Getting involved with a film org in college is the most bitter pill I’ve ever swallowed, the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and the nastiest regret I’ve ever felt. I never knew, back in sophomore year, that saying “yes” to becoming Creative Deputy would lead me here. Here — regretting all those three years spent among the people who I should just never have met.
I think that org has gone down since the year I joined it. I can’t even be proud of ever being involved in it anymore, and my last year in that org just proved just how I should never have invested in it in the first place. My experience with them altered how a view most people now, and it doesn’t really make me want to live in this kind of world anymore. Not if the world means being surrounded by their kind of people. Basically, I learned from my experience with them that you just don’t trust anybody. There is no justice in this world, people will always be unfair, and you will never get an opportunity to speak, explain, or be given second chances. You don’t deserve anything, and other people will always find the most ridiculous of reasons to shift all kinds of blame on you when it suits them. They will demand responsibility from you when they can’t offer it themselves, and the world will believe the biggest lies when it means jumping a bandwagon.
When Ruo Xi asked the 4th Prince what to do if she’s stuck in a dream and cannot wake up, the 4th Prince said, “You make the best of it.” I feel like that — stuck, after a series of mistakes, after the heaviness of self-blame, after replaying events in my head that cannot make sense. Always, always, always stuck. Stuck even with mutual friends. What do I do when their names get mentioned and all I feel for them are anger, hatred, and resentment? What do I do, when all I want is to prove to the whole world that these people can never be trusted, and that they will be the worst kind of “friendship” anybody can imagine?
I am stuck in this kind of world, with this kind of people, with this series of mistakes, with a list of could-have-been’s, and all I can do is to make the best of it. It’s not really the easiest pill to swallow.
Meeting up with my blockmates sometimes feels like a miracle.
That sounds like an overstatement, but by miracle I mean it makes me feel like I can’t believe it. Around February, they made me feel like I can’t believe they’re nice to me. Or, I can’t believe they’re so generous with their friendship. I remember Tata telling me that I could hang out with them, or talk to them if I needed to. It felt like a miracle then, and seeing them for thirty minutes today still brings the same kind of feeling. I just can’t believe there are people who could still be so nice, when the people I spent more time with in the past few years have been my worst experience with people.
If people will tell me that those people from my org were just human, that they just also made mistakes, then I don’t want to be human anymore. I don’t want meeting people like them anymore. I don’t think they’re what humans are supposed to be, and I was my worst person when I was hanging out with them too. I want to meet people who can be inspiring, who can show me this is how humans should live.
I want to have friends who can prove my perception of the world wrong. Because I don’t want to be right. I don’t want to be resigned to making the best out of a world where you can’t trust anybody, because you know in the end they’ll just probably use you. I want to keep seeing my blockmates who can believe in the best of me, or some of them who believed in me even when a lot of other people had more destructive things to say. I need a constant reminder that there are good people who will make me want to stay in this kind of world — in the kind of world without the backstabbing, gossip, lies, baseless slandering, and distrust.
And when I say I need it, I really, really need it.
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