I am HIV-positive. So what? | Avin Tan | TEDxNTU

let's start with a simple visualization exercise uh can i get everyone to imagine yourself being built by small building blocks so everything that's unique about you that's special about you is made by building blocks of different size different colors different shapes and because every one of us in here are unique and because i believe in magic since i'm harry potter it would look a bit like this it will look like unicorn has came in here and vomited all over you and this whole auditorium will look different at one point though all the building blocks in me were red in color because i was diagnosed with hiv when i was 23 and i was made to feel like everything about me was about hiv and knowing that only 30 percent of singaporeans are ready to accept a gay person and only 50 of us are willing to care for someone living hiv only made my decision to come out four years later a much more difficult task not knowing will i be accepted not knowing um will i be discriminated and because i'm not only coming out as a person with hiv i'm also coming out as a gay person and but i was still able to do all of that because i was surrounded by people who love and support me and but many others don't have this luxury so perhaps that's why i'm still the second person who has come out publicly after mr pettitte yet hiv isn't something new to us it's been with us for 30 years now he has gone on to infect 34 million people globally the map that was shown earlier i'm somewhere in that map but many more so are affected and yet we know so little about hiv we probably know more about the iphone 6s than what we know about hiv and because we know so little about hiv a diagnosis can be a very traumatizing event that additional line on the test kit can go on to wreck the lives of many so the point when i was diagnosed with hiv at 209 i felt like my life was disrupted because all that i know about myself my dreams my hopes were they all came start crashing down and since i've embarked on this journey seven years ago i've learned many important life lessons and we're trying to answer what's the point of life today and one of those lessons more pivotal than others and that is to look back to help you move forward it's nothing absolutely new or revolutionary but i think it's a brilliant reminder because sometimes before we can move on and question what life is probably we should look at and reflect on our own and because it's there in your childhood that we have probably formed some ideas of what you want to do who you are it's a time that belongs to you it's your own interpretation of life so what better time to look at that than your childhood so don't look to just yesterday or something you did a year ago look all the way back it's there that you most probably could find some answers if you feel like you're stuck answering what the point of life is and for me it was the love of trains and i've always wanted to drive a train that's all i could think about when i was much younger but that's something i can't achieve yet uh but i kind of own lots of train sets now and it's kind of become a hobby and when i'm stressed out like for example i'm trying to draft ups talk i would take all of it out i will build it i'll make a huge mess all over and my mom will come yelling at me but i'll still refuse to clean up and i admire my handiwork for days i'll watch the train go by and i'll take it on it not only helped me fulfill a simple dream from my childhood this simple toys and building blocks but it has taught me a valuable lesson here one that in a process has also helped me become a much happier person being diagnosed with hiv could have been one of the worst things could happen in my life but yet it wasn't because i was able to give it a purpose and with that purpose make full use of it yes happened i was diagnosed with hiv but it's sometimes not something you can choose to do about because we cannot decide what the future would be but we can and have all the power to control what we do after happens which i guess that's what matters if i have decided to put on more pressure and blame the fact that i now have hiv i'm starting to hate myself or get angry with myself or not wearing a condom or for trusting someone too much and think that this disruption in my life is something bad it will manifest itself and become something bad but if i choose to do something about it for example standing here and talking about hiv and my experience of it then perhaps i could look at it from a different perspective and get some good out of it so at that point when all my blocks were read it was a chance for me to dust it all off relook who i was look dick did and it might sound like something bad a bad news to start all over again but it's a time and a chance for me to rediscover who i want to be who i am which path i should take i got to disconstruct and rebuild everything again which to me sounds fun sounds like all the blocks that i've been putting together sounds like good news sounds like a silver lining and with that my problem now has a purpose and i'm able to look beyond that invisible line and not let the additional line or test kit define who i am but sometimes it's hard to look beyond an invisible line or to cut through all the noise that surrounds us that we're being bombarded every day to telling us what we should do what we should wear what we should eat or we should watch but sometimes we often allow ourselves to be consumed by our problem as well and because we blow the problem out of proportion some of us are drama queens and while heading to a university overseas to further your studies perhaps or to immigrate or to find a job to get married to set up a family might be something you want to do after you graduate some of these chances would have been robbed from me because of my diagnosis because of the lack of awareness and understanding from future employers the lack of anti-discrimination policies at workplace these things would have been lost it sounded like my life at 23 would have come to an end screeching hot but the problem and that problem at that point in time would sometimes seem too difficult to take on too difficult to solve and if i had let the skill of that problem affected me then i wouldn't have been able to meet all the wonderful people along the way who have shown their love and support and it definitely feels that more than 50 of singaporeans are ready to accept someone living hiv and not just that but a gay person living hiv we just need to open our eyes and our hearts to it and not let our problems cloud our judgment which brings me to my last point yes there will be some hurdles in life that could be truly epic and answers might not be as apparent but if a problem seems too big then perhaps why not try breaking it down like all the building all the lego blocks that i have a typical train set would have about a thousand individual pieces and but the good people lego has helped me back them into small little bags which makes the problem a much more manageable task and using that to apply to a problem in my life and that was to come out in 2012 during china east asia for to accept an interview at chinese asia it would have seemed too big a task to solve because if i appear on generalization with how my family react how my mom react how would you react would i be able to find a job after this but if i could break that fear and the problem down to smaller chunks and manage them so i could come out to my inner circle come out to friends i know and i can trust first then get comfortable and then come out to more people and eventually come out to strangers then by then i would have give getting gotten enough confidence and be comfortable enough to come up with my mom and my mom coming up to my mom was one of the biggest problem because when i came out to her when i was 17 as a gay man her first reaction one of the first reaction was you're going to die of aids and then here i am coming coming up to her again in my life hiv it's kind of a slap across the face but her first reaction wasn't that her first reaction wasn't whether she's in danger or whether whether anything but her first reaction was whether i can afford treatment or not and instantly that felt like a huge rock has been lifted which was incredibly liberating that's why i think it's so important to revisit your parts because especially if you have a purpose for it and a dream to fulfill then things don't seem too difficult after all and if but if you think you don't have a childhood then it's time to go create them you have the time you have the resource to go chase after them now to fulfill them now and never stop because if you feel like your life is going to break into a million pieces and if we could just snap into a million pieces it could snap both ways you could snap it to a million pieces or everything could snap into place so go reignite that flame go find the dream that will excite the inner child again and get on life so i'll leave you with this last quote here and if you find yourself stuck at a point in life and questioning what the point of life is then perhaps you could look beyond those invisible lines to help you move forward and perhaps everything might just snap into place thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 142,646

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Singapore, Life, AIDS, Happiness, HIV, Sex

Id: wihKSUB08wY

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Sat May 21 2016