Use Your Brain

Such a familiar phrase. Available in many languages - '可以用你的腦嗎？' 'Guna otak lah weih!' 'Are you even using your brain?' Usually used to express distraught and anger and often seen as impolite. Best not to use on your mother or your professor.

However, this is not what I want to talk about today.

Recently, I have been forcibly pushed by many people to write songs, and there is always this undercurrent of terror and anxiety deep inside me every time someone (specifically BJ) tells me: '寫歌啊 (write it into a song)'. It's not that I don't want to, trust me, I have been trying since years ago (refer to older posts), so why do I get a sinking feeling deep in my stomach when someone encourages me to?

*Warning: Posts may contain negative emotions about oneself, not reccommended for those who like positive energy. I honestly don't want to make your day a little less bright, but I need to rearrange some of my thoughts and the best way for me to do that is to vomit everything in my head out first. 

It's been a week since NCKU Folk Competition and besides getting second place for the solo category, I have also been offered a performing chance in Taipei by one of the judges, I don't want to bore you with the specifics but he has only one condition for me, which is I need to perform my original songs.

At first I was overjoyed that I received this offer, because wow, all I did was sing a Malay song but then reality hit and I realized I HAVE NO ORIGINAL SONGS. Well, technically, I do, I did write that song about Ilyssa's green hair and also me and my friends wrote that song about mosquitoes but The Girl With Green Hair is incomplete and I can't seem to finish it and The Mosquito Song simply sounds very wrong when we tried to complete it for Folk Competition finals. So... No. I don't have any original songs. Those half-songs that I have, aren't that good anyway.

Panic attack. I know I'm misusing this word but I don't know how else to describe this churning, heart accelerating, out of breath, drowning feeling. I'm not talented enough. I'm not musically inclined enough. I don't have enough words. I can't. I don't have the ability to write songs. I'm not good enough. I needed to make an SOS.

Naturally the first person I turned to was my parents, talking to them gives me strength and warmth but their hands were tied regarding this matter. So I turned to the only other person I could think of, my mentor, BJ. Of course, I was thrilled that he was willing to help. The creator of Soulseller, helping me? Praise the Lord, for he has sent me an angel.

But as soon as he asked me: What do you want to write about? I had another panic attack.

What do you want to write about, Noel?

I couldn't give an immediate clear answer. And that frightened me terribly.

Obviously my head wasn't empty. A thousand images flitted through my mindspace. Most of them stars, flowers and some things that I thought wasn't right. Basically tumblr.

Not wanting to appear an airhead in front of someone I respect so much, I took my time replying. And after I thought about what pissed me off or made me question it for a while. I chose one topic typed a long and whizzed it off to him. Minutes later, he asked: "Is that all?" and I felt so awful.

Dude, I just poured out all of my opinions and you ask for more?

And then he started telling me about his wall theory and his thoughts on my thoughts. And... I realized that !@#$, I really don't  use my brain enough.