#yolo

"...the reason i’ve stopped liking blogging is this new and unwelcome paranoia and stinginess of spirit. i often find myself looking over a blogpost before publishing it, and thinking, no, i’m saying too much. or, i don’t owe anyone all these words and exposure — i don’t even owe them to myself! and then i delete it. but still longing to write, i wonder then about what kind of things i can write about that are consistent with my new misanthropy. candid and superficial updates about the day-to-day? pictures of food and travel? or the opposite: oblique thoughts on things i care deeply about but referred to tangentially and indirectly? i eventually settled on none of the above.

for a while i thought this was clever and that in time to come i would thank myself for phasing out the young and idealistic me who put so much of herself on the internet or in other people’s hands. some small shred of me still believes this. but i don’t know lah. the more i go down this path of losing my extraversion, the further away i feel from my locus. surely there must be some compromise that is both careful but allows me to be totally honest with myself about what i like and who i am. the crux of this strange newness is not merely about blogging or talking, or the risk/reward of sharing big parts of me with people i love or people i don’t know — it’s also about how little inclined i felt to interact with anything, how risk averse i had become, and worst of all, how i felt like i had all the answers to all the questions i wanted to ask and thus did not need to look any further. i was becoming disinterested, fatigued and hateful, and for some reason i felt that was okay, and that it was all part of growing up." -quaintly.net

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she just described my life. and i guess that's why i do these things that disorient me, that push me out of my comfort zone and into the scary, unfamiliar unknown. i used to be a much bigger risk taker than i am now. somehow, i've been allowing myself to accept that becoming stable, safe, and reliable was all a part of growing up and yet i'm not ready to fully accept that as the rule for growing up yet. maybe for most people it is but surely it doesn't have to be for everyone?

i used to be known as the girl who had an opinion about everything and what frightens me these days is that i have opinions about nothing. when you start working, your circles in KL become too small, is what i tell people. you have to say the right things, never offend people, give diplomatic answers, and try not to piss anyone off. otherwise once you get a rep, it's incredibly hard to shake off. but anyone who's tried to be a people-pleaser would know that it never works out. you just disappear into yourself, trying to fit yourself into everyone's mold, until you don't know who you are anymore.

i'm tired of that. and that's why this blog is coming alive again. along with my couchsurfing profile. along with random, spontaneous coffee dates and long conversations about life and meaning. i may be growing up... but that doesn't mean i'm ready to grow old yet. there's still too much i don't know about life, and i want to experience the answers first-hand for myself, instead of taking someone else's word for it. or worse, not even caring.