I am a believer

The other night I had another bad dream, the end of which I fortunately could no longer recall when I woke up. In the beginning of that dream I seemed to be reliving the dreams I had for numerous times in childhood: my parents were scolding me harshly; I ran to the window and jumped. Of course we know in dreams the impossible become trivial, and we are not at all bound by physical laws as so often awkwardly in real life. Does that mean that our mind is more free than our body? I do not know. But I know in my dreams I can fly almost always. So in those dreams after I jumped out of the window I started to fly. I've become so familiarized with the surrounding buildings through the repeated virtual experiences. You see, I don't really fly like a bird in my dreams: I need to hop to the top of something of certain elevation before I lift off, and the higher I start, the freer I am of gravity. That is why I remember in particular what nearby constructions were when my mind was perhaps being fooled by rhythmic waves. An interesting detail about them is that they seemed to persist with what they looked like when I was really little, and did not change in later years when new buildings emerged one after another. With my deeply flawed ability to fly especially at takeoff, I would not have possibly been able to escape with all that crowdedness. But I have to believe that I can. Perhaps that is why my dreams refused to change with the reality. Of course, reality itself can not refuse the changes.

In the imaginative story of my dream, I this time was not a kid who spread her arms and flew away like a refugee supergirl. Instead, I transformed into a white swan, not so much more liberated from my old pathetic flying skill though. So I desperately flapped my wings and turned my head to look back. It then frightened me to see that my father had also transmuted into a big white bird, chasing after me furiously. Overwhelmed with panic, I sped up beating my wings, meanwhile fully utilizing my primate brain which apparently retained some of its sulci and gyri. After some quick reasoning, I decided to transform again into a goose, so that I can still fly high yet at the same time confuse the white bird after me. It is a bit funny that I didn't think of turning into an eagle or another raptor. But on the other hand, I know I could never be a predator, I just could not. The story line got fuzzy from that point. I vaguely remember that later I met a young girl who showed me something that revealed a terrifying truth. A father figure of hers stood by when she told me about this, and I maybe envied her for a little while because of that.

In fact, this absurd series of images is not a total surprise to me when I come to think of it. They may reflect, as it were, certain resentments that quietly grow in my heart at my father, for not having protected me even though he might have realized that I was being treated unfairly long before I did. I try hard to suppress such angers toward him or toward my mother. In fact, I don't think I consciously hate either of them. I understand that they did what they did as fellow human beings inescapable of flaws, and perhaps as a consequence of what they had been through earlier in their lives. But in the pathological mood swings of mine, those resentments stir up from time to time, even though I resent myself for holding these very grudges. A big part of the reason that I can't let go, I ratiocinate, is that I feel the urge to reconcile with them as soon as possible but just don't have the strength or courage to face them.

And there is another part of the reason. I look back and chew over flashes of my life, gradually realizing that as a matter of fact, probably not by choice, I have always been a believer. I was born to believe in something, and I did with whatever available to me that seemed most reasonable. So often I feel the yearning to follow, to please and to be devoted to something larger and greater than my own being. I believed that my parents loved me, whereas I had been an ungrateful, selfish child all along (meaning with effort, I will turn "good" and properly return their love and make them happy). I believed Science was a sacred course, for which I was willing to dedicate all my time and life. I believed in love, so I loved and gave without reservation. Sadly for me, these three things that I believed in so much fell apart one after another in front of my very own eyes. To tell the truth, I hold no, or very little grudge against all other people who might have broken my heart at some point, because they do not owe me anything and to trust them was my own choice in the first place. But parents are different. A child, from the day he/she came to this world, had no other option but to trust unconditionally their parents. One would think it horrible to use such trust for maximizing personal gain, would one not? My position is especially awkward however, as many other Chinese children who have been emotionally or physically abused perhaps to an even greater extent, since rooted in our culture is the ground rule that children must respect and obey their parents unquestioningly. Any doubt or challenge against this principle is not just frowned upon, but in fact considered a monstrous crime. The sense of shame may not only come from the outside criticisms, but also from within (which is often the more devastating one). I therefore suffer, from this constant conflict and struggle, as well as from the despair of an innate believer who has nothing to believe.

I have always been fairly lucky, however, with friendships. Over the years, joyful or painful, I met so many great friends who cared about me truly, who did not give up on me when I gave up on myself, without whom I might have not been able to live till this day. Because of that I know, if there is a God from above, He has not given up on me either. On the road ahead, I know I will always be a believer. In addition to the existence of the good side of human nature (note that this is a hazy term), I very likely will need to pick up something else more concrete to believe after serious, long contemplation. No matter what it is, I will hold it dearly and closely to my heart. I am a believer, therefore I am. Or is it I am, therefore I am a believer? I do not know. I just believe, that I am a believer.