I’m off to Shanghai in — I was going to write a couple weeks, but that would clearly be incorrect — in three days. I am awaiting this with much excitement because I have many plans.
These past two-ish years, I have been conditioning myself to stop feeling. This happened one day via text message when my friend informed me how easy it is to be autonomous if you live without love. I believed him because it seemed rational. I decided to cut off all circulation of feeling to my brain. Thus, my emotional level nowadays is that of a robot. I do very similar things every day without concern for their meaning. I have become numb to life; it is rare that I wake up and everything is not in a haze.
I have also realized that I have no ambition because I have been so used to getting by on pure luck. Somehow, I drift by very easily. The result of drifting is that I don’t have goals — for some reason, my only wish is to live comfortably and not be concerned with anything. I suppose this also stems from my general lack of feeling.
This summer in Shanghai, I would like to change. I want to open up my heart. I don’t want to be cold and heartless. I want to have many adventures, meet many new people, and experience a new culture. This is opportunity. If I don’t seize it now…what a waste!
Along with that, I would like to find what it is I would like to be doing in the future. I don’t expect to come back from the summer knowing precisely what kind of career I want. But I do expect to be closer to realizing what my goals for myself and for my future are.
This sounds like a lot of white-person-discovers-oneself bs — and maybe it is. But it’s also something I have been rejecting for way too long. It’s time to embrace (my white ancestry?) the world and all that is in it, instead of scowling, arms crossed.
And so, I am very excited to go to China. I hope to have many adventures. I hope to fall in love. I hope to discover a new culture. I hope to take chances and do one thing every day which scares me.
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Today, on a trip to Walden Pond, I took another route into the woods, up a tall hill. At the top of the hill was another smaller hill. I climbed that as well. It was very hot. The whole area was covered in tall grass and weeds and the sun beat very heavily on the not wooded space. On top of the smaller hill was a well. It reminded me very much of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, though I really hope my life won’t turn into a Murakami novel anytime soon.
