Thoughts

“Pick the things in life that really matter: your family, your friends, the people, work and art that truly inspires you. You don’t have to ignore everything else, but don’t say yes to anything that compromises the level of enjoyment or excellence that you get and give to those things that really matter.”— Chris Kurdziel

“Culture educates the emotions. It consists of narratives, holidays, symbols, and works of art that contain implicit and often unnoticed messages about how to feel, how to respond, how to divine meaning.” The Social Animal, David Brooks

When I’m content, I don’t feel the need to express myself through writing or drawing or any other art form. I don’t feel the need to express my mind or emotion; I live it out.

Nothing good gets away.

I’m traveling internationally on my own for the first time this Friday (excluding the day trip I made to Vancouver in the summer of 2009). Stoked.

Some day between 1987 and 1988, I was riding my bicycle (with training wheels) down the driveway of my family’s home in Fussa, a city in western Tokyo, Japan. My knee was scarred that day and if I hold my knee up to a light I can still see the smooth, light-toned skin that remains of that faded scar. I remember falling off my bike because a white minivan had turned into our long driveway, speeding along and nearly striking me. Gravel had lodged in my knee. I watched blood soak through the white wash cloth my mom had wrapped my knee in, as she turned the ignition key in her burgundy right-side-drive Toyota and adjusted my seatbelt. After more than an hour wait in the emergency room, the nurses and doctor strapped my shoulders, wrists, and legs to a table, injected what I presume now to have been a syringe of local anesthetic into my knee, and dug out the gravel. The bandages they put on my knee must have been two-and-a-half inches thick. Later that day while we were at a small grocery shop near our home, she bought me a box of chocolate cookies that came with a plastic robot figure in the anime style. I will be 28 years old in 95 days.

I decided to walk home from the party instead of taking a taxi, so I wondered through the city for about an hour. And on my way downtown I got caught up in the shop district, going from window to window looking at all the clothes and shoes and watches and jewelry and other displays that I normally do not pay attention to. It was so peaceful and quite and nobody was out that my curiosity took over, and I just did a bunch of window shopping. The main thing I noticed is that the way the mannequins are dressed is never a way in which I see normal people on the street dressed. They’re dressed in garish outfits that would make people look like fools if they wore them out in public.

The most important idea I’ve come to internalize in the last six months is that getting what I want means that I have to consistently focus on how to get what I want and stop allowing my mind to rationalize what I don’t have.

I remember sitting in my North Carolinian grandparents’ kitchen eating supper and my grandfather explaining how one day when he was somewhere in his early twenties, he looked in the mirror and saw a man looking back, and from that moment forward, that was the mental image he carried of himself. Everyday after that moment, he would look in the mirror and see another man. Five decades passed by, and each day during that time, he would ask who that man in the mirror was, because it wasn’t the man he saw himself as. I tell myself this story almost daily.

Teachers are responsible for a student’s comprehension. There is no student who doesn’t wish to comprehend, only those who do not understand what is being communicated by the teacher; hence, it’s upon the teacher to adjust how they are communicating so that the student understands.

The challenge when solving problems is developing a common vocabulary to discuss issues surrounding the problem and proposed solutions.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that they would go without sleep if they could, that it’s a waste of time. I would never forgo sleep. I love the ritual and everything surrounding bedtime. I love brushing my teeth. Snuggling under the sheets. Getting bedhead. Fluffing pillows. Staring at the ceiling as I drift into dreamland. Falling to sleep next to somebody I love. I. Love. Sleep.

I remember the first time I heard “Iris”. That song got played out, but I fell in love with the Dizzy Up the Girl album. I remember listening to it on repeat for hours on end. I haven’t listened to many albums like that since then. I think I still know all the lyrics from each track by heart. Even the ones Robby Takac sings on.

Standing in the checkout line at Whole Foods, I decided to switch to the other line because there appeared to be fewer people. I felt like I was cutting in front of the woman in front of me in the other line–I would surely checkout before her. As the lines moved foward, I saw my line was actually longer because it was on the outside and the line turned a corner. The lady I had been standing behind before switching lines ended up checking out five people ahead of me. I don’t think I’ve ever switched a checkout line and come out ahead.

Taking out student loans for college is like indentured servitude. I’ll be paying my way to freedom for the rest of my life.

I’m terrible at asking for what I want/need. This has to change.

I want to stop focusing on lovers and start focusing on loving things, ideas, places. It might help me to grow something worthy of a lover.

I really want to get to that place where heart and mind listen to each other.

When words make your heart slow to a morbid rate, your stomach beat as if trying to make up for your heart, when your blood thins, and your is mind full of static noise.

People who appear to have their shit together seem to be the exception. And appearance is always a matter of perspective.

“Ultimately, we can choose to spend our lives consuming and surviving or we can choose to be architects of meaningful change.” – Susan Wu

“Love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the wellbeing of one’s companion.” — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

I’m really good at not opening up to people because I’m only interested in connecting with the ones that I will fall in love with.

Everything is made. Our work, ourselves, our relationships, our future. To make is to be optimistic. (From The Storm and The Line by Frank Chimero.)

Being aware of the context and scope of a conversation is helpful in all aspects of life and will allow you to make focused and appropriate responses.

One year.

For my little brother: Meeting a woman at a bar or lounge is easy. Smile, tell her your name, and ask her what she’s up to. Conversation ensues.

Communicating successfully with a team on complex projects is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

Many aspects about life are concerned with balance. With regard to relationships, nurture reciprocity; don’t allow yourself to go unrequited.

If I ask a person “how was your weekend?” I almost invariably get the response, “It was good.” The person will add no more, even though I want to know about their day. They will likely reply “How was your’s?” It feels awkward to ask “What did you do this weekend?” I need to get over that. I don’t care if a person’s weekend was “good” or not, I want to know what that person did.

I cooked again tonight. And I started writing hand written replies to letters from my friends. I like not going out every night. I’m starting to feel at home again.

Soccer in D.C. is like going from a Corolla to an M3—a little more precise, a little more sophisticated.