Musing #1: Putting on the Googly Eyes

Thanks for the Gr8 Memories

I was assisting my love with his DJ set for a Grade 8 graduation about 3 weeks ago and I saw all these kids a decade younger than me (although if you look at me, I could pass for their age) dressed up to the nines. They were singing along to songs I uploaded on my old iPod Nano, which just warmed my heart. My love and I looked at each other and shared a look knowing how happy we were to make these kids’ night. I suddenly had a grainy movie reeling in my head, thinking back to my graduation, my green elastics in my braces smiling a little too big, fumbling in my first pair of heels, trying to be older than I was in my silver strapless dress.

It made me realize that I’m an adult now, 23 going on 24

Cue the song below:

I live in two worlds - one where I’m a child and then the other where I am an adult, and I don’t really like myself when I bring out the inner child, that’s in private with my family and with my boyfriend, or even just alone. I have problems as everyone does, but I realized how much I made myself and felt like everyone else was suffering because of me, I’ve let myself become jaded and was not enjoying life for a bit, no matter how many times I have practiced gratitude in my journals.

Today, I will touch on nihilism and absurdism and how I'd like to work towards adopting an absurdist mindset. I am referring to symbols (Everything Bagel for nihilism and Googly Eyes for absurdism) from Everything Everywhere All At Once for most of this post (No Spoilers). Seeing that movie has changed my life and made me believe that cinema is still alive and it’s much better than any Marvel film or other nostalgia cash-grab films.

Introducing my Everything Bagel

Nihilism is the belief that life is bare and insignificant, it has no meaning, and life is an everything bagel sprinkled with everything I hate myself for in the past, my failures and my circumstances; most of these shortcomings are in the past but

My series of shortcomings include:

• My mommy and daddy issues

• Picking a Major last minute to go to college and not loving it

• Being a shallow Instagram influencer

• Manipulating other people

• Letting my anxiety control my life

• Weak in social situations

I have felt isolated, not just in quarantine - that was a breeze living indoors for two years. I am talking about elementary school, where I was sitting on the sidelines, making circles around the school by myself l feeling like I was just not meant to be there, and blending into the walls. I’d like to say I’m a quick learner, and I pick up on social cues, but I feel like I’m pretending to be someone else at that moment. (I have a poem about how I feel like I’m a side character but am the main character and the whole production).

Much like Jobu Tupaki in Everything, Everywhere all at Once, I would’ve liked to use this bagel to collapse the world into nothingness and forget about everything, including myself.

Learning to wear the Googly Eyes

As someone in my 20s still navigating the trials and tribulations of being perfect professionally and personally, I have sometimes thought about diving off the face of the Earth. But I want to put on the googly eyes like Evelyn:

I must accept that life is absurd, that there is no deeper meaning to life and that I should not overanalyze, a tough habit I am trying to let go of.

I don’t want to be Sisyphus, constantly pushing the rock up the hill, beating myself up until I’m battered up for my failures rather than accepting that these events have happened. I may not be able to do anything about it, but I would like to continue in the present to fight my shortcomings with determination and strength while having an aura of love and kindness.

Conclusion

Life cannot exist without challenges; how will we grow without them? I genuinely fear life, I do, but as I’m making my decisions, not knowing what path is set, I will continue to fight life with love and kindness. I think of life as one big sunshower, the rays peek out, the rain sops my hair, and then one big rainbow appears in the gray sky, and it’s all worth it in the end.

Thank you for reading!🥰 This was my first blog post/ musing