It was never my dream to fly. I always find a strange kind of comfort in dreams where I feel myself falling down, not flying. There’s something about flying that makes it seem like too much effort is required, that perhaps it goes against the whole point of fantasising about another possibility in the first place – I’d rather falling than flying.
All my life has been about running away from one responsibility to another. Maths. Music. Sports. Friendship. Love. Myself. If I had wanted to run (fly) away, I simply did not need to fantasise – I’m already living that fantasy in this world. In its stead, my heart yearns for a world where failure is an option – where falling down into the blackest pit can be as acceptable and celebrated as soaring across the bluest sky.
If failure was an option, and if my heart could take it, I guess I’d have had more courage to stay until the end. I’m too much of a coward though, in all meanings of that word, to stick around for too long. I often begin everything with a fantasy of my own, imagining how things should be in the most naive manner, and the minute things don’t go as I thought they would, I become wary. Suddenly the thought of failure turns vivid in my head, coloured by another set of pessimistic imaginations. I simply think too much. Most of the time, I end up just running away, casting aside what little responsibility I had.
The prospect of winning, of triumphing just does not exist in my real dictionary. It probably lingers somewhere in my wildest and most secret dreams, but rationally speaking, it’s hard to trust such a notion. Its only purpose of existing in my head is to cast fear, to set the blueprints, to trace out the shape for what it is I need to avoid, what I should not allow to happen. It’s not an Asian thing, like some may believe. It’s an individual thing. People say “you never know”, and I say “True, you never know, you just either have hope, or you don’t”. What’s the point of knowing?
To fall, to fail, without disappointing anybody, including – or especially – yourself, that’s hard. That’s harder than to succeed, or even to stay successful. I am incredibly good at running away. What I suck at is accepting and facing even the thought of my own failures.
the forgotten one 