“In the past, I had often been stared at and asked about the sizeable scars on my chest. At The House of Dancing Water, no one asked. My fellow divers seemed curious, but no one ever approached me. As for our performers, I knew they had seen so many scars in their lives, they had stopped asking each other for such details a long time ago.
Our moto riders once saluted me as a fellow surfer, after seeing me bare chested in the theater basement. I had stared at them, uncomprehending. “Many professional surfers surgically remove their nipples to avoid the agony caused by abrasions,” they explained to my astonishment.
Apparently, I had surfer’s nipples. Who knew?”
(Excerpt from Paralian, Chapter 30, “Macau Pool”)

For many years, I had agonized about my scars, had felt self-conscious and shy about taking my shirt off in public. I dreaded open stares and questions. I worried too much about what other people might think.

Then, I “cured” myself by confronting the issue head-on and chose to become a SCUBA diving instructor, later an aquatic performer trainer, jobs which required me to work with my shirt off most of the time. People sometimes stared openly. But it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. They talked. But people always do, don’t they? What and how much they talked didn’t have any relevance to my life. Even more important, as I looked around, I saw scars of all shapes and sizes. I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gone through life unaffected.

Gradually, I relaxed. All was fine. I wasn’t a freak, standing out from the crowd. Alone. Apart. Isolated. Instead, I learned, I was one of many. A small pebble in the diverse and forever changing sea of humanity.