The Past (2 years)
September 1, 2010
I feel that the past two years have been a pivotal time of personal development in my life. I feel content in that I know within myself that I have developed into the person I’d always hoped to be. But 2 years ago, I hadn’t found that identity quite yet, and it’s through my experiences both at home and abroad that I have hastily matured into adulthood.
It’s strange saying that, because rarely before have I considered myself as an adult, and even now I am still hesitant of the once grand moniker. I don’t know what qualifies a person as an “adult” besides the obvious legal requisite of being above 18 years old, but I reckon that maybe I have hit that nebulous mark of maturation.
I guess China has played a big part in my maturation in that it has provided a mirror in which reflects the differences between life abroad and life at home. Being an active participant in Chinese culture has, I think, allowed me to better understand my own identity and everything that had previously come to define it in Australia and why. In which case, I have realised that I don’t necessarily have to accept what is good, fine and acceptable anywhere as being good, fine and acceptable. When you’re given a point of comparison it’s easier to see more clearly through the social and cultural fabric of the world. That is, you can see things for what they really may well be. From this, I think that the past 2 years have genuinely been an experience of letting go of the constraints which have become apparent and through that finding and nurturing a newer self.
In Shanghai, one night a year and a half ago, it all came back to me. I was vividly reminded of how taking the bus, playing video games, having longer hair, wearing glasses, not binge drinking, wanting to actually make something of my life (as opposed to adopting a devil-may-care attitude) and trying to act intelligently and speak with articulation would all result in a sort of social scorn. These were items of leverage, tools to demean me as an individual. Living in China made me realise that I can in fact refuse these things, that I can go to a different place, a place where these variables do not make logical sense within the social concious, and in such a place I can flourish and evolve. Right there and then, I made an agreement with myself to refuse the constraints of the commodified world which push us towards blind slavery.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure about my convictions. Perhaps I was just fraught with anxiety in a rather turbulent time, making me think so foolishly and all. However, it did seem to me that this moment of spiritual enlightenment did hold some weight, so going back to Australia was great in that I could see if my convictions held any credence. And to my surprise they did.
It took me a while, but after a few months into Australian life, everything that had come to the forefront of my mind in Shanghai were evidently apparent. And so, based on my agreement, I refused them. Everyone in my life who had previously held back my potential I cut contact with. When confronted with people who judged me on some assumed social make-up, I tried to spin their critique the other way and make their comments transparent. Did I lose a lot of friends? Yes I did. But something within me had changed, I was fast becoming intelligent. I had found something which made me totally content and for no one else would I ever let this go. There was the person I had wanted to be and I was walking towards it.
The byproduct of all this is my writing, namely the writing on my games blog. My blog has been an outlet for me to creatively pursue my ambitions and this makes it a cornerstone in this new found self. I would also attribute my then and current girlfriend whom also acted as an avenue into Chinese culture.
So now I’m back in China, I’ve made the realisation, made the comparison and can firmly say that I feel spiritually free here. I want to stay here for some time since the things I have attributed to my change survive better in this habitat. More than ever, I feel detached from this previous social nonsense. Actually I am only reminded of the fact when I occasionally peer into the world of Facebook once a month or so, as I did before I wrote this piece. I’m quite pleased with where I’ve come, which I guess can be considered some form of adulthood.
Posted in Life | Comments (0)
Related Entries
- And If You Want it, Just Come and Get it, For Crying Out Loud!
- Not Feeling Very Proactive Today
- With a little help from my friends
- My Happiness
- Updates and Chinese New Year
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. 
TrackBack URL
Leave a comment
For your consideration, a blog about video games as written by myself:
