This post has been in the making for many years, I think, but I haven't had the capability, courage, or conviction to write it. Maybe I still don't. Let's see.
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Introduction
In addition to writing graduate school essays which have been forcing me to reflect on my life, passion, history, and dreams, I've been trying to spend over a year trying to be a more complete person. Someone who is less broken, with more confidence and inner strength. It's been, by far, the hardest year of my life because in addition to the ever increasing pace and intensity that comes with growing older, I've relived the hardest moments of my life to date. It's been haunting.
One school I didn't apply to was the University of California at Berkeley. They had a great question (I'm paraphrasing): what song most represents you and why? This monologue is loosely organized with that question in mind.
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"Yeah. You know technically, I'm not even really supposed to be here right now, so [forget] it. Might as well make the most of it." - Cinderella Man, Eminem
I don't know that I've ever really talked to anyone in the world about this - maybe loosely in passing, if that - but sometimes, and in many ways, I'm not really supposed to be here. I'm just lucky, for some reason a confluence of things happening in the universe conspired to bring me to this earth. This isn't as much of an exaggeration as I wish it were.
My father doesn't speak of his upbringing, ever. I hear more about his history from others who know him, and it doesn't surprise me. My father epitomizes the American dream. He grew up without much opportunity in a difficult environment. He didn't carry himself up by his bootstraps, because figuratively speaking, he didn't have boots. He made it to the US from nothing because of his intelligence yes, but more so because he's a relentlessly hard worker. He makes every other person I've ever know look like a pile of bricks. That he ever made it here is unbelievable For me, that's lucky moment number 1 - my dad found a way to do something impossible to make it to this country.
For the purposes of this story, however, my mother's story is even more compelling. In her words, she was the least likely person in her family to live outside of India. Not only was she incredibly close to my grandmother, he also had major health problems growing up. She was always sick. In fact, she told me once that she fell so ill in her twenties that doctors thought she was on her deathbed. She was so close to death, she said, the doctors took her from her bed and laid her upon the floor - as it tradition in Indian culture for someone who is expected to pass. Because of providence and the nurturing hand of my eldest aunt (who's my second mother, really) she miraculously survived.
The miracles don't end there, however. From what I've been told, for some reason or another, my parents were having trouble having a child. I don't know how long they were trying or why that was the case, but my mother said she came to her breaking point and that one night she prayed - to someone, anyone, I think - and promised that her house would always have a Christmas Tree if she had a child. I was born, and there has been a Christmas Tree up in my family's house every year since then.
Maybe this isn't a real story of struggle, but it makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world. The odds were against me ever coming into this world, from before I was even conceived. I'm not supposed to be here, but yet, I am.
This providence hasn't stopped. I wasn't supposed to be doing what I'm doing now. I'm not a terrific person, and am certainly a sinner, but I've done o-k for myself considering the circumstances. I always got along pretty well with people growing up, but I was always picked on. I was never really accepted, save for by a few. I felt pigeon-holed as the nerdy Indian kid my whole life. I was scrawny and never really got much attention from girls. I was sort of the stereotype you would expect for someone with my stats. I should have turned out differently.
But I caught a break. I changed schools in 8th grade and had a fresh start. I was able to let go of every other person's preconceived notions and I was lucky that a few people - many of which are friends of mine to this day - took a chance on a new kid from across town. It was from that moment, that I started feeling better and growing into the person I am today. If not for that, I don't know what would have happened, but I do know my life would have turned out very differently. I'm not supposed to be the person I am today, but I'm lucky and somehow, the universe conspired to make it happen.
The optimistic story that I could tell here is that I feel so lucky and that luckiness makes me feel an obligation to live in a way which honors the gift of life, blah blah, and that's 100% true. And, in any other blog post I would gush about this. But that's not this kind of post.
There's a darker side to all this. Feeling lucky to be a human on this earth brings an unwieldy pressure to do something good in the world - to live a pure and noble life, consecrated to others. This goes beyond, "with great power comes great responsibility" and "noblesse oblige." It's a crushing weight and it always makes me feel like I'm not doing enough, that I'm insufficient. I don't know if anyone else feels this way, I honestly think it's likely. I just have no idea - it's not something that comes up in polite conversation.
---
"The world's on fire, and it's more than I can handle" - World on Fire, Sarah McLachlan
This is another thing I don't really know if other people relate to, but the first 25 years of my life felt like they were marked by struggle. And all this struggle, without me even realizing it (because I internalize emotion and rarely show it outwardly around others), has made me sad, angry, and anxious.
Most pervasively, I lost a younger brother when I was coming of age and I was devastated. It made me feel guilty and angry, not only because I wasn't present for my family members when he died, or that grieving his lost has helped me find my "passion". Rather, I've been a terrible burden to live with because he was younger and he passed on my watch, and I still feel culpable...even though it's irrational.
I was always by myself as a kid, shuttling to activity to activity and I hated being alone. I had someone opt out of being my partner in the middle of a ballet workshop and I've never felt more unattractive. I've lived in a city that's been in devastating decline for several decades and I've been at the edge of slums in India. All these experiences and more are the majority of the things I remember when I look upon the first quarter century of my life.
I think I've been holding onto all of this for longer than I can remember. It's all contributed to delirious pursuit of goals while having a warped sense of esteem and confidence. It's led to a deep feeling of hope stirred with a dark tinge of fatalism. In short, all these things have made me a certain kind of crazy and have mired my memory with experiences which have made it hard to remember all the blessings I've had. It's a cage.
---
"I know I can't. But honestly, won't someone stop this train?" - Stop This Train, John Mayer
I've talked with JH quite a bit in the past few months about how our world has changed. Even 2 years ago we weren't living lives which had super serious consequences. Somewhere along the line we moved into the big leagues and the difficult things that happened were no longer trivial, they were material. We had to start dealing with real issues and the last of the veil of innocence we had was gone.
It's not going to stop, either.
---
Fast forward back to the present. As I mentioned before, I've been spending the past year or so trying to come to grips with the difficult things that have happened in my life that I've swept under the rug and have never known how to handle and have never wanted to.
I've learned at least one very important thing on what happens and how to deal with stuff like this. You have to start by letting go - of anger and the shackles you put on yourself.
Both of these things are hard. Letting go of anger takes acknowledging that despite all our agency as individuals we have no real say in what the universe brings us. It's an acceptance that we are weak and fragile. It takes some unique brand of courage that helps you move forward from things that are painful but certain and toward things that are completely unclear but perfectly possible but reliable risky. It's humbling and absolutely terrifying, all at the same time. It's faith.
What is perhaps harder, for me at least, is ridding one self of the impossible expectations that we have of ourselves. Feeling that we must be perfect, even though we are not. That accomplishing anything but what we set out to do is failure.
This too is humbling, but also a fallacy. Yes, we are fragile. Yes, we are imperfect. But we're fine just the way we are, even though this doesn't exempt us from trying hard live life with good intentions. Accepting that we are good enough, even though we are broken, is the second step of letting go. Because we are. We are good enough.
I guess I had to write this because I'm having trouble doing both. I think this will help, though.
---
Introduction
In addition to writing graduate school essays which have been forcing me to reflect on my life, passion, history, and dreams, I've been trying to spend over a year trying to be a more complete person. Someone who is less broken, with more confidence and inner strength. It's been, by far, the hardest year of my life because in addition to the ever increasing pace and intensity that comes with growing older, I've relived the hardest moments of my life to date. It's been haunting.
One school I didn't apply to was the University of California at Berkeley. They had a great question (I'm paraphrasing): what song most represents you and why? This monologue is loosely organized with that question in mind.
---
"Yeah. You know technically, I'm not even really supposed to be here right now, so [forget] it. Might as well make the most of it." - Cinderella Man, Eminem
I don't know that I've ever really talked to anyone in the world about this - maybe loosely in passing, if that - but sometimes, and in many ways, I'm not really supposed to be here. I'm just lucky, for some reason a confluence of things happening in the universe conspired to bring me to this earth. This isn't as much of an exaggeration as I wish it were.
My father doesn't speak of his upbringing, ever. I hear more about his history from others who know him, and it doesn't surprise me. My father epitomizes the American dream. He grew up without much opportunity in a difficult environment. He didn't carry himself up by his bootstraps, because figuratively speaking, he didn't have boots. He made it to the US from nothing because of his intelligence yes, but more so because he's a relentlessly hard worker. He makes every other person I've ever know look like a pile of bricks. That he ever made it here is unbelievable For me, that's lucky moment number 1 - my dad found a way to do something impossible to make it to this country.
For the purposes of this story, however, my mother's story is even more compelling. In her words, she was the least likely person in her family to live outside of India. Not only was she incredibly close to my grandmother, he also had major health problems growing up. She was always sick. In fact, she told me once that she fell so ill in her twenties that doctors thought she was on her deathbed. She was so close to death, she said, the doctors took her from her bed and laid her upon the floor - as it tradition in Indian culture for someone who is expected to pass. Because of providence and the nurturing hand of my eldest aunt (who's my second mother, really) she miraculously survived.
The miracles don't end there, however. From what I've been told, for some reason or another, my parents were having trouble having a child. I don't know how long they were trying or why that was the case, but my mother said she came to her breaking point and that one night she prayed - to someone, anyone, I think - and promised that her house would always have a Christmas Tree if she had a child. I was born, and there has been a Christmas Tree up in my family's house every year since then.
Maybe this isn't a real story of struggle, but it makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world. The odds were against me ever coming into this world, from before I was even conceived. I'm not supposed to be here, but yet, I am.
This providence hasn't stopped. I wasn't supposed to be doing what I'm doing now. I'm not a terrific person, and am certainly a sinner, but I've done o-k for myself considering the circumstances. I always got along pretty well with people growing up, but I was always picked on. I was never really accepted, save for by a few. I felt pigeon-holed as the nerdy Indian kid my whole life. I was scrawny and never really got much attention from girls. I was sort of the stereotype you would expect for someone with my stats. I should have turned out differently.
But I caught a break. I changed schools in 8th grade and had a fresh start. I was able to let go of every other person's preconceived notions and I was lucky that a few people - many of which are friends of mine to this day - took a chance on a new kid from across town. It was from that moment, that I started feeling better and growing into the person I am today. If not for that, I don't know what would have happened, but I do know my life would have turned out very differently. I'm not supposed to be the person I am today, but I'm lucky and somehow, the universe conspired to make it happen.
The optimistic story that I could tell here is that I feel so lucky and that luckiness makes me feel an obligation to live in a way which honors the gift of life, blah blah, and that's 100% true. And, in any other blog post I would gush about this. But that's not this kind of post.
There's a darker side to all this. Feeling lucky to be a human on this earth brings an unwieldy pressure to do something good in the world - to live a pure and noble life, consecrated to others. This goes beyond, "with great power comes great responsibility" and "noblesse oblige." It's a crushing weight and it always makes me feel like I'm not doing enough, that I'm insufficient. I don't know if anyone else feels this way, I honestly think it's likely. I just have no idea - it's not something that comes up in polite conversation.
---
"The world's on fire, and it's more than I can handle" - World on Fire, Sarah McLachlan
This is another thing I don't really know if other people relate to, but the first 25 years of my life felt like they were marked by struggle. And all this struggle, without me even realizing it (because I internalize emotion and rarely show it outwardly around others), has made me sad, angry, and anxious.
Most pervasively, I lost a younger brother when I was coming of age and I was devastated. It made me feel guilty and angry, not only because I wasn't present for my family members when he died, or that grieving his lost has helped me find my "passion". Rather, I've been a terrible burden to live with because he was younger and he passed on my watch, and I still feel culpable...even though it's irrational.
I was always by myself as a kid, shuttling to activity to activity and I hated being alone. I had someone opt out of being my partner in the middle of a ballet workshop and I've never felt more unattractive. I've lived in a city that's been in devastating decline for several decades and I've been at the edge of slums in India. All these experiences and more are the majority of the things I remember when I look upon the first quarter century of my life.
I think I've been holding onto all of this for longer than I can remember. It's all contributed to delirious pursuit of goals while having a warped sense of esteem and confidence. It's led to a deep feeling of hope stirred with a dark tinge of fatalism. In short, all these things have made me a certain kind of crazy and have mired my memory with experiences which have made it hard to remember all the blessings I've had. It's a cage.
---
"I know I can't. But honestly, won't someone stop this train?" - Stop This Train, John Mayer
I've talked with JH quite a bit in the past few months about how our world has changed. Even 2 years ago we weren't living lives which had super serious consequences. Somewhere along the line we moved into the big leagues and the difficult things that happened were no longer trivial, they were material. We had to start dealing with real issues and the last of the veil of innocence we had was gone.
It's not going to stop, either.
---
Fast forward back to the present. As I mentioned before, I've been spending the past year or so trying to come to grips with the difficult things that have happened in my life that I've swept under the rug and have never known how to handle and have never wanted to.
I've learned at least one very important thing on what happens and how to deal with stuff like this. You have to start by letting go - of anger and the shackles you put on yourself.
Both of these things are hard. Letting go of anger takes acknowledging that despite all our agency as individuals we have no real say in what the universe brings us. It's an acceptance that we are weak and fragile. It takes some unique brand of courage that helps you move forward from things that are painful but certain and toward things that are completely unclear but perfectly possible but reliable risky. It's humbling and absolutely terrifying, all at the same time. It's faith.
What is perhaps harder, for me at least, is ridding one self of the impossible expectations that we have of ourselves. Feeling that we must be perfect, even though we are not. That accomplishing anything but what we set out to do is failure.
This too is humbling, but also a fallacy. Yes, we are fragile. Yes, we are imperfect. But we're fine just the way we are, even though this doesn't exempt us from trying hard live life with good intentions. Accepting that we are good enough, even though we are broken, is the second step of letting go. Because we are. We are good enough.
I guess I had to write this because I'm having trouble doing both. I think this will help, though.
2 comments:
Tambebhai- I know what you mean by the feeling of a sort of acute noblesse oblige, as its one that plagues me as well. My path was very different, with (most of) the luxuries afforded to an upper middle-class white suburbanite, yet the end result is the same: a feeling that I am not putting my blessings to good enough use. Its good to be motivated to make a difference in the world, but don't skip over thankfulness and go straight to guilt. From a Christian perspective what you call 'letting go' is understanding that God does not require perfection from you, you can't buy your way into heaven with good deeds, but your sins have already been paid for with the blood of Jesus. I think this feeling of inadequacy is common to those with enough self-awareness. Just remember Psalm 34:18.
Thanks for sharing Neil--reminds me of the book of James. Sending you an email!
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