Writing as a belief

"No, I don't need religions. I already have art," says a friend, who is planning to go to Paris for beaux-arts studies.

That strikes me hard. Same here. I have been struggling to talk in person, and that writing itself is such an intimate medium for me to express myself more thoroughly than pop out the heuristics.

And that I could only open one perception, either seeing or listening, at a time to process my thinking. I cannot do both. So I listen, with eyes closed. Or I see and read, with dead silence. That had created some problems over the years, that people thought I were absent-minded.

No, the other way around. I was so focused that I couldn't open my eyes, or years.

Today we had a guest lecturer in the Bootcamp to guide us on the final term project. Everyone in the class was quite nervous about this, they stayed up late…etc.

I was just, like, right, I need my time to sleep. To take my time and finish the environment settings, and still have time to go out for dinner or movies and see friends. I need these in my life.

So today, when I went to the classroom, with my plain Google Doc, I was quite frank. The fairly young lecturer was very much spotting on me — — and I really didn't appreciate him gossiping about other lecturers having depression out of stress.

And he was not familiar with the project language I was doing either. Ÿou are deviating from Java." He was very much tedious in words.

I couldn't bare to stay in the classroom for one more minute. I went straight back home. And sit, and write. I still don't know where my anger came from — — maybe because of the hierarchical attitude the lecturer was delivering, or that he couldn't admit he didn't know the language I was using.

When I was younger, I didn't know I had the choice to step away from hierarchy, or that there are many other options in this world, and that whatever "teachers", "managers", "professors", are all just labels that the society gives. And yet we play the role so seriously as if we are objectifying ourselves to fit in the frames. And when you lift the frame — — there is only vanity.

I do believe in being professional — -and the definition I presume, for being professional, is not "playing the game and fitting the rules well", but rather — — are we telling the truth and be honest with ourselves? In other words, we are first individuals. And then professionals. But many reverse the order, we are professionals, and then individuals. So being honest and truth is simply a way to remind ourselves that, whenever someone says something that happens to challenge your social status — —Drop off your labels. Think about what they say. Maybe it makes sense.

So being professionally honest takes a lot of practice. And it's very professional.