Since I made this blog—or even before I made it—this blog has been on my mind every day. Even as I was doing pull-ups in a park, I thought about writing for this blog. But where should I start? I made a post asking myself and then switched it to private. Even before I was writing, I hit the writing block.
Several days ago, I decided to write whatever I could. And the easiest place to start would be my story. As this series is going to be about me, me, me, and me, some readers might find it utterly narcissistic or simply uninteresting. But who cares? This is my blog, and I need to start from somewhere. So, let’s get to it.
***
I’m waiting for a green light at a big intersection in my hometown. A group of middle school students are also waiting for the light. In the new uniform of my alma mater, they’re playfully pushing one another, singing K-pop and giggling. I think of the local proverb, “At their age, they’d laugh even at a rolling leaf.” After all, teenagers are often capable of laughing and crying about the littlest things. And their vulnerability isn’t quite the same as that of a child. Fourteen-year-olds (probably) know that Santa is fictive, and they are (hopefully) no longer scared of monsters under the bed. They can read news articles and understand underlying social issues, and they start to learn intermediate algebra and natural sciences in school. Yet, they carry the same impulsivity as a child. And this combination makes their lives so much more sophisticated than that of an average child and much more dramatic than that of an average adult. In other words, teenagers are knowledgeable about the world they’re in and have strong beliefs about many things, yet their impulsivity complicates how their beliefs and desires relate to each other to the point they appear to be almost disconnected. Even for teenagers themselves, it’s hard to predict their actions.
Watching them, I look back at my teenage years and young adulthood. Frankly, I was not a happy youth. I felt as though I was constantly battling something, something much bigger than me. A social system, commonly accepted values and virtues, never-ending suffering that’s called “life,” and the list goes on. Until I was in my mid-twenties, I was desperate to survive. In turn, this pressure to survive made living burdensome. There are several concrete reasons why I felt this way even though I had a standard upbringing with a loving family. Some relate to physical circumstances, which I’m not planning to delve into, but most pertain to my mental or intellectual struggles. My beliefs and desires constantly fluctuated, so deciding an action posed a challenge. Yet, having the same impulsivity as the teenagers laughing at a crosswalk, I was constantly carrying out actions (And this resulted in many less-than-pleasant physical circumstances, so the physical and mental aspects are closely related).
While I have a good track record of this internal journey, it feels tangled at times. So I’ve had the urge to collect and organize bits of stories, but I have not had the opportunity to do so. Now that I have left the school and am slowly recovering from the burnout, this seems to be a proper moment to start this series.
So now, the story starts. The story of a fairly happy child turned into a rebellious, or as I called it then, “non-conformist,” teenager. The story of a young adult riding the rocking pendulum, trying to find an equilibrium. I don’t know where my story will end or if anyone would find it interesting, but I’m excited to jot down what I have for now.
~ Fido
Other posts from the series Recounting My Intellectual Journey
Being a teenager; swinging like a pendulum
Is optimism in a hopeless situation simply BS?
Blog 