Winnie Lim

I just had my period, so I am feeling a little more fatigued than usual. Every month around this time I tend to wonder why the body finds it so difficult to overcome this blood loss when it is part of our inherent biology. Shouldn’t it account for this potential blood loss instead of leaving us weaker? Sometimes I think I am too idealistic, even when it comes to the intelligence of our bodies. Its prime directive is to reproduce, nothing says that it cares about our well-being and how we feel.

I think as human beings we tend to attach our own meanings, interpretations and feel-good narratives to everything. It is both a blessing and a curse I guess. Without this, would we still strive? But it sets us up for disappointment and depression when the world does not naturally bend towards improvement or justice. The world is a system:there are certain outcomes when there are certain inputs. We shouldn’t be surprised with the outcomes if we understood its history, but yet we are. Just like I shouldn’t be surprised at the state of my psyche and health if I understood my own history, and yet I always am. It is unrealistic to hope for an outcome that cannot be mine, to hope that I can become a different person with the cards that have been dealt to me. We have to know ourselves truly in order to see the true possibilities, not some imagined fantasy.

They say it is a cop-out to be a cynic, because it is much harder to carry hope. But I think it too takes courage to exist as a cynic when the world is drunk on hope — somehow as a species we don’t like to see reality for what it is or accept our selves for who we really are. That is why we keep going round and round with the same issues that plagued us throughout history, because we refuse to see the root of the problem.

I think being a cynic is not about giving up, but rather acceptance. It is with acceptance that we begin to see what is real versus what we kept hoping to see. It is like playing a computer game is all about knowing its limitations – it is pointless to play it in a way that the mechanics would not support.

This is what I’ve been thinking these days. There is a sense of chronic sadness plaguing me because there is so much violence – if we choose to not look the other way. Yes we are a lot less physically violent compared to our history, but the violence manifests in other ways. But no matter how much I think about it, I just cannot see us overcoming this. It is not that we are inherently violent, we are just inherently insecure, because it is impossible to live life feeling psychologically safe.

In my opinion the quality of our lives depends on how much we can reconcile with this existential truth. Because if we pretend it doesn’t exist, then the grief and disappointment will catch up with us sooner or later. Dwelling too much on it would cause unnecessary suffering because it is not like we can do anything about it. So perhaps the best we can do is cherish the small moments, to take the small wins. That an hour spent in full colour is a rebellion against darkness. I think we must all rebel in our own ways, in the ways we can. But rebellion is only possible upon acknowledging reality – otherwise we are just living a life that constantly shuttled by the desire to avoid the truth. A life that is not ours, belonging to our fears.

I reckon this must be a strange post to read. But once in a while I must write something that comes from the depths of my self. This is my own little rebellion, my way of acknowledging the reality that exists in me.

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