The Lack of Desire to See the World

When I started my time at college, I enrolled in a Comparative World Literature course every semester until the end of sophomore year. I took enough courses to the point where I considered a minor in it — by the time I took my third class, I was theoretically a few more classes away from completing the minor without having officially enrolled in it.

But the reason why I enrolled in CWL classes in the first place was not because I liked to read — quite the opposite. I took those courses to force myself to read. I felt like I was doing myself a disservice by not keeping up with literature in college. Plus, what kind of journalism major doesn’t read? You need to read in order to improve your writing. Your magical affinity for conjuring up a beautiful array of words doesn’t manifest by writing with the same old spells you already know.

The first course I took was World Theater & Drama where we read plays from around the world. My favorite play was M. Butterfly and it was the first time that I truly enjoyed a literature class. In truth, I still didn’t read everything assigned in that course. And I didn’t read everything in the classes following that, either.

A year later, I enrolled myself in a CWL course called Literature and Play where I discovered Haruki Murakami. He’s a household name in Japan — a famous author known for his dream-like eloquence. I enjoyed reading Wind/Pinball, which is one of his earliest works. It follows the trilogy of a character named the Rat. I probably read zero books that entire semester; I always put off the readings and before I knew it, the course ended. I received a B in the class, by the way.

But I soon figured it out — I hate reading when it’s assigned to me in a school setting. That’s usually the way it goes for everyone; reading for a letter-grade leaves a sour taste for most students. I vowed to finish some of the books assigned in that course because I was still interested in a few of the novels. After finishing Wind/Pinball, I decided to read A Wild Sheep Chase because I wanted to find out what happened to the Rat. By the end of the summer of 2018 I finished the book and was severely disappointed.

I was telling my friend Olivia the Bookworm about how disappointed I was with the book; toward the end, its realism faded away and so did my interest in it. The entire book itself was an analogy for my feelings toward reading and other things I sought after; everything I did was a meaningless chase that left me with additional questions for myself. And answers I didn’t have.

Olivia then told me to read Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. I started it so long ago and was stuck on this one chapter where the characters were in a forest searching for mushrooms. After I started my job with Apple, I realized that I was left with a surplus of time on my lunch breaks. They warned me that this was a lonely job because I would be the only rep from Apple inside that BestBuy store. So I started packing my lunches and driving to the Hilltop Park in Signal Hill, which is about a minute drive away.

I figured it was the perfect time to pull out my Kindle and finish that book that Olivia assigned to me months ago. After about a month of working and reading roughly 30–40 minutes per lunch break, I finished the book. The book, if you were wondering, reads like contemporary art. It was soothing to immerse myself in a world devoid of the stresses of technology and retail. I used to go on my phone and mindlessly scroll through social media or read my emails but I won’t do that anymore. I now understand why it’s so important to detach yourself from the web every once in a while.

The photo above was taken a week after I finished the book. For the first time, I had nothing planned to do for the hour so I decided to park my car and go for a walk along the trail nearby. I didn’t realize it but I haven’t been on that very trail in about five years with my high school friends. I was literally walking down memory lane as I passed by jungle gyms dilapidated by time. Memories flashed in my head where I remember climbing that pull-up bar and laughing with friends that no longer consider each other to be friends. As I kept walking along I saw a path that forked away from the main trail.

It was then that I realized that I’m a pretty fucking introspective person — there I was, on a lunch break, snapping a photo and feeling…empty?

But that goes into the title of this blog post.

The last time I left California was in 2007 when my family flew to Vietnam for two weeks during spring break. I was just seven years old at the time and I only have fragments of memories about it. Since then, the farthest I’ve traveled from home was to Santa Cruz where I visited UCSC. That was 3 years ago, when I was a senior in high school.

I think my lack of desire has something to do with lack of inspiration. I was never raised to be curious about the world. Sure, I’ve seen films that take place in other countries or seen travel photos of my friends out and about, but I never felt like I was left out by not traveling.

I’d assume it was a combination of lack of inspiration and lack of accessibility — I had no means of traveling due to monetary reasons and because of that, I didn’t pay much attention to it.

It wasn’t until last summer and fall that I realized I’d been neglecting the world. In the summer, I was able to meet my penpal Alex for the first time. I bought a pair of sneakers online and we kept in touch — it’s a weird thing to say, but it just happened that way. I also met his best friend, Esther, now a good friend of mine as well. I had this lingering feeling of selfishness. All of these experiences were flocking to me, so I felt like I had no reason to travel. But that feeling of selfishness inundated as time passed by.

In the fall, it was when I decided to take a Japanese class again. In my Japanese class, I met Soichiro and Sascha — two unsuspecting foreign exchange students that had traveled from Japan and Germany respectively to study here in SoCal.

I’ve written about it before, but I wanted to take Japanese again because I felt like it was a waste to learn a language in middle school and high school only to discard it to the side with my other dead hobbies. I had the ability to converse with an entire nation of people on the other side of the world.

That thought stuck with me as I was hanging out with Soichiro last semester. I’m interested in Japanese literature and anime and I even listen to Japanese citypop from time to time. Why did I never consider wanting to travel to Japan?

The vision is 20/20. (2020?)

It’s clear to me that I need to travel sometime next year. I don’t know if Japan will be the first place I decide to go to (especially with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics hogging up the summer) but I need to renew my passport and get out of here.

Finally we get to the whole point of this post. Why did I even write about books that I’d been reading and how does it relate to seeing the world?

My friend Stephanie loves to travel. She went to Taiwan earlier this year and just a few weeks ago she was in the U.K. She sets aside a budget for travel every year or so and (coincidentally, while watching the city skyline at Hilltop) even lamented to me that she feels sad that some people aren’t able to travel. I assured her “It’s what makes Stephanie, Stephanie.”

And so she was in the U.K. and posted a photo of a couple and made up a short story about them. It was actually similar to an idea I had in my head a few days prior.

My idea was about the story of two people who frequent a park (loosely inspired by my lunch breaks) that never meet each other because they both ritually hang out in opposing sides of the park. I told her about my idea and she told me to write about it.

So I did.

It was difficult for me to paint on an expansive canvas because I didn’t even know what the world looked like. I had trouble figuring out where to start the story. Surely since it was based on my time at the park, I’d be able to write a story similar to it?

I felt like my side of the story was boring and I had no idea how to expand on my idea because of my lack of experience with the world.

It was then that I fully realized that I need to see the world.

To be a better writer.

To ponder things that I’d never pondered before.

To feel connected.

And to see.

So I’ll leave the story here while I’m at it. I originally put the story on an older photo I took, but this new photo fits the story much better as it has a stone bench in frame.

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