The view from the lip of an Oyster.
January 21, 2010
I read somewhere that Chinese students in the United States struggle with the concept of choosing classes. If there is not a curriculum to follow, a mapped out pathway like they strictly enforce in Chinese schools, many fall into a depression based in an overwhelming degree of decision-making. It also doesn’t help that the bureaucracy at many schools provides a break-down in guidance for those, like myself, like the Chinese students, who need the most help in the face of “freedom”.
I like that everyone keeps commenting on how much freedom I suddenly have. I don’t have a lease, I don’t have a permanent job, I don’t have school or a real schedule to follow. The world is a wide open door. The world is my oyster. The trouble is, the vast expanse of possibility looks a lot like a slimy, fishy goop and not a lot of pearl to be seen. Perhaps I am just too small to see it, from where I stand on the lip of this sea monster. Perhaps I am too pessimistic to see it too. But right now it feels like some kind of paralyzing force. This “freedom” is more like an invisible steel post driven 45 feet into the ground and chain. Those attached by chain to the ball can rejoice in the fact that the ball can budge. I am not going anywhere for a long while. Everyone keeps saying though, that I am “lucky to have so much freedom”. They let the emphasis fall on “freedom” in slow drawn out syllables. Like the word tastes like bacon, or cotton candy. To me it tastes like arsenic and the sight is as poisonous as the taste. I am beginning to resent anyone and everyone who finds it a positive thing that I am faced with the impossibility of seeing a path for my future because there are too many paths to look down.
Is it possible to be a figurative agoraphobic? Is it possible to have a fear of proverbial and fictitious open spaces? Because the hypochondriac in me says “Yes, and you have it.”
