I'm starting Masters soon, and I have a weird foreboding feeling that everything will go horribly. I can't do anything. I'll disappoint everyone who believes in me. I'll fall from grace (whatever that means) and I'll be branded as a failure.
These doubts culminate so much in my head that, as a way to cope, a small voice in my head says, 'eh but what if you never wanted to do masters? Won't it be easier to just go work instead? Why bother?' I want to give up because it's easier to wallow in mediocrity, dreaming, 'oh man, if only' rather than actually face the fear of change.
Naturally, it's normal to feel this way after what's essentially an hour-long info dump about the responsibilities. In hindsight, I'm thankful that I know the forms and everything I have to do before the semester starts, rather than scrambling.
Five minutes ago, however, I had a revelation that grounded me. Underneath all this angst and administrative work, the paper itself is what matters most. Isn't that the point? The research? It reminded me of the sloppy research proposal before applying. Let me quote my thesis.
In its inherent instability and constant movement, the act of travelling grants travellers the space away from the status quo to embrace that meaning and happiness comes from being receptive to change. This paper will add to conversations on travel literature by considering contemporary examples of the genre.
In other words, travelling helps you find yourself.
Do I buy it now? No. I guess that's one fear I have going into this, the self-awareness. I don't know what I'm doing, and I feel like an impostor in a very cool academic world full of smart people.
This blog entry is then to refine my thoughts. It's not a new thesis, but rather a backbone. It's the reason why I've decided to put my angst and fear aside and face my Master's program head-on.
I have something I believe in, and I want to write about it.
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I'm reading three books for this: On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Between Stations by Boey Kim Cheng and City of Small Blessings by Simon Tay. Somewhere, somehow, these books are about travelling.
For Kerouac, travelling is fast, wild and maddening. At times, the novel overwhelms the reader with details about the speed of the journey and the sweaty passion found in jazz musicians. At other times, he bitches and complains about things. At any rate, there's never a dull moment. The tone swings from adventurous, contemplative and even serene in the quiet scenes where he's allowed to take things slow.
For Boey, travelling is meditative. It's about exploring the scenery and connecting with others. It's about feeling at home in even the most foreign and faraway places. In an urbanised Singaporean landscape that feels soulless and heartless without the places he grew up in as a child, Boey finds comfort in Calcutta, Alexandria, cities that preserve the old. Leaving home reminds him of what it means to feel at home.
Putting these together, an argument forms that travelling is wonderful because it makes you process things slowly. There's no need to always run around if you can help it. You are allowed to take things slow and want a break. Life is tough no matter where you go. Nothing is ever perfect.
As these novels show, though, there's always an opportunity to find meaning and connection, no matter how fleeting. Meaning comes from slowing down and appreciating the world around you.
Suppose I had to choose between being motion sick in a car with Dean Moriarity driving way past the driving limit or eating grapes by a railway station with a beautiful woman and her child on a Californian summer night. In that case, I know I'll choose getting so hungry that I start hallucinating about my English mother being upset with me hundreds of years ago.
—
In contrast, Tay's novel presents to us the yearning for groundedness. Yes, he travelled. Having grown up in Singapore and lived through the Second World War, Bryan emigrated to Canada on a whim before returning to Singapore. It's an interesting journey, but we barely get any content about that.
Instead, we get stories of him cycling at dawn, his days as a principal, his feeling alienated from modern Singapore and eventually his attempt at activism to defend his right to stay in his new home.
On top of that, when we switch to his son's perspective, Peter, we get even more stories about the little things—his relationship with his roommate and girlfriend, the food his mother likes to cook, his time growing up. We even have Peter telling us Bryan's stories, from when Bryan was a transcriber at a Japanese camp, to his love story with Anna.
None of these anecdotes is about travelling. It's more accurate to say the novel celebrates a sense of place—of never leaving—of feeling like you have a stake in the place you're in and the people you surround yourself with.
I dare say it's a wild take to suddenly introduce a different novel into the mix, but the difference is refreshing.
City of Small Blessings speaks to Between Stations. Both lament Singapore losing its character and charm in urbanisation. City of Small Blessings would be one of those people who judge the Dean's ethos of never sitting still. Bryan values respectability, his home and his loved ones and fights for it. Meanwhile, people like Dean seem to not care about anyone but themselves (even that is debatable since he broke his thumb and always seems to never have enough money).
Looking at it broadly, City of Small Blessings represents the stability that the other two novels fight for. Heck, even the title—On the Road and Between Stations imply an impasse, but the City of Small Blessings implies a clear destination—reflects this. Despite this, we start the book with Bryan saying he'll lose his home, and we end it with Bryan dying.
If all goes well, I'd like to say that City of Small Blessings forces us to look deeper into where meaning in life comes from. After all, even when things go wrong, Bryan can still leave the world peacefully with his small family next to him. How?
If there is someone to love us for that weak humanity, for that wound we have hidden in all our strength and pride, there can be love, there can be a home (Tay 218).
I think that's the point of all this moving around and thinking. Underneath all the premiums we put on identity, freedom and even a purpose in life, I argue that everyone just wants to feel like they belong, that someone cares about them, and their existence is valid as it is.
People in On the Road and Between Stations travel because they're searching for this feeling or at least, searching for the next step to feel that way. Sal complains about Dean because he likes the guy and wants to be friends (some might even say boyfriends). Boey bemoans his loneliness and loss because he wants to feel like he belongs, where he can look at something and say 'yeah, I do this' rather than 'back when this was still here, I'd do this'.
In other words, everyone wants to be happy in their own skin and surroundings.
—
This brings me back to what I said at the start. I'm doing this because there's something I believe in. This is what I believe in.
As a young person, I want my life to matter and that I can live it with the people I love and doing what I enjoy. I struggle with feeling like I'm never doing enough and that I'm always a step away from disappointing everyone, including myself.
When I open these books, I find myself saying, 'hell yeah!' to most reflective moments they have. It's a joy to flip through these pages and read about these people. They remind me that life is absolutely worth living, no matter where you are.
From this, this is my goal: I want to write a paper that gives my readers hope.
I don't want to be a writer who writes long, boring papers about god-knows-what and theories that most undergraduate students barely understand. I don't want to be an academic who talks and writes about literature in a stuffy, convoluted way. Instead, I want my writing to have purpose, to inspire others that literature is fun, that there's something universal about the human experience, no matter where and when you are.
Maybe all this is me being silly and unrealistic, but I genuinely think academia can be more fun and relevant to what actual people go through in daily life.
I'm not cut out to be an academic, I know this. I'm a marketing girlie. I draw suggestive things. I listen to K-pop, and I have a poor attention span. I'm not a super smart intellectual with millions of ideas for research papers. Yet, there's something I want to say as a young person, and that's why I'm here doing a Master's.
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