People like to call enlightenment the highest stage of life. Maybe. But I like to call it the sandbox mode. You’re invincible with enlightenment yes, but you can also lose it again. You have to be constantly mindful if you want to keep at it. Society teaches you to have a stable mood and stable personality, but it really is a seasonal thing. You are a forest, so stop treating yourself like a greenhouse. If you are so traumatized by your past experiences, then let’s flip the coin and try an opposite exercise: you’re not Zac now, you’re a person who wants to use Zac for your personal gain. How do you get the most out of Zac? Many people – myself included – think slavery is bad but they’re so happy to do it to themselves and other people when no one’s watching. The people who treat other people as single-use plastics are perhaps also using themselves as a condom. If we can reform education, I’d open a subject called life management. It’s different from life education. Life education is about guidance, teaching kids the morals and laws not to throw rubbish. Life management is reactive: you don’t yell at yourself for throwing rubbish, but tell yourself “ooops I forgot again, let me pick it back up”. The current mode of education unintentionally deceives pupils by teaching them that there’s a solution for every thing. Stop lying to yourself. The wind will bring plastic bags to your house even if you are tidy. The best you can do is to be a manager of your world. There are different fragments of you with different emotions and personalities and habits. Learn to work with them instead of micromanaging them. There’s not a standard equation to life. Yes, there is an equation to that, but unfortunately it’s different for everyone. Students will most likely just sleep through the lessons anyway but at least those who do listen and absorb can learn to constant take care and guide themselves.
While we’re at it, I’ll also try to share this without making myself look too mental: I’ve always had multiple personalities inside of me since I was a kid. We are so peaceful together and different me would take over sometimes when we don’t know what to do in a situation/confict. We help each other out a lot. This changed when I tried to establish a personality in the society, because everyone said I needed one. We chose a representative to appear to the world. But by doing so that means we have to suppress other parts of me. Even though those parts of me are willing to sacrifice themselves, but after a while they’d want to rebel too. All of a sudden I am like a normal person, staring at life like a TV show trying to watch what will happen next. (In recent years I’ve abandoned the TV and turned to these reels instead). Then I started looking up mental illness definitions and trying to figure out if something of me broke. (If we’re friends on Facebook then there’s a 9/10 chance that you’re crazy too, so don’t be shy). But then I realize, it doesn’t matter if I have multiple personality or not. Even if I have it, then I just have it, I don’t suffer from it at all. In fact I gain from it.
What I’m about to say is even more mental, but I’m basically telling y’all to stop trying to heal yourself. You’re broken. Your father is broken. Capitalism is broken. End of story. Yes, put ointment and massage it from time to time, because the scar tissues (at least the one on my right wrist) tend to harden if not in use, but yea, you don’t go about the rest of your life complaining that your right hand isn’t as good as it used to be. Just learn to use your left hand and feet already. Trust me, after just 30 minutes of practice you can already pick up plastic bags with your toes. Once I’ve stopped warring on myself, now I gain back my old ability to freely change between different personalities. It’s even better now, because I had it as a gift the first time but this time I earned it.
I am thankful for this immersive experience in an average human’s life, and I’m more thankful that it’s just a field trip and not a rest-of-your-life thing. Good luck everyone.
Even though you feel burnout and exhausted, and even though there’s a chance that some of you will never come out of it (I’m sorry), there’s still something you can do. My motorbike is old and broken, and sometimes I have to push it up the slope, but it still takes me to all the dirt roads and mountains.
People who are depressed or burned out have a lot of hard time getting out of bed to do anything. Everyone thinks that these people are doing nothing all day. But it’s actually the opposite. They are hosting debates inside their head while playing TV in the background. It’s super physically and mentally exhausting even though they look like they do nothing. In other words, they’re draining their battery much faster than a person who’s working exercising and eating healthy every day. My motorbike doesn’t rust because it exercises every day. It cannot carry heavy items, but it was never its job to carry the world anyway. All I need is for my motorbike to be happy when it’s hanging out with me. So if you can’t heal yourself from the burnout, at least guilt-trip yourself into taking care of your body. Yes you owe your mother and father a lot. And yes they also owe you a lot. The society owes you a lot. The world owes you a lot. But right now, for many of you, you are owing yourself the most. So slap yourself in the face if you have to because your body is more than just your brain. If your brain is fucked up, then fuck your brain. But the rest of your body doesn’t deserve to be treated like shit. And trust me, one time I thought my motorbike really died, but then I realized that it was just out of fuel. When you’re upset, sometimes your brain just creates a new problem even when there isn’t one.
Finding the way to work with your brain isn’t easy, but don’t be scared to tell your brain to shut the fuck up sometimes. The brain is the organ for intelligence, but wisdom is under every inch of your skin. Your PTSD is there for a reason and the reason is much more positive than you think it is.