Have a lot to write about, but haven't had much time

I haven't been able to do due diligence towards my blog in recent months, and I apologize (to myself and to anyone who reads this) for that. There's a lot I've wanted to write about, but haven't found time to do so.

I've been deeply mired in a lot of emotionally draining circumstances in the past few months, and I'd be lying if I said that things are going splendidly. My mom found (another?) tumor in her neck, though it's still benign. Meanwhile, in my dorm, the escalation of some tension has culminated in some hate crime against me again, and far more clear in intent than just some chewed up gum on my door handle.

One of the works of art on my door

I love me some good whiteboard vandalism.

Fortunately, a lot of the people I am close to have lent me a lot of emotional strength, whether they know it or not, either by directly being there for me or by being an inspiration because their experiences I use as a blueprint for resiliency and growth. This past weekend at SBS spring retreat alone, I've witnessed the human spirit wrestling with weight much heavier than that which I bear, and that allows me to continue forward. It allows me to fight hate not also with hate but with love:

Take that.

In reflecting on this recent stuff, I am reminded of something I learned in CS 124 last quarter during the unit on sentiment analysis. When it comes to affected experiences, they can actually be classified in one of five ways called Scherer's Typology of Affective States:

• Emotion: relatively brief episode of synchronized response to the evaluation of an external or internal event as being of major significance (e.g. angry, sad, joyful, fearful, ashamed, proud, elated, desperate)
• Mood: diffuse affect state, most pronounced as change in subjective feeling, of low intensity but relatively long duration, often without apparent cause (e.g. cheerful, gloomy, irritable, listless, depressed, buoyant)
• Interpersonal stances: affective stance taken towards another person in a specific interaction, coloring the interpersonal exchange in that situation (e.g. distant, cold, warm, supportive, contemptuous)
• Attitudes: relatively enduring, affectively colored beliefs, preferences, and predispositions towards objects or persons (e.g. liking, loving, hating, valuing, desiring)
• Personality traits: emotionally laden, stable personality dispositions and behavior tendencies (e.g. nervous, anxious, reckless, morose, hostile, envious, jealous)

I think the recent months have consisted of a lot of negative emotion, but my mood has stayed afloat through a few experiences that have assured me that the negative things are merely episodic, and that even in the midst of such episodes there are people who are there to catch me. That can't be said for everyone, and I'm lucky because it's a very, very good place to be.

Additionally, I have been doing a lot of thinking catalyzed by my psychiatry class. It's on Modern Relationships from a Couples and Family Therapy Perspective, and it's incredibly eye opening. Between that class, conversations I've had with N- and E-, and SBS spring retreat, I've had a lot to think about. Expect stuff on (aka note to self:) negativity threshold and the relationship tension escape velocity, equilibriation and re-equilibriation, relationship resonance, first-order and second-order change, n-dimensional behavioral cones, regret vs. guilt, dynamic vs. static conversations, and what drives my decision-making on personal matters to come.

First New Year's Resolution ever, 1 month in.

I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions. I feel like if at any point I find something I want to change about myself, I don't want to wait until New Year's to make it happen. As such, I haven't made many New Year's resolutions to date.

However, I did make one resolution this year.

Resolution 2015: Get my shit together.

Quality resolution, isn't it?

My goal by the end of college was to figure out what I want to do with my life (career-wise, personal life, etc.). I didn't expect to have made progress towards whatever that ends up looking like, but I at least wanted to know what direction I was going in.

I realized just before winter break that I'm lucky enough to be in a place where I have a strong sense of purpose in my life, and that's something many people of my age cannot say for themselves. In particular, I want to spend my life making people happy and improving their quality of life, but in a very surefire way. I don't mean some wishy-washy social committee-type thing. I mean scientifically rigorously looking at ways that people can attain greater fulfillment and satisfaction. I want to engineer happiness.

Even though that's still very big picture and doesn't offer much granularity, it serves as a pretty good guide for my decision-making. In fact, in the long run, it is much better to have this top piece (the why) and be able to go top-down in figuring out what I want to do rather than having a sense of what I like to do/am good at/am competent at without knowing why I continue to do it.

So why do I feel like I'm stuck and moving so slowly? Why do I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time? Why do I not feel like I have my shit together?

I spent winter break trying to figure out why this is, and I identified a couple of general things I need to do.

1) Know when to fold.

I am incredibly susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. I place weight on past effort expended or invested in a particular activity, class, or person, but that's a naive basis to make future decisions. I get deeply attached to a lot of things. In C-'s words: just like a poker player doesn't expect to win every hand and instead must choose to commit to hands wisely, so must we be cognizant of when certain decisions didn't play out like anticipated and be willing to cut losses and prepare for other decisions we make going forward.

More concretely, this has led me to readily drop classes I attended for two and a half weeks before realizing it's not for me. I've started putting distance between me and the Stanford Robotics Club because it simply wasn't making me happy, despite what I've dedicated to founding the club and keeping it running smoothly. I've stopped watching TV shows that I no longer enoyed in later seasons. I've stopped investing time in people I don't believe care about me in the same way. I've halted job interview processes when it becomes clear that I don't want to work there, even if I was never rejected as a candidate.

This doesn't mean truths in the past were any less true. I am not any less authentic because what motivates me now differs from what once did. The past can (and should) still shape me. Past values matter insofar as how they inform or influence my current beliefs and values.

2) Commit wholeheartedly when you commit.

This is sort of the opposite of knowing when to fold. For the vast majority of choices I make, I will not have absolute certainty about at the time that I make the decision nor ever. If I wanted to wait until I had certainty on anything, I'd be completely paralyzed. Waiting for certainty is precisely that: a wait. It's passive, and relinquishes control to forces beyond our control.

That complacency leads to inaction and general sluggishness. When you have an array of good choices in front of you, and you (and the people who know and care about you) cannot determine which is the correct or best choice, chances are there isn't a best choice. Have some confidence that you'd be able to identify an obvious best choice. Instead, it's all about picking one and making it great.

(Caveat: in poker, bets are rarely just a matter of going all-in and not at all. Similarly, committing wholeheartedly doesn't necessarily mean rule everything else out, but it does mean taking ownership of whatever extent of commitment you make in any given distribution of commitment of resources. I feel like blogging has that effect for me, where by having them written down somewhere it gives my thoughts much more substance, and helps me commit and take ownership of change I want to see in myself.)

3) Do not let myself slip into negative self-fulfilling prophecies and exacerbation cycles.

Over break I noticed that 1/13 marked the day that I've been out of my relationship with E- longer than I had been in it (barring some technicalities in counting). I think I've figured out what was holding me back from moving on: I have this flawed model of how what is meaningful or important to me is allowed to change over time. If you imagine a graph of time vs. importance, I've only allowed myself to say that how important any given thing is always monotonically increasing or decreasing.

This model is problematic in three ways. One, it assumes my assessment is perfect, which it is not. It doesn't not allow me the opportunity to revise first impressions once they're on track to be monotonically increasing or decreasing. Secondly, my assessment has nothing to do with a reciprocal such assessment, and reciprocity (as my own psychology research has shown, hah.) plays a huge role in determining socializing or altruistic behavior. Thirdly, it means that anything that grows in importance to me can never be less important ever. In particular, this third piece has left me feeling suffocated by guilt, unable to accept that someone I have cared for deeply in the past can acceptably be cared for less, and unable to bear the pain of being less important than I once was to someone.

Borrowing from romcoms, I've realized why it is so important to commit wholeheartedly to something. Romcom protagonists often seem absurd because they go to ridiculous lengths in their unconditional love. Sure, it's not a guarantee that all of your wholehearted commitments will pay off the way every single romcom protagonists' seem to. But the reality is that you cannot have those romcom moments if you don't try. If you fail, then you are just someone whose grandiose whathaveyou did not bear fruit, as everyone would expect; if you succeed, then you do become the stuff of legends/Hollywood. Seems like a reasonably good risk-reward to take to me.

Aside: To some extent, being able to take that stance comes from a place of privilege in more ways than one. I can't deny that. I was raised by a mother who has left me with a secure enough (though not 100% secure) attachment style that I can withstand potential emotional setbacks if putting myself out there and making myself vulnerable leads to hurt. I happen to have skill sets that employers are willing to pay good money for, and that gives me the financial means to be fairly liberal in the capacity in which I commit to things wholeheartedly. It is a privilege I have, and, equal or not across everyone, I should use this to the best of my ability.

Romcom protagonists--at least in their moments of emotional triumph, anyway--tend to have very short-term memory for the setbacks they encounter while maintaining saliency in memories of elation or happiness. For the same magnitude of positive and negative emotions, the positive emotions always last much longer while negative emotions become transformative forces from which they draw strength and courage and spunk. This kind of mindset keeps them optimistic and protects them from negative self-fulfilling prophecies. The best way to make your life a real romcom, it seems, is to believe and live as if it already is. If you feel like the world is falling apart around you, just think to yourself that romcoms virtually all have happy endings, so you can't be at the end. Keep looking for the next thread of storyline to chase.

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What am I trying to do more to be consistent with those 3 things above, aka getting my shit together?

1. Read more, especially stuff that makes me think. The more thoughtfully I can think about my own actions and the people and world around me, the better I can fold or commit appropriately.
2. Be open about myself. I've been trying to make myself vulnerable to people again, mainly in the form of demonstrating how much I care about them even if I feel silly or uneasy or unsure how they'll receive my expression. In professional contexts, I've made a personal website that attempts to inject my character and personality into what otherwise would be just a distilled professional profile (i.e. resume) (I say "attempts" because it's a work in progress, and would love to hear your thoughts on the website).
3. Disregarding norms or rules when I see fit. I've always trusted my judgment, but I've often acted against my best judgment to be consistent with norms or rules. I've been trying to be very clear to myself what it is that I actually want, as opposed to stuff I want to want only because there is some level of external social, financial, or whatever prestige associated with getting that.
4a. Stand up for myself. Give myself space and alone time when I need it. Act on what is important to me, rather than what will maintain peace and harmony among the people around me. Be able to recognize when I have every right to believe that I am right.
4b. Be humble. Confidence and self-assurance is good, but over-confidence is not. Being mindful of when what I have once stood up for is flawed, and graciously and openmindedly reconciling the differences when appropriate.

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.

Physical vs. Emotional Intimacy

This quarter, I'm taking a class called Love as a Force for Social Justice, and it's making me think critically about what it means to be "in love," different types of love, and how love is expressed more than I ever had. This'll mostly just be a collection of scattered thoughts I've had in the past couple of weeks.

First and foremost and actually totally unrelated to love, my dad needs to fucking stop sending me emails asking me to add him on Facebook. The reason I'm so desperately looking for a job or internship over the school year and summer is because I can't wait to be financially independent and not have to depend on his ass to help with tuition. I've gotten to a point where I've wondered if it's possible to get a restraining order on a family member. A quick Google search said yes, it is.

Now then, love. (Because that paragraph wasn't.)

In my Love class, we read an article about types of love. In a nutshell, the article classified six different types of love:

• Storgic love: founded on rapport, interdependency, and mutual need fulfillment. Good friends who have grown in intimacy, appreciate even mundane activities with each other, does not have a "falling in love" phase but rather realizes it after some time. Temporary separations are manageable due to mutual trust. Very similar to siblings.
• Agapic love: Centered around selfless devotion to the partner. Will put him or herself through various pains for the good of the object of his or her affection. There is no "falling in love" in the sense that their happiness is derived from a love object accepting the affection or love they're always willing to give.
• Manic love: Characterized by obsession with love object, sometimes beyond rationality. Jealousy and manipulation can be common, and separation is difficult. Usually very anxious/reflective about what can/did go wrong in a relationship. Can be associated with low self-esteem.
• Pragmatic love: Love based on investment of self. They assist the loved one in fulfilling each other's potentials, but is very business-like in the motivations. For instance, a pragmatic lover might think about compatability, future family size, financial security, and education all in context of how the relationship will affect it. Sex is not unwelcome, but might be done, for instance, to relieve sexual tension and sleep better rather than for physical pleasure.
• Ludic love: Love is like a sport, and the compatibility of partners is centered around how well the partners satisfy his or her wants. Love is like a challenge, and self-fulfillment is had when he or she is successful; partners are like conquests. Love affairs are considered natural.
• Erotic love: Extremely romantic, usually monogamous, incredibly explosive and escalates quickly. Usually very idealistic, risks that might harm the relationship are not afforded. Certainty in reciprocation is absolute, and partners rarely spend time apart. Physical intimacy happens early, and displays of passion are varied and frequent. Usually more common in people who have had a secure and happy childhood, especially those with happily married parents.

While S- pointed out that the article clearly gave preference to storgic love, I nevertheless felt that it was reasonably fair towards the other types of love, and I still prefer storgic love to the others. What I want out of a romantic relationship is not financial security, or the thrill of "conquering" a romantic partner by winning their heart. I want to establish a deep, meaningful connection.

The first assignment in my Love class was to define "love," or explain why it couldn't be defined. While it was extremely open-ended and more or less ended up being a lot of students just sharing their thoughts on what love is, there were two ideas that particularly stood out to me.

First, one student defined love as a region on the high end of a continuum of how much you care for someone. On one end is total indifference, and then maybe 70% of the way up you've reached the part of the spectrum that contains your friends, and then maybe the top 5% are things or people you love. That makes sense to me; it doesn't strictly define what love is, but provides an operationalization of love such that you can sort of quantify love, or compare two things against each other and determine which you love more or less.

Second, one student suggested that you cannot be in love without leaving yourself vulnerable. To be in love is to fully put your emotional well-being into the hands of your love object, and trusting that they will not only do no harm, but might actually improve your emotional state.

In the context of those two ideas, I can elaborate on what I mean by a "deep, meaningful connection." I want this connection to be made between me, in my most honest and thus most vulnerable state, and my partner's most honest and thus most vulnerable state. When you meet someone, you don't just tell them anything; only after becoming close and building trust do you start to divulge more personal details about your life. That explains why I struggle with falling for people I don't know well, and believe I need to be close friends with someone before I can begin to consider them a possible romantic partner. What good is an emotional connection between the person you are when your walls are still up you're still on guard with anyone else? You need to have made the step to reveal everything about you first.

So if this is so straightforward, what is up with society that has obscured this clarity?

I had a pretty heated conversation with S- today wherein she told me that, as far as romantic endeavors are concerned, I'm essentially a middle school student because (spoiler alert) I've never been kissed on the lips.  At first, I was pretty offended. Who was she to evaluate on my behalf how meaningful my past relationships are? Who was she to tell me that, because I didn't slobber all over my past girlfriends, my relationships were meaningless? I'm convinced I've grown more as a person and learned more on how to partake in the miracle that is human-to-human interaction, including romance, from my relationships in middle school than many adults have.

But then I realized the underlying meaning that S-'s contempt carried: our society measures relationship success by physical intimacy, more specifically making out and sexual activity.

The ultimate end result of romantic relationships (in the western, American culture that I'm familiar with anyway) is to find "the one," the person you're meant to be with for the rest of your life and live happily ever after with, basically. As discussed earlier, that person is the partner with whom you have that ridiculously strong emotional connection to. In that process of building that emotional connection, it is common that you will do something physical, like making out or having sex. That does not mean that physical intimacy causes emotional intimacy/you to find "the one". There is a correlation, not causation.

Physical intimacy in cases where emotional intimacy is also present can simply be one of many ways to communicate passion. It is no different than giving flowers, or serenading, or making breakfast in bed, or holding hands, or cuddling on a couch watching a movie, yet it is blown so wildly out of proportion by popular culture.

And what is with "Facebook official" and being able/the right to use to phrase "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" to describe your romantic partner? While certainly some people see being in a relationship as a thing of pride and a thing to gloat about, I know plenty of couples in relationships that are not, say, Facebook official. In those cases, the purest way to think about it is that officiation is also a way to communicate passion. Homosexual couples have been living together for decades, yet the fact that they can get a marriage license with their names on it now is such a strong, symbolic milestone in their relationship (just like with any other marriage, I might add). It strengthens that emotional connection that we all, in theory, seek to make.

The obfuscation of relationship success by society, then, is because a relationship, perhaps back in the mid-20th century, would only reach a stage of physical intimacy after the emotional connection is established, and thus physical intimacy was associated with relationship success. However, in today's society where those in my parents' and grandparents' generation look and shake their head at my generation's liberal, gratuitous relinquishment of lip (and other) virginity, that is no longer the case. Relationships that are founded on physical intimacy, with or without emotional intimacy, are a thing in today's culture. (Especially because Hollywood says so.)

It seems to boil down to whether physical versus emotional intimacy comes first. I certainly prefer establishing an emotional intimacy first; physical intimacy is something that comes after the emotional connection is made. Unfortunately, emotional intimacy is less obvious or visible, and I think this might be why measures of physical intimacy (e.g. kissing, sex) are more often viewed as benchmarks for evaluating the development of a relationship. It might also explain cultural phenomenons like the friend zone and being led on, when the two involved parties see different levels of emotional intimacy.

Holy shit this was a long post.

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.

Stanford so far

This past Wednesday, I went back to Interlake to visit friends and teachers. Some of the interactions I had today were downright appalling. Others were simply incredibly thought provoking. The highlights, some of which are arguably lowlights:

• Mr. D-: I walked in on his gifted junior government class on an exam day, so while he was passing out scantrons and exams he offered the class a chance to ask me questions about college. He framed it as "a rare opportunity to talk to someone who just came out of your program [the gifted program] and is at a college that some people might consider decent." He himself posed the question "If you could go back and tell yourself one thing first semester junior year [the age of the class I was in], what would it be and why?" I couldn't answer it immediately, but I came back 5 minutes from the end of class and after a good amount of reflection, I decided it was to read more non-fiction. Not necessarily from books, but from blogs, newspapers, anywhere I could find anything that interests me. I then made the claim: "If you don't know what to write for a college essay, you have not read enough." In retrospect, I don't know if I agree with that, but it sounds good.
• Mr. D- and I both came to the conclusion that even though the enrollment in CS106 courses are up 1100/year in the last 4 years at Stanford, as per Mehran, we're not actually achieving what the American economy truly needs. When pundits say we need more people in STEM jobs, they mean for colleges to crank out more engineering and science majors, but honestly we're just creating another labor source that requires immense training. Talented, but still a mindless labor force. It's unnerving that there is such an elitism surrounding the culture of techies and condescension towards fuzzies, because as far as I'm concerned in no job will you not benefit from being well-rounded and educated in not only the technical details but also leadership, communication, and rhetorical skills, for instance. I am damn proud to be a fuckie, and we need more people who will embrace both dimensions of intellect to actually transform our economic landscape.
• Mr. C-: He asked me to describe my Interlake experience in one word. I said "limiting." In spite of having an internship built into my senior year, in spite of IB being offered in sophomore and junior year such that I'd have my diploma in hand when I applied to college, in spite of over 10 AP classes being offered, in spite of a student population in which 49 languages and all major religions were represented, I said limiting. What? Looking back, I can immediately see why he was so shocked, because I clearly took a lot for granted. However, I definitely still stand by my choice, because the homogeneity of the gifted program, and my being too ignorant and naive and complacent to expand my horizons to interact with others beyond the gifted program meant I had a very lopsided worldview throughout my last 7 years, and coming to Stanford opened my eyes wide. Very, very wide. In fact, I know Asians are supposed to be a minority, but I've never actually felt like a minority until today, when we took a gas stop at Vancouver, WA, and also back in the dorm when a lot of the Asian snacks were totally foreign, and being able to speak fluent Mandarin is considered exotic.
• At the same time, Mr. C- also pointed out that there were easily a lot of people impressed by what I accomplished in high school. I never thought about it this way, since a large number of people seemed to have fantastic internships, and go off to amazing schools. Huge culture shock.
• I told S-, A-, and P- that they were boring. They were among some of my closer friends back in Washington, but honestly their ability to fuel thought-provoking, exciting, intellectually stimulating conversations pale to a degree that I never imagined compared to those at Stanford. Don't get me wrong, they're not any less intelligent than Stanford kids (you get into PRISM by passing an IQ threshold after all), but rather their collective experiences are just far more underwhelming and far less diverse, to no fault of their own.

These last two months have easily been the best two months of my life so far. Maybe it's just relative to my last two years these months have been monumentally better, but I don't think so. Being surrounded by people who are genuinely excited and take pride in being intellectual is a fantastic experience. That doesn't even happen in all institutions of higher education, but merely the higher caliber colleges. I have never been around so many people intrinsically motivated to learn--not necessarily for a higher salary, or because their parents demanded it, but those can be factors too--than here. And when glimmers of this abundance of and yet still thirst for knowledge show up even in everyday activities like movies, or music nights, or small talk over meals, it is simply intoxicating. I've got to say that must be the reason Stanford on the whole, academics or otherwise, have been great.

(Oh, did I mention my dormmates are incredible? There are people in everywhere on the relationship closeness continuum of acquaintances to familial with a hint of romantic...)

Reflections on Camp Killoqua

In a nutshell: I really really liked Camp Killoqua, and it's definitely very high on my list of places to work next summer.

But I tried to delve into the reasons that made me enjoy it so much. I've come up with a couple of possibilities.

First, everything that happens there constitutes to a sense of family. Obviously, after spending a full week with the same people from morning to night, you get to know them pretty well. But a lot of other things too. At meals, the head of the table serves you food and the foot of the table serves you drinks. You don't sit with the same people every meal, but between serving food, watching for the seconds box, passing dirty plates, and the conversations that take place, there is enough interaction that you feel pretty tight with those people by the end of the meal, and for the rest of the week you'll greet them passing by on campgrounds. That's definitely something that's missing from my life.

Second, I love the whole deal with the singing. Singing graces before a meal, teaching songs after a meal, singing before leaving the table, and, most of all, serenade, where the counselors and CITs go around to each cabin group and sing the campers to sleep. It's an interesting dynamic that's created. Flipping through the songbook that Frog gave me, some of the songs are quite morbid. My personal favorite (and also wildly popular among many of the campgoers and counselors) is Char's Song, and it was adapted from a military farewell song. There's one line that goes "some of us, I know, are bound to die." In this sense, Killoqua felt quite raw and transparent--there was no beating around the bush when it comes to sad matters. Many of the songs use lyrics along the lines of "this is goodnight and not goodbye" with a camp-is-ending-but-not-the-friendship notion. It's humbling and down-to-earth, and definitely a bit melancholy. Even so, there is just so much joy. And being surrounded by people who smile in the face of sadness makes me that much stronger and capable of enjoying myself in spite of (what I perceive as) shit in my life. I can really appreciate what I have.

Third, it is so easy to fit in there. The traditions are easy enough to pick up, and typical barriers to interpersonal interaction are nonexistent. While I was there, there were some 5 or 6 foreign counselors (hailing from Great Britain, Ireland, and New Zealand) as well as maybe 6 states represented. Furthermore, the ages of the counselors ranged from 18 to 40. Yet, even the 8-year-old campers got along with the adults as if they've been childhood friends from years. The camp names tradition is wonderful: all counselors and CITs get a camp name, an alias they go by among each other and the campers. In fact, some of the counselors don't even know the real names of the other counselors. I really liked this because you could see some of the traits or personality of the person reflected in their name, and, as far as I can tell, made everyone more comfortable and open in this new identity. Whatever the hiring process is there, it works, because the counselors are all crazy and fun yet (for the most part) responsible, and when you get a lot of people who are willing to be crazy in public, everyone else who wants to be crazy (aka be themselves) but normally subdues it will be crazy too!

All in all, I had a great time there, and I'm planning on applying for a job there next summer. I don't know what opportunities college will open up, but I can certainly see myself passing up jobs with better pay to work there because it's just a relaxing, carefree environment.

[Re]Open Your Eyes

For the past 5 days, I was in Salt Lake City for the 2012 International Career Development Conference for DECA, competing in Accounting Applications. As far as the competition goes, nothing too exciting happened. I made it to the finals (Top 16) but performed poorly on the final role play. We saw the Jabbawockeez perform live, though I believe it was their B team; still really cool nonetheless, especially the Kiss the Girl and Single Ladies segments.

The more memorable part was definitely the experience shared with the people there. I got to know a few students with whom I've been classmates with for 7 years now way better, and I'm glad I got to see this side of them before graduating with any misconceptions about them as people. Not really misconceptions--they still are who they are when they behave as they do at school--but just another side of them, a sensitive side that they try to hide.

In the meantime, I also bonded a lot more with people I hadn't known until this year. I kind of wish I learned more about them, and I feel like I kind of dominated the conversation perhaps, getting carried away with things and people in my life. Hopefully, I don't come across at self-centered. Even more hopefully, we'll still keep in touch after I graduate, because if in just 8 short months they've become among the close friends who I trust the most, who knows what could happen with years more? There's no doubt in my mind that I'll miss two of these albeit relatively new friends of mine way more than others I have known for about half my conscious life.

I was thinking about what made me click with them. What made me so comfortable sharing some of the thoughts I usually tuck away for personal introspection? I don't really know. For sure, it seems that I can really connect with people like me. Not to let my life be dominated by MBTI or anything, but of the 6 people I trust most, 4 are ENFJs (the other three are ENTP, ISTJ).

Furthermore, it seems that at some point, we always have a conversation about my past. It can be really embarrassing depending on the details we delve into, but it always leaves me rather melancholy. Yet, I enjoy talking about it a lot. Why? I'm not a masochist in any way.

This is where this post was going. The phrase "open your eyes" is used almost to the point of cliched-ness. But talking to new people about my past--people with some level of maturity, open-mindedness, and capacity for empathy anyway--reopens my eyes. There are a lot of little things in my life that I'd hate to forget, and I have a tendency to regurgitate those when I talk about what has made me me (not at the superficial level, but at a deep level that I care to talk about only when my conversational partner exhibits genuine interest or concern). I'd like to emphasize that parenthetical statement, because I have pretty high standards, I feel, about when to trust people and tell people stuff, but it's also always based on a gut feeling; I don't open up to everyone, but when I do I always do it with utmost confidence that what I tell them will not fall upon deaf ears, and will be respected. Anyway, whenever I revisit these memories with new people, I feel like I see things ever so slightly differently, but end up learning more about myself when I reflect on the conversations.

In the meantime, I read an article on a fantastic new product concept: http://www.fashioningtech.com/profiles/blogs/touchy-the-human-camera

It is literally a physical manifestation of someone else "opening your eyes." I absolutely love the whole concept, and I feel like it would really enhance social interaction or relationships (not necessarily just romantic ones). Especially for me, recalling that my dominant love language is physical touch followed closely by quality time, this is an invention I really need to have. The pictures it stores seems a perfect way to capture the little things, not the grand big things. I like that.

Blog Activity

Today, I realized that my activity on this blog is directly proportional to how many people I feel comfortable talking about my problems with. The more the people I have to talk about things, the less frequently I'm posting on here.

Alternate correlation: The fewer the problems I have, the less frequently I post on here.