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read between the lines
strange People say i'm strange, does it make me a stranger that my best friend was born in a manger? -Jesus Freak, dc Talk seriously. i've just been told (again) that i'm different. but this time i get the feeling, the impression, that being different is an offence, a threat to the society in general...which is a very unsettling thought indeed. i mean, being different, or standing apart from society's norms and trends is one thing, but for that to be a bad thing? that's quite another thing altogether. ok, so why let it get to me when it hasn't so far, you say. probably because when your own circle of confidants, the people whom you extend a greater amount of trust to, (aka. your "reference group", in media studies terms) are the ones who are telling it to you that you tend to believe it or be affected by it even more...and then you start to question yourself. (eesh. hate blogging in school, especially in the labs. you always get these weird ppl who are deliberately sneaking glances at you to see what you're writing. think that's why i'm being vague in sentences today...well not that vague, but not that specific either.) it's like this: people doubt your capabilities. people who don't know you well. big deal. but when reliable sources, some of them, doubt your capabilities, then it creates this...dissonance inside of you and you yourself start to doubt your own capabilities. the question is, who is right? if i am right, i should just go on being myself, right? but the fact that your own close circle of friends agree with the notion says suggests the possibility that they might be right, right? are they not, after all, the ones who know you better? and say if they're right, what do i possibly do about it? what does god want me to do about it? what is the path, the direction, god wants me to take? how am i supposed to deal with it? i don't know if i'm disillusioned, misled or simply blind to the truth. and the fact that people keep using vague words to tell me what's wrong with me makes it so much harder to clear the fog and find out exactly what is going on. okay, so society has its own set of rules, etiquettes and social decorum. but there's no freaking manual or guideline on exactly how one should behave or relate towards another human being, other than the usual obvious things like greeting everyone warmly and stuff like that. but the grey areas, the countless types of situations in which one is thrown into every day...i just cannot determine, i just cannot get. for instance, society says to be courteous. courteous itself is vague..what action does it incur? and when you try to pin it down to specific actions, then how do you deal with people who think these actions are a form of rudeness, people whose ideals of courtesy are much higher? even polite is vague. so is being nice. i only know so much, know what has been told to me, know what i have read or seen. but honestly half the time i don't even know i'm doing wrong until someone tells me, and usually that someone tells me when it's much too late, when the problem has snowballed and hard feelings have been harboured against me without my naive knowledge all the time. maybe my parents were right last time in the sense that they said i'm not street smart. but how does one learn that? and who is to blame for my "differentness" (i know uniqueness is more gramatically suitable, but i'm just so sick and tired of hearing that label thrown at me lately that i prefer to use other words)? i did some reflection as to how i could possibly end up this way and i came to two conclusions which, well, i've borrowed from scientists, or newspaper clippings about studies on people, or whatever. what i am is a result of my genes (looking at my parents, i do notice that my father is somewhat of an outsider and a loner at times, especially among...the people he despises) and my environment (ok, so i was brought up a certain way, i saw / read / heard of certain things in the media, and the media from which i derived it from was mostly western so maybe indeed i exhibit western media in an asian society) and of course, because God made me this way. before i continue, in terms of environment i did have it kinda tough when i was stepping into early adolescence. it's not that i don't forgive my parents, but i certainly wouldn't wish to repeat what they did / said to me in those times...i can remember a time of trials early on, and having to grow up much sooner than my peers in some ways (not all). and looking back, i did find true meaning, true purpose in god, true maturity in christ....not to completion, but i admit i did grow spiritually and i did think of things that most of my peers weren't even thinking of at that time. back to what was it my parents did? well, simply speaking they let me down when i needed them the most. i can remember my father using extremely cutting, extremely sarcastic remarks to me when i was suffering those times of trials in my early years (grades fell, got pushed to the C class, which my parents scorned as if i was in the Z class instead, friends who were friends because of my grades left me, my best friend moved to KL, etc.). and my mother, well she's always been the type to go "serves you right" and rub it in. but it was my father's words that stung the most, and some of the actions he did, like drawing a big cross on my "see you at the top" book by zig ziglar (my current self-help book at the time, which strangely, had a lot of references to the Bible and godly stuff in it) and writing "see you at the bottom". and i remember struggling with it and trying to be good or christ-like and encouraged by God(like my book said) for about one year or so, before finally coming to the page in the book where it says you should confront the people who are bringing you down and at least make sure they know you feel that way and confronting my mother (my father refused to talk to me) about it. i even prayed about it for a week. and it was pretty disappointing, though i should have expected it. i still remember asking her to come into my room, and she was pretty grumpy about me bothering her, even though it was fricking nite and it wasn't like she was working on something. i spoke to her, showed her the chapter in the book about that, and i tried to tell her how painful it was that she and my father were telling me these kinds of negative words....i even remember saying it with tears welling up in my eyes, though thankfully i managed to control them. and for all my tears, for all my humiliation and embarassment shed, she continuously said it was my fault and i deserved it. i am nearly two decades old and i still disagree firmly with what she said: no child should ever have to be put-down and ridiculed by his/her parents over anything. and where was i...oh yeah. god made me this way. so the next logical question to ask would be, why did god make me this way? one thing i do know for sure is, i am pretty sure that if he has plans to prosper me and not to harm me and to give me hope (somewhere in Jeremiah), and that He always works for the good of those who love Him (new testament...is it Corinthians? i forget), then surely i am not like this for a bad purpose? then why is it i get the feeling this time that there's something wrong with me? true, everybody is flawed, but why is it that i am always having to deal with the same confrontations about this issue many times throughout my life? i remember asking this to another of my close friends before that friend left for australia. and that person's answer to it was very definite: it's not that i am the one having this problem that no one else seems to have (i've heard this fact resurface again recently), but rather that everyone has problems in different ways, different areas, and for me it just so happens that the area i have problems with has to be this.
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