Ego Death

by Vinca Petersen

My friend’s PhD application getting outright rejected by the universities in Germany, the pack of hungry squares in the institute aggressively barking at me, Mr. Kenji and I being the only Asians in the bunch, my day at the beach with Lucas, my sudden loss of passion for science, the alien creature A. whisleri, dawg, Romie, Cel, Brenda and maybe even bitch Linda and Manolo the square…All signs were there from the very beginning, C. If I squinted my eyes hard enough, I should’ve seen them all, nudging me to not continue walking the straight path I thought was set for me. By whom you might ask? God knows. My head is spinning and is already as flat as the earth.

If you take the path my life has followed and I mean really take it at face value, you’d soon find out that there’s absolutely no logic nor consistency behind it. One illogical thing led to the next until boom–chaos, disorder.

Funny. Only a month ago or so, I used to work with a bunch of logical minds, logical folks who believe that the world is merely black and white and that all of life’s problems are solvable by theories and dogmas and by simply studying observable facts. But now, I can't even grasp how I held onto those same beliefs.

I wonder, C, if them squares were only a projection of my then innermost fear of discovering something greater outside the scope of logic and reasoning and all things material? In that case, all this time, what I was looking for is something I was long running away from, something that was always there yet I constantly refused to look at. I mean, I really did always feel it deep down my spine, C, but I never recognize it for what it truly was. Then again, maybe there’s really two sides of the same coin, and for one side the world is this completely square black and white pixie dust, and for the other, is this fluky magical slice of fairy cherry.

This reminds me of the time I spent with Helena, the other supervisor I worked with alongside Xavi. I tell ya, C, she was nice and swell and all but she was the very definition of someone who clearly views things as black and white, my way or the highway kind of mentality. She was always micromanaging me, wanting me to use the exact same tools she used to organize my work. She kept pushing me to join the online to-do list bandwagon, so she could keep tabs on every task I completed. Of course, the online to-do list is only something they encourage folks to use and not exactly mandatory. I had a to-do list of my own, C, I just didn't want to share every little thing I do with the entire lab. And weirdly enough, that online to-do list only fueled my anxiety. I mean, I don't need people constantly checking up on me and judging my work based on a dumb to-do list, you know? God. I don’t understand why squares can’t respect the fact that others have a different approach to getting things done.

I prefer to work in flow. When something inspires me or sparks my interest, I go all the way to see my project through, even in the midst of a crisis. It's like my personal commitment to myself. And it’s not like I’m gonna abandon my alien baby. Geez. M. planulae was something that genuinely interested me, C. It was a cool model organism that, for some time, made me believe natural sciences can help us understand the meaning of our very existence. I expected Helena and Xavi to trust me, to believe that I would get things done. But no, they thought if I followed their roadmap, everything would be foolproof with backup plans from A to Zzzzzz. That’s the main problem with them squares, C. They get upset as hell if you don’t follow their way but when your way works they flip and congratulate you for a job well done. God. They really played me like a fool acting all parental and concerned and genuine at the beginning and then completely flipping on me. Getting sacked is not what keeps me bitter, C. It’s seeing up close my supervisors shedding sheep’s clothing that made me want to gag.

Right now, I’m just squeezing out the remaining bitter juices left inside me. Even though my blood was boiling and my anxiety was through the roof, I managed to keep it all together thanks to my split. Have you ever experienced a split, C? They say it happens right after a terrible storm, when all the rage and anger and ickiness pent up inside of you is just about to overflow. I’m not sure if this happens to everyone, C, that’s why it’d be a huge consolation to know if you’ve experienced it too, just to reassure myself that I haven’t gone completely haywire.

Splitting literally felt like glass shattering, earth cracking, thunder rolling implosion. A part of me was observing all the ick spill out and in that moment, I became aware of who I really am. The ick was destined to spill out, C, otherwise I would’ve continued down that safe road even with all the signs begging me to switch course.

The entity that both set and diverted me from that path remains a mystery. However, from this chaotic chain of events, I can deduce that this enigmatic force must be some sortufan invisible hand that ingeniously orchestrated everything from the very beginning, all for the purpose of bringing me here—on couch 3, 26E, top deck, sandwiched between two fancy-looking business men on the way to Madrid…

***

Post-script

With regards to your question: Do you ever feel like you’re falling behind, S? Or because you’re in a more progressive type of society, do you ever feel like you’re going with the grain, the rhythm of modern times?

Right after getting laid off, I briefly thought about this silly concept of falling behind. Really really briefly like instinctively following the source of a faint yet explosive sulfuric fart kind of briefly. If it wasn’t for my split, then I probably would have lingered on the idea of falling behind for a while. But then, I realized that such thoughts would only linger if I compared my own progress to that of my colleagues. Of course, there was no longer any point in doing that anymore. I accepted that I got the short end of the stick and that my road was destined to eventually fork out. Admittedly, there are days when my feelings still swing between anger and peace. Anger because I didn’t follow my intuition of leaving the institute well before all hell broke loose. At peace because, deep down I know that this is where I’m supposed to be. Even though it looks like a hot mess, I’m determined to see this journey though, C.

One thing I learned in our physics class: What others call chaos or entropy may simply be patterns that our limited minds haven’t quite grasped yet.