I have a t-shirt that reads 'Enjoy Capitalism'. Indeed it seems that capitalism is so embedded within our everyday lives that we can scarcely seek to escape it. I'm graduating soon and yesterday I was to collect my academic gown. Honestly, I should have known better but I expected a small room with a counter and to be done in ten minutes or so. For you NUS undergrads, grads and alumni who are shaking your heads at me right now, I reiterate - I really should have known better.
What it was was an odd reprise of matriculation. "The wheel has come full circle; I am here" indeed. It's a circle isn't it. A cycle, if you may. It's like exchange. More often than not, you end where you begin - at the airport. Everything is the same except the person you are. You stand at the beginnning once more, reminded of the person you were once upon a time. The characteristics of youth, the twinkle in your eye. A hopeful optimism, perhaps and a fresh eagerness to make a difference in the world. And now, you're once more situated where you began and you take stock of what you lost and what you gained. Who you have become. What you have allowed yourself to be. Another rite of passage. No longer liminal, now to be reggregated once more into society. To be unleashed upon the merciless world.
Of course, to be inundated by people luring you into materialism and wanting your money. And I, of course, buying into everything. haha. I paid too much money yesterday for things that I don't even have yet. Deposits for photographs, gowns for ceremonies that have yet to come, deposit on the most important book in my life yet...
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
An identity crisis awaits
I can't wait to start anew. A fresh beginning and a clean slate. We don't have many opportunities to hit the Reset button and Ctrl-Alt-Del our lives away. As humans, we're doomed to make the most of what life hits us with or just live with the mistakes and the scars they leave upon our souls. Perhaps it's a test of our mettle. Maybe it's the core of our existence, the forces which shape us and give direction to what we will eventually be. Either way, when faced with the opportunity to disregard history, to lose our excess baggage (which hurts a whole damn lot, considering the price one has to pay to take it on board) or better still, throw it away; we seize that chance. To be whoever we want to be. To feel, at least, like we can.
But what if that was a lie? As I finished typing that paragraph, it occured to me that somehow, for the past 4+2+4 = 10 years (wow) of my life, that's what I've been doing. I transferred out of East View Secondary School to go to Pasir Ris Secondary School at Secondary 3 where I met some of my favourite people and felt like somehow I was a worthy human being, deserving of the oxygen I breathe. I was kicked out of TPJC after 3 months which was more of a blow than anyone understood only to head off to SRJC where as a blessing in disguise, I found more joy and meaning in the days I spent there with the people I found. Next came my days in NUS where in my second year I headed off to the other side of the world to do my exchange.
I'd never realised it until now, but there I go. voici. It would appear that there is no permanence in my life, that inherently, ephemerality is the constant. There is nothing good or bad about this, but I think it perhaps explains the person that I am, that I have turned out to be. I escape. I run away from my problems, waiting for the next turn in my life or the next fork in the road. Using new challenges to bury past failures. And here I am, doing it again. I graduate next month, and so begin a new phase of my life. A truly new phase. And I'm scared out of my mind. This is my chance to wield the sculptor's knife, to control the direction of my life. I feel thrust into the open, 'Here you go', the World declares. 'I'm here for you to conquer'.
What now?
Is it time to change the world a step at a time? To turn my world inside out, upside down again for the first time? The truth is, we get so comfortable in our gilded, velvet-lined iron cage that, well, we don't notice the bars anymore.
But what if that was a lie? As I finished typing that paragraph, it occured to me that somehow, for the past 4+2+4 = 10 years (wow) of my life, that's what I've been doing. I transferred out of East View Secondary School to go to Pasir Ris Secondary School at Secondary 3 where I met some of my favourite people and felt like somehow I was a worthy human being, deserving of the oxygen I breathe. I was kicked out of TPJC after 3 months which was more of a blow than anyone understood only to head off to SRJC where as a blessing in disguise, I found more joy and meaning in the days I spent there with the people I found. Next came my days in NUS where in my second year I headed off to the other side of the world to do my exchange.
I'd never realised it until now, but there I go. voici. It would appear that there is no permanence in my life, that inherently, ephemerality is the constant. There is nothing good or bad about this, but I think it perhaps explains the person that I am, that I have turned out to be. I escape. I run away from my problems, waiting for the next turn in my life or the next fork in the road. Using new challenges to bury past failures. And here I am, doing it again. I graduate next month, and so begin a new phase of my life. A truly new phase. And I'm scared out of my mind. This is my chance to wield the sculptor's knife, to control the direction of my life. I feel thrust into the open, 'Here you go', the World declares. 'I'm here for you to conquer'.
What now?
Is it time to change the world a step at a time? To turn my world inside out, upside down again for the first time? The truth is, we get so comfortable in our gilded, velvet-lined iron cage that, well, we don't notice the bars anymore.
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