When travelling with Ming, I am always reminded of how amused I am by his unique take on life. After years of being together, he still fascinates me. He’s so unabashedly himself. And it’s something I’m not fully accustomed to being yet.
Isn’t it strange, that a person doesn’t know how to be herself? Is it normal that after so many years on earth, I’m sometimes still unable to read other people’s expressions or understand certain social cues?
Perhaps one of the reasons my fiction focuses so much on human relationships and the language of bodies is because writing is my way of learning more about them.
Someone stiffening up could be a sign of discomfort. Toes curling could mean pleasure. A sigh holds a hundred different words.
There’s a complexity to humans that fascinates me.
We have complex fears and needs and desires. And those stem from our upbringing, our failures, our experiences.
We are elaborate hardware walking around – breathing, breeding, living – run by complicated software.
We have innumerable algorithms running through our systems, with too many if/else statements, within if/else statements to count.
In spite of my confusion at times, this complexity amazes me. It’s like a glorious puzzle with no solution, a never ending mystery to solve.
