A New Leaf

It is the night of my birthday dinner. Just a few hours ago, I was sitting at one of Starbucks' mahogany tables, drinking in the conversation and caffeine. But now the caffeine has worn off and the conversation ended, so my drowsiness is less diluted.

This summer, I've realized many things. The most important thing I realized is that, despite being a physics major, I still love writing and I still want to become some kind of writer in the future - and I know I won't rest until I do.

With the amount of free time I've had this summer, I've set many personal goals that I think will help me along my career path. I've started to read books again. I've started to read newspapers and keep myself updated on news concerning Toronto (though I've lived 15 years in this city, I realized I hardly know a thing about it). I've started to write again.

Perhaps I can draw a lot of inspiration from these other sources. I've been having lots of thoughts about what's been going on in the world recently.

This year, I learned that I must express myself. I am lucky. I am gay, and because of this, I've had to struggle and fight for what I believe in. I've had to struggle for my identity, and it's left me stronger than ever before. In the first two years of University, I turned away from the humanities because I was afraid. I was afraid that I "wouldn't have enough money to make a living" (my parents' words). I was afraid that my ideas weren't deep enough, or good enough. I was afraid of the imprecision of the humanities and sought refuge in the sciences, in which rationality is valued above creativity.

I am still afraid, to an extent. I not only believe, but KNOW, that there are people whose writing skills and creativity are light-years ahead of mine. But I also know that to succeed at my goal, I'll need to ignore these doubts and move forward. If I'm not creative enough now, I'll grow more creative later.

On this blog, I don't aim for perfect rhetoric or even logic. The purpose of this blog is just to get ideas down, so that when I want to write a story or poem or non-fiction piece or article, I don't start with nothing.

So expect to see a lot of quickly written poems, terse short stories, cliche metaphors, and badly-expressed thoughts. But hey, if I don't write anything, I'll never write anything good.

Of course, maybe I'm just being idealistic in my pursuits. But it's too early to tell, and it's too late to think. Good night!