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.

Why do I sing?

"You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear." ~Oscar Wilde

I sing in public. I sing in the shower. I sing with friends. I sing in Side by Side.

I sing to make people happy. I sing the song of the naive idealist. I sing the song of the hopeless romantic, with birds chirping and laughter ringing. I sing the song of the overprotective friend that feels just a little too motherly for the people he cares about. I sing the song of the measured optimist, where people give the benefit of the doubt and couples actually do live happily ever afters but only because they talk through their problems.

I sing for self-preservation. I sing the song of vulnerability. I sing the song of a broken family, and I sing the song of insecurity as I try to salvage its remains. It contains the melancholy melody of the unwanted, and its variations include that of the unwanted twin brother and the unwanted son.

I sing and sing and sing and sing and hope that some people, no matter how few, will hear my song, tell me to turn up the sound, and listen to every last second of every last note, even if sometimes my song is four tied whole notes and only as interesting as the cello part of Pachelbel's Canon, and maybe find that one person that will start to harmonize with my song, and it will sound so good that, as wonderful and classic as my original might have been, the duet cover is a far greater hit.

I sing so that in due time my song will strike a chord with that someone, something about the song I choose or timbre of my voice or the look in my eyes as the notes fall out of my mouth or the purpose with which I sing. They'll stop where they're going and bike alongside me and tell me they like my song and want to hear more, and I'll stop and listen to their song. Or maybe it'll happen the other way around, I don't know.

But right now, I feel like I already did find someone who fervently, enthusiastically sang with me. Together, we recorded our song, and I absolutely loved it, and for 9 months and 21 days I listened to it, and then I accidentally deleted the track. So for now, I sing the song of the broken-hearted.

Soulmateship and Vulnerability

It's been a good while since I posted anything here. It's not that I've had a drought of sentimentality or visceral thoughts (I'm kind of just always sentimental, goo-prone, and generally pathetic); quite the opposite actually, as I've had too many and don't really know what to make of them. I've needed a lot more time to think about it, and I'm still not convinced I have all the questions answered. This is a long post.

In a nutshell:
Not everyone is your soulmate, though you can sort of convince yourself of it, because there is a difference between the feasibility of maintaining a relationship and how happy doing so actually makes you. Everyone has vulnerabilities, but vary greatly in what they are and willingness to share them. It is better to share your vulnerability with others and sincerely try to be there for them even if it seems uncomfortable than to let it brew because unless you take a shot you'll never know how they express vulnerability. The worst that could happen is that you don't learn anything about them, but at least they'll know you care.

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Thoughts on soulmates:

A few weeks ago, S- sent me a link to this article urging people to marry young. Her main argument was that soul mates aren't found, they're made out of the person you marry. My first reaction to the article was that I could totally see where the author was coming from. I didn't necessarily agree with her for a variety reasons. Her premise simply didn't happen in the marriages in my life, namely my parents. But I could see how romantic relationships, including my own, could follow such a trajectory. I like to think that, unlike my parents, I put a substantial amount of effort into my relationships and am decent at making them work.

As someone who generally trusts people until they prove unworthy of it and finds solace from my own troubles by reaching emotional depths in relationships with other people, I certainly would not reject the idea of marrying someone with complete faith that post-marriage I will establish an emotional connection (i.e. become soul mates) with them, even if that connection hadn't been established pre-engagement. Unlikely, but possible. I can just as easily see how that idea would be completely repulsive to others; some people naturally have all their walls up, and only that special person can chip away at them until they come down, and only then are they comfortable committing to a life-long relationship. I respect both viewpoints.

With these thoughts came a somewhat nightmarish realization--if I can essentially fall in love with anyone, why the hell should I not marry the next girl that passes me by on the street? I can establish a meaningful connection with her, right?

A nice conversation with J- served as a good reality check. There were a good number of holes in the author's argument. Obviously, she didn't just marry any ol' bimbo; she had been with her eventual husband for at least a little while. That's a little more comforting--I do think that I am good enough at human interaction to make any long-term commitments that I am actually interested in (as opposed to a relationship with a random stranger) work, romantic or otherwise. Furthermore, after J- brought it up it seemed so obvious: the argument seemed almost traditionalist. Marry someone without knowing where it'll go expecting that the relationship will grow from there, almost borderline arranged marriage (though psychology studies show that divorce rates don't actually differ between arranged and self-chosen couples, so nothing against it), as if marriage were a business transaction. That simply isn't how I want my relationships to be. I want my relationships to be with people I am happy with right from the get-go.

Recently, a variety of different things, however, are convincing me of something I'm deeply saddened by. Feelings of attraction can be very easily manipulated as we learned in PSYCH 70. Indeed, it seems that my stupid, feeble mind is actually quite susceptible to what is only supposed to be banter about my love life from N-. Call it conformity or priming or  what have you--it seems to have an effect.

I borrowed Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman from E-, and as far as I can tell that an understanding of love languages can be applied beyond just a romantic relationship you're invested in. In that sense, it seems that, with sufficient practice, I can speak any love language, even if it isn't my preferred one, to better be able to be there for someone in their times of sorrow or share in their moments of joy. In that sense, it almost becomes possible to be "compatible" with anybody.

The idea that you can be compatible with anybody, though I don't exactly buy it, is scary as hell. Sure, it will  facilitate smooth relationships, but does it also threaten your relationships at the same time because you so easily mesh with others? While consoling and comforting K- through the recent relationship rockiness she's been experiencing, she told me that any girl would be lucky to have me as a boyfriend. That's generally considered one of those classic, somewhat demoralizing tip-off phrases for friendzoning, but in this context where she knows I'm interested in someone else, it made me think a little.

Scotty McClellan's Valentine's Day sermon from my love class had a section where he denounced passionate, romantic love as a mere projection of one's own concept of other people upon them, and when people defy your image of them, the mirage of love dissolves. When I first read that, the idealist in me kicked in and was revolted, because I absolutely believe that romantic love exists and is valuable. However, now that I think about it more, the whole idea of projecting your image of others on to others, though not strictly a synonym to romantic love, is sometimes found in relationships.

As someone who values peace and harmony in interpersonal interactions, I often find myself in sort of a social chameleon mode, and that makes me susceptible to have others' impressions or images of me projected upon me. I feel very guilty when I can't be what others expect of me; this is healthy when there is mutuality in that aspect of my relationships, but when there is not, I simply lose sight of myself and the relationship is not healthy. In other words, sure I'd be a fantastic relationship partner for many people, but it would not be a healthy relationship at least for me.

What it really comes down to, I suppose, is the difference between being capable of and being happy in maintaining a good relationship with someone. The conclusion I seem to be arriving at so far is that I'd be capable of maintaining a caring, compassionate relationship (platonic and romantic both) with most people, but it isn't always natural, comfortable, and reciprocal and thus not always conducive to my own happiness and well-being.

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Thoughts on vulnerability:

Having arrived at the above conclusion about the possibility of forming relationships with people, the task at hand, then, is to determine the subset of people with whom I'd be happy and comfortable maintaining a close relationship with.

I consider myself pretty well-versed in the literature surrounding attraction, human prosocial behavior, personality psychology, etcetc. So far, I've found that this gives me surprisingly good control over the emotional atmosphere of social situations, even if I'm not doing so very conspicuously or outwardly. Subtle non-verbal cues and changes in diction and tone all help. A recurring theme in conversation between S- and I is how much potential someone who understands how people think and act has to be manipulative, for good or bad.

However, as someone who is very concerned with his own emotional well-being and happiness, I am very conscious not to let my psychology antics interfere with my social interactions. It would only be to my own detriment to disturb the natural course of social situations, because it hinders my ability to get to know people and how they respond to me in my own natural way.

I think what's helped me the most in figuring out who the people I want to surround myself with is to make myself vulnerable to people. I got into the habit of doing so with some of my close friends because it helps me deal with my inner turmoils to try to put things to words. Everyone has vulnerabilities; the worst that could happen is that yours fall on deaf ears, and you can just avoid sharing personal details to them in the future. However, you might find some comfort from them, or encourage them to share some of their own vulnerabilities, and that opens the gates for building an emotional connection.

The concept of vulnerabilities has baffled me for a while now. It means so many different things to different people, and there's so many types of it. I like the idea of a deep body of water with gates along the way because it analogizes nicely to emotional depth. For me, I don't open up to people immediately, and it takes a little getting to know and convincing (usually indirectly; at some point I decide I trust you whether you know it or not) for me to open up. A diver in my emotional depths would have some clean spring water to get through before reaching a gate, and they'll have to find some way to open it. Once past the gate, however, how far you desire to explore is entirely up to you; the waters are a bit more murky, more muddy, so more viscous, but I will continue to share my inner feelings with you so long as you keep expressing genuine concern or desire to get to know me. Only towards the end is there a final gate, which takes a lot of time and commitment to open. Very few people ever get there, but if you do the emotions come out like like a geyser at the very core: extremely heated or impassioned thoughts, usually in short bursts of sentimentality, and it is very easy to be pushed back out of that last gate if you don't put enough effort into growing our relationship.

But that's just me. For other people, there might not be any gate, just muddy water all the way through. For some people, it's gate after gate after gate each hiding away crystal clear water, with friends being sorted into multiple tiers of closeness, and each tier being revealed the same personal details with utmost transparency.

Moreover, what if the vulnerability comes across unintentionally? What if someone notices you crying in what you thought was the privacy of your room, or the shower, or your favorite secluded spot on campus? That's like being a maintenance repairmen for one of the gates, and getting a free pass directly through that gate whether the gate is open or not. Can a close relationship be formed under these circumstances?

I certainly think so. S- and I have talked a lot about a desire to help people achieve what we perceive as their potential. We want to make people we care about into the fantastic people we can imagine them being, even if we honestly have no right to. Now that I think about it, being on the receiving side of unintentional vulnerability simply allows you to better understand someone. Whether they like it or not, you are now better to appreciate them as a whole than most.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, by Neale Donald Walsch: “The purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.” The more I think about it that way, the more it feels an obligation for you to try to be there for someone when they become unintentionally vulnerable to you. You were able to witness their completeness, embrace it, share it with them.

At SBS retreat this past weekend, our talk questions sort of reached a critical point as far as seriousness or depth, which had been mounting over the past few quarters. I remember the first talk questions were silly things like "which starter Pokemon would you be and why?" Through the talk responses at retreat, I found that my observations of many people's behavior and hunches about some of their personalities or insecurities were pretty spot on. I feel like I might've inadverdently broken the ice at retreat for talking about especially heavy topics.

In retrospect, I am so glad I did because I feel much closer to many members of SBS for having done so, but I also can't help but recall how uncomfortable it was doing so. I was way out of my comfort zone, not sure if I was sharing too openly and that was making people uneasy or bored or coming across as insincere. I was also unsure how to best express empathy, striking a balance between showing concern and being too nosy or awkward, towards the people whose experiences I could draw parallels to in my life.

The takeaway, in my head at least, was that I clearly need to not cower from initiating attempts at forming deeper emotional connections with people. Perceptiveness and empathy are some of my greatest strengths, and as someone whose sense of fulfillment is fundamentally rooted in what I mean to or can be for others, I need to learn to step out of my comfort zone to make myself happier. Building deep emotional connections is precisely what I want and would be happy with in a relationship, so don't settle for shallow relationships even if I'm capable of maintaining those too simply because I'm too conscientious to move the relationship to that stage.

How I found my passion

This occurred to me and I wanted to write this down in case I forget it when I'm fully awake later today. I think I might've used this in a college essay anyway. Maybe historians or biographers will one day try to document my life and trace my career back to this notion and quote me on it. I wouldn't mind being quoted on this.

How to find your passion: read Wikipedia articles any time you come across them until you find something that makes you browse related link after related link. That's where your passion lies.

My passion: social psychology. It started with a link to the Milgram Experiment that I got from a friend who in turn received the link from a Scandinavian hermit on Omegle back in sophomore year. Since then, Stanford Prison Experiment, Zimbardo, Hofling Hospital Experiment, and so on and so forth. I even wrote my EE on the extent to which social psychology experiments of the 60s and 70s can be used to justify Nazi behavior in WWII.

Alternate, far less noble passion: romcom actors and actresses...

Alegrias

"Everyone wants to be the sun that lights up your life. But I'd rather be your moon, so I can shine on you during your darkest hour when your sun isn't around."

I like this quote, I don't know who it's by.

Source: www.alegrias.me

I also like this image:

Every day

Pretty much every day.

Something not very everyday happened to me today, and I want to be sure I don't forget it. I can't remember the last time something made me smile so hard.

For three weeks, D- has been trying to talk to me. All I knew was that it was on an awkward conversation topic, so admittedly I hadn't exactly been actively trying to have that conversation with her. She finally caught me after school yesterday.

I've been acquainted with D- since 8th grade, but would actually have considered us friends only starting last year. She changed a lot in those 3ish years, becoming a lot more cynical and dubious, far less trusting and sunny and bubbly. Over the past year, she's said a lot of things that have stung quite a bit, but it made me kind of really determined to crack her shell. Especially one email she'd sent me that really struck me, in which she scathingly berated me for being too idealistic, having my head stuck in the clouds, and naive.

Today, the conversation actually happened. By happened I mean D-'s friend who knew what's up pretty much dragged her to me and was like GO TALK and she had no choice. There were a few other people tagging along that didn't know what was going on so we left them for a remote staircase away from all other life forms.

I realized over the course of the conversation that I'm absolutely horrible at accepting gratitude? Not really the right phrasing, but I dunno I'm horrible at taking compliments or the like. I found it prudent to poke fun at D- while she was telling me everything and I'm pretty sure I came across as rude and insensitive, because it was pretty easy to tell that the conversation was difficult for her. In fact, she gave me a nice long hug, which is totally out of character for her, and I was totally taken aback. I just ended up quoting Sheldon, in all his awkward glory: "there there." Go me...

The gist of the conversation was about how she was sorry for being really bitchy to me in the past few months to a yearish, and how she's going to miss me once I graduate because there's nobody in her class like me. This made me feel so wonderful asdj;foiaw;eo. She also used a funny metaphor about how there'll be a "big larry-shaped hole" in her life, which of course I haaaad to point the oxymoron and I think I embarrassed her more UGH and I don't think she thought I was taking her seriously.

I realized that despite our love-hate relationship and all our jibes at each other, D-'s among the people I'm going to miss most once I graduate. And it's sad, because a lot of the people in my grade I've had classes with for nearing 7 years now, and I'm not going to miss them nearly as much.

I also feel privileged. Maybe that's just me being self-centered, but I feel like I got to glimpse a side of D- that she doesn't show to many people (or anyone?). If we didn't have that conversation, I'd be pretty damn convinced she's just cynical of everything and everyone (goes back to that email), but now I feel rather victorious. I've heard things from her friends about how she was like years ago, but the years haven't seen to have done her faith in humanity any good. I'm so glad I didn't graduate with a misconstrued impression of who she is.

Speaking of everyday activities, I like this quote. I used a similar notion in one of my college essays, and it really resonates with what I value in a relationship, romantic or platonic.

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."

-Voltaire

"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
~R.W. Emerson

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value. Rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

-C.S. Lewis

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Love is "that condition whereby the happiness of another is essential to your own."
~Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land