So… how many layers is considered “too many”?
5? 50? 500?
This is why I hate numbers. It separates you, grades you, classifies your worth and efforts: excellent, not good enough, average. And the sad thing is, it’s not even made by you.
I lived in a world where the standard had already been set, even though no one really knows whether it’s the best way, or probably the worst. I was never given any chance to know what it’s like to be static noise, to exist quietly, without wasting myself by constantly screaming all the time. And when failure hits, my world collapses.
At least, that’s what I was taught.
Always expected to excel at everything, like some sort of modern Midas who turns anything he touches into gold.
And when that fails, everything falls apart.
But today I’m proud to write this down:
“Hidupku adalah produk dari kesalahan-kesalahan orang lain.”
And I mean it. And this is not about the people I love.
My state of mind, my emotional well-being, my future plans, constantly revolve around how not to fail. How not to crumble.
So the question is still true:
How many layers are considered “too many”?
Because digging into my own head feels like a lot of work. It’s heavy. It’s exhausting. And it’s not something that can be done in one hour.
How can you forget the smell of dried paddy straws in a dried paddy field, in the middle of the day?
That was the moment I took the liberty of questioning the existence of God. Not in a way of hating Him, but as my (probably) eight-year-old self, I really wanted to know why I was different from the others.
“God creates us equally,” they said.
“You’re not the only person in the world who has problems,” they also said.
But the question remains:
“Do all people go through what I’ve been through?”
Because if they do, I want to know where they are, so I can ask them what it feels like to overcome the restless nights and the hatred toward myself.
Along the way, I realized this isn’t purely about how I questioned the existence of God, but how God tested me with all these memories; perhaps as a way to keep me going.
I know some people get things easily. Some others get them only after hundreds of tries. And sometimes, this exhausts us as human beings.
So, again, the question remains:
“How many layers are considered too many?”
I wouldn’t have questioned the existence of anything if it weren’t for the simple thinking of a child, asking all the whys.
So it should have been that simple.
Sometimes I think the layers don’t exist to be peeled away. They exist to be carried; awkwardly, heavily, like a hamburger you don’t know how to hold properly. Like the smell of dried paddy straws that stays on your skin long after you leave the field, and the itches too. Like a question that doesn’t demand an answer, only space. Maybe the work isn’t about getting to the bottom of it all. Maybe it’s just learning how to stand here… unfinished, unsorted, still breathing, without asking myself to be anything else.
