I'm the kind of person who regards a meaningful conversation as highly as a businessman sees money. My favourite books are the ones with quiet a few conversations so remarkable that I had to highlight them every so often. My favourite movies are all Before Sunrise-type; full of conversations, either deep or small, but lacks in anything else other than two people talking. My writings--they have no action, only talks. But you should know that I'm not a good conversationalist. In fact, I hardly ever start a conversation with someone, and even if I do, it usually end up to be awkward. But I love talking to people. I love exchanging spoken words with someone, because it's like opening another window to a new world. It's interesting.
And some conversations, as rare as it seems, went so deep and honest that it became remarkable and inspired an essay. Some of them happen in a bedroom, some on top of a mountain... and some happen in a seaside chocolate bar overlooking an endless ocean.
Remember when, three--almost four--years ago, I was a college freshman with broken dreams and longing to feel okay with the way that I am? When I wrote this post and thought that I know the first thing about not knowing where to go, wishing I haven't messed up my life beyond repair?
Remember?
Well, me neither. I'd like to think it was just a phase... But maybe the truth is, what I mean by phase is the state that I was in between that time and now.
Because look at me now. Look how I still don't feel any different now. Or to be fair, how I've come back to square one.
I'm the kind of person who thinks that one should always be open for any possibilities. Theoretically, I'm an expert. I can be your go-to person to talk to about how life doesn't always go according to plans, how you could spend four years of college training to be an accountant and end up being a photographer, or how your degree in Russian lit doesn't always mean you will be a translator to some cold-blooded ex-communist men. I'd say, 'Oh, but life is so full of possibilities. What's interesting about life is that we never know what it has in store for us.' What a goddamn bullshitcliche.
The truth of the matter is, I'm not ready. I'm not ready to be the one who's in that scenario; when I'm the character instead of the observer. You see, I'm always that person who needs to be constantly reminded that: talk is easy. Because I'm awful at doing. I don't know how Aristotle had it; was he also only good at theorising and not at realising? Was he a pure philosopher who thinks but not do?
Paul Gauguin is one of the many people I'd consider a rockstar. For one, he's a legendary painter, and for that also held the curse of being a lousy lover. But I see him as someone who could do the thing that I wish I would have the courage to do someday; the thing I couldn't quiet fathom my obsession with; the thing that scares the hell out of me.
I would like to believe that, like Gauguin, it is never too late to change your vocation. There is always time, just as much as there is always something you must sacrifice for the greater good. And maybe he didn't even know it was for a greater cause--maybe he just did it. Because he wanted to. Because he could. And he'd never looked back, because he was doing the right thing for him. Because he took a chance on himself and never feel sorry for it.
I guess it says something about me when my favourite quote is someone telling the story of how a stockbroker abandoned his family to become a legendary painter who suffered of syphilis in a Pacific island. I came to the point of thinking that everyone should be as brave as he was. I thought that nobody was born to something--they can always do something about it. Because the universe is limitless.
It's my own thoughts that limit me.
It's the voices in my head that do the talking, that sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be let alone with my own thoughts, especially--and I didn't say this lightly--my 3 AM thoughts. I may be thinking and worrying too much, but... how on earth do you not do that?
