zero to infinity

I've stumbled upon a beautiful writer, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (coincidentally, daughter of Steve Jobs).

"In my life, I am between landmarks" she writes, "after childhood, before a book, before marriage and children, all potential."

I, too, am immersed in this period, all potential. Like the moment when you're atop a swing, poised high above the ground, about to swoosh back to earth. The feeling is so universal and curious that imitators have popped up everywhere: roller coasters that pause before a plummet, doors in horror movies that take forever to open, blowing on dice before casting them on the table, closing our eyes before an impending kiss. We love to reproduce the feeling. It's not one of objective pleasure, because it is, by definition, neutral. Before the outcome is known, it is at once good and bad, yin and yang. It is Schrödinger's Cat. A moment of pure absence, not only of physical events but of intellectual knowledge, and emotional reaction. Besides, for the risk-averse like myself, the unknown might even carry a negative value.

For all these reasons, I am not sure what the allure is behind this moment. The most obvious answer, I think, is that we have a subconscious (irrational or otherwise) belief that the future is more likely to be good than bad. For the most part, I'd like to think the outcomes do tend to our favor. Projections of our futures, happily, mostly fall within the range of realistic expectation. But I'd like to offer another reason for our fascination. I think there is inherent value in this thing masquerading as pure emptiness. In math, we are taught that Positive and Negative add to zero. But in ancient folklore, we are taught that yin and yang is what the entire world is made of. It is not nothing, but everything. It blends what normally cannot co-exist together. We exhilarate in this rare symmetry. I fancy mathematicians secretly do too--there is undoubtedly a mundane history behind the symbol for infinity, but I prefer to look at it as two, perfectly symmetrical, zeros.

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iWait

I once wrote that if there's anything closure needs, it is the element of surprise. Let me revise that. What closure needs is actually a beginning. The beginning of Y will help you tread backwards toward X. There is nothing we do so well as putting up tremendous resistance, especially in the face of our own fate. When life drags us forward, we dig deep into the ground, leaving trenches behind the heels of our feet, we can't help but look backwards. They say the grass is always greener on the other side of the hill...sometimes that side of the hill is the one we just came from. Even if what we face could be cultivated into something great, who wants a fresh field for plowing when we had one that already guaranteed harvest? Even if the reaping is done and we must wait a long, long time for the next one, waiting takes such little effort, and beginning anew takes so much.

There is a crop of Steve Jobs' quotes on the internet right now, one of them is, appropriately, from a commencement speech: "… You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future."

I'm not good at connecting the dots. I venture to guess that I'm not the only one. One by one, we have to pick our feet up from the trenches and move with the wind instead of against it. We the diggers of dirt all know this. Think of the time wasted in our futile and quixotic protests. We all know that too. Yet before every cycle's beginning, I stand still for a while. Some people sprint ahead so fast both feet leap off the ground, and the wind carry them forward in those magical split seconds. They are the Steve Jobs of the world. They fly.

I. Wait.

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New Age Old Questions

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why did the chicken cross the street? I have two things to say about these Age Old questions.

1. Why are they all about chicken?
2. Can I add some more questions: is it better to love or be loved? To chicken out and receive love or to risk loving someone who won't love you back? To be (a chicken) or not to be (a chicken)?

People have said that love is about looking. They are right. Is there anything so painful as looking at someone you love? Is there anything so pleasurable as being on the other end? Is it so bad to be in someone else's gaze, rather than being the one gazing? What if you can't have it all, and you must choose? Why not choose to be looked at?

What's so great about crossing the road anyway?

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