VLNEng11: Lord of the Flies-Journal Entry #3

By Angeni Wang

REFLECTIVE QUESTION #3 In your life, have you ever felt as if you were lost or truly all on your own and alone? How did you rise to the occasion? Did you struggle? How did you overcome that struggle?


I think I've gotten lost a couple times, but I always knew that there was a solution in the back of my head, because it's rather hard to be all alone in the city. I've gotten separated from my family by accident in several downtowns, but there were always people that I could ask for help. I could always do something like call the police. With that in mind, getting lost had seemed more of a big adventure to me than a struggle. After reading the "Lord of the Flies", I wouldn't even say that those experiences could count as being lost or all alone. It was just a temporary moment of needing to find my parents in a crowd of unfamiliar faces.

However, there is one kind of situation that makes me feel all alone. For the last few years, I've participated in piano competitions, and so performing and competing on stage not rare for me. I realize that stage fright must sound ridiculous when compared to being stuck on an island with no adults or even getting lost downtown, but there is a certain feeling of being completely alone when I am on stage. It's ironic, because, in one way, I am the least alone on stage, with so many people, all in one place, just watching me, yet they're really quite far away and unrelated in another way. I like that solitude, but sometimes, when the situation is bad, it turns into this feeling of being helplessly alone. I remember one particular time where I had to go to a competition and my right arm kept cramping. It wasn't the dull kind of aching cramp. It was the kind that happens when you pull a muscle in your leg. The muscle would harden and I could literally see its outline on my forearm. It just kept happening and I had no idea how to stop it. I remember when I was led to the backstage just minutes before going on stage and it was still cramping. I really wanted to run out of there and not perform, but that was not an option (I know that realistically, I could have pulled out of the competition, but that is not how one feels on backstage). There were people out there waiting expectantly for me to perform and crossing their fingers that I would impress the judges. They would be so disappointed if I decided to back out at the last minute. I couldn't let myself down either; I wanted to win. When the person before me was done, my arm muscles were still feeling horrible and I had also gotten so nervous and anxious that I also felt really sick. I would've done anything at that moment to have had my performance cancelled, but there just was nothing I could do. They were going to call my name any minute. In the back of my head, I was frantically searching for the solutions that I so easily came up with when I was in other sorts of bad situations. But there really was nothing I could do. I finally realized that no one could help me. I had to either get my act together and compete or stay backstage and hate myself for eternity. So I dragged myself out on stage, forced a smile for the audience, and tried my best. Miraculously, the adrenaline of live performance reduced my ability to notice the pain in my arm. But I will never forget that feeling of being entirely out of control and out of anyone else's reach. It feels like a gun is against your head the entire time; you are in no position to ask anyone to not pull the trigger. I think it's very hard for anyone on the outside to perceive this, even though admittedly I'm making it sound perhaps overly dramatic.

I'm not sure if that counts as being alone, since I was still very much so in the midst of human civilization. However, I had to acknowledge that no one could rescue me and I did feel alone, especially when it dawned on me that I couldn't demand the competition to stop and wait for my arm to recover. I eventually decided that I had to compete whether or not my arm was going to cooperate. I had to struggle to remain as calm as possible and force myself to try and ignore the pain the best I could. I overcame that struggle with the help of adrenaline and maybe some determination as well.