Here I go again with the writing-coping. But some thoughts will last for much longer.
What happens when the the assumptions and premises you hold about how something should turn out break down?
You get sad and introspective, that's what.
Like so.
Let me start with, quite simply enough, a dream. We all have them. Some of us start out with a dream of becoming an astronaut, or a fireman, or a ballerina. These sound so clear cut and evoke images quite cleanly in our heads: astronauts and bubble helmets and outer space; red fire engine trucks and slicker boots; a stage, some lights, a fluffy pink tutu. Very evenly designated, because we are young and our thoughts are powerful in their simplicity. In the moment of conception, perfect. But typically, these dreams change. They change, unless we are one of the lucky ones, and we dream of becoming rock stars, and twenty years down the road, we're still doggedly pursuing that, here on the next auditions, there on the next road trip, on a back road, in a minivan -- because the dream is that worthwhile, no matter what. Because we know that we will get there, on that rock star stadium, one day.
I didn't have any of that as a kid. Or, let me say this, again -- I never had those sort of dreams that I took seriously, whether they changed after 2nd grade or they stuck with me until dropping out of college. And I realize, now in my teenage years, that maybe that was half the problem.
I had that odd dream of becoming the president of the Philippines -- I would make everyone live in tree houses, I would sequester all the precious metals and stones of the Filipinos and I would melt it down and bury it underground to give back to nature what it was meant to be enriched with; I would commission for vines to be made as lifts for the elderly, and everyone would be tasked with massive reforestation agendas. The entire country would be green and we would live in it. I caught that early phrase, the "Pearl of the Orient" that the Philippines used to be nicknamed with, in history books. But looking around me, as a kid, I noticed the gray, the dust, the dirt, the congestion, the traffic, the disease, the messmessmess, and I thought it all looked wrong and clearly, something had to be done to become the Pearl of the Orient again. And we could all start by getting me to the presidency.
But oh, it was one of those fancies, however elaborate that dream was; there were always other occasions -- one when I wanted to be a lawyer, because it was fun talking back to people (even while sitting on my plastic baby potty chair); or a saint, because the velvet and the gold trimming I saw on the statues in church looked cool (then I found at death was necessary to advance on that career track, and I changed dreams quite earnestly.) One time, my guidance counselor in third grade sat me down for one of the routine interviews, and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up -- and I responded with, "angel."
But there was always that element of change, of nebulousness, of not being dedicated enough. I changed dreams like snap, with every new interesting thought and every novel stimulus that came along in the forms of people, books, toys, shows, songs, places. I had hobbies, but I never thought that I would do any of them as a living.
Of course, I was a kid -- but I keep on wondering why, to this day, I can't remember any dream I really held onto and believed in. It seemed that notions served as my intentions for the future, for the most part. And even if I manifested as being "good" at something -- mostly talking back, drawing, and theatrics -- I never intended to grow up to pursue them as day jobs. Maybe if I did, I could've been in telemarketing or law; illustration or earning my BFA; in theater or a clinician's office for histrionic PD. But I didn't.
Now, roughly fifteen years after that period of early childhood, I look back and wonder if there was something wrong in what I did. Or if there is something lacking in me. Of course it is our nature to want more and be disappointed, and I risk the wrath of a precocious 5 year old by being disappointed in her -- but I keep on thinking back and trying to search for clues, search for signs amidst the angels and the forests and the ridiculous throwing of hands in the air and the posing and the rapid fire chatter and the utter lack of self-consciousness -- what, what now, how?
Because, you see, right now, I am a 19 year old about to finish college. And like any young person about to experience major life transitions, I tend to be uneasy about what the future holds -- and more than that, what life is meant to be.
I'll leave the metaphysics to people more qualified to do it -- I'm talking more about the measure of success, the measure of a person, the measure of a life, the promise of eternity and what you say in response to a God who will ask you just right before, "And what have you done with the life My son ransomed for you?"
What have I done so far? I anticipate but I do not act as much. I am trying to forgive myself for this. Fine. But what can I still do after?
I've blogged multiple times about conflicting dreams and elemental forces of passions and far flung ambitions and the skewed lines toward some vanishing point of a goal. Multiple times, with generous heaps of meta thrown in for good measure. (You know the drill; I am me and this is my dream, why is this my dream, why am I asking this is my dream, why am I asking why, why am I me, why me -- etc.) And some of the trends cluster mainly around a tension: intelligence, versus ingrained tendencies. Discovery, versus creation. What I doubt, versus what I do not believe enough. Science, versus art.
And like any tension; there is a stretch, an effort, a hurt. There is a burning of your self muscles as it moves into the shapes you want it to move into, into the lengths you're trying to reach into. I will admit that I have a hard time doing science. I do not immediately draw intelligent inferences. I take time to process graphs. I shy away from mathematical functions. I would not immediately propose the scientific method to be the way we should go about doing things. And I am absolutely, absolutely horrible at consistency. But I'm interested in it, I like it, and on some days I even love it -- the feeling of knowing, the sensation of coming upon new information, the pleasure of finally, for once in your life, doing something that feels like discipline, for once in your life making sense.
And on the other hand, there is art (and I use this to mean both visual and literary art) and it is something that seems to me as easy as breathing. I knew how to draw before I knew how to read; and yet I read storybooks with fervor, I skipped recess in order to read in the library instead. I can draw for hours on end without being aware of time passing. I can mix and match clothing in ways that make people have an opinion on it, and I have amateur portfolios that I've been building since I was ten. And literature, oh words words words -- as I said, I had been an avid reader and had to be called up from the parking where my dad waited, to the front desk of the library come dismissal time, because otherwise I wouldn't leave the library on my own. I read stories and cereal boxes and magazines and brochures and information packets and subtitles and labels and comics. I wanted to read for a living (aha, a dream; I take not having a proper one back!) and I wanted to write about reading and read about writing and write about writing and read about life. But while language and literature for me was wonderful, I never had enough courage or a bohemian spirit to pursue it as a career. And while "art" for me came as easily as breathing -- it was not necessarily good art, you must keep in mind -- I never cared enough about it to practice it diligently. Never as essential as oxygen.
(Is the problem the high expectations I have of what a career should be? I don't even think of it as "career" -- more vocation. But am I right in thinking that this vocation has to be something that will leave you crippled and diminished if you don't get to do it everyday? I make perfect sense, right? A vocation is a way of life. Right? Right?) And so.
And so. I decided, sometime in college, to be a doctor.
The decision process is a long and loopy one. Even now I am discovering its side roads.
There's something about being able to know that excites me. Medicine is a science and I am forever fascinated with science even if it requires an unusual squint of my everyday perspective. Even if I have to metaphorically bend my limbs backwards into awkward shapes just to hop along, while everyone else -- for whom it comes as naturally as the first yawn on an early morning -- runs. And I am fearful and angry and obsessive and have a generally complicated relationship with disease, so I want to do be able to do something about it if I can. And lives. Lives are important, and life is important. It's an incredible gift. It's a miracle. It's God intervening in all these massive understated ways with a random lightning storm here, fewer tons of a gas there, a couple of millions of combustible material in an early universe -- and boom, life life life, against such a random backdrop of odds. There's something there, and life is beautiful and terrible and confusing, but most of all, I want to believe that it has a point, and therefore if you can extend it, extend it.
That's all very well for conviction, isn't it.
The problem is, everywhere I look, people keep on telling me that if I want to go to med school, I have to be a hundred percent sure about it. I have to have the passion, the drive, the ability, the focus. And I look inside, in the sparsely furnished attic of childhood dreams and convictions long given up, and all I think it, well, there's dust here, and notions of being brave and 5 and invincible, of being a politician or a lawyer or a performer or a divine principality, but nothing here says, you can be a doctor because you have always wanted to be a doctor. And that scares me, that lack of an early conviction. It scares me that I do not have the preponderance for it and that I have the preponderance for other things that I don't think I should pursue. It scares me that most of everyone else who ends up in medicine had a preponderance for it. And what do I have a preponderance for, on the other hand? In early adolescence I wanted to be an art teacher and live in a cottage and bake things in clay ovens and a have a forest for a backyard. And what does that even mean. I wanted to have a job being quaint -- and oh, even know with the strange shapes my college education has twisted me into, it feels as wonderful as it is silly -- but what about parents who get sick, children who are impeded by physical disabilities, intelligent, promising people who get lost in their minds and become too afraid to be sane?
What about them? I want to help treat them. I know how afraid I can be of illnesses like that, and I want to find people who are afraid and be able to go, here I am, I went to school and hell and back for this, to be here, to be able to do something about you and for the people who love you. Because I know how ridiculous the feeling of fear is, and how love sometimes feels overpowering, and yet no matter how powerful it is, nowhere near enough to make someone stop hurting. You can love and I can think. Let's do this.
And I want to treat you, even if I am afraid of what I'll forget or miss out on, even if I'm sure there are other people who know more and can do more and maybe will do a better job treating you. But I want to treat you, because I told myself before that I can, and now I'm here.
Yes.
And if I want to rephrase that for the present , it only means, I want to treat you, so I can. I want to be able to treat people, so I can.
I can. I, totally, irrevocably, on a heinous-crimes-level-of-conviction, can.
And I will, the lack of childhood dreams non-withstanding. Creative passions and artistic hobbies non-withstanding. Fear and self-doubt and selfishness and pride, non-withstanding. I will be a doctor because I want to help heal people. Is that good enough? It will have to be, for now.
~
In the end I had to write this because I was reminded of how much I loved fashion and design and drawing, in the past days, and so I considered/am considering doing something else, something of my old interests, before med school. Right now I brought up taking an MA in Comparative Literature (of course with a mental side comment of for what?) or an MA in Creative Writing (and you think you're good enough?) to my mom. And I want to volunteer in the Natural Sciences Research Institute in UP Diliman, in the meantime (and you think they'll have you?). Just to help remind myself to keep on track. Just because it will be better in increasing my research experience. Just because science is as fascinating as it is important. And just because, at the end of it, I still have to be able to tell that flighty 5-year-old with her non-fear and her inexperience of being able to pursue something, yes, yes, you can.
And actually, I will.
You get sad and introspective, that's what.
Like so.
Let me start with, quite simply enough, a dream. We all have them. Some of us start out with a dream of becoming an astronaut, or a fireman, or a ballerina. These sound so clear cut and evoke images quite cleanly in our heads: astronauts and bubble helmets and outer space; red fire engine trucks and slicker boots; a stage, some lights, a fluffy pink tutu. Very evenly designated, because we are young and our thoughts are powerful in their simplicity. In the moment of conception, perfect. But typically, these dreams change. They change, unless we are one of the lucky ones, and we dream of becoming rock stars, and twenty years down the road, we're still doggedly pursuing that, here on the next auditions, there on the next road trip, on a back road, in a minivan -- because the dream is that worthwhile, no matter what. Because we know that we will get there, on that rock star stadium, one day.
I didn't have any of that as a kid. Or, let me say this, again -- I never had those sort of dreams that I took seriously, whether they changed after 2nd grade or they stuck with me until dropping out of college. And I realize, now in my teenage years, that maybe that was half the problem.
I had that odd dream of becoming the president of the Philippines -- I would make everyone live in tree houses, I would sequester all the precious metals and stones of the Filipinos and I would melt it down and bury it underground to give back to nature what it was meant to be enriched with; I would commission for vines to be made as lifts for the elderly, and everyone would be tasked with massive reforestation agendas. The entire country would be green and we would live in it. I caught that early phrase, the "Pearl of the Orient" that the Philippines used to be nicknamed with, in history books. But looking around me, as a kid, I noticed the gray, the dust, the dirt, the congestion, the traffic, the disease, the messmessmess, and I thought it all looked wrong and clearly, something had to be done to become the Pearl of the Orient again. And we could all start by getting me to the presidency.
But oh, it was one of those fancies, however elaborate that dream was; there were always other occasions -- one when I wanted to be a lawyer, because it was fun talking back to people (even while sitting on my plastic baby potty chair); or a saint, because the velvet and the gold trimming I saw on the statues in church looked cool (then I found at death was necessary to advance on that career track, and I changed dreams quite earnestly.) One time, my guidance counselor in third grade sat me down for one of the routine interviews, and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up -- and I responded with, "angel."
But there was always that element of change, of nebulousness, of not being dedicated enough. I changed dreams like snap, with every new interesting thought and every novel stimulus that came along in the forms of people, books, toys, shows, songs, places. I had hobbies, but I never thought that I would do any of them as a living.
Of course, I was a kid -- but I keep on wondering why, to this day, I can't remember any dream I really held onto and believed in. It seemed that notions served as my intentions for the future, for the most part. And even if I manifested as being "good" at something -- mostly talking back, drawing, and theatrics -- I never intended to grow up to pursue them as day jobs. Maybe if I did, I could've been in telemarketing or law; illustration or earning my BFA; in theater or a clinician's office for histrionic PD. But I didn't.
Now, roughly fifteen years after that period of early childhood, I look back and wonder if there was something wrong in what I did. Or if there is something lacking in me. Of course it is our nature to want more and be disappointed, and I risk the wrath of a precocious 5 year old by being disappointed in her -- but I keep on thinking back and trying to search for clues, search for signs amidst the angels and the forests and the ridiculous throwing of hands in the air and the posing and the rapid fire chatter and the utter lack of self-consciousness -- what, what now, how?
Because, you see, right now, I am a 19 year old about to finish college. And like any young person about to experience major life transitions, I tend to be uneasy about what the future holds -- and more than that, what life is meant to be.
I'll leave the metaphysics to people more qualified to do it -- I'm talking more about the measure of success, the measure of a person, the measure of a life, the promise of eternity and what you say in response to a God who will ask you just right before, "And what have you done with the life My son ransomed for you?"
What have I done so far? I anticipate but I do not act as much. I am trying to forgive myself for this. Fine. But what can I still do after?
I've blogged multiple times about conflicting dreams and elemental forces of passions and far flung ambitions and the skewed lines toward some vanishing point of a goal. Multiple times, with generous heaps of meta thrown in for good measure. (You know the drill; I am me and this is my dream, why is this my dream, why am I asking this is my dream, why am I asking why, why am I me, why me -- etc.) And some of the trends cluster mainly around a tension: intelligence, versus ingrained tendencies. Discovery, versus creation. What I doubt, versus what I do not believe enough. Science, versus art.
And like any tension; there is a stretch, an effort, a hurt. There is a burning of your self muscles as it moves into the shapes you want it to move into, into the lengths you're trying to reach into. I will admit that I have a hard time doing science. I do not immediately draw intelligent inferences. I take time to process graphs. I shy away from mathematical functions. I would not immediately propose the scientific method to be the way we should go about doing things. And I am absolutely, absolutely horrible at consistency. But I'm interested in it, I like it, and on some days I even love it -- the feeling of knowing, the sensation of coming upon new information, the pleasure of finally, for once in your life, doing something that feels like discipline, for once in your life making sense.
And on the other hand, there is art (and I use this to mean both visual and literary art) and it is something that seems to me as easy as breathing. I knew how to draw before I knew how to read; and yet I read storybooks with fervor, I skipped recess in order to read in the library instead. I can draw for hours on end without being aware of time passing. I can mix and match clothing in ways that make people have an opinion on it, and I have amateur portfolios that I've been building since I was ten. And literature, oh words words words -- as I said, I had been an avid reader and had to be called up from the parking where my dad waited, to the front desk of the library come dismissal time, because otherwise I wouldn't leave the library on my own. I read stories and cereal boxes and magazines and brochures and information packets and subtitles and labels and comics. I wanted to read for a living (aha, a dream; I take not having a proper one back!) and I wanted to write about reading and read about writing and write about writing and read about life. But while language and literature for me was wonderful, I never had enough courage or a bohemian spirit to pursue it as a career. And while "art" for me came as easily as breathing -- it was not necessarily good art, you must keep in mind -- I never cared enough about it to practice it diligently. Never as essential as oxygen.
(Is the problem the high expectations I have of what a career should be? I don't even think of it as "career" -- more vocation. But am I right in thinking that this vocation has to be something that will leave you crippled and diminished if you don't get to do it everyday? I make perfect sense, right? A vocation is a way of life. Right? Right?) And so.
And so. I decided, sometime in college, to be a doctor.
The decision process is a long and loopy one. Even now I am discovering its side roads.
There's something about being able to know that excites me. Medicine is a science and I am forever fascinated with science even if it requires an unusual squint of my everyday perspective. Even if I have to metaphorically bend my limbs backwards into awkward shapes just to hop along, while everyone else -- for whom it comes as naturally as the first yawn on an early morning -- runs. And I am fearful and angry and obsessive and have a generally complicated relationship with disease, so I want to do be able to do something about it if I can. And lives. Lives are important, and life is important. It's an incredible gift. It's a miracle. It's God intervening in all these massive understated ways with a random lightning storm here, fewer tons of a gas there, a couple of millions of combustible material in an early universe -- and boom, life life life, against such a random backdrop of odds. There's something there, and life is beautiful and terrible and confusing, but most of all, I want to believe that it has a point, and therefore if you can extend it, extend it.
That's all very well for conviction, isn't it.
The problem is, everywhere I look, people keep on telling me that if I want to go to med school, I have to be a hundred percent sure about it. I have to have the passion, the drive, the ability, the focus. And I look inside, in the sparsely furnished attic of childhood dreams and convictions long given up, and all I think it, well, there's dust here, and notions of being brave and 5 and invincible, of being a politician or a lawyer or a performer or a divine principality, but nothing here says, you can be a doctor because you have always wanted to be a doctor. And that scares me, that lack of an early conviction. It scares me that I do not have the preponderance for it and that I have the preponderance for other things that I don't think I should pursue. It scares me that most of everyone else who ends up in medicine had a preponderance for it. And what do I have a preponderance for, on the other hand? In early adolescence I wanted to be an art teacher and live in a cottage and bake things in clay ovens and a have a forest for a backyard. And what does that even mean. I wanted to have a job being quaint -- and oh, even know with the strange shapes my college education has twisted me into, it feels as wonderful as it is silly -- but what about parents who get sick, children who are impeded by physical disabilities, intelligent, promising people who get lost in their minds and become too afraid to be sane?
What about them? I want to help treat them. I know how afraid I can be of illnesses like that, and I want to find people who are afraid and be able to go, here I am, I went to school and hell and back for this, to be here, to be able to do something about you and for the people who love you. Because I know how ridiculous the feeling of fear is, and how love sometimes feels overpowering, and yet no matter how powerful it is, nowhere near enough to make someone stop hurting. You can love and I can think. Let's do this.
And I want to treat you, even if I am afraid of what I'll forget or miss out on, even if I'm sure there are other people who know more and can do more and maybe will do a better job treating you. But I want to treat you, because I told myself before that I can, and now I'm here.
Yes.
And if I want to rephrase that for the present , it only means, I want to treat you, so I can. I want to be able to treat people, so I can.
I can. I, totally, irrevocably, on a heinous-crimes-level-of-conviction, can.
And I will, the lack of childhood dreams non-withstanding. Creative passions and artistic hobbies non-withstanding. Fear and self-doubt and selfishness and pride, non-withstanding. I will be a doctor because I want to help heal people. Is that good enough? It will have to be, for now.
~
In the end I had to write this because I was reminded of how much I loved fashion and design and drawing, in the past days, and so I considered/am considering doing something else, something of my old interests, before med school. Right now I brought up taking an MA in Comparative Literature (of course with a mental side comment of for what?) or an MA in Creative Writing (and you think you're good enough?) to my mom. And I want to volunteer in the Natural Sciences Research Institute in UP Diliman, in the meantime (and you think they'll have you?). Just to help remind myself to keep on track. Just because it will be better in increasing my research experience. Just because science is as fascinating as it is important. And just because, at the end of it, I still have to be able to tell that flighty 5-year-old with her non-fear and her inexperience of being able to pursue something, yes, yes, you can.
And actually, I will.