#micro-essay

[personal journal entry, circa three weeks after my first “switch.”]

"And then, after I don’t know how long, I felt myself start to leave myself. And it was like I was watching myself on TV from across the room. And I was moving further and further away from the screen until the screen was so small that I couldn’t even see myself anymore. And then I was clawing my way up out of the ground. And then I was at the surface, gasping for air, rain pouring down on me. Thunder and lightning. And I was finally back there. Back at our old sleepaway camp. And just like I was waking up from a bad dream, that whole life… that whole reality where I was Maddy Wilson…drifted away. Like a brief hallucination that, after a few moments, I could hardly even remember. And all those memories that had felt so real washed away with the rain back at our old sleepaway camp. And I was me. I was finally me again. And it was the season six premiere."

[I Saw the TV Glow (2024)]

The way Maddy describes this, describes waking up and feeling fog begin to rush in on the borders of self isn't very far removed from plurality. We have an instinctive aversion to confronting the things deep inside us, and once upon a time, the barriers served to protect us.

That whole life…that whole reality where I was █████ ██████…drifted away.

I Saw the TV Glow is a movie about suffocation. About self. About the weight of suburbia.

[message to a friend, circa 3 months after my first “switch.”]

"This isn’t the Midnight Realm, Maddy, it’s just the suburbs."

[I Saw the TV Glow (2024)]

Pulled from the Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES), a 30 question self-report screening tool used to measure dissociative symptoms in youth aged 11-18:

8.   I look at the clock and realize that time has gone by and I can't remember what has happened. [A-DES]

"Time wasn’t right. It was moving too fast. And then I was 19. And then I was 20. ( . . . ) And then I was 21. Like chapters skipped over on a DVD."

"Time moves fast these days. Years pass like seconds. I just try not to think too hard about it."

 [I Saw the TV Glow (2024)]

1.   I get so wrapped up in watching TV, reading, or playing a video game that I don't have any idea what's going on around me. [A-DES]

"It just…seems like you’re always somewhere else lately. I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s ’cause of me, or…I don’t know. I…Maybe I’m just making it up."

"Sometimes…The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life."

 [I Saw the TV Glow (2024)]

I really want to emphasize this idea, of the haunting and separation of parts. Of these disparate components you cannot think about, lest they infect you.

Remember: They can’t hurt you if you don’t think about them

Here’s how I want to write, or maybe how I’ve always wanted to write: I want to write micro-essays.

Bearing in mind that the English word ‘essay’ stems from the French verb essayer, meaning ‘to try’. An essay is an attempt. This is something I’ve always tried to emphasise to my students. It’s about the attempt ... because failure can be beautiful too, etc.

How long is a micro-essay? Maybe no longer than a printed page in 12pt font? A few paragraphs? 

As an example, I might write a micro-essay that links a song lyric to a theory, an event, a feeling, etc. This is actually the kind of thing I want to do, because I find music is as good an entry-point as any into the pleasures and problems of the world.

Writing a micro-essay, for me at least, is maybe a bit like writing a poem. Condensed and suggestive. Not (as some prose can be) faux-comprehensive.

Or a micro-essay could be likened to a blog post—one that doesn’t try to sell you anything. Or maybe it’s like a short Medium article that doesn’t tell you the secret for improving your life.

I have frequently instructed my students that if they must lie to get to the truth, then their truth is not worth having. This morning I read in Mark’s gospel about men sent to Jesus “to trap him in his talk” by asking a question about paying taxes and also the section where the Sadducees testing him concerning the resurrection. I find these passages support my point.

The first question is about loyalty. Should one gives a portion of earnings to the ruling authority, even if it is oppressive or not instituted by God? It is a question worth asking, even for nonbelievers. The second question seems to be about marriage, and the assumed reunion of married souls.  Perhaps is it also about allegiances.

I was at the hallway when “Hey, Charlene kuan kaayo ka ay… “ my classmate Rhodesa always used the term “kuan” whenever she’s talking to me or when she’s preferring to something. When I got home my mom would tell me to kuan my things so it won’t be mess. Every day kuan term is always term that I always hear. And I was wondering what really kuan means?

Kuan is generally used as bisaya expression term that used to pause word to fill in when the speaker cannot think of the right word (example: um…, well). It is commonly used by the Cebuano sentence. But kuan somehow used as other term in other places. According to the 2010 United States Census, “Kuan is the 20676th most common surname in the United States, belonging to 1280 individuals. It is most common among Asian/Pacific Islander (82.19%) individuals”. Kuan term spread throughout years, Cebuano is not the only one who used this term in an everyday life but also Kagay-anon, Boholano, Pagadianon and other places in Visayas and Mindanao used this famous term with the same meaning as it is. However, my close friend Eliza once told me about this goddess in China namely Guan Yin that spelt Kuan Yim which means their Goddess name of Compassion, Mercy and Kindness is considered to be a mother-goddess and patron of seamen.  It is the short form for Kuan-Shi Yin, meaning- observing the sounds (or cries) of (human) world. She told me that this Goddess is highly respected among all Asian cultures.

The expression “my bad” is not a colloquial version of “I’m sorry.” It is, in fact, an insult, if sometimes an unintentional one. It is a dismissive pair of words, barely a phrase, much less an apology,  because it deflects the emotional weight onto the person who has been wronged, who is expected to forgive and/or forget, no matter how significant the injury.

If we all got what we deserved, there would be no one left to judge the worthy. Through our brains seem to naturally go there, it is impossible to honestly judge what we deserve, much less what those whose hearts and minds we cannot know. We are always either too kind or too harsh with ourselves in these matters, oftentimes both.

Thus, we are distracted from setting the mind on what is necessary either to care properly for ourselves or our duties in global citizenship And here is the irony: in speaking of the  “rights” as humans, we easily dehumanize. When we see others as inhuman, we have lost the ability to judge them or ourselves.