Story

there’s this story of herman melville. about how moby dick was only one of the many works of his that received terrible reviews, or none at all. about how his aspirations to be a full-time writer dissolved into a life as a customs officer, and that it wasn’t until decades after his death that his writing was finally recognized – and only because a cultural nostalgia for nautical life led people back to him. i’ve recalled this story several times in conversation. i’ve never read moby dick.

why do i gravitate to stories like this these days? is it because somewhere in me there’s a longing to not have gone down the path that i have in life, and instead continue with spoken word? or do i feel like i owe something to the self of my 20’s that obsessed over rap blogs and fantasized about playing madison square garden, despite not really having the discipline to train myself for it – and frankly, not really sure i had the desire for a life of fame? or maybe because it reminds me of how little control i have over how people think of me anyway. and that all the initial measures of greatness that come up in my mind are incredibly vapid. one thing’s for sure, and it’s that i never want to look back and realize that i didn’t create a body of work.

i think about the past decade since ib4the1 dropped, and the music files that are sitting in various hard drives, and how entire music platforms have come and gone since the days when dahlak, nico, and i stayed up through the twilight recording takes. there is a certain point where i can zoom out far enough in time or space to decide that it doesn’t matter anyway. i can list other artists who also seemed to disappear or take on new lives elsewhere, but it’s all to make me feel less alone in my diverted future.

the truth is, as much as i love traveling the world, curating shows at the smithsonian, being in love with lovely, and having the luxury of taking life at the pace i want to, at times i still feel like i failed myself. i know that there is no accuracy to the ways i’m measuring success or failure, because it’s this part of me that would be tempted to trade my community for fame, my financial stability for balling out of control. but the deeper part of this that i do actually want to listen to is the self before dreams of stardom was even a thing. the self who could just grab a pen and feel impressed by whatever came out, who filled up notebooks in no time, and who hungered to share it with the world. i’ve been struggling to stop putting the cart before the horse, to not feel so daunted by the high hopes i have for every piece of work i make to land that i don’t even get started in the first place. when it’s all said and done, who knows whether whatever public profile i have will stand the test of time or mutate beyond what i’ve ever envisioned for better or worse. the regret i must avoid is that of not having cultivated what i know i do well, and what i love doing. it’s a slow and impossible process to get back into writing, with how high my standards for myself and the world have grown. but if this isn’t what i’m here for, then what?

there was a point in time when i used to blog daily. those posts are lost somewhere on the internet now, or perhaps stuffed into a mysql database in one of my many unlabeled hard drives. they were logs of my day and my reflections, much more point-by-point than this era of writing, and they were accompanied by photos taken from the camera that i’d carry in my journeys. this was a time before smart phones, before social media, when carrying a camera and blasting your life story out to the world was still a novel thing. but here is where tech leaves me behind. some things can get too easy. as it became more convenient to take shots, write, and post, the less appealing i found it to be. maybe i also stopped seeing the internet as such a safe place to do this kind of work. it’s why i haven’t really promoted this part of my website. it helps me feel safe, even though at the end of the day it’s all just pixels and urls. i want this place to be where i can let my guard down, don’t feel like i have to impress anyone with flowery sentences or breathtaking insights. all the snark i threw up on twitter that whole decade ended up being cringe-worthy anyway. and maybe those old posts would be too, if i could access them again. but since i can’t right now, they sit in my mind as epics – beautifully scripted, open and honest, a time when my concerns were more artful and less about the grown up shit. that’s the funny thing about writing regularly. writing can really feel like pulling teeth. you second-guess every cliché phrase like “pulling teeth” and then your mind runs through every writer out there who has used it before, and then every writer who is so much more creative than you that they were able to conjure cleverer colloquialisms. like, writing is like hand-feeding a rabid dog or writing is like carrying a porpoise up a narrow flight of stairs. and then you hate yourself for trying too hard. and then you wonder why most people in this world don’t try hard enough. and then you decide that everyone in this really really does, except for you. and then you realize you’re talking about yourself in “you” statements because it’s easier that way. and then i wonder if my blog is getting too depressing.

what really is the difference between tradition and convention? i ask because over the past couple of years i’ve come to recognize the sacredness of tradition – not only in the ceremonious found in special occasions and festivities, not only in the ritual that sets the tone for the day, but the longstanding knowledge and understanding of things. conventional wisdom. old wive’s tales. old school. luddite. dusty, crusty, convention.

i’m surprised that i’ve ended up here, in 2020. i’ve spent my life chasing and representing the new. embracing the notions of thinking outside the box, going against the grain, and all the other mantras conventionally applied to unconventional philosophy. i’ve found success, recognition, and entire careers on my mastery of rejecting mastery, of kicking down the side door and convincing myself and others of my value as a neophyte.

and for good reason, too. i grew up knowing that the rules set in place were never for my benefit. i’ve long detested school schedules set to the industrial era, food pyramids that don’t sit well in my stomach, and generally a game of life that keeps dealing cards i don’t want to play. i attribute my habit of breaking convention to rejecting the misogyny advertised by my peers in high school, the homophobia in my religion, and the forces that appeal to assimilation. i know that conventional wisdom includes slavery. conventional wisdom includes war.

but lately i’ve been feeling like i’m doing flips on a tightrope without having yet learned how to walk a straight line, and i’m just now realizing that i’ve been doing it without a net. maybe i’m looking for balance. maybe i’m recognizing that innovation can only go so far without foundation, imagination still requires a sound mind, that nothing can exist in sustained disruption. i think i’m also tired of fighting. i’m looking for a flow i can go with.

this year, there are many things that situate me in resistance. there are traditions and conventions being peddled right now that i can’t fuck with. there are so many realms where i’ve resolved to color outside the lines, but in order to not spin out of control i’ve also discovered an appreciation for knowledge that has ripened with age. the last couple of years building with people in hawaiʻi, aotearoa, and navajoland have instigated this, and i’ve come to a slow awakening to the value in my own ancestral traditions, some disconnected by a few generations, but mostly things that stopped in my own childhood when i thought that doing things “my way” meant embracing all-american values.

how do rebels grow wise? i’m interested in learning how others are navigating back to old ways while keeping their idiosyncrasies in tact. but for now, i’m craving a deep dive in the spiritual, medicinal, and earth stewardship practices of those who have come before me. my challenge is to refrain from feeling like i keep having to inject myself into the process, to hack or “fix” it. maybe all of this is a no-brainer for those who don’t share my inclination for the unconventional. if so, call me an eager late bloomer.

i don’t have a lot of regrets, but one that i have is that i opted out of taking a chinese philosophy class in college. it was my freshmen year and all of the engineering courses for my (inevitably doomed) computer science major were taken. maybe it says a lot about who i was, but instead i took regular philosophy aka western philosophy. you know, red barn and all that. ultimately i feel that i’ve been approaching wisdom at a reasonable pace in my life, though maybe all of us at times think that we’re slightly ahead or behind where our age group should be in our understanding of the universe. tbh maybe a chinese philosophy class taught at uc davis and probably not taught by a chinese person would’ve been the wrong way to go anyway.

now that i’m in my mid thirties, it seems less ahead of the curve that i’m coming around to learning things such as chinese herbal medicine (by learning, i mean i’ve registered for a mooc i haven’t actually logged into yet). it has been a decade since i’ve been into tai chi, a practice that the elders at hester park told me i’d probably slip away from since i was so young at the time. i never followed up on the martial arts that i began in middle school. i guess there are some things that aren’t meant to be at the times we’d like to romanticize ourselves into appreciating.

this year a few projects are bringing me back around to my cultural roots, in particular research on how chinese and asian cultural practices have persevered in american settings. it makes me think about the early chinese settlers whose lifestyles were considered dirty, ugly, abhorrent in this new country – yet, they shouldered past it because it was their way of life. it’s a much different story for me, an ABC who grimaced whenever my parents insisted on speaking canto at home, and was much more interested in microwaving a hot pocket than learning how to boil herbs. but what non-psycho kid in the 90’s wouldn’t have been the same? at times i reckon that the wisest thing i can do is not beat myself down too much for being immature throughout my youth, and for accepting ignorance as a condition that you never really grow out of.

let it be known
that everything you’ve ever longed for
has always been a part of you
this is not a jingle for the american dream
it is not a super soul sunday message
it doesn’t even care whether you feel motivated by its implications
it simply means that we are all walking halls of mirrors
we have no original desires
most things that could be described as a need was once a want
and that want was once nonexistence
in my life
i’ve seen so many versions
so many upgrades
improvements on features that had never been bridges to my notions of happiness yet now keep me from thinking straight
i suppose it’s what happens when
we are no longer left to our own devices
when our imaginations are under the yoke of another’s innovation outline
when we forget that we can splurge on daydreaming
that we can luxuriate in time
when a moment of stillness amidst the chaos of this world
is all it takes to have enough

i haven’t been feeling the burst of energy that it seems like other people on my ig feed have for the new year. i don’t think it’s an age thing. it feels more like a hangover from the past decade of pumped-up years, of beginning things with a bang, of feeling like i’m going to make this year “my year.” you can have it. instead, i’m at the intersection of burnout and cynicism. don’t get me wrong – i’ve found life so far so rewarding, and i’m forever grateful for the friendships i’ve made through them. but i can no longer play this game where the worth of a year is centered on career goals, internet output, and outward appearance. i feel like i spent all of 2019 just trying to get off a rollercoaster whose tracks were laid by my sky-high aspirations, and now that it’s coming to a slowdown i’m definitely not trying to get back on anytime soon. for 2020 i’m setting the intention of managing my stress, clearing my mind of concerns that need not be mine, and of minimizing vapid informational inputs. i’m getting to a point where all of the things i involve myself improve my health, relationships, and feeling of groundedness. i’m feeling completely allergic to welcoming things into my life meant to stack onto my CV, increase my social media presence, or chase dollars. the other day i watched a few episodes of kevin hart’s don’t f* this up – it’s the kind of show that in my past would have been a source of motivation, of feeding off someone else’s drive and seeing how big their dreams are as a measurement of my own potential. i felt nothing. when it comes down to it, i’m just in need of a recharge. offering 2020 to myself as my year of low power mode means that i only focus on the vital things. nothing extra happening it the background, no extra effort toward what won’t ultimately matter. that’s something i can get excited about.

so many of us are familiar with the phrase, “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention.” growing up in the bay, i hardly went a day without seeing it slapped on someone’s bumper. and then in 2017, it resurfaced in headlines as the last facebook post of heather heyer, the protester who was killed during the infamous alt-right tiki torch rally in charlotte. in activist circles, those words are seared in our lexicon, memorized like a mantra – i’m sure at some point i shouted it someone it in earnest. it has served as a valuable tool in the campaign to awaken consciousness at the state of the world, and when it was more present in my life in the early 2000s, was a needed bullhorn when it genuinely felt like nobody cared about the world’s desperations.

but at some point over the decade it seems like things flipped. for me, the news of the world went from something that i needed to actively seek out, into a spigot that won’t twist shut. everywhere i go there is so much outrage at all the things demanding our attention. i’m out of rage. my attention has mutated into fixation. and the deeper i go down this path, the more i feel apathetic, as opposed to empowered. i don’t think this is how it was supposed to go.

this morning the phrase wormed its way into my brain and i couldn’t shake the realization that this is no longer the dilemma. and the notion that an accusation on a bumper sticker can impel transformative change seems less plausible. but if we looked at the statement in its exact opposite, would there be something useful in that? i have found that, instead of “if you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention” – “if i’m not in peace, i’m not setting intention” is serving as a more helpful guide. this is because outrage absolutely can’t be the final stop, the light at the end of the tunnel. this is not to say there are not things to be outraged about, that there are not things to pay attention to. but my current state of burnout comes not from a desire (or capacity) to stay outraged, but rather to be ushered into a state of peace. and my perpetual state of paying attention to all the things that very well deserve and require attention has left me without the time (or energy) to set intention to anything that i’ve learned. without giving myself the space to set intention, i cannot expect myself to encounter the world in peace (as in the intergalactic greeting “i come in peace,” not to be mistaken for being at peace, which means something entirely different.

there are so many ways that i want to shift the way i approach the coming year and decade, but right now this appears to sum up a lot of it. greater regard for intention, deeper expressions of peace, recognition that the one i need to call in first is myself.

I’m still not sure what’s more exhausting – having a lot of things to do, or not having a lot of things to and feeling guilty about it. I had convinced myself that two weeks in the Philippines with really no assignments other than to write a short paper and journal each day was a light enough load. Today I board my flight out, and I’ve written exactly three times (including rn) and have not even loaded a new document to start that paper. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing exactly what I told myself I wouldn’t do – waking up in the morning and immediately scrolling through my phone. On my feed are articles and videos that used to capture my imagination – calls to “unlock your potential” and “increase productivity.” In reality, all I want to do is luxuriate in my inertia and understand my value as a human being when I’m not being productive at all. I would consider this an excuse to be lazy, if I wasn’t so burnt out. Can one be burnt out and lazy at the same time? Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to have a healthy relationship with capitalism, if that is to exist at all. Most of the talk about resisting the temptations of capitalism have to do with money – not falling into massive dept or being addicted with spending money or procuring the things that money affords. But what about the other aspect, the spending of time and energy? It’s here that we all know that we don’t have bottomless accounts, but without having a grasp of how much time is left in life, or what it truly means to be depleted of energy, I just spend and spend and spend. Sometimes I spend even while thinking that I’m relaxing. All the tasks that run through my mind during meditation, checking my emails while hanging out with my loved ones, having a great day and then going to bed feeling guilty that I didn’t post or journal about it. The productivity complex has a grasp on me in ways that I’m fortunate that money doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean that I’ve got it any more figured out when it comes to the game of capitalism. As the holidays approach, yet another light at the end of the tunnel that might must be a mirage. Yet another transition of years that I aspire to be smooth sailing but that might end up actually chew me up and spit me into 2020. I don’t want to sound ungrateful for this time that I’ve had to rest, because I recognize that so many others don’t have this luxury. But still, can I feel tired after a vacation without the burden of feeling guilty about that, too?

SO many plates spinning rn. I was convinced that finishing Te Whāinga was the light at the end of my tunnel. But instead, new old tasks have popped back up like buried bodies, like dust under the rug. I shouldn’t speak of them like that. These tasks were once ideas, goals, points of inspiration – they still are. There was a time when I felt a shortage of them, when after several hours of binging a show I didn’t even care that much about I wondered Is there more? Am I doing enough? You bet there’s more. So much.

For the past few months I’ve been meditating using audio guides – beginning the first few moments of each day to the sound of another’s voice, of the stroke of a harp. But yesterday I forgot to charge my headphones so, for the first time since I can last remember, I was left to the sound of my own brain. HOLY shiT there’s a lot going on in there! It ends up that the mantras and chimes weren’t actually leading me down a sound path, they were distracting me from the fact that I’ve gone way off track.

A lesson of meditation is that, when I find myself in such a disposition, it’s not about trying to steer myself back. It’s about being okay with the fact that I’m here, and discovering what this situation is trying to tell me. I think? I don’t know, I haven’t actually engaged with spiritual leaders, communities, or literature enough to know whether the past few years have actually just been me putting on a caricature of mindfulness. *here’s where I resist / let myself jotting sign up for meditation classes on my long to-do list*

But the fact that I’m here writing again, at least for today, is a start. Yesterday I thought it would be okay to skip journaling, only to find myself in a tar pit of an email exchange that I started by being too verbose. It ends up that the simplest tasks are the hardest habits to pick up.

A couple of weeks ago I woke up with a strong impulse to delete all my tweets, so I did. 10 years of impulsive thoughts, random musings, reactions to things that may or may not have had anything to do with me, and forays into hashtags severed of context – all gone with the click of a button. It’s not that there was anything incriminating there (that I can think of) – but as I scrolled through my feed as a do you really want to do this procedure, it felt like going through a photo album of bad haircuts. It wasn’t so much of a “I wish I hadn’t said that” vibe but more like a “let’s not let that be a quote of mine that’s available for everyone to access forever.” Most of it was cringey jokes, spurts of pretentiousness, and self-promotion attached to memories of disappointment when my grand announcements landed like a hotdog tossed down a hallway.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done a digital purge. About a year ago I deleted my facebook profile, and way back in 2009 I went through the same motions of deleting several years of my early tweets and made a commitment to only post things on the internet that were “truly useful to the greater public” 🙄

All of those decisions have generally been pluses, and in many cases have been more satisfying than anything that I’ve ever impulsively posted. But still, there are digital footprints that are lost forever which I wish still remain. My Asian Avenue profile from the 90’s, mostly for nostalgic purposes. My blogs from the early 2000’s which probably still do exist somewhere, but are lost in broken code. iLL-Literacy Youtube videos which I also deleted during The Great Purge of 2009 because they weren’t as “professional” as how I wanted us to present ourselves – videos which are ironically more valuable to me now than anything we put out with a press release. It seems that my urges to delete everything are no less compulsive than whatever it was that drove me to put that out there in the first place. Maybe one day I’ll scroll through all of these posts and also decide to wipe them off the web with the click of a wand. These days, I’m questioning why the temporary, the vapid, the ephemeral have a bad wrap. Is there actually any single moment that you’d truly want to “live in?”