growing up

fearing the unknown

this fall is my last semester of college.

i feel like i'm standing at this precipice between adulthood and childhood and being forced to choose to grow up or stay young and curious.

i no longer have as much fun in amusement parks and arcades as i used to. happiness and sadness both feel more numb to me. there's no longer as many novel experiences because i've already tried everything once.

i wonder if the next step is just to have a kid and relive the life through their eyes. if the way to stay young-minded is to see the next generation grow up.

for the longest time i thought relationships were all about me. would i be happy? why do people want me to find a partner? i don't need someone.

but then i realized at some point my parents won't be there for me anymore and my friends would have all grown up and will be busy with their kids. finding someone around my age is finding a mutual caretaker, making sure we're both not alone in this world once everyone else is gone. if we're around the same age we'll have more chance of living through a larger chunk of life together.

when i had covid in china and was sitting in the room waiting to get the CT of my lungs, i sat next to a guy screaming in pain while laying on a rolling bed. he had a nurse near him and no one else. the nurse didn't try to comfort him and i didn't know him so i didn't know what to say. in that moment i realized how much i feared the idea of suffering my last moments on my own. one day, my body's going to give out. in that moment, i'd want to say goodbye to someone. i'd want to say my last words, hear them say that they'll miss me, even if they don't mean it. i'd want to feel like someone cared and feel that in this vast universe, the years i spent on this earth were not in vain because i shared it with another soul, one that cared enough to bravely watch the final episode together, knowing that only one of us will live on to see the next season.

it's actually weird to me how little i've thought about death but how easily it can happen. when i was flying from shanghai to beijing, the airplane i went on took a sudden lounge. the flight attendant next to me fell on me and i wondered if this was it. i wondered if i should've written a will.

i now wonder if i should write one when i should write it. i wonder if it's too grim to write one too early, not knowing when it'd be too late. i wonder how often i'd have to update it to make sure it was up to date, and who i'd share it with to make sure it is properly passed on. what date i'd even set if it was a scheduled email, how many times i'd move it back if i guessed incorrectly, how many different contacts i'd add to that email. it's weird how mysterious death is, a dynamic but inevitable expiration date.

throughout high school and college i've found the idea of religion ridiculous. i felt like believing in the bible was synonymous to devoutly believing in harry potter books. watching the book of mormon was just hilarious because it felt so redeeming seeing religion portrayed so ridiculously. but looking back it is nice that religion is an active place to think and talk about death. there's not many places like that.

last semester i read this book god, human, animal, machine and it had me continuously thinking about how humans are gods to ai because we created ai. ai's version of the bible is basically all of the internet. it's weird how evolution is moving to the digital world, and history is moving in parallel in online worlds.

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i'm a bit scared of graduating because i'm scared of floating through time without an end point like there was for high school and college. many of my friends who have graduated are assimilating into their full-time jobs and the majority of them aren't enjoying it very much. they miss school already.

part of me wants to keep running away, mindlessly doing a master's or phD just to extend my time as a student. i don't want to lose the curiosity, the fun in learning, the freedom to explore as a student, but i know that clinging onto it for no good reason isn't a solution.

i wonder if we're just living in a liminal space between now and world war III, and if i should be cherishing this pre-war time more. if i should be living it up, not knowing when it'll settle down in peace again. whether i should be bracing myself for the uncertain future rather than planning too far ahead into the void. if the stable times of my parents' generation are over and we're in a new era with a new strategy needed. i wonder if i should learn a new language, whether i'll end up in another country by the time i'm 35, whether the world will even exist long enough to see my kids live to be my age.

losing control is frightening. everything has been so easy to control in my life so far. grades, jobs, friends. now it feels like everything's slipping through. i feel like i'm stuck in that moment in tetris when the pieces have started piling up. no matter how hard i try it's too much to clear. they're all coming too fast and there's no time left.

pessimism feels too easy, so i instead try to be an optimist. i search for optimism in history, only to realize learning more makes me more aware of what i don't know, and exposes me to more of the parts that may have been better off hidden.

“whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them"

—hamlet, ‘to be or not to be’

i'm not really sure where i'm going with this piece but i'd love any hope in feeling less nihilistic and confused. it feels like every year i reach this point when i'm in my mind for too long and then it goes away when i distract myself. i’m hopeful for a solution better than distraction.