three exams in about a week, and i have three months all to myself. especially since sph has not replied me about my internship and i have been heavily dissuaded to work as an ice-cream scooper or waitress or anything that take me out of air-conditioned office comfort.
i am happy now, but at the same time, i'm slowly but surely losing faith in myself. i feel me holding myself by my very threads oh-so-tightly, trying to keep myself together, the way i like me. but the littlest things set me off lately, make me question myself, doubt my own self-belief, wonder at what i'm doing wrong. i don't know what i want to do when i graduate, suddenly. my ambition at wanting to do journalism has been shaken, prodded at, and scoffed by countless of people, each one questioning whether i have the mettle to pursue such a hard-line kind of career. and because of all this external doubt, it's rubbed off on myself, leaving me wondering if i'm overreaching, somewhat. it's all making me wonder if i should just settle for a shitass boring 9 to 5 job in some cookie-cutter office in Shenton Way, making me wonder if this is all i could ever reach for and hope to achieve.
it doesn't really make sense to me, how i can be so swayed by what other people think of me and my ability. but psycholit class made me think the other day: what am "I" truly made up of, anyway? my identity, my selfhood, everything i know about myself - it's not something imbued in me from the day i was born, as much as i'd like to believe. i'm struggling to come to terms that how what i am and who i am, is defined as much by others and how they perceive me, as well as how i see myself. and when both perceptions of the me that exist meet, that's when i discover myself for who i really am. so if people see me as ABC, it must be somewhat true, just as how i see myself as BCD is somewhat true. so since both B and C are perceivable to both parties involved in identity formation, i MUST then be BC, without a doubt.
but the whole constructedness of what makes up a person makes me want to scream bloody murder. it's too put-together, calculated. i'm not an equation. i'm more than that. but at the same time, what exists in me can only exist if other people are able to see that it exists. one is always reflected in the Other, and cannot exist without the Other, frustratingly enough. while i feel that it is not fair for me to be negatively defined ie: i am ABC because i am not XYZ; it seems increasingly apparent to me that i can only derive my identity from being negatively defined by another person.
and while it doesn't really make sense to my egotistical mind, it makes perfect sense to my questioning, doubting self. of course i cannot do the things i want to do, because it's not in me to be able to do it - how can it be, when my Others say it isn't?
yet, some part of me doesn't agree with this fatalistic point-of-view, that ascribes far too much agency and power over others in external loci.
i need to rediscover myself for who i truly am in this noisy world, surrounded by people with good intentions, but who inadvertantly tear me down. my mental tenacity is at an all-time low, as is my own self-esteem. and when i get these episodes, i start feeling unworthy of everything - from the way people perceive me to be someone i perceive i am not, to the way i am loved by people who i unconsciously and consciously place on a pedastal.
sometimes, i wonder at the ones who wield power in your life. who wielded power, who held you in such a trance for such a substantial time. what was it like, when you knew nothing except that? when you listened to that one voice most of the time, when nothing else mattered? such power is almost scary in its effect, but i cannot help but look back in wonder at how one ever did hold you in such a bind. i cannot hope to repeat that again - once bitten, twice shy, and boy, how quickly we smarten up to bouts of stupidity. neither do i want to, though a part of my megalomaniac self wants to have a taste of that kind of control, sometime in my life. while i recognise the stupidity of such a position, i cannot help but discard that rational thought when i look back in my own mind.
we're all what we are today because of things that happened in the past. i am as much a product of my past, as i am of my own present. when i apply further thought into the matter, it would actually seem that my past has a greater portion in the formation of self - it has shaped attitudes, worldviews, perceptions, and ways i deal with things. all of which i apply in my present day-to-day life, all of which shape my future. who you are today is based on who you were last time, even though we hate to acknowledge any form of agency the past might have on who we are today. ghosts shouldn't haunt us, dead things should stay buried.
what if i squeeze myself into any shape,
& i still don't fit?
what if i bend myself so much that i break,
& i can't mend it?
what if i burn so bright that the fire goes out,
& i can't stay lit?
what's the point in it?
i could get good at crying crocodile tears,
just to get along.
i could carry on telling you what you wanna hear,
till my voice is gone.
but if i finally get to the place that i think is home -
& i don't belong?
what's the point in it?
where's the benefit?
- when i'm gaining all,
but i'm losing it?
it's not worth having,
if it's too much to hold.
you can dig so deep,
that you're left with a hole.
thirsty in a desert, with a bag full of gold.
don't wanna end up like pirate bones -
what i thought was precious,
just a pile of stones.
i might have the treasure,
but i'd be lying alone -
just a pile of pirate bones.
if i forfeit my soul, it ain't worth having.
if it's something i stole, it ain't worth having.
what if i stake everything i am on a dream,
& it's counterfeit?
if i reach the end that justifies the means,
could i live with it?
& if it's true that having too much of any good thing
could only make me sick -
what's the point in it,
where's the benefit?
- when i'm gaining all,
but i'm losing it.
it's not worth that much to me,
if losing out is what it means,
to swim in shallow victory.
it's empty,
it's just not worth the price.
it's onl a fool's paradise.
if it's draining every drop of life,
till i'm dry like pirate bones.
Pirate Bones
Natasha Bedingfield
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