01 | fvck v!carious

How It All Started

I’m starting this blog off from its roots.

fvck v!carious.

“What’s that?”, you may be wondering. Well it means – No. More. Living. Vicariously.

For those who already know the definition of vicarious, you probably have a hint of where I’m going with this. For those who don’t, vicarious means…

At least that’s how I defined it when I discovered this amazing word six years ago. It didn’t take me long before I realised I had fallen for a siren. Not because I was a sailor allured by unearthly serenades, but rather because this beautiful word I became obsessed with, and in fact, lived by, was killing the very part of me I valued most.

My dreams to change the world.

How can one, single word do that? Let me explain. Back in year nine, I was studying for a year twelve course at an all boys selective school, when the only thing on my mind was… the parties I was banned from (Asian parents). My escape from the hours of mental crossfit was… television shows. Though it may not sound like much, an hour or two spent closing cases with Harvey Specter, escaping prison with Michael Scofield or clowning around with Jake Peralta was what I looked forward to each day.

That desire I had to be someone other than a robotic boy reciting Shakespeare and pumping out algebra was dying. The hunger I had to create magnetically powered cars (yes, I still have the sketch from when I was six) was satiated with the joy I felt watching all those television characters achieve any and everything I ever wanted.

When I saw Barry Allen defeat Thawne, I felt like I won.

When I heard Lucifer playing the piano, I felt like my fingers were gracing the keys.

Turns out, I was wrong about both. In fact, I was actually further from saving the world, or blessing thousands of ears in a candlelit room, because my hunger to do so was satiated by living vicariously.

Realising the power that vicarious held over me, with its poetically divine escape from a life mundane, told me that I needed to change. How? Well I started with taking out the earphones and picking up a guitar instead. A couple weeks later, I posted an acoustic Juice WRLD cover on my private Instagram account. With some positive response, I made a public account – just for music. My bio? fvck v!carious. I started weaving ‘fvck v!carious’ in my song lyrics, chanting it with my mates, and shouting it at my parents (the last one was not well received).

Adopting ‘fvck v!carious’ into my mindset helped me write a song that’s now been played over 300, 000 times on Spotify, design a (deferred) clothing brand with my mate, and present to my mentor’s team at Universal Music. Yet, I still don’t think I’ve ever properly explained ‘fvck v!carious’. To others, or to myself. Fast forward to the present, I still feel entangled in a toxic ménage à trois with vicarious, and fvck v!carious.

I still haven’t changed the world.

Maybe it’s because I never found the right medium for ‘fvck v!carious’. Or the right way to communicate it. But that changes now.

From this day onwards, I’m leaving vicarious behind. I’m becoming ex-vicarious, if you may.

Keep this blog somewhere easily reachable if you’d like to take this journey with me.

Because this is for the dreamers, who are sick of dreaming.

fvck v!carious.