Once I have mastered reading, first in Bahasa Melayu and later on in English, thus begun my addiction. I read pretty much anything and everything I can lay my hands on. When I ran out of books, comics and magazines, I read the newspaper. I think I was the only kid in my primary class who knew anything about the Cold War.
Although my primary force for reading was escapism, I found that reading *does* make me a better person. Reading has led me to think outside of myself and reconsider my position as the center of the solar system (I was the pampered youngest, okay?).
I learn to be grateful about the food I eat and the shelter I have from reading war reports. I recognise sociopathy from reading Ian Fleming. Basically, all the characters whose lives I devoured, be they fictional or real, taught me something about myself and how to relate to others.
Taking Sharon Bakar's "Who Are You? Somebody!" class gave me another appreciation of the written word. The class was designed to help writers write about themselves; either in an autobiographical manner or even as a source of fictional writing.
It was the hardest writing class I ever took.
It is easy to create a fictional characters with flaws and grand achievements. It is harder to write about yourself and be honest about it. You know intimately each and every skeleton in your closet. You cannot dissociate yourself from the shame, fear and disgust that plagues you when you recall the negative incidents in your life. It was all real and it felt even more real each time you put pen to paper.
I hated it.
And I loved it.
Sharon showed me how writing can be healing to one's heart and psyche. How valuable a tool it can be for reconciling yourself with past hurts and humiliations. It definitely forced you out of your comfort zone and made you look at the mirror as unflinchingly as possible. It is damn hard, filled with tears and also laughter.
Although I have always been an introspective person who contemplates the things that happen in my life; the role players and my own decisions in handling the events, having a conversation on paper and out of your head is a different and more visceral experience.
I am fortunate that my life has largely been uneventful and sheltered. But that doesn't mean that I'm immune to the insults flung by life that lacerate my heart and mind. This journal is to be a repository of the things I encounter and use in the journey of self reflection. It's not a personal journal per se and is not likely to contain private mental diarrhoea, but rather a sharing of reference to those who are also working on coming to terms with things that has hurt them in the past.
Title inspiration was from this song.
References:
1. John H Davidson. Clinical Empathy and Narrative Competence: The Relevance of Reading Talmudic Legends as Literary Fiction. Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal 6(2): e0014 (2015 Apr).
doi: 10.5041/RMMJ.10198
2. Maud Low and Susan LaScala. Medical Memoir: A Tool to Teach Empathy to Nursing Students. Nurse Education Today 35 (1): Pages 1–3 (2015 Jan)
3. Janet Alsup. A Case for Teaching Literature in the Secondary School: Why Reading Fiction Matters in an Age of Scientific Objectivity and Standardization. (2015) Taylor and Francis (New York)
