nANIMOv

We all have physical insecurities: things about our appearance that we don’t particularly like. No matter how much family, friends, or random strangers assure and affirm us that the basis of our insecurities are unnoticeable, the insecurities often persist. Part of it may be because those affirmations are contrary to what society and culture tells us (directly or indirectly). Another part may be due to perceived bias; regardless of their true motive we believe that those affirming us are doing so out of some social obligation.

It can be hard to talk about these insecurities because to do so would be to draw attention to them. Plus, there’s the added fear of judgement; there’s fear that people will think you’re shallow or that you’re making a big deal out of nothing. But the things is people don’t choose to feel insecure.

One of my big insecurities is my skin. My acne was kinda bad in high school and I was super sensitive to it then. There were days when I didn’t want to leave the house at all because I didn’t want people to see my face. Now my face is clear for the most part, but I still have scars. Everytime I see myself in the mirror that insecurity is right up in my face, literally. I’ve gotten better about not being so fixated on it. And it’s not like people shove it in my face or make obvious comments about it. The things is, it’s the “bad” comments that always will stick out more, no matter how skewed the ratio is towards the “good.” I don’t want to feel this way and I know it’s a stupid/ insignificant thing to worry about, but I can’t control how I feel.

I believe in my heart that we are so much more than our appearances. Though at the same time our culture and a portion of our biology is obsessed with it, so we can’t just ignore it. So what do we do? Self-acceptance is the best and clearest way to go, but at the same time I think forcing ourselves into self-acceptance can be unhealthy. If you can find a way to embrace the insecurity and make it a point of strength, that’s great. But denying or invalidating your own feelings is not a healthy way to go. Some things can’t be helped and feelings aren’t easily changed.

It’s interesting, though perhaps extremely obvious, that I am most focused on my insecurities when I’m looking in a mirror, completely focused on myself. It’s times when I get out of my own head; when I’m with good friends or when I’m doing something I love, that I hardly think about it at all. It’s not that I’m actively trying forget my insecurities, but in a sense it’s a subconscious reminder that I’m more than my insecurities, and the people around me and the things I have accomplished are a testament to that.

And if all else fails, remember that everyone is insecure about something, and they are probably more focused on their own than they are of yours.

I just came back from New York the other day. It’s been around 10 years since I’ve been, but it’s almost exactly as I remember it. While it’s a cool place to visit, I’m not sure if I’d be able to live there. I will say though living and visiting a place are two very different things.

I hate driving there though, even more than in LA. The driving culture is so shitty. Everyone is honking and yelling all the time. The thing is when they honk it isn’t really for any reason other than to express anger. I remember when I visited the Philippines there was a lot of honking. It was different there though. People would constantly giving like honks coming out of driveways or coming around curves. They were honking to make their presence know. In NY people honk when they are frustrated. The honks don’t effect any change or make anyone safer, it’s simply a display of aggression and impatience.

May he who is without sin cast the first stone, right? This makes me think about times when I get unreasonably angry and honk my metaphorical horn. It can happen when dealing with family or at a restaurant or at myself. To me anger is the most inefficient emotion. I’m not saying that it’s useless or that it’s bad to feel it, but I want to try as much as possible to be aware of it and have healthy outlets for it. There are few times I can think of where acting on my anger has felt good in long run.

As humans we like to anthropomorphize things. We like to describe and explain the activity of non-human things in terms of human activity. This is super helpful in getting a better understanding of complicated phenomena, but I also think sometimes we forget that there’s a line there. We ascribe cognition and autonomy in places where it isn’t, and we assign motive to things that simply lack the capacity for it. In some ways I think oversimplifies things and can actually inhibit our understanding of the world around us.

Other animals don’t think the way we do (most of the time), neither do bacteria, or proteins, or refrigerators. They’re simply just existing under the constraints of the natural world. Viruses don’t lick their lips and drool at the prospect of infecting humans. They are more or less a large cluster of molecules that favor (in the least human way possible) their own replication. They aren’t concerned about their population or the population of their hosts… or anything for that matter, they just are.

As humans, we are a much bigger cluster molecules, we are self-aware, and we have a capacity for understanding the world, but does that make us much different? Not as much as we like to think.

It’s funny how some days can seem to have a very heavy theme associated with them; almost like in a PBS special, and at the end some gentle-voiced narrator recaps the lesson of the day for an impressionable audience. Today’s them was work (not force x distance)

Early this afternoon I was in the car with my sister. We on our way back to the house after a writing/ working/ reading sesh at the her go-to coffee shop. Both of us are kinda socially awkward and so we have our moments of prolonged silence especially when it’s just the two of us in the car. I don’t mind it though (maybe that’s why we’re awkward). As we’re passing the only stretch of houses on the route that looks ready for Halloween (though based on crooked trees and flaking paint on the walls, something tells me they’re always partially ready) she asks me, “Do you like your job?”

It’s a reasonable question. I went from working with kids and tourists in an awesome science museum to reading and writing about viruses. From the outside it may seem that the answer is obvious; that relative to my previous job, my current one sucks. But I actually love my current job.*

While I do miss working at the museum, interacting with kids, and showing people cool science stuff, I felt like I had reached my limit there. I loved it while it lasted, but I was ready to move on. There was little to no opportunity for advancement there, at least that I would be compensated for. I didn’t feel indispensable (a la Linchpin by Seth Godin); in my role I could easily be replaced by any other cog and daily operation would function the same. Personally, I thought I added value and brought things to the table that no one else could, but in the end I don’t think value fully aligned with the mission of the organization. I hope it doesn’t sound like there was any bad blood on my departure. I love MOXI and everything I’ve learned and gained in my time there, and I wholeheartedly support their mission, I was just on a different trajectory. Like two lines that intersect for a moment then move apart indefinitely.

….We’re still talking about jobs right?

Ahem yes, so that’s kinda what I told my sister. In the Child Life class I took, I continued, we learned about flow, a state of focus and stimulation that also gives us a sense of satisfaction in our activities. If the activity is too simple we get bored. Too difficult and we get discouraged and frustrated. Flow is that sweet spot where we feel just challenged enough to feel like we’re making meaningful progress (in whatever form that may be).

My job is full of flow. I’m constantly learning and making progress for my future career as a physician. I have the autonomy to problem-solve my own way and pursue projects that I’m interested in. If I don’t understand something, I feel comfortable learning the necessary background knowledge on my own, and coming back to it. I’m not bored, nor am I frustrated. Sometimes I lose track of time because I get so deep into my work.

Beyond that my current job comes with plenty of perks (one being that I can work remotely), but that of course is secondary 😉

I don’t get those special interactions that I did in my job at the museum (though even that could get tiresome at times), but I’m at a place where I feel comfortable enough in my human interaction/ engagement skills that I can take break.

Then we talked about her job and about what flow looks like there and the role of human interaction in all of that. It was nice.

Then later that day I got into discussions about work with a few other friends, separately. Each one highlighting a different aspect of the idea of work. Thinking back on it all, it really feels uncanny.

I’m just waiting for the director to say cut.

*For those who don’t know I now work for a research foundation doing mostly literature review.

I’m finishing up my first week in Roanoke. It’s been nice settling into a new environment. I’ve really missed my sister, though seeing her again after 4ish months, not much has changed. Not that I expected it too. We’ve been apart for longer periods of time than this.

Roanoke is a nice place. It’s quiet and very green. The roads look like they are just paved over trails (which many of them probably are) unlike the aligned and gridded suburbs that I’m used to. The houses that populate the hills are almost exactly what I think of when I think east coast. Some are entirely made of brick. Some have wooden panels along the side with the paint chipping off and a big ol’ butt sticking out the back either dropping down the side of the hill or being held up by stilts.

I finally got to meet my feline niece, Yue. She a spoiled ham, but very cute. She is not shy at all and likes to jump right by my face. At night, if I leave the door open she will come in a cuddle up for little, but more often I wake to her staring right at me. I also realized she likes coming into my room to steal fluffs from a hole in the bottom of my bed, so I don’t let her in any more, I need to find some duct tape.

It’s been fun seeing my sister and Micah doing the whole married life. Though it’s about what I expected. It suits them… though I feel like it has for a while now.

Ate and I went to see the world’s largest man-made star today, which apparently resides in Roanoke. It was big. Not too much else to say about it. The weather was exactly what I was hoping for. Brisk and crisp. Breathing in, I could feel like cold air fill my lungs, and being surrounded by all those trees you know it’s well oxygenated. Afterwards we went to a little zoo up on the same mountain, which was expectedly small, but had some surprisingly exotic animals… and racoons.

We’re heading to New York this weekend. Should be an exciting trip; I’ve got some fun stuff lined up. I’ll tell you all about it next time.

The world of subjective taste is full of pretentiousness. For some reason people think there is an objective standard to personal opinion. If you’re personal opinion doesn’t match mine then you are a degenerate. That’s poppycock! Interestingly, while personal opinions are not objective, their existence in a way is objective. If I like eating Quesoritos from Taco Bell or Beef ‘n Cheddar sandwiches from Arby’s that’s just the way it is (in fact you could even argue that in many ways I’m biologically programmed to like it). You can’t declare pineapples don’t belong on pizza just because you don’t like it (shut up Gordon Ramsay). You can’t say country music sucks just because it’s not your cup o’ tea.

Indeed there are objective measure by we can assess matters of taste. With food you can talk about the balance of flavors, chemical composition, and nutritional value. With music, you can talk about rhythms and patterns, chords and dynamics. These are quantifiable aspects that we can use describe what we like about something and explain why we think that is good. But in the end, much of our taste depends on our experience and on culture, which is pretty much impossible to quantify.

So go ahead and enjoy the things you enjoy, and let others do the same.

And if you’re not happy with that then know that in the long term the “good stuff” will prevail, just hope you’re on the right side of history.

If you think about it, everything that ever happens, anywhere, at any time, is based on chance. All the interactions going on in our bodies that keep us alive have some component of randomness to them. Yet all of it is extremely reliable, not because we are all constantly winning some type of biological lottery, but because the environment in our body (through years and years of evolution) is set-up to make those interaction more favorable.

So it is in our day to day experience. We can’t necessarily change the rules or guarantee a specific outcome, but we can increase the odds in our favor. Sometimes that means doing a little more research, practicing a little harder, going a little further. Eventually, winning that lottery doesn’t seem so impossible; in fact it becomes the statistically probable outcome (except for the actual lottery, no way to increase your chances on that, sorry).

I finished Stiff the other day. The book, especially the last 2 chapters really make me think about what to do with my (or with anyone’s [not in a murdery type of of way]) body after I die. Organ donation is a given, but what about the rest?

The author Mary Roach went on some pretty interesting journey’s talking to some pretty unique people. She met with the creator of a novel funerary practice of freezing bodies in liquid nitrogen, breaking the frozen bodies down with ultrasound, freeze drying them and then using them to supply nutrients say a young apple tree.

Yes, basically composting of humans. Roach mentions that this idea isn’t exactly new, but this process is, and a efficient, expedient, and pretty dignified (in my opinion) one at that. To some it may sound brutal, impersonal, and perhaps disrespectful, and I now there is a existential and/ or theological conversation to be had here, but how is it worse than traditional burial or cremation.

Naturally decaying bodies aren’t pretty and I imagine burning ones aren’t better.

Cemeteries take up land that could be used for better things and cremation is just a wasteful (in both energy used and energy lost).

The freeze/dry/plant method is quick and clean. Plus the end result is a beautiful tree made from some of the same molecules as your loved one that is a living memorial and could live (and contribute to) several human lifetimes. Something to think about.