Induction

(School) life is cruel and ironic in the respect that it follows everybody's schedule, but never follow anyone's schedule. It's too fast when you need to eat, sleep, read, and do nothing, and when it's too slow you crave something to happen which will dissolve these timetable grids. Every child has wished for a disaster. A fire rushing everyone to the fields, to watch the books burn. Floods to swim in. Wild beasts on loose, forcing a fearful, exhilarating game of hide and seek.

The season of post-examinations was interspersed with dread and wretched acceptance. I expected the worst, and received only slightly better than the worst. Strangely, the school also thought it encouraging to hold scholarship fairs and summon seniors to share their adventures. So it was always with a sense of absurdity that I listen to people regale their success stories, my eyes sinking so far away from the sun. What the hell am I doing? Nothing. What do I see? Only the past, and its eternal return. Why am I not trying? Because death is so easy, and gets progressively easier.

Of course, I am also being deliberately misleading. Not being successful is not death. Just because I have no socially significant achievement to my name in these two years, doesn't mean I have to be dead. It's a convenient metaphor, though. It excuses my stasis.

The KI seniors who came back offered the same advice I've heard from countless motivational speakers, leaders-of-leaders, men of power and position, well-meaning teachers and relatives. "Go out there. Try. Don't be afraid."

I'm not afraid of what's out there. I'm afraid of what's inside - me and other people.

It seems to me that the most important epistemic concept I've learnt from KI, and absorbed most readily into my system, is Hume's problem of induction. People like to look at the good trends, and be optimistic. I'm not even obsessing about the bad trends. I'm just convinced that there are no trends, and anyone who wants to follow anything will find themselves lost, as I have.

There are two ways of dealing with Hume's POI. One is what I do, or rather, not do. I don't warm to acquaintances. I don't confess my life to any one person. I don't participate in any activities which, however remotely, will ask of me more than I can give. I stumble at "hel-", don't know whether to say help or hello, so I don't say anything. I patrol the borders of friends, family, studies, love, feud, gratitude, freedom, reason, grief, faith and need, making sure they mix only to the extent that I can handle, and making sure I am always in position to amputate any part which betrays me.

The other is what seniors have come back to say: Go out there. Try. Don't be afraid.

I've always wondered which is the better choice. Mine is the safest, of course - but because I distrust any drink, I will live dry, never knowing the sweet taste of cordial and wine and rose water. I stare at the opposite people with thirsty eyes. What have they done that I have not? Why is it that they do not die, they who daringly lick arsenic and dance away gleefully with their full strength, while I who has sealed my lips waste away?

In this respect I empathise with the Jewish people. How do you know if a prophet is false or true? Who can give up their soul so unquestioningly, and so completely? I wouldn't have believed. But it seems like I would never believe in anything. A skeptic is not superior. He's the saddest person who wonders why other people are so happy.

Last night, I had a dream about my most urgent confession, and an old crush promising love. Ridiculous. But I wished I never woke. Dreams like these are infrequent but disrupting. They make the borders entangle, and I spend silent mornings rearranging the lines.

University seems like a prospect foggier and further away. I am starting to seriously consider a life without university. For some people the line to higher education is a rope bridge, sturdy enough if you don't swing too hard, but for me it's a fine loose thread. It scares me how easy it is to snap it, and how tedious it can be to wind it back. My body is a spool and the thread is tight on my skin and I am getting dizzy.

Besides, I'm not sure what good I am to anybody. The only subjects which interest me are literature, linguistics, and philosophy - which are pretty much useless, economically speaking. Of course, I could read law and politics/public policy. But they carry an emotional sunk cost, in addition to the economic one. I can't afford anything.

And beyond these teenage musings, delusions or otherwise, I wonder if I will complete this bildungsroman, and return to society. Scholarship. Law school. Private practice. Five dollar words. Return home tired, have sex with the girlfriend, and fall asleep, dreaming of an old confession. And forgetting about it the next day.