-12.12.2023-
Haven't been using this notebook (Entenote) to journal for a while (like... it happens to be approximately exactly a year). As I found tonight's thought wouldn't be concise, maybe it's time to unbox the "weekly" series. A quick reflection here is that the phone-based notebook indeed has enabled me to write more frequently, but it's nevertheless harder to clear up my already-messed-up mind on a tiny screen there. So... Since I've kinda decided to post this as a starting point on the website, I'd better devote some least effort to make it somewhat more eligible.
It's about half past nine on a Monday night, and I've got several deadlines pending or missed already, waiting for my salvage. Yet it took me about only one unit of "loo time" to make up my mind to write these down immediately and later make this "public." The former can be explained easily as I'm used to using one whimsical job to justify my procrastination on the others, while the latter one may need more reasoning - at least to myself. By the way, I can hardly tell if this still flow-of-mind style I'm writing in now is a demonstration of consistency to stay coherent with my previous "classified" journals or if I'm too lazy to abridge some of my random thoughts to get closer to the claimed goal - "some least effort to make it somewhat more eligible." Anyway, we'll stick to it for now. Lastly, practically speaking, I'd still like to finish some of my assignments tonight - so let's try to get this done in an hour.
After a hesitation of about 5 seconds between whether to start with the past month or today's sense, I decided to cling to the latter one, the direct stimuli for me to write now. Nonetheless, we may need some sort of context: today is the first day of my turning back on campus since ten days ago. Maybe it's because the reconnection built with the community is expectedly powerful enough for me to gain these thoughts, or maybe it's because now my time anyway, the hearings and seeing that came across me a couple of hours ago has brought me such an eerie yet settled feeling - I can't even tell when was last time this ever appeared to me. Although it's my first day back on campus, the richness of teas I've sipped today, especially the application-related ones, is too evoking for me not to derive reflections. In a word, I grew envious while further reconciled with myself - I dare say so.
To lay down the necessary backstory for my belated understanding, I need to refer to the first English class assignment I received in high school - "compose a speech to introduce why you're unique." Ever since then, my approach and final answer to this kind of question was - "I'm not unique." I was a bit of kidding then, but this seed had thrived in me after observing so many profiles that seemingly have the same, not exactly but fundamentally, look and after viewing the tingling facts stated in The Excellent Sheep (Just to mention, I was asked to write about what I'll be the most curious about if I got a chance to observe inside the admission office last Saturday for the Initialview writing sample, and I also ended up brought up this book. What a coincidence? Or it's not one), it became harder and harder for me to dig into my "unique aspects" that I presumed for years were necessities for any kind of selective application. Maybe somewhat it's still the truth, but I'll leave it for now. Getting back on track, I was thus haunted by the sort of self-made barrier that blocks my expression as a current applicant and a person in general.
In fact, the "uniqueness" problem wasn't even the most terrifying one for me, at least as I reckon still. Before that, there was the problem of the feasibility of expressing undistortedly. Won't delve into that here - but I could possibly post my Common App personal essay here after this application season as my story of my journey through the expressing problem is related there. The point is if I'd say the story in my personal essay documented my coping with a self-coherence crisis internally, today's derivation kinda started to unease my unease with the external "system" of uniqueness, eventually - if I may put it this way. The observation is rather simple, way too simple compared to my imagined "epiphany moment": what I learned is basically some peers' early round application targets, results, and a bit of their reason and approach to doing so. Yet it is exactly the basicness of these things, or let's call them tidbits, that reminds me of how ignorant, or in fact, how arrogant I was, or I am, to conclude in-uniqueness for others and myself - essentially, my negation on uniqueness then manifests some hidden degree of god syndrome, I guess. Let me try to put it in another way: I used to presume and judge based on only "externally accessible aspects." While those aspects of myself and others have intersections but are different anyway, let's say playing the guitar and being born in September, they are all "external" to me - which means they are static facts to me. As I was doing so, what I was really ignoring and dismissing was the exact same subjectivity of each individual - In other words, I "dehumanized" others (see the word "profile" I used just then?), despite I liked to claim that I detest such kind of approach. Actually, these "others" included myself when I was holding that sort of alienated perspective, and this was the precise reason for my incapability to justify my own uniqueness as I considered myself also from an external perspective. In hindsight, I was even denying my own free will, in a sense. Now, I've just realized that this may be why I was haunted by the self-expression problem as well- I constantly used the external perspective to evaluate my own expressions whenever some true part of me ever tried to speak on behalf of my own internal voice. Anyway, please consider this as a prompted quick follow up. Something I do feel certain about is I also started to understand why being recognized as suffering the "burden of an idol" is so tiresome to me (as I admitted it and thought it's tiresome for everyone). Letting myself live in the external perspective, even if it's my own external perspective, was essentially the manifestation of denying my own subjectivity, just like denying free will and being subjected to a fictional external "observer."
Therefore, when the real-life examples irrefutably knocked on me with vigorous authenticities I sensed in peers' sharings and tidbits today, the fact that every one of us has internal subjectivity in our own world has finally set off to come from my head to my heart. As the first beneficiary, I would say that maybe my missing confidence to really deem myself as an individual entity as well as deeming others is now at least brewing in my heart. To be more specific and to reveal my still egotistic nature, I confess the reasoning I went through just then was intrinsically self-oriented. As one of the side syndromes of no matter the expressing or uniqueness problem, I tend to intuitively walk in others' shoes in a mannered way - from the external perspective. This occurs whenever I read a story, watch a movie, or hear someone talk about themselves. The last may not be as frequent as the first two scenarios, but it does happen a lot when I ever have the glad opportunity to learn. And it is the story of a peer of mine I heard today once again stroked me with this sense and reminded me of a dozen times when I feel the same seeing other ones. What exactly did I feel? I felt I could BE exactly the ones I got this sense to walk in their shoes if I did blablabla (or in parallel universes if they exist). I could have been the one I saw that stuck to my plan of having a DIY college application without seeking aid from private counselors (I envy them so much), the single-minded one that focused on computer science and research for their entire high school life as I once thought of before getting in high school (I somewhat envy them a bit), or the one that combined interests in art and engineering in subjects like architecture or film making (named these two as my family background could have related me to them much more closer than I am with them now)(I don't envy but really appreciate them). I could have been more persistent and not given up piano, and maybe I could play classical music and improvise just like one does (I envy them so much), could not have decided to run into my sport accident and kept serving in local municipal basketball team just like one did (I...), could have not sold all bitcoins at their almost lowest point and got rich just like one did (I...), could have lured by whatever and become a playboy just like one did, or could have simply studied seriously a couple of months ago to just like many did. To name a few, my imagination once again weighs. It convinced me that I could possibly be any one of them - but I didn't at the end of the day. That being said, it is my choice to be THIS me (despite the influence of the environment that we all agree). In short, I feel I'm such responsible for myself's destiny than ever. Maybe I once subconsciously denied my own free will, and it was my way to run away from this reality. However, at this point, I feel I can really try to make some difference - no matter how late the realization is and how long it may take. Maybe by starting to live in this mindset - I can already feel some easiness.
Well, at this particular moment, I've spent more than two and a half hours on clear up my mind and jot down these words, so it's probably time for me to say goodbye. I don't expect anyone to read these (like, for real, you've got something more important than this, right?). So, if you did read these words thoroughly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude (well, this "you" also includes the future MEs, just as usual). Or maybe I do expect someone to read these - otherwise, why would I post this? Anyway, I did, as promised, try to articulate these, but this time, I really don't feel uncomfortable or guilty even if I know there are a lot of unclear messages. So be it, see you... soon? (I've been expecting to use this phrase for a long time, and finally, here I am!)
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