
And when life gets tough, I could always revisit the best time of my life, and know that in the end...
I'm Alvin, and no dream will ever change that.
End of post.
But Alvin, where's the three hundred paragraphs and those huge walls of text like your previous posts? I absolutely love reading your posts!
Truly, this would've been the end of it if all I did was study and think about life. No, I had to break my boundaries, I had to leap out of my comfort zone. It was an "absolute zero" experience for me, when past events and previous impressions of me no longer mattered.
There was no turning back. This was one of my strongest desires I had since high school ended; to start anew, at absolute zero.
So I spoke.
"Hi, I'm Alvin," with a firm handshake and unwavering eye contact. It helps that I never really needed to repeat my name, thanks to those pesky little chipmunks that everyone seemed to know of.
But that was it. I struggled with keeping up conversations, for I never needed to. I was never all that interested in actively meeting people, for I was too comfortable in my own world. Even during the previous "Worldly Desire" chapters, when I claimed to have blended into society, I placed myself too high up a pedestal, so that didn't count. Back then, when society did not accept me, I was too quick to push the blame to them. At absolute zero, in a society away from my home country, stripped away from everything that defined me, I realized that it was because I lacked a heart.
Now, I've been exploring the "heart" ever since last year, but I kept subconsciously repressing it as a defense mechanism. I was mentally weak, and at that time I'd rather not have true friends than to risk having my heart broken again.
As if I did not already hate attachments enough, my past relationship continuously pushed me away from the heart, for there were issues (of which I will not mention here) that affected me to the psychological core, and forced me away from the heart. By relieving myself of that responsibility, I not only presented myself with a fresh start, but also removed the restrictions that blocked me from contacting the heart.
And thus, it was absolute zero.
Autumn was a weird one. At that time, the season was still classified as summer, yet the nights were chilly and the depressing mood of winter slowly started to seep in; like a balance between two extremes, this exchange experience will assist me in discovering my balance; the inner competitiveness and studiousness, with the adventurous and edgier side of me.
Episodic Series is the realization that every day is a new episode, a new chance, and a new life, to break boundaries and explore beyond my comfort zone.
People there were nice, but I struggled with putting my heart into my words and actions, and this is what caused others to lack a heart. In other words, people can feel if you're real, or if you're just faking it all.
To feel if others are being fake or not, is a skill I lacked, as I had no need to, for in the previous "Worldly Desire" chapters, even though I spoke so highly about society, in the end, the questions about pretense and realness were all directed to myself.
I was far, far too high up the pedestal, and absolute zero instantly rid me of this level indifference.
To others, we are all just "people". What differentiates "friends" from "people"?
There is no time to be selfish. Pride is the murderer of the self. Some claimed they hated to "conform" to society, that they are feverishly sticking to being "themselves".
"Nobody can change me."
And I was one of those people.
But throughout the last five years, I've been subconsciously changing to cater to society. I've grown from a depressed, timid, self-loathing loner to...
...this.
I've dragged myself into childish fantasies to cater to society's immaturity. I've forced an indifferent, unemotional personality into myself to cater to society's apathy. I've forged many other personalities in myself to cater to society's various faces. I've strongly advocated myself as an "artist" to cater to society's need for talents. And the previous chapters of "Worldly Desire" had me desiring change itself to cater to society's need for change.
But at absolute zero, society doesn't need any of those.
Why do animals congregate? Why do fishes swim on schools and why do bees fly in swarms?
Why was the ability to "talk" still part of our gene pool?
Humans are born to be part of society. We can fervently stick to being "ourselves", but to change for society is to expand our opportunities, to understand the hearts of others, to tolerate the flaws of others, and the celebrate the achievements of others.
It opens up the world for us.
Society needs a "friend", or we'll be nothing more than that successful, intelligent, yet ultimately uninspiring and unsociable person on the streets.
What is this realization? This is the complete opposite of everything I've advocated for, that we should always discover "ourselves" within ourselves.
But can we instead find "ourselves" within society?
To study overseas used to be impossible. To live independently used to be impossible. To survive five months in a building full of foreign people used to be impossible.
To actually feel sad that you'll be leaving Melbourne in a few months time, and you'll be missing all the great people you've met and all the memories you've formed? Used to be impossible.
But the exchange program changed all of this.
It did. It really did. And it felt so surreal. A temporary pause in continuity has permanently altered my life course. This feels all too much like a dream, like it can be discarded, forgotten, yet this dream changed me, as if the conflicts I had between reality and fantasy were starting to settle down and accept each other.
This is the lucid lapse.
The Lucid Lapse (April - Present)
In the past, I've fantasized so much that I was essentially living in my fantasy. One of those fantasies was to explore the world, meet new people, live life in absolute zero.
Frankly, I did not live life in Melbourne in "absolute" zero, for I had friends from Malaysia coming over with me. I wasn't in some totally strange place, for both Monash campuses (Melbourne and Malaysia) basically run on the same core system; the only real difference being the environment and lecturers. But to me, who relied on the presence of a large-scale comfort zone to explore my boundaries (most notably during the "Worldly Desire" chapters, when I struggled to overcome my excess pride), living in a hall full of foreign people was an absolute zero experience, as it was my home for five months, and "home" is where I recharge from dealing with society. When my home is society, that's when I knew it would be a challenge.
This explains the sudden decline of poems in the past five months (except the month of May, in which I participated in the Malaysian Poetry Writing Month, more on that later). As spending too much personal time kinda ruins the whole meaning of the student exchange experience, I pushed myself to socialize as much as I possibly could; every time I felt socially exhausted, I would get myself back together and start talking with people again. It's not as easy as it sounds, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as I would've thought; last time I assumed that forced socialization would basically mean pretense, but then I realized that I wasn't "forcing" most of the time, socialization just happened naturally.
Of course, pretense was certainly present from time to time, but with my state, I knew that pretense, in itself, is a product of experimentation. Remember, I was an amateur in societal communication, for previously I did not feel the need to actively meet new people. In the "Worldly Desire" chapters, I viewed pretense as a roadblock, but due to my lack of societal experience, the roadblocks were everywhere. I couldn't progress. So my societal skills remained very, very mediocre (and even that's pushing it too far).
But pretense is a speed bump. If I had to pretend, most of the time, it's not because of a serious flaw in my societal understanding or my communication skills, but instead a minor lack of compromise between the expectations of myself an others. My societal wavelength usually does not even come close to the wavelengths of others, meaning that I usually struggle to keep up with topics, or to follow the conversation pace, or to initiate topics that are of interest to others.
Pretense is temporarily altering my wavelength to resonate with others. However, this does not always work, as too much of an alteration will mentally strain myself, and society can read mental strains.
But societal wavelengths are mainly controlled by the heart, so, more reasons to embrace the heart then.
It took me a while, but it came to a point when I actually got sad that I was about to leave my friends behind when I get back to Malaysia. To feel genuine sorrow about friendship was something I've almost never experienced before, for what was my previous life but myself and all my fantasies and all my prides?
I enjoyed the moments spent with society.
But there's one more obstacle.
I've been hiding inside the world of poetry ever since 2011. The "Worldly Desire" chapter exposed me to the real world, but there was always a part of my subconscious that preferred to hide behind the protection of words.
Even though I've enrolled into an engineering degree, there was always a part of my subconscious that kept reassuring me, "you'll be able to write for a living!"
I've overestimated my abilities, and the Malaysian Poetry Writing Month has shot my ego down. I tried writing a poem a day, and I had to force it out my ass. I had no inspiration.
I wrote five poems. Only the first one had any resemblance of a soul in it.
And I realized something. The real me... isn't a writer, nor a poet, nor an artist.
If the real me were one of them, five months of exchange experience would be enough for me to produce a plethora of worded art.
But like many other artists, my abilities are its best when there's inspiration.
I was too busy living a "real" life in Melbourne to be inspired.
But what is reality? Haven't I been living a "real" life all along? What's so special about Melbourne that made it seem more "real" than the other stuffs I've done in life?
Let's talk about dreams. I've always been a heavy dreamer. On most nights, I go to bed not to relieve my exhaustion or to charge up for the next day, but I do so to explore this weird, wonderful, yet blurry, fragmented place known as dreams. It's the only time in my life where I feel invincible, powerful, and in control of everything.
Yes, I'm a lucid dreamer.
Lucid dreaming is this magical state where the dreamer is fully aware that he/she is in a dream, and therefore can actually alter various aspects of his/her dreams.
Now, I don't mean to say that all of my dreams are lucid, but my subconscious is powerful enough to take note of "dream" signs. One of the biggest examples is how I can actually "prevent" bad dreams from occurring; I see a scenario that will most likely lead to a horrifying outcome, and I forcefully alter it, or completely distance myself from that dream, or even use some super powers to just annihilate the entire dream and let my subconscious bring me to a new dream.
Just yesterday night, I had five consecutive dreams, and immediately after that I had a sixth dream; I came across a list detailing all five of the previous dreams, as somehow, during those five dreams, I've been writing a diary about them so that I could remember them.
I didn't actually write a diary during those five dreams, because, one, I wasn't lucid during those dreams, and two, why the hell would I write a diary? Yet on the sixth dream, not only I felt that it was real, but I've also recognized the fantastical nature of the previous five dreams. There's even a quick "flashback" during the sixth dream that saw me actually writing a diary during those five dreams.
But this kind of "layered" lucidity is interesting. Why?
It's been two months since I've left Melbourne. Now, whenever I think back, the whole exchange experience actually felt like a dream.
One of the key characteristics of dreams is its surrealism, the feeling that some things are out of place, the curiosity to explore a messed-up, yet ultimately beautiful new world.
Melbourne was that new world.
To live by myself for five months, to meet foreign people and form bonds with them, to visit places that once existed only in pictures and my wildest imagination.
To socialize with complete strangers, knowing that if I screw up, at least I wouldn't be too embarrassed, because the exchange experience is temporary.
To socialize with complete strangers, knowing that if I formed bonds, well...
They might last forever.
But that's a conflict, isn't it?
The exchange experience is a temporary escape; a safe place to discover myself, to interact with people and the environment, without fear of repercussions, or judgement, or even embarrassment, all because it is temporary.
Like a dream, I felt invincible, powerful, and in control of everything.
Yet, unlike dreams, the memories of the Melbourne, they actually last forever, don't they?
I'll be truthful, even though I've been through so many periods of life where I've been maturing, understanding more about humanity and overall being a better person, even though the "Worldly Desire" chapters had me finally embracing society after years of isolation, I still feared judgement.
We do not fear judgement in itself, we fear the possibility of that very same judgement following our footsteps for the rest of our lives.
Yet, the magical thing about the exchange experience is, like dreams, what happens there stay there.
It's a struggle, even to this very moment, for me to embrace the reality of the experience. Why? Because I actually formed bonds there.
I've made great friends, interacted with splendid people, and has became a person that actually made impacts (even if it's just a little) in the lives of others.
These things last forever.
Yet, until today I still believe that, had I not treat the entire experience as temporary, had I not believe in myself more than I ever did, had I not (temporarily) rid myself of the fear of judgement, had I not pushed social boundaries, there would be absolutely nothing to take away from this experience.
At absolute zero, remnants of my past pride still remained during the first months of the exchange experience. It was tempting, to kick off an absolute zero by placing myself on a pedestal. At that time, I was greedy for control, and I was an addict of making an impact. I wanted fame. I wanted people to remember me.
Yet, that elevated pride did not last long. Years of maturation caught up on me, and reminded me that, indeed, being forcefully extroverted, putting on masks, and injecting myself into the lives of others were never my things. I am not that kind of person.
Who am I? I'm just like everybody else. Humility and empathy were two traits that I've always been trying to escape from; to me, they were the whole reason behind the "Shivering Shadows" chapter; too much empathy towards the most insignificant things, and being overly humble to the point of appearing weak.
But this ain't high school.
Most of us don't even want to control shit. We just wanna live our lives in a carefree manner, letting the world work as it is.
And these are the people I've been meeting throughout my whole life. The "society" that I've encountered are just a bunch of ordinary people who just want to get on with their lives.
A simple truth.
I stopped overthinking. Of course, my poetic mind will never die, but I stopped trying to find meanings for everything. I just wanna live life.
To truly live in the present.
There's no point in understanding everything. There's no point in overthinking.
Yet until today, the exchange experience has never lost its lucidity.
But who is to judge? This is the one life that I will go through.
I'll appreciate my fantastical mind and my real life, as they're all parts of me.
But is the question about who I am even relevant anymore? That, in itself, is overthinking, isn't it?
Even this whole post is overthinking, no?
But to overthink about overthinking... seriously, who the hell cares?
This is me. This is the real me. And I'll live life as it is.
But wouldn't I end up being exactly like the society that I once feared and loathed?
So what?
I'm living life more happily than I ever was, smiling more sincerely and speaking more honestly than I ever dared.
And when life gets tough, I could always revisit the best time of my life, and know that in the end...
I'm Alvin, and no dream will ever change that.
