My Erised
In Harry Potter and Philosophy’s Stone, there is a mirror called the Mirror of Erised. When people look at it, it doesn’t reflect the reality, but show people’s deepest desire. I recently read this book again in Thai language, years after I read the Chinese and English version. I surprisingly realised that now I might just see myself in the mirror.
In the book, Professor Dumbledore said only the happiest people in the world would see nothing but themselves. Therefore, saying that I qualify this criterion sounds acting. Certainly I don’t think I am the happiest. In fact, I feel depressed from time to time, but I think I am happy enough to say I am satisfied with what I have.
Years ago, when I read the Chinese version, I had many dreams. Those dreams were so big, and possibly sounded so surreal by then. Thinking back then, if I looked at the Mirror of Erised, I should see that I have a printer, go to Peking or Tsinghua University, become super professional about computer, and possibly speak very fluent English.
I don’t remember when I firstly read the English version, but later I also had dreams. Possibly studying abroad, playing an instrument, and caring myself more than others.
Different phases of my life all have different wishes, and fortunately most of them eventually come true more or less. Till this point, I genuinely enjoy what I have had. I am open to keep growing with whatever time will have to bring to me, and this has surprisingly brought about this weird looking conclusion: Now I don’t have a dream.
To be honest, I don’t care about this either. I just don’t feel I have been that noble. In Chinese, this is probably called “随遇而安” (take things as they come). I think I really enjoy this state. It gives me the liberty to enjoy the present without having to fear the future, and this is what I have been hoping for at a certain period of mu life. On another side, I also start to think what side effects this might have brought to me, and there really is one. I think it probably deprives some empathy power away from me.
Recently a yogourt brand in China messed up a marketing campaign by using the word “亲自” (on their own) when promoting a marketing video shot by their CEO (read more: “这是CEO亲自录给你的”，一酸奶广告被吐槽，品牌回应：产品文案问题已上报 ). On one hand, I understand that it’s as common as a sociological cliche that Chinese people hate our workplace, and therefore a health-caring / self-caring product trying to establish intimacy with customers by “showing off” the significance their CEO has shown can easily be interpreted as their marketing department just simply believes their CEO is so important that the word “亲自” is deserved for the video that the CEO has so kindly recorded. On the other hand though, when I saw the news, even though I could understand how things could possibly be misunderstood, I still felt very confused. Can’t people just see the other possible interpretation, which is obviously more likely to be their intention. Of course there are people debating whether some people were too sensitive. I just felt I really can’t empathise with those who felt pissed. This incident alerted me. I might have lost some capability to understand the trend, or at least some sensitivity in understanding what can potentially be sensitive and problematic.
I felt a bit unsafe in the recent Bangkok flood too. Physically I am very safe. Fortunately my life wasn’t impacted too much compared to those who were grounded in their building or even directly suffered financial loss. Perhaps the difference of the experience is also one factor which contributes to my ignorance in the mainstream social reaction. Apparently, while I walked out and thought it was fun to experience a temporary river view in the city, many people were extremely stressed, and didn’t find it funny. An extreme case which went very wrong was someone riding a jet ski on the flooded road. After the clip went viral, that person was heavily slashed by Thai netizens. I only came to know this from the news, and by that time, this person had already been arrested by the police. Initially I was a little confused too. I only came to understand that he was arrested because his behaviour caused more damage than necessary to their surrounding people and properties. This was something I couldn’t realise at the first sight when I saw the clip, but I believe it was different for many people, otherwise it wouldn’t become such a big social topic. This made me review my social media posts after the fact because I certainly had kept a very relaxed and humorous tone regarding this incident. Luckily, I haven’t posted any inappropriate content without realising it. But the realisation did gave me a back chill.
Overall, I still like this state. Having an open mind, ready to embrace good and bad, and staying positive as much as I can do not sound wrong at all. I think what I need to do better is to add up a little bit of social sensitivity. Surely I don’t care other people’s view that much, but the complete ignorance would just lead to another doomsday.