Caught in an egg

“One who wants to be born again must destroy the world. The egg is the world.”

This is a famous quote from the novel “Demian.” This novel deals with the painful growing-up process of a young boy. The boy, who spent his early years in a bright world called “home,” exposes himself to the dark world and feels sinful all the time. The boy feels conflict between the bright world and the dark world, and sometimes thinks that the dark world would be better than the bright world. The conclusion of this novel is that one must not restrict oneself to being “good” or “bad.” The black-and-white distinction of human behavior itself is wrong, and one must break through the black-and-white world in order to be born again. According to the author of this novel, people who restrict themselves to being good all the time are trapping themselves in an egg. In the novel “Demian,” most people are caught inside a stiff egg, and they are afraid to break it because the egg is their world.

I was caught inside a stiff egg for 12 years. Everything started when I was threatened by my classmate when I was in the United States. My classmate took me to a quiet place, pushed me to a red brick wall, pulled out her knife, and said “you are my toy.” Because I was only five years old, I couldn’t do anything about it. I just cried a lot and begged my classmate to let me live. She made a villain-like smile and let me free to run. I ran to my house right away, and cried for a long time in my bedroom. I couldn’t tell anything to my mother because my classmate told me that it was “a secret between you and me.”

After living a year in the United States, I returned to Korea and enrolled in an elementary school. When I saw many kids packed in a classroom, I was afraid. To me, one of my classmates could suddenly stand up, hold a knife, and run towards me, the foreigner. Because I was afraid of my peers, I did not dare to approach them and have a peaceful chat. I was a stranger, and many of my peers were belligerent and violent. Many of them lacked respect, and they kept themselves away from a stranger like me. They called me a robot, because they thought that my emotions were different from theirs. Some of them whispered that I did not know how to make friends. I was alone. To be more precise, I isolated myself away from those “monsters.”

When it was breaktime, my female classmates divided into small groups and chatted. I was not a part of any group. I was always alone, and was often busy doing homework and preparing for tests. My knowledge grew faster than any student in my middle school, but my ability to open myself to others ceased to grow since that day I was threatened with a knife. My mouth was always caught by an invisible force, so I couldn’t talk to anyone. When I see my middle school years through the perspective of today, I was certainly caught inside a stiff egg and did not allow anyone to enter my world.

Because I was caught, isolated inside my own world, the world seemed gloomy. Studying ensured good test scores, but I could hardly feel pleasure while studying. Contrary to my world, the world of others seemed too happy. My classmates were still beings to be feared, but they were laughing happily inside their own world. I was afraid of them, but I also envied them. So, when I became a 9^th grader, I realized that I had to break my gloomy egg. However, until middle school, many students were so hostile that I seemingly couldn’t.

When I came to KMLA, small changes began to happen. There was only one person in my room before; but in KMLA, there were two other people living together. I did not know their names and where they came from, but it was obvious that I should not be afraid of them, because they were my roommates. I tried to be fearless of them; I tried to break the stiff shell which caught me inside a gloomy world. Breaking the egg was not that easy, but I tried as hard as I could. When the first semester at KMLA almost passed, I could tell jokes to others, and laugh with them.

However, I feel that my egg is not completely broken. I am sometimes afraid of something I cannot explain. I also feel afraid of some of my peers and cannot talk to them. I am in the stage of breaking the egg, but some pieces of its shell are still remaining. I wish to be free from the egg that caught me, and I will try continuously to break it. The egg “caught” me, but I will not let the egg to “catch” me.