New Beginning.
January 21, 2017 Los Angeles County Museum of Arts
I am officially restarting with Tumblr, as I have finally decided to share publicly my moments on the blog once again.
I started way back in 2010 when I was in my sophomore in high school. I was still using my other page etsnshne that now has turned into a re-blogging site of erratic posts from numerous profound and extraordinary bloggers out there. Of course, all the reposts on the mentioned page still reflect my inner thoughts and feelings I want to convey to people sincerely. Unfortunately, I had to stop blogging as I had reached partially the “climax” of my life’s story. But I considered multiple reasons and excuses on why I had stopped doing so. Perhaps, because I got worn out of typing and telling stories on a site that I knew for a fact gets to be read by no one. And also because my grammar was immensely poor—it still is. I mean, let’s be real. I am no native so, pardon if you happen to see any mistakes as you proceed reading the following sentences. Yet, I still treasure those hysterical entries of mine—a proof of my advancement to this contemporary day compared to when I was about 13.
But most certainly, I thought of three main reasons why I actually stopped sharing my personal experiences with the public. I felt immense fear. I was frightened—frightened of my changing self, the monstrous media, and the potential prejudices of others.
So much had happened these past few years in my life. I got busy with school and life in general. As you may not know, I—along with my dear brother—moved to the New World about 2 years ago. This was no decision of mine nor of my brother, but of our parents. They reasoned, “it’s for the better.” Growing up Asian and in a really traditional family, my brother and I as kids had no power to defy the wishes of our parents at all unless we are stable enough to be kicked outside of the house and live our own. Of course, that was not the case during that period of time, so I had decided to stop attending my university in the Philippines and re-start life from real scratch. In all honesty, I did not mind for I live by the cliché saying parents know best. Gladly, after years of getting ourselves adjusted to the new country besides working like any other American young adults, both my brother (Karl) and I are also finishing schools at the same time: I’m in my sophomore year in college (again) and he’s graduating high school soon.
Of course, it was given that changing the environment also meant changing the people around—new place, new faces. And in the beginning, I found myself in a very difficult situation. Coping is no joke. Because I am an introvert (so I had been told after I took a temperament test in one of the workshops I participated in school), I don’t really like partaking into people’s conversations unless I am being asked directly of my opinion, sure. But no. I do not like jumping-in, which then to others seems as if I am a very reserved and quiet person (I am not. I can really be annoying). And trust me, it’s not that I do not want to hang out with people. I adore being surrounded by people and I love socializing. I am somehow just bad at it. Nevertheless, I guess it just takes time for me to blend in and be with the crowd. Contrariwise, I am no doubt affable and considerate. Yet, I found myself in a difficulty of making friends in such a diverse state especially in here California. I was having a culture shock and it was overwhelming. It took me a year to finally open up my wings and get out of my cave. But more so, having many unexpected and unwanted episodes occurred in my life after moving to the New World, I lost confidence. So, I hid. For a year or two, I was on hiatus from my family and “friends” on social media.
It was during this time, however, that I also happened to realize that SNS is not everything. It is something, yes, but not everything. At some point, it makes people’s lives miserable. It changes peoples’ views on egotism and foolishness and interchanges those words with beautiful, goddess, and cool. Also, the rare-but-existing “fake news” concerns the public now and the exaggeration of simple circumstances get many folks to react briefly and ragingly without digging facts and hearing sides. Although, I have accepted that self-doubts can come across from time to time to anyone in this world and only through “likes” and comments individuals can get their own sense and form of validation. Nonetheless, social media adds enormous pressure to the individuals. Indeed, it is place where people already have judged & misjudged others base on the profiles perfectly advertised. So much façade.
Of course, the opinion of others cannot be neglected. Our generation has been molded as people of the society that are entitled to freedom of everything including speech. Yet, this right has been misinterpreted and abused often by the many people who let anger and hatred blind reason. At the end of the day, it is true that the citizens of the world have become unstoppable and frankly, quite scary. And as I admit that my generation has been nurtured and cherished as growing poor students—including myself—ignorance has become really a bliss.
In my case, I have come to the conclusion that I finally overcame my sense of self-scarcity and confinement. Having been feeding my self-ego through posts and likes in my SNS accounts these past recent months, I realized one thing: that life will always be imperfect no matter what and that people (including myself) will always feel imperfect in so many ways anytime. People will always need some sort of validation and some “things” to feed their egos. And I think that this should be perfectly normal. I have accepted this idea and thus, I decided to look compliments as some sort of candy to make me improve myself more and my ego to obtain that little confidence despite knowing my flaws. These two combined, I think, is an encouragement for me to do better each day. I guess, sometimes it is okay to be in the illusion of something as long as we know how to go back and give importance to reality again.
Ultimately, despite my strong realizations and aforementioned opinions, I am back with the netizens. This time, however, I will not let the aforesaid reasons that held me back in believing fully in myself before affect me now once again. Indeed, I was soul-searching the previous years. But now, I have finally found my soul—although still weak and growing, but definitely have been found by me which is all that matters. So, I am not afraid of exposing myself anymore. I shouldn’t be. And I will try not to if I suddenly feel otherwise. Although, it is good to remind myself that exposure has its own restrictions to some extent. Nonetheless, even though ego can mostly be negative as it is usually perceived, the ego can be good if the individual knows how to manipulate it.
This blog will be with a purpose of sharing my stories—not that people will take an interest—to advertise the places I have been to, things I find interesting, a little bit of my personal moments and thoughts, perhaps, including photos and/or videos (if present) too. Doing this for myself will satisfy me greatly knowing that I will have stories to laugh and cherish in the future as I look back.
Thanks for the patience in reading this.
xo,
-Y.
