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Monday, April 6, 2009
Contemplative I People around me are growing. Their sturdy growth reminds me that I must also continue to grow. My gratitude to those whom I call friends, who are there always as a form of challenge. Things around me are changing. As we know it, change is the only constant. The volatility of circumstances reminds me never to get comfortable with what I possess. My gratitude to societal progression, which allows me to humble myself...so that I'll never think of myself as a smartass. If I do, I'm more of a dumbass.... I feel that so much of me is being shaped by people and things, apart from God. To the point that I need to ask myself from time to time - who AM i? From time to time, I realize I need to find back who I was at the beginning, piece it together with who I am now, and find a resolution in between both who I WAS and who I AM. The resolution - or the end result - would be who I really am now. And it will be subject to changes once again, as my character goes through the refining process by God, people, and things. I am sure I'm not alone in this. Grappling with identity of self: self-worth, self-esteem, self-image. But how do I define "beginning" in the first place? That's a tricky question I've yet to find an answer to. Perhaps it is too fluid a concept. But to me, I still have to start somewhere. Somewhere that I can call the beginning. And I feel that it is when I was in primary school. I felt the truest to myself during my primary school years, no matter how much I look back today and think of myself as a horrible, shameful kid that didn't know how high the heavens or how deep the earth was. In primary school, I was vulgar, violent, rough, ill-disciplined, a cheater-bug, and a liar. But I was also loyal to my close friends, trustworthy, fun-loving, bold, confident, unashamed of failure, close to my parents. Through time, I felt BOTH my strengths and weaknesses in my childhood disappear completely....and I morphed into another person altogether by the time I entered secondary school. No doubt I was positively transformed into a girl that met social expectations of a diligent, reserved, polite kid with musical talents and athletic inclination. I seem almost perfect on the outside, albeit a little quiet and introverted. But that was typical of a traditional Chinese, I thought. My transformation makes people happy about me. I thought. And therefore, my transformation is a good thing. Really? I have always questioned this part of my personal history. My answer now would be Yes and No. While it's good that I eliminate the bad parts of my character, I eliminated the good parts as well. Another way to put it is assuming a totally different identity...wanting to be Barbie in order to please people and redeem myself from being so imperfect. It's like going through chemotherapy...both the cancer and good cells get destroyed at the same time. Sigh. Labels: contemplative 12:36 PM
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