Be Fearless

I've had bad things happen to me and sometimes I think...is this the end of it for me? Is my future forever changed by this incident? There's a fear of losing everything. It's during these moments that I don't sleep. I lay awake the whole night thinking, replaying, in my head, things that I don't want to remember. Getting out of bed sporadically to search for a remedy. After I exhaust every neuron in my brain, I start thinking about the "what ifs". What if I went to jail? How would I handle it? How would my family/friends react? What if I just leave and run away? Could I survive? Where would it lead me? This whirlwind of thoughts, racing in all directions, make me a wreck.

One day, I decided to pour out every drop of fear in my cup and thought about what I needed to be strong and resilient. I finally met this ineffable stage of invincibility and some inexplicable source of inner strength overcame me. I can't even really describe it, exactly. It didn't feel like I could take on any challenge in the world. It felt like I needed to face every challenge knowing that the results would change me as a person and I needed to embrace that change. After sifting through hundreds of hypothetical outcomes to my situation, I wasn't sure if I just gave up trying to make certainty out of uncertainty or if I wanted to deliberately stop being afraid. I realized that no matter what happened, I would continue living my life given the cards that I was dealt. I couldn't change my hand, but I could continue playing the game to the best of my ability. I was still scared shitless about going through with life, but I didn't have any consternation by it. There is value in every possible outcome and I was genuinely curious about it.

What does success mean to you?

I watched the US Olympic trials today. One of the races got me up in tears. It wasn't an inspirational triumph; it was an inspirational failure. I watched Alysia Montano, female 800m Sprint runner, trip and fall in the last 150m of the race. Full of emotion, she got up and fell back down 3-4 times before dragging her spiritless body to the finish line. I felt my eyes well up, knowing she put in years of blood/sweat/tears into a sport where misfortune decided her fate and not whether she trained hard enough. I can't match her state of mind, but I could share her pain in a parallel example.

Ingrained in a culture that says you can fulfill your dreams if you set your heart on it, and when you wholeheartedly do so but don't get the expected outcome, you feel lost. Frustrated with the world, asking God why the pieces didn't fall into place. So many people can tell you what success means to them. The media can tell you what it looks like. But, perhaps what we need is to redefine what success means to ourselves. We have to remind ourselves that we are the sum of our different parts and not just one thing. No one is all-athlete or all-artist or all-politician nor do we need to burden success on one aspect of ourselves. I don't pity Montano for falling. Of course, I rooted for her to win, but she won me over when I saw her carrying her daughter with her husband standing by her side. Montano had a beautiful family. Is being a good Mother not also a medal of success? We cannot solely measure ourselves by the metrics set by the society, because it requires conformity to an unrealistic perfection. Rather, we need to measure ourselves by how much love we have for ourselves and how much positive impact we have on those around us.

Irony burns

Hillary Clinton's social media tweeted "Delete your account" to Donald Trump, knowing that Clinton herself deleted her emails during the server scandal (or so they say). It got me thinking about how there's something strangely pedagogical about irony. It makes us look like fools when it happens, but it brings to light our hypocrisy.

So, I write publicly to this blog, because I became intrigued with translating thought into writing. This blog gives me a space to share my thoughts and to be transparent about myself. I thought it would help others understand me better as well. Except, I hesitated because I was afraid of exposing myself. I knew there would come a time where I would have to reveal things about myself that make my teeth clench and eyes close. I've heard it explained perfectly as standing naked in front of a crowd - uncomfortable and welcoming judgment. I was concerned that I would revert to my tendency to evade honesty and truth. It's my conditioned inclination to hide things I don't want to be seen.

For example, it's not very hard for me to create a story or an image of myself to the public eye that diverts their attention away from my actual self. But there reveals the irony of it all. This blog is supposed to be about authenticity/translucency/courage, but instead, if I fabricated all that content in fear of overexposure, then I'm only doing the opposite. Kind of foolish, no? The discrepancy between my intended purpose for this blog and my actual actions accentuates how consciously afraid I am of vulnerability. So afraid that I needed to appear vulnerable to onlookers so that I didn't have to actually be vulnerable. When that thought came to me, I couldn't believe I was doing it. (I'll skip the vitamins today. There's no deficiency of irony here)

What kind of insight can we gain from this? Irony seems to happen when you are oblivious to your own hypocrisy. For me, I'm writing this blog, because I want to be comfortable in my own skin and show people who I am through writing. But, I have to be careful about my hidden personal desire to appear a certain way to my readers. I have to be truthful, and I have to face my insecurities even if it means changing the way people think about me. In the end, this is therapy for me and if I can't do it correctly, why feed to my mental sickness?

There are plenty examples of irony out there in the world. So, search for them, pay attention to them and don't be fooled. Use it to heighten the awareness of your true desires.

I am wrong. All the time.

I read this article a few weeks ago by Mark Manson. If you haven't read his stuff yet, I recommend it. His writing style/tone is not really my taste but I like his content.

A couple years ago, something about myself or my behavior was bothersome and this little voice inside my head kept trying to tell me, but I ignored it until I read this article (that little voice came back and said, "I told you so"). The article revealed to me how intensely biased I was to my own thinking. It gave me an overconfidence problem. To the point where I stopped questioning/doubting/critiquing myself. It made me think that I knew more than I did, and it made me oblivious to the things that were false and flawed in my thinking. You see, there was a phase in my life where I was hungry/starving to understand certain truths in this world. What is the purpose of life? What is the meaning of suffering? What is love? I was so impatient about establishing these truths that I landed on firm conclusions without acknowledging the complexities of these questions. That was a very dangerous place to be, and I was very lucky to even sense it was happening.

So, I'm not suggesting that I needed to doubt every thought that came to mind. What I needed to do was remain open to the fact that I could be wrong. When I put myself in that mindset, I saw that I was wrong about A LOT of things. I was wrong about who I thought I was versus who I actually was. I was wrong about my assumptions about people. I was wrong about things that I use to consider as universal truths. For instance, I always thought that, if the opportunity presented itself, I should help people make their lives better, when in fact, some interventions can have negative repercussions. This line of thinking just put this world on a new level for me.

My mind was unable to adapt dynamically to social and environmental parameters. I needed things to make sense in a certain way, otherwise I would just ignore it or discount it. I became so dependent on my intuition created from past experiences that I turned off my ability to just see the situation as it was and learn to adapt. My confirmation bias was even worse. I would praise myself when I was right about something and ignore it when I was wrong. Blinded by my own bias.

So now, I try to prove myself wrong all the time even when I don't actually think I'm wrong. I just like to play around with the idea that I am wrong. It has led me to a wider range of thought that I never would've imagined. But, it's good to be wrong. It hurts your ego but only temporarily. It means you're learning and walking closer to the truth. How do you know if you've reached the truth? Well, life wouldn't be fun if we were to know.

Ignorance vs. Knowledge

Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is power. Is either one better than the other?

If you've ever seen the action film - The Matrix, the protaganist, known as Neo (Keanu Reeves), is prompted to choose between a mind simulation where his brain plugs into a virtual reality that tricks his senses into thinking he physically lives in a comfortable world or actual reality where the world is completely disheveled and everyone is struggling (i.e. red pill or blue pill?). For the former, you are shielded from the likes of misery but enslaved to a system. For the latter, you are liberated to see the true world, able to think how you like, but you deal with its suffering (no comfy bed, no juicy steaks, etc...)

Philsophically, I've heard it argued both ways. Either you enjoy the world as an innocent child or you rid the world of fabrications and false pretenses which is perhaps worse. In a pragmatic sense, I can't quite pin down why I would prefer one or the other. For instance, to know thyself. There's a sense of fulfillment when we explore ourselves, understand our own behaviors, and give ourselves the chance to change (or not change) the trajectory of our lives. It's very empowering to have that knowledge. I have seen myself change in wonderful ways and improve relationships with people by understanding their tendencies and how the world operates.

But sometimes, it's stressful for me. I become overly conscious of my behaviors and thoughts because they reveal uncomfortable truths about myself. I thought self-enlightenment could lead me to a better life, but instead, it unraveled a dark creature inhabiting my mind. For example, I saw an inevitable selfishness about me no matter how hard I try to be unselfish. These were not petty acts of selfishness. I'm talking about serious things like manipulating people for personal gain and relentlessly justifying these actions to myself. This discovery later developed into accepting that human nature in its essence was selfish. I want to explain why I came to that conclusion, but I will leave that discussion for later as it is a bit tangential. The point is that seeking enlightenment brought me to a dark and hopeless place. A place where I thought there were no good people in this world. It was unpleasant for me to tolerate myself and other people during this time. I came out of that spell rather quickly, but it still wears me down when I see evidence of it. It doesn't matter if my conjecture about human nature is right or wrong. What matters is my thinking process and the way it led me into this rabbit hole. I wonder...if I had never begun on this path of self/worldly understanding and this pursuance of knowledge, would I live with a happier mentality even if my perception of the world was fictitious? Is it better to have hope (even if it was false hope) rather than cynicism? What is the point of seeking all this truth anyways?

I can already hear some of my colleagues saying, "Of course, knowledge is power. Ignorance is the reason our society is a disaster and hate for each other is so prevalent..." These would be my most introspective friends and the most ambitious ones. They are admirable, because without their strength and determination, we couldn't abolish the injustice and suffering in this world. They are caught up in bringing out the truth, and yet, they so emotionally charged and distressed. You have to wonder how they withstand so much duress. And what about these people in Sahara Africa whose little concern over first-world social injustices allows them to shine with this pronounced joy. There's nothing fake or synthetic about it, either. It's simplicity, complacency, and satiation that allows them to enjoy what they already have, despite all that they do not know. Their suffering is seemingly more basic (maybe lack of food, shelter or water). But is suffering relative? Can suffering be measured or is it a universal feeling that has no thermostat?

I want to laugh and play like how children play, so free and careless. Yet, I want to know that what I am seeing and feeling is real. Perhaps, an awareness of simplicity can bring some peace of heart, and I create that same abstraction of happiness in my own complicated life.

The Conundrum of Being Alone

I'm not ashamed or too reserved to admit that I struggle with loneliness. I guess I can't help it myself. Living single in a big city with no close family around and a city where people are too busy and only mind their own. I have exchanged many posses of friends over my life. Although each of them special in my heart, they always seem to move on with their lives when you're not around. That's understandable.

Because I have been through the build and wear down of relationships over so many repetitions, I've come across this conundrum of being alone. Which is, I long for interaction and engagement with people, and therefore become invested in the pursuance of deep relationships. However, we all go through this ebb and flow of events that lead to new and separate paths. We accept the notion that we need to be selfish by pursuing our desires, and we need to be unselfish by letting others pursue their desires. Yes, we can share those desires with each other and the experiences that are born from them but I feel disengaged at that point. I no longer feel the same connection that we had before. As a result, I warp my mind to remain distant from people. I protect myself from reliving the pain of a lost relationship and I stop chasing them. In turn, I'm back at square one - longing for interaction and engagement again. What is it about this experience that makes it so cyclical? Why have I not just stayed at one end of the cycle (either be comfortable in my loneliness or keep feeding my hunger for deep connection)? On one end, I need to connect with people. On the other end, I need to protect myself.