Around the beginning of this semester, a sudden urge came over me to try something I had never done before. It was to memorize the names of everyone in my cohort in advance. Beyond that, before the semester fully got underway and my relationships with them deepened, I meticulously looked into their backgrounds, interests, and past achievements through social media and online spaces. It was just like a front-of-house manager at a three-star high-end restaurant studying guests in advance to provide them with the ultimate experience.
So when I finally met each of them face-to-face, I made a conscious effort to go beyond a mechanical “Hi, how are you?” and instead address them by name with genuine care and intention. Whenever an opportunity arose to exchange a few words, whether a brief exchange in passing in the hallway or a longer conversation in the classroom, I tried to make thoughtful, deliberate use of what I already knew about them to draw them into deeper conversations and encourage them to share more of their stories. In doing so, I was able to foster conversations in which they felt genuinely heard and respected.
From my very first day of preschool to now studying pulse diagnosis, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and anatomy surrounded by Westerners, the beginning and end of a semester were things I had gone through as countless times as the turning of the seasons. Yet, almost without exception, I had always been on the introverted side, so it was far from unusual for me to pass through an entire semester barely knowing people’s names or remaining distant acquaintances. But having taken the time to study their names and who they were in advance gave me no small measure of strength to break through my inner fears and take that courageous first step toward them. And that first button, fastened in a completely different way, caused the familiar scenes unfolding before me to develop in an entirely different way.
My life has been neither particularly long nor short, but having lived this much, I often find myself thinking that life is like a seesaw. No matter how hard I try to find my balance and hold on to it, just when things finally seem to be looking up, something inevitably comes along the very next day to knock me flat. And just when I am groaning under the weight of it all, feeling as though I cannot take another moment, life somehow finds a way to gently lift me back up, as if to remind me not to give up just yet.
So I constantly remind myself never to be overly arrogant or easily despairing in front of that fickle thing, but even so, discovering that with age I can now approach the world and people with far more ease than before is something that fills me with a quiet, pleasant sense of fulfillment.
When I was younger, I often found myself trying to stand out in groups, seeking attention or hoping to make a good impression. But over time, as I learned to live more wisely with my own sense of lack and my expectations of others, being loved by others became far less important than taking care of myself and the things I hold dear. Simply doing that well enough makes each and every day overflowingly busy, so I now find myself instead pondering how to reveal myself as little as possible, how not to trip up emotionally over unimportant things, and how to live each moment with greater depth.
And while doing so, though I do not know the exact name of this feeling, I get the feeling that something worthy of being called a "real life" is slowly rising from somewhere deep within me. Something more substantial, more dense, and more concentrated than before.
This life was never mine alone to begin with, so it will likely never unfold entirely according to my wishes, not until the day it ends. So, despite the brief peace and gentleness I found in myself today, by tomorrow I may well find myself slipping back into misanthropy or quietly wrestling with inner turmoil for any number of reasons, thousands upon thousands of them. And yet, I now know that even in this landfill of a life, there is solid ground, and that this very ground is the heart of this existence, the place I am meant to find my way to and connect with. I also know that my task is to dive into that pile of trash and, day after day, do what I can to sweep, scrub, wash, and dry, gradually creating a sense of order that is my own.
What taught me this were the countless things I have lost along the way. But it was also myself who, despite everything, refused to fully let go and stubbornly carried on with this life. Remembering this truth humbles me, and it allows me to quietly release the endless anger I have carried within, setting it down like a long sigh.
Tonight, Rimbaud came to mind, my friend who must still be in some corner of tropical Africa, suffering from disillusionment with the world and humanity, plagued by fever and delirium, and muttering to himself in misanthropic disillusionment. Filling his empty glass, I wanted to say to him, 'My dear friend, you surely know how much I admired you when I was younger. But after living a little longer, I might have come to hold a slightly different view of life than yours. Perhaps, to protect what is more precious, we must learn to bend, and, if necessary, even to break. And perhaps that is, too, a way of writing poetry.'
But life was always bound to outpace what we knew, so throughout that long long night, we said no more. With deeply drunken eyes, we merely gazed into each other's eyes, endlessly, and endlessly again.
© Text & Photos by Tao Jung