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Reading Material for a Slow Day

Hey below is a little delve inside my head, it’s messy, jumps from point to point, and I’ve realized I really don’t like to use commas or syntax correctly. But it’s me so I suppose that’s all that really matters. I’d also like to say that I realize that I come from a place of privilege and I’m only 23, so I really am not trying to tell anyone how to live their life or do anything really other than express myself I guess. Anyways enjoy, or whatever.

Self-discovery and realization is an uncommon and convoluted concept in it of itself, but when it is forced upon you by a combination of fate and self-loathing the end result isn’t always what you expect. Given I’ve had several months to sit on these ideas with very little to show for it, at least I think I know who I am right now.

Growing up I would forget the little things that make you who you are and focus on the larger image of who I wanted to be. It feels like my entire life I’ve been obsessed with creating this mantra of who I thought I needed to be without ever stopping to process what I needed to be doing in the present in that time of my life. Every step I tried to move forward I would simultaneously move backwards in a different direction. I was processing my life like a chart only moving in two dimensions with time on the x-axis and progress on the y, but obviously life is not this simple and in my experience it’s in fact damaging to treat as such. But that’s how I’ve spent my life.

I used to hold the opinion that I was a “math person”, STEM orientated and at my roots a logical thinker, trying to boil life and its events to an equation to a series of conditions that I could compile and derive an answer from. This satisfied me through most of high school, I knew my place I had schedule and order. I knew what to expect and could even somewhat anticipate the unexpected in the mundanity that is being a teenager. I wouldn’t take risks or push against the grain because it went against the larger plan, even though I didn’t really know what it was at the time. I had friends that would do the unexcepted, but even they could be described as uncontrolled variables, outliers to the otherwise same routine. I didn’t actively think this of this of course, I didn’t really have the critical thinking capacity or drive to facilitate this thought process at the time, not that I would have wanted to either, it would have disrupted my interpretation of the world I lived in.  

Back then I think my ambitions were inhibited by my inability to accept that the ideas that challenged my way of thinking were maybe the one that I should have been thinking about more so than the ones I knew I already loved. The teachings of Newton, Mendel, Darwin, and the other founding fathers of math and science were my heroes, not because of their persona, but because of the knowledge they added to the world. They could be proved and disproved, but how do you compute a poem, a book, or a way of thinking? I’m sure there are dozens of books that deal in such uncertainties (on a side note I do really need to read more often and beyond science fiction and totalitarian dystopian novels), but it wasn’t until these ideas were challenged by the scarce professor in college that I think I really took hold that maybe I wasn’t as rooted in STEM as I had thought. Well either that or a series of lackluster performances in my 200 level engineering courses stemmed from a growing apathy towards the field overall.

Getting back to the point, I had built this wall up around me, closing off the pesky thoughts of subjectivity and relativity beyond their computable sense. Why worry about the Why’s of life if my future is in the What’s and How’s. But like every cliché college student it wasn’t until a philosophy class that my wall collapsed. And like Rome, its fall was glorious, names, books, and ideas poured in that I had never heard of or rejected as just obscure subculture phenomena. But I didn’t use the knowledge at the time, like a tea it just sort of seeped in and made a home in my head (a lot of metaphors in this paragraph, sorry yeah). The rest of college continued going by, the PG to PG-13 version is available on my Instagram, but beyond the snapshots there were the struggles of identity and self-worth. For every moment of happiness, it felt there were a 100 moments of “meh”. Which is fine, that is how life is supposed to work, or so I think it is. It was the moments that were worse than “meh”, the days where it felt like there wasn’t enough energy to even complete the simplest task, that really got to me. I can remember on plenty of occasions using alcohol as a way to remedy this, which to anyone who knew me in college more often than not had a more isolating than elevating effect, but it was the only coping mechanism that I had built. I don’t like to play the victim, but sufficient to say I was a victim of my own doing, by neglecting my own emotional needs.

But it was during these days that I made the best decision of my life. I applied, interviewed, and got into the Peace Corps. I wrote a bit about it in the only other post on my blog, so check it out! It’s certified “cute” according to a few friends. But anyways, during the days (months) of college that I feel rather embarrassed about when looking back it was here that I started to form the notion that maybe I don’t have to follow the path laid directly in front of me. My choice to do Peace Corps is the most obvious evidence of this, but more so it was the internal change of mentality where I felt I was actually beginning to figure out who I was, albeit with the numerous classic Jacky D slip ups.

Skipping forward, my time in Liberia, although cut entirely too short, gave me the time clarity to live in the moment and to focus on daily goals instead of grander schemes. I could actually remember to focus on myself and be the person in the now that I dreamt of being in the future. This was incredibly hard for me. Carpe Diem, beyond being a cringey tattoo, is a great way to plan, if I could try to seize the day one day at a time then even when I failed, I would still be making progress on seizing the month and so forth. Of course, words are cheap and if you’ve noticed the url of my blog (cough Acta Non Verba), actions not words (okay I like Latin, sue me). This had always been the aspect that I had trouble succeeding in, good intentions, but at times terrible follow through. But I was given this chance to act on my own ideas and the ideas of those who taught and helped me through my life to try and actually do something positive. These were the best days of my life so far, at time the hardest, but the most rewarding.

My departure and goodbyes tore a piece of me out and still does, as I felt that I had done too little and left no meaningful impact. I think this is more of a statement on the fears I have for my overall life, but it still pushed me towards a breaking point afterwards. I had to actively combat these intrusive negative thoughts and remind myself why I do what I do. Which leaves me where I started this mess of a post, the past few months.

I was supposed to be leaving in June for Sierra Leone, a reunion with West Africa, that I longed for, but given everything happening in the world right now it is looking more and more likely that I’ll have to put any Peace Corps plans on hiatus until a brighter tomorrow. Beyond this somber note, it was in deciding to go back into Peace Corps for round two electric boogaloo that I remembered why I wanted to be a volunteer. Not because I thought I was this great person or answering a higher calling or anything silly like that, but because I knew that it was where I needed to be in my life at this time. I wasn’t planning or envisioning some far out goal, but rather acknowledging that it would make me happy and allow me to be me.

So I suppose that leaves me with the whole point of this text, I’ve screwed up so many times in my life, but at least now when I fall I know I have the self-worth to be able to pull myself up and better myself for the next time. I don’t know what will happen next, but isn’t that the fun of it?

Jacky D

Uhhh Ya’ll Mind If I Graduate?

Fifty-five years ago, my mother was born in Cebu City, Philippines. Her Parents, both Peace Corps volunteers, had decided to make it their home after working in the community for so long. They remained in the region, moving to Malaysia, where my grandfather worked as a professor for the University. These experiences and stories told to me helped instill my need to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. There was certainly an aspect of pride in my decision to apply, but more their stories made them my heroes and made me want to be a better person. Ever since I can remember, my family has reinforced and encouraged activism and helping those in need. The first time I ever participated on Earth Day I was around 7. My grandmother and my mom had taken me to a lake that was used for ice fishing during the winter. We spent the day cleaning cans, bottles and other litter left on the shores. That was my first experience volunteering and working with the environment. At the time I’m sure I found it a little tedious, but now I think very fondly of that early experience and how it made me realize that the world needs helpers. Growing up I didn’t always know what career path I wanted to follow, but I knew that whatever I did that I should be a helper as well.

Two summers ago, I traveled for the first time outside the U.S. without my family. I had decided to take part in a school-sponsored study abroad program. At first, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. In my head, I felt I needed to go somewhere foreign to me, somewhere where I would be exposed to a culture/way of living that I was completely unaccustomed to. With that in mind, I decided I wanted to go as far as possible, so I chose an engineering program in Hangzhou, China. I found that if I wanted to have new experiences I had to seek them out myself and break away from the group. Leaving the university compound, I rode my $20 bike on adventures across the mega-city until I had left the westernized center. Eventually, I found the places where the signs no longer held English subtitles, where I was truly out of my element. I loved it. The vastly different style of life helped me let go of some of my preconceived notions of what family and society should look like (though I’m sure they still slip out every so often). The experience made me realize the challenge of letting go of the norms I had taken for granted at home, but more so, it challenged me not to need them. The instances where I may question choosing the Peace Corps are now clear to me, but I as I write this I stand ready and willing with the knowledge that my experience in Liberia will help me become the person who I aspire to be.