Act VI, Epilogue: The Perplexity

The environment is a tricky monster, Oliver always thought so, tricky in the way of growing up as a queer in east Asia, tricky in the way of not knowing his position or where to belong, tricky in the transition of mindset from the eastern to the western context. Or perhaps Oliver has been wrong in the first place, There is no such thing called the environment, Then who is Oliver?

“Oliver is a masculine given name of Old French and Medieval British origin.” says Turley (2016) “The name has been generally associated with the Latin term olivarius, meaning ‘olive tree planter’, or ‘olive branch bearer’ . Other proposed origins include the Germanic names ‘wolf’ and ‘army’; Oliver is one of Charlemagne's retainers in the 11th-century Song of Roland. The name was introduced to England by the Normans, where its form was possibly influenced again by its Anglo-Saxon cognate Alfhere…”

As a person born in east Asia, it’s impossible to be named Oliver. Yet it wasn’t based on a lie but a dream, a dream of being a masculine white male figure that fits in, a dream of becoming one of those main characters who will never be ignored or marginalized, there’s no Oliver, but Oliver is everyone, Oliver is me; Oliver is you, Oliver is whoever somehow feels trapped in the social or wherever they want to be.

Then again, can we transcend our understanding of gender, identity, and queerness through this immersive experience in VR while body has been physically limited? Perhaps the point of the realization of queerness and self-liberation may not be liberation nor queerness but self, technology is only a means, not a necessary condition. Constraints are always the theme, perhaps not so much from the outside, but from within. People are often haunted by their own nature, and once you discover the fact that your nature is bewildering you, then just the fact of being enlightened is enough to break all these constraints and free yourself. Everyone wants to escape from constraints, pain and reality, and everything in the world is shouting "I want liberation!" But unless you achieve this so-called liberation, you cannot get this kind of peace and rest.

Perhaps optimistically, the whole world will eventually reach this supreme state. Of course, it takes time. Because the nature of life is what we called evolution, and evolution is a very slow process. Perhaps the growing technology and its association with empathy may be the revolution, and it will get us there very quickly.

After all, the understanding of the self is related to the understanding of the other. More than individuals, we are part of a broader system called humanity.