Meditation of the Week: David Chen
By SOPHIE GOLDMAN and CATHERINE WU
Q: What is the main focus of your meditation?
A: It’s about my life and my universe – growing up in a Chinese restaurant, and then coming to boarding school.
Q: What inspired your meditation idea?
A: Coming into senior fall, you know you’re gonna write your meditation, so I did a lot of thinking over the summer. And then when you’re writing your college applications, you have to think about what kind of person you are at this moment. So I did a lot of self-reflection. I decided to go with the colors because I needed a way to section out these different parts and different stages of my life.
Q:Meditation-specific: What did the six colors symbolize in your meditation?
A: I took a lot of inspiration from Eugene [Lee Yang]’s video as well. Then I took a lot of inspiration from that video. And then I did a lot of research on what colors kind of represent.
Red stands for the beginning of life, family ritual, memory, culture, and tradition. For me, that’s the best definition of red that I could have come up with because red is a very traditional color in Chinese culture, so I thought that was the most appropriate aspect of my life designed to the color red. This is more in line with Eugene’s version of the colors. The others follow various different definitions of colors. But this one is very much so Eugene’s definition.
Orange stands for discovery, exploration, and perfection. This is more so like the general representation of the color. Perfection was something that I threw in there because it was something that I had kind of struggled with growing up acting as a bridge between the red section and then the following sections.
Yellow: sun, radiance, joy, those are the main things associated with yellow. And then I added in music rhythm and beauty. New ideas are also kind of an association with yellow because it’s like so bright, right?
Green, it’s very associated with nature’s growth and envy. Green with envy, you know, nature. Then breath is the other definition that I came across while doing research.
Blue is serenity, peace, acceptance, and being. Those are also kind of, well, serenity and peace are more associated with blue. And then the other two are things that I kind of threw in there via research.
Purple is spirit. And I’ve only wanted one word for this, so it’s really hard deciding what word I eventually wanted to go with for purple.
“Red stands for the beginning of life, family, ritual, memory, culture, and tradition.”
Q: Who is the intended audience for your piece?
A: Exeter. While you’re writing, it’s a necessity of writing to consider who your audience is. And I mean, it’s a meditation, so it’s designed for Exeter.
Q: What did you want your audience to know about yourself after listening to it?
A: Just that “This is Me.”
Q: Were there any obstacles you ran into while writing or choosing songs?
A: My first draft was not as ideal, because I struggled with the aspect of authenticity. There was a lot of dancing around the subject, which I talked about in the last draft actually. I called myself out, and I think Mr. Perdomo really helped with that. He gave me a lot of good advice in terms of workshopping this piece. And really encouraged me to take the most authentic stance that I could and really just throw myself out there. I think I did that more so as opposed to my first drafts.
Q: Is there anything else you would like people to know about your meditation, or any life lessons, life advice you’d like to share?
A: I don’t know if this is cliché, but I think you can think of it as kind of a love letter to Exeter in a way. In terms of advice, for writing their meds next year, I would give the same advice that Mr. Perdomo gave me, which is to really think about what your goal is. If you’re willing to throw yourself out there and you have to be authentic. None of us are perfect, so don’t make your meditation perfect either. It shouldn’t tie up in a neat little package of happiness and rainbows by the end. It should leave the audience with a little bit of ‘what’s next?’ because your life isn’t over, your story isn’t over either, and you’re going to continue to grow after you write your med. So leave room for that, for yourself and give yourself the grace to continue growing in your light role.
Q: Anything else you’d like to add or shoutouts?
A: I would like to shout out Mr. Perdomo. He really helped me a lot with this med. He gave me a lot of good advice, a lot of good guidance, and a lot of encouragement, which I really appreciated. I would just say Mr. Perdomo has been really influential on my writing ever since upper fall when I had him. I really appreciate how much he’s done for me, with regard to just writing in general and also on this meditation.
