My parents bought a house, we’re moving in 2 weeks, this will be the first time we lived in something other than a one-bedroom in about 7 years. And it really came at a good time, seeing as how when I come home, both me and my cousin camp out in the living room. It’s too cramped for anything here…
I’m also feeling apprehensive because the neighborhood, while nice, has virtually no people there, I feel like I'm in a suburban video game, like a parallel universe. And when I think of the house itself, it seems so empty, and it just takes me back to the only other time when I lived in a house, in New Mexico. It was a time when I still haven’t broken out of my shell, I was sort of drifting along, lost. I was just starting the awkward transition from a wallflower to something else. So I had vestiges of that brooding self-observer and new desires at the same time about fitting in. I don’t know, that house sort of represented a lot of things to me. Most of what I remember is tinged with loneliness. I guess now that I’m articulating this worry, it seems that there’s a good chance this house won’t be a repeat of the last, especially since it awaits so many's arrival, even after the first few straggles in.
Still, I hate suburban houses where everyone stays in their own rooms, and every street is littered with cars but nothing else. I hate how Southern California in general has no people out and about at all. The opening line in Crash goes something like: “Everyone’s behind metal and glass here, sometimes I think we crash into each other just to feel something”. It sums up my suspicion about this sunny place perfectly.
**
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
nuances
"Words have edges. So do you."
Words do have edges. They begin with a letter. They end with a letter. Bigger versions begin with a capital and end with a dot. Between a word and its closest synonym is a spectrum of space, where meanings abound. Meanings we can understand but words cannot articulate. Sometimes touch, glances, and tone can help narrow the gap. But still, our brain remains more precise than any of the rest of our faculties can hope to reach. It can wrap around an idea and swallow it whole like a clever reptile, ingesting everything but tasting nothing. So we attribute the phenomenon to "intuition" and leave it at that.
It's amazing, of course. But it's also a shame. The most sophisticated thing we are capable of turns out to be the psychological equivalent of the dark side of the moon. Because I can't get inside your head, and you can't tell me. Because I stand on the precipice of my final syllable, and you stand on the cliff of another.
And so we'll never know.
**
Words do have edges. They begin with a letter. They end with a letter. Bigger versions begin with a capital and end with a dot. Between a word and its closest synonym is a spectrum of space, where meanings abound. Meanings we can understand but words cannot articulate. Sometimes touch, glances, and tone can help narrow the gap. But still, our brain remains more precise than any of the rest of our faculties can hope to reach. It can wrap around an idea and swallow it whole like a clever reptile, ingesting everything but tasting nothing. So we attribute the phenomenon to "intuition" and leave it at that.
It's amazing, of course. But it's also a shame. The most sophisticated thing we are capable of turns out to be the psychological equivalent of the dark side of the moon. Because I can't get inside your head, and you can't tell me. Because I stand on the precipice of my final syllable, and you stand on the cliff of another.
And so we'll never know.
**
Thursday, August 19, 2010
courage and foolishness
Today I was at a Chicago middle school and these 8th grade girls called out “ching-chang!” as I passed by, drowning in too-loud giggles. Minutes later, the same aged girls (albeit not the same girls) purposely got in my way as I went downstairs. She said “excuse me” a little too early and I swerved a little too late.
I'm not sure if it was the annoyance that I had built up from earlier, but I paused at the beginning of the next staircase, stood steps below, and stared at her. Her friends looked back in a mixture of defiance and fear. It was one of those moments that stretched a lot longer than actual time dimension would allow, culminating in a silent confrontation but not much else. I’m not sure what would have happened if things went further. In something physical she and her friends could have easily taken me, each barely inches shorter (though more than a decade younger) and easily weighed more than I.
I hate conflicts and am not nearly as brave as I’d like to be. But my ethnicity is something I’m fiercely protective about. Whatever misgivings I have about my own connections to a culture slowly fading away from me, no one else will ever have the right to challenge it and get away unscathed. Whatever this confusing “it” turns out to be (and I will toil forever to find and re-find out), the one stable central axis is that it is a part of me more than anything else is a part of me. Someday it won’t be first place anymore—and I do wait with anticipation at my next great priority—but I guard over the current reigning queen with the protectiveness of a lioness over her cubs.
I wish I could have laughed the incident off (as my mother will probably tell me to do…in fact an image of her is already taking place in my mental theater); it would probably also have been the more mature thing to do. After all, there is such a thing as knowing something is important without announcing the fact in such dramatic fashion, especially to irrelevant individuals; but I have no problem going about it the way I do now. It’s a grounding experience (but also a kind of thrill) to have something worth being brave for. To stand up for even though you might suffer damage (not just in physical terms but a myriad of other ways, as I'm sure this won't be the first time where my professional life will become entangled). To re-realize what you have that your pride will let you get away with.
**
I'm not sure if it was the annoyance that I had built up from earlier, but I paused at the beginning of the next staircase, stood steps below, and stared at her. Her friends looked back in a mixture of defiance and fear. It was one of those moments that stretched a lot longer than actual time dimension would allow, culminating in a silent confrontation but not much else. I’m not sure what would have happened if things went further. In something physical she and her friends could have easily taken me, each barely inches shorter (though more than a decade younger) and easily weighed more than I.
I hate conflicts and am not nearly as brave as I’d like to be. But my ethnicity is something I’m fiercely protective about. Whatever misgivings I have about my own connections to a culture slowly fading away from me, no one else will ever have the right to challenge it and get away unscathed. Whatever this confusing “it” turns out to be (and I will toil forever to find and re-find out), the one stable central axis is that it is a part of me more than anything else is a part of me. Someday it won’t be first place anymore—and I do wait with anticipation at my next great priority—but I guard over the current reigning queen with the protectiveness of a lioness over her cubs.
I wish I could have laughed the incident off (as my mother will probably tell me to do…in fact an image of her is already taking place in my mental theater); it would probably also have been the more mature thing to do. After all, there is such a thing as knowing something is important without announcing the fact in such dramatic fashion, especially to irrelevant individuals; but I have no problem going about it the way I do now. It’s a grounding experience (but also a kind of thrill) to have something worth being brave for. To stand up for even though you might suffer damage (not just in physical terms but a myriad of other ways, as I'm sure this won't be the first time where my professional life will become entangled). To re-realize what you have that your pride will let you get away with.
**
direction
“[College] might be one of last chances to reflect deeply on that question. If you think that you’ll have more time and energy to reflect later, you’re nuts, because life only gets more demanding: You take on a mortgage; you’re working 70 hours a week; you have a spouse and children.”
— Clayton M. Christensen,
The quote above is a really important wake-up call. Because college IS probably the last chance I have to really reflect on my purpose in life. When I’m idealistic and inexperienced enough to be unmarred by real life obstacles that bog us down. When I’m still relatively unspecialized and not yet shafted into a sliver of a million directions I could have gone. I strongly believe in the fact that a purpose is something you have to devote tangible energy and time to, it’s not in its full, perfect, complete form already, ready to be pulled from your subconscious. If I don’t get out my compass, my ship is probably not going to sail towards that sliver of the sea that’s right for me.
People ask me why I want to go to law school, and the answer is always: “it’s been the plan since I was five years old” But that’s not good enough at all, not for anyone listening and not for myself. I can’t base a decision on a whim whipped up by 5 years of experience. If it’s going to be right for me, it’s going to have to withstand so many more years, more experiences, more thoughts. Why do I want to go where I want to go? I’ve never quite answered this because I thought the answer stopped at knowing where the path is, not why I’m on it. But it’s time to start asking.
**
— Clayton M. Christensen,
The quote above is a really important wake-up call. Because college IS probably the last chance I have to really reflect on my purpose in life. When I’m idealistic and inexperienced enough to be unmarred by real life obstacles that bog us down. When I’m still relatively unspecialized and not yet shafted into a sliver of a million directions I could have gone. I strongly believe in the fact that a purpose is something you have to devote tangible energy and time to, it’s not in its full, perfect, complete form already, ready to be pulled from your subconscious. If I don’t get out my compass, my ship is probably not going to sail towards that sliver of the sea that’s right for me.
People ask me why I want to go to law school, and the answer is always: “it’s been the plan since I was five years old” But that’s not good enough at all, not for anyone listening and not for myself. I can’t base a decision on a whim whipped up by 5 years of experience. If it’s going to be right for me, it’s going to have to withstand so many more years, more experiences, more thoughts. Why do I want to go where I want to go? I’ve never quite answered this because I thought the answer stopped at knowing where the path is, not why I’m on it. But it’s time to start asking.
**
Thursday, August 5, 2010
spheres of all kinds
I went to a homeless shelter today and I’m just blown away by the boundaries of my bubble. It encloses so little—so little—of this world. Even in the richest country of the world, even just a few miles from me, there are these people with next to nothing resources and unfortunately, not enough ability to get out of it. Either from an inattentive upbringing or repeated societal reinforcement, too much has molded their bubble, their hardened and still stiffening bubble. The thing about mine is that it can expand past its present ignorance, but for their spheres of concrete, no patch can stretch into a place I deem passable.
I think that’s the hardest part. To see that nothing can be done. We always think to be spoiled is to be overwhelmed with materialistic yellows and greens, but that’s not all that spoiled is. What is spoiled? It is to have accomplishments that you think you’ve worked hard to achieve, but it turns out the very existence of such possibilities have always been conveniently within arm’s reach…do you retreat from the apples? Or do you grab on and take a greedy bite? What is the "right" thing to do here? Or is the very term, in a world where shapes come in unequal sizes, already rendered moot?
**
I think that’s the hardest part. To see that nothing can be done. We always think to be spoiled is to be overwhelmed with materialistic yellows and greens, but that’s not all that spoiled is. What is spoiled? It is to have accomplishments that you think you’ve worked hard to achieve, but it turns out the very existence of such possibilities have always been conveniently within arm’s reach…do you retreat from the apples? Or do you grab on and take a greedy bite? What is the "right" thing to do here? Or is the very term, in a world where shapes come in unequal sizes, already rendered moot?
**
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
inarticulations
I’ve been feeling out of sorts all day. I had such a long day at work, 6 hours of stuffing paper into transparent sheet protectors led to hours of mind wandering. And this, in combination with a background of indiscernible and irksome noise, led to a general panorama-like view of--what else--the most popular topic my autopilot conscious fixates on. Against the black and white static, the two horizons, one before me and one behind, both seem definitively and equally bleak. (Although, think back to the last rainbow your eyes met, wasn't it against a gray blend of sky and land? And if you were really lucky, you saw two rainbows, the main act and its shadow, slightly blurred and nowhere as bright. The second--let's call it the phantom--at least makes a dependable appearance on my mind's stage, though it never shakes off its identity as the understudy.)
Usually this thread leads to a surge of depression or cautious optimism, depending on my mood. But today it just led to frustration. I just feel generally pissed off. A virtually target-less frustration. How can something you spend so much time thinking about not even be part of your real life? Is that even within the realm of sanity? I just want to get out of the skin of my life for a while. Maybe try on someone else's for size.
**
Usually this thread leads to a surge of depression or cautious optimism, depending on my mood. But today it just led to frustration. I just feel generally pissed off. A virtually target-less frustration. How can something you spend so much time thinking about not even be part of your real life? Is that even within the realm of sanity? I just want to get out of the skin of my life for a while. Maybe try on someone else's for size.
**