Seeds and Seasons: You Are Already What You Were Looking For

Seeds and Seasons

"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time." — T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

I didn't understand this quote when I first read it, but I loved it so much that I remembered it verbatim. I felt it captured some truth about life, about our perception and experiences, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly. That was until recently, when I sat down for another writing session. As I was weaving my thoughts, I began to recognize the parallels in my life.

The early encounters with an idea, how we felt about something, what fascinated us, what scared us, those are like seeds planted into our lives. Everything we've done since becomes the soil. The seasons come and go, and the seeds get buried deep. We forget they're there. But they're never gone. They're just dormant, waiting for the right conditions. And when the time is right, the seeds will begin to sprout, right into our conscious lives. Then we realize: that first encounter years ago was a seed, and we had no idea what it would grow into. This is our second encounter with it, and only now do we begin to understand what that first one meant.

Story 1 — The Language I Was Told to Fear

I grew up in mainland China in the late 90s. Like everyone my age, we had our dosage of state-backed anti-Japanese propaganda. At the same time, we all grew up watching anime from Japan and developed a genuine interest and love for the language and culture of the country we were told to hate. It was a weird mismatch that I believe many lived through until they developed their own opinions, which was around high school for me.

At 15, I was fanatically consuming anime and listening to Japanese music. I made my very first attempt to learn the language at a weekly night school class. I couldn't even remember the full hiragana and katakana alphabets. My half-assed attempt failed, and I gave up on learning the language formally.

Then during my gap year after high school, I became friends with several Japanese volunteers during my stay in Guatemala, despite only communicating in beginner Spanish. Because of that experience, I felt a fierce desire to learn Japanese so I could communicate freely with them. I became obsessed with improving my proficiency, did everything I could to level up. I passed the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT N1) before finishing my 4th year and secured a position as a Coordinator of International Relations on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) programme. I ended up working in Japan: interpreting, translating, communicating with Japanese coworkers.

Years later, at a school farewell ceremony, I stood in front of the entire school, students and teachers I'd spent the last three years with, in a televised room and gave my farewell speech. I spoke entirely in Japanese, and what I wrote surprised even me: The me who hated presenting in front of people is now, in a country I was told was the enemy, in a language I thought I could never master, in a profession I spent my life avoiding, speaking my heart to all of you.

It didn't feel like it was all that long ago when I was still that kid thinking to myself that people who passed the JLPT N1 were kami ('god' in Japanese). I couldn't fathom how anyone could become proficient in such a difficult language. Yet here I am, two decades later. Not only have I become fluent in the language, but I'm married to a Japanese national, one of my best friends is from Japan, and we are planning to move back in the future.

My life has become intertwined with Japan and it has bloomed in the best way possible; something I would not have imagined just years after those early encounters with Japan.

Story 2 — The Subject I Ran From

In high school, I couldn't make sense of my computer science class. I only passed because of help from my friends. I developed a strong distrust in my own ability to do anything related to the subject. I avoided it for a decade: through uni and through JET. But the aftertaste of sucking at something everyone around me was decent at lingered like a shadow.

I couldn't get rid of the intrusive thoughts that bobbed between my conscious and subconscious, which were along the lines of "is something wrong with me?", "am I just not smart enough?".

After an unplanned career change during JET, covid hit, and I ended up as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) far longer than I'd planned. I was forced to re-examine my career options. After much research and reflection, it was clear I needed a digital career. Within all the choices, software development was the best fit: learnable for free, no debt, no years back in school. Everything converged to it. But I had to come to terms with what I was afraid of and needed to challenge my own belief of what I could or could not do.

I distinctly remember telling myself: this is probably your best chance to rectify your understanding of the subject, and more importantly, what you believe about yourself. The opportunity has presented itself and now it's up to you to seize it and make it right.

Funny enough, as much as I held on to the false belief that I wasn't smart enough for programming, somewhere deep down, I also had a disbelief in that belief.

So, I started relearning programming in Oct 2022.

Fortunately this time, everything clicked like Tetris gone right. Not effortless, far from it, but I was making strides learning independently. I got stuck a lot less often and for much shorter stretches, never more than several days, which used to be a real frustration back then.

Better learning resources existed now. Interactive platforms like Scrimba were a godsend. ChatGPT 3.0 had just been released and I used it as a tutor to accelerate my learning. I had the time, the energy, and was in the right frame of mind. I progressed through the stages: building projects, volunteering at tech events, job hunting, and eventually landing a full-time developer role. Now on my second one already.

It took a decade for that seed to finally sprout and grow. It was a dampened seed and I wanted to bury it deep and forget about it, but I couldn't. Once planted, it takes on a life of its own.

When I gave myself permission to try again at something I believed I wasn't smart enough for, the soil conditions changed and what was planted came to life and quickly grew on its own.

Could I have ever dreamed that something I feared would become my livelihood, something I find genuinely interesting, and a foundation for the future I'm building? Nope. But it can and it did. It has become my wonderful reality.

Story 3 — The Dream That Went Dormant

I had no plans to come to Canada. My mom brought me here in 2006. Somehow, through gaining access to a laptop and YouTube, I discovered snowboarding. It was the coolest thing I'd ever encountered in my 12-year-old life, bar none. I still remember being mesmerized by this one freestyle video that kept looping in my head (I found it again in one search after 16 years), and how I changed all my laptop wallpapers to that one favourite freestyle image.

My mom, despite working at Wendy's on minimum wage, spent what little she had to buy me my own gear: board, bindings, boots. I strapped it all to my backpack and commuted from Scarborough to Earl Bales, a tiny hill in Toronto, the only one I could reach on public transit. I went every winter weekend I could. Didn't matter how far or how long. I just wanted to ride.

While on the hill, I remember the 15-year-old me making a wish: I wanted to become a snowboard instructor. I even remember looking up the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors (CASI) website 16 years ago, learning that CASI existed and that there were instructor courses available.

But the sport was too expensive to continue, and that was the end. My board sat dormant in a family friend's basement after I left for uni and moved to Japan.

Years passed and I had totally forgotten this passion of mine.

Life took a turn after last September. I switched jobs into a better environment. I had more breathing room and felt more relaxed than I did in a long time. During this time, I stumbled upon a Japanese TV program interviewing high schoolers walking home from part-time work in Kutchan, Niseko. Their responses intrigued me enough to research the job market there, and I discovered strong demand for high-level, multilingual snowboard instructors. It dawned on me: I'm perfectly positioned for this, given my plan to return to Japan. More importantly, a flashback hit me. I was reloaded with the memories I had stashed away from 15-16 years ago, everything that had fascinated me about the sport.

I felt a rush of dormant excitement and gasped in disbelief at how much time had passed, at everything that had happened since. I was energized from recalling what I did and how I felt 16 years ago. The me now is only beginning to understand what I was doing back then; I was uncovering and reclaiming what I had seeded 16 years ago.

Within 24 hours I bought a full set of snowboarding gear, from boots to mitts. By end of the week I was on the slopes already. And my instructor exam is two weeks away from when I'm writing this.

The Seed

We go through life planting seeds, in ourselves and in others. We don't always know we're doing it. Through the course of life, we change, and so does the soil within us. Seasons come and go, but what was planted still remains.

In some future time, when the conditions are right, those seeds begin to sprout. That condition may be a touch of curiosity, the resolve to face what you were afraid of, questioning an inner narrative or a belief you've held onto about yourself or others, or a mix of them all.

So nurture what has already sprouted, keep seeding with intention, and continue to cultivate your garden.

Don't question what's possible, because as you have seen, life can outgrow imagination in the best way possible.

You have no idea what any part of you could grow into: a sapling, a tree, or a cloud forest, and you don't need to! The act of caring, of being drawn to something, of daring to be fascinated: that is the planting. And one day, when the conditions are right, you'll arrive back where you started and know the place for the first time.

I'm quietly looking forward to what we'll unearth in the future.