Reflections of Light

By Anonymous / Spring 2022

Dear Reader,

In this society of competition, we often lose our light. The society forces us to disconnect from our loves, community, and ourselves. It traps us in darkness. I too have experienced this darkness in my life. I had lost my light as I was blinded by the fire of competition. The stars of wisdom were not visible until I almost burnt my soul in this ideology. It wasn’t until recently that I was able to connect the dots between the stars to see the glowing constellation. Now I am finally able to see the constellation that has always been illuminating me from above. Let me show you how I lost my light. And how I found my light.

* * *

My mind pulls me across the years. I am 16 years old. I am on another one of my dad’s weekly camping trips with his climbing club buddies. I finish eating my third bowl of Korean barbecue we grilled on a campfire. I feel really bloated. My dad pulls out a bag of marshmallows. Now we grill marshmallows and talk over the fire. 

“How do they even have space to eat more,” I wonder. I am the only teenage girl here, and I can never understand how they can always eat so much.

We start grilling marshmallows, but really, they are grilling me with questions. 

“How is school going?” 

“How are your grades?” 

“Do you know which college you are going to?” 

“Which ivy league schools did you apply to?” 

This is my least favorite part of the camping trip. I just moved to the States, and I am barely handling my ESL classes. I probably won’t even go to college. How would I?  I am barely learning to speak English. Knowing my dad probably won’t accept that kind of answer, I don’t respond. My stomach grumbles. I feel the barbecue twisting inside.

To avoid more questions, I excuse myself to use the restroom. I walk towards the restroom that is located a few minutes walk away from our campsite. As I walk away, the noise of my dad and his friends at the campsite starts getting quieter and the world starts getting darker. The noise from the campsite is muffled by the rustling wind and my footsteps on the dirt. It gets darker and darker as I walk farther away. Now I can’t even see my feet. I am struggling to walk because the campground is rocky. I should have brought the headlamp. The campsite isn’t far, I should probably go back to grab a headlamp. But I don’t want to go back.  I don’t want to be swamped by another set of questions.

Now I have completely lost my spatial awareness. I am worried that I might trip and fall.  I look up to see the moon and the stars. The moon that was hidden during the day by the bright sunlight is shining in the middle of the dark sky. I was hoping it would light my way, but the dim light of the moon and the stars are not bright enough to light up my way. My eyes are getting used to the darkness, but there is not enough light to find my way. It is only getting darker as I keep walking farther away from the campsite. Now, even a small glimpse of light is not visible.

This is when, all of a sudden, the world becomes bright. It is not because my eyes have become used to the darkness. I am glowing. I am emitting light. I am reflecting the moonlight. I am shining so brightly that even the moon and the stars aren’t as bright as me. Now I can see my way. I can clearly see the direction of the road, and where to step in order to not trip over. The light that reflected on my body is now lighting up my way. It was only when I got far enough away from the fire. It was only after the distance I walked in the dark that I am able to see the light.

The special, almost fantastical, experience of seeing my glowing self illuminated by the moonlight stuck with me for my whole life. It was one of the most fantastical experiences I have ever had, and it is probably my most retold stories this past decade.

However, it wasn’t until very recently that I realized what this experience actually might have meant in my life, and how it foreshadowed the lessons I was going to learn, lessons I hope to share with you now. 

Part I.

Lost Light

In memory, I am in my mid-twenties. I sit in my room of darkness. It’s been years since I have disconnected myself from the world and locked myself in here. 

Unlike the busy scenery of Central LA, the road facing my window is completely dark. The street light outside broke many years ago, but no one cared to fix it.  I too have stopped caring to light my room. I have gotten so used to the darkness. Now I am scared to turn the light back on. 

Across the two walls, behind the two tightly closed doors, there is my dad. Not more than three steps away in our tiny two-bedroom apartment. He is close, yet so far away. I can’t find my way out of this room without running into him. So I decide to stay in these walls for years, in darkness.

In this story, the light was gone. What put me into those walls of darkness? Where did my darkness begin? Alienated from the world built on competition, I lost connection with the world, from my family and friends. I sought community, but it was nowhere to be found. I was stuck in my dark room, in the rat race. I was lost in darkness. In order for me to explain how this light faded, you need to hear more about my life story.

My mom passed away when I was a baby. My dad who couldn’t raise a toddler while working alone left me with my grandparents in Korea and immigrated to the States.  We were pulled away by the forces of the society that doesn’t allow single parents to bear the financial burden, nor have the time and resources to raise a child alone.  According to Noam Chomsky in Requiem for the American Dream, the social burden and the lack of social security shift the burden to the individuals. 

His analysis of American society is not much different for Korea, as this is a common experience in neoliberal capitalist society. Therefore, the initial separation between my dad and me at this early age of my life was driven by the social structure. With the physical separation in this critical age of child-parent relationships, my dad and I didn’t have a chance to build a connection.

* * *

I hang up the phone. There we go again, another meaningless conversation with my dad over the phone. This is the first time he called in years. We’ve been apart for 10 years, he in America and me in Korea. He has only called a few times. Every time, he says  meaningless things and hangs up quickly. 

I have always been curious why he wouldn’t call and if he didn’t miss me, but he would always hang up before I even have a chance to ask. But it’s fine, I don’t feel sad. I never felt any connection with him anyway. 

My grandparents raised me with love and provided for me more than I ever needed in their wealthy environment. But I don't have many memorable memories growing up other than studying and going to the cathedral with my grandma every Saturday. Throughout childhood, I was sent to several after-school classes where I would spend the whole day studying. This year I started middle school, and I am attending after-school classes until 2 am.

Growing up, I knew nothing about my dad. Curious about who he is, I ask my grandma about him. She is packing my backpack for school. My grandma says there is nothing much I need to know about him. “He graduated from a prestigious university and used to have a well-paying job” she says, “but ever since your mom died, he has been nothing but a failure.” 

She says I should grow up to be nothing like him. And she says, if I don’t want to become a failure like my dad, I should study hard. I nod. I pick up my backpack and leave the house. My grandma hugs me at the door and tells me that she would pick me up at 2 am in front of my after-school class as usual. As I walk to school, I tell myself that I would study hard so that I won’t become like my dad. I don’t want to be a failure like my dad.

From an early age, I was taught to believe that success was defined by wealth. “Success” was my grandparents who had money. “Failure” was my father who was poor. Because I was so young, I considered wealth—not as one measure of success—but as success itself.  In this way, I fell victim to the dominant ideology.

Political economists Arthur Denzau and Douglas North define ideology as “the shared framework of mental models that groups of individuals possess that provide both an interpretation of the environment and a prescription as to how that environment should be structured”. In today’s society, capitalism and the interrelated ideology of competitive individualism is engrained deeply into people’s souls, and it destines how they will navigate through their life in society. 

Indeed, this ideology was carved deeply into my mind, and I lived the majority of my life under this mindset. With this mental model that I was guided to build by my grandma - and that she was guided to build by the society - I structured the upcoming years of my life as a life of competition.

* * *

I am sitting here in the darkness of my dad’s tiny apartment. This is the fifth time the electricity has gone out this month. I don’t see the point of calling the service because no one is going to come out to fix it. I already know that because I have called enough in the past. This is a frequent event in my neighborhood. The slightest rain or wind would kill our electricity. I bet no one cares about our neighborhood anymore, and at this point, neither do I. Normally, I would call the night early when I figure the light would be out for the night, but today I have a Physics assignment due at midnight. I am usually not a fan of procrastinating, but ever since I started attending community college, I had to manage school between my two jobs. I had no time to work on the assignment early on so I was trying to get it done at the last minute.

Maybe I could use the street light outside my window. I go near the window hoping to find a light coming from outside the window, but I realize that the street light has been broken for years. I know my dad has a headlamp in his camping gear box. I look for the box, but I realize the box is gone as my dad went on his weekly camping trip. I don’t know what to do. I can’t see my paper without light. I panic.

I remember there is a candle somewhere in the house. I look for it. Without light, I can’t find the candle.  I touch every shelf and open every box, but I have no luck. I think to myself, it is impossible that there are no candles in this tiny apartment. That is when, I find a candle in a pile of mess pulled out of a box. Without a moment to enjoy the joy of finding the candle, now I have to find a lighter so that I could light up the candle. I go back to all the mess pulled out of the boxes and look everywhere but the lighter is nowhere to be found. In the darkness, I completely lose my spatial awareness. I stub my toe on the corner of the wall. It hurts but I continue looking for the lighter so that I could finish my assignment. This time, I trip over one of the boxes and fall. Now my toe, knees, and wrists are all hurting. I feel like crying. But I don’t. I have no time to waste crying. I have to find the lighter so that I could finish my assignment. After a few minutes, I finally find the lighter, and I am able to light up the candle. The illuminated candlelight is dim, but the dim light fills up my entire room. The dim light is enough to walk without falling and to finish my assignment.

The next morning, I wake up to my dad marching into my room yelling. He is yelling at me saying that he raised an alcoholic who makes a mess all over the house being drunk. Over the past years during my early twenties, I have developed bad drinking habits. To his eyes, I am just a failure who didn’t get into college and who drinks excessively. I yell back at him. I say I was just looking for the light, and I needed the light.

In the society of the rat race, the measure of success is defined by a number of fabricated trajectories in life, such as attending a prestigious university and having a well-paying job. When these goals become unachievable, one is deemed a failure. The sense of disappointment and frustration is solely on individuals and they are blamed for not working harder. When individuals internalize this sense of failure, they often feel that they don’t fit into this world and the rest of the community. They disconnect from family, friends, and the world. They disconnect from themselves. In that way, they lose their light.

Submerged by the ideology of competition, I was ashamed of becoming like my dad as I grew up. Drowned in the sense of disappointment with the unachievable goal of success, I fell into the deep sea of depression and social anxiety. Without a community to depend on, to exchange ideas and feelings, individuals carry the burden of life alone, instead of engaging themselves with the rest of the society.  Instead of being held together by a web of social bonds, they carry the burden of the social standards of good education, achieving social status, and financial security all alone.  

Anomie sets in. In a society that lacks social bonds, people often fall into a deep black hole of feeling alienated and feeling left alone. They often feel like they don’t fit into society if they are not able to meet the social standards. Because they were pulled away from the community, they do not realize that many other people feel the same way. They do not realize that their frustrations and overwhelming feelings are driven by their thoughts, the ideology that drives them from deep down. After all, the forces of the society that is designed for atomization lead to disconnection. The disconnection brought by the forces of society is not only limited to within oneself, but with family and friends. Eventually, the disconnection leads to self-destruction.

Like this, my darkness was a destined trajectory of growing up with the ideology of competitive individualism engrained deep into my brain. Away from people with a lack of sense of community, my finish line was depression. 

Part II.

Finding the Light

At last, I submerged myself into darkness, into a deep sea of depression and social anxiety. Away from people, I spent years in my room, locked inside. There was not a glimpse of light in my room where I lost connection with the people in the outside world. I had been ashamed to talk to my friends. I thought they would judge me. I hadn’t called my grandma in years. I didn’t want her to find out I’m a failure, like my dad. Now I understood why my dad didn’t call me. It wasn’t because he didn’t love me.  It was a shame, disappointment, and insecurity. It was those visceral feelings of failure that pulled him away from me, just like I did from my family and friends. The way out of the room was close, but far. It was only three steps away, but I hesitated for years afraid of taking that walk. Eventually one night, I packed up a few pieces of clothes and left the house.

My life was even darker when I left. Now I had to work to be able to afford the living. I lived with roommates to afford cheaper housing. I had to meet all kinds of people. Being surrounded by people was a threat to my social anxiety. However, in that darkness, I found the light. 

It was people.

Surrounded by people of different backgrounds, I opened my eyes to the different lifestyles that people have. Unlike my world which was full of competition and mechanical routines for efficiency and productivity, they were living a slow-paced life enjoying their hobbies and passion. Unlike my world where everyone was my rival and spending time with people was only done when deemed worth the time, they didn’t hesitate to spend time with others. They loved others, and they had enough time to share and spread the love. They treated others as a community. After all, the people and the community that I desperately sought for during my dark times have always been there. My ideology of competition was so bright as the sunlight that I didn’t see their light – the soft moonlight of community. As Karl Mannheim describes, my ideology disguised the real nature of the situation. My world that was built by ideological perspectives was false. 

From the community, I learned about the real world. I learned the real importance of life. I learned how to enjoy life. I discovered my hobbies and passion. I found my love for traveling, for learning about different cultures and languages. I started making films again that I had stopped for years after my dad made me stop pursuing filmmaking in high school to take university preparatory courses instead. I learned how to rest and enjoy doing nothing without feeling guilty. I gained a new perspective of life. Wealth wasn’t the measure of happiness. Loving myself, loving people around me, and loving my hobbies and passion were the measure of happiness. Love is happiness.

The new perspective opened my eyes to see my dad’s life in a different way. My dad’s life, which I had always thought of as a failure, was just another lifestyle after all.  The measure of success or happiness for him wasn’t money. Money wasn’t the goal of his life. Spending every weekend climbing, the hobby that he loves, and spending time with his friends that he loves were the goals of his life. Captivated by the ideology of competition, I had always judged him as a failure.

As I walked away from the fire of love provided by my dad in the name of competition, my world became darker and darker. It was only after I reached the absolute darkness that I was able to see the light. I was only able to grow up to see the light of love and community after I distanced myself from my loving ones who were burning in the ideology of competition. The light of love and community was so soft like moonlight or candlelight, they were not visible under the beaming sunlight and near the fire. When I couldn’t see the light of love and community, I couldn’t see the path in front of me. I had a hard time walking, and I fell and hurt myself. When I faced the absolute darkness, I could see their light that illuminated me. The soft moonlight and the candlelight provided by the community were bright enough to illuminate me and my path ahead of me. I needed that light.

And I had to find the light myself. No matter how dark it was to find the light, and how I would fall and hurt myself, I had to walk away from the fire and keep walking into the darkness to find the light. No matter how bright and tempting the fire was, the burning fire of ideology that Marx and Engels describe as “a dangerous illusion and mystification to conceal and maintain exploitative social relations”. I had to find the light that would make me shine. The light that would make me see myself. The soft light that is so bright and strong to shine my way, but that won’t burn me. The light helped me walk without falling or hurting. The light helped me see the path that I am supposed to walk in life, the purpose of my life. All I needed was light. It was people. It was community and love.

* * *

2022. Fearing I may have contracted Covid, I am isolated in my dark room.

A blinding light comes into my room from outside through the window. I feel like the light is telling me to confess my deep story, to confess my sins, and ask for forgiveness. 

The light looks like a shape of a ghost. I am scared, terrified. It feels like a supernatural being who knows everything about me. I feel like I am getting too close to the truth that I should not know about. I feel like the spiritual power is talking to me. It is telling me to face the truth. I see the shape of the face of my professor’s father in that light. I am certain it is him. I think I am crazy for thinking that. I know nothing about my professor’s father. I saw his picture once as my professor showed us in class. I heard he was a priest.

I would often sit in the little chair in my professor’s office and talk about my life. In that chair, I feel like all the times of my life that I have traveled through in the past, the present, and the future are intertwined and connected. Sitting in that chair, I am sucked into memories of the past.

When I was young, I would follow my grandma to the cathedral every Saturday. Every week, I went into the confession room to tell my deepest secret and the sin that I had hidden in my heart. As a young child, my sin was nothing more than giving my grandma an attitude, and not studying harder. The priest would listen to me on the other side of the window. I felt forgiven.

Like how I confessed my sins to the priest on the opposite side of the window in the confession room, now I am crying in my professor’s office, confessing my sin. I am confessing how I have disconnected from my family and friends. I am too ashamed to tell him that I still haven’t reconnected with my grandma, but I am confessing to myself inside my heart. He quietly listens to me on the other side of the table, staring into my eyes.

What was this light all about? Was it actually a spiritual power sending me a message or just an anxiety attack? Or, was I just dreaming? Whatever it was, this mystical experience was a moment of realization for me. The spirit was telling me to face my deepest secret and my sin of disconnection from my grandma. It was telling me it was the time to reconnect with her. 

The philosopher Paul Tillich said that “sin is separation.” My disconnection from my grandma was my greatest sin, my deepest secret.

In the following week, I reconnected with my grandma. I started calling my old friends one by one. Unlike my fear, they weren’t angry at me for disconnecting for years. They welcomed me. They thanked me for reaching out to them. They showed me love.

After all, the love has always been there. I just didn’t see it. I was blinded by the fire of competition. The soft light of the love of my family and friends was only visible after I walked far away from them. The light wasn’t destroyed by the rat race. I just needed to step out of the race to find my light. I just needed to look out the window to find the light. On the other side of the window, there have always been people willing to listen to me and love me.

* * *

I am on a summer break in my senior year of high school. Since my grandma sent me to the U.S. to live with my dad for better education a year ago, I have been swamped with a busy schedule as my dad registered me in ESL, writing, and public speech classes at a local community college to attend in the evening after my high school classes. I have been interested in learning a different language for a while now but never found time. 

This summer, I signed up for a Spanish class at the community college. I am really excited to learn from this class that I signed up on my own for the first time, without my dad designing my schedule and deciding what I should learn. My initial excitement quickly faces the wall when I can’t find a place to study. I am living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment where my dad and a few of his friends sleep in the living room, and the daughter of one of his friends, who I call my sister, and I shared the bedroom. Knowing she can’t sleep with the light in the room, I hide in the bathroom at night to study for my Spanish class. This doesn’t last long because she gets mad at me for not letting her sleep with the light coming through the bathroom door.

Unable to find the light in the house after I get home at night after my classes, the only place I find to study is in the subway during the commute. I used to hate the two-hour commute that I had to do every day after my dad and I moved far away from my school to live in his friend’s house after we lost our home near my school because he couldn’t afford it. Now, the commute has become my favorite time of day. The unpleasant smell, the noise, and the weird people in the subway that used to bother me don’t bother me anymore. I am just thankful for the light that allows me to see my book. The light is always on in the subway even at late night. All I need is light.

I had always thought my dark times were complete darkness. No one to reach out to, and nowhere to find the light. I was stuck in a rat race, in a mechanical routine.  Thinking back, even during the rat race, in the darkness, I was able to find the light.  The light was my passion and the hobby that I loved. The light that I couldn’t find inside the race was always on the outside. All I needed to do was to look away from the race to find my passion and my love, the light. My passions were what lit up my dark times to let me see myself. Just as how I found the light of community outside of the rat race, I found the light of passion outside of the rat race. On the subway, I didn’t feel apologetic for being in the light, because the light was on for everyone.  Anyone can find their passion, no matter where they stand in the race.

During my twenties, I thought I was too busy to enjoy my hobbies. I was already feeling like I was behind in the race. I felt like spending time on hobbies or finding passion was some luxury that was only granted to those that are succeeding in their race. I felt rushed to keep running without taking a moment to catch my breath.  Eventually, without taking a moment to catch a breath, I ran out of breath. The finish line of my busy and diligent run in my twenties was depression and burnout. In my twenties, I didn’t see a light outside my window, because I gave up trying to find that light, I gave up trying to get the light fixed.

But my teenage self knew how to find the light all along the way. I should have learned wisdom from my teenage self. In my teenage years, I was not caught in the race. I knew how to step out of the race to take a moment to pause for a breath, to find the light. I found my time for my passion in my commute in between my busy schedule. I wasn’t obedient in the race. I found the light. I found myself and my love.

Part III.

Passing the Light

I thanked my professor. I thanked him for being the light, for giving me the inspiration to reconnect with my family and friends. He didn’t take the credit.

The next few weeks in class, we read student essays and the essays written by the professor. Their essays had experiences that were similar to mine. I could relate to their experiences like it was my own. I could feel them on a personal level. I felt like I was looking into the mirror when I read the essays. People out there that I had thought were different from me, who I had alienated myself from, and the community that I thought I didn’t fit into, were all like me. They were a reflection of me.  Everyone was going through the same struggles. We were all suffering in this society of atomization, just like mirror images of each other.

Then I realized, my professor wasn’t the light. He was a mirror. All he did was to hold up the mirror, so that I could reflect on myself. All I needed was light. But I didn’t have to find the light anywhere else. I had the light. I had it all within me.

The mystical experience was my guilt. It was my subconsciousness telling me to face my fear and to reconnect. It wasn’t some supernatural force or a ghost that visited me to change my life. It was my deepest thoughts that came out to project their meanings to me. The light of knowledge was all within me. I knew how to find the light all along the way.

* * *

I am sitting in my Quantum Chemistry class listening to the lecture. This is my first quarter being back on campus after the long 2 years of online school during the pandemic. I am trying my best to make sense of the concentric circles the professor is showing us on his lecture slide. It is barely the second week of the quarter but we have already gotten so far into the concept of Quantum Chemistry.  Energy level, atomic orbitals, emission of energy, absorption of energy…  I am barely keeping up with the lecture.

Having a hard time taking notes in English, I quickly switch to taking my notes in Korean. As Korean is my first language, it is much easier for me to take concise and quick notes in Korean than in English. For the rest of the class, I scribble my notes in Korean next to the beautiful circles of confusion. Finally, the class is over. I get up and start packing so I could go to my next class. A classmate that sat next to me during the lecture, a face that I haven’t seen before, speaks to me. “Are you Korean?” I say yes. I can feel an instant bond between us, like circles of energy interacting between two atoms. He asks for my number. We exchange our numbers before we even ask each other’s names.

In the following week, we meet for coffee on campus. We talk for hours pouring out the stories of our lives, our struggles as foreigners in this country. He shares his struggles as an international student. He doesn’t feel confident about his English. He is afraid to talk to classmates and to go to office hours to talk to professors. He feels like he doesn’t fit into UCSD. He feels like he doesn’t belong here. He feels like an imposter.  Now he will be graduating and going back to Korea after this quarter, but he has no memories here. He has been so busy studying, that he hasn’t had a chance to explore San Diego over the 3 years he has been here. He couldn’t find time to. He regrets missing out on memories he could have made during his college years and chances to travel around the city.

I can totally relate to him. I can almost physically feel his pain in my heart. It feels weird. I feel like I am looking at myself in the mirror. I had the same experience in high school and during my twenties. I could see my younger self in him. I sit quietly and listen to him for hours. Then, I share my stories with him. I tell him how I was stuck in a rat race in my younger years, and how I finally got out of it. He is surprised. He says he has never imagined that other students would have similar experiences as him. He thought he was the only one. By the end of the day, we become friends. Tyler becomes my first Korean friend at UCSD.

On the following weekend, I pick up Tyler to go study together at a coffee shop by La Jolla Beach. On our drive there, I share more of my stories of how I found the light in the rat race. Next week, I pick up Tyler to go study at Pacific Beach. Now we are hitting coffee shops near every beach in San Diego every weekend. Every week, I share more of my stories. Tyler also shares his stories. He is making changes every week. Now he no longer feels like an imposter. He is talking to classmates and making friends despite his anxiety about speaking English. He is attending office hours and talking to professors. Each week, he is finding the light.  He shines brighter every week.

Later in the quarter, he starts spreading his wisdom of finding the light. He shares his stories with his classmates. He tells them about his struggles in the rat race and how he finally got out of that mindset. He is passing the light. He says he will continue passing the light when he goes back to Korea. He will tell young people about his experiences studying abroad, how he dealt with the anxiety about speaking English and how he got out of the mindset of feeling like an imposter.

Tyler thanks me. He thanks me for being the light, for giving him the inspiration to make changes in his life. I don’t feel like I deserve the credit. I think he had it all within him.  I think I learned a lot more from him.

Now the quarter is over. I am driving to Pacific Beach alone. Tyler already left for Korea. I feel like I am reliving the memories with Tyler. I could remember all our conversations. Now I will remember him every time I go to the beaches in San Diego. It will be a reminder for me to be a mirror, to give hope and inspiration to more people. 

Throughout my life, and coming into UCSD as a student interested in social and health equity, I have always been frustrated for not being the light to people. I felt guilty about not taking action to fight against the problems in the world. I felt like I didn’t have enough light to provide to anyone. I knew even a dim light like a candle can help others to change the world, but I felt like I didn’t even have that. But now I know that I don’t have to be the light. I just have to be the mirror, like I was for Tyler. I just have to hold up the mirror so that people can reflect on themselves and see the light they have within them. All I have to do is to listen to them and show that I care about their stories, their deepest secrets, and sins. 

I just need to show that their experience as a participant in the rat race is not strange or unusual and show them that I myself had an experience similar to theirs. I just need to show them that it is the structure of the society that makes them feel that way, not because they are failures. I just need to show them that they do not have to be obedient in this race, that the race is not the entirety of life, and that they are not failures for not being able to meet the standards. I just need to show them that the joy in life is in walking the path, not getting to the finish line. I just need to guide them to find their light to help them walk the path so that they won’t hurt or fall too much, and to help them get up and continue walking when they fall. All I have to do is to help people see the love and community that exist in the world, that we are not rivals but we are all in this together. And they will go and be the mirror for others to see the light. As long as we become mirrors to each other, the light won’t stop. The light will continue.

Now I am looking at the mirror, the reflection of myself on the other side. I said thank you for growing up to be who you are today. Thank you, and I will continue you.

* * *

The electricity in Dad’s apartment is still out. I touch the chair to find the seat. I carefully lower my body towards the seat. I’m trying not to fall again. I take a seat into the little chair in front of the window. I must be facing the window. But I can’t see the window. I can’t see myself. I can’t see anything as there is no light. No light in the house. No light outside. There might be stars out there but it’s a city. With all the pollution, you can’t see their light.

I set the candle on the desk. I flick the lighter. A small flame catches on the tip of the lighter. Now I can see where to light the candle. I move the small flame towards the wick of the candle. The candle lights up. The candlelight is dim, but it illuminates the entire room. Now I see myself in the window, my reflection. The window is a mirror.

In the darkness, I desperately looked for the light outside. I looked for the light of community as I looked for the stars in the polluted sky on the night of the blackout.  But the light didn’t come from outside. It was within me, an inner flame. I had it all along the way. 

There’s an important lesson here for all of us who are atomized and set against each other in the rat race. Our light is diminished by this race. We have to find ways to regain our inner light, to rekindle the flame. This light that illuminates from the inside is visible from the outside. I saw this when I met Tyler. Walking alone in the darkness, he saw my light. He could rely on my light. It helped him to see himself and to find his way. Though it might be soft, my dim light from inside illuminated his path like the soft moonlight illuminated mine when I was lost in the woods.

I cannot help but see a lesson for community-building in all of this. The window passes light both ways. From outside to inside. And from inside to outside. It reflects both ways. Community and love go both ways. The community can light you up. You can light up the community. The community can help you reflect on yourself. You can help the community reflect on themselves. Love of community can bring self-love. Self-love can bring love to the community. Love can bring love.

As long as we become mirrors to each other, the love won’t stop. 

The love will continue.

Part IV.

Moonlight and Constellations

This was the very first painting I have done in my life. I’m kind of embarrassed to put it here knowing that it is a poorly painted piece, now that my painting skills have improved a bit from this very first piece. It’s been sitting in the corner of my room for years covered with dust and I didn’t find any meaning in this piece. Now that I found the meaning of the moonlight, I think it can serve a purpose.

Hidden by the clouds of competition, there is a soft light, the moonlight of community and love. That moonlight shines through the clouds. It guides them when they feel trapped and lost in the rat race. It illuminates the path when they are lost in frustration or the overwhelming fears of the future. And there are stars, the stories in our lives that can teach us wisdom. The stars are also always there, hidden. In the dark sky of life, they just look like countless meaningless dots. It is on you, dear reader, to connect these dots. If you learn to connect the dots, you will see the constellations, the real meaning of the stories, the wisdom in life. I have had these stars in my life that were there to teach me lessons, but I wasn’t able to find wisdom in them until recently. Now that I found the meaning of these stars, I share it with you. I hope this can help you find the constellations of wisdom in your own array of stars. And when you find yours, make sure to be the mirror to others, so that they could find their light, their constellation.

Works Cited

Cutts, Steve.  “Happiness”.  YouTube, uploaded 24 November 2017.

Denzau, Arthur, and Douglas North.  “Shared mental models: ideologies and institutions”. Elements of Reason: Cognition, Choice, and the Bounds of Rationality.  1994.  New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 23–46.

Hedges, Chris.  “American Anomie”.  Truthdig.  24 September 2018. 

Hutchinson, Peter. et al.  Requiem for the American Dream.  Documentary Film.  18 April 2015.

King, Martin Luther.  “The Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.  16 April 1963.

Mannheim, Karl.  “Ideology and Utopia”.  New York: Harvest Books.  1936.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels.  “The German Ideology”.  New York: Int. Publ. McCann SJH. 2008.

Twohig, Niall.  “Eulogy for Da”.  Systemic Analysis for Everyday Life.  19 November 2019.