I guess this is normal, being rejected all of the time. Being rejected in the biggest and smallest ways. The unreciprocated enthusiasm at a dinner table, the “while we enjoyed getting to know you” email from a potential employer, when eye contact starts to waver when the next new shiny thing appears through the door, the “no, thanks” email from a reporter, the unanswered text message. Every day we go through rejections, and I wonder if it’s only now that I’ve started to realize them or if they have been more frequent than before. Once you start to realize one of them, you start to really feel each one. Every uninterested look at a party, each passive smile—makes you feel smaller and smaller until you couldn’t bear to give out a part of yourself again. 

When you’re without inspiration for too long, you forget that it’s missing. 

In tough times like these, moments of inspiration are fleeting. I forget what it feels like until it washes over me—a sea of calm yet exhilaration that makes me want to plop down at a coffee shop and write anything, produce anything. 

Today, I experienced it being in the presence of a client I met today, an older dusty gentleman who was formerly a journalist and is now a forever storyteller. I can’t explain it…the charm has to do with his lankiness, his fitted yet clumsy-looking suit, his preference for the paper and pencil, the way he wanted to show us old black and white photos of the Asia Society groundbreaking—but didn’t harp on for too long. 

I find something about people like him incredibly calming. Removed from the eccentricities of the world today, with our jargon and overeagerness to be the loudest and quickest. He’s slower yet commands respect from people. Even the word “command” is too much; he draws it out. He lightly encourages it. He’s self-depracating and this doesn’t cause the hyenas in the room to go crazy and seize the moment to take him down. In fact, his authority is so permeant that he can bring others up with him, like the sad chief-of-staff who continuously looked around for approval after everything she said. 

What makes me happy? 

The perennial question. I realize that I am TOO open-minded sometimes. I have no guardrails in an effort to be open-minded. But that makes me crazy, and naturally all my walls start caving in—to the point that I am more closed-off than others. Or at least quietly frustrated. 

I’m taking cues from moments like today. What makes me happy? What makes me happy? What makes me happy? What makes me happy? What makes me happy? 

The puzzle pieces that I earn after earning the answer to this question one by one, moment by moment…are the guardrails. 

Today’s puzzle piece is a person like Tom. Need to wrap my head around this more to be able to properly attach words to him. 

This weekend I yet again spent some time trying to internalize and comprehend sadness—more specifically, disappointment. Here are a few observations that may get me closer to understanding although, as you’ll see, perhaps there’s no such thing…it’s the pursuit…

1. When I’m sad, I retreat to soft lyrics and quotes that I previously would have dismissed. One in particular touched me very deeply: 

“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” (Sarah Kay)

The key word here is “beautiful”—not sad, not embarrassing, not pathetic. 

Today I’m listening to live albums of Hillsong United and the Shins (last night it was old school Korean ballads of the Reply 1988 aesthetic).

2. I crave the ocean. Or maybe I just crave the idea? Because I can’t bring myself to travel 1.5-2 hours to the Rockaways. Plus that wouldn’t be the same. And once again I am contemplating the idea of getting a tattoo that represents the ocean, so I never have to be too far from it. So that I can somehow own or capture that beast. 

3. Everybody deals with sadness in different ways, and retreating to methods that you see in media can actually make you sadder (read: expectations vs reality). In the heat of the sadness and embarrassment, my reaction is to reach out to friends, maybe grab a drink, or maybe just a dinner, maybe I need to talk it out. But upon taking a beat, I realize this is not for me. I would be too concerned about my being bad company that I wouldn’t be able to marinate in my own sadness, and marinate I must. Pushing it away means that when it comes back (it always done) the pain will be compounded. So, I go about it alone. 

4. It’s essential to keep moving for me. Which is not a healthy tactic, I am willing to fully admit. When I received news that I didn’t get the job, I couldn’t get up from my desk. I couldn’t stop looking at my computer screen. I couldn’t. I knew the moment I did I wouldn’t be able to come back. Miles to go before I sleep. It descended upon me when I was at the gym the following day, running a little more intensely than my usual. Suddenly—the pain of the running compounded whatever was also brewing in my heart (that I was trying so hard to compress) that I almost wept and had to get off the treadmill after a measly 15 minutes. Inconclusive. 

And that’s mostly it. But, I am sure everything happens for a reason. That is really the one thing that genuinely gives me peace. Feigned, reluctant peace. 

The idea that Facebook should be blamed for influencing the election cycle is a very weak and faulted one. And, upon further thought, when Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook is not a media machine (and everyone laughed) it was not completely inaccurate. Facts alone: not a media machine. In the wider context of how people consume info today: yes, a machine, but the sort that relays stuff and doesn’t actually create them. Yields some influence in the content that it spits out but, largely a reflection of the people that use it. 

And yes, that is most certainly what people like to use Facebook for. They WANT to see themselves reflected in the stuff they share. I share articles that are grossly liberal because I want people to know what I stand for and, for what it’s worth, ensure that some of the dipshit friends I have on my feed at least have the opportunity to glance on a headline before posting a picture about their house party last weekend. Anyway. It’s what we want. We share things and follow people on social media that we like. Rarely are those people with different opinions. That’s natural and not something to be ashamed about.

I’m not sure if we are ashamed, but I think it is implied in the way we talk about how we played ourselves by letting our social media dictate our news intake. what else are we supposed to be doing on social media? 

But to criticize Facebook for giving us what we want is bullshit. What Marky Z should’ve done was acknowledge Facebook’s role in today’s context but clearly state the facts. And people, though we can’t depend on them to carry this civic duty, need to find it within themselves to stay woke to all viewpoints.

Now I think that is a VERY tall order, but we can’t pin it on social media. Because if we want them to start giving us all points of view, that’s fine, but then they are becoming a content machine and that’s not what we wanted in the first place.

People, take five minutes out of your day to read the news—credible news that sometimes goes against what you and your friends think—and we wouldn’t be playing this silly little blame game. 

Sometimes I will get bouts of love for New York. It is a quiet but profound feeling, often experienced walking home from work or in a conversation with a friend. It only comes every once in a while—let’s say a couple months to really strip out the romance in it. But every time it comes, it sustains until the next time it comes again.

Recently, I have been looking at my INTJ profile again. Sometimes I need to read it to validate my existence and make me not feel so bad about being who I am. It is as sad as it sounds. 

Reading it, I came to the conclusion that I demand a lot from myself and from other people. It’s not necessarily a superiority thing either, because it’s not like I’m much better off than those who aren’t like me. In fact, I find it rather crippling—both professionally and personally. In any case, I feel like there are a few specific peculiarities about being this way. One huge one is that I am a principles person. Everything I think about is on principle. That is why it is often hard for me to forgive and forget. Because on principle, that person should not have that done that. And on principle, it’s not okay that Trump said those things, even though it seems like he is softening his tone post-election. Because on principle, what he has said was racist and misogynistic (did not mean to get political there—I had this conversation with my friends last night and one of them, usually a very non-combative person, got a little combative with me for being so hard-headed about him). And unless he directly and explicitly apologizes for those things instead of blowing past them or softening his tone around them, it will not be okay with me. Crippling, right? 

Anyway, I think differently from a lot of people and often this is tiring for me and for others. It is always on a whole other level, one that goes too deep. But that is why I am glad to be in New York.

That is the thought I had walking past Super Emporium a couple days ago. If I had stayed in California, would I have been allowed to fully explore—and therefore, realize—this part of me? This very, very essential part of me? 

I’m not sure that I would have. 

New York has made me feel so alone. It has made me feel so insecure. And from that madness I was able to realize a lot of who I am. 

I also had this thought, though: has New York made me a worse person? 

A fair question—something a lot of people claim. I’m not sure. I think yes off the top of my head, but would I be a better person? I guess the problem lies with the words worse and better, and how people would define it. I guess I would rather be a worse person—a crankier, slightly neurotic, huff-and-puff, impatient, argumentative—than a better person. A better person in this scenario is someone who is not necessarily concerned with all of the tribulations, all the principles. They easily forgive and forget. They accept things as they come. I think these people are capable of being like me, but they are interesting in that they do not want to tap into it. Or, some people are not even aware that exists. I guess it is a choice.

Anyway, I am glad for the freedom that New York has given me. The freedom of thought, the freedom that comes with an unlimited Metro card. Cushioned in the safe, sunny and sleepy veneer of Southern California, surrounded by the people and streets that I know, I would have been happier, maybe better. But I would not know the world. 

Since we are one and a half months away from the new year (lol), I want to start counting down the “best of”-s of this year. 

2016 was the first year I feel like I can hold in my hand and examine holistically. Past years, I would look back in December and have no idea how to characterize it or what that timeline even looks like. Where were the peaks and the valleys? Did I change to my own accord or did I meld into the people and the effects of the events around me? Was I ever in control?

2016 had very distinct phases.

Keep reading

I title this one “because of course” because, of course. 

I will be selfish and talk about my life in the midst of all this post-election drama. I will describe many of the setbacks in my life as “because of course” moments. Of course my clients aren’t looking at me but only at my white male colleagues. Of course I have to speak louder. Of course my manager would turn to the white girl next to me to shoot the shit, bypassing me. Because of course. And all of these microaggressions, all of these small moments that are the biggest blows to my self-confidence and sense of self-worth, are the awkward, niche instances that are hard to talk about without apologizing for them before. Because of course. 

Of course Hillary didn’t become president. She has worked so relentlessly, from the Senate to once-failed attempt for nominee to Secretary and finally…finally…nominee! History, made. But of course. The emails. The Clinton Foundation. False equivalency. Because of course. 

I don’t know how to articulate this clearly but I see so much of myself in her. It’s never been an easy path. She is a white woman who is very wealthy, so not lots of synergies between her and me. Let’s focus on woman though. 

Witnessing her political career, I’ve felt so close to her. Everything is a struggle. Every move she makes is SUCH a struggle. She is bypassed. She is dissected. She is the overachieving student in class that is so prepared that her teachers find her boring and uninteresting. They’re more interested in the louder, flashier kid with the carefree persona. He’s a C student but he is fun and gives the teacher material to talk about at dinner. She is an A student but she is an old soul, not very exciting. People smile at her but they do not understand her or see her. And when she makes a small error, she is punished. He gets a warning, followed by a wink. 

Every time she got dinged, it was that familiar feeling of “you know you can do better—do better.” They do not understand that she has already compensated, and so much more.