METAMORPHOSIS

Was it Chuang Tzu who dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly who dreamed of being Chuang Tzu?

 

Upon waking, Chuang Tzu could no longer tell who had dreamed of whom—nor whether he had truly awakened. While we struggle to distinguish dream from reality, memory from the present, imposing a dualistic framework onto the world, Chuang Tzu proposed the idea of Qiwu (the equality of all things), the fluid transformation between states, the mirroring of dream and reality. But does it matter whether I have truly awakened? If I had not, would this moment be any less worth experiencing?

 

Metamorphosis is a memoir of my years from 14 to 17. At the time, I resisted the upheavals in my life and the inner changes within myself, clinging to the past and measuring the present against a self that no longer existed. In this film, I weave my coming-of-age into Chuang Tzu’s Butterfly Dream, tracing my journey beyond dualism toward self-acceptance.