Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Boredom and Escape

I am so bored.

Boredom is the most unpleasant feeling for me, for it's a state that's neither here nor there - a feeling of being in limbo. Normally I feel inspired and passionate (although it often doesn’t show) about everything and everyone. These past few days however, I seemed to have lost it. I attempt to write blogs about topics that interest me, but I never finish. I try to write, but after getting to the middle, I stop. I am drained, at a loss for words. I start another one and get drained again. In school, I hardly have the motivation to listen to class and socialize with people. I submit my assignments at the last minute, purposely turn up late for class, and distract myself with anything except listening to the teacher.

I just feel that everything is useless, that all I’m going through is such a waste of time. I feel that the more I learn in school, the more stupid I become. Even the profound and interesting truths I learn in school seem to just choke up my thought process. I have several great teachers this semester. But because of what I have learned from them, I feel more and more attuned to the real world and drift farther and farther away from my imagination. Oh, and how important imagination is to my life! The power of my imagination is what has always kept me going. It's what keeps me up late at night and what makes me rise from my bed in the morning. It is my most treasured skill, the thing that makes me the person that I am. And it is getting farther and farther away from my reach. What is the use of understanding the real world more thoroughly when it is at the expense of my imagination? This is probably why I am feeling like this now. Because I am stuck in the mundanity of the world - petty conversations, assignments, little teenage problems, quizzes, traffic. I have lost my sense of wonder. I detest school now because it’s making my mind mature and grow up, making it conform to the real world. Maybe that’s why I’m doing poorly in my studies, because all the knowledge I’m acquiring seem to put barriers to the freedom of my mind. My studies place frameworks, guides, and compasses that direct my imagination and my thinking to the practical and the intellectually feasible. I feel all the knowledge impedes me instead of liberating me. I feel that I’ve lost my freedom.

I am really so bored.

I want to escape right now, anywhere but here. I just can’t take it anymore. All my life I’ve taken the conventional path. I went to a Chinese Catholic school for most of my life. Then, the next logical step was to take up a conventional course in a reputable Catholic university. What’s next? The corporate world and business? I’m tired following such a linear path. When we were eating dinner a while ago with my family, my dad observed that how we arrange our things whether in the bag or on the table reflects the personality. He commented that my brothers all opted for order. I then said that I hated order and organization. I feel that it constrains me. He then said, that’s weird. You really are a free spirit.

Yes, I believe that I am a free spirit. I hate being imposed on or having to follow rules. In fact, it gives me great pleasure to break rules and do things out of the norm (as proven by my highschool and college disciplinary and academic records) That’s why I am experiencing this unease right now. Because everything feels so settled and so organized with my life right now. Everything feels so conventional and straightforward. I am living a perfectly ordinary life… and I know I am meant for something much more.

I want to do so many things right now. Things that exclude staying in school studying time-wasting subjects or ‘enlightening’ subjects that stunt my imagination. Things that exclude anticipating the results of a long test I surely failed. Things that exclude forcing myself to socialize in orgs, in classes, group dynamics, petty things that people my age often do. Things that I do not connect with. Things that I do for the sake of reaching the logical next step of my ordinary, boring life.

Sometimes I feel like I am a fish out of water which has already adapted to the land, but a fish which still yearns for the water but hasn't discovered it yet.

School is taking up so much time. Right now I just want to immerse myself in stories, whether in the form of print, television, movies, or games. I want to escape from this ordinary world, do things that will spice up my life a little bit, like travel to distant lands, try new things, get lost in a foreign land and just be alone, dwell in the realm of imagination, ponder about the mysteries of life that truly matter. I want to change my name and assume a different identity in some unknown country. I want to work, earn money then spend it like crazy. I want to draw and paint, to capture the beauty of the world on canvass. I want to write a story that will weave in a grand tapestry everything I ever loved about stories. I want to be invisible, I want to travel through time. I want to fly. As long as it is anything out of the ordinary, anything to escape this boredom.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life and my friends and family and education. I just feel that my life is such a monotonous straight line with no low points or high points. I just want the line to curve a little. I want to add a little chaotic excitement to the order of my life. I’m restless because I am so sure that I am meant for something greater or at least more interesting, and I just haven’t discovered it yet or I am prevented from seeing it because I am chained to the mundane comforts of this life.

1 comment:

chenzeyuan said...

I know how you feel. Imagination is what drives a writer. But at least you only have one more year left and after that, you are free from the clutches of your subjects and if ever, follow your dream of being a writer. At least your dream has more potential to be realized as you are really a great writer already. Some people would just spend the rest of their lives hoping and dreaming as these dreams are way out of their personal reach.