The first time I realized that I have got the capability of conveying and pursuing values through my writing was in a speech titled Tear for the Youth Day. I surprised all my classmates and teacher expecting a lyrical prose by uncovering the scar of our republic. I abandoned the written words on paper and all those metaphors and ironies, but impressed my audience with my clenched fist and passion instead. The scene of all the student movements since the 4th May, 1919, of heroic students marching on the street, taking the responsibility to strive for liberty and a better society, emerged in my mind and sight. Finally, tears and echoes were what I won, and the negation I awaited was absent.

Before then, writing was like a plain tape recording my life and emotions to me. However, the attempt to put my words into expression successfully played the tape aloud. That precious time dating back to my senior 1 grade marked my genuine outset of an extraordinary high school life, where public expression persistently takes an essential part. For the first time, I told out my idealism and love for freedom through my own words.

In the decisive year of senior 2, the less test-oriented studying atmosphere, the creative research-based studying allowing frequent writing and presentations, contributed to my idealism and formed my detached thinking pattern from stereotypes and traditions. By keeping writing and giving presentations throughout the whole school year. I viewed my writing and presentations as guide marks of my studying and the approach to my ideal.

Motivated by the eagerness to illustrate the charm and profundity of my favourite literature work, I immersed myself into books and essays comprehending Buddhism, Analytic Psychology, and Existentialism, and devoted my whole self to writing my paper and speaking notes until the very last minute before the final presentation. Gazing at the sun at 4 a.m, I discovered my ability to gain motivation and concentration when driven by love and passion. In the fleeting 45 minutes on the platform, my idealism to fulfill freedom and diversity in the literature generated resonance again in all my fellow students.

However, as the pressure of college entrance suspended the free and idealistic studying status, comments and editorials replaced novels and tests squeezed out the time of free talks and presentation. My belief in writing and free expression was crushed when faced an unexpected failing mark on the writing test. Emotions kicked in and I questioned why I could not suggest using one’s free will to choose his life track rather than do a binary choice in my composition. Nevertheless, the answer was ‘regulation’. Once more, I expressed my torment and perplexity in my ivory-towered style of writing, but was told that my idealism was worthless.

Afterwards, I was caught in a period when my expression was desolated. Suffered from depression and low-motivation, my writing serving as the recording tape stopped spinning. A breakdown rewrote my lifestyle, since which time I had maintained silence, fearing expressing myself. However, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The silent period allowed me to re-exam my ideas, values, and thinking patterns. I started a long journey to walk out of the ivory tower. The image of the world in my eyes transformed from a delicate but illusionary place, into a complex, multi-faceted but touchable place.

My painful and impetuous heart settled down. But at that rate, my ideal and passion would settle together with it, in case of which I again sought chances to recover my constrained expression. An opportunity came when our class was required to do a self-select-topic presentation about current affairs. Courage and passion upwelled again in my mind, impelling me to choose a sensitive topic, the Hong Kong national security law, and its background. Another time idealism about freedom was to excite me, a sentence from my groupmate calmed me down. “Unrestrained freedom means nothing.”

Motivating my work was passion together with my reason. I was able to see the glory of democracy, together with the heaviness of regulations; the pain of protesters, together with concerns of governors; the scenes mainland people always see, together with scenes they never see. More like a lecture, the presentation lasted for weeks during which time researching, writing, and making slides made up my extracurricular daily life. With collisions of disparate ideas, but compromise and common view, the teamwork achieved a consequential quite a success.

The initial love of literature and writing and the desire to express my sentimental, with the nourishment from realism, has all sublimed the values of freedom and liberty in my mind and added to the diversity of my aspects when considering the cases and phenomena in the world. I always hope to find a place where east and west, idealism and realism combine in brightness, and I will pursue such a place to realize the combination, in memory of my mental growth in highschool.

Thank you.

Nisako. K

2020.12

一个小透明