People change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worst. Sometimes people gain some confidence, stop allowing others to walk all over them, and really take control of their lives. Sometimes people go off the deep end like Sneako and start praising nazi sympathizers and human traffickers.
But that’s the thing about progress. To quote my friend Ksyn, “it’s hard to recognize, it varies with some ends returning to your start. It can be subtle, or blatant to see. And there’s never a proper tempo or beat.”
I feel like I’ve grown so much as a person over these last two years. And before you think, “Oh, that’s not that long. How much could you really have changed Linpaul?“
Let me just stop you and say, a lot can happen in two years. A lot.
I remember before I was leaving for Disney last year, I was saying to myself that “this was going to be my villain ark.”
Now, that was a joke. Kinda.
You see my goal wasn’t to become this like terrible person who was just going out and it’s causing all this emotional and physical damage to people. Like that wasn’t really what was it was about.
In fact, it wasn’t about other people at all. It was solely about myself. The view I had of myself, and the person I put out into the world.
It was also about being OK with whatever version of me other people perceive. Essentially being OK with becoming the villain in other peoples stories. I don’t have to be everyone’s hero, I just have to be my own. Sometimes that means other people are going to get hurt along the way. And I have to be OK with that.
I feel like there are two voices on everyone’s shoulder. There’s an angel on the right, and a devil on the left. Except I don’t believe that left voice truly has your worst intentions in mind. I think the left voice wants to protect you at all costs, regardless of how it affects everyone else. The right voice however, wants to protect your conscience and sense of morality, regardless of how it affects you.
A good example is if the voice on your right is Batman, with the no kill rule, then the voice on the left is the punisher, who will go out of his way to kill any villain that he needs to. I don’t believe that we should lean into either of these voices 100%. I think you should live somewhere in the middle, kinda like Spider-Man. Sometimes you’re out in the bright red and blue webbing up purse snatchers and beating up Dr. octopus for the 400th time. But sometimes, you have to put on the black suit, and go beat up The Kingpin for shooting your elderly Aunt.
I used to get steamrolled, played, betrayed, and hurt, left, right, and center. But I remained listening to my right shoulder. But being Batman, gets Robin killed.
So I started to listen to my left shoulder a little more and ended up somewhere in the middle. Because after the Kingpin incident, the entire city knew Spider-man’s family was forever and always, off limits, and god won’t save the poor soul dumb enough to try.
Now nobody can disrupt my peace. Nobody can outplay me. Nobody can hurt me. Nobody can “humble me.”
OK obviously that’s not true. I’m mostly joking especially on the last part that’s just a reference to an interaction I had with someone. it went like this:
“Your ego is through the roof, I’m gonna bring you down a peg. I’m gonna humble you.”
“Lol good luck with that”
And a couple weeks later. She was fired, because in fact, it was not me who needed humbling.
If I’m honest, it wasn’t really a villain arc that all. It was more about personal growth and development. I guess it was more of a training arc if anything.
But I definitely grew significantly as a person, and I realized it most when I moved back home, and I starting spending time with my old friends.
Some of them would treat me noticeably differently, and I could tell they didn’t see my change as genuine. But in reality they just saw me as the same person that left, and didn’t see me as the person I am now. They still see me as the caterpillar they once knew, but in reality, I went away and metamorphosed and became a butterfly.
Though over time the fundamental changes began to shine through. I remember one time when my friends Danny, Ksyn and I were joking around and I don’t know what I said, but Ksyn was just so taken aback he just kind of paused and he was like “Woah. What gear finally snapped in you Linpaul?”
And I don’t fully have an answer to that question yet, but I do know whatever “snapped”, happened around May of last year.
And I also know that whatever “snapped” cause a chain reaction that has slowly led me down the path to becoming the person I always wanted to be.
Becoming the hero of my own story.
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My outro song: "#NoNiche" By Tomé Bleu
open.spotify.com/track/0xnWch...
23 май 2023
