There is this phenomenon known as the “Imposter Syndrome”. It is when an individual, generally a high-achieving individual, is convinced that all achievements were a result of luck, timing or some external factor, and whole heartedly believe that they are in reality an undeserving fraud. They live in the notion that somehow they have managed to convince others that they are of a certain level of talent or success, while in reality they are merely pretenders and imposters feigning this success.

And in the advent of this technological age of Photoshop and Instagram Filters, it is not too hard to doctor reality to suit a certain idea of life that would garner likes. We see this everywhere, with Instagram idols and Snapchat stars popping up every now and then. But how much of their online lives is a lie? We never truly know, as all that we see are the success stories beneath the rest of them.

And over the past few weeks, I see myself in the same place. A complete absolute lie. Someone who has simply hyped himself up with no substantial amount of talent or skill to get anywhere. Nothing in particular that I excel at. No one characteristic that anyone can identify me with, other than “the cool guy” maybe, and even that is a lie. I am far from cool. I am far from a musician. Far from a designer. Far from a programmer. Far from a photographer. Far from anything substantial at all. And at this stage, it has become seriously worrying.

Being a lie, being not truly good at anything, has both pros and cons to it. Given that I can package myself well, I could probably get opportunities at a slightly higher rate than others. However, living up and making the most out of these opportunities is entirely up to my personal level of competence. Given the opportunity, if I fuck it up, that’s really on me. And that’s really not adding much to my credibility either. People start uncovering your fraudulence. Yes, I do believe that I am a fraud. Possibly a case of imposter syndrome, which I have given thought to, but in reality I can’t even consider myself a high achieving individual to be displaying imposter syndrome.

Over the past few months, I have underperformed in everything. Or rather in the fear of failure, I have simply not even attempted to perform. In academics, I completely stayed away from daunting mathematics and technicalities that I was afraid I am too stupid to grasp. My intelligence is a lie. In music, I have shown close to no progress as a musician in any way, unable to keep up to the monthly musical projects that I had planned to do. My musicianship is a lie. In projects, I have done nothing more than mindless formatting and designs to carry the team, essentially being of no true value to any team at all. I have yet to find a job, cause I am too afraid to even start applying. My grades are slipping, because I am too afraid to study and fail. And my entire social circle, with exception to a few individuals, is a complete lie of fraudulent friends whom are far from genuine.

I am a lie. How much of a lie are you?

Quite recently, I watched the highly acclaimed Disney/Pixar movie “Inside Out” with a very good friend of mine.

WARNING: Spoilers Ahead

This movie was about what goes on inside the mind, how memories are formed and how emotions control our day-to-day behaviour. Although it was an animated feature, the movie covered quite a vast number of topics related to how the mind works, from abstract thoughts to the subconscious and even a very fun “train of thought” which goes all over the place. Not to forget the dream production studio, which creates dreams based on scripts from the main character’s life.

The premise of the story is quite simple. Here is Pixar’s plot synopsis:

Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it’s no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness. The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley’s main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

– Written by Pixar

One central theme to the entire plot was Sadness. From the beginning of the film, Sadness was portrayed as the dull and negative emotion. Nobody wants a sad memory. And being the chief of the control center, Joy did everything to keep sadness away from the control panel. Her primary goal was to keep Riley happy, and in order to achieve it, she kept Sadness away. This grew to be a bigger problem, when Sadness started touching Riley’s memories. Whenever she did so, the happy memory became a sad memory and the change was irreversible.

This made Joy become very cautious about Sadness, keeping her completely away from Riley’s everyday functioning. But one way or another, Sadness found means of affecting Riley’s life and memories. Things get out of hand when Sadness tries to touch the core memories of Riley. These core memories were shown to be fundamental memories that shaped Riley’s personality, and acted as the “power source” for these personality traits. Without these core memories, Riley would no longer have those personality traits in her any more. These were known as personality islands in the movie, with mini theme parks related to the personality trait (ie. Family, Hockey, Goofyness, etc.)

Anyways, coming back to the point. Wait what was the point? Ah yes, the theory of emotions.

Well, for anyone who has known me knows that I am a rather unemotional person in general. I’ve been this way for as far as I can remember, and something that had grown to become part of my identity. I am not emotionless, but my emotions are rather mild. I don’t cry easily. I don’t tear up when watching sad movies. Not even when that cute dog in the movie dies. I rarely get angry. And even if I do, it disappears within a minute. It was fantastic for dealing with bad situations. I could easily get over embarrassment, disappointment, or any form of negative emotion. At the same time I lacked excitement, passion or happiness towards anything at all.

In the grand battle between logic and emotion, logic always wins for me. How is that a bad thing?

Well, it is for the very same reason that I could not really connect with others. In order to connect, one needs to empathise. And in order to empathise, one needs to feel emotion. And without being able to feel any real form of emotion, I could not empathise. And without being able to empathise, I could not connect. And this became the primary reason I did not have many close companions.

Why was I that emotionless? I cannot really pinpoint a single reason, but I believe that over the years I had grown to become numb to a lot of emotions. Partial credit goes to the very strict and orderly parents that I had, whom would tell me it was wrong anytime I displayed any form of extreme emotion. This in turn got hardwired into my brain, which made me believe that feeling anything at all was wrong as a whole. So I became a rather neutral person. Broadly smiling on the outside, but entirely emotionless on the inside. It worked, and life was going pretty alright for the neutral me.

Until I fell in love for the very first time. That changed everything. Suddenly I was swimming in this pool of emotions. Feeling absolutely everything that I have not felt before. Or rather everything that I had grown to suppress. It might not have been love, maybe just an infatuation. But either way, it opened my mind to a whole new world of possibilities.

And then my heart got broken. Smashed might be a better word. And I became incapable of feeling emotion again. Maybe I didn’t want to. It was not worth it. I opened my heart up and all that happened was it getting destroyed. So what is the point. I’d rather just keep to myself, and feel no emotion. At least my heart is safe. No way was I going to put myself in that vulnerable position again.

Word of the day: Detachment

I became obsessed with detachment. The idea of being detached from everything. The idea of being in this state of zen at all points in time. And I started pushing out anyone whom broke this state of zen. Stayed away from all negativity. And slowly stayed away from everything and everyone. I cannot affect this state. I needed to maintain it. Until I realised that my positivity was turning into negativity. And I was all by myself trying to fight all of that negativity. I was on my own because I chose to be on my own. And it was at that lowest that I realised that true detachment comes from allowing yourself to be vulnerable, but not attached.

It comes from opening up your heart to everything and everyone. Being able to trust and love everyone unconditionally. And yet, not expecting them to treat you the same. Being able to take in the negativity of others. And also their positivity. It is a communal world. We feed off of each others’ energies and emotions. And at the same time, we feed others our emotions and energies. I had misinterpreted the term. True detachment did not come from detaching yourself from everything, but rather attaching yourself to everything without expectations.

At the end of the movie, Joy realises that the happiest memories that Riley had were all because of Sadness. Without sadness, Riley would not be able to experience Joy. And in that final scene, Joy and Sadness create a memory together. From that point, memories were no longer based on a singular emotion, but a hybrid of multiple emotions.

So I thank the good friend whom I watched this movie with, for teaching me this. This and much much more. But most importantly, to embrace my emotions. To not be afraid to feel sadness, or anger, or worry, or disgust. To embrace it all, because on the brighter side, you will also feel joy, happiness, love and pleasure. A life without emotion becomes a life without colour. Although black and white has its own beauty, living a colourless life in this colourful world is akin to taking a black and white photograph of the glorious sunset.

Life is indeed colourful. And it is only now that I am seeing all that colour.

Keep glitching (: