Vietnam, July 24
I just came back from one failed year studying in France. After one year, I realized that I didn’t study what I really wanted. So why, why did I go ?
The first thing my father noticed, when I stepped out the door of the aeroport, frustrated having to leave the solitude on the 12-hour flight, was that I did not greet him. He took no time to inform my mother about my misbehavior. A good child should «know your place», and I know that very well. But I hate good boys since I’m not one myself.
« Do you want me to serve you forever ? ». That is the question I have heard quite often in my life from my parents. Using analytical skill, I conclude that this parents-son relationship only benefit me and not them. Solution? They end it. Can’t trust another man to solve your problems, take responsibility for your own actions. It’s like stock, go down, sell.
Let me tell you about my childish dreams. In Vietnam, there is a popular manga named Doraemon. When I was very young, my dream was to travel to Doraemon’s world, be his companion and go adventure. When I was older, my dream was to be a hero and save people who are around me. My dream evolved, soon it was : I became a hero, and then I died.
My origin is selfishness, and my desire is freedom and, power. I have never wanted to save anyone.
The first day I landed on Paris, I was delighted. I was finally an adult, standing on his own feet, breathing my own freedom.
How foolish!
I was nothing but a stupid child running away from «my» family, «my» country, my «everything». But I failed. I chosed the course that I did not like, and I realized my reason for coming there was flawed. It’s not « I want to live in a developed country». It’s «I don’t want to die in Vietnam». I fell into depression, and when I tried to reach out, everyone thought that I should, well, come back to my «dear» home. I quitted school,
In two months I had freedom. I played games, I listened to music, I read manga. I killed time using my parents’ money. It was fun.
And money disappeared. Because freedom isn’t free. I cannot be free because I don’t have money, don’t have social position, don’t have power.
Human is not born to be free. No, we aren’t born with any rights. We are born weak, and so we create society with the power of the mass and give each of us ‘right’ to protect that ‘right’. Mistake means elimination. I reject my important things, and I lost the place in the society.
My parents, in a way, love me. They are good and successful people. My family is like the sunlight. However I am shortsighted, and my eyes hurt when out in the open. I am simply not made to be compatible with them. I enjoying sitting in the darkness, I find the night beautiful, but in my house my father would come and ask if I am normal or not. I don’t love my surrounding, and I don’t love me.
I turn twenty in November. I was born when my parents were still students. Most of my childhood till 10 was filled with memories of my grandparents’ house. I lived there, went to school there and was happy. My grandparents are wonderful people. However, if they die now, I don’t believe I will shed a tear. I’m selfish to the extreme, and their impacts on my life now are trivial.
I ocasionally went back to my real home, all time after age 10. My mother was very ill, thus even in the same house I didn’t see my parents much. But even now I can bring myselt to love a person just because he or she is miserable. I don’t even know pity. How cold-hearted am I.
We hired an old woman, who was in charged of me and my younger brother. I am weak, and so unsuited for competition and comparation, but all other people love that. «Oh, he is tall, but his brother will…». In constrast to my fake home, here I was constantly reminded that I had to treat him well, that I had to give him privilege, even when dealing with the smallest things. It was not anyone’s faults, it’s because I’m older. Many nights I cried because I would forever be old. I had to watch over him everywhere when my family went out because my parents (boths are second child) expected the first child to perform its task. I soon develop dislikes for many thinks that should be crucial for my course of life: going out, curiosity(of my brother mainly) and younger children in general. My flaws were born from such lame rebellion from my part; I hate everything that got in the way of my (nonexistent) freedom.
There are more to say about chess, about my changing room, about my hearing what people talked behind my back, but it overwhelms me to think about so much trivial matters.
I was growing but not maturing. I went in life with no direction. I did my homework because «my teachers would be mad if …». However, it changed a little when I learned chemistry.
I performed well. I was praised. I found my friends. But my performance in other subjects dropped and my parents warned me many times that they would not provide me money for studying chemistry anymore.
For the first time, I saw, vaguely, that my future did not entirely belong to me.
I have never dared to waste money. I didn’t buy stuffs, I didn’t want to join language’s classes because (it costs some mysterious thing from my parent’s pocket), I didn’t go out with my classmates. I felt like I’m a burden, loaning something that Vietnamese culture said to me that I could never payback.
But it was not enough. Naturally, I used up mother whether I liked it or not. That’s life. I was borned with fixed rights and fixed responsibility.
I travelled to France, terrified of my own worthlessness, and came back.
I think about the reason of living. I have lived all my life by fearing something, even now, I see I am blaming someone for my own incompetence. Life always seems so natural for me, now I know, because I was born with the natural fear of dying.
I’m tired.
This is not the way I want to live.
I met a doctor. He fed me pills to shut me up. I don’t hate him. He needs to do something, but, paying not by my money (I don’t have any), that’s all he can do. My parents think antidepressants are miracles, while all they can do is change a little serotonin here and there. But they cannot cure my selfishness. The world around me can’t really give me what I want, and even if it can, I could never pay the cost.
My future, I don’t really know if it exists. My money is not mine, it is given conditionally. My social status is not mine. My parents are not mine, they are of themselves. My accommodation is not mine. Even my feeling is not mine, it now is affected by medicine.
What I have left is my life, and I can end it.
I really don’t find myselt belong anywhere.