Patti Smith's Advice Matters

“A writer, or any artist, can’t expect to be embraced by the people.”

Patti Smith, everybody’s favourite punk poet laureate said this in the beginning of the video, as her kindle advice to young people. Her words embraced me not solely as a writer, but overall as a person. Here’s why: I’ve been expecting to be embraced by the people ever since I decided to become a writer. And it hasn’t even been two full years that I decided to become one.

If 2016 isn’t the year where good things happen to me, then it’s probably the year of me being fully dedicated to myself. I started 2016 as a whole new person, and it doesn’t really matter to me if others couldn’t see this. It’s nice to have the ability to take full charge of your life. It’s nice to know I could still surprise myself once in a while. It’s an act of being sympathique towards myself to finally get my shit together and know what I want in my life, even if it means I have to do whatever it takes to get, you know, there. Success, or whatever it is.

But can you believe how hard it is to be nice to myself? I mean, damn, I’m not even halfway there. For a fact, I probably still stand somewhere near the starting line of this subtle race to finally appreciate and love myself as a whole. I had then realise that being nice to myself is ten times harder than being nice to everyone else.

It’s hard enough to accept my flaws without having everyone else making it harder for me. I could tell you the stories of the struggles I had to adapt with when I was growing up and I could also tell you why accepting myself is a difficult process. But I don’t want to. In retrospect, who I was back then seems like a completely different life for me. It almost felt like I died somewhere between 2010 and 2012, and then resurrected years later as a different person in the same body (well, unfortunately). I told my friends sometimes, as a joke, how I refused to be anywhere near my high school because it gives me ‘war flashback’, which is true. High school did feels like a war between who I want to be and who people expect me to be. So I refused to go back there, in that period. Which is why, as I mentioned above, 2016 is the year I became a new person.

I welcomed 2016 with open arms, so determined to be a writer until I found myself thinking “I had never been this ambitious before.” But being ambitious and trying to actually achieve your ambition, whatever it is, is no walk in the park, apparently. 2016 has been a year where I thoroughly enjoy conveying my thoughts into writing and indulging knowledge I was never interested in before. I admire this façade of myself I had built over the past few months where I feel the strong urge to be smart and be better, even if it’s just for the sake of building self-confidence. But there were a few times people around me doubt me more than I have ever doubted myself. They are the people who, sadly, are too insecure of themselves that they feel the desperation to put others down, to make everyone else feel less than what they deserve.

So this calls for a PSA: I hate people who makes me feel stupid. You don’t have to do that for me, I’ve been doing it to myself ever since I was 13. You don’t have to tell me being a writer is a waste of time, most Asian parents, including mine, has made this a significant mental note ever since the beginning of time. You don’t have to tell me the course I’m taking in college is meant for idiots, there are a group of Malays out there who strongly and proudly hold this mentality in the back of their mind. You don’t have to be so surprised when you found out I can write, I wouldn’t declare myself as a writer if I didn’t enjoy writing. It makes me angry that a pseudo-confident and an overly ambitious person (like yours truly) has more faith in myself than anyone else. I feel like screaming to everyone else “UM, HELLO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE DOUBTS IN ME! THAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE MY JOB! I’M THE PESSIMIST HERE! GET OUT AND HAVE FAITH IN ME!” or something like that. Oh well.

But when Patti Smith herself declared that as a writer, we can’t expect to be embraced by everyone, who am I to disagree? I can’t expect everyone to know who I am and what I want when I myself would probably stutter and hesitate to answer if people shoved those questions in my face. Still, I would be lying here if I tell you how those people and their harsh unsolicited opinions regarding my own life wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t know how to put an end to this as I reckon I have strong admiration for myself, mainly because I was never this strong and this ambitious but at the same time it’s sickening to know there are people out there who is willing to belittle others just because they feel inferior and want to make themselves feel better. That shit doesn’t work. It never does.

I’m glad I came across the Patti Smith video. She’s right. I can’t expect to be embraced and appreciated by everyone but at the same time I am grateful for a handful of people who appreciate my work, or myself. And, who knew the best advice I’ve received at this point in my life would come from the Godmother of Punk?