Why I Write
Wei-fan Chang
There is a
natural way that every individual finds himself to tread: a modus operandi best
suited to his tastes. In this state, he
is in his comfort zone—at ease and in control…
I began life
as an awkward child, the oddball puzzle-piece that couldn’t fit it. Be it in the States as the only Asian kid in
the community, or in Taiwan as the only English-speaker around the block, it
wasn’t that I didn’t want to fit in—I tried, but my body seemed to have a will
of its own—not only to make a complete and utter fool of myself, but also to
piss off dear acquaintances and potential friends. I eventually learned to watch my words, but
no matter how well I tried to mince them, Murphy’s Law was always true: If
something can go wrong, it will. I never
sought Solitude’s company—it was she who found me first and held me in her
cold, spiny arms.
The doctrine
of a solitary existence called for means of self-entertainment—and for the most
part, I found a refuge in books. The
farther I was pushed away, the deeper I pushed into the pages. The Lord of the Rings, Les
Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and other great classics
were devoured at a frenetic pace. It did
not matter that I sat on the benches alone while the rest of my friends played
football or chatted together; the joys that I savored could not be shared with
anyone else. It was a comfortable
existence. Solitude was my mistress and
master. My fate.
There is a
natural way that every individual finds himself to tread: a modus operandi best
suited to his tastes. In this state, he
is in his comfort zone—at ease and in control.
However, in an unstable world full of rapid change and sudden yearnings,
catharsis is no longer just a task of simply embracing a self-evident truth;
one must search and grope in the dark, barefoot amidst a sea of broken glass,
to find the answer.
The desire
to make friends bubbled intermittently in primary school, but it was only until
junior high that the true ache for friends reached the boiling point. The tumultuous years—how was the awkward kid
with no social skills supposed to make friends?
There was no way I could express with my lips the inner thoughts of my
heart—they were wobbly and disjointed bits and pieces, and most of the time the
words ended up lodging in my throat and threatened to choke me with humiliation
and shame. Solitude had unleashed
terrible Cerberus, my personal demons of self-doubt, to remind me of my fate;
but the emotional cauldron of adolescence is something that cannot be capped so
easily.
This was the
moment that I decided to write. Unlike
the mouth, who has to spell out tidy little lines of coherent thought to a
beat, the pen abides patience and allows time and peace of mind to gather the
scattered letters. All the books I had
read, the phantom voices of Erik the Opera Ghost, of Jean Valjean, and
Quasimodo, silently rose to my rescue.
Under their tutelage and encouragement, the bits and pieces gradually
took shape, until, infused with their voices’ power, the words finally snapped
together in a burst of lightning, and—behold!
The floating thoughts I had entertained only in my head now stood before
my eyes in words of unexpressed emotions—of white-hot anger, tender endearments,
and a myriad others that I cannot name. I had found an outlet.
There is a
natural way that every individual finds himself to tread: a modus operandi best
suited to his tastes. His fate will
invariably seek to guide him back to this path, for in this state, he is in his
comfort zone—he is at ease and in control.
But should Lady Happiness reside elsewhere, should he wish to court her,
he must venture forth beyond his borders and break out a new path for himself in
the pursuit of happiness—a path that ignores the coward’s ballad; for a
brighter future and a better tomorrow.
And that,
dear reader, is why I write.
