Anarchism

My curiosity died at four years old. But it was just corporeal death. Its apparition “haunted” the back of my head for years. Until the day I stepped into high school and slowly became conditioned to be satisfied with just the accepted answers, with conventional wisdom. I stopped questioning. Because it was a “waste of time”. No point asking if it’s not going to give you any credit.

I’m not exactly sure how it managed to have a long, languishing afterlife right till my teenage years. It obstinately announced its presence even with its weakest of whisper, with such a stubborn strength that tortured my lazy complacent mind to think again, and think hard.

I remember the times when my curiosity was alive and kicking. I was only 5 or 6.

Why must we fail?

Because we grow stronger through failure.

That’s not the question. I’m asking you why we must experience failure instead of getting what we want right away. Whta’s the necessity of all the suffering? Why must we go through such harsh rejection and disappointment? Why can’t we just live on a bed of roses and life would be a better place?

Well the training teaches you to bounce back from failures in the future. The training is a necessary evil for you to become a better person with stronger determination and self-confidence so you can achieve greater goals.

That is a circular argument! I understand that the whole point of failure is to give you experience but what to do with that experience? Why can’t life be such that I can do without that experience? Why must babies drink milk? Why must we be born to this earth? What is the whole point of going through all this? That is the point I’m asking over and over again!

Life ain’t like that. Life is hard, and you gotta be strong. That’s why failure is there to be your teacher.

Argh. I give up. You just don’t understand.

Well had someone told me straight away “to succeed you need to work through your own efforts and sometimes your efforts do not suffice to make things work, hence you fail. It’s not like failure is there in itself. It happens because you did something wrong or something unexpected happened.” I would not have tortured myself with those endless circles of debating with adults and self-debating.

Another case.

Why must we wear clothes?

To cover ourselves.

Why must we cover ourselves?

Because it’s not right to show our private parts.

Why is it not right?

It is shameful.

Why is it shameful?

Because they’re ugly.

Why are they considered ugly?

Because they are ugly, the primitive people thought so.

But I thought they wore clothes to keep themselves warm? Why did that function change? Or was it there all the time? Why are genitals considered ugly or maybe just private? Why is there such a view?

Again no answer.

Might not be a palatable issue to think of. But it’s life and with all of us. Why is it so wrong to walk naked? After all some people spend bilions of hours in their lives peeking at porn sites and being peeping toms. Why? Why? Why?

Today in sociology class we were talking about this issue. That’s how remnants of my childhood debate and self-debate came all flying back.

“Is it possible that exposure will bring connotations of sex?”

Probably, if you know Sigmund Freud, the moving force of life is libido. My lecturer replied.

I sat stunned in my seat. But at last I’ve obtained an answer. AN answer because there are probably much more logical and credible answers out there, or perhaps lesser ones, but at least, this is an answer.

 My curiosity comes back to life.

Does my title make me sound like a ghost?

Anyway, I just book-ed today!

I mean…I just finished a book today.

I’ve not read whole books for a long while – bad I know, but I’ve always resorted to short articles, magazines or even pamphlets due to “lack of time”. Yeah right. I had more time Facebooking. But it’s still a book right?

Well those were my boneheaded justifications. However last week, out of an urgent necessity which I will only reveal much later in the year, I bought a book (half-wincing at the pain of spending of course) and glanced at the first page. From then on I was completely taken in. I was transfixed. There was no way I could stay focused on each sentence. My eyes kept resisting the urge to rush to the next word, to the next phrase, to the ensuing action. Hence I managed to finish it in one week! *Applause for me. The difference is that not only did I complete the reading, but also savour every bit of the story. Unlike what I did for most of the stories I read in the past, with which I had no discipline and self-control to read slowly and meaningfully.

The past few weeks have been hell for me. Not hell because of the course-load or anything, bur rather hell because I felt as though the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt me. Again. They came back with vengeance and for a while I thought I was losing. Ghosts of bad memories, of past wounds and of identity crisis. Ghosts of existential depression and angst. Living felt like, living hell. The worst bouts hit when I felt literally like a bottle of pent-up thoughts and emotions trapped inside a corporeal shell. Every breath and action felt painful and exhausting -not pain as in literally, but the pains as in taking pains and exertion. Writing, which has always been a purging-and-cleansing sort of ritual for my sanity’s sake, suddenly became an addictive drug. I wrote in between juggling assignments, wrote every damn thought in my head and desperately longed for that sense of release. But it just didn’t come.

I wondered for quite some time what triggered them.

Though I’ve not found the answer yet I found where I have gone wrong. There were things I thought were no longer affecting me but in fact were still eating me inside out. Whether it was losing a Big Game or having a major fall-out with a friend that still lingers in my mind, I felt as if everything suddenly mattered so much, and hurt deeply. Although my tendencies to justify my feelings have led me to cover up those gaping holes in my emotional life. For the most painful of personal problems I tried reaching out but discovered, through hard ways, that no one could help me with this except myself. It was up to me to sort it out and put it to rest forever. I, caused the trouble to stay with me like a freeloader. I had to shoo it away.

At first I couldn’t believe that I was still haunted. How could it have resurfaced? It’s been two whole years! I’d talked it through with my friends, wept on shoulders, written about it countless times, and wrestled with it. I thought I had buried the remnants nicely, perfectly. I thought I had really gotten over it and actually extracted wisdom from it. I thought I had fully grown up from it. But I realized that it wasn’t that simple. Total release needed me to push past a border that I seldom try to even move:

The border of guilt.

As I sat down in the ADP hallway clutching my book, thinking about the flawed yet lovable characters in the story, epiphany hit. Guilt was nothing to be afraid of.

I pulled out my doodle-book, lashed out a few paragraphs and started writing like mad. Oh gosh, I thought. When I was writing my personal statement for college I failed miserably in bringing out the message but now I was just cruising. Because I no longer feared judgment – not from my readers, but from myself and my over-critical conscience.

It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t kill yourself over it.

It was as easy as forgiving myself.

Just as how I burst into tears (sorry I’m very sentimental) when I reached a line in Mitch Albom’s For One More Day,

“Forgive yourself”

Okay. One ghost down. Who – or what – is next?

Meanwhile, to my careworn friends, please leave me alone if I express the need to, for this period of time. I need silence and contemplation. I’m no longer a child. There are times when I just need to fight things alone. It’s not pride. It’s a necessity.

We know we need to sleep but we don’t know how to sleep.

We know junk food is bad for us but we don’t know how not to eat.

We know self-control is important but we don’t know how to exercise it.

We know we shouldn’t but we don’t know how not to.

They’re dried leaves

red and dazzling bright

dancing in their flowing trajectory

as they descend

as they fall.

Graceful they are,

but it’s still a fall,

still a fall.

She’s writing,

scribbling,

intensity bursting into a chapter

full of angst and uncoded emotions

packed into a bomb

that will detonate and send the mightiest of ripples

across suspicious seas

that will learn not to be suspicious.

She’s knitting her sorrow into masterpiece.

But it’s still sorrow.