The Lionhearted: Prelude

As a kid I was a daydreamer. I dreamt of being able to use magic, fighting in epic battles, exploring exotic places, being someone to the people there and maybe even fall in love with someone. I wanted to be an adventurer in a wonderous world, and a hero to someone.

During my youth I had severe allergies and asthma. That, combined with my father buying me a computer at the age of 10, made me spend most of my time as a kid indoors. As I played video games, watched movies and read books, the fictional world I found myself in became less like the real world all the other people were living in. And before long I started looking into “real”  magic, hoping to find that this world could be as amazing as the one I occupied in my mind.

As I grew up, I found out that magic did not exist. War was not fought through epic battles but was something dreadful and the world had already been explored. I think I have never quite recovered from that. Science seemed to me the closest thing to magic, but even though it excited me, it wasn’t the same. I liked the results of science. The amazing insights it gives us and the machinery it allows us to build. I did, however, not like doing the actual work.

My youth filled with fiction and later finding out it was just fiction, left me with a love of beauty, adventure, the prospect of the future that science gives us and a deep longing to find magic in this world. Not as you would see it in fiction. I don’t expect to ever find such a thing. But I would like to find a replacement. I would like to find something to fill up that gaping hole in my heart.

The Story so far

High school was not the best time of my life. I didn’t like it. My grades were average and as luck would have it, I turned out to be one of the geeky kids. I remember clearly that in highschool I wanted to be a game designer. I wanted to make amazing fictional worlds in which people could lose themselves and be whoever they wanted to be. I found however that when I started to learn how to program, the process of making these imaginary worlds was tedious, and soon lost intrest. I still liked experiencing and creating beautiful and wonderous things, but I just didn’t feel like this was what I wanted to do.

When I finished highschool, I tried graphic design, webdesign and finally neuroscience, because I thought that I  may have had been looking in the wrong place all that time. I didn’t finish any of those studies. I did meet a lot of interesting people, but life was boring and I still wasn’t any closer to finding out what my dream was.

One day, while attending a lecture, I felt physically sick when thinking about where I was in life and rushed out of the auditorium to a nearby park. There I laid in the grass for 4 hours. That’s when I decided I was going to change my life. That I was going to change myself. I refused to live in the world that I lived in any longer. I had to get away from it all.

So instead of complaining and dreaming of better things, as I had done the better part of my life, I took a plane to China where I am currently learning  shaolin kung fu. Coming here was nog about the kung fu, but about being away from everything familiar. I came here in the hopes of finally changing myself into the person I want to become. I’m planning on staying here for 5 years. While I’m here I also want to visit many other places and people I feel I can learn from. The school too, is filled with interesting people who all bring something unique to the atmosphere there.

So why The Lionhearted?

Never in my life have I finished anything worth finishing. I start things only to give up after a few months. I realize this can’t go on any longer. I want to change the world for the better, but before I can do so, I need to become a better person. I need to become someone who is courageous, disciplined and follows through. I hope that The Lionhearted, and your support, will give me the motivation to go on and do that. I’ve never done this, so I don’t expect my writing to be that great. But I know I can improve that. Just as I know that I can improve so many other things during my 5-year stay here.

I’ve been here for 4 months now, and have 4 years and 8 months to go. Considering I plan to visit places such as Tibet, India, Japan and others during my stay here, I will probably be 30 once I finish this. But I don’t mind that. This is going to be an incredible experience where I’ll hopefully learn a lot. And I hope I can share some of that with all of you here on The Lionhearted.

“Fortune favours the bold.”

You can check my list of goals here.