• 08 Dec, 2025 *

I theorize that we live between two worlds: Wonderland and Real Life. As much as we would like to keep our heads inside Real Life, it is no other than Wonderland to pushes us into uncharted territory and makes us try things that our conservatory Real Life counter part avoids.

One example I can think of is music. Inside Wonderland, I had this great expectation over learning how to play the violin. I had no idea how to even play a flute, but I wanted really desperately to play a song on violin. However, inside Real Life I knew that I did not have good hand synchronization.

Generally speaking, I am really stiff when it comes to move my body. That’s why I completely discarded the chance of even touching the dance floor. Real Life eventually caught up with that knowledge and pulled me back from Wonderland so I quit the violin idea. And so I did. With great sadness I recognized that I has underdimensioning the process of getting to know an instrument.

However, this did lead somewhere. Wonderland had immersed me into the land of music. Violin is a delicate instrument, therefore I put great effort into listening to songs to play on it. So great was my effort that I learned to recognize songs by merely hearing them. Although it may sound obvious to recognize a song if you are already hearing it, I started to notice covers on the radio and straight up rip-offs in musical contests. Real Life had pulled me out of learning violin, but Wonderland helped me refine my ear.

Another situation happened when I fell for a friend. It was slow and subtle that I didn’t even realized it was happening, that until Wonderland just blinked a few times and made up a blue prince before my eyes. That’s how I got pulled inside Wonderland with a ridiculously distorted illusion on how beautiful they were. The thing is, I absolutely forgot we were friends and I started to see my friend as a potential partner. It became so stressful that I ended up sending a stupid text and crying over my bed all night for that.

When trying to forget this and moving on with my life, Real Life appeared and started reminding me facts about my friend. I remembered his face -just as in pictures and not from my imagination-, the bad ticks he had and I eventually got pulled back into Real Life where we were just friends. In that moment I realized that once falling into an illusion, you stop seeing the other part as someone imperfect with their ups and down, replacing everything that makes them human with this fairy tale idea of perfection. Real Life brought me back my good friend, one that I wouldn’t paid enough attention to if it weren’t for Wonderland’s stupid shenanigans.

I believe that the perpetual tug-of-war between Wonderland and Real Life is what keeps us sane in this world without turning out lives miserable from all the objectivity we force ourselves to fit into. The title doesn’t make much sense now that I think of it. But oh well, just Wonderland’s little details that pushed me into writing this entry.