Global Concern

“Alright, thank you everyone and see you guys next week, same time.” I said with dread pitting at the bottom of my stomach. As if on cue, the members of the Korea Without Borders Global Concern(GC) kicked back their chairs and sprinted for the door, their bags and books already packed away 20 minutes ago. I heard one or two swearing that they’d never come back again.

Something had to be done. For the past two months since this Global Concern project was set up I have been trying desperately to make a change that I had so longed to make. If only people will listen! How is helping the foreign workers who suffer from discrimination and lack of health care worthless? Why don’t people give my cause the attention and devotion that it obviously deserves? Isn’t upholding the Universal Declaration of Human rights a worthwhile cause? A couple of weeks more like this and the Global Concerns Executive will intervene, and this project would be shut down. It was now or never.

Then it hit me. They may have feigned interest in my cause, but they were really in it because of the things they could gain from joining my GC, and I can tell you it wasn’t the fulfillment when you help others. They aren’t heartless; they knew that the cause was important. The problem was, my cause wasn’t their cause. It was something you’d look at every day and just pass by thinking ‘oh that’s too bad’. As a leader I had only been asserting my views, expecting others to think the same way I did, without considering other people’s interests. That was a poor example of leadership.

I started to see things from their perspective. I knew they all had traits that made them valuable to our team one way or another. Motivation was the key word here. The inspiration could come later. I analyzed their strengths and weaknesses, then it really came together clearly how to make them work cohesively as a team. I would give the artists jobs for publicity and awareness. I would give the musicians a concert sponsored under our GC. I would give the outspoken ones positions to lead small groups.

Things finally kicked into motion. We held our first fundraiser in January at the school community fair. We raised 300 dollars. It was a start.

A leader, then I came to realize, is not a renaissance man who can make things happen by himself and cause a following with godlike achievements. He’s just a man by himself. He stands out in the crowd because he holds a vision, the big picture in his mind that he will devote his life in order to make that big picture a reality. In most cases these visions are worthwhile, such is the case with my project, but what makes that vision come to reality, is the connection that the leader makes with his vision and the followers. His job is to give the crowd of people a ‘push’ in the right direction to start a movement that will snowball and cause the change that he had hoped to make. I will be that change.

This is actually going to be my university application essay haha. But this sums my experience up nicely.

Believe.

What we believe is what we become. I can't recall who actually said that nor can I remember who told me that. But looking back I know that's true. The image of whatever we believe, whether it be religion, a certain person, a certain model of life or society, will latch onto our minds, our soul, our body and steer us in ways unimaginable, subtly, controlling our subconsciousness and also consciousness to become whatever is that we believe.

Only I realized that too late. No, I realized it yet I didn't do anything about it.

I don't really have a role model. Not a real one anyway. I only have this image of myself that I want to be. A fictional character who, in the future, hopefully become me. A character with a broad spectrum of freinds and who is able to communicate and associate with the whole spectrum of the society. In other words, he has to be the renaissance man; he must be all rounded, multi-talented, and most of all, standing at the center of the society.

I must say it was painful to have that image rendered impossible. I only realized now that to become this character is possible, yet I have failed. The darker side(yes I could not come up with a better name) of life has drawn me in, pulled me captive until I could not wrestle myself free from them.

At the same time I know that there was no such thing as 'identity' for me. My identity was erratic; it wasn't fixed. There was this core 'dark' me that did not change much and yet most of me still swung like pendulum across the range of things that a person could become. It was fortunate that the pendulum didn't swing too far into horrible consequences. And I have to say, it was only due to some people, and one person in particular in my life recently that stopped me from swinging too far into the darkness, until the pendulum breaks and my life lost forever.

And now I must swing it back, to the light and let it swing in the light, not in the darkness.

I see the problem clearly yet I am afraid to face it. To be in the light will be to change who I am completely, give up the ways of life that I have pursued before until my life's worth of identity built lost. I will be lost, to be reforged to become someone different.

Someone unrecognizable even by myself.

It scares me. There is no doubt that I should change. But when I change the thigns will be completely different. I passed many points of no return, only to realize that they are all nothing, except the one I stand now. There is no further to go, except a cliff. To fall down it is to lose myself completely without even the slightest hope of return.

To turn back and go back is to walk through fields of glass and thorns, then claw my way through muck and shit and dirt and all disgusting things, and finally whip myself like the repentants did in the middle ages. I am afraid. Who would not be when faced with killing your current self completely in order to be reborn?

And one most desperate question persists in my mind; what would happen to us?

One person who helped me by maintaining the link between the light and darkness, one person who left me that slight chance to come back, and one person who did bring me back, although not completely. She will be facing someone completely different, if this is to go right. She would be looking at a stranger, even. How would she see me then? Would she be disappointed, approving, loving or scared, can she accept it?

I have no choice but to think best of situations and believe. The situation is more dire than ever, though it sounds very melodramatic. I must persist. I must persevere and pull through.

And I must believe that everything work out in the end.

But you see, for a person who's never had faith in anything else but himself, that is very hard.

God never looked so tempting. To believe in a higher order and being and to rest your soul on that is indeed a tantalizing option.

Can I do that?

Revealed.

First and foremost,

I'm a liar. A damned good one. I can weave words together into sentences that let me get anything that I want. Persuade, coax, tempt, tell...everything. I have built this elaborate world of lies around the closest people. It lifts me up, up from the place that I'm supposed to be around to make me look better, to shroud them in lies that mask my true self, true, disgusting, low, self. The mask, this fake facet that I made just crashed around me. Destroyed in every manner imaginable, destroyed in such a fiery spectacle that it will never, ever hope to be reconstructed.

All that's left behind is ashes and ruins. In a way, it's nice that it all ended. Now it's nothing. No more. It all went out with a bang. And I probably won't be able to build that again. I don't want to return. As feeble as it sounds, I don't want to continue this life of lies anymore. I need to rebuild my lies. It won't work like this again. It can't work like this again. I want a normal relationship with my parents. I need to get everything out of my life. I need to throw away everything unnecessary, evil, dirty, disgusting, bad, everything. At least until I become adults, I need to learn what's right and what's wrong. Not on rulebooks and law codes, but using morals and ethics that I never knew that I lacked so badly in my life. Until now.

How foolish was I to imagine that I was a whole, proper human being? I lacked so many things that humans are meant to have. The worst thing is that everybody was locked in my lies, including myself, nobody could see the true menace that I am. How dare I call myself someone worthy of love? worthy of human? worthy of life? Before I was confident, to the point of being arrogant. Now I am afraid to give myself even the smallest credit. I can't.

I need to restart. I need to rebuild my world. Not a world of lies but a world of truth. I have once built for myself an identity of masks and an identity of lies and superficial greatness to others. That needs to stop now. My identity needs to be straight as arrow and pierce the whole of my very core - it needs to show others as I am and it needs to show myself as I am. The darkness within me is building up too much - it feels as if it's consuming me. It feels as if it's leaking out of the masks that I have built, I have made... I can't continue this. I can't keep this up.

I was too foolish, too cocky to think even for once that I could be on the both sides of the fence. No humans can. Once you enter the darker side of life you can't turn back. But I need to. I feel as if I've already passed the point of no return. But I need to stop now. I need to turn around, come across the fence and stay there. Stay in the light.

I'm afraid to show my true self....I dunno how people do that. People say that to show your true self and to do so without being so afraid I must be proud and not embarassed of myself.

The very fact that I am afraid shows that I have something to hide I guess.

But some things....just some things seem as if it's not bad.....

Is it me too desensitized by the darker side or is it because i've been too westernized?

I need to change....and I wish I could see the world as my mother did.

I really do.....

Endure.

I feel like I'm being ripped apart. Time passes like a bullet when you are having fun, they say right? That ain't wrong. It's actually damn true.

It feels so bad for me to think about all this when I have so much commitments and workloads to juggle around the whole time, and I have two more weeks to keep that juggling going, then I'm off, then at least I'll have only one thing to focus on, though that IFP conference isn't going to be easy.

Right now all I can care about is you. I can't think about anything else. And it sucks that I can't spend a damn weekend with you. I'm sure you are the one who is having a hard time right now, but hon, I have to say it hasn't been exactly easy for me either. It's hard to keep up with what I want and what I have to do and most of all, parents.

I go against everything in the world these days.... I have to keep up with work and my parents which are tiring. The only support I get is you.....as sad as that sounds haha.

as time goes by you are like a drug. I need you more.

And I just learned in chemistry, you build the tolerance for the desired effects of the drug so you must take more every time, but the actual tolerance for the side effects do not increase.

I guess that's what's happening. I need more of you to survive but the withdrawal symptoms or side effects greater and greater....till I overdose lol.

What can I do? Nothing other than endure I guess.

So I will.

Choices.

As cliche as it sounds, everything is made up of choices that we make every moment. Choices can be about trivial things, like how we can choose between cereal and toast for breakfast, and also heavy choices must be made, matter of life and death, crossing the point of no return.

And I passed that point of no return. Now I am headed for a really unhappy ending or really unlikely happy ending. To which one I would go, I have no idea.

I try to tell myself that there's grim hope that the ending may not be so to the extreme; perhaps there's a 'middle path' that I may be able to follow, choose. But I know more than enough by now that this middle path is virtually nothing but an imaginary choice that we like to think that we have.

Thus the fact that I do not like to take up responsibility especially when it comes to love, the reason is quite obvious; as cowardly as it may sound, I am afraid of being hurt. That is the same with other things; the position of responsibility and power is attractive; but the higher you go, the longer the fall. So this time i decided to keep out of it, to stay off it until i'm sure.

To be honest I'm not sure whether I have given this enough thought.

But one thing's definitely sure though:

I am now committed to choice, and I'm going to uphold that. If it hurts, and at the end of all this I can already foresee a broken pieces of hearts on the floor, then so be it.

I just wish the times that we have left before are worth all that pain. Only if we had more time.

Priorities

We all have to juggle so much stuff in our lives.

That we definitely do.

We are forever dancing to and fro

between studies, friends, parents, activities,

and love.

Doesn't it hurt to know,

when your life is heading up,

with your love kindled in your heart,

that it will all go to end

to go down in a fiery crash,

all down to a storm in a teacup.

I prioritized you...

I know I know people told me

I should prioritize other things,

that feelings that come by during these years, are nothing more than transitory,

that they will all come to pass,

that they are unnecessary burdens that blind your judgment.

People call me a hopeless romantic,

a head-over-heel guy,

an idiot who cannot think straight.

I prioritized you.

I can't do anything else than but so.

I am what I am that cannot change.

As much as I would like to change that,

perhaps I should.

But I don't want to.

I prioritized you.

Sometimes I hope all the things I do are worth the effort.

Sometimes I wonder if all the things I go through are worth the whole thing....

Sometimes I wonder if I'm putting in too much effort....

am I? I don't know.....

but I do feel for you. only if things were better....

Waiting.

Warning: this was inspired during a really really overreacting situation.

Now that i look back this is complete nonsense.

I wait.

Sat on my desk,

staring at my phone,

refreshing my email,

staring at my internet page,

I wait.

I wait.

It's been 10 minutes.

She said she'll come online.

Oh wait she has tuition it's probably ending late.

I guess I'll just do more homework.

I wait.

I wait.

It's been 30 minutes.

There is no word from her.

No text message to tell me any news.

I guess she is just busy with her homework.

What if....nah.

I wait.

I wait.

It's been 1 hour.

Nothing yet.

I talk to my friends, wondering the whole time,

where could she be?

What if....no that didn't happen.

I'm overreacting.

I wait.

I wait.

It's been 2 hours.

Nothing still.

Where could she be?

She could be out with her friends...

true that.

But what if her mom found out?

That probably didn't happen.

But what if....

I wait.

I wait.

A call out to her.

The phone is in use.

Oh god. what now.

She wouldn't be using that phone to call anyone.

What could it be?

I panic.

My heart feels as if it was being gripped by someone.

Wait, a message!

She is ok. Thank god.

We are safe for another day....

when can we stop worrying?

We are hiding from the world to be together....

I am not the best boyfriend,

nor am i the best person you could ever know.

But we certainly do not deserve this.

It's time for us to unfurl our wings....

Lest it be broken or degenerate from years of neglect.