Twenty-Seven.

It’s weird, to see those numbers typed out. It’s even weirder, to say it out loud.

I’m 27.

Ah, numbers. That’s more like it.

What am I supposed to feel these days? Is there a guidebook to this? When I look around, I see a mixture of dread, sadness and sometimes downright resignation. That getting older means our best days our behind us, that we know our bodies are slowly on the path to decay and that the clock is ticking for those that wish they could have accomplished certain feats by now.

Call it insufferable optimism, idealism, or naivete. I prefer to think of it as hope, but deep down somewhere inside me, I still feel pretty young. That the world is ripe for adventure and that I can take on the future.

My body is definitely not as young (though still relatively). I’m so embarrassingly out of shape. But I still know there are great days ahead. If only because in some ways, my mind is still as if I were a child. 

That the future is to be dreamt. That life–while tough–is to be enjoyed, to be fun. And that somewhere, someone is watching and caring for me.

I’ve got an imperfect and loving family, a great new nephew, a ton of friends (both new and solid reconnections with old). I have food to eat, a place to sleep.

Somewhere inside me, I believe I am loved. That’s why I’m alive. That’s why I have been for 27 years.

God, is good.

 

It’s almost been 8 months since I first arrived in Seattle. It’s a long time.

While I’ve come around to liking the city, if I allow myself to be honest–I’m still very frustrated about living here. It’s been a long time and I still don’t need one hand to count how many actual friends I have.

I’m tired of forcing myself into every social gathering for 8 months. Someone once said to me, “Man you come out to everything I’ve seen you everywhere.”

That’s precisely the point thanks for noticing. I’m tired of the superficial friendliness followed by “oh hey go get your own social circle” mentality. I’m tired of caring about grand issues when you can’t make someone random new guy feel at home.

I just feel a distinct impression that my presence here doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like I’ve touched anyone’s life in any meaningful way. That if I were to pack my bags and leave tomorrow,

Maybe it’s too much to ask. Maybe I’m homesick. Maybe I just want to feel known–to be in a place where I don’t need to reinvent myself all the time.

And like I said, in reverse, I don’t feel like I’ve been meaningful to anyone.

I think I’m tired of moving. Of uprooting myself everywhere I go. And yet I know the moment I start to sit for too long I’ll get restless and want to take off again.

Being adventurous has its downfalls…

Ask and you shall occupy

Someone asked me to open my brain on Occupy [insert clever name here]. So…

I’m not feeling too well so I’ll just bullet point my thoughts instead of forcing an attempt at beautiful prose that of course I’m so well known for.

First, the bad:
-The whole thing is a PR disaster. This is mostly to fault the ‘few bad apples’ that are a part of any group, but if a movement is to grow the nature of our world is that you need to have a level of control exerted in the environment. The moment a movement continues to raid a business for their restrooms (and leave it as a mess) is the moment you create someone who is not on your side.

-Inability to convey what they want. Contrary to most people’s dismissal of OWS as “leaderless,” “without goals” and “just people who want to complain,” I believe OWS does have a goal. With a little thought, I think it’s pretty obvious protestors are upset at inequality–in all forms. Economic (being in the 99% without jobs and making little money), injustice (banks get bailed out for their recklessness–which is often looked at as absolutely necessary, and then top CEOs continue to get seven-figure bonuses) and oppression (police–seemingly more often than not–standing on the side of those in power and antagonizing those who pay them a yearly salary). But go to any demonstration and see if that’s the message you get. Which leads to my next point of:

-Inability to turn those goals into something concrete. Ideals are awesome (coming from an idealist). What’s better, is some actual practical way to build that ideal and turn it into reality. Demand that top bankers who received TARP funds give up their bonuses and turn them to charity (they don’t need the money anyway). Demand a repeal of the Bush-era Tax Cuts. Start a discussion around ways to make things happen. Do something besides continue to be vocal. People can be generous and allow for people to complain about things and mope for a while–but no one tolerates someone who only complains and never does something about it.

-Poor location. The movement started as Occupy Wall Street. Why Wall Street? For symbolic reasons, mostly related to their named goals. Except head bankers don’t work on Wall Street. Politicians don’t work on Wall Street. If I were upset at JP Morgan Chase, I would not walk into a local Chase branch and chastise the rep there. It would be pointless. If you want to march and make your voice heard, go to the actual bank HQs. Go to Washington. City Hall. Police HQ. Not a place that’s merely symbolic of something you hate.

-Myopic means of protest. Related to the first point about bad PR and the third about poor location, be a little careful where you choose to protest and cause a disruption. If you choose a commonly crossed bridge in Seattle and block it–a bridge that no one “in power” is going to cross mind you–you will have made your voice heard. You will have made your voice heard to ordinary citizens that belong to the exact group you are supposedly fighting for. And they will not be happy.

Now, the good:
-The goal. There is an extreme amount of inequality, of the aforementioned types in this country. Certain people have this idea that they worked for every penny of those billions that they have now (which is borderline delusional). It is good that the issue is being raised and that people are willing to take to the streets to talk about it. It shows people care, whether or not it’s because of their own dire situations or not. I feel for this ideal.

-It makes people uncomfortable. If the status quo is bad, then there’s nothing better than to make people uncomfortable with it. Protests tend to also reflect the thought process of those who do have power, for example the police. Regardless of what students did at UC Davis I find it highly improbable that they did something to warrant being pepper-sprayed. Yet it happens, and it reflects the state, and the reasons for American’s attitude of distrust towards the police force (and I do have a friend who’s a cop so I understand the delicate balance here).

-The communal sense of venting. OWS is really an act of catharsis. Sometimes bad things happen to people and all they want to do is tell people about it. Or if I do something wrong to a friend they will probably come yell in my face. They have the right to do so. In the same way, there needs to be a place in the public sphere that allows for people to just vent when they are upset with the actions of a group of others. To say protests are inherently useless is to say no one should ever vent. About anything. There is a power in letting people know how you feel.

And, to wrap it together:
-I believe in the ideals that OWS is fighting for. I would never join it. For the same reason I try to keep my feelings in check when I’m enraged at something–it’s rarely the best course of action to get what I actually want.

I believe in creating a space that allows for people to vent. I believe it on a personal scale and on a communal public scale. But I also believe in moving forward and not staying at the place of just venting. At some point there needs to be action, and this is probably where I am less willing to defend OWS.

I don’t doubt that there are people within OWS who are they because it’s cool, because all they want to do is complain or because they want things fixed without working for it. But could there be a group of people who genuinely are upset and want to share that frustration with people they believe are in charge?

I’m just not ready to slam the gavel.

Like a child…

I’m often amazed at what pushes me past the threshold of laziness to actually post something.

There are three things I love about kids: their energy, creativity and most of all, their honesty.

“Dear God, why do you let people die? When you do that you have to make new ones. Isn’t it easier just to keep the ones you already have?”

What a beautiful question I would never ask. Not now. Not because I’m somehow more mature, more understanding of God or have a stronger faith.

It’s because I’ve been taught that in some way I must know better. That I must not to ask questions like it. That I must not wonder.

I love kids.

Reconciliation, the real catch word

“A community that is ethnically diverse but lacks reconciliation is no community at all. I would always, always, always, rather be in a community that understands and practices reconciliation–no matter how lopsided the makeup.”

The streets are supposed to run two ways…

You give. You get. That’s the way relationships are supposed to work.

It makes sense. Because we live in a land of limited resources, if you always give away, you will eventually run out of things to give. You can’t keep going unless there’s someone to give to you too.

It’s always a nice feeling when people want to give you a lot. They value you. Trust you. Those are hard things to earn.

But what happens when you don’t return the feeling? What happens if you can’t?

I’ve always found it weird when friendships run mostly in one-way streets, let alone relationships of the more serious kind. You always give, give, share your life, try to care. And the other person just seems to sit there and absorb it. You hope they’d be equally as open and trusting, but they’re not.

It’s not that they’re a bad person, they just don’t inherently feel close to, or feel the need to be close to you. Maybe they have other good friends. Maybe they’re not as enamored with you as you are with them. Maybe they just don’t feel the same bond or link.

You value them so much as a friend, but to them you’re just another friend in a long list.

And it’s always weird, when I realize that I’m the one who’s not doing his fair share.

Videogames, handball and friends

I’m finding Seattle a hard nut to crack.

It’s a lot like the Bay Area, but in some very subtle ways, it’s also very different.

For one, it’s hip. You cannot be a male worship leader and not wear tight jeans apparently. Doesn’t happen. Plaid shirts are also required to make up 70% of your wardrobe. You will drink coffee and hang out at cafes. You eat at hole-in-the-walls, not chain stores (which also means you’ll pay the extra $$ to do so). And you’ll ride your bike to work in the rain.

It’s also incredibly cliquey. Or so it seems. This isn’t to say they’re not friendly, they are. But they’re not very, hospitable. No one really seems to go out of their way to make you feel like Seattle is your home. People already have their social circles and allowing you to become one of them, seems like a difficult thing to ask.

This is true of churches as well. I went to a Chinese-American church, who was so tight-knit in their little family community that with the exception of a married couple, I felt practically ignored by design.

It’s starting to slightly wear on me. I can survive with sort of superficial community friendships, acquaintances really, since we would never really hang out outside of the predetermined environment that is work, church etc. But I will never thrive this way.

And I can pin point the issue to one thing: everything is all about talk. It’s sort of the adult way to make friends. You talk. You go to a bar and talk. You go to church group and talk. You go to work and talk over lunch. You go to house parties and talk. That’s how you meet people, even 50 at a time, just by going into a room and talking to them.

How counter-intuitive. To me that seems like the least practical way to meet people.

Most of my closest friendships were formed around action. We played games together. Did sports together. Suffered through school together. Played in a band together. We bonded because we had a mutual goal. Not simply because we were interested in what the other person likes to eat.

A friend of mine reminded me, that “childhood is a setting where handball and video games are adequate connections to make best friends. In young adult life, I don’t know what platform connections can occur on.”

Maybe that’s my problem then. I’m still a kid, and want to make friends through things like handball and video games. And not house party chatter.

Oh. Here’s another Seattle quirk. Churches take the summer off. Small groups adjourn to form new “play groups.” These are sun-deprived people.

Under the weight of my fleeting thoughts

It’s interesting, the things that keep me up past 1 in the morning. Sometimes it’s movies. Videogames. Homework. Chats.

Tonight, it’s just me and my thoughts keeping my brain running.

Moving around so much has done a number on my ability to call myself American. Or Asian American. Or even a Californian. I start searching for new terms to attach to myself, only to realize they stick about as well a post-it that’s been used 1,000 times. I just don’t feel like I belong in very many places.

Then I wonder, if that’s ok. If I don’t need to. But I think that all of us as human beings want to belong to something else, that would be why we have friends, families.

Funny then, that the most comforting thing I would hear would be from a Chinese sermon I was listening to online (for the sake of practicing my Chinese).

That we are not of this world. We do not belong to it. My Washington driver’s license, my American passport, none of those things is descriptive enough to box in the identity that encompasses who I am.

Silly, mischievous neighborhood kid seems to work well though.

Miracles and the Deus Ex Machina Problem

I don’t like the idea of miracles.

Backtrack for a second. Some people don’t believe in the Christian idea of signs and wonders. Spiritual gifts. Healings. Either that or they don’t like them. Most of my friends know I believe in and am supportive of all of the above.

But I also, still don’t like them. How’s that possible?

I think the problem is that I believe in storytelling, and I adhere to one very important rule of storytelling: everything has a cause and an effect. Characters have goals. They take action to achieve that goal. Something pushes back. They take a greater action. And this cycle continues until they succeed or fail.

Which is why I find the catch-all solution of Deus Ex Machina to be so off-putting. At the end, when all seems lost, and the protagonist is unable to go against all odds to achieve his goal, someone else swoops in and magically rescues the situation from the proverbial jaws of defeat.

I hate this because it renders everything a character did obsolete. It makes everything he did pointless. It means that there, in actuality, was no effort required to achieve that goal, which then begs the question of whether or not that goal was worth anything to begin with.

It also means it is impossible to duplicate. Because who knows when the powers that be will decide at the last second to rewrite the foundation of the future.

To me, miracles, are Deus Ex Machina. It’s magic. Completely unexplainable. I realize now I’m potentially shooting my foot when it comes to my friends understanding my personality–but here goes.

When someone tells me God rearranged their messed up jaw through someone’s prayer (true story by the way), one part of me is happy for them–happy that they don’t have to pay thousands of dollars to go to a dentist. Happy that they can eat normally.

But honestly, the other half of me feels like I paid $10 to watch a bad movie where the bad guy is about to kill the good guy except a car hits him at the end and the good guy survives. It’s not satisfying.

Or what if in Star Wars, instead of the tense movie that resulted in the epic battle at the Death Star, we saw Darth Vader run around killing people for 90 minutes, and then at the end he meets a guy named Obi-Wan Kenobi who shines a flashlight in Vader’s face, after which Vader decides ok I will now be a good guy? Nobody would watch it. No one.

Yet this is exactly the Biblical story of Paul’s conversion. Light shines down while he’s walking and suddenly he’s a good guy. Why does that only happen to Paul? Why can’t that happen to everyone? And it doesn’t even feel believable. If he so readily switches sides, there must have been more going on. Either he had doubts about what he was doing. Or he had mental pain from the last guy he had killed, something. Unless the light was just so overbearing he had no other choice.

Which, again, raises the question: Why doesn’t this happen to everyone?

This just might be the very first question I ask God when I get the chance. Why does it feel like at times, someone just snaps their fingers and all is well?

No good books, movies, or even songs use this mechanic. Imagine a disaster movie where for 100 minutes the world panics about an imminent collision with an asteroid. Except at the very last second, an astral wind blows the asteroid away and everything goes back to the way it was.

All good stories are about someone who takes action and fights for something he wants. It doesn’t mean that he is alone; In fact, the journey always involves the help and action of others around. But it does not change the fact that they achieved their goal without the help of a random outside source that appears from left field.

Not even the salvation story uses this tactic. There was no mysterious power that jumped in and said, “Oh, I think I’ll just come now and fix everything.”

Salvation took work. Jesus had to die. And he was not some mysterious being that appeared out of where.

You ever see a movie where the protagonist, has a sidekick, and they fight for something that requires the protagonist to give his life to achieve his goal? And through his death the sidekick and everyone else will be able to enjoy that goal for the rest of their own lives?

That’s a good story. That’s the salvation story. Not some Deus Ex Machina, astral wind moving the asteroid, miracle.

Tasting the river of tears

Of all the physical imperfections I have, one of my least favorites is what feels to be an extra-sensitive nervous system.

It takes very little for me to feel pain. I cannot have acupuncture for this very reason.

I’ve often wondered if this extends into my mental psyche as well.

#BestDad is a promoted trend on twitter. Possibly Father’s Day related. Companies, of course, are taking advantage of the holiday to promote many ways to thank your dad–all of which of course involve buying him things from their company.

But what hurts more than that, much more, are the number of tweets that go like this.

#BestDad is trending? *shrug* I can’t relate…

One of Twitter’s best features is that it works like a real social circle; You can tell just how many people are saying the same thing. And I can tell, that the person that wrote the above tweet is not alone. Not at all.

I’m reminded that we live in a broken world, full of broken relationships and broken families. That people are in pain.

I’m not even sure of what I wanted to write anymore.

Suddenly, I feel incredibly selfish. But that will go away, it doesn’t take long to forget what others’ pain tastes like.