A Letter to Dad

Dad, I know that you’re a father, and that means I come from you. It is a duty of sons, especially the sons of the East, to obey their fathers. And I know that means I need to obey you. Not only because it’s a damn social construction which brainwashes people and tell them to do shits. I give you my respect not because I was one of your cell that became a human being, but because you’ve worked hard – more than 8 hours straight per day, I know – so that we can peacefully lay on our bed at night, that your children can go to decent schools, that your family can eat some proper food and go out to fancy places some time at some weekends, or that you can take us to places for elites that we may have some foretaste of their lives – and hopefully become one of them. But after all, we were born in different times, and we have lots of differences too impossible to be reconciled.

I wish I could talk about all I’m gonna write to you, but I know I can’t. You won’t listen. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad pop, I don’t mean it at all. But it’s a fact that I know. The younger generation’s pattern of thought never applies to the previous ones, and it has been going on through ages. We’re just one of the tiny dots which prove the inevitable principle. That’s just the way it works (and what bothers me is not our heated discussions or each of our own stubborness, but what bothers me is that some people at one time name the generation gap – the endless clash between fathers and sons through generation – Oedipus Complex. What bothers me is that probably, though Freud is now invalid, my subconscious tells me to kill you and get my own mother for my own self.). Our differences are real things, and none can deny it. Neither you nor I can. I don’t know whether you know the cause of our differences, but if you can’t guess what’s on my mind beneath my constant silence everytime I stand before strangers (in which sometimes you, Mom, and Chris are included in one of them), I’d say once again we’re different because we’re born different.

Let me begin with the fact that you were born in the edge of modernism while I was born in the ruins of it. You were born in 1960s when postmodernism was not that popular. Your family embraced modernism so much with its construction of good and evil, its “myth of progressivity” which associates things with Aristotelian syllogism. Furthermore, you live in a very rational world. Just take a look at it, Pop. You studied IT in college, you’re working as an auditor, you embrace your religion and your faith, and your pastor is very logical. The enemy of your faith is probably Sartre, Russell, and Wittgenstein – all of which are logical, but they’re just heading to different direction. You’re going up to the heaven, they’re going down to the earth (or even hell, you may say). It’s so simple to me to look at products of modernism. They see things in white or black. They sometimes go through “the doors” or the grey area, but they keep their mind alive with all “good” and “bad” thingy. That’s why I know why “keep trying” and “stay positive” and “good-bad” thingy are all appealing to you. Everything seemed to work in “if-then” causative chain of effect and that makes a sense of security. “It should work if…”; “If I do this, then…”; “It’s better…” was phrases so popular in people’s subconscious mind. You had the sense of certainty back in your age. Science was the ultimate god back then, consequently making human reason as your people’s prince. I know it all. I know you’re very logical, and logic was a virtue in your time. Your time was filled with lots of (bothering, I may say) overoptimism and overconfidence. Proof? Just look at it, most of them motivators (positivistic preachers) are your age. 40s to 50s. I know some of them are young, but I also know that modernism still applies to their mind. They haven’t got the logic of postmodernism. And by the way, these optimism preachers bother me so much.

As for me, pop, I really wish you can understand that I was born in ruins. Where do I start? My time has so many differences than yours. Here’s the thing: I believe in the uncertainty of life. This notion might seem to apply to your mind and this might be a truth that you – logically – accept, too. But it doesn’t seem to be a principle that your people – products of modernism – truly believe. Life is ABSURD, Dad. My generation is living in false consciousness in which some people have realized. I never blame them suicidals and depressed people. I know what it’s like. They’re not abnormal, they just have their eyes opened. To us, life does not work in if-then-else formula. No principle, no good, no bad, no certainty, no nothing at all. We’re a nihilist people. There are remnants of modernism, but the younger generation do not find a way in reality. You may look at life as a gift, but I look at life as a curse. You believe that there’s a chance for paradise, but what I believe is that most lives are going to hell. Only few are given precious graces, FEW, and it’s not our right to ask God to give us heaven. You have meaning in your lives, our people don’t. Our lives are meaningless. We’re all fleeting in a second, and we’re just pathetically living our lives trying to beat the odds and find meaning. Few will find their call, but most won’t. We don’t know which one’s better to us. Russell, Nietzsche, Camus, Derrida, Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Hegel, whatever. My time is a time when each person chooses subjectively and it doesn’t matter. We. just. live. Even youngsters, with the invention of internet, the development of media (games and movies), CGI, HD Graphics, and Artificial Intelligence, prefer hyperreality than reality not because we’re stupid, crybaby-like bitches but because we know that reality is too difficult to face. We want to live the reality of the artificials rather than to live the illusion of life. We don’t associate much, we just don’t care. It’s all absurd; it’s all relative; it’s all meaningless; it’s all confusing; it’s all different; it’s all spinning; it’s all exhausting. Logic is no more our prince, that. So please stop overanalyzing me with your syllogism.

I just stopped for some minutes because the more I think of my time the more I don’t know what to write. We’ve no structure to show, we’ve no guide to go. If there’s a summary for the previous paragraph I just wrote, it will be: I-DON’T-KNOW.

Yeah, I don’t know, Dad. I guess that’s all.

That’s the source of all our differences – the thing that makes our logics irreconcilable.

You’re a modernist; I’m a postmodernist.

It doesn’t mean I respect you less. You’re still my Dad. But I want you to know that most of your thoughts can’t apply to me the way mine won’t apply to yours. I really wish I could take your side and live with a modernistic mind, but postmodernism is the truth I’ve chosen to believe in.

Thanks for all your positivistic advices, given passionately with emotion. But here I am, a soul who lives his live with a static, unchanging negativism.

I promise that one day I’ll walk away that my truth won’t bother yours. (I even won’t bother if death comes early, for what is death, Pop? A thing so scary for your people, but a name so meaningless for mine.)

Face it, Dad. The uprising generation is nihilizing all forms of structure, and I’m so sorry that I’ve chosen to be one of them.

Sept 13, 2014. 8:08 PM.

A young adult who was once a boy you called Alvin.