Let’s start from Z

Who doesn’t like Disney? At age six, I knew Part of Your World (Little Mermaid theme song) and A Whole New World (Aladdin theme song) by heart. When my family moved from Queenstown to Jurong, I sang these songs to impress my new friend Z at the new kindergarten I was attending. The problem?  She started talking to me when we were supposed to sit quietly while waiting for our parents to come to fetch us. The teacher made her stand at a corner as punishment. Poor Z was crying silently when her dad came to fetch her.

I like Z. She was outgoing, well-mannered and pretty, so my family liked her too. The best part was that she turned out to be my neighbor. But what about the not-so-great part?

My family had a habit of comparing me against her. Or rather, they enjoyed using her to make me feel bad about myself.

* * *

We ended up in the same primary school, where I became overweight and had short, bushy hair. On the other hand, Z remained cute and often wore her hair in two pigtails. Honestly, I was okay with my family always discussing how pretty she was – even when I was told that I looked like a giant beside her. Looking back though, I do realize a few things. I realize that my family does want me to feel bad about myself because their taunts grew increasingly cruel over the years. I also realize that Z likely saw me as a rival despite her being so much more well-liked than I was.

In general, I was doing okay in my studies but was dreadfully slow in my work. When I was ten, I had to borrow Z’s homework as I couldn’t copy down the answers from the board in time. I brought it home and after I was done copying down the answers from her homework, I dropped her a call to tell her I was heading to her place to return it (she literally lived downstairs). However, it turned out that my mom was in a sullen mood (bickered with dad) and decided that I was not allowed to step out of the house at all.

So, Z came up to my place to get her worksheet instead. She was in a pretty pink dress with her hair tied in a neat bun. My parents were delighted to see her, “hi, Z!”

“Don’t dream about borrowing anything from me again,” Z hissed at me, ignoring my parents, and stormed off.

“Why did you make her angry?” my dad demanded. But before I could explain, my mom picked up the phone to call Z’s home. My parents took turns to apologize to Z in their saccharine voices as I started crying.

“Please forgive Wan Jing, she is crying now.”

The next day in school, Z told me that my high IQ would never be enough to compensate for my lack of EQ. She also shared the whole incident with our classmates sitting around her.

* * *

Epilogue

On top of sending Z to a few enrichment classes, Z’s parents eventually transferred her to another school as they felt the previous one wasn’t good enough. She did well for her PSLE and I congratulated her mom (who told me about it when she saw me at the void deck), but she was disappointed Z did not do as well as me ( since unlike her, my family could not afford tuition).

Does it matter though? We went to the same secondary school. During that time, specific brands of calculators could be used for Maths exams, so we all used a standard calculator. My dad gave me a spare calculator but its model was not allowed for exams, so I only used it for homework and classroom practices.

Once I was going to have a Maths test, so before leaving for school I deliberately left the spare calculator at home to avoid mixing up my two calculators. My mom, who was uptight about grades but rather uninvolved in my learning, must have panicked when she saw the spare calculator on my desk shortly after, not realizing that I had already brought along with me the correct model.

That morning, as I walked rather idly from my classroom to the assembly ground, I saw that Z had just arrived at school, slightly out of breath as she was running a little late (and still had not deposited her bag in the classroom). For some reason, she was walking towards me instead of her classroom.

“I saw your mom at the bus stop. She said you are having a test today and asked me to hand you this,” Z held up my spare calculator.

“This calculator cannot be used for the exam!” I was exasperated.

A smirk formed on Z’s face.

* * * 

I grew up in a toxic environment in which unrealistic standards were imposed upon me. In closing, here are some habits to overcome perfectionism

1. Go for good enough.
2. Realize that you hurt yourself and the people around you by buying into myths of perfection.
3. Accept that you are human and so are everyone else.
4. Compare yourself to yourself.
5. Do what you think is the right thing.
6. Shape an environment of human standards around you.
Reducing or cutting out the sources that try to reinforce perfectionism in you.
Spending less time with nervously perfectionistic people.

Source [x]

* * * 

This is the first of seven stories
I intend to write for 7H, a collection of
unpleasant memories from my youth that 

I hope to get out of my system as I turn 30. 

H stands for Horcruxes,
which immortalize you
but fragment your soul.

H also stands for Hybrid, 

merging narrative text with

informational text in each piece.

Coping with Existential Crisis

In yesterday’s upload, Pewdiepie said in his video, “One day, all our consciousness will cease to exist, but until then…”

It did not bother me so much anymore.

I vaguely remember the night I had a panic attack while contemplating death three to four years ago, but I think I will never forget my fiancé’s confused face at the moment. There’s something about his eyes that always makes me weak inside. I really love my fiancé, Jun Wen. I never want to ever say goodbye. 

My friend, Han, who has two lovely kids, encouraged me to start a family soon. I told him I wasn’t ready as I was struggling with an existential crisis. I could not help feeling that it would be cruel to bring another person into existence. He said, “We started dying the day we were born and it cannot be helped.”

It seems pointless to dwell on the inevitable. Everyone, including the ones we love and us, eventually turns to dust. I confided in some friends about how much such thoughts terrified me (still do), some of their response:

Rei: I do wonder sometimes. Do I shut down like a robot?
Lex: Did something trigger these thoughts?
Des: It is normal to want to know the truth, but you should see a therapist.

Al: I think about it too and it makes me want to live life to the fullest.

I found a guy online who had posted about the same fear, tracked him down and contacted him. He said he felt embarrassed to be approached about an old post which made him cringe. He didn’t think there would be life after death but was no longer struggling with the existential crisis. Perhaps because I had used a rather flattering photo as my profile picture, but he requested a Skype video session (I am not sure why to this day). I declined.

For a few years, my fiancé had to buy food that was easy on the stomach after each panic attack. There were the frantic searches about supernatural encounters and esteemed scientists who were religious. I screamed in the shower after going to the gym. I screamed at home. I screamed at his home. I screamed at the quiet street once when I was jogging. Of course, people stared and my mom asked about it.

I would love to be able to discuss this with my family, but the conversation often got absurd. For example, my mom got very upset and offended when I mentioned that some people did not believe in any kind of afterlife.

The way the Earth supports life is a miracle. Love is glorious. How we receive inspiration is magical. Nonetheless, many wonders in life have scientific explanations. For example, you can kick your nasty decade-old addiction or achieve what is deemed impossible by altering the settings, training your mind systematically using cues and rewards, etc. (rather than assuming that it happens through divine intervention)

The tragedies and disasters that occur every day make me wonder if there is indeed a higher power. For example, we want evil criminals to be brought to justice, but does “eternal condemnation” really solve anything? For this reason, I am losing faith, I concede my mind is limited in perceiving such matters, even for a human I am not particularly intelligent. 

I had supernatural encounters when I was four. My cousin said she saw the same thing at the same place even before I told her what I saw. Other family members could “sense something amiss” too. I was teased a couple of times in school for sharing that story.

More than two decades have expired since those encounters and I have begun to doubt myself. They say that after some time, instead of having a memory of the actual incident, you are remembering the last time you recalled the original memory. My cousin denies seeing anything now. Maybe the so-called encounters were a series of really vivid dreams.

The other day I thought I saw and physically felt the texture on my fingertips and the sensation of a scab on my back, only to wake up from the dream because it did not make sense that I was staring at my own back from a third person POV (I imagined the scab in my dream). It may seem weird to share this but my point is that the perceived reality can be deceiving. Still, that works the other way too – perhaps I am so afraid I have remembered the encounters wrongly that I started believing in the fear, to the extent that I focus on evidence that supports it. While I have perceived something wrongly recently, it doesn’t mean it is something that always happens. If anything, it was an isolated incident.

Everyone is aware that we will all die someday, but most do not let it distract them so much. How do I pursue the truth? Or will my time be better spent on overcoming this fear? My fiancé advised to let the answer unravel itself. That is wise. To end off, I want to share some closing thoughts which I hope can bring you some comfort:

1. It is possible to live a long healthy life. Focus on what you can change and look forward to what the future may bring. 

2. We have the power to provide future generations the life we never had. It is a great purpose. 

3. It is definitely normal to be afraid now, but perhaps in the future, you will be all set to go. Who knows?

“The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.” Yoda

A few more quotes by Albus Dumbledore:

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”

“You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble?”

“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.”

https://www.learning-mind.com/existential-crisis/