nANIMOv

First of all shout-out to Alfred Arizala for kickstarting his podcast. Super proud of you, keep doin’ work. If you want some cool motivational insights check out the In The Pocket Podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or Google Podcasts.

So in one episode, Alfred talks a bit about having had performance anxiety, and how one of his teachers said to him, “You know you deserve to be here.” And for him that phrase really stuck with him and made him think. His behaviors didn’t change overnight, but his mentality started evolving.

I think everyone to some extent want to hear those words, whether it be a literal utterance or through actions.

You deserve to be here.

It says that you are enough, that you belong, that you are worth it. It’s an affirmation of one’s existence.

Anyways, I was about to go to sleep tonight, until I watched my other friend’s, Beau’s Instagram story. She was telling the story of how she stood up to someone who was doing something she thought wasn’t right. She “deserved to be there”, she deserved to be heard.

To tell the truth I think everyone “deserves to be here,” everyone deserves a platform to be heard, even that guy who I agree was in the wrong. I’m tempted to think that “wrong” ideas should not have a platform, but without getting into a whole ‘nother discussion of what is right and what is wrong, the only way we can right wrongs is if all ideas can be brought out into the open. We can fix problems that we don’t know exists.

The guy that Beau stood up to the other night may or may not end change his ways, but I can guarantee you that because she said something he and likely others thought about it. That’s where change happens, at points of tension. So whatever your thing is, whether it’s podcasting, dancing, vlogging, photographing, or just talking, put yourself out there, ’cause you deserve to be here. The world is not gonna change itself.

re·sil·ience (/rəˈzilyəns/)
noun
1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

I think this is probably the public enemy number 1 when it comes to doing meaningful work. Meaningful work usually doesn’t come easy. It means trying and failing… a lot. Failure is demoralizing; it makes you feel like shit and we try to avoid that feeling as much as possible. The ironic thing is that feeling usually means progress.

In biology, the resilience of an ecosystem is highly dependent on the biodiversity of that ecosystem. The more different types of organisms and roles that an ecosystem possesses, the more resistant it is to changes and trauma. If something bad happens to one species, there are others species present to fill in the resulting role-gaps, in some cases giving time for that species to recover or changing the ecosystem profile without changing ecosystem function, preventing systemic collapse.

We can apply a similar logic to our own resilience. If we expose ourselves to diverse experiences and perspectives the more prepared we will be for whatever comes our way. On the other hand, if we go through life with a single point of view, the more likely a singular difficult event will result in personal collapse. And while we’re kind of on the subject we should also try to prevent actual ecosystem collapse. More on that later.

Dreams are weird. They can be so vivid and specific about certain details, yet completely blurry on others. Sometimes it feels like someone is trying to tell me something. It’s almost like in old cartoons when you could tell an object was going to be interacted with because it looked slightly different from everything else (often having a bolder outline or more fine details, or both). Anyways, I had a dream last night where I made up this game, I won’t recount all the weird details of the narrative of dream, but the game is tentatively called Zombie Tag:

The game starts off with maybe 5 people at least. Everyone is zombie except one person. It starts off kind of like hide-n-go-seek, except in reverse. The zombies stay put, and the one person goes and hides. After however long, say 30 seconds the zombies go out and try to find the “survivor.” Zombies can only walk forward, no clumping up and walking back to back. If the survivor gets caught and is tagged by just one zombie he’s dead and the game is over. Simple enough right? Here’s the kicker, the survivor has the zombie “cure” and if he can sneak up on a zombie and tag them without getting tagged himself, that zombie is cured and becomes a survivor, AND the original survivor imbues the new survivor with the ability to cure other zombies. HOWEVER, at this point if any survivor is caught by a zombie they are dead and out of the game (cured people can’t get the zombie disease duh). The game continues until everyone left alive is cured or until everyone is dead or undead. Survivors MUST tag without getting tagged themselves. If zombie and a survivor go head-to-head, face-to-face, the zombie wins and the survivor dies. But say a survivor is distracting a zombie and another survivor sneaks up behind and tags her the zombie is cured. So the win conditions are:

1. Zombies win if all survivors are dead.
2. Survivors win if all zombies are cured.

This means that the last zombie standing wins when the survivors win. BUT if the only active players are one zombie and one survivor, that zombie is the winner and the survivor dies (no doesn’t become an agility showdown).

Also notice in neither case did I say the dead-dead win. If you were at any point a survivor and you died, you lose.

And that’s it. Make sense? This was all in a dream so I haven’t had a chance to actually play it using real world rules (no flying), but I feel like it could be fun. Though it also may need some balancing. Maybe the cured zombies shouldn’t be able to cure other zombies. Maybe zombies are only allowed to walk. Depending on the size of the group, maybe there should be more than one survivor at the start. Maybe dead survivors are reanimated as zombies after X seconds.

While I don’t I could find enough people to actually play this with it was fun to think about.

The end.

This whole thing with Spider-Man and Sony vs Marvel is relevant to my last post. One of the points I was trying to make is that in social media and on the internet in general we are so eager to give our opinion and be a part of the conversation that we take a stance without really knowing what we’re standing on. Most people are upset with Sony for not making the deal here. Understandable. This recent iteration of Spider-Man was perhaps the most beloved so far, even getting a strong stamp of approval by Stan Lee. And I think most people associated this Spider-Man with Disney more than they did Sony, especially with him being in the Avengers movies, with him being a Marvel character, and with the relationship they developed with RDJ’s Iron Man (RIP). So it can seem like it’s Sony who is ripping this beautiful Spider-Man away from us.

When it comes down to it, this is a battle between two businesses who likely don’t give a damn about what the people want, or if they do it’s not top priority. Here’s the proposed deal: 50/50 stake in Spider-Man, with Kevin Feige (of Marvel/ Disney) at the helm. Disney is a monstrous beast and knew they could strongarm Sony: “Give us control of Spider-Man, or we’ll make the world will hate you.” Sounds quite villainous no? And it worked. Sony didn’t give in, and people starting hating on them.

While Disney owns Marvel and Marvel is Spider-Man’s home (are the movie titles getting some extra meaning now or is it just me?), I also don’t consider Disney-Marvel Spider-Man’s true home. It’s one of the homes that’s made to look like your home, but it’s too perfect, and if you step out of line, shit’s gonna go down. Even Stan Lee’s daughter came out in defense of Sony and saying it’s what her father would have wanted. Sony could have swallowed their pride and say “Fuck it, let’s give the people what they want,” but just like Disney, they are a business, and I don’t think they would part with their most successful franchise that easily. It’s nothing personal to all us fans, it’s just business.

Again I think it’s important to be a part of the conversation and to take sides (especially on issues that ACTUALLY MATTER [stay tuned for my post on that]), but it’s always good to take a second and get informed, or at least be open-minded enough to change your thoughts or your beliefs when you get new information.

Every once in a while I see a post go viral on social media with some headline like, This Math Problem has the Internet Stumped!!! And it’s always more or less the same problem with slight variation. But the reason the internet is stumped is not because the problem is difficult. Everyone is responding to the problem all matter-a-factly like they know the right answer. It usually looks something like this:

8 ÷ 2(2 + 2) = ?

Regardless of what you think the answer is and what I think the answer is, this is just a stupid problem. No self-respecting math person would present this math problem as is. Math is a tool to think about ideas and the world and is only useful to the extent that it clearly communicates those ideas. This problem doesn’t do that. If someone wrote this expecting someone to correctly solve it he or she probably isn’t a math person because any reasonable person would make it clear and totally unambiguous the order in which the operations should be done. But I don’t think that’s the case, these are probably written with the intention of confusing people and causing a fuss, which based on my reaction they obviously succeeded at (plus math problems outside of real-world context/ application I think are silly [though not necessarily unimportant]).

A lot of people grow up being afraid of math because it’s confusing and ambiguous, and stuff like this perpetuates that idea. In my opinion math is actually one of the most straightforward and logical disciplines, because we essentially made it. It’s a tool made for humans by humans. There’s a fundamental truth behind it that is kind of beautiful because at its core it requires no underlying assumption or beliefs, math just is. Numbers are just ideas, and the relationships between those ideas just are. No amount of time, or cultural evolution, or research can really change the basic principles of math.

Anyways there was another problem that went viral recently because a mom was asking for help on her second graders homework. It goes like this:

“There are 49 dogs signed up to compete in the dog show. There are 36 more small dogs than large dogs signed up to compete. How many small dogs are signed up to compete?”

This one is a little different because it does have a correct answer. The wording is pretty clear, and yet full grown adults, even some self-proclaimed teachers would confidently declare,”The answer is 36, it’s a trick question! Why is this even an issue!?!” That my friends is the issue right there. I think based on the fact that this is intended for second graders and on the context of the problem, people are primed to think that this problem is simpler than it is. I don’t blame them too much, but I think we all could benefit from slowing down every once in a while. As written the answer is 42.5 which doesn’t make sense based on presented situation, but that is the only correct answer. Yes it’s great to be part of the conversation and it’s great to share your thoughts, but let’s try to share quality thoughts, and maybe save us all some time and energy in the process.

What things are worth investing in? How do we determine what has value and what doesn’t? It’s all almost completely subjective. Even money, the standard by which we value things, only has value because everyone agrees it does.

My 13 year old cause just bought a pair of $300 shoes. Personally, I don’t think I could every justify such a purchase, but I can’t blame him. Obviously to him, those shoes were worth every penny. I’m sure in my life I’ve placed value in things that may be equally unfathomable to others, but to each his own right?

So then what is it I value? I have a whole year to do almost anything I want, the question is what should I do? What should I invest in? Right now I’m working, but my job lets me work remotely. I want to use that freedom and move around a bit and do things that I won’t really get a chance to do when medical school starts. But I have no idea where to start. If you have any tips, pointers, or suggestion please do reach out. I’d be happy to hear from you <3.

I was working in the coffee shop today and this couple took a seat at the table next to me. They didn’t seem to be a romantic couple (yet), but more like old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. They sat there for a long time catching up. The conversation flowed quite nicely. Heck there were times that I wanted to jump in, but I restrained myself. I thought to myself, Why can’t more conversations be like that? Maybe it’s ’cause I can be a bit socially awkward at times, but thinking of stuff to say can be hard at times, and I am very comfortable with silence.

I’ve got a bad habit of always responding to the titular question with, “Not much. How ’bout you?” Similar to “How are you?” (see my post on that here), the response has become so automated that even if there is something new I won’t say it because my Pavlovian response comes out first. Even if it has become a standard greeting and a perhaps lazy attempt to gain access into another’s personal life, it is still an attempt, and I would like to respond in earnest. Can I really not think of anything new that has happened to me since the last time I’ve seen this person? Either I need to think a little harder or need to do more new things, both of which could only be good. But also don’t ask those questions if you don’t really care about the answer. We should be mindful of our attempts to strengthen our interpersonal relationships.

So here’s to actually thinking of stuff to say when people ask things like that, even if they aren’t expecting it, ’cause they should.

I’ve been slacking quite a bit these past few weeks. I don’t really have a good reason. Writing something every day isn’t hard, writing something good every day can be. But I’m not trying to write good (get it?), I’m just trying to write. Writing is free, it just requires a time investment, but even the size of that investment is totally up to me. What holds me back is either me getting caught up with something else and I forget, or I can’t think of something to write. Or a lot of times I can think of something to write, but as I write it or as I think about it, I realize how vulnerable I would make myself by publishing it. Sometimes I don’t even want to go back and proofread because I think I’ll chicken out as I reread it. Not many people read this, but the ones that I know who do, I consider pretty close to me. Even though those people may know a lot about me already, there some things that I struggle to say outloud or even type out. Telling someone what I believe or how I feel is a risk. There no way to predict another person’s reaction perfectly. What if what I say jeopardizes that relationship?

I consider myself a pretty understanding, empathetic, and open-minded person, so if someone comes at me with an opposing viewpoint I feel like I would try to make them feel heard, even if I don’t agree with them in the end. The thing is I don’t think most people are like that. I’m not trying to be self-righteous, that’s just what I’ve experienced. Many people are willing to be heard (they love that shit), but not many are as willing to listen.

I want this to be a space where I can voice my opinions and thoughts, and if people want to have a real discussion about it they should engage with me. It’s uncomfortable to bring beliefs out in the open, and it’s uncomfortable to have those beliefs be challenged, but that’s the only way we can move towards understanding and truth.

The idea of “the Forms,” a la Plato, has always been interesting to me. My understanding is that at its simplest, it says that everything in reality is based on some ideal, true, form of which reality is merely a shadow (literally in the famous allegory of the cave). This brings some type of objectivity to our world that may otherwise might be absent. Of course it depends on whether or not you believe in such forms.

Anyways, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about forms as we may apply them to ourselves. We all have this picture of our ideal self, in our ideal life. What does that look like? And what steps get us closer to that realization.

I’m struggling on what to write next though, because there is a bit of a paradox. Maintaining this idea of a form creates an expectation-reality gap. But what if part of the form I envision form myself includes self-acceptance. Can I be happy with myself, but still want to improve? The ardent optimist/ possiblist in me says of course you can! Wanting to improve can mean accepting yourself now, but wanting better for yourself in the future. But doesn’t that imply discontent in the present? If I ever get to where I want to be will that be enough? Just like with the forms our reality maintains an asymptotic relationship with our ideal self, it can get closer and closer, but never truly reach it. But again that depends on what you believe.

Here’s where I think I land, and literally this is just my thoughts as they are coming to me, I haven’t thought about it this way before: The current form I had in mind was one without discontent. It assumed that acceptance means fully content, but that is not the case. Just like you can’t have happy without sad, courage without fear, etc; satisfaction/ being content requires a conception of dissatisfaction. Acceptance is the acknowledgement of that duality, and the duality (or plurality) of all things.