Thoughts on Performing and Value (What We Want)

I've been thinking a lot about performing after taking Liquid Flow, doing Gaieties, and going to Spoken Word shows. In the Liquid Flow, the instructor emphasized heavily how we should "dance through life" starting from the first day. At first, I had an eyeroll reaction to that sentiment because of how cliche'd it was. However, it became rather clear that her idea of what dance entails is far broader than what I had previously associated with the word dance.

To me, dancing meant intentional physical movement for the purpose of exhibition. It's what people do on on stages when you go see a dance show. To dance through life, then, would be to constantly be putting on an exhibition for people, and that sounds absolutely exhausting. It sounds exhausting and scary because, like all live entertainment (from dance to music to figure skating and ski jumps and whatnot), your final delivery is under complete scrutiny of the audience, and in that final delivery, and all of your hard work could pay off or all go to waste in the blink of an eye. In fact, when I found out that N- and K- were ESFPs, often called "The Performers," I felt a combination of pity and utmost respect that they lived for that kind of pressure.

Okay sure. Maybe the way I've engaged in performing arts in the years leading up to college, that's been the case. Between grade school orchestra classes and private cello or piano competitions, that has been precisely the nature of the performances I've been a part of. I've been assigned grades or scores or the like. There's been winners and losers, first stands and second stands and then everyone else.

It's funny how nicely that analogizes to how many people think about value, where value is defined as what they want. For both value and performance, we construct some system to quantify it that is misaligned with how we should think about them.

For value, we've constructed the system of currency. We quantify value in these monetary ways, and we are encultured to associate economic value with what we want when in fact, what we want is happiness and fulfillment. That's not to say that we should be naive and think that you can be supremely happy having no economic wealth; on the contrary, you'd probably starve to death. But it is to say that, past some threshold, that system falls apart. There is plenty of research that shows that happiness does not continue to grow with income past some threshold. I'd say this actually is consistent across all layers of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in that, once you're x% satisfied with your security at a particular level, you get diminishing returns in subjective well-being within that category.

I think what's hard to grasp is that layers in Maslow's Hierarchy can actually be contradictory to each other. An obvious example is charity. Charity is often consistent with morality (self-actualization needs) and leads to getting respect by others (esteem needs), yet is inherently detrimental to security of resources (safety needs). You're spending money on something else, how could you!

The problem is that we are taught to address (and, at a neurobiological level, can only comprehend or grapple with) the needs in the bottom-up order in Maslow's Hierarchy. By the time we have the cognitive functions to do abstract thinking (starts at 11-12 years old or so, and finishes developing at 25 or so), we're already so ingrained into thinking about the world with preference on a particular layer. By the time I am old enough to think about my esteem and self-actualization needs, I probably have been taught for 20 years to strive for a high-paying job. If I get a $60000/yr job, aim for an $80000/yr promotion. If I get that, then go for the $100000. At no point am I helped to the realization that continuing to pursue my safety needs are going to get me diminishing returns, and actually inhibit me meeting my higher needs! True value is not actually zero-sum, whereas the metric of economic value is! When you help out at a food kitchen, you could be satisfying your esteem and self-actualization needs while satisfying someone else's physiological needs, for instance.

For performances, we've similarly constructed the system of objective assessment, or at least that's how I had been taught to think about performance. When there are winners and losers, performance becomes just as zero-sum, and the currency is the mechanics or technical prowess. I hated that. I quit cello because I was so frustrated by my orchestra class. In fact, I did this against the advice I was given by counselors and my parents: one of the oft-cited reasons for doing music through middle school and high school seems to be that it helps get into college. How dry is that? It totally sucks away all of the best parts of performance.

Through Liquid Flow, pretty much any way in which we moved our bodies with conviction the instructor considered dance. On the day of our final performance, she gave us all a pep talk before we began the show, and she told us that she loves to perform because it is one of the selfless things. It is not selfish, like trying to make more money, or being the center of attention. To her, it involved inspiring the audience, and whether that was an actual formal audience at a show or a classroom of ragtag students from various walks of their student careers just trying to dabble in dance it didn't matter.

I didn't get it at the time, but I think I finally know what she means. Dance, and performance in general, is an invitation. It is something you extend to an audience, and they can choose to accept or ignore. If they accept, you as a performer and them as the audience form a team in an effort to create an extraordinary experience. As a performer, it's all about what you can do for the audience, how to touch their lives for those short minutes (or hours if you're lucky), and how you can move them emotionally or physically or spiritually.

When it comes to formal shows, the actual "performance" mindset starts well before the actual show; it involves countless hours carefully crafting an experience with the audience in mind, much of which goes unnoticed, culminating in one short-lived but spectacular exhibition. No need to worry about how technically sound your performance is; for them to show up to the show, they've already accepted your invitation, and they're there to help. Case in point: the snapping at Spoken Word when people forget their lines.

To dance through life, therefore, is to constantly live and behave openly in a way where the invitation  to create something that defies zero-sumness is always there for someone to take. I think that's exactly how people like N-, K-, people in SBS, Spoken Word, and many people in Gaieties regard performance, whether consciously or not. And when that's what performance is, I love it. I always want to be extending that invitation, and I always want to be around people who will extend that invitation to me, and when I am I always want to accept it.

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Just a housekeeping note. I might have to get surgery in my eye. There's something wrong with the meibomian glands in my right eye that led to the eye infection from a few months ago and the inflammation from late last winter/early spring quarter.

Convergence

"College is an opportunity to stand outside the world for a few years, between the orthodoxy of your family and the exigencies of career, and contemplate things from a distance." -William Deresiewicz, in Don't Send Your Kid to the Ivy League

While the merits of the article is a totally different conversation, that line itself is among the most profound framings of what college is for that I've heard. It doesn't excuse irresponsible behavior, but it also doesn't advocate any one course of action as the responsible course of action.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means for behavior to be considered emotionally mature. There are many people I consider emotionally mature, but their behavior vary so widely that it really doesn't narrow anything down. For instance, I have a lot of respect for both A- and R- because they both seem to have a remarkably keen level of self-awareness and it seems so effortless on their part (which I understand it might not actually be). However, what they actually do are so vastly different--how do I reconcile that for some people, [responsibly and intelligently] indulging in parties and hookup culture is very consistent with what emotional maturity is for them, while for others staying in and introspecting or reading or having long, meaningful conversations is their manifestation of emotional maturity? Which is it for me?

On the other hand, there are people whose lives are more or less "figured out" by common standards such as income and job security, but honestly seem so juvenile to me. My dad for instance--I feel decades older and wiser than him. The way he handles conflict and confrontation makes me want to go up to him, shake him, and tell him to grow up. I talked to my sister in a heartfelt way for the first time ever (which was incredible and uplifting). She told me about how her relationships were going, how her work was going, and her aspirations after college, even though it was honestly mostly quite bland and stuff I already knew from observing at a distance. In addition, she said that when my dad took her out to dinner for our birthday, he tried to secretly take pictures to send to our grandparents because he didn't want to ask because he was afraid of being turned down.

That's so painful to hear. Thanks to E-, I've gotten to a point where I can see past what my dad did wrong and realize that he's actually just awful at dealing with and confronting emotions, but as his son I'm in no position to try to initiate corrective action. He'd be too prideful to do anything about it now that he's in so deep (i.e. divorced). I wish I could've empathized with him sooner, and maybe communicate that I (and the rest of my family, at least at the time) cared about him. Now, it might be too late. I look forward to the day where I've accomplished something in my life that gives me credibility in how to live, and I can actually go up to him, shake him, and help him grow up. Until then, each conversation with him is a frustrating conversation in which I see things I don't want to be, and it simultaneously helps me avoid his behavior and scares me to death because I share half my biology with him, all the while feeling powerless to help him.

When I think about what it means to be liberated from the constraints of family and the pragmatics of the real world a la the quote above, it certainly doesn't mean act impulsively with no regard to consequences. Instead, it basically means screw up, but only if with a purpose. This is the time during which all of my relationship and career choices leads to low-inertia trajectories, or as if on ice: even the smallest disruptions/decisions will be amplified into significant motion in that particular direction, but can also be easily shifted by further disruptions.

Unfortunately, when I bring this back to the emotional maturity piece, it is at odds with my goals in that regard. I feel that, as a consequence of various circumstances in my life, I've been privy to variety, both in facets of myself and of other people around me. While I don't claim to even come close to having dealt with some of the shit that some people I know have dealt with (K- from Tetris comes to mind), I feel like I've had a non-negligible exposure to assholes and found qualities in myself that disgust me such that I can start to develop heuristics to help me converge on behavior I want to see in myself and people I want to let into my life permanently.

In this sense, I feel old or adult. I feel like I've already gone through the low-inertia stages, but simply not temporally aligned with my college career. As the quote would suggest, everything about the low-inertia nature of young adult life trajectory leads to oscillation away from convergence. This brings me to the next thing I've been thinking about a lot: where my preferences are on the affective circumplex, and what that means about the kinds of interactions I seek with people that occupy different roles in my life.

The affective circumplex         

Before I actually delve into where I currently lie on the circumplex, I feel like there are two obvious but important things to note based on my observations. First, each axis is different for each individual. For one person, biking without a helmet might be a high arousal activity, while for another anything shy of offroad trick biking is low arousal. Secondly, where you lie on the circumplex is not static--it will change throughout life. In general, as people age they tend towards LAP (low arousal positive) over HAP, consistent with socioemotional selectivity theory (SES theory), which states that as people's perceived time horizon shrinks, they narrow the breadth (oscillation) of their social interactions in favor of depth (convergence). Less variation leads to more arousal habituation. But within age cohorts there are large variations, and decay also differs from person to person. Instead, more immediately, life circumstances can have a large bearing on your preference. If you grow up in a shady neighborhood rampant with crime, you will be conditioned to relatively higher levels of arousal.

What remains consistent across all people though, regardless of relative intensities of each axis, is that HAP, whatever it means for them, is not sustainable. By nature of conditioning, repeated instances of the same intensity of stimuli becomes decreasingly less arousing. Just ask any horror movie director.

So where does that leave me, college students, and people in general?

For one, SES theory can be expanded beyond a lifetime as a frame of reference. I've come to realize that, in a sort of fractal-esque behavior, observing smaller phases of one's life reveals similar trends to general aging. There is general change to greater LAP:HAP ratio relative to the initial ratio at the start of that life phase. This includes well-defined and relatively rigid life intervals such as high school and college, but also more fluid intervals such as relationships, job positions, etc. Just as with old age in a lifetime, within particular frames of reference there is a gradual decay in HAP preference, and in transitory periods there is a renewal of HAP preference.

Honestly, I feel like I'm figuring out the things that people generally figure out during a midlife crisis. In both a career and interpersonal relationships realm, I'm thinking critically about what they want at the endpoint of everything (when everything converges), rather than employing a greedy algorithm as I go through day-to-day life. When it comes to career, I've discovered that I don't need a fast-paced work environment the same way a canonical Millenial does. Similarly, the relationships I've had with people in LAP-oriented stages of their lives have deepened, while I've had a (relative) falling out with people who seem far more HAP-seeking.

Why is that exactly? For me, I think it has something to do with the nature of LAP and HAP activities. LAP activities are inherently unsexy compared to HAP activities. Independently reading books quietly with someone or brushing teeth together (without any I'm-rubbing-toothpaste-playfully-on-your-face shenanigans, ahem romcoms) is far less of a Kodak moment than is a surprise scavenger hunt or a tropical getaway vacation. The number of people I have the desire to (which often translates to patience for, as awful as that sounds) share LAP moments with is far fewer than the number of people I want to engage in HAP activities with. The causes or companies I'm willing to do mundane work for because I so completely believe in the cause or company is fewer than the number of companies who have sexy, exciting new products.

In that sense, convergent routine is incredibly counter-intuitive. What I've come to realize all too late, and what my dad failed to understand, is that the absence of the rainbows-and-butterflies of HAP is not a sign that the magic is gone. A job or a relationship is unhealthy when the only present quadrants are LAN, HAN, and HAP. Contrarily, if you can find LAP, hang on and never let go. The desire and willingness to be together even if it is "only" LAP is the magic! I wish I knew this earlier, but even so I anticipate this being invaluable going forward in my relationship and career endeavors.

To answer a question A- posed to me while in SF this weekend on my birthday, by the end of my college career I want to know the types of work and find the people with whom there's a symbiotic, mutual desire to share LAP, and then make sure they know it. In fact, if I achieve this ever, even if it takes another two decades (or eight more), I'll consider my life well-lived. But apparently from others' perspective, there's an element of the-sooner-the-better; maybe that's where my flavor of emotional maturity is pushing me. I was watching a video from a friend of mine, and in S-'s words as she saw how I was reacting: "There are some people who you see the way they respond to kids and you think 'You need to have children right now.' You're one of them. They'd make you so happy." While I've certainly entertained thoughts like 'what kind of father do I want to be?', a more generalized interpretation of S-'s statement is consistent with something I've realized: that I can comfortably join in on conversations about marriage with my late-20s through mid-30s coworkers and project forward my imagination and empathize with a parent delighting in his toddler to the point that a statement like S-'s would be made means I've been incredibly lucky to have had the people and environments, for better or worse, in my life that's led to the relative clarity I [seem to] have about my life.

The key words of the previous paragraph is, as the boldface suggests, making sure they (people, job) knows that they occupy a place in your life of such depth and importance. Unlike HAP, the inherently mundane, routine, unsexy nature of LAP means that is not a beacon that broadcasts easily detectable emotions. If you look at the circumplex, which emotion is easier to detect, serene or excited? Clearly excited, but serene is more positive! The detectability of positive (and negative) emotions isn't necessarily correlated with their magnitude of positivity (and negativity)!

For two entities to realize their willingness, even eagerness to share LAP activities together, that requires taking a pretty big risk to say so and even more effort to make sure the true weight of it is heard. There certainly isn't a guarantee that the risk and effort will pay off--chances are, it won't. In every realm, be it family, or career, or friendship, or romance, for every person with a wild success story there must be dozens more with only-partial successes, but even then it's a success! Intent matters! When it comes down to it, the risk and effort pales in comparison to guaranteed failure. Don't be left with the pain of thinking it, meaning it with all your heart, and never truly showing it, because you might not get another chance to, and it won't matter how much you continue to mean it with all your heart. That shit hurts.

At peace

I like this image.

Physically sick as I was this week, I can't remember the last time I've been in such a peaceful state of mind. Turned what certainly would've been an eternal regret into a meaningful conversation.

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

One of the wonderful people I sing with posted a definition from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and it is so great. They are so deep and thought-provoking. I like that kind of stuff and the kinds of people who like that kind of stuff.

Dad's Postcard and Care Package

My dad insisted on driving me to the airport, just like he insisted on dropping me off at Stanford before the school year started. He's back from his business trip to China (perhaps "business trip" to "China") now. He gave me a postcard with a penguin on a polar bear that, in a nutshell, said:

It made me sad to see you and your sister fight.

The divorce will be legally processed by the end of the month, and afterwards I will be going overseas and who knows what your mom will be doing. Both of us are in poor physical health. For all you know, the two of you might be the closest family either of you have shortly. You guys should get along.

I have one New Years' wish. I wish you guys would add me on Facebook. You guys are 18 now, I'm not trying to control your life. Please add me so I can know how you guys are doing.

Know that your mom and I will always love you very very much. You can always talk to us about anything.

Love, Dad 1/5/12

And my thoughts about it? Fuck you dad. It makes you SAD to see us fight? Boo frickin hoo. How do you think it makes us feel when you and mom fight, hmm? Both of you are in poor physical health? Maybe if you and mom stayed together, lived together, and looked out for each other like you had for the 16 years before my junior year, like my mom did for you when she saved your life in Michigan. And don't you use Facebook friendship as a starting point for repairing the damaged father-child relationship. If you want to get on better terms with us, you better talk to us, face to face, and tell us honestly everything you've done for the past two years, like we've beckoned you to do on numerous occasions. Maybe then we'll start to open up to you and trust you again. It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt on anything when you've cheated on mom. It sounds resentful, but it will take much more effort than social networking to set you on the right path again. I don't like holding grudges, but I feel justified, for myself and for mom, in holding this grudge.

~~~~~~~~~~

Today was my second day back to Stanford after winter break and first day of winter quarter. I spent the majority of my day upstairs in K-, K-, and L-'s room, and some time in those hours they had sneaked together, put all of their stuff in a box, packaged it, wrote a meaningful note on origami paper and folded it into a flower, and delivered it to the doorstep of my room. And at midnight, they misled me into thinking they wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother so I'd go downstairs to get my hard drive, and I found it at my doorstep.

At first I had no idea what it was, and I asked my roommate about it, and he didn't say a word about it. He just shrugged even though he knew who was behind it. Very thorough planning on the part of K-, the deliverer. It was addressed to "Larry Lewis Liu" so I was able to narrow it down to a few people who knew about the middle name that K-'s friends gave to me.

I took it upstairs to try to find L-, who I thought was behind it because he said he had a present for me, but to my surprise, there were like 8 people in my RA S-'s room. At that point, I knew whatever was up was a bit bigger scale than I expected. I opened it, and the cardboard flap that opened up from the top the box said "CARE PACKAGE :)"

Turns out, over break, eleven of my dormmates had collaborated and decided they'd each bring me something that represented where they were from. From snacks, to soap, to homemade desserts, to magnets, to a hat (that is arriving in the actual mail soon!), to a book by an author I enjoy. There was a card written in an origami flower that L- folded, in which they each wrote an adjective or descriptive phrase they liked about me. I was speechless. I managed to choke back tears long enough to give everyone a hug and then excuse myself and leave under the guise of bringing the box back downstairs.

I have never felt so warm and loved before. It's an incredible feeling. And they couldn't have given it to me at a time when I needed it more. I was at an emotional low after cleaning out my room in preparation for selling our house, going over divorce paperwork with my mom, and my dad's postcard in the last few days of break. My last class of the day was a lecture for a class titled Love as a Force for Social Change, and as interested as I am in the class material for the sake of acquiring knowledge and education, all the anecdotes that the professor and students shared about how love has manifested itself in their lives only made me miserable because I did not have anything to share that was remotely as cherished as my colleagues cherished theirs.

I could not have asked for a better cohort of dormmates. No matter what happens, I will treasure for forever the past five months I've spent with them and the six to come.

Thoughts on the friend zone

I was talking to K- when we were both having trouble falling asleep, and we got to talking about the mythical friend zone and its implications.

I don't really believe in the friend zone as the relationship purgatory from which there is no escape. The way I see it, most people consider the friend zone an arrival destination, that when there is a potential relationship, something goes wrong and you end up in the friend zone. However, I see it as a point of departure. Most of the time, it never does depart, and that's why it seems like an endpoint, but if it does take off, the relationship is so full of the purest type of romance--that which develops out of a friendship.

Rereading that, it sounds pretty cheesy, but I subscribe to it nevertheless. I think the literal meanings of these two webcomics (ignoring possible sarcastic, satirical subtexts of both), from Abstruse Goose and xkcd respectively, sum up the two different arguments about the friend zone pretty well.

At any rate, Happy New Years everyone! Hope 2013 will be great!

OR

Conversation

It's almost scary how there are certain people I can just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk to, and it never gets dull and I never run out of laughter and we shift from one topic to the next with ease, and it's just relaxing and comfortable even if the topics of our conversation are less than pleasant.

Went to the park in the morning and read a humorous though often confusing book for a while. Then I was joined in the afternoon by K- and we talked about a lot of the people we've met recently and how amazing they are over some light picnicking food, which I think made me look bad because the spaghetti I cooked had cooled and I was gloating about my amazing spaghetti cooking before I realized that heh. I wish we could've chatted more because she's going to China and then I'll have college and that'll suck because talking to her is so damn enjoyable. Then I walked four miles because I forgot to bring money on me and the school bus passes don't work anymore. I was kind of singing as I walked, but after around 200 minutes of conversation I was losing my voice. So maybe not about the chatting more, but maybe like lie in the grass and look at clouds or something.

Tomorrow, I start work, and I'll feel very much like an adult; 9 hour workdays for five days straight, then overnight days for six days straight. I kind of have this voice in the back of my head telling me today was the last day of my childhood. As far as legal definitions are concerned, I'm an adult in less than a month. I'm definitely not complaining about today, and of course as D- told me (in a rough paraphrase) last time I brought up how we're going to be adults soon, youthfulness isn't defined by age unless you let it be. I was surprised by such wise words from his mouth, of course, but I liked that sentiment.

Long story short, I'm pretty sure this was hands down my day best spent all summer.

(except with more overcast skies, cause like, it's Seattle.)

It's Been a While

It's been a while since I posted here. A lot has happened, some fortuitous, some not quite so.

This past Friday, we went to the Hunt the Wumpus competition that Microsoft holds every year. After getting about 14 hours of sleep in five days, it all paid off, and our team won first place! :D Despite one member of the team, though a brilliant programmer, being less than fun to work with (goes to bed at 9pm and expects everyone to finish what he doesn't, and gets angry extremely easily), it was overall a pretty enjoyable experience and I'd be lying if I said it didn't prompt me to consider computer science more heavily as a choice of major.

One of the keynote speakers at the event talked about the "alpha jerk" in a team. It's pretty intuitive after you hear it, but I never really thought about it before, and I'm glad that I've managed to steer away from becoming that kind of person in team situations. Basically in business, the alpha jerk is the guy who knows what he's doing (often more than he needs to), but as a result becomes extremely domineering. Ironically, the 9pm bedtime guy fits that description entirely. Quite conveniently, I was sitting right behind him during the keynote, and he got extremely squirmy in his chair while that section of the presentation was going on.

It's been a while since I talked to K-, but luckily tonight I actually had a nice, hour-long conversation with her. Every time we talk it seems like it's the best thing that could happen to my evenings, whereas the saying of "good night" bodes the opposite. There just seem to be a few people with whom I can have endless hours of conversation with. I'm going to hate myself if I let me and these people have a falling out once I go off to college.

Sometimes I wonder, if you're extremely frustrated, and not necessarily justified in being so, is it better to have a friend to tell you straight up that you're not being sensible, or comfort you and solidify the frustration by assuring you you're not in the wrong? I think this little dilemma came up for both of us in our conversation, as we were kind of just venting to each other.

Talking to some people give me a lot of hope. I had a rather solemn conversation with B- about a week ago, and I want to be sure I don't forget it. He was telling me about how there were a lot of people that left a great first impression on him as a friend, but over the years he's begun to notice very distasteful qualities about them. One in particular he had lost all respect for because he wove quite an intricate web of lies because he was too prideful to admit he didn't get into the state school that almost everyone in our accelerated program gets into.

Shortly after that conversation, I burned a lot of bridges that I felt I should've burned way long ago. I basically grew a pair (it definitely helped that, for the most part, I wouldn't be seeing them for the rest of my life in two more weeks) and told them a lot of things I take issue with as far as their personal qualities go. I didn't do it in a rude way; I just did it in a matter-of-fact, I hope you take this to heart because I'm not simply trying to offend you kind of way. I don't have fond memories of them, but all the same I hope they actually take what I say into consideration. If not, their loss, I guess.

It's been a while since I felt that liberating feeling. Not having to keep up facades of friendships that aren't there is a very relaxing feeling. My senior year has had quite a few disappointments, particularly as far as robotics go, but I feel like it's also been one of the most valuable. I feel like my emotional intelligence has developed so so much, and I will be able to handle a lot of situations better.

Now that I only have 4 days of school left, I'm feeling ambivalent about leaving high school. It's bittersweet. I think the more the yearbooks I sign, the sadder I'm going to get. There are a lot of people that I have a lot of things to say to, and a few of them give me weird looks when I tell them I have a lot to say to them and would like to take their yearbooks home overnight, which makes me rethink whether it's really worth having a lot to say to them. Do they have a lot to say to me too? I hope so.

Definitely, though, I'm looking forward to meeting some new people. I've been with roughly the same peers for seven years, and I'm getting pretty tired of the same faces, save for a few that never cease to entertain or amuse me. I can only imagine how difficult it might be putting up with someone you're not entirely fond of since first grade or something. Though I guess my sister might feel that way about me, because apparently she thinks my goal in life is to make her miserable.

It's been a while since I touched a saw to use as a musical saw, but last week I picked one up again for fun. I ended up using it to help K- ask someone to prom and then entered our school talent show. It's quite relaxing for me, and it helps me destress and unwind. Some time when I get a nice amount of free time, I want to go somewhere in a crowded place and just play, wordlessly. I feel like it has an enchanting effect--it did on me when I first heard a musical saw--that kind of puts things in perspective, and makes you think a little. I don't know.