Conclusions

Should I reach a conclusion before I write?

I had a fever on Thursday and Friday, went to the doctor on Friday night. The four types of drugs I’m supposed to take three times a day have turned my weekend into dizzy trips to the bathroom, my t-shirts damp from cold sweat.

In a room lit by the cloud-engulfed sun, I lay on my bed.

All the Spanish I’ve learned from Netflix and Duolingo bounce off the ceiling and walls; my pool of glossary had become a bowl of alphabet cereal in English and Spanish: reservation, berenjena, aburrimiento, infiltration…

All words and not a sentence. Nothing means anything.

Strangely enough, the remedy for this verbal chaos is reading.

I’ve never been much of a reader, but in my cold skin and slow recovery, I find reading more relaxing than watching Vis A Vis. Perhaps the themes of drugs and violence in women’s prison are a bit too tense for my current lightheadedness. It’s easier to tune in to the books and let them line the words up for me as I march into the story.

Anyway, while I was reading an early part of Selection Day, a question popped up in my head.

All the ugly things in the world, where do they belong?

It sounded like a magnificent, dark, Billie Eilish-ish theme in my head until I sat down in front of my laptop, facing a new page on Microsoft Word. My mind turned as blank as the white screen before me.

In my mind, all loopy from the meds, this tiny seed of idea break out into fumes of questions I did not consider.

How would I define ugly? It’s a result of subjective evaluation, like good or bad. Perhaps the things and people we consider ‘ugly’ are simply unwanted, broken, or different, unsuitable to our expectations. What about people who committed malicious crimes? Is evil considered a factor in ugliness? What about trashes that should be discarded? What about beauty standards? What about stereotypes in race and genders?

Instead of tying the increasing number of thought balloons with a knot, I was slightly overwhelmed by how they expand like gas that fills every corner of a room. There was a conclusive moment where I realized that I wasn’t ready to write about this, but right when I was about to click the X mark on the right corner of the screen, it felt too familiar.

How many times have I stopped writing just because I haven’t found a conclusion?

Your ideas have to be crystallized to be good.

A college senior told me that Budi Darma said that in one of his classes. I don’t know if he actually said that, but some of my best writings are indeed a result of crystallization that took days, months, and even years of reflection benefitting from hindsight.

Should I reach a conclusion before writing? Should I take my time defining it and its relations?

Perhaps so, especially in the topic of 'ugly.' Muy grande. Also very judgmental.

However, for the first time in my life, I felt the urge of not letting loose ends halt me in lockdown.

All I wanted to create are masterpieces, but grand things take time, and that kind of expectation at my level is counter-productive. Perfection is the prescribed medication that I thought will make me better, and perhaps it does, but also at the cost of a standstill.

I shouldn’t stop and feel like a failure just because it’s not good enough for me. I shouldn’t stop and feel like a failure just because someone else doesn’t like it. I shouldn’t stop and feel like a failure because the people I expect to understand me don’t. Like many things in my life, some judgments are out of my control, and I can only focus my energy on what I can do.

Perhaps instead of conclusions, I should reach milestones.

Deep conclusions cannot be forced because they will be revealed naturally in the right time, and if I do encounter these moments, perhaps they should be taken as bonuses, like the coins and super mushrooms in Mario Bros.

Life and writing are counterparts that polish each other, and in that setting, there’s no such thing as a final conclusion or perfection.

Everlastingly, only growth.