I said that after the attack of headache at seventeen, I transferred my ambition from conquering the world to conquering myself. Actually, I made some not so insignificant progress toward the latter goal. For example, I inherited from my mother an irritable temperament,but in a far more violent version. My mother would release her disconcerts by sullen drones of complaints and scoldings, as befitted her role of the disciplinarian of the family. I instead bit my lips and silently cultivated my anger in my bosom until it grew into a killing rage.One day, after a fight with Hongr, I walked into a book store, bought a couple of books about emotions, and returned with a determination to conquer my temper. In a relatively short time, with the help of my scientific training and my Buddhist readings, I improved my temper to such a degree that I often felt to be the calmest one in many trying situations.
Yet I did not change without years of futile fight against the wrong opponent. It was not until several months after the summer camp that I realized that the headache would be a chronic harassment, and it was not until several years later that I learned that defeating fate was a silly slogan, invented by men who were never blessed with real wisdom to mislead those who were either too young or too poorly equipped to find out truth independently. Fate is nothing but a reflection of our own constitution in the pond of time. Hence it could only be defeated by succumbing to it and could only be modified by modifying oneself.
At first, I was like a tiger falling into a steel trap of hunters. I hauled, I stroke, I tore, I would bite my own limbs off to be free. But the more violent my struggle was, the tighter the grip of pain became. Enjoyments that I had been so used to and taken for granted before being inflicted by the disease were as unattainable, and as to be longed, as the forest to the trapped tiger. I grew more desperate by day, and more taxed by night.I was crashed, not by the pain itself, but by my increasing fear of that pain and incessant effort to numb myself.
Having no constructive vents, my energy took a destructive turn. I did all the crazy and stupid things that I would have never thought of before. I tried alcohol, seeking comfort in its merciful, delirious embrace. Here another celebrated belief defied: the deepest pain could find no mollification from alcoholic contamination of the blood,nor could the suffering mind sink into blissful oblivion by alcoholic inhibition of the brain.
Under such circumstances, I easily fell captive of the strongest passion in human race. I had a crush on a boy who I fancied to be tender, compassionate,genteel, intelligent and self-contented, or in short, to be in possession of all the qualities that I longed for myself.
The passion was based on a mistaken impression, and surely would have naturally died away with revelation of his real character. Unfortunately, I was denied the opportunity of such a revelation. Most times, I was too shy to approach the object of my longing, and when I occasionally did so, impelled by my desperation, he would dodge and run away from me. Humiliating as it was, I learned to think that it was for the best, since my attachment, even to the most worthy person, would be contaminated by my thirst for any type of comfort. And I clearly knew, even at that time,that love was no balm to an inner infliction as the one I had. Yet more unfortunately and to my greatest surprise, after I gave up and buried myself deep into extracurricular readings, often, due to the scarcity of books, of the romance and martial-art novels that I had despised before, he confessed, just a few days before the college-entry examinations that would finally and permanently separate us, to be in love with me, and had been so all the time, without the least hope of deserving to have his regard returned.
It would take a much wiser and stronger person than me at seventeen, with all the haunting pain and despair, to say no to such a modest appeal, even though I knew, at that time and spot, that it was wrong and that it would not go anywhere.
Sadly and hastily thus began my first love affair in life, and equally sadly and hastily it ended.