Growing Pains
As I grow older, I am slowly realizing that somewhere along the way, I lost the childlike sense of wonder, the feeling of novelty. Everything feels like it has lost the magic behind it. I miss being overwhelmed with the feeling of awe just for simple moments in life. Catching your favorite show on television and calling your friend on the phone to talk about it. Or the first time I got my pocket money and realized I could get McDonald's with it, anytime I wanted, without anyone finding out. I’m not sure how old I was when I did this but I wrote a letter for Santa Claus, with the address being the North Pole, asking for who knows what. Maybe I was just a naive kid, but I am pretty sure I spent one of my birthday wishes, around 14 years old, wishing I was better at League of Legends. Another kid moment I hope is universal is after watching a cool movie like Star Wars and spending the next day trying to move objects with the force. I would focus all my mental energy on imagining the object moving. Accompanied by unwavering confidence and a wholehearted belief that if I tried hard enough, it would happen. It was just so much easier to find enjoyment out of anything. I hope these experiences are universal and relatable, or I just exposed how dumb the kid version of myself was.
Other than the lost sense of novelty that every experience contained, I noticed myself becoming incredibly jaded over the years. My perception became tainted with pessimism, with an underlying assumption that nothing good happens and that if it does, it was the exception anyways. I remember as a kid I had a strong sense of right and wrong. I would read books where the main character was wronged and it would actually keep me up at night. Especially if the villain ends up winning, I would be filled with rage and would not stop reading until the protagonist got some sort of justice. Now, when a book has a happy ending, it feels unrealistic to me. Somewhere along the way, I had internalized that happy endings were only present in fiction for a reason. At the same time, everything that was deemed valuable and worthy such as material wealth or power seemed paradoxically empty and soul-crushing. Success to me seemed like a zero-sum game where people competed to exploit the most vulnerable. It’s not hard to feel that injustice is the norm when all you have to do is go outside on a Sunday and watch police harass minorities consistently (in Hong Kong).
Everything I previously mentioned and more private situations that I shouldn’t share have cumulated into this invisible barrier that prevents me from getting the most from each unique experience. This existential pressure is omnipresent. Its tendrils embedded themselves so deeply it affects the enjoyment of everything I do. I can be in the middle of laughing out loud when my brain would remind me that I don’t have my shit together and that whatever I was laughing at wasn’t that funny anyways. It is suffocating and alienating me from being present in my own body. It makes the day-to-day activities that are required to survive to feel devoid of meaning. Every little thing seems to take an increasing amount of effort. Small talk just to maintain my relationships feel extra draining. This invisible bell jar affects more than just my present. It has a retroactive effect that contaminates all my past happy memories. It makes me question if it was genuine or just a mask I was putting on to cope. Being so excited for tomorrow that I can not fall asleep. I miss the feeling of being excited to wake up in the morning, always having the next thing to look forward to. Nowadays I procrastinate falling asleep due to the dread of the coming day. I feel physically exhausted but my mind’s just racing, going through a checklist of all the things I was supposed to do yesterday.
I can’t get over the feeling that this is it. It feels like I am in the middle of watching a 12-season TV show, but everyone knows that the best seasons are the first three. You can skip the last season as well and probably be better off for it (Shoutout Game of Thrones). For the rest of my life, I will now condemn myself to a routine that will define me. I will now roll the boulder up the hill daily, to see whether my mind or body will be ground down into dust first. Until I can accept the weight of the shackles or learn how to love it in a twisted way. Lastly, I have to acknowledge that I am already absurdly privileged, and can not even fathom the pressures that most people have to deal with. I am literally writing this from the castle I live in when Hong Kong is notorious for its cage homes. The fact that I know I already have many advantages but still struggle to be content only adds fuel to the fire.
Hopefully, I can look back in 10 years at what I wrote today, have a laugh about it, and realize that how I was feeling was only temporary. That’s what I tell myself in the mirror at least, to get through the day sometimes. I guess that is what being an adult means, confronting these pressures daily but still juggling all your responsibilities.
Side note: This video inspired the first paragraph lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsj0mY13t9s
