Sad Life in Sad Times

I always liked the witty intelligence, humor and vulnerability of the Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of “eat, love and pray”, so today I started to listen to another one of her book “committed”. While it’s a story regarding to contemplation of her relationship and love, it hit home hard at some much more realistic and cruel part of my life. Yep, it is the pitfall of my life, as I have always complained, the immigration system of US.

Her soul mate/significant other/boyfriend/partner is a Brazilian born Australian citizen, who got detained by the department of homeland security because apparently he had been visiting her on a tourist visa too many times.  He got interrogated during border crossing for 6 hours and then was deported. They have to get married so that he could have an American green card, yet marriage is something they have been escaping from.

I am right at the start of the book where these two loving antagonists are facing with this huge dilemma, but I simply couldn’t feel sympathy for them, which the author was apparently trying to invoke. To me she was like a kid with chicken pox complaining about the horrible itch to a cancer patient.

The same system has bothered me for years, literally locking me in a job that I hated with gut and soul. Youths, dreams, talents and aspirations are ruthlessly wasted because of this immigration system, and my throat is filled with this huge lump as I write this. Just like how Elizabeth felt intimated by the “authority”, imagine the level of intimidation when I first came to US as a 20-year old Chinese girl with bright eyes and heavy accent. I was horrified at the Chicago international airport where I entered the border, where US policeman in sharp black uniforms and movie-like demeanors examine me and my intentions as if I am criminal, when I was just this young girl starting a PhD program, excited about embarking a life of adventure in the land of freedom, the “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of” and where “there is nothing you can’t do”.

Well fast-forward to the present day, I was listening to Elizabeth’s audiobook on the way home after work, which was a job that I would have never taken if I am a free person not worried about being deported. The “empire state of mind” song and all the other Hollywood movies have lied to me. Five years in the US demonstrated to give me the exact opposite of freedom – I love US for its culture, tolerance for various contrasting ideologies and eccentricities including my own. –but I am at the same time not allowed to be the person that I want to be, or to be the awesome person I could have been.

Being a foreign person in the US is like walking on thin ice. Any moment people could “pull the rug off” underneath your feet and you will just lose everything you have accumulated and earned in this country, pack up and leave. I have always labeled myself as an adventurous and free-spirited person, but I definitely am not made for this level of insecurity.

I like to read the wiki page of famous people, about how they overcome adversities and achieve great things. How their parents are dirt poor and then through sheer will, they seized the opportunities and become the great persons they are. But I also wonder about the other ones—the ones with the same level of talent, and capabilities, but was not able to do anything because of the society they were born into. My parents were vivid examples; they were born during Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China and thus never had a chance to receive an education. They often tell me how lucky I am to be born in a later generation, and I often feel the same. So I grew up with a sense of endowment—that I am lucky to have all the opportunities, and I am free to make great achievements as I wish.

All that opportunities and freedom came to an abrupt and unexpected halt as I land in the US. The immigration laws limit where and when I can work, and who I can work for, or whether I am able to work at all.

I do not think that by being an immigrant in US that I am as unlucky as my parents were, but I certainly felt a level of personal tragedy, where the potential of a person is limited not by the lack of capabilities or hard-work, but from external factors such as politics and historical events and relics. It’s the first time that I felt absolutely tied down and useless in front of a system that limits the extend of how I can live my life. From then I paid a lot of attentions to personal tragedies which the person has no control over—sad lives in a sad time, such as Jewish stuck in Europe during the holocaust, or all the  people getting massacred in Rwanda during 1994 genocide, or simply the generation of my parents who weren't able to get proper education because of the whim of a dictator.

Thinking about how all the other people felt during their lives, which are surely more tragic than mine—helped me cope with my current reality. But when I encounter people who have what I don’t have, it always cuts a little. It hurts to look at my American friend who decides to quit his job and be an entrepreneur—which is something that I would love to do but unable to do because I have to maintain my visa, it hurts to listen to Elizabeth’s audiobook and hear her complain about her struggle, it hurts to think about all the travels and adventures I could have done, and it hurts to think about what I could have achieved if I was born in US, or simply allowed to work on any job I want to. In this sense, “a sad life in a sad time” is extraly sad when everyone else around you are bustling around and making a great living with the freedom they had.

Probably that’s the definition of a tragedy, a tragedy resulted from contrast, and contemplation of what one could have done if so and so. Heck the irony is that I am ashamed to talk about it because I feel my problem is "too low" in nature, who cares about an immigrant from a developing country? They are lucky enough to be here already. My tragedy is not quite sad enough like the holocaust, nor would I wish for it, but the lack of attention to the tragedy of mine and other similar people makes it extraordinarily saddening. It cuts deep, for tragedy itself and for the dismissal of it by the society. Because my life, my talents and my aspirations are all that I have and all that I am proud of, but I am cut short, and I am denied of how far I can extend myself, AND people don't care. 

I don’t know whether I will eventually overcome this adversity, and came out stronger than ever because of my struggle, I guess this is just a moment of record of my sad life in this particularly sad time.

Molly

2014-04-30 6:10pm

Let's Write

In an inspiring audio book ("Let go" by Pat Flynn) I was listening to a few hours ago, the author asks me to give my younger self an advice that I have learnt through the years.  I stopped the audio book, and thought hard for a few moments. My mind immediately went back to 5 years ago when I just graduated from college in Beijing China. Back then I needed to decide what to do with my life and I was choosing between two options: 1) Going to United States for a PhD program in biochemistry, which is a major that I didn't like much. However I was very excited about going to US, or 2) stay in Beijing, working on an part-time English teaching job that will pay the bills, and at the same time writing a book for an entrepreneur on his part-time research in neuroscience, and doing whatever my imaginative & ambitious mind decided to do. 

For a lot of people back then, the choice is absolutely obvious. US is the land of money, freedom and it's where dreams come true, I would be pursuing the highest degree possible and have a great future in wherever I set my mind on. I would be able to get my PhD at the age of 25 and be a successful young scientist. In contrast, the second choice seems a bit, weird and, unconventional. However, I felt very differently about this, I didn't like research much, working all day in lab and reading publications all day is very far from what I want to do. I was this curious, energetic young girl with sparkly eyes looking for adventures, and the picture doesn't include lab test and academic publications, at all. In contrast, teaching and writing always had great appealing to me, the ability to influence people through either education and words inspired me and I always took pride in being good at public speaking and writing.

Now it's 5 years later, I wish I could be typing right now something along the line of "I made the right choice, and I am doing great". Well nope, that's not what I am doing. I chose to come to US, aaannnnd let's be honest, I constantly feel lost and not be doing what I wanted to do, that coupled with the huge pressure of surviving in a foreign country as an immigrant, I spent a number of years in deep mind-crumbling depression. I could not stand doing biochemistry experiments all day so I quit the PhD program and graduated with a MS instead, luckily I found a high-paying job in the pharmaceutical industry, but everyday I constantly feel like a zombie and I feel my soul/dream is mercilessly crashed and I hate who I am right now.   

So I was just standing at a lab sink at work washing some stupid cans and listening to this audio book, and I was asked to give my younger self an advice. Well as cliche as it sounds, I would have told the 20-year-old Molly with sparkly eyes to follow her heart. A short-term gain in money really doesn't matter that much if couldn't buy that sparkle in your eye, if it couldn't bring the relentless passion and dedication in doing what you believe in and enjoy doing, which happens to be the biggest joy in life for me. 

And the second advice would be, when you do know what you wanted to do, stop being super afraid and worrying about what could happen, stop thinking about all the obstacles and "impossibilities", instead just go ahead and do it, and deal with the difficulties and obstacles as they come. 

Reason for the second advice is related to my half-ass entrepreneurial endeavors. I knew I wanted to start my own business all along, I took classes, conjuring up ideas and meeting with people, in graduate school we had something going, but it was difficult then shit happens and we stopped. Also, I am in a constant anger towards US immigration system, there is no entrepreneurial visa, and I am not allowed to be the CEO of my own company even if I had any. I have to do this part-time while allowing a citizen to manage the company or I have to painstakingly get a green card through other means first. All of these looming impossibilities stopped me, although I had numerous ideas, I had more fear and worries. 

But I went to law firm seminars about "visas for entrepreneurs", and listen to stories of friends or friend's boss to succeed in US as an immigrant entrepreneur. I KNOW that there are ways to do it, it's just more difficult and painstaking, but it's doable. Worst comes worst, If I really have a great thing going, I could just go "fuck you US" and move to Canada instead, which is a country that has a entrepreneur visa. Or China, or wherever I get to what I want to do. 

My problem is not more difficult than the problems other American entrepreneurs faced--shit always happens, and the ability to deal with it is what tells one apart. My inaction when faced with all the difficulties, and my paralyzing fear and worries are the real culprit. 

Ok let's go back to the scene where Molly is standing in front of the lab sink doing things she deemed a pure waste of time, which is probably true. Now she listened to this audio book and gave herself two great advises. The next question is, am I going to follow my own advice? I have to concede that I've always been the expert of giving great advises to myself and at the same time I am also mastered the skill of not following any of them. At the depth of my depression I always told myself to "pull it together and be awesome", and I always went to get drunk and cry for an entire night in deep self-damnation instead. 

During all this struggling and argument back-and-forth with myself, (you can probably call it pure loneliness and isolation too) I developed these two "selfs", one is inspiring, active, hard-working and ass-whipping, while the other is creative, rebellious, dark and lazy-as-hell. These two selfs often are conflicted about what do, yet they are hopelessly trapped within the same body that's normally associated with "Molly". For example, one wants to go work out and be fit/hot, and the other wants to lay down and and contemplate on human's ridiculous vanity in terms of body images. One wants to work on "the next project" and be all fluffy and excited, and the other is scornful for the lack of imagination and tediousness of the process.   

Eventually to get anything done, I had to lead a negotiation between this two selfs and reaches an mutually beneficial agreement on the next course of action. So instead of referring to myself as "I", I started to use "we" (well, at least when I am alone and not provoking any suspicion of psychosis). Instead of saying " I WILL" do such and such, I say "LET'S" do this or that. 

So there I am, telling myself, let's listen to my own advises. Let's stop worrying about being poor and obscure, let's reach inside of our unique desires and dreams, let's respond to the inner calling instead of external desire for approval.  Let's settle our minds down and do what you can for the moment.

Let's be brave,
Let's write.