Somewhere I belong

It felt funny to hear a professor confess that she is a big procrastinator. On the one hand, I was glad to realize that after all, you can be professor and still procrastinate, a combination I have always thought impossible. I have condemned myself many times for my bad time-management skill, and bad self discipline. I knew I lost trust in a few people because I didn't deliver what I promised on time. Because of that, I have always suspected my ability to conduct independent research, when I would not be working for someone else, I might just dump it all and play some stupid games on the Internet. I have been considered myself unsuitable to the great world of the great academic, where everyone is so passionate about what they study that they can forget everything else while they are seeking new knowledge, or a tiny piece of truth. Until I heard with my own ears from a professor that she has been asking another professor for extension on a paper for a few times, that she has not done any literature review on the topic, and yet she is the chair, the president of this committee and that association. Well, a huge relief, perhaps I am capable of being the same too.

One the other hand, I felt like something has just broken. This reminds me of a story I read a long time ago, about a girl who idolized her teacher so much that when she saw the teacher eating noodle on the sidewalk, she sat down and wept, because she couldn't digest the fact that her teacher would eat like everyone else. In her mind, her teacher was everything beautiful, and that beauty shines so bright that the fragility of being human dilutes her image. I am no longer a child, and I have always thought I never idolize any other person. Worse still, I keep a treasured little box where I kept all the good stereotypes of professors. Little by little, I got to know more professors as people rather than absolute figures of authority in the realm of knowledge. The closer I come into contact with them, the more my eyes were open to their weakness and strengths, noble motivations and not so noble ones as they walk on their intellectual paths. Piece by piece, my box has been torn down. After all, professors are people, not sages.

I used to admire volunteers, and then NGO workers. My admiration was beaten hard with facts and gossips of corruption, of false pride, of concealment and cheating, of ignorance and snobbishness. At first I was motivated to be like them, later I only wished to not be like the bad ones among them. I am not saying all volunteers or NGO workers are disappointing. But as a Vietnamese saying goes "one worm ruins the whole pot of soup", I have known enough to no longer look at them with naive eyes. It is bad for them, and sad for me. To be able to hold some people up as role models, to admire them wholeheartedly and get inspired to be better than myself is a luxury I cannot afford anymore.

Young people are supposed to dream, and dream big. Years in my early 20s so far have been a string of disillusions, about myself, people I used to look up to, and the world I thought was nice enough to strive for. Perhaps you call it the process of getting mature. Somehow I find it quite bitter.

But I guess, after all, a naive optimism and a blind trust is easy. What is much more difficult is to experience the lowest pit of disappointment, but still find something to hope for and believe in. I have been yearning for a mentor, or a wise friend who I could come to for any questions, but such a fortune is no where to be found. So I am left alone to pick up the shattered pieces of my once sparkling little world with great people and great plans in it, and put them together despite the desire to just let go.

I hope I will have enough courage, patience and faith to build back my little world again.