[MENTION=18694]Magic Qwan[/MENTION] dear, I perceive you as a young man with an old soul. You desire much, you want to be involved, relevant and at ease. However what stands in your way seems to be your self-consciousness, the expectations of others put on you, distractions, having so many ideas and thoughts, being 18, being sensitive, being young, being in this world. I could see my 18, 19, 20 year-old self in you - outspoken, detached, eager, full of extreme thoughts and feelings, ambitious, scared, hopeful, hopeless, worried, daring. If I could go back in time and talk to myself, I would tell myself to practice my patience, to seek help for my depression right at that point before it got too far, to pick another major in college and pick one that I would be passionate about, to learn how to detect potential damages from afar when a man came into my life.
I talk to kids sometimes. They're between 15 and 17 and my mother's students. They enjoy talking to me because I appear non-judgmental and patient with them. At that stage in life, they all search for that one mentor, one guide, one inspirer who helps them find a damn clue of what to do, where to go, what's this life is about, what all of their emotions are supposed to mean, where they stand in this life. I know because I've been there, and around that age, I was not only alone but also going through only daily traumas. There is one thing I keep telling them, that is to just wait. Wait on being successful, at anything at all. Wait on having everything figured out. In the mean time, just don't stop taking all the chances and trying everything out, and once they do take the chance, give it all they've got because it's the only way. Look at adults, nobody really has it all really figured out.
I perceive myself a very flawed person whose identity is confusing yet determined. Odd much? I see myself too different from most people I know. And trust me, it's not the Goddamn INFP 4w5 that defines me, it is me being this way and scientifically there's a name, a tag, a type. I am INFP 4w5 version me.0
Your secrets, what only you know, only you've seen and only you've been through separate you from the rest. Tell yourself that like a mantra, then consciously practice bridging that great space sometimes and try to connect with people who would bridge it in return and walk that bridge for you.
As for myself, deep down inside, I've always been on this side of the great divide looking over the other side.
In every era, there's a lost generation. I think it is now us.