Me and My Story: Chapter One

As I have told you, My name is Trin, or Trinavor. I am currently a sophomore in college. All my life, I have had questions, seen things, had Ideas, but I have never been able to find answers, hear explanations, or share my ideas to the extent I would like to. I was born in Oakland, California, in one of the Poorer areas. Though we did live in a poor area, my parents were not necessarily poor. They were simply on the younger side, both in their twenties. This was their first house they had bought . So as such, I grew up in the midst of poverty. Not the greatest poverty in the world, but still significant, yet I never felt it's effects myself. My best friend their lived across the street from me. His family was significantly poorer than mine, so I would always be wondering why we had certain things that he didn't, such as our cars, or the trips we would go on when I was older. I would always go up to my parents and ask why we had these things, but they didn't. They were never able to say why we had these aspects of luxury that my friends didn't. Not to my satisfaction anyways.

Later on, when I was about 7, my parents, my little brother, and I moved to Boulder, Colorado. The rest of Elementary School and Middle school was pretty uneventful here, except for the fact that financially, me and all my friends were on the same level. I pretty much forgot my questions of California, and the rest of my time here went the same way, in the abstracts and forgetfulness of normality.

My life didn't truly start to change until I spent 3 weeks in India. I had traveled many times before, gone to many different countries, including Africa, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore, but I had never experienced anything like this before. I was in love. At first, we spent time in the large cities, with the rest of the tourists. The only thing that was different from the states that I could really tell was the pollution and the food. The people all acted the same, they had the same class system, with the wealthy in their limousines and fancy cars, while the poor either begged or worked at the hardest jobs, many times risking their lives in their work.

The change didn't come until we started visiting the smaller villages, mostly in Kerala. Though most of the material aspects stayed the same, the food, the pollution, I noticed a drastic change in the people. Everyone was nicer, happier. They really had no worries, no cares, aside from the normal bread winning , making sure that they had what they needed to survive. Though these people were as poor as any I had seen, they had a happiness I had not seen anywhere else in the world, Least of all back in the states. I wondered, these people were lacking so much in the world of material possessions, how could they be so happy?This led me to thinking, is life really all we make it out to be, is there more to it then our endless gathering of wealth. Is it possible to happy without being rich, without leading the life of wealth and comfort our societies deems the greatest life to live? Our society says no, but these people I met seem to contradict every value we have been taught.

This experience started me down my current path, questioning the values we hold at our hearts, wondering if they are truly for the best, or simply restrictions set upon us by our society to keep us in the system. Most importantly, I wonder, if all we know of our material needs is a lie, can we break out from the cast society set upon us? Can we take of the Mask we have been forced to wear and truly lift up our faces to find the true answer? Or must we constrict and hide ourselves in the uniformity and conformity of the world we know?

If I have succeeded in arousing your curiosity, then I am glad that we both share the same need to know the truth, and encourage you to continue with me to find the answers we both seek. If you would rather not question these values we hold dear, or perhaps are not yet ready, then I bid you good luck with your quest, your life, and hopefully I will see you back here one day, if you decide you do wish to follow my quest for what is true. But until then, whether we follow the same path, or split our ways, I hope that we will all one day be able to find our own "Face behind The Mask."