The 2010s was a decade that consisted of many comedic attempts to grow up quickly. In the early stages of metamorphosis I sped through with impatience, all to have a feeble grasp at adulthood fueled with naivete—only to close out the decade wanting to resist how quickly time has passed. Through my daily interactions, I’ve noticed how I’ve no longer identified myself with the age I’ll be turning into once a new year strikes. I now wait until birthdays.
Physical changes to my appearance were the most tangible indicators of growth. Rather than a sudden drop in voice, I picked up on a season’s worth of difference between the grimey, 2.0 megapixel shots on Facebook. The weight I’ve dropped as a tween garnered a short-lived celebration of my newfound appearance, which quickly descended into very little pride beyond its utilitarian purposes. Through the ways I have carried interactions and painted portraits of myself with the click of a shutter, many narratives of modesty seemed to be shrouded with shame. Was it clarity of hyper-magnification that brought me to observe and conceal signs of perceived flaw? With a militant rigour, I found the need to identify and respond to the tiny mounds of pink and red, signs of distress and the gaps in my scalp.
Nice getting to host as many photos of myself on my own site!
I know I’m eligible for the senior citizen’s discount on Instagram: my first photo was uploaded in 2010, even before Androids even got access to the app. Much like the many sites I’ve spent the noughties on like Club Penguin and Habbo, Instagram seemed like a more realistic incarnation of a platform for avatars. Reality deliberate condensed, selected, spliced, split and contorted into caricatures. In a controlled environment like Instagram, the emphasis of success is on an authentic execution of essence, not necessarily the authenticity of one’s essence. Comparing it to real life interactions, the added layer of storytelling through the lens of the producer allowed easier, bite-sized consumption and directed contextualisation towards its intended narrative. Through the looking glass, I have found kindred spirits who have bonded over similar visual cues and points of views. And just like myself, many of them have fallen prey to the very false idols we birthed ourselves. Kilometers of scrolling brings upon a giddy sense of inspiration, until you get overwhelmed and scroll some more until you find something else to fixate on.
“In a controlled environment like Instagram, the emphasis of success is on an authentic execution of essence, not necessarily the authenticity of one’s essence. ”
Having spent most of the past decade in formal education led to a pretty difficult goodbye towards the tail end. While not everyone willfully perceives their educational background as being directly impactful, I feel content, enriched even—not from the facts I’ve extracted from a textbook but towards the train of thought I’ve cultivated and how curiosity was celebrated. Time was truly the factor that contextualised the space and crowd I grew up with, fueling my coming of age. In an environment where conformity was shrouded as discipline, earlier parts of the decade was spent on sanding down parts that stood out and learning from peers who devoted themselves towards settling for nothing beneath their standards of excellence. The same seedbed at a later time encouraged me to stand out, refine my most commendable traits and repositioned my nastiest ones.
A two-decade long learning path with objectives that were clearly mapped out had made way for a trail of boundless possibilities. Compared to the explicit measures of success (and failure), the present came along with endless opportunities made of options and consequences that were no longer binary. I came to realise that the structural elements that worked for me as an educational system no longer translated into life beyond. The allure of autonomy in decision making came along with accountability—in an environment where success is no longer clearly defined, how was I able to lessen the dissonance of having made the right decision? Often interchanged with freedom, free will was no longer an illusion: it was tacit, present and overwhelming. As stakes rose beyond a printed score, there were many times I resorted to the compulsions of either playing out a kaleidoscope of outcomes in realities I did not choose and often vilified them to justify my current choice. While the Deepak Chopra quote that goes: “If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.” has provided solace in the greyest of times, it has also gone to highlight how ill-prepared I was in empowering myself.
Whether it's being second place in typing among primary schoolers or being in student council, years of conditioning have led towards a habit of attributing my worth through tangible indicators of success. While some may be deeply impactful, those with trophies became tchotchkes and the rest earned their spots as novelty brags. Through verbiage and behavior I come to realise the patterns of perceiving myself through the many, many lenses of others while lacking the grounding of something intrinsic. Even I have misled myself into mistaking my ability to articulate for unadulterated confidence. The way I learned about myself through the badges and yardsticks I’ve accumulated paved the way towards how I saw myself—through the conditions I’ve placed. Especially in the eyes of those I’ve greatly adored, the fleeting value I’ve allowed others to ascertain onto my worth has brought upon painful realisation, the occasional heartbreak and a need for proper footwork.
“The allure of autonomy in decision making came along with accountability—in an environment where success is no longer clearly defined, how was I able to lessen the dissonance of having made the right decision?”
Across the many points of observation I have made in the past decade, something I’m coming to terms with is that rational acknowledgement does not lead to emotional acceptance. In a position of hyperawareness, the immediate recognition of a problem is often met with impatient demands of resolution. In the long run, the overexertion of effort would only serve as a recipe for short circuiting. Through the many different forms this piece has previously assumed and the time I’ve put off in writing it, crafting this out was one of the most cathartic acts of reflection—a portrait most difficult to narrate. I now understand that the next decade exists in a spectrum of grey, and I look forward to another decade of unlearning.
PS: Gone for 8 months! This site was always on my important list, but wasn’t as urgent as the many endeavours I found myself in (read: day job). Like a soldier gone to war, this site was on my mind like a military wife. I wanted to come back and muse about my observations as we wrapped up the past decade before sharing more of the wonderful folks I’ve conversed with over the past year.