Chiselled away
(Yes it is a Ghibli reference — please don’t mind me, I tried to be creative with the title)
This is about: Seven years in the making to get closer to locating a northern star that felt more and more like home. “Life purpose” some call it. And how writing (and reading) helps me get there.
If there is a benefit to writing one’s heart and thoughts out is the opportunity to look back in time and open an archive of how you processed and interpreted the ups and downs in life.
Last week I had the sudden urge to scroll through my IG feed and opened a few old posts. I was surprised. I thought I only started writing and publishing my reflections and learnings recently, but I completely forgot that I had always done it. Since high school in fact.
I think the trigger to my reflective writing was when I experienced the third big failure in my life (aka university and scholarship rejections) that felt like it was not a coincidence. That it was probably a signal for something, a pattern or a habit I had not realised was forming, and I needed to seek within to “fix” it.
Writing allowed me space and time to process my emotions and thoughts, to make sense of my inner world, and make peace with the not-so-bright parts of my “self” that I would have otherwise judged and swept under the rugs in fear of accepting that truth that: I am not perfect. I started writing and publishing stories online about the different seasons of my life, and those writings aren’t ones to shy away from admitting mistakes and being vulnerable about my flaws. You can trace it back to my older Medium articles, YouTube videos, and Instagram posts.
At first, it was the need to be accepted despite them. But then it just becomes this liberating force — that my life is not some sort of performance with each move carefully and perfectly played out. That hiccups are part of it, scars and wounds too, and falling can be as graceful as soaring.
I think it is very beautiful and freeing when we have the capacity to see the good and the bad as intended parts that make us, us. That the bad aren’t some unfortunate point-deducting factors. That the good aren’t trophies to collect either.
So back to my IG scrolling. I had the opportunity to read through some of the pivotal moments in life (because I recorded it in writing).
Getting rejected from a dream university. Not having friends and struggling to fit in. Hating my appearance because of a bad breakout and gaining weight. Losing confidence in self. Depressed over not being able to appreciate my achievements that many are fighting for. Being misunderstood and feeling jaded. Fearing what others think of me and the thought that maybe my life was a complete failure. Losing myself. Finding myself again. Moving houses, moving cities, moving countries. Heartbreaks, longing, loneliness. Budding friendships, mending the relationship with the self.
The steps begin to feel lighter and the heart heals.
There are many more that I did not get to publish. Drafts hiding behind cryptically written Notes on my phone worrying just in case someone reads it, or pages in my journal with intentionally unintelligible handwriting, visibly crumpled from drying tears.
But I realised that through and through, I often used this phrase as a self-consolation. Without me realising. “I will bloom regardless”, “to bloom wherever you are planted”, “there will be a time for me to bloom” and the like. Blooming, seems to be a perpetual goal in every winter of my life.
Despite saying that a little too often, it felt like I was saying it because it seemed to be the right word to say in my situation. Like an autocomplete on Google search. A flicker of hope despite the challenges that seemed to have no end, a solace to put the heart at ease. But re-reading it years down the line, I remembered it did not feel like I believed in the concept of blooming. I wanted to but did not know how.
Eventually, I did. For one reason or another. Perhaps rather than “eventually”, it is a “somehow”, I did. I did bloom. But if I look back, I know why it did not feel just right. This comes down to why and what I am blooming for.
Throughout this relatively short journey that I have been navigating, I noticed a pattern, a consistent tendency. From the way certain challenges somehow present themself more as opportunities in my eyes, like how cautious advice towards certain people becomes a chance to be in yet a new person’s shoes — to understand a sliver of their inner working, to consolidating learnings and the urge to tell others about my mistakes so they get to do better and go farther…
I realised,
I wanted to bloom. And I will bloom where I am planted. But you sure will be seeing me make a garden out of where I grow.
That to me hits home, to the bone. That sums up what the past seven years of learning, failing, teaching, realising, reflecting, and sharing, have always been for. I wanted to bloom not for the sake of it. The most fulfilling feeling comes from knowing that eventually, the me that blooms will wither — and the me that withers will bloom again. So when it is my season to bloom, I will make sure I am not the only one who does.
And so my new-found (or rather, newly-realised) Northern Star seems to fit nicely into the things I choose to spend my time and efforts in. And it is a different kind of satisfaction to realise this — like a puzzle piece that finally fits into the picture.
The point of me writing this is not just to tell the world that, hey — I think I’ve got it after all this time. But to also share what the process looked like.
I was reading this book when I encountered a quote that forever changed my view on “finding purpose in life” and the surrounding narrative. Before you take it at face value, I have to pre-empt you that I will only take the analogy and explain it afterwards. Trust me it won’t feel as doomsday-ee as the quotes make it to be.
To credit where I got this idea from, see below an excerpt from “Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory” by Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
It says:
“A statue isn’t built from the ground up — it’s chiselled out of a block of marble– and I often wonder if we aren’t likewise shaped by the qualities we lack, outlined by the empty space where the marble used to be…”
“… It’s not what we do that makes us who we are. It’s what we don’t do that defines us.”
My take on this is that, in life, we start like a block of marble. The experience, the hurt and joy you receive, and the learnings you endure, all of these get you chiselled further — into the masterpiece that you are.
Okay maybe that sounds too optimistic but what I am getting at is this: we chisel away things that don’t serve us as we flow through life. And that gets you closer to some version of you that feels the most like you.
The evolution of my perception of life purpose looks something like this:
(1) I gotta *find* what my life purpose is, it’s somehow deep within me and will take time to surface >>
(2) nope I don’t think one is born with any life purpose, that is a scam — I will create my own purpose, by gathering the information and learnings I have obtained in life so far >>
(3) actually, maybe we do create our own purpose but not by building it from nothing to something, but from getting a better and clearer picture of who we could be that resonates the most with the soul, what makes your steps the lightest and heart sings the loveliest melodies.
I don’t think this seven-year journey is all there is to it. Of course not. If yes my life would be complete boredom because what is the fun after you figure something out? You want to figure other things out.
But at this point, I am glad something resonated to my bones in ways I had not felt before. I am glad I have found something to guide me along my next stops to the eventuality of life. That feels like sureness in a life of uncertainties. It feels like an antidote to face the only constant in life: change.
What is life then, if not the withering and the blossoming, and the patience for the in-betweens.
In the beginning, I mentioned how writing and reading help me make sense of what a purposeful life is to me. If you have not caught on already, these writings I am referring to did not come out of nowhere, but through iterations of reflections and journaling — a constant one. A documentary of how my feelings and perceptions evolve, a log of observations of the self. Here I am to encourage you, and for the millionth time I have been doing so in many of my sharings, to start penning the buzz in your mind and the unrest of your heart.
Trust me that the harder it is to pen something down, the more you need to do it to chisel away those parts that are meant to go, so the you can be revealed.
Thank you for reading.
