#12 Interpretation

by Oriana Ren

My past was a sea of tranquility: mundane, simple, purposeless. My childhood was dotted with hues of blue, as I recalled and gazed upon it. Such blissful ignorance did I have.

I was a student; that was my occupation. My only purpose in my youth was to obtain “knowledge” that I may or may not ever use. In truth, I had distaste for education. And as I think back, I remember the few moments I was red with anger for wasting my childhood on forced knowledge.

It wasn’t until years later, after college, that my life rippled. My hatred towards education transformed into a black disgust. Then I lost myself. My life was plagued by a dark abyss of hopelessness. What was my purpose?

They say that light cannot exist without darkness. In a time when I thought I succumbed to darkness and the deep blues of depression, I examined my life, my flaws, myself. Slowly, the dark chaos that infected me began to clear.

This is what I concluded: I create my problems and my solutions. Our lives are white canvases, ones that are disrupted by our own colours. Ultimately, we try to revert to that equilibrium: that pure uniformity. When we see darkness on our canvas, we try to ratify it. We search for “correction tape” to find light and unity. And so it was after college that I realised that only a pure white could cleanse the chaotic, unkempt canvas that was my life.