Below is a wee snippet of my Master’s thesis I submitted a couple of years ago. During these very challenging couple of years completing my project for the submission, I was confronted with a series of very emotional changes in myself. Now by changes, I do not mean physically, but more changes with some very important relationships in my life – below is a recollection of my relationship with myself.
I cannot speak for the rest of the world but I never considered the thoughts and feelings I had towards myself were essentially a relationship, and at the time a very toxic one, I might add. I found myself falling deep into my own self-emotional manipulation. These twinklings of thought soon turned into balls of fire. I became increasingly more aware of myself (well, I had it thrusted upon me), I truly thought I had my coming of age a couple of years prior when I was blessed enough to go on a semester exchange abroad.
It was the epiphany below that revealed the fact that we need to allow ourselves to re-invent, re-imagine and re-sync ourselves whenever our soul needs it – at any point of our precious lifespan. I fell into a trance of daydreaming where I would just subconsciously remove myself from the current reality and sink myself into a euphoria of fantasy.
Here is the snippet where I documented my first discovery of my trances:
“During my walk, I glance at the birds, the swaying trees, the angry man on the phone, and the chirpy old couple strumming their banjo dancing to their own tunes. Then I abandon the now and imagine what was before. Where did they come from? Where are they going? This was a subconscious means to piece together my own story, where I fit in this busy metropolis city I have adopted as my home. History is said to instill a sense of citizenship, it urges us to question and to ask, so I question and ask. If life was a movie, this would be the best part.
The reflection of what was before us. This is my spectacle, my curious phenomenon. This enigma has helped resolve the dilemma of not being brown enough to fit in my culture or not white enough to fit into my adopted city. My entire life, I have felt so ‘in-between’. In-between two realities and trying to co-exist, to please both. Being a mixed-race coloured gay Christian man has placed me in these co-existing realities. Stepping into my own little fantasy where the world around me is in my grasp and I can puppeteer it to do what I please. Whether it be a flash mob dance routine on High street or a solo spotlight performance by yours truly on the balcony protruding out of the Roxy. These little trips into my own ‘fantastic’ has pulled me out of symptoms of depression and anxiety, as the weight of my burdens just lifts off my shoulders and is tucked away under my feet momentarily. Often overwhelmed with adrenalin and glee after indulging myself in a movie musical or even the newest show at the Civic, I arrive at a trance where I am fixed in on the fantastic. This manifestation of my reality, investing my senses creates a Bi-location where my heart’s desire can come true. Channeling my restlessness and uncertainties of my reality into the fantastic has been a coping mechanism, averting from spiraling into a negative abyss.”
Reflecting back on this very critical point in my life, where I was thrusted into the abyss of self-reflection has been rather therapeutic. Over the next couple of posts, I might delve deeper into this (unless I am thrown by something else and I have an itching urge to document it) and share more of the memoirs from my thesis.
If you would like to read or spruce through my thesis, check it out here!
https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/12638
Until next time x
Ceylon's Finest 