Category Archives: Reflections

Brokenness, Changing, Mental Health, Reflections, Relationships

YasNo Queen

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So I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that my posts have been getting progressively longer. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed that as well. I have. But I assure you that it is entirely unintentional. I apologize. I’m not setting out to write 5000+ word essays, it just happens; when it reaches that length, I know that my post has veered off in ways that I hadn’t intended it to. But I usually let it, because there were important things that needed to be said. A post isn’t done until it’s done. Unfortunately, I am a wordy person. That’s unlikely to change. I hope you don’t mind. That being said, I’ll try to keep this post shorter, but I make no promises.

So my dad emailed me the other week. My mom had told him the news. I didn’t open it right away because I didn’t know how it would go. As I’ve said, I know my dad better now, but I still don’t feel like I really know him. Not wholly at least. He’s still an enigma in a number of ways. It’s hard for me to read him. When I have trouble reading someone’s reaction, I typically get somewhat nervous. I hold off on reading the email or text. I start overthinking. I work up a little bit of anxiety. My brain sort of gets locked up. I don’t do well in these types of situations in short. I’m not entirely sure what the root cause of it is. Maybe I try to overhype something or I overemphasize its importance or I psyche myself out. Whatever the case may be, this has been the way I respond to certain situations for a while now. It’s not a good habit to keep of course. But I’ve gotten noticeably better about it over the years. It comes with maturity.

In the past I would get sweaty palms and/or my heart would start beating incredibly fast. I’m naturally a sweaty person so I’m already prone to breaking out in excessive moisture as it is, but situations like this only exacerbated it. Whatever the case, that was my usual bodily response to situations that I couldn’t read. But the nervousness in my brain didn’t necessarily align with that. The thing is, I felt like my body was more nervous than my brain was. I didn’t think nervously, I only acted nervously. I’m sure there’s a link between my physical response and my mental response, but I don’t know the science behind it. So I’m not going to try to explain it. This type of reaction usually manifested itself in two scenarios: one where I was trying to talk to a girl, and one where I was trying to do a class presentation. So you may be wondering how my dad fits into either situation, I’ll get to that, just be patient. 

I was notoriously (and probably still am) bad at reading signs of interest. I never knew when people were flirting with me. It did seem to happen to me more often than I realized (in college and afterwards), so take that for what it’s worth. I never had a problem figuring out when someone was showing interest in a friend, but when it came to myself I was virtually blind. I either didn’t see what was happening at all (I would be told about it later by a friend who had observed the situation) or I belatedly realized what was happening on my own. Outwardly I used to laugh about it, joking that I had “cockblocked myself yet again,” but inwardly I used to lament, “missing another prime opportunity.” I thought about these situations quite often. After the fact, I was always able to think of better things I could’ve said or done. But never in the moment. I always told myself, “next time you’ll do better,” but that never ended up happening. When next time came along, I ended up with the same results. That’s neither here nor there though. These things happened for a reason. They weren’t meant to be. Simple as that. So I don’t regret it too much anymore. If I had developed better skills, “had better game” as it were, would better results have come of these situations? It’s possible; one can wonder.

We’ve been over this quite often, but I’ll say it again in case it hasn’t sunk in: I didn’t have much self-confidence growing up. It was a direct result of my shyness and anxiety amongst other things. My excessive shyness eventually resulted in me having inadequate people skills. It’s an interesting chicken & egg discussion whether my lack of confidence led to poor people skills or vice versa. Either way my deficiencies in both areas were entirely detrimental to my development as an adolescent. I didn’t grow into a regular boy with regular wants and needs. I grew into a creep. That’s right, you’re seeing it in print here, for the first time. I was a creep. I’ll admit that freely. While I don’t regret the end result of the aforementioned random situations, I do regret the times when I jumped into or created messy situations of my own free will. There were many in high school, and some in college (& beyond). If I had been able to read the signs better would I have been less desperate as an adolescent? Would I have been able to forestall messy situations from worsening or avoid them completely in the first place? Would I have realized that messaging someone out of the blue is creepy? I’m not sure, but I’d like to think so. If I had known who was interested beforehand I’d like to think that I wouldn’t have taken (as many) random shots in the dark.

And boy were there a lot of random shots. I don’t listen to the radio anymore, but I remember The Breakfast Club used to have a segment during their show called Shoot Your Shot. Usually they were cutesy little love stories with a pleasant, feel-good ending. But every so often there were shots from way out in left field that were quite cringey. Grown ass men calling up strangers on the radio! Weird men telling women that they liked them when the fact of the matter was they had never had a real conversation with them. If you get a “hello, who’s this?” you know you’ve most likely screwed up. You either read the situation incorrectly, or you doggedly pursued someone that was out of your league. Most people aren’t thinking about you as often as you think they are. Why would someone use their brain space to think about a random stranger on the street? That doesn’t normally happen. I know all of this now, but did I know it then? Was I really so different from those long shots? In some instances, I might’ve been even worse. I never understood why things never worked out—let’s be honest, it was mostly my fault—but I wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb. At least not when it came to love, relationships, and the like. I knew jack shit about it. But it seems like sometimes I liked to pretend that I knew. Why else would I pull up from full court and expect a basket? I was a love dope—addicted to the idea of it, but also completely uneducated in every aspect. I was a bozo.

When I messaged a girl on Facebook or something I would get so nervous that I would flip my phone over, silence it, and put it somewhere that was out of reach. Back in the AIM days, I’d do something similar. I would shoot a message, then nervously chat with someone else, while I anxiously awaited a reply. I tensed up, my anxiety spiked. My lack of self-confidence on top of that only proved to do more harm than good. But the thing is I was expecting the unexpected. Which is all fine & good, provided that what you expect is logical and realistic. That wasn’t me. My vision was corrupted by delusion. I was messaging people that I had no business messaging in the first place! That should’ve been a red flag for me. That should’ve been the demarcation. Except red flags didn’t really have a place in my worldview back then. They didn’t exist. The word “boundary” didn’t hold any meaning for me at that time. I crossed lines that shouldn’t have been crossed. But I was so self-absorbed that I didn’t even see them, no matter how obvious they were.

I never asked myself the following question sequence, and I really should have. Have I talked to this person in real life? No? Don’t message her. Yes, but it wasn’t an in-depth conversation? Don’t message her. Yes, but it was entirely school related? Don’t message her. Are you friends? No? Are you even acquaintances? Barely? Don’t message her. But I didn’t know better. My people skills were incredibly stunted back then. It wasn’t entirely my fault. In a way, I wasn’t raised right. Yes, I hold myself responsible for my actions. After all, nobody told me to do the things that I did; I made those choices on my own. But I wasn’t taught certain things as a child—nobody had told me what not to do—and it affected who I became as a young adult. There was one large problem area of my life that had not been set up well for success.

Naturally, my mental makeup in childhood was a hindrance to me in a few ways. I was a shy kid. Incredibly shy. So much so that it impeded my ability to learn in kindergarten. I didn’t talk, I didn’t raise my hand, I didn’t participate, I didn’t make friends. People thought I was special needs or that I didn’t know English. The truth was that I was raised bilingual from a young age (that unfortunately is no longer the case, and has not been for a long time). And I was and am incredibly smart. But at the tender age of five I was already afraid of saying the wrong answer. Anxiety had already planted its seed in me. It had already taken root. I remember vividly an instance when I raised my hand and didn’t get called on. The kid who did get called on ended up giving an answer that was different from mine. Whether my answer was the wrong one, his was, both or neither I don’t remember. What I do remember is focusing intently on the possibility of my answer being wrong. After that, I stopped raising my hand. I didn’t want to risk it. My fear of looking dumb was incredibly high. 

And that stayed with me for a long time. So not only was I shy, and had poor confidence, and poor people skills, but I was also extremely risk averse. In most areas of my life, but not all. I made a lot of conservative decisions growing up because it was safer that way. Safer to keep everything guarded and locked up tight. Safer not to make close friends because opening up and being vulnerable was scary. Safer not to commit to things in case they didn’t work out. And I stuck to that gameplan. For more than a decade I stuck to that gameplan. Despite all this, I did have an easier time making friends back then than I do now. Not to say that I can’t make friends or hold a conversation, but I don’t make friends because I don’t go out. And when I do, I don’t take initiative in starting conversations with new people. I’m much more of a reactive conversationalist than a proactive one. It’s an interesting contrast: young me (poor people skills, but a relatively easy time making friends) vs. old me (better people skills but spend much less time socializing). After my disastrous kindergarten year, I started to open up a bit. I didn’t start raising my hand or anything like that, but I started to talk when spoken to, and I made some friends. I still wasn’t great at it, but it was at least adequate enough where when we moved to Massachusetts when I was in 2nd grade, I came out of it fine. But then puberty hit, and things changed yet again.

That’s when things started to get rocky, although I didn’t exactly know it at the time. Puberty is a confusing time for everybody involved, let’s get that straight. It’s not just a time of transition for the kids. There’s also a period of adjustment for parents and teachers, and any adult influence in a kid’s life for that matter. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on. Kids start changing overnight. Parents and teachers don’t know which direction a kid may turn. They may think they know, but they can’t predict the future. Parents can prepare themselves for this as much as they want/can, but not everything will go according to expectation. I understand that may be scary and daunting for a parent. Puberty is when a parent starts to cede control of their kid. They start to make their own choices, and are no longer molded in your image. They are no longer the miniature version of you. They change. It is what it is. It’s something that needs to be worked through. Although the kid is changing and finding their way in the world, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t certain tools that a parent can’t still provide their kid.

My parents provided me with many tools to help me progress through life, and I’m grateful for that. But there was one thing that was missed, and I believe know that it became a large obstacle for me to navigate through for at least 15 years. My parents never talked to me about love, sex, or relationships. Never. You can only imagine how detrimental that was for me when I was trying to find my way in the world. Love is a difficult enough concept to grasp for those who have been educated about it. It’s already a case of trial & error as is. Young adolescents or people who are new to the dating scene will often ask, “how do you know if it’s real?” Or “how do you know what love is/feels like?” I don’t think there’s an exact answer. Even someone who’s in love, who’s married, or in a long-term relationship can’t quite explain the feeling. But just because the concept isn’t fully understood, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t talk about it. The talk is something that needs to happen. Without having the talk I was utterly lost. 

Before you can even start talking about the L word though, you need to have a basic understanding of dating and relationships. But even before that, you need to know about the hormonal changes that come with puberty, and about human anatomy. They teach you that in school. It’s called sex ed. Problem is, I wasn’t exposed to sex ed. Every year between 5th grade and 8th grade, my parents had taken me out of the class. That’s fine, every parent has a right to do that. In fact, it’s quite common in the Chinese Christian community. But withdrawing from it comes with the expectation that the parents have an alternative curriculum in mind. In this scenario, the parent is supposed to teach the child about sex. That didn’t happen for me. My dad tried to read me a book once for about 30 minutes. As expected, it was an extremely awkward encounter, and we never talked about it ever again. The entirety of my sex education was thus composed of a combination of porn and one quarters-worth of health class that I took in 9th grade. By that point it was already too late. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube as they say. That one quarter of correct information/education couldn’t undo the damage that had already been caused by four years of setting false expectations. I had already embarked on a path of self-destruction.

You know that lyric that goes, “looking for love in all the wrong places?” That seems to be a common theme for many young adolescents at some point or another. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s easier to figure out what you like by eliminating all the things you don’t like. Dating really is just a microcosm of life in general. You’re finding your way in both things through trial and error mostly, with the help of other people’s experiences and prior knowledge. There’s no one right answer. It varies. It means different things to different people. As such it requires taking a leap and seeing what works. But it doesn’t give you an excuse to be reckless. 

And let me tell you, boy was I reckless. I was reckless with my words and with other people’s emotions. When other parties come into play, the consequences of your recklessness increase exponentially. It’s not just about you anymore, you’re affecting other people now (most likely negatively). Actions and words have dire repercussions. As a young, horny uneducated kid none of this came into consideration. I didn’t think of the emotions and feelings of other people because they never crossed my mind. I wasn’t sympathetic or empathetic. I was focused on myself. Everything was about me, and what served me. I was a narcissist. One that hated himself, but a narcissist nonetheless. In fairness, I didn’t know any better. I wasn’t taught this stuff. You’d think that growing up with two sisters would’ve helped matters. Prevented me from becoming stunted in the sphere of romance. Made me a “bring him home to meet the parents” type of a boy, but it didn’t in the slightest. We didn’t have that type of relationship back then; we mostly kept to ourselves. I was too self-centered and inward focused to take advice from anyone else, let alone my sisters. It would’ve taken some sort of miracle for me to change my ways. I didn’t know how to treat women with respect. I didn’t know how to not stare. I had a hard time distinguishing between a girl being nice to me and a girl being interested in me. 

There’s a difference. A huge difference. It’s not as subtle as some pubescent boys seem to think, self included. It’s quite overt and obvious. But if my sole source of sex education stemmed from porn, you can see how I had a huge problem. You can see how I was unable to read into the nuance. I was set up to fail, disaster had always been imminent, lying just beyond the horizon. Subsequently, I made a ruin of a number of friendships that I had, and I also made complete strangers entirely uncomfortable. But I didn’t know. I lacked self-awareness. I didn’t know how girls were supposed to be treated. I didn’t know what was creepy and what wasn’t. It was all a mystery to me. And unfortunately I attempted to solve the mystery in all the wrong ways. In a nonsensical manner that burned bridges. I mean I learned from it. But not for another ten years at the very least. It can be argued that I didn’t learn until 2018. If you want to claim that, I won’t dispute it. Either way, it was a long ass time before I had any semblance of knowing what to do.

What it really comes down to is this: the most important thing is that there’s mutual interest. This comes before anything even gets started. Is the person you’re interested in also interested in you? If the answer is yes, you can talk. There’s a reasonable starting point from there. The degree of interest may not be reciprocated, but that’s something to think about later. If the answer is maybe, then it might be worth looking into. You need to gather more information. If the answer is no, you move on. If you’ve been told no more than once don’t circle back! It’s done. It’s not happening! The problem for young boys is that we are sometimes so lost and self-absorbed, lacking so much self-awareness that we can’t even answer the simple question of is there mutual interest. We talk ourselves into believing that there is, but we don’t actually stop to think about it. We see a girl that we think is cute, and we go for it without thinking through the ramifications. Every choice that you make has ramifications, good or bad. But we’re oftentimes too stubborn or ignorant to acknowledge them. And that’s the pinnacle of folly. Quite a number of awkward, messy, or uncomfortable situations could’ve been prevented. If we had just thought through the details beforehand. If we had just faced the facts. Some of those facts are particularly damning. If we had just laid out the situation and reviewed the particulars, a whole lot of embarrassment could’ve been avoided. Of course, one party doesn’t even have a say in the matter.

That’s really the worst part. What we did affected someone else, and they had no control over the situation whatsoever. This whole messy, awkward, disturbing turn of events didn’t have to happen. It could’ve been prevented, but our little pervy, misogynistic mindset got in the way. I feel bad for the intended recipients of these “elaborate” displays of courtship. It’s frankly embarrassing. I sincerely apologize to all women on behalf of the creeps and former creeps that used to terrorize your lives. The little boys who caused you discomfort, unease, and pain. None of you ever deserved that. You didn’t deserve those wandering eyes, or those weird messages, or those creepy phone calls, or those strange comments/conversations. We males as a gender are dastardly and crude. We’re disgusting. God gave us a brain, but we don’t use it very often. Instead we opt to think with our smaller member primarily, and our heart secondarily. Neither gives you what you deserve. You deserve better, you deserve more from us. We have let you down spectacularly. 

If there’s one thing I regret from my younger days it’s this. There’s quite a number of women I’ve made uncomfortable in my life. You know who you are. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’m sorry for being the crude person that I was. I’m sorry for being so damn creepy. I’m sorry for causing you discomfort, either with my eyes or with my words. I didn’t know any better, but that’s no excuse. Creepy behavior is creepy behavior, and there’s no justification for it. For that I’m sorry. Honestly looking back on it, I feel a delayed sense of embarrassment both for the person affected and for myself. I don’t think I was capable of feeling such embarrassment back then since I lacked self-awareness. But for the recipient of these gestures, I feel for you. Nobody wants to be hit on by a socially awkward and weird kid—regardless of gender, regardless of sexual orientation. You would just rather… not. I’ve been on the receiving end of this on occasion, and I can say that it is without a doubt an unsettling feeling. An unwanted gesture is an unwanted gesture. An uncomfortable feeling is an uncomfortable feeling. No one can change that. No one should be subjected to this type of stuff because a horny little boy didn’t know how to use his brain or know how to show interest properly. I know that I’ve learned from past experiences, and I’d like to believe that I killed that little boy in me a long time ago. That little weirdo shouldn’t exist anymore, he can’t exist. I’m trying to do better. It doesn’t require much if we’re being honest. Stop being a fucking weirdo, simple as that. Everyone craves attention sometimes, but not in this way. People are out here looking for romance, they’re not trying to sidestep creeps along the way.

Sorry to say, to the desperate boys out there, most girls want to be left alone. Don’t hit on them randomly in the gym, in class, or on the street. If you want to get to know someone, get to know them. For real. If you want her phone number, get it from her directly! Don’t get it through a third party. That my friend, is creepy/stalkerish/sociopathic behavior. It’s not okay. Talk to them like they’re real human beings, not objects. Don’t talk to them like they’re some prize to be won. Don’t talk to them like you think you’re doing them a favor. You’re not God’s gift to the world, hate to break it to you. If you hit them up first, you’re the one using up their time. Don’t be weird about it. There’s a few right ways to do it, but there’s many many more wrong ways. Take it from me. For 15+ years I went about things the wrong way. My methods weren’t all the same, they did change, but not for the better. I didn’t know what I was doing. 

Love, dating, and relationships were all a big mystery to me. The unsolvable puzzle that promised something incredible but failed to deliver. Some way, some how I lucked myself into a relationship in 2011/2012. Against all odds, I had duped someone into liking me and staying with me. But I wasn’t ready for it, and it showed. After our honeymoon phase our relationship steadily deteriorated. Whose fault was it? I’d say 85% mine. We weren’t right for each other first off. But I also hadn’t progressed far enough along as a functional human being. I wasn’t in a place where dating should’ve been anywhere on my mind, but it was all that was on it. I naively thought it was possible to love someone else while hating myself. I thought I could take care of someone else when I couldn’t even take care of myself. How’s that even remotely possible when you only think of your own wants and needs, and not those of others? I thought it was possible to be healthy enough to be in a relationship while neglecting all trauma and adversity in my life. I thought locking up the negativity, storing it away, and ignoring it would automatically make me mentally healthier. I thought that pretending that everything was okay would make things okay. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was nothing but a farce. I pretended that I was some sophisticated human being when I wasn’t. I was broken beyond repair. In the years after the breakup I blamed it for breaking me, but I was already broken before that. Long before that. But I needed someone or something to blame, because I wasn’t willing to hold myself accountable. I didn’t think about my mental health much back then, but if I had I probably would’ve deluded myself into thinking I was in a better place than I was. I was nowhere near healthy, and all of these misconceptions only made it worse. They left me rife with drama and inner turmoil.

I was a drama queen. It’s still there, although I’m better at controlling it for the most part. I’ll be honest, sometimes the inner queen does peek through nowadays. As much as things change and improve, you can’t quite take the drama out of a queen. It just doesn’t happen. What can I say? I’m a Leo. It’s in my nature. But understand this, for a long time I either refused to accept it or I didn’t see it. The drama swirled around me but it didn’t occur to me that I was its wellspring. I was the root. I caused the drama. It was only there because I created it. I birthed it. I was the sun and the drama revolved around me. It took me a long time to realize that. I used to wonder quietly why I always found myself involved with this type of bullshit. It didn’t occur to me that drama didn’t follow me, but rather I left it trailing in my wake.

Somehow that fact went way over my head. It wasn’t that I was close to drama or that drama followed me around. That wasn’t it at all. Instead I created it willfully, and let it swirl around me. Either oblivious of who it affected or unconcerned or both. I was reckless and it didn’t matter to me. I was lost in my own world. I was stuck in a story where I was the main character and no one else around me even mattered. They were all side characters that came and went in my life. This arrogant disregard for other beings led to my downfall. Not directly—it took a roundabout way—but eventually it led me to my darkest day. My darkest day only happened because I had set myself up to fail year after year after year. I was stringing along from disappointment to disappointment. And as much as I liked to believe that my life was out of my control, that I was just being railroaded along, that wasn’t really the issue nor was it the case. The issue was that I had established a false sense of identity. I had given myself false hope. I had fed myself lies for more than a decade. I had consistently created inaccurate assumptions about what a relationship was supposed to look like. This caused me to create unrealistic expectations of what would happen in certain dynamics. 

Whether it was me pursuing girls I shouldn’t have pursued, or it was reacting in a way that wasn’t warranted, or it was coming on too strong, things always found a way to fall apart. Not because fate despised me or that life was unfair (as I had thought), but because the situation had always been set up to fail from the start. Set up to fail through my error, through my ignorance, through my arrogance. But most importantly through my inability to set realistic expectations. There had always only been one likely outcome. The results always turned out the same because the process had remained the same. The same shoddy, unsatisfactory, mediocre process. I didn’t learn from my mistakes then. I just kept making the same ones over and over again, but with different people. If that’s not the definition of reckless then I don’t know what is. I played with people’s emotions because they weren’t tangible to me. Thinking of others wasn’t a concept that I grasped. It wasn’t my MO, it wasn’t in my DNA. If I didn’t spend much time thinking of other people in general, the likelihood of thinking about their emotions in specific was non-existent. I don’t know what’s worse: doing the same thing over and over again because you don’t have the wherewithal to learn from your blunders; being too stubborn to change your approach; or being so negligent that you just pick up and discard romantic interests targets victims as they come into your line of sight. I was guilty of all three because I just wasn’t as knowledgable as I thought myself to be.

I used to have a tagline on an old blog that said, “I’m a realist, not a dreamer.” But that statement couldn’t have been further from the truth. My presuppositions weren’t realistic. I foolishly just assumed that anyone would want to date me. That I was some sort of a catch. A broken person looking for someone to make him complete. How ludicrous! That’s not healthy. If you are broken, the missing pieces aren’t going to be found in a romantic connection. The missing pieces can only be found within your self. If you get into a relationship thinking that you can fix a broken person, you’re only going to be met with disappointment. That’s the biggest mistake that my ex made. She thought that she could fix me. She thought that it was her responsibility to try to, but it wasn’t. I had brought extra baggage into the relationship and it wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to us. It was a tough obstacle to overcome, and ultimately we tried and failed. But she had set herself up for failure with false expectations of her own. I was beyond repair at that point. What neither of us knew at the time was that things could and would get worse for me. I was nowhere near my darkest day. I was still six years away from finding true healing. I came into the relationship broken, I left broken, and would remain broken.

I was happily lost in my delusions though. I was blinded to the truth, and I was happily ignorant that way. It may not have been at the forefront of my mind, but thinking that I was a catch had definitely settled in comfortably, somewhere in my headspace. Somewhere unnoticeable but still prominent enough where it would greatly affect my mindset. Like I said, my sense of self was misguided and fallacious at best or deeply flawed and unfounded at worst. Warped, skewed, schizophrenic. Whatever you want to call it, it was wrong. I’ll admit that a lot of the adversity I faced in my life was as a result of my delusional thinking (both directly and indirectly). All of this should’ve been evident enough for me. The facts were laid out that way, but I refused to look at them. Finally being in a relationship after looking for so long wasn’t the turning point in my life that I thought it was. It was more of a fluke. Just a blip on my radar. A reprieve from the disorder that my love life consisted of. It was a small oasis in the desert of my soul. The years after my breakup were just as desperate and hopeless as the years prior. The workmanship was still shoddy, the process still piss-poor. 

I hadn’t worked on myself. I hadn’t improved my outlook. I had hidden my pain. I had medicated to numb the feeling. I hadn’t dealt with the breakup properly. I wasn’t capable of it. I was a runner. I always had been. I ran from my hardships, I ran from feelings of guilt, I ran from my pain. I didn’t want to deal with it because I didn’t know how. And I didn’t know how because I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t want to be hurt because I had foolishly thought that being a Christian meant that I would always have an incredibly blessed life. Some sort of utopia with no hardship, with no pain, with no suffering. That’s not realistic whatsoever. Living that way is just hoping for a pipe dream. It’s never going to happen. As I said last post, evil exists in the world. Negativity, pain, and hardship are as true to this world as heroism, positivity, and pleasantry. You can’t have the good without the bad. Adversity makes you stronger. It molds you into something better. It makes you a better version of yourself. Not accepting that tough times will come is living in denial. Denial of who you are and who you may become. The greatest version of you is still out there, waiting for you to reach out and grasp its hand. Waiting for you to embrace it. 

Embrace it you must. The good, the bad, and the ugly. You will learn from other’s experiences and you will learn from your own adversity. You have to deny your old nature in order to embrace your new. In denying who you were you must come to an understanding with it. Reflect and think on what needs to be changed. For me my duality of nature had been narcissist vs. anti-narcissist. My inflated ego prevented me from accepting advice and realizing that I needed to find an alternate method. But my low self-esteem and sense of self-worth made me feel like the world was out to get me when things inevitably went wrong. Both sides of that coin prevented me from seeing how life really is. Both sides kept me blinded to reality. My reality was not true reality. I lived a life of delusion. And I needed to break down both walls. None of the methods I was using served me in a way that was beneficial. I didn’t know better because I didn’t allow myself to be taught better. My arrogance sheltered me from the consequences of real life. It was nice in the short-term—I didn’t have to deal with grief or sorrow right away—but it stunted my growth in the long-term. Deal with your issues head-on. You’ll be better for it. That being said, I should probably email my dad back. Delaying so would only be reverting to old ways. Delaying would only be running away, and I don’t run away anymore.

Art, Reflections, Writing

Unbound

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As promised, this is a continuation of my last post. I didn’t cover all the topics that I had meant to cover. To be honest, I didn’t even touch upon the original premise of my post. But that’s okay. Here are several thousand more words for you to consume! My gift to you, free of charge. With that aside, there was more to the conversation I had with my mom than what I was able to cover last time. We didn’t just talk about how I was going to break the news to my dad (that was really only the beginning of our thirty minute conversation). We had also discussed how I felt about my decision, if I was happy, and about my writing in general.

She had made it abundantly clear that she wants to support me in my dream of becoming an author. And I appreciate that, I really do. The thing you desire most from your parents (aside from their time & attention) when you’re growing up is their support and approval. That desire doesn’t really change over time. But the way that you expect it to be expressed does. They say, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but that statement isn’t really true. Your parents do change through the years. Their demeanor will likely either soften or harden over time. Maybe they stay the same, but your perception of them changes instead. Whatever the case may be, your parents are as capable of change as you are. Fortunately for me, my parents have both softened over time.

My dad has become less aloof, and has started talking more. He doesn’t seem to be in his own head as much. My mom has become less old-school and does not think as conservatively as she used to. Her personality has softened immensely over the years. In the past she used to be more controlling, more keen on getting her way. In recent years that has changed. I feel as though a large part of that is due to me and my struggles. Not to say that my sisters haven’t also gone through shit in their lives. I know they have. I may not know what they’ve gone through, but I know that they’ve gone through something. Everyone goes through things, that’s how life works. But I think the darkness in my life has given my mom a new perspective.

Her priorities have shifted. It seems to me that growing up she was always focused on seeing us succeed, nothing wrong with that. But there also seemed to be an excessive emphasis on maintaining a certain type of reputation. Parents love to brag about their kids, especially Asian parents. I don’t think that is breaking news here. I don’t really get it, and I won’t pretend to understand. But there comes a time when a line needs to be drawn between being proud of your spawn and trying to show off to your friends. I think my mom has begun to understand this. She always had a certain image in mind for each of us, and I know that she was not-so-secretly hoping that we would fit the mold that she envisioned for us. But seeing me grow and develop for thirty years, I think she’s finally come to terms with the fact that I won’t ever fit that mold. I’m too different. So she doesn’t try so hard to do it anymore. She no longer projects her aspirations onto me.

And I love that. I was never meant to fit in a cookie cutter, much less hers. I was meant for bigger and better things. I was never cut out for science, or math, or being a businessman. I was never an inside-the-box kind of guy. I’m me, and I’m proud of me. I appreciate who I am, I appreciate where I’ve come from, and I appreciate where I’m going. I think that after a long period of denial, my mom is finally appreciating and understanding who I really am. And that’s a hard thing to do. I’m a hard person to understand. Finding who I really am had eluded me for 20+ years after all. If I couldn’t understand Justin, then how could anybody else? But without my struggles, there would be no growth. There would be no change. I never would’ve developed. I never would’ve matured. Would it have stunted my mom’s growth as well? It’s hard to say. I can’t really speak to that, I can’t claim things in other people’s lives. But it bears thinking about.

What I do know, is that without the darkness, I never would’ve seen the light. Without knowing what it’s like to be at my lowest, I never would’ve seen how incredible life is. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate life’s beauty or find the greatness that I’m destined for. In order to find hope in things, you need to know what it’s like to have no hope. When you know what it’s like to live with the absence of hope, you can better understand what hope can do for you. You better appreciate each day that you have, and you cherish each and every one. It may seem counterintuitive. When you’re at your darkest, how do you see the light? How do you find it?

It’s not as difficult to find as you might think. Everyone is stubborn in certain aspects, some more than others. Many of us lack self-awareness when we haven’t found our healing. But no matter how stubborn you are, there always comes a time when you’re at your darkest that you start to accept that things aren’t working. You start to realize that something needs to be done differently. You start to understand that what you know can’t be the only thing that guides you anymore; you start to understand that outside help/advice/knowledge is required. That is the first step on your long journey towards mental/emotional wealth. It may take you months, it may take you years when you’re at your darkest, but eventually you will understand. Eventually you will accept that you need help. Whether that comes through therapy or not is besides the point. As they say, “the first step to recovery is acceptance.” It’s admitting that you’re wrong, admitting that you’re broken. Admitting that the status quo is no longer tenable, and that things could be better. Without acceptance there is no healing. There’s no way around it. If you’re still living in denial, you haven’t yet embarked on your wonderful journey.

That is the truth. I won’t sugar coat it. In order to grow, to improve, to excel, you must find acceptance. And it starts with yourself. Self-acceptance is essential. As essential as self-worth, self-image, self-confidence. But we don’t really talk about it as much. In order to love yourself you need to accept who you are. You need to learn to be comfortable with your flaws and your shortcomings. That’s the only way you can truly work on improving those areas of your life—if you’re realistic with where you are. If you downplay or overstate your struggles, you’re just making it harder on yourself. If you downplay your weak areas then you won’t work as hard as you can to fix them because you don’t think they need fixing or improving. If you overstate your issues then you’re setting yourself up for failure, cause your tasks now seem insurmountable. Be realistic, in all things. There are things about yourself that will annoy you, like your bad habits or interests that you’re embarrassed about. But know that these are all a part of you. As much a part of you as your strengths, your skillsets, your passions. So embrace them for what they’re worth.

And they may not seem like they’re worth much to you. People don’t like to acknowledge their imperfections. But these areas of your life are worth more than you think. The negative helps you appreciate the positive more. Going through trauma, heartbreak, and adversity helps you to grow. Helps you to become a better person. Helps you to set proper goals and positions you well on your pursuit towards greatness. I say this all the time. The pain and the hardship in your life was meant to happen. I know it will hurt, but it changes you and it helps you. But only if you learn the right lessons from it. If you don’t learn from your negative experiences then what exactly did you go through them for? God wants us to learn. I believe that is one of His main priorities for our lives. For us to learn through the good and the bad. He does not cause our hardships, He is incapable of that. But I think sometimes He allows us to go through them because it’s beneficial to us. But remember that He will not allow us to be tempted more than we can bear. 

And that really is a bigger blessing than we could reasonably ask for. We go through struggles so that we can learn to do things differently, better, or more efficiently. But we will never be given more than we can handle. He knows us better than we know ourselves. There will be a way out, there always is. But it doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook. You still have to work through your issues, and you still have to try. So embrace the pain in your life, you might be able to learn something. I sure did. But it took a while. Change doesn’t happen overnight. It will take time. And you may not even learn the lesson(s) at the time when you’re going through the adversity, but you will know what it is afterwards. You can look back and say, “I went through this because _____”. There’s a reason for everything, embrace it. 

Good things can and do happen on their own, but isn’t it that much more gratifying seeing the dichotomy between the good and the bad? Things will happen to you that are beyond your control. It’s inevitable, those are the facts of life. There are parts of you that you may not like, but have a hard time changing. They may not be as much in your control as you believe. There are certain habits and behaviors that our parents teach us when we’re young. As much as we love to say that we’re not like our parents, in certain aspects we really are just like them. Some things are just so deeply ingrained within us, we couldn’t imagine being any different. But again, that’s okay. Embrace every part of you. Every little thing in your life adds up to create who you are as a whole. That’s what makes you unique, each set of circumstances is a specific conglomeration that creates you. No one else can claim that. No one else is you. Your weaknesses and your flaws are a part of you. They are what make you strong.

You went through some shit, and you survived! You came out better, you came out stronger, you came out refreshed & renewed. Isn’t that a good enough reason to embrace your hardships? It built character. You went from weak-minded to hardened and tough. You found a way to survive through the intricacies of life. You made your way out of the darkness. Be proud of who you are, be proud of where you came from, and be proud of what you’ve dealt with. You’ll be happier having done so. You faced your demons head on, and you came away with victory. You did not wither when the going got tough. Instead you endured and you came out stronger. That’s what adversity does for you. It made you stronger, it built character. You may have felt broken or weak when you were struggling through. But you made it out alive, and you’re now better equipped to take on life’s challenges. Be grateful for that. Challenges are blessings in disguise. Behind every storm cloud is a rainbow. Learn to count your blessings. Blessings don’t just appear in the good, but in the bad and the ugly as well. 

Life took a turn for the better after I started counting my blessings. I’ve become happier, more optimistic, more content. And life has also felt more fulfilling. That’s because I started dreaming and I started pursuing my dreams. I didn’t dream all that much growing up. At least not about anything realistic. There was no logical path towards what I did dream about. Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go. The options were numerous and I had trouble deciding. I was easily swayed, and as such I lacked dedication. As I grew older, my focus was on the wrong things. I found things that interested me, but I didn’t find things that I loved or was passionate about or saw myself doing for the long-term. That was a big reason why I ended up in a rut for five years. I wasn’t looking out for myself. I didn’t think I was allowed to. I thought doing what’s best for me was synonymous with being selfish. But it’s not. It’s called taking care of yourself. That’s what I learned a few years ago in my therapy sessions. I was taught how to live with myself and how to provide for myself.

Providing for yourself doesn’t just mean financially. You need to provide for yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically as well. It makes a difference. A difference that I think my mom sees in me. There’s a difference in how I behave, how I talk. I’m not the same person that I used to be. I worked on providing for myself in all aspects. I worked very hard to get to where I am now. People have told me recently that they envied my attitude. They questioned how I could remain so upbeat and carefree in the midst of tough work situations. I can tell you this: I didn’t start out that way. It took me years of therapy to train myself to have a healthy mind. It took tearing down and building up to get me to where I am today. I am a culmination of my past experiences. And I can say that although I was faking it before, I’m not faking it anymore. For the last three and a half years I’ve shown the genuine me. I stopped lying to myself and to others. I’m happy, I found joy, I found fulfillment. As a result, I feel like there’s less pressure on me now than there used to be. Part of that is because I sorted out my priorities and I stopped projecting onto other people. I stopped doing what I thought was expected of me. I stopped caring about how others perceived me. I think my mom has started to understand that as well; that’s the difference she sees in me. She doesn’t seem as laser-focused on seeing us succeed as she used to. But of course she still wants the best for us.

Every good parent wants that for their kids. She’s seen us grow and mature over the years. In some aspects we probably turned out exactly how she envisioned, in others we most definitely turned out differently. We’ve all grown up, and moved out. She’s done her job. But it doesn’t mean that she’s not going to worry anymore. She’s just going to worry differently. And I can see that change in her. As surely as I can see the change in myself. Her focus is no longer centered on what we do with our lives, but rather on whether or not we’re happy. The most telling example of the change in her mindset is something that she had told my cousin’s husband in 2020. He was looking for a new job, and was questioning whether he should switch careers and pursue something he’s passionate about, but is admittedly still learning about; or if he should take the job that paid well, where he knew what to do and was good at it, but was no longer super interested in. In short, uncharted territory versus the known world. My mom had told him to pursue the former, which is not something I would’ve expected her to say in the past.

So despite what people say about old dogs, an old dog did in fact change. She changed so much that what I expected her to say was in fact the opposite of what she did say. Her priorities and the desires she has for her kids have shifted. Her moral compass has altered slightly. Her personality is different. But that’s not to say that everything about her has changed. Some things have remained the same. Some things that are more prominent than others. One thing that has not changed much at all is something that has been a driving force for the majority of her life: fear for her loved ones. She’s always been afraid for us. She takes a cynical approach to life. More cynical than mine in certain ways if you would believe it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who know her. Growing up in Cambodia, she spent most of her formative years running away from Communists, going from country to country. She’s seen what fear can do to people. She’s felt the pain of losing loved ones, she’s seen violence, she’s felt terror in her sleeping and in her waking. She is the culmination of her past experiences.

But as a result, we don’t quite see eye to eye in certain aspects. I didn’t face the same level of hardship that she faced. I grew up in a a middle/upper middle class family, went to a good high school, lived in a cushy house. I only lived in two different towns growing up, went to three elementary schools. My life was stable. But that doesn’t mean that my struggles weren’t any less important. They were just as important in my life as her struggles were in hers. Each person has a different path in life. No two people will face exactly the same challenges. How you deal with these challenges is usually more important than what challenges you face. Process over results. Certain things are out of your control. Life has a way of setting you up for things. Nature creates you a certain way, wiring you in a way that’s unique to you. Nurture molds you into who you become later. You have no rule over nature or nurture. You work with what you’re given.

Some people are given much, some people are given little. But everyone is capable of achieving greatness regardless. You just need to put your mind to it. Greatness is defined differently by different people. It’s not the same thing for everyone. Pursuing greatness for me is writing to the best of my ability. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should seek to become a great writer. You might not be built for that. Define greatness for yourself. It’s hidden there somewhere. You just need to dig deep and find it. But know that in your search for greatness, others may get in your way. They may tell you of other pursuits, unintentionally confusing you. They may tell you what they think they know about what it is that you’re seeking. Everybody claims to be an expert on things that they don’t know about. They may give you advice that isn’t reasonable for you to follow. Be wary. People you love and respect will oftentimes give you guidance and direction out of the kindness of their heart. Their support may be well-intentioned, but be mindful. Take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt. Just because they love you and vice versa does not mean that what they’re telling you is something that you need to hear.

Case in point: some things that my mom has told me recently. I love her, I respect her, I do cherish her dearly. But I will not and cannot believe everything she says. I will not and cannot take to heart every piece of advice she gives me. I’ve learned from the past. I’ve said before that I was a mama’s boy growing up, and I’ve said before that I wasn’t super close with my dad either. Well, this dynamic caused my therapist to suggest to me that I find a male role model, because the relationship I had with my mom wasn’t necessarily healthy. Of course I didn’t want to hear it at first. But when I started to really think about it, I realized that she was correct. My mom’s opinions, advice, and thought processes had too much sway on the shaping of my world view—a world view that wasn’t entirely my own. As I distanced myself from her a bit, I could see it more clearly.

That is why there are some things that I can’t talk to her about that we used to talk about. We do not and will not talk about politics anymore. We will never agree. I’m a full-blooded liberal, her views are still firmly rooted in the conservatism that is prevalent in the Chinese church community. It has lessened over the years, but it has not gone away. I used to think along the same lines as her, but the long and the short of it is that I changed. I’ll freely admit that I led a sheltered existence up til that point. I went to college full of naivety and ignorance. I had not been exposed much to differing and/or contrasting points of view. So to say the least, my eyes were truly opened after I adjusted to college life. As I took more sociology classes—especially women’s studies classes—I realized that the way I saw the world was closed-minded and intolerant. The way I saw the world was not how I wanted to see the world, but rather the way that the church had conditioned me to think. I still have many issues and concerns about the church that I attended growing up, but I won’t voice them here. We’ll see if I ever do voice them (I had started a post in 2020 but I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish it).

Needless to say, my mom’s point of view and my point of view will never align in certain regards. It will never happen. Never. That’s the honest truth. Just for example, our stances on homosexuality, abortion, and the police are directly in conflict with each other. We’re on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum. We may move closer together over the years (I highly doubt it), but we will never be as one. And that’s perfectly okay. I may have been birthed by my mother, but I am not her clone. I am not her, and she is not me. That’s just how life turned out. I will not say that I know better than her. I will not say that my perspective is better than hers. They are just simply different. Her opinion is right to her. My opinion is right to me. That’s it. Let’s move on.

One of my mantras has been and will forever be “worry about yourself.” If someone does something that doesn’t affect you, then why waste energy thinking about it? Just move on! That’s my mentality. If my neighbors are engaged in behavior that I disagree with it, I can disagree with it. That’s within my rights. But that doesn’t give me any reason to be an asshole or to treat them differently or to even get involved. That’s not my business. They’re living their lives. I’m living mine. Let’s move on. If their behavior doesn’t harm themselves or others, then I couldn’t care less. I’m moving on. Too often, people waste energy on things that don’t have anything to do with them. Focus on yourself. Focus on your dreams and your goals. Focus on where you’re headed in life. Everything else will play out on its own. You can only control what you can control.

But it seems as though parents find it extremely difficult to worry about only themselves. They can’t help but worry about their kids. It’s a part of nature. Sometimes it can’t be helped. Parents can’t help but think a certain way about their kids. We may be full-grown adults, but we are still their kids, and therefore they might still treat us as such. You can’t fault them. They were designed to worry about us. But you can disagree with them. My mom, for all her capability, still handles me with kid gloves sometimes. She tries to shelter me from things that I’ve already been exposed to. She tries to screen certain things from me, adding a parental tint to things that come my way.

It’s not working. It’s too late! Far too late. I know she’s trying her best. I know she cares. I know that she’s genuine in her desire to support my dreams. But some of the things she says to me cannot be considered reasonable advice for me to follow. Like I said, we’re two very different people operating on two very different wavelengths. How I see the world is not the same as how she sees the world. Her parental screening is no longer effective. You can’t shelter someone once they’ve seen how depraved the world is. You can’t screen information from someone once they’ve seen humanity’s true colors. But will I try to stop her? Probably not. It’s not worth hurting someone’s feelings when their main intention is to protect you. She can say what she wants to say, that’s her right. But determining whether I want to follow it or even should follow it is mine. I will say this though: I have not been entirely honest with her about my pursuits.

I told her once in passing that I’m working on a fantasy series. But since then, I have not used that word. I have left it intentionally vague and have instead told her that I’m writing fiction. It’s not a lie… But the word fiction really doesn’t mean anything. There’s two types of writing: fiction and non-fiction. That’s as basic as it gets. Breaking fiction down further there’s speculative fiction, historical fiction, crime/mystery, romance to name a few. Speculative fiction can be further categorized into fantasy, sci-fi, horror. So for me to say that I’m writing fiction, is keeping it as broad as broad gets. But the thing is, I know how she is. Now, she’s been better about it lately. But she still manages to insert her opinion into things that I tell her that don’t require her input. She’s always been like that, there’s no changing that. But I used to listen to it. I used to take all things into consideration. But not anymore.

That’s where I differ nowadays. I know this sounds rude. I know it sounds arrogant. But there are some instances when I pay no heed at all to what my mom says. When I tell someone something in my life that excites me, I want the same level of excitement reflected back to me. Nothing more, nothing less. I think that’s a reasonable expectation. There’s three types of people in this world: those who reflect back excitement in support; those who become bitter at other’s success; and those who feel the need to give their input even if it’s irrelevant or unsolicited. The first type of person is who you seek to find. The second type of person is someone that you don’t need. The third type of person you may not be able to do a thing about.

They will say what they want to say. You can’t stop that, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I’ve been saying this for months: you can’t change other people. But you can change yourself. And you can learn to tune certain things out. That’s really the only way you can progress without confrontation and without causing unintentional hurt. But don’t get it twisted. I’m not telling you to completely ignore your parents or anything like that. I’m also not saying to stop listening to things you don’t want to hear. Listen to everyone and everything. That’s important. But learn to filter through the garbage. Learn to decipher whether bits of advice are worth applying to your life. 

Unfortunately, everything my mom has told me about writing so far has not been worthy of application. I don’t fault her intentions, and I do appreciate the support. I know I keep saying that, but I want to make this point very clear: I am not trying to sound ungrateful. Her verbal support is the only thing that I’m looking for, anything more is misleading. Her advice on this subject is not pertinent to my life. Sorry mom, I hear what you’re saying, but I will write the way that I know how. Applying what she says to my work will do nothing but put a handicap on its potential. They sometimes say that stories come to life. They morph in a way that’s unexpected to the writer. That concept seemed kinda crazy to me before I started writing, but I can see how it happens now. It doesn’t seem possible to the layman for the creator of a work to lose control of something that they are creating, but an artist knows that sometimes things turn out differently than expected. Imagination comes alive, and I am merely a humble storyteller. Who am I to limit the story based on arbitrary boundaries that I put on it? The story is for the people, and I am just its medium. I am simply pulling the ingredients from the ether and channeling my creativity and imagination. In order to do that, I must incorporate real elements with fantasy. Both are important, but realness is more so. Realness brings about relatability.

In order for readers to relate to your work, there must be some semblance of realness to it. Certain concepts must make sense when seen through our worldview. I know you’ve all been waiting for this. You’ve all been reading along wondering what the all-important takeaway from my conversation was. The thing that I wasn’t able to say last time. So I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. The biggest takeaway, but also the craziest thing that my mom told me in that conversation was to “make sure you write a good story. Don’t put violence or evil into it.” Now, this isn’t the first time that she’s said that to me. It’s actually the second. But the second time was just as crazy as the first. I don’t know what type of story she thinks I’m writing. But every fantasy story has evil in it. The contrast between good and evil is ever-present. It’s one of the main fantasy tropes. There’s always an us versus them. If there is no evil in the story, at the very least there is an antagonist, there is a villain. A story without a villain, a story without an antagonist, is not a story at all. A story without an antagonist is merely a long-winded diary entry. I’m sorry mom, but there will be evil in it. There will be violence in it. It comes with the territory.

I am writing a fantasy series. And it will be the best fantasy story that could’ve originated from my brain. I will not hold back, and I will not omit elements just to keep the story clean. A good story has no boundaries. I will not limit my writing. I will not put a cap on its potential. Evil exists in our world, and it will exist in mine. Omitting the wicked from your writing is just as detrimental as ignoring the adversity in your everyday life. Choosing to omit the vile and immoral is akin to writing half a story. Good versus evil is one of the most interesting dichotomies in life as a whole. The duality of human nature is intriguing in and of itself. If you think you can write a story without an us versus them, without an antagonist, please show me how it’s possible. I’m waiting patiently.

Every story has an opposition. An us versus them. A protagonist and an antagonist. The antagonist may not be in the form of something tangible, but it is present regardless. In romance novels, the lovers don’t just meet and get married. That’s boring. Not a story worth writing. There’s substance in between. There are a number of circumstances that prevent the lovers from being able to get together. That is your antagonist. Whether it’s an ex, fear of becoming vulnerable, keeping high expectations, or what have you. There is something or someone keeping the lovers apart. Romance isn’t about the end result. We already know how that type of story will end. So we care more about how we get to the ending. That is a story. 

That is what we’re working towards. Creating an incredible story. Detailing the winds and turns. Showcasing the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I started writing, I did so with the following intentions in mind: first & foremost I wanted to help people; second I wanted to help myself (writing is an outlet for me to keep my mind healthy); lastly I wanted to create something that I’m proud of. I wanted to write things that were relatable. Things that people could learn lessons from, not just things that people could enjoy. Cutting out the evil, the violence, the malevolent, the vile from my stories will not help me achieve any of these goals. I know that, and I won’t let anything get in the way of that. I can’t limit my writing to just flowers, rainbows, and unicorns. That’s not real life. 

Real life has the immoral, the sinful, the wicked. It has pain, hurt, and guilt. Imagine my writing without any adversity. I would have no basis for any of my posts. This blog would not exist. Cutting out anything negative is limiting the scope of my work. So let me ask you? Would you rather me write to the best of my ability? Or would you rather me skirt around everything painful just so everything you saw was pleasing to the eye? The Bible has violence. The Bible has evil. Without it, that book does not exist either. Life isn’t just about the beautiful & the serene, it is also about the nasty & the chaotic.

Now, I understand where my mom is coming from. She does not want me to allow evil into my heart. But that’s not how it works either. Life isn’t that simple. You don’t become demon-possessed just because you think dark thoughts. You don’t become unholy just because you stole something. It takes a long cycle of wrongdoing to become depraved. In order to become truly wicked you must lack morals, you must lack guilt, you must lack all accountability. That’s not me. That will never be me. My moral compass may have changed politically, but that has not stopped me from being a good person. I still know right from wrong. I still know what people should and shouldn’t do. That’s not going to change simply because I’m writing a story. That’s a naive way of thinking. Writing a story will not make me evil. But omitting all evil from my stories will not allow me to write to the best of my ability. I am a writer, but I’m looking to become an author. In order to do that my writing must be left unbound. I must allow it to flow as it wills. The story is a building, and I am its architect. The bad is just as important a cornerstone as the good. I can’t leave anything out. Otherwise I’m doing it a disservice. It’s a disservice to the story. It’s a disservice to the storyteller. And it’s a disservice to my readers. Sorry mom, but this tale will have everything you told me not to include. What can I say? I can’t help it. The story has a mind of its own.