"Rite", Kok Wei Liang
Write.
Write about the time they placed your nephew in your arms, and you oh-so-briefly thought about becoming a parent, even though you know you’d be a shitty one.
Write.
Write about how two magical beings came down to Earth, and the beautiful, majestic, vain one is worshipped for being beautiful and majestic and vain, while the hideous one is – worshipped out of fear.
Write.
Write about the time your parents gently, softly, persuaded you to stay in Australia to study Law even though you were chronically ill, till you wasted away to 60kg and were diagnosed terminally ill, before they semi-reluctantly let you end your studies.
Write.
Write about how a martial artist falls in love with the nobleman he is supposed to protect, and the nobleman reciprocates but in the end chooses a life of ease and comfort and propriety, so the martial artist becomes a monk and takes a vow of silence and is not permitted to cry when he finds out his beloved was assassinated – the replacement bodyguard didn’t love him enough, to protect him at all costs.
Write.
Write about how sometimes when you’re coerced to say “I love you too” to your parents, you quietly seethe with resentment because they think and expect you to love them for all they are, when they have openly and repeatedly assured you they will never love you without conditions.
Write.
Write about a nomad who never stops traveling because she thinks everyone hates her and she can only stop wandering when she finds her tribe, and she never finds it because every time she comes close to a sense of belonging, she abandons them before they can even think about abandoning her.
Write.
Write about the real and the fantasy.
Write about emotional truth and fiction.
Write about the irony of how laughter seems so temporary while tears can linger – yet the two are allies, not opposites.
Write about the minutiae of life; about the ambivalence of adventure; about heavy, dull details; about tiny, explosive moments. Write about surprises, about disappointments, about how distinctions between the two narrow over the years, depending on how much you evolve or change or grow or don’t. Write about what you think you’ve learned or haven’t learned – write about it all.
Write.
It is a rite and a ritual, a special time to sit down and an everyday activity, and it can lead to anywhere or nowhere at all or everywhere at once, but you will never know until you actually get down to it and
Write.