5 Feet 9

Today I realized I was only 5 feet 9.

For much of my teenage years, I was largely unpertubed by my height and had on numerous occasions assured myself that “everything will fall into place”, perferring to outsource my vertical accendancy – and those sleepless preoccupations – to nature.

I craved for 180cm. Or more. Nature gave me 175cm eventually. And if the last word in the previous sentence triggered an annoying blip on the radar of the most conscientious of readers out there who would spring their feets and advocate for concise writing and truncation of unecessary words, in a while they will see why that is necessary in aid of the understanding, and to put into context, the despair of this author. At the ripe age of twenty, nature dictates that there is little, if any, that I can do about my height. And so the pressure is on to forgo the dream, which I am sure shared by many men out there, to look like Kang Sang Woo – 6 feet tall and ripped.

And by invoking the name of the celebrity, which put the author at risk of being viewed as a cynic who was quick to jump at every available opportunity to strut his quietly impressive knowledge of the who’s who in the glamorous circles of the entertainment industry; and by the mere mention of the two most noteworthy qualities present in the aforementioned celebrity - as numerous photographic evidence had confirmed, which is yet another risk of sounding like “the taboo three letter word which is often reserved for effeminated boys with heightened fashion sense”, the author would in a short while illustrate that both qualities invoked are quite apt and indeed necessary in the elucidation of the classic case of nature vs nurture, thus maintaining the integrity of the prudence that has always been at the top of his mind.

There was a vast difference between being 6 feet tall and being ripped, at least at this point of my life. I could be ripped. I could sleep a little less and hit the jogging track before dawn. I could resist a little pain and go for that 16th push-up or that 20th sit-up. I could hit the gym (as soon as I can afford it again, following my recent financial conundrum following te purchase of a new saxophone). I could do many things that could buff me up.

But not the case with height. I fretted, because for much of my teenage years I did not take charge of my own body or try to intervene its growth. Now everything is too late. Much as I hated teenage self for that, I recalled that I was nothing more than a prisoner in the Platonic cave, where there are something that simply … eludes me. I would’ve appreciate an elder brother whom I can look up to, who can “establish a trial that I can follow”, or any random person telling me, “Hey, you know what, you want to be tall? Eat this, drink this, do this.” But no, none of that happened in my teenage years.

Between nurture and nature, I preferred things to work the nurture way. The difference between the two, small but important, is the presence of freewill. Nurture is freewill for an eternity, nature is no freewill at all, or if any, existed only for a certain period of time, which is the case of mine. Just as I realized I should have taken ownership of my freewill to scale the altitudes, my freewill had significantly diminished over time.

So what’s next for a 5 feet 9 Kang-Sang-Woo-wanna-be? For one I embarked on some research and discovered that there are indeed streching exercises that I can do, which included hanging exercises which I attempted and cried in pain after 10 seconds. One website promised that I will “grow one or two inches”. Sounds (too) good, too good to be true, and I am skeptical. But I am willing to try, and to embrace and appreciate the last bastion of my freewill, before time wipes everything out completely.

The important lesson to take away is there are certain things which can only be done at a certain age, as much as I hated this system. I liked how I am keeping myself myself in my current youth. I don’t want to be 40 and regret how I did not spent my 20s wisely.