Paths

I am always in a dilemma. I have always wanted to be someone special, someone unique, someone who does things that people will remember. But in reality, I conform to the society's expectations.

I remember visiting a prison together with Professor Fisher. She was there to conduct regular psychotherapy sessions for the convicted rapists and pedophiles. I was her research assistant. One of the things I had to do for her was to sit in her therapy sessions. That was the first time I went to a prison. We had to pass by a cemetery. It was winter, and snowing.

Then when I became a counsellor after I graduated, I had to visit this boy I counselled. He was detained in the Queenstown Remand Prison for stealing. To teach him a lesson, his rich parents did not bail him out. I met him in a tiny room, about the size of three toilet cubicles. He was handcuffed.

Of course I had to meet up with some CID fella because another girl I counselled got involved in gang.

In all these occasions, one question I had was that: what makes them do what they did? Then I realised that many of them hang out with people who did the same thing. It's difficult to say no when you are being pressurised (in a subtle way). They were swayed by people from their "same" group, their "opinion leaders" (albeit the "wrong" ones in our sense), they want to gain acceptance and didn't want to feel rejected, especially when they had been rejected by the society or their families.

Then I think about myself. And I realised I conform in the same way too - except that I conform to the positive aspects, in the society's eyes.