Closed Eyes Turn Inward
Follow the loser
Article by Yusuf Khan, art by Isabella Hageman
Tall ceilings. Chipped paint on otherwise blank, cemented walls. One long window with the blinds kept closed throughout the day. Intermittent thuds and pattering footsteps leak into the room from above and outside the door. The hum of a fan and the sound of gusty winds mirrors the inhabitant’s stream of consciousness and soothes him into a coma as they play into the night. The sounds continue into the day, filtering outside noise. The inhabitant seeks peace in the room’s silence.
As the inhabitant is working or even sleeping, the distance from his mind to the tall ceiling makes room for the possibilities that dreaming brings. Although this sounds like a sheltered existence, the inhabitant a prisoner of his own mind, there is more to this room than meets the eye…
Ⅰ. A Wanderer
Imagine a stuffy room. There’s a dining table and extra seating arrangements positioned behind and to the side of the table. Around the dining table, the main area, clusters of people with hidden vices masquerade behind a front. Bodies absorbed in conversation. On the outskirts are the extra people who couldn’t fit at the main table. In the midst of these people is an individual. Let’s call her the ‘loser.’ The loser may not feel connected with the event, but at least she has her dignity intact. Being a loser, this individual is nothing more than a presence, drifting aimlessly and looking down at her phone to avoid feelings of self-consciousness. It is important to not feel pity for the loser because ‘loser’ is only a surface-level term that ignores the richness that lies beneath.
The loser is easily annoyed by multiple self-affirming finger-snaps when everyone is in agreement at the main table, along with the ‘individual’ who uses the word “right” in an explanation as if expecting its listeners to understand what it is saying. “Right” is a condescending way of expecting someone to understand what the ‘individual’ thinks is common knowledge. The loser is also quick to notice how segregated this event is. The same event that is built on inclusivity and surrounded by a plethora of antiracist statements. The question then arises, “And yet, whose voice dominates?” And so, we tend to hear more from them. It is these events that lead to feelings of apathy and loss of sensation. The initial pleasure of going to them is lost, but for the loser, that pleasure was never there to begin with.
New questions then arise, “Out of the wide social circles these bodies have access to, who do you think they’re more inclined to talk to? And if the problematic characters of these bodies are not called out before they become a problem, won’t this cycle just continue? In a supposedly socially conscious, progressive world, why does the feeling of disconnect still loom large?”
The loser understands that one should never lose oneself to fit in the norm or continue to use traditional ways of thinking that have kept us circling around the problem but failing to nip it in the bud. It is at this point that the loser decides to leave, realizing that not only is the room starting to feel stuffy, but that it isn’t worth expending effort to build community there. And so, she, like the inhabitant, seeks refuge elsewhere in a place where she can acknowledge her potential…
One might ask, what good does being well-educated do when your thinking is so aligned with what has been curated for you in the form of literature that you cannot form your own thoughts? What harm is there in looking up from the book pages every now and then? Why is there a lack of trust in oneself to observe what is happening before you and learn for pleasure rather than academic purposes? Some call it “dumbing down,” but that’s only because they’ve been blinded by the historically dominant voice in academic discourse and are so used to their writing styles that anything written clearly cannot be taken seriously.
The room knows all too well that the problem with intellectualizing and quantifying anything is that it only looks at the subject for its value, what it can offer, and what others stand to gain from it. At that point, the intellectualized subject is thrust into a competition that unnecessarily assigns metrics to determine its worth. And so, the room does not belong to any one inhabitant, nor does it need an overly long explanation of its role. It’s just a relationship.
At the end of a long day’s work, the inhabitant heads to the room’s bed. The room is a place where ideas flourish; the bed is where it starts. And not all ideas are pleasant. Into the depths of the inhabitant’s mind, anxieties, doubts, and regrets come and go. Sometimes they linger. A Kubrick-like obsession with these ideas takes place. The room’s lighting comforts the restless mind by using its darkness to help the inhabitant concentrate just on that empty void of black, dotted space. With enough scrunching of the eyes, all other thoughts vanish, and the inhabitant falls asleep.
Let’s return to the loser…
Ⅱ. Lights out/Fleeting Joy
We find the loser still drifting aimlessly. They say to do what interests you, but she has no idea where to start. Her burning curiosity cannot be narrowed down to a single interest and it’s easy to say she can just do a thematic minor to satiate that curiosity. But this is much bigger than that. At this point, the loser has tried so many things to get involved but has found no meaningful connection. Not because of the clubs themselves, but because of the people who run them. “I write because it’s the only way for me to put myself out there, to strike connections, to be noticed. It’s something to take comfort and joy in, not something I have to ‘buckle down’ and force myself to do. Then again, is it really worth the effort to put yourself out there? I don’t look like them, behave like them, certainly wasn’t raised like them (any sense of self is othered or displaced from the original self for a more safer, presentable self; self-hate). I’d have to lose a part of myself to fit in with what they understand as normal. Even then there is no guarantee of acceptance. This change demands something more that I’m just not sure I have the energy for.. It might’ve just been a rocky start because of things out of my control. But I’m saying this a couple of years into it. The thought of putting on a social mask and having to tweak it with each encounter is exhausting. The ‘what makes you you’’ is lost. No, that’s not me,” she thinks to herself.
One thing to note about the loser is that she’s dedicated. A thought may get her down, but that itself is a source for inspiration for what she may later write about. One day, the loser passes by a couple of groups and hears about a club for creatives based in an academic building and decides to give it another shot. She enters and before taking another step, she pauses, slowly looking up to see the tall, distant ceilings and then to three long flights of stairs (much like the unreachable, excessive steps toward understanding the concepts taught in the building).
After climbing the final set of steps, the loser stops to catch her breath (her actual face mask making it all the more difficult to breath, almost like a panic attack quietly internalized to avoid making a scene). She then faces an empty hallway lined with cone-shaped lights from start to finish. The lights move with her and start to look like unfocused orbs as if in a movie where a stream of colorful city lights at night become background blur. The loser enters the room to see a coffeehouse and L-shaped sofas.
She eventually finds them holed up in their ‘creative space’ only to see more of the same. Notice how there is nothing to let her know where the ‘creatives’ are, the uninviting yet laid-back atmosphere, and how alienated one can feel even in a group— it’s inclusive only when looking from afar. She finds a seat. It is here she first lays eyes on these ‘holier than thou,’ bitter, sarcastic characters. “Hey, do you know when the meeting’s going to start?” she asks the ‘individual’ sitting next to her. The ‘individual’ gives her a crazy look, wide eyes, smiling, nodding, and an “mmhmm.” Someone in front of the room finally asks everyone to go around and introduce themselves. A couple of moments later, the spotlight is now on the loser, who flips her chair, pushes everything off the table, and gets on top of it.
“Just by reading the room, I can tell it doesn’t matter who I am. Like all of you, I came here seeking something resembling belonging. All I’ll say about me is that I’m a hedonist, a procrastinator. I stick to what makes me feel good despite all the pain. Your self-sufficient Western culture tells you all this is bad to guilt you into being more productive. That it’s all about chasing a bag and the nonstop grind, failing to realize just how useful focusing on yourself can be. So yeah, I’ll sleep through the day and work through the night. Call me an armchair philosopher, an unlicensed sociologist. You pride yourselves on a progressive lifestyle, but you’ll be the first ones to cast someone out when they critique this thing you call a ‘group’ (think white feminism). Why? Because you don’t listen. I’ve listened to y’all for long enough. You think I’m being cynical for no reason. Look around and ask yourselves, ‘What provoked her to act out like this?’ instead of being upset at me for being upset. So please, sit down, listen, and shut up while I’m talking.”
An ‘individual’ in one of the bewildered groups asks, “Are you, like, having a breakdown? It’s really inappropriate and rude of you to interrupt like this.”
“You see, I see through your mirage. If your group really was accessible, then it wouldn’t have been this hard to find instead of having to play it by word-of-mouth. Think the overuse of aesthetics (obsessing over something like a TV show and hyping it up to the point where it loses what made it special, becoming just another mainstream product lost in Netflix’s library and ‘quantity over quality’ mantra). Your world, your reality, is built on recycled trash. Like the game developer Ubisoft and a term coined not too long ago: ‘open-world fatigue.’ Repetitive tasks but no meaningful interactions. The pandemic isn’t the disease anymore. It’s always been y’all to each other. Look at COVID like a positive disruptive force that sheds light on failing systems that halt a never-ending, capitalistic machine where you work to live and live to work. The possibility of a four-day work week is water to the raging fire that burns inside the hollow machine. Cloth masks are the new social masks, except now it’s a good thing. Those who seek to be heard, not seen, work like thieves in the night, eyes twitching from fatigue. Ambiverts, or a blend of introverts and extroverts, who don’t subscribe to a black-and-white vocabulary, reconnect with themselves through their work. They seek refuge from a world where big personalities and outspokenness are looked at as signs of confidence. Whatever happened to stylistic confidence?”
Another ‘individual’ interrupts, “Do you want to step down now? We really don’t care about this monologue of yours, and we feel super uncomfortable. Looks like someone needs to take responsibility for themselves.”
“Monologue?! So then what do you call these little clubs of yours? Hmm? You and your peers are so used to validation that you can’t begin to imagine what someone like me goes through daily. Sleepless nights while restless minds lay awake, suffering in silence, numb to it all. You’ll just send out meaningless surveys to gather data but never insight into the experiences and environment that shape someone. You’re the upstairs neighbor jumping on the ceiling while the downstairs folk are planning. Huh, and you wanna talk responsibility. And stop it with these polite rhetorical questions you’re compelled to say yes to. No, I don’t wanna. So, if you’ll allow me to finish—”
The ‘individual’ responds, “No! You can’t just barge in here like this and honestly, we don’t have to stand for this!”
“Says who? The doors are locked. I guess you’ll just have to wait your turn like I did for this moment. I have nothing to lose. After all, I’m a loser, I just need room to improve. All those times of rejection, self-doubt, by myself. Caring too much about what they think gnaws away night after night. Doubting if I’m doing enough. Reaching out to all these people and still being left with more questions than answers. Comparing myself to others leads to an endless rabbit hole. Been down so long, you forget what it’s like to be up. You have all the advantages to do great things while the rest are left to dream. Like the job paradox: to get experience you need experience. When you’re prepping for an interview, they make it out to be a casual thing, tell you to be yourself. But really, there’s a lot at stake. The formalities and standard questions add to this overbearing atmosphere where every single thing about you has to be fine-tuned to keep them smiling while you politely put one on yourself. ‘Be your best self’ and ‘fake it till you make it’ add new meaning to this friendly, outgoing persona. And the interviewees will do anything to please them, even if that means blindly agreeing with flawed efforts that claim to solve inequalities while the people they intend to serve are still left with a hefty financial burden (fake woke).
So, for someone like me who doesn’t have much going for her, I ask: when it comes down to it, are we really that different from the taboo entertainment industries you like to shame others for watching? Putting on an illusion, pitching an attractive idea of yourself to your next employer. And you know what they say about loyalty to a company... One can be an investment consultant on Wall Street with high earnings, giving well-informed advice, but still get away with unethical, scummy behavior. Their untouched status placed high on a pedestal by their Ivy League education and connections in higher places. Like smoking a pack of Newport’s, it filters what would be a harsh taste. While the other profession is stigmatized (but now the norms are more liberal). It brings to life tensions that’ve been repressed in the back of the mind, yearning to be released. Once self-discipline cannot hold it back any longer, tensions become desires condensed into viewable form for the voyeur. New companies take advantage of this stigma knowing their morally dubious place by taking a leap into a new, creative direction of high-end content with more of a focus on production. The unnamed profession finally commands respect but nowhere near Wall Street’s level. The only difference is one makes more than the other and has a degree for what’s looked at as a respectable job. Either way, both industries are morally bankrupt. Neither are above one another. It’s business as usual, how sellable something is, and then onto the next big thing once interest ends (like with each new iPhone release, even if that means little to no change), despite the gap in who is stigmatized.
So, all I see in front of me are empty seats. It's like a ghost town. All I hear are the whispering trees. I start to shiver when the autumn breeze comes around. Yeah, I’m lazy and I don’t share your impressive Java, Excel, or photography skills. But I have an intense focus that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. I was asleep for most of high school. Too grown, in a way that I would feel uncomfortable sharing. But now I see more clearly. Look at all the drained students who excel in time management but look lifeless in class. You can hear it in their voices. Don’t look at me like that. Remember what I asked earlier, ‘What provoked her?’ And yeah, this isn’t the appropriate time to ‘lash out,’ like you’d say. It’s no excuse for my behavior, but like with any change in history, when will it ever be televised unless it ends badly?”
An ‘individual’ says, “Oh my lord, she’s really going through it. Somebody call security!”
The loser jumps down from the table, walking backwards toward a back door while facing the audience, head tilted down, eyes scanning the room above. A few minutes of silence pass. She draws her breath and shifts her jaw. In a calm, calculated way, she says, “And so, sometimes you need a demon to fight the devil. If the devil is as bad as they say, wait till you see me and this red flag warning I’ve been brewing. Better yet, take a good look at yourselves and the hidden histories that’ll tear your world asunder. Anyways, looks like I should get going.”
Before she makes her escape, she leaves them with this: “By the way, none of you are creative. You’re craftsmen without a conscience. This misconception that to be creative, you have to be out and about, is a lie reflected in your scripts about self-entitled characters. That’s why I’d rather write something real to capture the unspoken zeitgeist. Just look around, that’s it.” Formerly known as ‘the loser,’ she faces the audience one last time, flips them off with her thumb sticking out, and kicks open an emergency exit as the alarm rings. As mysteriously as she entered, she leaves without a trace, no doubt getting back to doing what she does best…
Ⅲ. Musings
Now, try to remember all the movies you’ve watched , the ones that stuck with you. Then ask yourself, “What makes a movie good?” Notice how with any movie that has breathtaking shots, a mesmerizing soundtrack, or even well-known celebrities, but is poorly written, it’s most likely not going to do well (a cliché doesn’t make it bad since the cliché can be made original with a unique take). The cut from one scene or character to another isn’t seamless, unlike a slow fade that makes it easier on the eyes. Then the question becomes, “What’s a good movie without substance?” Similarly, when it comes to who is studious and who is smart, a studious person doesn’t have greater depths to them. Their inner life is made up of a systematic, rigid knowledge instead of a perceptual, intuitive one. Like peeling back an orange. Its nutrients aren’t visible, but one only knows what’s on the inside once they take a bite and let it take effect. Their thirst for knowledge is instantly gratified by picking up a book but never will they be able to experience the wonder of it all because they’re stuck in constant analysis. “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”— Albert Camus. The intelligent person explores other ways, adopts a growth mindset, and uses imagination to the best of his ability to keep his inner childlike wonder intact, which is often lost as one goes through adulthood.
Sometimes what comes to mind comes out as half-baked, you feel intimidated by others’ responses, or you’re left unsatisfied with what you said. For example, it’s easier to agree with a group’s opinion, but it’s much harder to go against the grain, especially when one has so many things to add but is so preoccupied with distilling those ideas to avoid any confusion or backlash. This leads to a new set of characters who exist in the same universe as the ‘loser’ but in a different reality: the ‘many militants.’ The ‘many militants’ aim to swiftly bring about change. But there’s a contradiction in how they go about it. There is no lesson to be learned, only hesitation when speaking one’s mind.
Just look at the nostalgia adults have for the golden age of cartoons. The people behind these cartoons just wrote to the best of their ability, not to a specific audience. These cartoons dealt with themes made mature by the sophisticated, nuanced way characters approached issues. So like these cartoons, what we do and say will never perfectly fit into a conventional or acceptable standard. And like art, it can either be mindlessly reproduced into what’s accepted as correct (losing its value along the way) or strategically repurposed…
Ultimately, all the room requests out of this relationship is for one to be himself. And it may be hard to be yourself because you have to find yourself first. Going through this process by being confident enough to stick to what you like is tough. Even if you have an idea, they’ll make you feel guilty if you decide to focus on your interests. “Will my interest be the employer’s interest in the long run?” They’ll ask you what your major is, like that’s all they can ask about. They’ll never understand what it means to listen patiently and make your words matter. Not to mention FOMO. All the other amazing possibilities once you decide, rushing to fit in as much as you can to explore, knowing it might not happen again. That’s what the decision feels like, at least. But somehow, you just have to do what you did before that made you feel great and notice the pattern. So, like the inhabitant, take comfort in not knowing, knowing it’ll serve as a guide.