Basketball, Part 2

Part One

There are certain transformative moments in life when you realize, for the first time, the shallowness of your previous understanding of a particular word. Though the moment passes, your understanding and appreciation for this word is forever deepened.

I vividly recall a moment -- an otherwise perfectly mundane, forgettable moment, standing at a bus stop, idly conversing with a friend -- when I looked up at the sky and, for the first time, saw how blue it was. In that moment, I felt my life break into two distinct periods. There was the pre-sky period, during which I had had an incomplete picture of what "blue" meant, and there was the post-sky period, during which I had finally completed that picture. For some reason, in that moment, the unbelievable, extraordinary blueness of the sky sank deep into my mind, and every other blue looked less blue by comparison. It was so memorable that I wrote about it.

I had a similar experience with the word "flight". As a student of physics, I had a vague understanding of the equations governing lift, gravity, fluid density; I was already amazed at the incredible pace of human flight (from Wright Brother paper skeletons on a beach to landing on the moon within a single human lifetime); I had even been on planes before. But one time, taking off from LaGuardia, I truly felt what it meant to fly, lighter than air, head in the clouds, gravity's bane, borne aloft on thin aluminum wings, piercing that exquisite blue sky. I wrote about that too.

These moments are often accompanied by pure, intense emotion, and have indelibly changed the way I perceive the world, as well as how I act within it. They are major underpinnings of my character, my personality, my very being. Tonight, I experienced one of them. The word was mercy.

I grew up in an abusive household, and I'm starting to realize how I've never really experienced mercy before. What I experienced was more like a sequence of brief reprieves, staccato calms-before-the-storm during which I tried desperately to keep my head down, doing my best to delay the inevitable hurricane-to-come -- and come it would, with no hint of compassion within its howling winds, no trace of mercy in the coldness.

Then again, mercy was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was revenge. I didn't want to be free of suffering; I wanted to act, to punish, to inflict suffering on someone else, to show them what I was made of, to bring my ill-conceived notion of justice into the world, a notion of justice that had nothing but contempt for the word mercy. I'm reminded of a quote from James Baldwin's seminal civil rights publication, The Fire Next Time:

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

But hate is not an antidote to pain; it is an amplifier. My lashing out caused me nothing but suffering. To make matters even more confusing, the person I lashed out at responded with nothing but love. It was one of the biggest emotional shifts I've ever experienced -- so big, in fact, that it gave me a better appreciation for what the word love means. I've written about this before -- but even though the experience left me with a better grasp on love, I still had no grasp whatsoever on mercy. That changed tonight, as we got mercy-ruled out of an intramural basketball game.

From the first minute of the game, it was clear our opponents belonged in a different league to the people we played last week, who themselves already belonged in a different league from us. I want to make it clear that the league my team signed up for was the lowest-skilled, least-competitive league possible, ideally suited for people still learning the basics of that mysterious "hand-eye coordination" skill people seem weirdly jazzed about. The opposing team, by contrast, were routinely firing off behind-the-back no-look passes, slamming home effortlessly-coordinated alley-oops, swishing perfect-follow-through three-pointers under pressure, finding nothing but net.

When we were down 0-20, I started to wonder if we were ever going to score. When we finally do, I clap. It's a wretched, miserable clap, a clap that rings hollow with pathetic enthusiasm and woeful futility. It's the most our team celebrates for the entire game -- slaughter, if you prefer more accurate terminology.

My teammates start talking about how the other team are assholes because they are trying too hard, making fun of us, laughing at us. I don't agree with this assessment; if anything, I find our opponents to be surprisingly respectful and understanding. They are doing nothing but trying their best -- if anything, it would be more disrespectful to not try as hard, because it would ruin the spirit of competition. And I would interpret their laughter (which I never even personally witnessed) as an uncontrollable reaction to the obvious disparities being displayed on the court. It's hard not to laugh at the ridiculous, the extreme. It's even harder not to laugh at the extremely ridiculous, which are some of the candidate words I would use to describe this basketball game.

But losing poisons everything. It's almost impossible to keep a positive attitude when you're getting totally annihilated on the court, so it's natural to interpret the opponent's actions as more aggressive and disrespectful while not considering how bored and disappointed they might feel playing a non-game. It's just as natural to get quieter, to try less hard, to adopt a loser's mindset. And the cycle continues.

Our team's morale is in the gutter well before halftime. This lack of spirit is expressed in our silences, our "oh well" glances, our "whatever" eyerolls, but is most painfully manifest in my increasingly sad claps on the rare occasion our Star Player scores. The other team starts feeling bad for us, so they start trying less hard, which in turn makes me feel even worse. They are just standing there, halfheartedly waving their arms around, not even trying to block. The refs give us a totally bullshit foul call that results in one point from a free throw. Their pity nets us a double-digit score.

Then again, pity was not something I especially wanted. The thing I wanted was to win. I didn't want to be tossed some scraps under the table; I wanted to act, to practice, to get good, to punish everyone for their pity, to show them what I was made of, to enact grim revenge on them for their clearly well-intentioned actions. I had nothing but contempt for their pity, and nothing but frustration for myself, because I didn't have anything near what it would have taken to achieve these goals. I'm reminded of a Mike Tyson quote:

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

To me, that quote says that all the adversity I've experienced -- abuse, weakness, getting blown the fuck out at an intramural basketball game -- matters far less than how I choose to react to that adversity. I didn't react particularly well in this situation. I found it impossible to stay motivated, to not become demoralized -- and these reactions manifested on the court, as I started pressuring opponents less, walking instead of running, looking too often at the clock, wondering when it would be over, when we would finally lose.

I consider myself an optimist. I consider myself a competitor. I consider myself a person who tries hard to do things he's committed to doing. As the game went on, I considered myself to be less of these things, and more like someone treading water, clinging to the driftwood of these once-proud aspects of my identity, trying not to drown in my own mediocrity. Less than ten minutes into the second half, it finally happens: we are down by 50 points, which is when the mercy rule kicks in and the game ends -- not with a bang, but with a whimper.

It was in this moment that I finally understood the meaning of "mercy". Mercy, at its core, is about liberation. It is a compassionate liberation of a person's dignity from the all-encompassing quagmire of hopelessness. The healing process must start here to be effective. Agency is the beating heart of the restorative process, and mercy is its carrier. Mercy is not noble or pretty; it is pragmatic. It is not the knight in shining armor, come to slay the dragon. It is the browning, punctured life preserver thrown out to the drowning person who is clinging to driftwood, treading water.

More Words

Words are where I go for fun
and play pretend on monkey bars,
heedless of the noonday Sun
so far away when I'm on Mars.

Words are where I feel secure
A timeless vault locked by me
No need to be ashamed, demure
When I alone possess the key.

Words are how I sing my song
Catchy jingles, flashy tunes
Now and then I'll go along
With a slow and mournful, wailing fugue.

Words are water. Words are wind.
Words are where I go for peace.
I give my words, edit, rescind
But never erase, a paper crease.

Ode to Humanity

I am on mountaintops, tucked in forsaken alleyways, immersed in day-long binges, soaked through from the rain, craving water;
fixing plumbing, tightening pipes, scrubbing toilets until they gleam with the fire of the desert sun I sweat under for the sole purpose of taking the same touristy picture smeared across a thousand postcards;
wandering on deserted city sidewalks illuminated by flickering streetlamps, wandering across nonexistent trailheads under forest canopies, wandering through flat seas guided by the stars;
spending time with children, watching their eyes fill with wonder, wondering where my own wonder went -- where it wandered;
bound to sewing machines and cubicles, furnaces and office spaces, shop counters and laboratories, exchanging life for life while telling myself stories to the contrary;
coughing up blood on dusty roads, running marathons through city-sanctioned boulevards, mastering the use of crutches, slaloming down alpine slopes;
worshipping in cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, temples, petitioning inconsequential causes before a million different gods;
killing myselves in service of countless shifting motives, -- lurid voices, noble causes, petty squabbles -- and burying myselves under elaborate tombstones and forgotten graveyards;
stuck at broken turnstiles, defective vending machines, busted laptops, where my toe-tapping belies a lofty and prideful destiny.

I am working, resting, weeping, laughing, grieving, celebrating, studying, relaxing.
I am humanity.

Words as Water

Some days, my words are a hurricane, storming, swirling, surrounding, swallowing, whirlwind of watery madness, Poseidon's envy, confluence of pressure and heat compressed, twisted, gyrating, incubated under cold gaze of wristwatches and sunsets, calendars and generations, until they unleash at last as force of nature, primal tempest, liquid chaos. They hammer hulls, homesteads, hospitalities -- but they are not insolent; they are imbued with imagination, ingenuity, insight, pulled by passion, purpose, providence. They are supernovae birthing stars, and when they hush, you can see their children.

Some days, my words are a waterfall, churning, frothing, roiling, cascading over with frenetic energy, Angel's envy, bottom of a gravity well, bane of promontories, parapets, precipices -- yet still secluded, sequestered, subservient, dutifully, datelessly, deathlessly locked down the same cold cliffs tectonic caprice created, indentured to their own inertia -- and so I have condensed my sorrows into scabrous stone slabs and scattered them along the basin, that they may finally be eroded, and I have whittled my wishes into water wheels, that they may finally be harnessed.

Some days, my words are a tide, waxing, waning, swishing, sloshing, synchronous with celestial song, oscillating in lunar rhythm, Artemis's envy, lover's paradise, coastline kissing horizon, border of an infinite sea. They polish seashells, harbor secrets, deposit starfish, softly send sculpted strongholds back to soft, sweet sand. They are hidden under cover of darkness, shroud of night, cloak of shadow, never witnessed -- only glimpsed in furtive flashes, coy confessions, wistful whispers, receding at a moment's notice back to the vast and incomprehensible deep.

Some days, my words are a brook, bouncing, bubbling, babbling, careening with candid carelessness, Siddhartha's envy, meandering across forest and field, veld and valley, sierra and steppe, passing pastures, poppies, pathways, an ardent, adventurous aria with catchy, contented chorus, borne aloft by birdsong and breeze, sustenance of sunflowers, cradle of childhood, provider of peace. They are leyline, lifeblood, luminosity, erstwhile ending in echoey estuaries, now dissolving into diverse deltas, frolicking fluid phalanges filled with festive fantasies.

Some days, my words are a pond. They are still, stoic, silent. They will not stray from their solemn station, but they are not stagnant; they stay sparkling, simple, spotless, marker of mindful moments, motionless mirrors reflecting minimalist murmurings of my modest mind. They have no agenda; they are plain presentness, abbreviated to the point of pure apostrophe, emptiness in form, form in emptiness. I exhale and watch ripples roll across their surface.

Some days, my words are the bottom of a broken well. They are distant. Dark. Cold.
Unreachable.
I listen for them with urgency, with desperation, seek them out in lonely, forbidden places.
I hear only a mournful, howling wind that chills me to my bones.
Where is the hurricane? The waterfall? The tide? The brook? The pond?
They seem so distant now.
I will wait for their return.

Basketball, Part One

I joined an intramural basketball team. Here is an account of our first game.

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According to this 2017 article, Michael Jordan signed a contract for $100 million to sell his brand of basketball shoes. After playing basketball tonight, I realize why: Shoes are everything in basketball. This realization comes within two minutes of stepping foot on the court. My normal shoes function just fine on concrete; on the court, they have the coefficient of friction of a well-lubricated Slip 'n' Slide. I drop the ball -- literally -- multiple times due to this bad choice in footwear.

My pre-game prep does not help my chances; if anything, it hurts them. My legs are sore from a workout the day prior. The duct-taped numbers on my makeshift jersey fall apart on-contact with sweat. I have no other pre-game prep. But these thoughts are for people who lose, and I came here for the opposite purpose. Winning is everything in basketball.

Our team has a couple of Star Players. I aspire to be like them. They are aggressive, running through people on the court, fouling opponents, getting fouled themselves. Maybe aggression is everything in basketball? I remember learning in middle school PE that you should never stick too close to the player you're covering, because it's really easy for them to get past you. I'm starting to wonder if this advice is actually good, because our Star Players are right up in our opponent's faces, experiencing more skin-on-skin contact than I did with my last girlfriend. The referees seem lenient to me, only calling fouls on rare occasion. Then again, I don't know much about basketball.

Unfortunately, there are people on our team who know even less about basketball than I do. One of them doesn't actually know the rules of the game, so right before it starts, another teammate has to hurriedly explain what dribbling, traveling, and double-dribbling are to them before running out of time and not being able to explain anything else. This is when I realize: Knowing the rules is everything in basketball. We're lucky our referees are so lenient.

The opposing team is much taller than us, with much bigger muscles, and with a much higher percentage of males. (They are all males.) This is when I realize: Height is everything in basketball. The guy I'm supposed to cover is so much taller than me, he can ignore me completely. When I raise a hand to block his shot, my fingertips come up to his chin; when he's blocking me, I can barely see past his thigh. I'm not sure what our rebound percentage was that game, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in single-digits. Turns out it's pretty hard to get the ball when the other team can just pluck it from the air above you.

We start out strong, mostly because the opposing team starts out weak. Their basket attempts outnumber our attempts four to one at least (in one play, a single opposing player successfully rebounded his own missed shot, reshot, missed, rebounded his own missed shot, reshot, missed, rebounded again, and repeated this cycle six times while the other nine people on the court idly watched) -- but their shooting percentages are abysmal. Halfway through the first half, we are up 9-6, due solely to our Star Players and the opposing team's incompetence. Consistency is everything in basketball.

Our team has some slim advantages. A coach is one of them. She is a total badass, giving deep strategy advice about baseline runners to us during halftime from her sweet wheelchair. I love it and do my best to absorb everything she's saying. Strategy is everything in basketball. It immediately falls apart on the court, though. As soon as the clock resumes, my brain snaps back into the sort of beginner-level logic flowchart they teach on the first day of an Intro to Programming course: If I don't have the ball > get in position to get the ball. If I do have the ball > pass it to a Star Player. The latter half of this flowchart is not often successful.

Another advantage of our team is our deep bench. We have four players ready to sub in at any time, and we need them, because running at full sprint back and forth across a basketball court for five minutes is not something our team is cardiovascularly prepared for. I start struggling sometime during the first half, but I want to stay on the court. This is a bad decision; my performance gets increasingly worse, and soon I'm spending less time racing the opposing players to the basket and more time racing my own breath out of my mouth. My game impact during this time period is essentially zero. Finally, I sub out. From the bench, I am surprised to see that our opponents also seem to be tired. By the end of the first half, these big guys are all panting for breath, sweat rolling down their faces in heavy waves. This is when I realize: Running is everything in basketball. If we can outrun our opponents, we can go for uncontested layups, and they won't be able to catch up. It's a nice thought.

After halftime, the opposing team looks warmed up. This is when I realize: Being warmed up is everything in basketball. The people who are warmed up start making a lot more shots, and we start making a lot less. Their endurance outpaces ours by a wide margin; what I thought I saw during my time on the bench is revealed to be total illusion. These guys outrun us with ease, grab rebounds, fire off no-look passes, sink baskets. They are clearly superior on the court, and their noises grow increasingly celebratory as the game draws to a close.

Though we lost badly in the end, our team still has great heart, a strong emotional core. This is when I realize: Attitude means absolutely nothing in basketball. Not even a damn thing. Our words of encouragement, team bonding, and sportsmanship did not stop us from getting utterly obliterated on the court. But I only care a medium amount about that. Overall, I loved the experience. Being part of a team is a wonderful feeling; everyone is there to uplift and support each other. Competition pushes me to excel. And excelling is everything -- not just in basketball.

Part Two

On Monogamy

Consider the conventional sexual/romantic preference of monogamy as applied to friendships, and you immediately begin to see monogamy's shortcomings. I don't want my friends to have no other friends before me; quite the opposite -- I'd want my friends' friends to be as exciting and stimulating as possible, because I want my friends to be friends with exciting and stimulating people. It would be selfish of me to feel otherwise. What is different about romantic relationships?

Romantic relationships are an even more intense, intimate form of friendship heightened through physical intimacy. But this makes monogamy even worse, because it seems all the more selfish to deny my romantic partner a chance to form this kind of better, deeper relationship with someone else, however much I want my partner to be mine. Moreover, I am demanding of my partner that they fulfill all my romantic and sexual needs until I die, which seems to dehumanize them through overglorification, while I am also being arrogant enough to presume that I satisfy all of their desires. For these reasons, I can only conclude that monogamy is not borne out of love for one's partner, but rather jealousy and sexual possessiveness, which are terrible reasons to do anything.

Lifelong monogamy amplifies these problems. Lifelong commitments are unsound in general, because people are always changing. The person I was three years ago is not me; he is someone with a different set of opinions, ideologies, and dreams. His romantic tastes have changed. I don't think someone who committed to a romantic relationship with him should have to carry that obligation forward with a different person, even if they felt it was the right move at the time.

I would hope that I would be a person who is confident enough, secure enough, and loving enough to give my partner(s) the freedom to explore sexual and romantic experiences that fulfill them without feeling any resentment or jealously. If I truly loved my partner, then I should not be bitter or angry about anything that made them happy, especially something as amazing as a romantic relationship. Unfortunately, I am not so strong. The cultural tide of monogamy has swallowed me, and I am a hapless victim in its waters. Despite everything I've said in this post, I still prefer long-term, monogamous relationships, and I can't help but think this preference makes me weak, hypocritical, and morally flawed.

Maybe in this case, the immoral position is the only position that will make me happy, because I am incapable of becoming confident enough, secure enough, loving enough. Or maybe that's just something I tell myself so I won't have to try.

Inspiration is a flick'ring flame

Inspiration is a flick'ring flame
An unreliable source of light;
A wholly random gambling game
Played long and deep into the night.

Inspiration is a fickle muse --
Her beat is not a steady sound;
It syncopates, a mournful blues
Listened to, but never found.

Her countenance fills me with glee
A lover's kiss, a friendly hug --
Yet when I taste Her, I always see
Inspiration is a bitter drug.

I go to suck her tender teat
But I'm lapping at an empty bowl --
An oasis, dried in desert heat
That could never quench my dying soul.

On Weddings

I attended a wedding recently. Here are my thoughts on the occasion.

Weddings are an amalgamation of many things I dislike. For one, they are an iconic example of social exhibitionism, wherein the dearly beloved are compelled to demonstrate their commitment and intimacy in front of a crowd. Having to show your love in front of an audience feels inauthentic: If a couple's dedication to one another is truly lifelong, then they wouldn't have to hold a ceremony to prove it. In fact, holding such a ceremony actually dilutes the source of this dedication, in the same way a person who constantly says "believe me" dilutes his own trustworthiness. If something is authentic, you shouldn't need a special day to tell all your loved ones about it. It should speak for itself.

Weddings are also beholden to many formulaic traditions I find distasteful. There have to be a certain number of hierarchically-ordered bridesmaids and groomsmen, the top ranks for each being "maid of honor" and "best man", respectively, and these Chosen Ones must each deliver a toast. There has to be a cake, which has to be cut by the newlyweds in tandem, but only after they've danced to exactly one carefully preselected song. Particularly offensive to me is that the father of the bride has to walk the bride down the aisle, because it suggests that a woman is a male possession, and that a wedding is a transfer of property. These traditions trap weddings in antiquated times and make me apprehensive about having a wedding of my own. I don't want to be beholden to archaic rituals established by superstitious, out-of-touch, medieval elites.

Yet despite all these factors, I loved every moment of the wedding I attended. I loved the procession, the chaplain's speech, the reception and dinner afterward. The entire spectacle was an amazing celebration of love, family, and friendship. It made me teary-eyed to see two friends commit to each other in the most serious way possible, and to see the joy on their faces as they did it. The venue, the food, and the atmosphere were all phenomenal.

Even more significantly, I realized that the things I dislike about weddings were part of what made it special. The exhibitionism of the wedding made it all the more selfless, because the guests got the privilege to witness an earnest celebration of love. The traditional aspects of the wedding made it all the more meaningful, because the couple were rejoicing in the light of a rich religious and cultural history.

In modern times, with the relentless inauthenticity of social media, the endless babble of consumerism, the shameful discourse of our politics, I often find myself in cynical moods. Everything seems to be an attention-grab, an ironic detachment, a vestigial artifact of history. This wedding reminded me that happiness, love, and celebration can transcend all these impurities. Let's keep celebrating.

Lyrics: Another Standard Braggadocio

Recording

Au, my raps are nothin’ but gold, never grow old, I’m so bold and stone cold, I’m noble, Simone knows I’m glo-bal, but no bull, foes choke on the mojo of this flow as I grow mold on fomo and go toe ‘ to toe with mofos whose low blows are so toast they mope home in boatfulls, boastfuls and moguls all hopeful to postpone my coro-nation, but I’m not patient, I’m the seven sins, accost a mosque and turn the imam Rastafarian, “mom, I musta lost a cardigan cuz it’s cold up in --”, oh wait, that's great, it's just my bars again, my heart must be a bargain bin cuz it’s got hidden treasures and bobby pins, I been all up in this life like it’s a dollar bill and I’m George Washington, walk a mile down the Nile in a pile of stylin’ moccasins, sky high in single file like angels posturin’ for my right to go thrive, why die when my pipes are still ripe? I’ll survive to recite the last digit of pi and still find enough time to refine Kant’s transcendental aesthetic, oriental ascetic flaunting his continental magnetic elemental kinetic monumental pyretic energy, I’m an experimental phonetic fundamental poetic entity, so mental schizophrenics are into me, it’s theoretically right to say I’m antithetic to life like entropy.

When you’re honest with me you’re speaking truth to power, lines so filthy need a booth to shower, I’ll devour a mound of rowdy doubters, spit a mouthful of white boys out in a Saudi bouncy house call it the iv’ry tower, when the mounting sound of their dour cow'ring gets foul, I’ll wow them, loudly regale them with a tale of how I found out the Sahara’s pale cuz I started a drought south of an Italian mountain, shout out to those louts who lousily spout when I tout my clout, yet bow down when I endow them with accounts of bein’ en route to knock out Ronda Rousey, Faust has got nothin’ on me cuz Lucifer’s my bitch, dork, bring forth his pitchfork to scratch an itch more, like poison ivy, can only be this fire if you plagiarise me, so revel in these iron rhymes I’m finding or I’ll kindly bind you to a pyre, my tight rhymes feel so right, desirous, final judge like Osiris, or ' Walter White with a bunch o’ ricin, my violent punchlines’ll crunch right at the hunched spine of young Mike Tyson and vaporize him, slice and dice him ‘till he’s an icy poltergeist so Ghostbusters'll bring a Dyson to exorcise him

I’m so frightening I’m like the might o’ Thor when he ‘ gets bored and spites the night with a bolt of lightning, make ‘em jolt like a colt that’s writhing, writing so bright and blinding I’ll ignite the entire Rhine, I’m so enlightening made Bill Nye question science, I’m what Barack was to Biden, so inspirin’ and righteous Christ tithes to me so I’ll provide him guidance, so you better abide and take my side or the ' tide’ll rise up and smite your tiny soul faster than a shoal of North Korean gener’als would boast after they roast the coast of Seoul, get emotional, cuz I fill you up call me the Holy Ghost, you think I’m mostly joking but I’m low-key focused, post up on a whole host of broken homes, folks call me James Earl Jones cuz I am your daddy, Tiger Woods’ my golfing caddy.

Lyrics: Self deprecating rap

Recording

My vision’s so bad it’s two pixels thick, oh wait no that’s the size of my dick. Ever seen a chick run away from a Wei so quick? Straight disappearin’ like a magic trick.
No I’m bein’ real, I got no game, paraplegics shun me cuz I’m too lame. My claim to fame? I got nothin’ to offer, flame in my belly’s like tepid water, committed to fatherhood then abandoned my daughter, parental absence like Harry Potter.
I’m less friendly than the Whomping WIllow, last date I went on was with a body pillow, cuddled up close but I got rejected, always do worse than what’s expected.

Decisions are needed? I’ll be hesitating. if I was a law they’d be abrogating. Tried to man up, started menstruating. Title of this song “Self Deprecating”.

Want to see me quit? You got your wish. I got less spine than a jellyfish. Jumped into the sea, sea spit me out. Poseidon’s like, “Who let this man into my house? I didn’t sign a waiver. Even Mr. Rogers wouldn’t be your neighbor.”
Reached for my backbone, found nothin’ there. If cowardice was cash I’d be a billionaire, if bravery’s silent call me Times Square, or Alpha Centauri cuz I’m full of hot air, and laissez-faire is my worst nightmare cuz the only seat for my derrière is also known as the electric chair.

My reflexes are nothing but vegetative, tried to be cool and self-immolated, flow’s not sick but you’re nauseated, just bein’ real when I self-deprecate it.

“Bag your face, there's something wrong.” Heard that from my doctor, and my mom. Walked up to a mirror, my reflection ran, didn’t stop till it was in Turkmenistan. Go down the street showing my face, and even the blind run like The Amazing Race.
When I leave the club all the people cheering, cuz I’m more of a farce than a supreme court hearing. You heard it right, I’m a total sham. Drywall’s as exciting as my Instagram. Cuz I’m as lively as ‘ a stillborn fetus, when an atheist sees me they turn to Jesus.

I don’t knowing how to conjugate, got no deadline but I’m still late, gene pool’s thankful when I masturbate, just bein’ honest when I self-deprecate.

Lyrics: Rap #3

Another day, another rap.

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I’m the God of War like Ares, can’t approximate me with a Taylor Saries cuz I can’t be derived, make so much green I’m a bowl of chives, wit so sharp it’s like diamond knives, got so many plaques I got gingivitis, at the top like the Pope but not so pious

You’re a waste of style and oxygen, my waste is fertile like an ox, I gen’erate an oxidized state cuz I’m straight fire, not content with a quiet ascent, I’ll invent and augment this rap and when it gets sent world joy gets saved by fifteen percent like a Geico ad, and I'm so badass call me prostate cancer, I'm a blank Scantron cuz I need no answers.

I got no doubts about my self-worth, I’m the tallest mountain, I’ve been countin’ since birth, I’m an endless fountain of mirth with a number of fans equal to the population of earth

My rhymes never tarnish, they’re varnished like a lacquer, I’m what Rodgers is to the Packers, I’ll delete you like a common factor, give a mean performance like a hostile actor, the cost’ll factor in your fiscal year, I’m being crystal clear, I’m on a different tier, my lips appear to be an agent o’ God, a more ruthless Ahmadinejad, but the people love me, and it’s hard to blame ‘em when my face is so lovely.

You’re out back with a couple of beers, I’m workin’ so hard my blood sweat and tears could sate a sadist for a thousand years

My ragin’ brays assuage caged-in creatures, like a male Snow White with more Asian features, you're an old headline cuz you're an agin’ feature, I’m an amazin’ teacher, attract every soul from the field to the bleachers with my outsized boasts, I capsized boats when I was’ baptized in the revenue stream, I’m tellin’ you please, if you block my way pray I stay away cuz, hey I’m cray, I slay all day, I’ll spay a neighbor’s fav’rite mangy stray to make ‘em pay for a rayless day of grey, and they may say it was a strange behavior, but I’m Wei the Savior, holy like Saint Xavier, and I’m ‘ growing so exponentially, my sole superior is the future me.

He found only silence

His mouth contorted, searching for something to say, something meaningful to add. He found only silence

He yearned for it, anything even remotely interesting to share. He looked for it in every sliver and crevasse of his consciousness. His fervor oozed through every pore upon his skin; his desperation refracted through every bead of sweat upon his brow. He begged his mind to think of anything of value he could contribute -- anything at all.

He plunged into the depths of his creativity, and he found nothing there.

On Immigration

On July 23, 2018, I became a United States citizen. This occasion has caused me to ponder the issues of citizenship and immigration in greater detail.

In the wake of my new citizenship, someone asked me, "Now that you've gone through the whole process, how do you feel about people coming over here illegally?" I responded noncommittally due to timing issues, but my real answer is this: Illegal immigrants are some of the people who've suffered most, who are most desperate, most hardworking -- and for these reasons, they are some of the people who most deserve our compassion.

On a fundamental philosophical level, I reject the concept of nations entirely. The specific sovereign governments and borders on Earth today have little concern for human well-being; they are historical artifacts based on arbitrary geographical features, backwards violence, or pure happenstance. The more we discover about the nature of reality, the more the morally and socially questionable borders become.

Astronomy, for instance, has shown us our insignificance in the universe. There is a deep existential futility in trying to delineate the exact boundary between between two specks of land on a hardly larger speck of dust, floating through a cold and endless cosmos. Meanwhile, biology has revealed our deep genetic ties to one another. We are, in a very real sense, all members of one big evolutionary family; be we from Uganda or Peru, our common heritage is encoded in every cell of our body. And with the advent of commercial air travel and the Internet, all the places on this once-vast globe are suddenly much closer together.

These scientific advancements allow us to transcend our ugly tribal history. The perspective they provide is clear: We are all citizens of a global community, we are far more alike than we are different, and we are far better working together than apart. With our knowledge, it is no longer justifiable for us to cling to the in-group/out-group mentality of our evolutionary past. Consequently, my most moral scenario is one in which "immigration" as a concept becomes obsolete because we all consider ourselves members of the single, united nation of Earth.

Though this philosophical position may not be feasible right now, it's still important. It is the lens through which I view topics pertaining to immigration. I support most steps that can peacefully move us toward a more cooperative, cosmopolitan, global society, and away from borders, tribalism, and nationalism. Immigration is not easy; this is something I know firsthand. I want to live in a world where it is.

Love is not an endless ocean

Love is not an endless ocean
Love is not mere blind devotion

Love is not the tallest mountain
Love is not the Timeless Fountain

Love is not some stalwart castle
Love is not so young, so facile

Love is not a boundless chasm
Love is not pure enthusiasm

Love is not a life's commitment
Love is near and love is distant

Love is ever shifting, moving
breaking, forming, and improving

Love can quake and love and bend
Love can fail and love can end

None of these are love's damnation.
Love's great strength is not duration.

Love does not keep things in cages.
Love's beauty lies in how it changes.

I'm Lost

I'm lost, I said one fateful day, and wondered where I was.
So I went to go and search for me -- mostly just because.

I found myself on mountain vistas, past frigid, icy streams;
I found myself in English classrooms, amidst poetic themes.
I found myself in cheerful places, laughing to my core;
I found myself in grieving places, silent as the morgue.
I found myself in romantic places, dancing, getting kissed;
I found myself in craven places, filled with cowardice.

I'm lost, I told myself, desperate to be found;
Will I find my soul in Heaven? Or deep beneath the ground?

I found myself in tranquil moments, in the quiet of my mind;
I found myself in awkward moments, when the quiet was not so kind.
I found myself in triumphant moments, victorious, adored;
I found myself in lifeless moments, doing nothing, getting bored.
I found myself in wondrous moments, amazed at beauty's grace;
I found myself in filthy moments, in perversion's cold embrace.

Will I ever find myself? I pondered hopelessly.
I was there in all those moments, but was it truly me?

I found myself with kindness, performing selfless acts;
I found myself with treach'ry, breaking sacred pacts.
I found myself with patience, never wearing thin;
I found myself with turmoil, a raging storm within.
I found myself with passion, glowing in my eyes;
I found myself with shame, which I've managed to disguise.

And then I knew the answer, succeeded in my quest;
I found myself at last, at last! -- and I laid the matter to rest.
Where am I really? I asked myself, searching everywhere;
And found myself in all those places -- for I was always there.

I was never lost at all, you see. The hunt was all a sham.
Where I look, I find me. And that is where I am.

Becoming happier, Part 2

Part 1

Rewiring #4: Random act of kindness

Research shows that being kind to other people is one of the things that makes us happiest, and that result fills me with joy. We are lucky to live in a universe where making other people happy is to our own benefit.

The non-zero-sum nature of well-being is why the concept of karma makes sense, broadly speaking. Suffering creatures are more likely to make other creatures suffer; happy creatures are more likely to make other creatures happy. Consequently, the more suffering you generate, the more likely you are to suffer; the more happiness you generate, the more happy you become.

I, along with ~10 other students, teamed up to give one of our favorite professors an end-of-semester gift. The gift referenced an idiosyncratic turn of phrase he often used in class, which was fun, but what was even more fun was the heartfelt note I wrote to go with it. The note included a collection of his best in-class quotations and some words of thanks, and even though it was painfully slow to pen the entire thing in cursive, I still had an marvelous time writing it.

I started volunteer at CU's Restorative Justice center. Restorative justice is different from our national model of retributive justice in many respects: while the latter is solely concerned with punishing the offender, a restorative system focuses on the victim of an incident, and repairing the harms done thereto. Victim satisfaction should be one of the main goals of any justice system, and it's a big reason why I support restorative justice. It feels good to volunteer my time toward something I believe in. A couple offenders I've worked with have even thanked me personally for my involvement, and their comments remain deeply gratifying.

After listening to this podcast, I donate monthly to the Against Malaria Foundation. The facts of malaria are astonishing. Malaria is one of the top killers of humanity, with one estimate saying it has killed half the people who have ever lived, most of whom are children. The worst part of this statistic is that malaria is preventable, treatable, and curable. According to this Unicef article, our best treatment is artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), which costs an absurdly low $2.50 for a single adult treatment dose. A mosquito net will prevent an entire family from contracting the disease for the even cheaper price of $2.00. (As a point of comparison, Lindsay Graham spent $1013.74 per vote he received in the 2016 Republican primary.) As such, the dollar-to-lives-saved ratio is extremely high when donating to the Against Malaria Foundation. The podcast I mentioned frames it like this: If you ran into a burning building and saved a child's life, that moment would be a crowning achievement in your life. You would receive immense social validation and personal pride at performing such an act, and you would deserve it. Donating $10 per month to malaria-related causes is like that, except you are saving multiple children, every month, and instead of taking on extreme danger and permanent lung damage, you're sacrificing the monetary equivalent of two cups of coffee.

Rewiring #5: Make a social connection 

A fact I learned in the course: People usually think talking to a stranger on the bus will be a miserable experience, but when they actually do it, they change their mind. Social interaction is core to our biology and our evolutionary history; in this sense, it's comparable to amazing sex, or a delicious meal.

I spent ~20 minutes talking to a homeless man after buying him some food. I showed him a few card tricks, and he taught me how to vanish a cigarette. It felt thrilling and intrigue-laden, like two magicians swapping secrets. He also told me about his time in the Iraq war, his experience being homeless, and his aspirations to find work, and I told him about my experience as an immigrant and a college student. The only complaint I have about this interaction is that it was too short.

A couple friends from high school and I started a book club. The book we chose was Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, a fantasy heist novel. I'm a huge fan of the heist genre, but I've only ever seen it in movies (Ocean's Eleven, The Sting, Inception). Reading a heist book is fun; discussing a heist book with smart people is even more fun.

On a recent vacation with some close friends, I stayed up to 4am dancing on the beach and gazing at the stars. The vast ocean and the endless cosmos, in all their grandeur, were still outshone by our revelry in each other's company, our quiet conversations on the sand. Our love for one another rang out in our words, in our silences, in our movements, in our stillnesses. No one could do wrong that night; it was, in a profound Wei, perfect.

Rewiring #6: Meditation

I've already practiced mindfulness meditation daily for over a year, so this rewiring was really just a regular old wiring.

One of the most enjoyable things in life is to witness skill: superhuman athleticism, flawless musicanship, artful deception. We like these things because they are flashy, complicated, rococo, but we often miss the deep mastery of the fundamentals underpinning all such displays. The older I become, the more I come to appreciate the importance of fundamentals. Champion basketball players can bust out ankle-breaking outplays because they don't stop practicing basic footwork drills; virtuoso pianists can bust out finger-breaking melodies because they don't stop practicing basic scales. We often don't think about the almost insane* amount of time these performers have invested into their technique, and we think even less about how much of this time goes into practicing fundamentals -- even when the performer is world-class.

Meditation is practicing the fundamentals of human life. Breathing, sitting, being present: These are the skills meditation teaches you to master, and one consequence of mastering these fundamentals is personal gratification. This gratification is the equivalent of the basketballer's ankle-breaker that comes after countless hours doing footwork drills.

There is nothing more fundamental than the breath. When you reach for it, it is there, a persistent, gentle reminder of the present moment, always by your side. People often think of meditation as an esoteric, difficult act, but as Tibetan meditation master Mingyur Rinpoche explains in this video, meditation is simple. It starts and ends with the breath. I love that video because it captures the elegance of meditation and makes the practice accessible for everyone.

Meditation has made me happier for many reasons. I am less prone to anger, anxiety, sadness, annoyance, and any number of other negative emotions, because mindfulness is anathema to  suffering. Negativity withers in the presence of attention. And in addition to shedding these negative emotions, I have also gained positive ones. After practicing mindfulness, I find myself calmer, more focused, more at peace. I feel more self-loving and self-compassionate, and I've also become more receptive to the love and kindness of others.

Another Mingyur Rinpoche quote: "The only difference between meditation and regular social interaction is that the friend you're gradually coming to know is yourself."

Conclusion

I enjoyed these rewirings even more than the previous set. Everyone should practice kindness, social interaction, and meditation. This blog post was my attempt at communicating that to you. I hope it worked.





*Mastery is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Becoming happier, Part 1

I started taking this course a week ago, and it's been really cool. It has to do with the psychology of well-being -- both the science showing what makes us happy, and how to actually use this information for personal benefit.

One assignment of the course is to do "rewirings" -- activities designed to rewire your habits to increase your overall well-bring. An important part of the rewirings is to write down what you do. At first, I had mixed feelings about broadcasting my rewirings online, for the same reason I have mixed feelings about posting anything on social media: I can't escape the feeling that, as soon as it's shared, the purity of the intention becomes diluted by self-aggrandizement and exhibitionism. (I've refrained from posting many things for this reason.) On the other hand, if this post inspires even one person to do a rewiring, or even take the course, it will have been worthwhile.

Rewiring #1: Using character strengths

The first rewiring was to take a character strengths survey and use my top strengths, the idea being that it feels good to do stuff I'm good at. My top three strengths were love, humor, and gratitude.

These strengths have changed over time; if I'd taken this survey just a year ago, I'd definitely have gotten different results. I credit my current strengths to my wonderful friend group, mindfulness meditation practice, and the simple passing of time. Time is one of love's greatest allies.

 For love, I expressed my admiration for a few of my friends this week. I called my mom and talked with her about my and her plans for the future. I called my brother and planned to watch the new Avengers movie with him (which he is very excited about). I had an intimate conversation with a friend while stargazing. I wrote a poem for myself and posted it on this blog. I enrolled in a science of well-being course to become happier.
"Love" is quite a loaded term in modern society, to both good and ill effect. When people say "love", they usually mean romantic love, which is something I've been guilty of. But that's a shame, because familial love, friendly love, and self-love are just as important, if not more. I want to be more conscientious about these other types of love in my life.
I had an profound conversation with a friend about love recently. I was unsatisfied with the common saying, "everyone deserves love". What does it mean to deserve something? If something is universally deserved, doesn't that cheapen its value? And aren't there people so vile and despicable that they don't deserve love? His response was compelling: Given how beautiful and transcendent love is, it is the most heartbreaking thing in the world that some people don't get to experience it. This conversation really clarified the nature of love for me.
On one hand, I want love to be a big, meaningful word, the kind of word that can be the climax of a movie, the kind of word that lingers on a mind for a year after it's spoken. On the other hand, I want love to be a common, natural term, the kind of term that men can say from without the umbra of toxic masculinity, the kind of term that a woman can say without feeling overly vulnerable. The great thing is, it can be both. Love is not slave to dichotomy.

For humor, have you met me? I'm constantly joking. Sometimes I joke around too much. I did rewatch Brian Regan's excellent standup routine, but I didn't otherwise go out of my Wei to use this strength. I also won't be analyzing humor, as I think it often defeats the purpose (as this article hilariously lampoons). Humor is something that comes naturally to me, and I'm grateful for that. Speaking of which...

For gratitude, I started a gratitude journal, which is Rewiring #3 on this list. Gratitude and love are similar in nature, but you can read more about gratitude specifically in Rewiring #3.

Rewiring #2: Savoring an experience

We often dwell on negative experiences, to our detriment. Savoring positive experiences is the opposite. Mindfully enriching and intensifying a happy moment, in the moment, is an obvious (yet underused) method to increase well-being.

I did a mindful eating meditation via the Simple Habit app, and it was phenomenal. I was reminded of how delicious water is: The texture is crisp when it first hits your tongue, but then it rolls around your mouth with perfect, gentle smoothness. The taste is amazingly pure, bright, and refreshing. I repeated the meditation while eating chicken nuggets -- not exactly a meal to write home about -- and experienced a veritable explosion of flavors and textures. I recommend mindful eating to everyone.

I savored reading the book Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari. I enjoyed running the glossy pages through my fingers and feeling the weighty hardback cover in my hands. I took note of his brilliant writing style, which manages to communicate difficult concepts in simple prose -- the ultimate goal of writers working in this genre. Every couple of pages contained another fascinating, novel idea, and it was satisfying to wrestle with them and discuss them with others.

I savored walking. I took great pleasure in seeing my destination far away, only to arrive at it moments later by doing nothing other than putting one foot ahead of the other, repeatedly, in tiny increments. I noticed how my foot hit the ground with the perfect amount of pressure, whereupon the foot behind it immediately rose into the air with quiet ease. I enjoyed how my feet navigated the terrain even while I didn't so much as glance at them. I wiggled my toes around in the comfortable fabric of my socks. I relished the feel of springy grass and durable concrete alike as the sole of my shoe met them.

Rewiring #3: Gratitude journal

Gratitude was already one of my character strengths, so this tied in nicely with Rewiring #1. But damn, do I love gratitude. It's one of the most positive, selfless emotions on the wide spectrum of human experience. This is the same reason why the idea behind Thanksgiving is so appealing to me: In a cavalcade of other holidays drowning in consumerism and excess, a day dedicated to simply giving thanks is refreshing.

I feel and express the emotion of gratitude often, but writing down what I'm grateful for adds another dimension to the experience. Psychologists have shown that keeping a gratitude journal can have unexpectedly long-lasting and resonant effects on our well-being. Here are some entries from my personal gratitude journal.

I often express gratitude toward my friends and education, but there are so many other things to be thankful for. One of these is my body, which somehow knows how to produce the right amount of insulin, red blood cells, and stomach acid through processes that mystify me. Similarly, the dexterity of my hands amazes me. Even as I type these words, I am astonished at how effortlessly they glide across the keyboard. I am lucky to be able to feel, taste, smell, see, and hear the world; many people lack these privileges.

I am thankful for temperature control in buildings. I recently heard an interesting perspective: mere centuries ago, even the richest kings, as they lounged in their opulent palaces, had to deal with their water pitchers freezing over during winter. In modern times, "a roof over my head" is more than protection from the rain; it's a level of comfort someone who lived 200 years ago could not even fathom.

I am thankful for the countless strangers in my life abiding by implicit societal norms: Obeying traffic laws, holding doors open, being respectful of personal space. I tacitly benefit from untold centuries of conventions designed to smooth over interaction on every level, from interpersonal to intercontinental. It's a miracle that my mind can navigate this labyrinth of unspoken rules without conscious thought.

Conclusion

A big theme of the course is how bad we are at recognizing what makes us happy -- and even when we do recognize it, we are bad at actualizing the knowledge. It's one thing to understand that using our strengths, savoring experiences, and recording our gratitude will have positive impact on our lives, but another thing entirely to actually do these things. I hope reading my personal rewirings has convinced you to do some yourself.

Part 2

I will

I will be young.

I will be cool, hip, chic.
I will be full of vibrant, youthful energy, free from the tribulations of this world.
My step will spring with a swagger untouchable by tedium.
I will see the world through eyes overflowing with curiosity, joy, and wonder.
New trends will spring forth from my body like melodies from the fingertips of a pianist.
I will blaze the trail to unexplored frontiers with the lantern of my impulse and the compass of my creativity, and there I will revel in sights unseen and sounds unspoken.
I will dance under the moonlight just because it makes me happy.

I will be old.

I will be dutiful, seasoned, venerable.
I will value maturity, discipline, tradition.
I will sweat under a million sequential sunsets to build a bottomless well of wisdom brick by brick, and I will flood it with the oceans of my experience.
I will summit the mountain of perfection using my mistakes as footholds.
I will temper my decisions in the furnace of my responsibility.
I will bask in the moonlight of the centuries as they wax and wane before me, and I will understand the significance of time.

I will be quiet.

I will be mindful, contemplative, observant.
My mind will settle like water in a still pond, and I will be at peace with my reflection on its surface.
I will listen to others with rapt attention, and their insight will be the sweetness of ripe fruit bursting on my tongue.
I will treasure the input of my peers as my own child.
I will understand the Dalai Lama when he tells me, "When you speak, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new."

I will be loud.

I will be boisterous, enthusiastic, assertive.
My ideas will bubble up and cascade over my tongue like a waterfall, and its deluge will submerge the streets.
My convictions are a pack of wolves, and I will not let them hunger.
The tree of my certitudes will not wither in some forgotten darkness; it will thrive in the sunlight of my voice.
I will fire the missile of self-expression off the launchpad of my confidence, and its explosion will put the stars to shame.



Heinlein was right: specialization is for insects -- but I am human, and my humanity reveals how a thing contains its opposite.
Whitman was right: I contain multitudes -- but I do not contradict myself, for the dualities within me are not in conflict; they are dancers, in flawless harmony.

I will not be slave to dichotomy. But then again -- I will.