(Remember, as with all mangas, read from right to left!) ()

(Onepunch-Man Ch. 3)

Excerpt from Onepunch-Man chapter 5.

Three years have passed since then I trained so hard I lost all my hair, so hard I thought Id either die or lose my mind and finally managed to acquire an invincible power. I became the hero that I had always dreamed of being. But how can it be that, even though I should be satisfied, my heart feels so empty (OnePunch-Man, Chapter 2, Story by One, redrawn by Murata Yuusuke)

Dear world,

To be super honest, I never expected to be writing this kind of letter. I actually never expected to do a lot of things. Like being born. That was a real shock for me.

Anyways, what I mean by the first sentence is that the lesson that I want you guys to learn is almost certainly something that nobody has ever considered even putting into words. In fact, most people strongly advise against it. (Of course, most people according to me is, like, three people. I know only maybe three people)

I certainly had not learned this lesson until this year. Actually, I had spent my entire life working in exactly the opposite direction. So did everyone else in my family. So did, and so does the rest of the world. Its easy to get swept up by these kinds of things.

Lets start from the beginning.

I was born from intensely Chinese parents in a nice middle-class household in fairly prosperous Southern California. From the start, my parents tried to prepare me for a terrible, terrible life in an environment where everyone sought to be better than anyone else. Thus, I learned to read, write, and do math things at a very early age. I was so far ahead of the rest of the first graders that elementary school was essentially five years of recess. Needless to say, everybody liked me because I was super-smart and could draw and was good at music, and I wasnt a little snot about it at all. (coughs).

Just like that, I grew up, always seeking perfection in everything I did, looking to be better than anyone else around me. The best around. I sailed through middle school, taking all the honors classes and GATE programs, having seven periods like all the other honors-track students. To be honest, I could have lived like that forever and be intensely successful. I could live an eventful, fulfilling life striving for perfection and then see how far perfection went. And I would be happy. The world would call me happy. I would have managed to make it to adulthood without disappointing my parents. (Every Asian knows that the true measure of success is how little your parents yell at you about your future when you next see them.)

In short, I was constantly striving for perfection (which I found personified in my older sister, but thats a lesson for another time.). And I was rewarded for being as perfect as I could get. I was showered with compliments from all my teachers, who told me that I would go far and that I could do anything, but its not like I cared that much or anything like that. (copious coughing).

But the farther I went in my education, the more constricting the standards were. Perfection, perfection, perfection. You have to be smarter, draw better, run faster, work harder, talk louder, dress better be better. Somewhere around the time I was in seventh grade, my mom flipped a switch on her Mom Machine and became a stereotypical Tiger Mom. Meanwhile, my perfect other self (my sister) seemed aiming for higher and higher things, things that I never would have dreamed of on my own. I was dragged along in her footsteps, looking for somewhere stable to place my foot down but finding nothing but gravity and a mile or so of fall space.

And then I went to high school. There started my years of intense suffering.

Freshman year passed. I made a lot of friends after realizing that I was a band nerd and unabashedly uncool. I spent most of the year floundering academically because suddenly, I was among people who were better than I was. Imagine spending your life on a sailboat speeding steadily in a lap pool surrounded by, I dont know, dolphins and orcas and, uh, sparkles and stuff. And then suddenly, your pool becomes the middle of a stormy ocean, the dolphins and the orcas turn out to be the vicious, merciless predators that they actually are, your boat sinks, you dont have a life jacket, the sparkles kind of burn when you touch them, and theres no Wi-Fi. This is the horror that is high school for the unfortunate and unprepared.

Sophomore year, so far, is turning out to be vaguely better than I expected. Although the classes are harder, and everything, including my wildly variant energy levels, is going much, much faster than I expected it to be, I have my friends, the Internet, and Pokmon-shaped snack food (that I find myself relying on much more than anyone could have ever expected.). I am given support to continue striving for perfection by my friends, who also strive to better themselves. For the sake of surpassing my friends, I have pushed myself harder than ever before. Then, one night, when I had spent seven hours on AP Euro stuff and another four or so on AP Bio, when my spirit was about to be crushed by Peter the Great riding on a giant mitochondria, (the powerhouse of the cell also, I tend to have really weird dreams when Im desperate and tired; also, calling the mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell is actually inaccurate because its function isnt exactly that, but youll have to take AP Bio to learn that in more detail because instead of studying properly I drew the Adventures of Mighty Mitochondria and his sidekick Power Protista on the back of my study guide. I did great on that test.) I

Uh. Where was I? I got a little carried away.

Oh! Right! My soul was about to be consumed by Peter III of Russia. My stamina was long gone. I was running on fumes, ice cold milk, and a ragged optimism.

Then I ran out of milk.

I fell asleep immediately.

That was the most important dream I had ever had. That was when I realized itthe lesson, the idea that I had been looking for, subconsciously, for my entire life. Im going to go ahead and cut out the parts of the dream that are unnecessary, such as the part about my brief stint in Hell (which looked like a normal city except that everything was purple, the trees looked like scarred hands, and the traffic was terrible), or the part where I was the main character in a dating sim/RPG where I dated the Clockwork Princess, or the one that came after where I used a toy water gun to fight monsters and escort the princess (who looked suspiciously like my friend, Ian, but in a dress that suited him unexpectedly well) through a hotel, and so on. I have weird dreams that I remember really clearly for some reason

GAAH. I keep on getting off track! I need to stop this, or Ill start boring people.

Anyways. I dreamed that I was in school (see: dream about Hell) surrounded by all my classmates. It was just another normal day. We sat down, listened to a lesson, took notes, and left exactly the same way when we entered. Then, when the bell rang, everything slowed down. I noticed something. All my classmates, everybody around me, are just like meeverybody is trying to be the best. But by reaching for the same goal, were all essentially trying to be the same person

Perfection.

As soon as I realized, I looked around as unrecognizable faces loomed around me, identical masks of inhuman perfection. It scared me.

And this is why we dont eat copious amounts of snack food after 11:00.

In class we spent some time discussing the Ideal Man Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain is a man so good and noble that nobody can deny his faith and purity, nor can anybody begrudge his goodness. Sir Gawain is a Disney Movie, with the vintage filter on, played in slow motion to soft violin music. So really, for a person like Sir Gawain, who is the pinnacle of human achievement, there isnt anywhere to go but down.

Whats the lesson Im trying to say here? (I should have mentioned it at least eight paragraphs earlier, but here it is.)

Perfection is boring. To be honest, it kind of sucks. Perfection is not and should not be the ultimate goal of existence.

Doesnt this whole letter make sense all of the sudden?

Im not saying that you shouldnt seek to improve yourself. Bettering yourself is awesome. Being better than other people feels great. (bitter laughter.) But perfection isnt actually what youre looking for. Perfection is the condition, state, or quality of being from all flaws or defects. But once you attain perfection, what is there left to do? Where do you go now? What can you look forward to doing? Now what?

The simple answer is to attain perfection in something else. Competitive cup-stacking, for example, or slicing pineapples. But by doing that, you purposefully turn away from your state of perfection. You are intentionally lowering yourself so you can build yourself up again.

Perfection is not what we truly seek. Thats why nobody lives at the very peak of Mount Everest. Once youve seen everything, theres no point in staying.

Perfection is Nature telling you to stop.

What we are really looking for is the satisfaction of self-improvement, knowing that our hard work is paying off, that what we are doing makes a difference in our life. We arent looking forward to perfection. We are looking forward to looking back on what weve done and feeling proud of ourselves. And then we look forward to start all over again.

Imagine being perfect in everything you did. From birth, you were successful, blessed with immaculate looks, a winning attitude, a healthy family, many friends, a myriad of talents and blessings. You are the embodiment of perfection. There is literally nothing wrong or even somewhat lacking in your world.

Isnt that the most boring, unrewarding existence you can imagine? If I were in that situation, being naturally perfect, Id go insane. There would be nothing in life that I was interested in, nothing that gave my life meaning, because no matter what I did, it would go as smoothly and perfectly as breathing. Nothing would matter, because everything goes as expected. And if everything goes as expected, if nothing changed, wouldnt you stop feeling emotions too?

How long do you think it would take until you stop being human?

Well, that ended on a low note. This, by the way, is my excuse whenever a teacher asks me why I havent done my homework. Its never worked so far, but I can dream, cant I?

Dont Let Your Dreams Be Memes!

See You Next Time! From Josie Qi. ()

YOUR ASSIGNMENT: This has multiple steps, so read carefully!

Part 1: On a blank sheet of paper, write down everything that you think you would be if you were perfect. It could be actions, characters, possessions, pithy comments, drawings, anything that you think the perfect you would have. Then spend at least ten minutes making fun of the things you can never achieve. Its okay if you cry a little bit while you laugh at yourself. It might be fun bringing friends over and making a roast session of it. If you dont have your own friends, store-bought is fine.

Sorry. Um, ignore that.

Part 2: On another sheet of paper, or on the back of the first paper, write down or draw all the things that a.)Motivate you to improve yourself, b.) What it is you are motivated to do, c.) Things that you already can do that you are proud of, and d.) Things that you want to do in the future / currently do but are really bad at.

Part 3: Share some of your answers in a blog post! Also, give your mom a hug.

Example: For Part 1: I would draw a handsome and well-formed Tyrannosaurus Rex with really nice forearms. Thats the ideal future me. Then Id write some things about being an accomplished pastry chef, having some cats, being able to speak seven languages, have impeccable handwriting (despite my claw hands), and being really rich. And so on.

For Part 2: My main motivation to learn a skill or try new things is because someone I know does it and they look really cool. Either that or I want to get really good at something so I can look down on all my friends. Im a really good person. Sometimes I want to learn something so I can make something Im proud of. I am especially motivated to learn how to cook something other than water. Besides that, I want to be equally confident with different art media, be able to play clarinet without being banished to the garage, play jazz music on the piano with all my friends (I can play piano because Im Chinese, but since Im Chinese, I focused more on classical/baroque/romantic stuff), and study effectively. Something that I am extremely proud of is my ability to sleep anywhere, anytime. I plan on teaching myself Chinese.

Eventually.

So there you are.