America the Beautiful Experiment

A while back, I started a series called “Letters from My Father,” a sort of writing exercise to see if I could write in the voice of a parent to his children. While it was more of a joke and a sad attempt than anything worthwhile, it did reveal a lot of what I was seeing in the world, as well as the pessimism in my own heart.

I embarked on writing this series for my own gain, with the hopes that one day, my own children will look back on it, maybe laugh, but overall stand proudly because their father spoke candidly, purposefully and truthfully. However, due to recent events, I may have to change my tune entirely.

The world is on fire, and the point of maximum combustion lies in America. From global warming to police reform, these issues are locked in the kettle of the COVID-19 quarantine, and the United States is the indicator of how things will end up for the rest of humanity. A contest of combatting ideas, to see if peace is achievable, let alone feasible.

Yet, as diverse as these talking points are, all of these problems are tied to one thing: the sinful heart of man.

= = =

If you’re a Christian reader, I hope you’ll agree that sin is the root of all our problems. If you’re not of the religious leaning, I think you can at least agree that no matter how much good people do, there is always a seed of evil waiting in their hearts. It may be inherent greed, lust for power or just some taught behavior, but like a weed, it grows and hides itself among the grass, hoping to blend in and infest. Unless it is completely gutted and treated, it waits to spring up again.

And here is where I’d like to start striking and digging. We are simply pointing fingers and yelling one-sided solutions. It doesn’t matter which side you’re on, we’re all dragging each other down (although if you’re on the side of white supremacy, you are most certainly wrong). There is a lack of civil discourse to exchange ideas and properly debate.

We’re quick to judge, slow to listen and even slower to think, and yet people continue to run their mouths without any regard. All the while, we haven’t checked ourselves for the hatred, selfishness and ignorance in our own hearts, of how our words and actions will affect those around us.

For those asking for dismantling the police, what are you going to do about those officers that no longer have a job? Will you provide training and new employment for them, or are they going to go into private security and perhaps perpetuate or exacerbate the problem? What happens when you send a mental health professional in place of an peace officer, but unbeknownst to all, there’s a gun involved? Is it justified to attack or kill an officer due to the whole force being deemed an evil? Are their lives worth any less than yours?

For those that think slavery and racism are relics of the past, why are there systems still in place, including redlining, gerrymandering, and the criminal justice system, that are disenfranchising a single people group? Why is that when curfew is called, a vehicle with black occupants had to be stopped when there were other cars around it? Was it justified for an officer to kneel on the neck of a handcuffed, unarmed man and kill him for the world to see, just because he had a criminal record? Was his life worth any less than yours?

Here’s something to consider: there is the argument that we can’t have any bad apples within the police service, but have you considered bad apples in society? The ones that think themselves above the law, better than others or just plain old want something and use force to get it — what shall we do about them? Are we going to excommunicate or eliminate them because they are “bad apples”? If so, are you prepared to make those decisions personally? Like really, are you going to hold someone’s life in your hands and say, “It’s better if you’re not on this earth anymore,” and then take it from them?

Let me be clear: black lives matter to me. Sanctity of life matters to me. I would go as far to say that all lives matter to me, no matter how terrible a person may be perceived, even though as I consider that, I don’t know how merciful I’d be if faced with the killer of my loved ones in an empty room. But just the fact that I have to make these notions this blatantly evident signals a loss in communication and the bastardization of one’s beliefs on simple sentences.

America is in a really huge mess in which every piece is interconnected, and we, its citizens, have allowed it to happen. All of us are complicit, whether you like it or not, whether you take an active stance for either side or sit on the sidelines twiddling to see who comes out on top.

I urge you to use some logical thinking for either side, for all sides, for all arguments. Because lately, I’ve seen a lot of filth being slung, and now we’ve lost the true color of the room, let alone our sight. And if you identify as Christian, it’s especially damning that we can’t think clearly on and apply our own Saviour’s teachings. (Go back and read Romans 3:9-31.)

And once you’re done thinking with your mind, I ask you to search your heart. What is the ultimate goal? Is it truth and justice only? Is there reconciliation in the endgame? Is it to have things go back to normal? What is “normal,” and if so, why? What is the point? Seriously — what the hell is the point?

So quick are we to jump on bandwagons, blindly repost things and paint statements with huge sweeping strokes, which in itself is an atrocity because it leaves no room for nuance. But when it comes to sticking out your neck in empathy — and for the Christian, to share the Gospel and lead in love — we largely do the absolute minimum, only to shrink back into our shells in blind assumption that others will carry us to the promise land, without even knowing if these others have our collective best interests in mind.

And I feel like I’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg here in listening, learning and discerning…

= = =

I cannot shake the eyes of George Floyd looking into my soul, crying out for help. Seeing a man die forever changes a person; that can never be unseen. His pleas are wrought into my heart, instilling so much sadness and consequently, revealing so much of my own shortcomings, guilt and shame. His cries shine the light on what is wrong within the heart of man.

I, for one, must confess that I am sitting with everyone else on the Internet, posturing behind my thin walls of safety with my hands in my pockets. And the saddest, most humiliating part is that I feel I can only say that because my friend said it first. That is the true definition of cowardice.

Honestly, I’m tired from even thinking about all of this, arguing for all sides, attempting to be level-headed and equitable — just trying to find even one good answer. But if I’m tired, those that are systemically marginalized, oppressed and attacked on a daily basis must be exhausted.

By building these walls around us to protect our own livelihoods, we’ve created our own personal echo chambers, and essentially blocked and rooted out hope. Without hope, how can anything good survive in this environment? It will shrivel and die, asphyxiated by the knee of endless arguments.

It might just be better if we let this all come to an end, be done with it. Don’t bring any more into this world. Mankind had our chance, and ironically, we were not kind to each other. In fact, we combusted our chance straight into smithereens. Personally, a side of me will be glad when everyone is dead, for humanity thought it was the saviour and greatest thing in the world, but was actually its own greatest enemy.

But I will not be glad that my friends needed to die, that my friends’ children needed to die, that friends I have yet to meet needed to die, and innocence had to die for the sake of some final, peace-seeking end. That people just out for a jog, resting at home after work, buying Skittles from the corner store, calmly trying to produce paperwork for a registered firearm, and merely shopping had to die — just so the violence and pain can stop.

= = =

We can’t rewrite history. It’s in the past, and there are no do-overs or time machines. We can only acknowledge and admit our mistakes, and then try to improve. Sadly, if you’re around my age or older, I feel that we’re already too old, settled and on our way out. We and our elders have messed up, whether directly or indirectly, and too much time has passed for us to create effective, foundational change. We’ve failed miserably to improve upon our ancestors, because they figured we’d fix things, and now we’re hoping that the next in line can fix them.

And yet, I still try to hold fast onto hope, because America is an experiment. It is the experiment. It might not have started out that way, but it has evolved into it. This is the testing ground to see if the world can cooperate, where peoples of all races, religions, orientations and beliefs try to live it out to form a peaceful society. We’re having a pretty rough go of it, and there’s a lot riding on this. However, I do believe success here means success around the world, and I want success for the sake of the next generation.

That should be our focus: not on ourselves at our present needs, and certainly not the establishments of the previous generation, but on the building towards a better future for this upcoming generation and those that follow. And if these protests and calls for change on police reform or global warming by these young people are any indication, the only fire in our future will be the passion in our hearts, for progress in unity.

It’s not to say that my generation or older generations can’t do anything more or are completely useless. We can still actively participate and support. However, I think the one thing we are tasked to do as a collective, is to impart honest and right wisdom through history and experience to equip our youth with the tools necessary for a better tomorrow.

And so, to anyone in college, high school or even middle school that may happen to be reading this — or anyone that wants to take a stand for change — I offer you the words of those much wiser than me to hopefully be a guiding light. (If anything, just read Dr. King’s Nobel Lecture. The link is at his excerpt.)

Dave Chappelle, from The Bird Revelation:

[On speaking about Me Too] You can’t make a lasting peace this way. You got all the bad guys scared. And that’s good, but the minute they’re not scared anymore, it will get worse than it was before. Fear does not make lasting peace. Ask black people. And that’s what it is. What this city really needs… Without irony, I’ll say this. The cure for LA is in South Africa. You motherfuckers need truth and reconciliation with one another. Because the end of apartheid should have been a fucking bloodbath by any metric in human history, and it wasn’t. The only reason it wasn’t was because Desmond Tutu and Mandela and all these guys figured out that if a system is corrupt, then the people who adhere to that system and are incentivized by that system are not criminals. They are victims, and the system itself must be tried, but because of how systems work is so compartmentalized as far as information, the only way we can figure out what the system is, is if everybody says what they did.

Cathy O’Neil, from Weapons of Math Destruction:

Racism, at the individual level, can be seen as a predictive model whirring away in billions of human minds around the world. It is built from faulty, incomplete, or generalized data. Whether it comes from experience or hearsay, the data indicates that certain types of people have behaved badly. That generates a binary prediction that all people of that race will behave that same way. Needless to say, racists don’t spend a lot of time hunting down reliable data to train their twisted models. And once their model morphs into a belief, it becomes hardwired. It generates poisonous assumptions, yet rarely tests them, settling instead for data that seems to confirm and fortify them. Consequently, racism is the most slovenly of predictive models. It is powered by haphazard data gathering and spurious correlations, reinforced by institutional inequities, and polluted by confirmation bias.

Rev. Gene Joo, from “Unmasking Racism, Starting with Me“:

Racism, like COVID-19, must be identified and diagnosed before it can be treated and traced. An unmasking must take place. And it’s easy and convenient to diagnose it in unjust systems external to ourselves. It’s much more painful to pinpoint it in one’s own heart. But racism will never be rooted out and dealt with on a systemic level until it is first confessed and lamented on a personal level. It has to begin with me.

Rev. Owen Lee, from “Even If It Costs Us“:

We Asian Americans will be put in situations that are going to be similar to the situation that this Asian American cop [Tou Thou] found himself in.

We will be there when racial injustice, big or small, happens to our black friends.

And when it does, may we not stand around as cowards and do nothing. May we have the courage and love to do what is right and just — even if it costs us.

Ephesians 4:25-32:

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Romans 12:9-21:

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from his Nobel lecture (1964):

Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. Doors of opportunity are gradually being opened to those at the bottom of society. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are developing a new sense of “some-bodiness” and carving a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of despair. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Here and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life’s restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men.

Katharine Lee Bates, from “America the Beautiful” (1911):

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

For Asian American Christians looking for resources on how to fight racism, SOLA Network has compiled and provided a list.

Now Is the Time

As a creative (but also one that would shy away from that moniker as much as possible in public because it comes off as pretentious), it’s always tough to make your idea become reality. Unless you’re Stephen King and have an incredible work ethic. The truth is that most of us will struggle at some point to even consider putting pen (or pencil, if you should so incline) to paper.

However, the biggest obstacle is literally getting started, as any of you with high school jazz experience probably got a good chuckle from the title. (I can still remember the opening lick vividly.) And like that jazz tune somewhat indicates musically, it starts with that first step on the one (or with a pickup with the five, if you want to be technical).

I bring this up because of a conversation with a close friend who lamented about his predicament: someone needed him to fill up five days’ worth of short podcasts. I should point out that he had some guidelines as a pastor, but also was granted a lot of leeway creatively.

That, for me, is always the most ideal situation. If you give someone the mandate that the sky’s the limit, they will most certainly try to break the system. For example, if you told a supercomputer to save the world, you shouldn’t be surprised if its answer is to kill all of humanity.

But if the limit’s the sky (as Chris Rock poignantly coined in one of his stand-up specials, but definitely not about this same topic), there’s definitely going to be some contention, but creatively, that’s probably the most ideal environment for you to invent and innovate. You’ll sort of have to MacGyver your way to a solution: it won’t be pretty, but the result won’t be a Tower of Babel. (Side note: I still wonder how tall it got before God gave the disperse order.)

To go back to my pastor friend, I gave him the only advice that I think was and is worthwhile: be true to yourself. Show your personality, your proclivities. In this case, I don’t cringe at doling out, “You do you.” (In any other situation, it’s a terribly selfish notion.)

Of course, there are limits to this encouragement, as I’ve alluded. You don’t want to impede on people’s freedoms or give an offensive yell session with nothing but swearing. As Eddie Murphy famously mentioned, you can’t give a curse show. That just has no substance.

So I should amend myself in real time and say that you should be yourself in that you can bring at least one person some positive encouragement. And, of course, the more individuals encouraged, the better, especially when it seems like hope is a rarity. However, I do recognize that that opens up other cans of worms in weaponized hate speech, partisan beliefs, and conspiracy insanity — things that just give me logical headaches whenever they are mentioned.

The point is that if you have an idea, there’s no better time to flesh it out than now. Like right now: as I write, it’s a little well past midnight when my self-imposed deadline for these things is 9 AM PST every fifteenth of the month — although this has more to do with pressure brought on by procrastination, which my friend and I agreed is probably the best motivation.

So if you find yourself gun-shy about starting something, whether it’s a sci-fi epic or even just a Zumba class, I hope you’ll take this as a running-start, pick-up five and hit the one.

= = =

While I would like to end it there, I think because of what I went through this week, it deserves a notable epilogue (considering this was right after Mother’s Day):

I was standing in line at a self-service ATM, and an elderly lady in front of me was having a very hard time. At one point, she was trying to insert her stack of deposit slips and checks one at a time. (Note: ATMs from major banks now take multiple checks at once, no deposit slip needed.)

While keeping my social distance, I offered some help and advice. I think it eased the situation a little bit, but she was still quite frustrated, if anything embarrassed that she was holding up the queue. She mentioned that her daughter had dropped her off to deposit these checks, which I have no doubt are hugely necessary for her at a time like this.

That triggered me instantaneously. Like what sort of piece of shit leaves their mother to fend for herself with technology that’s probably foreign to her? I was seething for a hot second, ready to give her daughter some choice words on honoring your parents, if or when she should arrive.

And no sooner had my anger hit its boiling point, it was as if God just poured out a single drop of liquid nitrogen coal on my head: I was reminded of my own mother, and how she and my father are probably struggling over thousands of miles away without either of their children to help them in person.

I try not to lose composure in public (because I don’t think the public deserves the satisfaction), but at that moment behind my face mask, my heart was breaking for this woman and my mother.

There’s always time to do the right thing, and if my previous ramblings have even a drop of credence, that time is most certainly now.

= = =

YTD Student Loan Debt: $171,115.36
YTD Personal Loan Debt: $22,500.00
YTD Auto Loan Debt: $2,000.00

I decided to pay down my debt to whole dollar amounts, just for my OCD’s sake.

Not a Manic Monday

If those of you reading are introverted like myself, then this change of sheltering-in-place probably wasn’t too drastic a change in lifestyle. In fact, it probably opened up a lot of time for you to pick up new skills, draw more attention to the hobbies you enjoy, or maybe just relax to an episode of Tiger King (which is bananas).

Everyone else, though, probably felt the confines of their own homes as modern-day prisons. Still livable, but something is not quite the same as being free. Perhaps the lack of face-to-face with friends and neighbors or conversing with coworkers at coolers, drove you up the wall now that you had only your family to commune with or, in most cases, just yourself.

To those in that second paragraph, welcome to my world. Sort of. More like a hybrid of both.

= = =

For a long time, I thought I didn’t really need much, but mostly, it was cause I couldn’t afford it. If it was a vacation, it had better be justified with a destination wedding. Any purchase bigger than the price of groceries for the week, and I had to make sure it was something that would be utilized efficiently. (I write this as I think of my crock pot sitting on the bottom shelf of the kitchen…)

However, the intangible, unquantifiable thing that I regrettably missed were all the little times to meet up with friends. Ironically, this pandemic and the resulting protective measures flipped my argument over the table and into the trash.

I’m sure that most of you have been on endless video conference calls with your program of choice, trying to make work still seem workable and meet-ups still possible, despite the terrible bandwidth connections and Macgyver-ed solutions to get adequate lighting and sound quality. But what all of this revealed to me is that that thing that I supposedly let slip through my fingers was literally one click, one video call away, and I had neglected it for a very long time.

I always thought that calling people up was a bit of a nuisance, so I always relented to texting friends. But there are limitations (including those for jokes), and that extra bit of separation makes you feel much more isolated than you actually are. And if you’re naturally introverted, it is a bit harder to tell yourself that you’re not alone.

= = =

I hate getting older, mostly cause I’m getting older. And I do my best to keep my birthday as low-key as possible, so as to not get blasé wishes from people that I wasn’t exactly nuts about. To draw a line in the sand, I once removed my own birthday notification from the public.

To my surprise, no one outside my immediate family remembered. And the proverbial egg on my face dripped onto my shoes. So, I opened the filter back up (but kept my contact methods on a need-to-know basis).

To more of my surprise, it felt extremely nice to hear from so many people who apparently had my contact info to tell me happy birthday. FaceTimes and messages of well-wishes flooded in, and a surprise meal arrived at my door. As an added bonus, I was introduced to a ridiculous meme that hit every funny bone in my body, although not enough for me to laugh myself to excretion.

Despite all the financial problems of my life and, you know, the quarantine, it was a pleasant birthday. And that’s about as crazy to me as realizing that I’ve been clowning around on this blog for over five years. And if you want a really crazy loop, my dad was my age when he decided to change careers.

The craziest thing, though, is that it just seemed like any other day (in quarantine). Maybe on the better side of normal, but still just a regular day. For me, it feels like life has either slowed down enough or dulled in saturation to make even my own birthday seem like… anything bland.

Perhaps it’s a trademark of getting older, beaten over by life a few too many times, where it would take something extremely unexpected and out of the ordinary to awaken the senses.

Luckily, I have friends that send me things like this:

= = =

YTD Student Loan Debt: $171,115.36
YTD Personal Loan Debt: $22,948.08
YTD Auto Loan Debt: $4,131.17

I don’t know how this happened, but my student loan dropped by a few cents. I assume that I miscalculated. (Math wasn’t my strongest suit after multivariable.)

Leo

If you’ve ever watched The West Wing, you’ll find a cavalcade of characters all rife with defects, flaws, and overall Achilles heels that would undoubtedly disqualify them from any sort of job. Yet, with all their downfalls, you get the trademark Sorkin soapbox in every episode as they try to serve for a higher purpose.

Out of all of them, I think my favorite has to be Leo McGarry.

Leo serves as Chief of Staff and later as Special Counselor to the President. Having that much leadership responsibility requires an unyielding commitment and broad focus to not only his superior, but also to the country. As such, some things, like his marriage, fall by the wayside.

While most things can be dispensable, as a recovering alcoholic and substance abuser, Leo especially needs to keep his mind to be sharp and his emotions in check. There can’t be a moment of hesitation because even the slightest blip could be disastrous.

Yet, there’s one night that he does slip up.

The most poignant explanation Leo gives (not available on YouTube) epitomizes addiction and mental illness:

“I don’t understand how you could have a drink. I don’t understand how, after everything you worked for, how on that day of all days you could be so stupid.”

“That’s because you think it has something to do with smart and stupid. Do you have any idea how many alcoholics are in Mensa? You think it’s a lack of willpower? That’s like thinking somebody with anorexia nervosa has an overdeveloped sense of vanity.”

= = =

When no one mentions student loans and, more importantly, how they’ll never be forgiven by the U.S. government or whoever ends up with that authority, I’m usually a pleasant guy. I know that life is a grind and overall terrible experience, but in the end, I also know that it’ll all be worth it because of Christ.

However, on those few occasions where someone says that a presidential nominee won’t save you or millennials should’ve been smarter about going to college, it sinks under my skin, and I implode, especially around loan deferment renewal time (because I have to prioritize consumer debt first). I become very unpleasant to whomever decides to bring up the topic, to which my only joy in that moment would be to just choke them out of existence.

Most times, I can talk myself out of it with a car drive and some classical music. But like Leo, I had one bad day.

This year, I’ve been trying to get better at calling up my folks, so I schedule and remind myself to do so on Sunday afternoons. Normally, the conversations are short but meaningful, always ending with an “I love you.”

This time, I ventilated all of my stress on them. Most times (such as this blog), I unconsciously unload my tirade unfiltered, but somehow, I spun everything leaning towards a swear word that I angry-talked to my parents with the word “stupid.”

I don’t think it helped, though.

Passively, I claimed that they had essentially groomed me to be this way; that despite any pushback, I would’ve still gone through graduate school for a degree that’s meaningless to my industry; and that my only other option to get out of this suffering was to kill myself. I also mentioned that marriage and children, much less homeownership, would be virtually impossible in my lifetime and most certainly theirs.

If there ever was a time that the Lord should’ve just smote me into oblivion, that would’ve been the moment. Of all the condescending and hurtful things I could’ve said as a child of immigrant parents, I scraped the bottom of the barrel with fork, second only to a spoon of vulgarity.

God, I was such a little shit that day. My mom was audibly upset, but my dad somehow still tried to instill hope. Nothing stuck; I was deflated. I just sat despondently waiting for whoever crushed my spirit to finish the job on my body.

Knowing my misstep, I apologized that it wasn’t their fault, but ultimately mine. It didn’t matter because everything that I had pent up to myself, from debt and suicidal thoughts, came flowing out to burden my parents.

= = =

For Leo, he recovered, went to therapy, and kept himself in check with an Alcoholics Anonymous group. Although his gruff exterior scared them, his staff constantly supported him and still came to him in times of need. They still gave him hope when everything else fell apart.

Unfortunately, I’m not as lucky because there are no Asian-American writers struggling in the industry crippled by student loans and other debt that also believe in Jesus. And my story is not written that way.

In all due honesty, as much as I try to give hope to others, whether by general encouragement or ultimately redirecting their focus to Christ, I keep almost none for myself. Nearly everyday, I walk (when I do) hollow and devoid of any sort of encouragement. Sundays, unfortunately, are worse, because no one can understand. (Usually, the advice boils down to “just quit film and start over.”)

I think if I put out a feeler, there’d be many in the industry sharing the same circumstance, if not the exact one. But like many that are in my situation, the biggest thing stopping us is shame. Shame to our parents, our heritage, our stereotype, ourselves.

However, I don’t think we need someone in the exact situation to support us. Maybe we just need someone that’ll listen without offering inappropriate solutions pulled from their own asses. Or maybe just someone that’ll listen without judgment. Or maybe someone that’ll just properly empathize.

= = =

YTD Student Loan Debt: $171,115.90
YTD Personal Loan Debt: $23,358.08
YTD Auto Loan Debt: $4,865.87

Thank God for the government suspending student loan interest during this time, albeit a tenuous one health-wise. Securing income in the next few weeks as a freelancer, though, is another story.

Along Came a Spider

Ever since an unfortunate washer-dryer-basement mishap, I’ve always been scared of spiders. It doesn’t matter the species or the size (although bigger is always worse) — I’m hurling the nearest blunt object for a splatter kill. What’s worse was when I still used Facebook to post about these encounters, the flood of spider memes would inevitably follow.

Recently, I had an unfortunate situation with a spider on the inside of my windshield. It was any other night after work: a musically-charged commute home. However, as Rage Against the Machine came on, I spotted something crawling across the inside of my windshield that truly made me consider “Killing in the Name.”

What ensued immediately was nothing short of Quentin Tarantino dialogue. Everything, anything in my vocabulary that was categorized under profanity or vulgarity spewed at the eight-legged freak in some weird, bleak hope that it would apologize for intruding in my space and show itself out.

The real problem was that I was still driving while looking for a newspaper-like bludgeoner. I may as well have been texting while driving. (Note: I still can’t believe this is a problem. This is my biggest pet peeve of dumb people.)

As if by some Californian Twilight Zone nightmare of green traffic lights when you least need them, I took a deep breath to assess the situation before I inevitably lost control of my vehicle. “It’s on the dash, somewhere in the windshield vent,” I thought, “so as long as it stays there, I should be fine.”

And I was, all the way home. As soon as I parked, I got out and ran away.

Is this not the case with anything that gives us anxiety? There is usually a fight-or-flight response, but nothing in-between or calculated. And for me, this arachnophobic example somewhat reflected my growth as of late.

= = =

I have a friend who really likes to make profane commentary (and still does, as far as I know). I guess the way we became friends was embarrassingly through that shared interest. Yet, when I grew out of those prepubescent, misinformed tendencies and my friend persisted in the same genre of conversation, it posed a sort of weird moment of decision-making.

If I lectured this friend on the ethics of why making sexual vulgarities was unbecoming, I would probably receive something on the side of “go fuck yourself” and would be out a “friend.” If I caved and let the cycle continue, it would be an endless supply of writing material at the cost of my sanity. Ten years ago, I would’ve caved to my people-pleasing sensibilities.

However, I took a breath and made a smarter decision.

With these particular instances of people saying things that displease me, I implement the CTO method, which stands for “Cool. Thanks. Okay.” It might as well be called the “Cool Story, Bro” method, but those are the actual words I use when I’m unsatisfied with the conversation and subtly break it off. (Well, no longer subtle since I’ve revealed the details.)

This personalized method isn’t something new.

If you look at Joaquin Phoenix’s interviews during his crazy-beard phase for I’m Still Here, he kind of does the same thing: plain, blunt answers to questions asked to perpetuate some sort entertainment. Similarly, in preparation for a potluck, someone in our group passively requested 갈비찜 (galbi-jjim, or Korean braised short ribs) to be on the menu, to which another replied that they were more than welcome to prepare and/or bring it to share for the rest of us.

On another occasion, I had a friend that asked, “Why are we having this discussion?” and followed it with, “Neither of you are qualified to make those conclusions.” Masterfully done, if not for the fact that he was trying to get people to shut up as he played Super Smash Bros.

The clincher for this to work, though, is to accept your decision to tell your conversation partner to talk to the hand, and then move forward. And it’s not always roses. Sometimes, like the first aforementioned friend, things can get a little dicey with blame-shifting and accusations, even though you may feel that you’re doing the right thing for your own self.

The bottom line, though, is you. You’re doing right by your own conscience, your own heart. Fallout, however flack-ridden it may be, should not outweigh the joy and confidence of standing firm in your decision.

As my dad once told me when I told him about my regret of getting an undergraduate degree in philosophy — don’t. You made that decision, whether out of desire or calculation. So own it.

= = =

Pivotal moments in the crossroads of life are difficult, no doubt about it. You could worry about it for days on end, or you could act on a whim and regret it later. Or you could take a breath, check the situation, and go with it.

And it turns out, doing it long enough builds the habit of boiling future quandaries down to A-or-B voting. Maybe that’s just life, but I like to think of it as becoming more focused on the important stuff, and treating this-or-that as this or that.

I’m reminded of Matthew 6:26:

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

The entire section of that chapter basically boils down to do as much as you can for today, and trust that the Lord has tomorrow covered. (Please don’t kill me, biblical scholars.) Focus on the important, and don’t sweat the rest. Own it. Crush it. [Insert succeeding-at-life verb] it.

And if that was too long, here’s the TL;DR version:

This workflow took way too long to make for my own good. And it came out blurry.

= = =

YTD Student Loan Debt: $171,115.90
YTD Personal Loan Debt: $23,819.74
YTD Auto Loan Debt: $5,897.65

The reason my student loan debt is higher this month, obviously, is due to interest, the maker or breaker of wealth.