All I do on Substack is draft, intimidated by the possibility that someone will read my missives. I fear my writing will not be enough — this is something I’m still in the process of shedding. My hesitation is matched by my desire to speak and reach someone on the other side of what I say and think and feel. And so I vibrate quietly in this middle space, the tension always at this low buzzing frequency that I’ve learnt to let be.
I am no good at linear structures, either. When I write essays, I must first confront the clusterfuck of ideas, intersections, and revelations my brain struggles to word. The sense of the idea and its possibility is always way sharper in my mind than in writing or speech. And like my intuition, I can rarely ever trace how I get to anywhere I end up, even though I mostly end up in places that feel deeply, desperately true.
Rather than a sequence of linear connections, my mind operates as a web of information that expands in bursts, patterns of phenomena being rapidly organized into principles of understanding and doing. This is how I will speak to this person based on how they operate emotionally, psychologically, and socially. These behavioural features tend to indicate these values, these fears. This is how I will use Google Maps, knowing its pitfalls and limitations when it comes to cutting through HDB areas, etc. My mind is fast and brutally efficient, even if my emotions and actions are not. In that sense, it is protective, too. It wants me to feel grounded in knowledge. It wants me to feel safe.
I’ve been thinking that I’m on the autism spectrum. It’s been a few months now, toying with the possibility. From conversations and continued research, it seems increasingly possible and true. That is a revelation. That is a new framework of knowing me.
Coming to know me is the chorus of this life season, where I’m confronted with the edge of myself — who I think I am, who I say I am, who I want to be.
The main thing I’ve discovered is I don’t know me much at all. Which is not to say I have no sense of self or no core anchor. I do. I have a strong intuitive sense of my principles and values. But what I’ve discovered is that these principles and values are always structured in relation to other people and the world at large. They rarely centre my likes & dislikes, much less any notion of immutable, independent values. In other words, my values and principles are often about how other people should be treated, not how I should be treated. I often adapt them in context, because each person I come into contact with is different. Coupled with a desire to be likeable and ‘good’, my values are shaped and reshaped around the pleasure and well-being of other people.
Isn’t my self-abandonment rather egotistical? To position myself as outside of this world, not one amongst everyone but one who stands apart, trying to fix and support the world? I’ve abandoned myself not because I’m being selfless, but because I am unwilling to confront my self. And so my self comes to be made up of the pleasure and good I give to everyone else. It is driven towards becoming/ being someone who can save the world I love. That, I think, is ego. It is ego to not understand that for all the weirdness in you, for all the ways you feel misunderstood and left out, you are not special. You are of the world. Accepting your ordinariness allows you to accept the nature of life, where you must be both willing to live and willing to die.
Am I harsh with myself? I am. Despite my best attempts to release my self as a project of continual improvement, I’m still in the loop of it, trying to evaluate where I might change and finally transcend fear, delusion, and confusion. I struggle to face myself as I am, plainly, without disguise, without ascribing beautifying narratives, and see that that’s all I am. And I don’t fully accept that that — that plain self that has delusions, tics, habits, frivolities, desires, mercy, gossip, bitchiness, filth, vice, and sincerity all wrapped up in a colluding mass — is fine as it is. These are the conditions I’ve been given, through luck and effort, to look at life. To overcome my assumptions and experience love. To teach others. To fall flat on my face. Isn’t that inconvenient? Isn’t that a good place to start?
I would like to let go of becoming. All those narratives I’ve held on to about being a writer, an artist, a worldbuilder, a good person, a successful person. The fact is: I will do some good in the world. And I will also do some harm. No amount of pre-empting or planning will prepare me for all the ways I will change, all the things I will face. But I can prepare by letting go of all the things I’ve tied my identity to, all the delusions and stories. I can prepare by coming to know, clearly, what values I will use to take action (even in the face of disapproval & displeasure) and developing healthy mechanisms for re-evaluating them as needed. The self is fluid and does change. But without clear values to stand by, my actions lack integrity. The centre cannot hold through turbulent weather.
I think what I’m building is an operating system for nowness. The other day I told my friends that I was quiet quitting being Kia Yee, i.e. being ambitious and dogged about self-development. Another way of phrasing that is: I feel done living for the future. I feel done living for idealized versions of myself. I am ready to accept that I no longer need to arrive. I’ve been here all along. Now, will I finally lift my head up to look around, curious and open as to what I can learn?
I’m going to try rehearsing less, drafting less, and simply doing it. I’ve spent years figuring out how to live, so much that I’m more comfortable philosophizing and restructuring my data web over and over instead of using the hardware to do things. I want to be here. I want to be me.