Last weekend, our group went to the Oakland museum of California to visit an exhibition call Question Bridge: Black Males. The area of this exhibition is not very large, and the main color is black, only a few faint white lights are hit on the wall. This design is genius, because black fits the theme of the exhibition, and it is also a color that allows people to think and reflect on themselves in silence. The two walls I saw when I just moved into the exhibition hall also left a deep impression on me. One of the walls has a question: “What does it mean to be your true self?” Another wall written a passage that Morris Brent once said. And the wall is full of many people’s answers to this question and this passage. This form is very novel to me because there are very few such interactions in museums in China, few museums can actively lead people to think. Even if there is such an interaction, there are very few people who really get involved seriously. Because we are used to hiding some of our thoughts in our hearts and not making it public and share with strangers.
I think it is good for me to see such an exhibition at this stage of my life. Because as a 20-year-old college student, I am in the process of shaping my three views, that is, world outlook, outlook on life and value. As we continue to grow and our thinking ability matures, our way of thinking gradually forms a system. The answer to the question “What does it mean to be your true self?” is actually to be aware of one’s own identity and to think about what kind of person we want to be.
The protagonist in the movie Dope is also facing this problem. Malcolm is a black man, born in a low-rise neighborhood and study in an ordinary high school. In his living environment, there are bullying, drugs and violence. So he is also faced with the question of how to choose his own life, what kind of person he wants to be. Just like the people around him, entering the gangsters or living a mundane and difficult life, or entering the higher education institutions to continue to be a promising person. Malcolm is determined not to take the usual path of most black people and most people around him, he wants to go to Harvard. Even if his counselor is not optimistic about him, even if he is covered with the labels of the black community(eg. Slums, rap, drugs, hooligans, street fighting）, he is still full of positive energy. Even if he was accidentally involved in the fight against drug gangs in a party, he did not enter the gang to bury his future, and find reasons for his own self-destruction. On the contrary, he deals with dangerous people without entering the gangsters, and still pursues his own Harvard dream and advances with pressure. It’s definitely not easy for Malcolm to do this. At the end of the film he asked:”So, why do I want to attend Harvard?If I was white, would you even have to ask me that question?” The pressure on black people in American is far from what we can think. But as for Malcolm, he is both a student “A” and student “B”, and both a geek and a menace. I believe he is strong enough to strengthen his beliefs and goals, and really understand the meaning of the question “What does it mean to be your true self?” and get his own answer.
For me, my living environment is not so complex, but the identity cognition and life choice are also important to me. It can be even said that they are questions that should be focused on at this stage of my life. Now is an era of developed communication, people have access to a variety of information channels, and will be subject to a variety of temptations. Many people of my age will make different life choices because of the various temptations in this society, and some even ruin their own future. I want to talk about a very strange phenomenon in China. There are many popular stars in China whose acting or performing skills are poor and have no professionalism. However, through the company’s packaging and fairly good-looking faces, they can receive a lot of love and get a much higher salary than the average working class. This makes many young people start to wonder: Why I have to study hard for more than sixteen years? After graduating, I will become an ordinary working class, but I can not even earn more than the stars with low literacy (The scores of cultural courses required by Chinese performance schools are very low). So many young people even give up their study and began to be an internet celebrity, imagined that one day they will be welcomed like stars and earn a large fortune. Many people just because of this eventually achieve nothing. In my opinion, if a person really wants to achieve something, there is no shortcut. We must first recognize ourselves, understand our strengths and weaknesses. And then define our goals, refer to the opinions of the people we trust, our mentors and friends, and firmly follow the path we think is right. Once we start to work hard, no matter what people around we say, no matter how difficult it is to advance, and no matter how many obstacles do we have to face, we should not give up easily, just like Malcolm in the film. Even sometimes, it doesn’t matter what our identity is. What matters is that we dare to fight. After all, our fates are in our own hands, as I heard in the exhibition:”No one going to give me freedom. We have no excuse but to own a sense of freedom, to own a sense of possibility, and to own our future”.
At last, I want to mention a song that is important to me. Maybe it shouldn’t be said to be important, but it left a deep impression on me and made me think a lot. It is Life Is The Only Thing In Sight sang by Weize Cai. I especially like these lyrics in this song:
Who can frankly say goodbye to past stupidity?
Only before tomorrow
Who is not excusing the time to squander and decadent
Before yesterday, only yesterday （my translation is not very good, the original lyrics are beautiful）
Two parts of the lyrics are particularly touching. The first one is “Frankly say goodbye to the past stupidity”, This is something I have never been able to do completely. But I believe this will be a big or small challenge for anyone. People often think that if we had done something in the past, then I could have done something at present. But the truth is, as long as we work hard, there should be no pity. And the most important is the present and the future. So what we should d is to sum up the experience of past failures and make it a boost to our future progress, rather than always living in the shadow of the past and self-blame constantly. The second one is the word “excuse”. People don’t like excuses, but they have been comforting themselves through excuses. How contradictory we are. On the one hand, we want to achieve a better self, and on the other hand, we always excusing ourselves from what we have not done. But we can only grow if we really find our mistakes and are brave enough to recognize and correct them.
For most Chinese, we have no religious beliefs. But we must believe in ourselves, face our own past and our own shortcomings. Only in this way can we have a clear self-awareness and find our way forward. In my opinion, this is my spiritual belief.
Abby's blog 