Inspiration. Words.

I want to write not for the sake of reaching the next period of the next sentence, but to meander and explore and craft, filling in the punctuations and blanks after the fact.

I want to write because it forces me to face myself and see my person laid out before me in a form digestible by another human being.

I want to write because I want to be.

But more than that, I want to write because I want to become.

Global soul

I've been reading this book "The Global Soul" by Pico Iyer, and it's causing me to really pause and ponder a bit in a way I haven't had the opportunity to in a while - most especially its remarks on the concept of "belonging" and "community."

"... the fact remains that humans have never lived with quite this kind of mobility and uprootedness before (indeed, the questions themselves may be the closest thing we have to home: we live in the uncertainties we carry round with us). A lack of affiliation may mean a lack of accountability, and forming a sense of commitment can be hard without a sense of community.

Displacement can encourage the wrong kinds of distance, and if the nationalism we see sparking up around the globe arises from too narrow and fixed a sense of loyalty, the internationalism that's coming to birth may reflect too roaming and undefined a sense of belonging.

The Global Soul may see so many sides of every question that he never settles on a firm conviction; he may grow so used to giving back a different self according to his environment that he loses sight of who he is when nobody's around. Even the most basic questions have to be answered by him alone, and when, on the planes where he may make his home, the cabin attendant passes down the aisle with disembarkation forms, it may be difficult for him to fill in any of the boxes: "Home address," "Citizenship," "Purpose of Visit," even "Marital Status."

What is it like to find community? The term has come to mean a kind of literal suburban white picket fence and PTA-filled society, or a decidedly alternative, tightly knit group of exclusive insiders. See: The fashion community. See also: The running community.

Everyone's constantly in search of finding their place of belonging, of hitting upon a kind of assembly of kindred spirits who will act as an external reassurance that there are others out there who think, breathe, act, look, just. Like. Them.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with seeking community, of trying to build a family from the hodgepodge of acquaintances, errant family members and coworkers that inevitably becomes your "in crowd" upon graduating from college and moving across the country to begin a new career and a new life away from your old "community."

The problem that arises, however, is that by wanting a community, we are wishing for exclusivity. We are by definition excluding people who don't fit the criteria of our given "group." Because without exclusivity, there is no community. If you don't define your community clearly, and leave it open to everyone - which is the PC way of looking at things - then you are not creating a community, nay, not even a global community - you are creating a space.

I got to thinking a lot about the concept of community recently after an hours-long conversation with a friend about the idea of religion. Not religion itself, per se, but the idea of it.

The principles that Christianity teaches - and let's hope I don't overgeneralize or get this wrong here - revolve around the idea that there are the Chosen Ones (those who subscribe to Christian views) and there are, by default, the non-Chosen Ones. You are in, or you are out. It's pretty straightforward in that sense.

But, I asked, why is it not enough to have a personal relationship with God, with a higher being, and be a good person? Why is the community aspect, the organized religion aspect of it, necessary? It sounds blasphemous to even question this, but I don't mean it in a disrespectful way. I mean it in a human, questioning, wondering kind of way.

He responded that by creating a community, a church, there is a physical divide between those who are saved and those who are not. And then it becomes very clear that those who ARE saved are tasked with saving those who are not. Being on the ship, in the actual physical ship, means that you have the resources to reach out and pull someone to safety.

Fair. But, what of the politics that come with organized religion? The human aspects of deciding who is a good pastor and who isn't, of who to hang out with while at church, of the dramas that taint the message of God that is delivered every Sunday? That is a community, to be sure - as communities are not always peaceful - but it is also just community for the sake of community without deeper examination, and I'm not sure I'm okay with that.

When church or any community becomes more about the individuals - what she was wearing that Sunday, or who likes whom, or which mother cooked the best dish - than the greater cause, that community is lost.

So maybe the answer is to strive for a more solid sense of self first. Settle the internal before striving for external affirmation.

I guess the only problem with that, though, is that so much of your self develops as a result of outward influences, and to try to wait until one is completely rooted in his or her self would mean - never interacting, never living.

Thus is the dilemma of the Global Soul, of journeying, of belonging.

Thoughts on a rainy Thursday

Just a few thoughts, freeflowing, something to come back to:

I am 23. Things are starting to gain a strange type of momentum now, the kind that I wish I could control, but which -- inevitably -- I can't. That's what real momentum is, though. So maybe what I was experiencing before was but a wayward tug. This is true release, I think, what I've needed to have all this time but couldn't. I scramble about so much in my daily life, trying to balance a set of priorities and people that just ask for too much of my attention and responsibility. And not to say that I don't genuinely care about each and every one of these pieces of my life -- but Mom knows best (and somehow she always gets the timing just right) -- in saying that I can't have everything.

Grab for too much and you risk losing what you already have.

And maybe that's a generational thing -- I'm not sure. But I've been raised to expect the world, to reach for the stars, to -- any number of trite sayings to fill in the blank, phrases that tell of pushing limits, expanding, growing, breathing. And I've always believed that the only person standing in the way of your success (however you might define that) -- is you. Just. You.

What most everyone wants and needs in life is not material. This much I know. The pursuit of happiness, that's something more tangible to me than chasing money. Money -- it's a concept. It's paper. It's the luxury and the status and the illusion of exclusion that's appealing. All because, really, those ideas are so tied up in the concept of happiness. It's become assumed that money will act as a catalyst for better things. A push in the right direction.

And so when I sat in a cab, homeward-bound, at 5:30 in the morning earlier today (yikes), heading home from work as the rest of the city shook itself awake, I had an epiphany. I need to once again embrace this feeling of trust that I can't control my circumstances, but I CAN control what I make of it. In a world of stumbled-into, accidentally-met happenstance, I want to know that after an initial push, I have to let things be. Steer, but only when I need to.

The one area of my life that I am wholly in control of is my mind, my mentality, my hyper-awareness of my own thoughts. I think I need this jolt of irregularity, strange schedule, a weird kind of isolation, in order to really see what I value and where I put in my time and effort.

My days are so much longer now. I wake up on my own accord, spend time with myself, my body (hello, gym and yoga) and my mind (hey now, NYTimes) because I know that this entire experience will make me that much mentally stronger. So much of society today is cast in a glow of interactions, outside reinforcements, chasing signs that we're okay, and I want to look deeper into that.

We bump into people, update our status feeds and blog about our days because it means that we're alive, that someone out there will think of us, talk about us, remember us.

I was once told that humans are born with one fear -- a fear of falling. This was meant in the literal sense, about the kind of falling that endangers our lives and develops into a fear of heights and vertigo. But in a broader sense, fear of falling means fear of failing, of tumbling from the social consciousness.

We blog because we want to stay relevant. We tweet because we want to reach out -- listen to me, see me, hear me. This is what I want to share with the world.

But what happens when the world stops listening? Radio silence.

What happens then?

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear or see it fall, has anything really happened?

We focus externally, look outward because sometimes (most of the time) that's so much easier. I want so much out of life, but I really want, more than that, to know why. Why am I constantly filling my days answering emails, meeting up with aquaintances, blogging (HA) about my thoughts to an anonymous audience?

Solitude will be my best learning tool.

It's easy to get lost in New York City. But last night/this morning, as I glanced over my shoulder at bedroom lights flickering on in high rises as I crossed the bridge, people starting the day just as I was about to end it, I felt found. Their dawn is my dusk. My reality is only, really, in my head. And I was very much aware that I was coming home -- on my own terms.

On success

My post for this week's Avocado Jungle. Thoughts?

Success is one of those topics that can spark a countless number of debates, conversations and discussions — with others, but more importantly, within ourselves. Trying to define this amorphous concept is the root of both ambition and manipulation, the reason why some of us are able to be content without external reinforcement and why others who are superficially successful will never have peace of mind.

The truth about success, in my view, is that it is more about personal goals and drive than it is about finding a place in the human rat race. We’re taught at an early age that there is such a thing as winners and losers — labels that are ultimately arbitrary, since the process is more valuable than the end result. This black-and-white rationale can act as blinders for how we view personal achievement, and it takes some unlearning to even begin to define success.

Take something as simple as a marathon, for instance. I recently ran a 10K race through Central Park as part of my preparation for the full New York City marathon. Without a doubt there was a runner who finished the race first, and by definition, he or she was the “winner” of the run. Likewise, there had to be a person who finished last, and by definition, was the “loser” of the race. But you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who wouldn’t agree that each person who crossed that finish line was still successful in his or her own right. The mental endurance and emotional poignancy that is associated with training for a marathon is blatant proof that success is an individual experience.

How is it that this very literal example, however, often fails to translate into other areas of life? If the workforce really is the rat race we believe it to be, then why worry about finishing ahead of other people, about making more money than, owning more things than, having more power than others? It should matter more the lessons we learn, the skills we acquire, the positive changes we see in ourselves in our quest toward a finish line. Having a goal and working toward it and actually embracing all the experiences along the way — that is success.

Blindly reaching for institutions and social levels that we’re told are benchmarks of success is the surest way to ensure personal frustration and failure. It is only when we learn to let go of external expectations and begin to enjoy the process of life itself that we can truly grasp what we personally define as success, be it raising a family, giving back to the community, or even just learning a foreign language.

It’s not so much what we do that makes us successful. It’s how we go about striving toward our goals and why we choose to do them. Everything else is just details.

Wordplay

Heard something yesterday that kind of tickled my fancy (HA) and made me stop and think.

We should stop asking how we can get out of a challenging situation and instead ask what we can get out of the experience.

So concisely put but so true -- I think, regardless of whether the medium is religion, psychology or a blurry mix of the two, this truth, when delivered, has such a sobering effect. This is taking a given set of circumstances and understanding that nothing that has taken place is positive or negative; only our minds make it so. The concept of a person with "bad luck" versus someone who seems to have been born into good fortune -- that's all perception.

In navigating my way (both literally and figuratively) through New York City, I see that part of the reason why people can burn out here so quickly is that they fail to see the big picture, the impermanence of their situations. Stressful though a project at work may be, it too shall pass. Time waits for no one, and therefore, it's silly to assume that a bad situation will continue to be bad. The truth is, a bad situation stops being bad the instant you decide it's not. It's really that simple, and really that complicated.

Having a constructive attitude is something that I'm working on. The most valuable resource we have is (perhaps second to time) our psychic energy, and where we focus that really does determine how our days, weeks, years, and eventually, lives, turn out. Expanding focus is something like growing a plant, though. Leave it untouched and untended, and it becomes just a pile of dirt and rubble concealing a few kernels of potential.

Pretty unfortunate, ya know what I mean?

Finding balance

A little excerpt that struck me in the last reread of "Flow":

More and more, we seem to bury our heads in the sand to avoid hearing bad news, withdrawing into gated communities protected by armed response. But a good personal life is impossible while staying aloof of a corrupt society, as Socrates knew and those who have lived under recent dictatorships have found out. It would be so much easier if we were responsible only for ourselves. Unfortunately, things don't work that way. An active responsibility for the rest of humankind, and for the world of which we are a part, is a necessary ingredient of a good life.

The real challenge, however, is to reduce entropy in one's surroundings without increasing it in one's consciousness. The Buddhists have a good piece of advice as to how this can be done: "Act always as if the future of the Universe depended on what you did, while laughing at yourself for thinking that whatever you do makes any difference." It is this serious playfulness, this combination of concern and humility, that makes it possible to be both engaged and carefree at the same time. With this attitude one does not need to win to feel content; helping to maintain order in the universe becomes its own reward, regardless of consequences. Then it is possible to find joy even when fighting a losing battle in a good cause.

Self-promotion

Part of my "job," if you will, for this next month and a half, is to really rediscover my voice as a writer. Easier said than done, right? I've been sorting through old clips and pieces in order to compile them into one easy-access site for future reference, and I think doing this has brought about several conclusions.

First, I have a long way to go to get to the point I want to be at (story of life, right?). And the first step on this unpredictable path toward voice is practice. I'm going to try to push myself to write and produce more than I have before, take a more active role in the process.

Second, the reason why finding my voice is so important is so that I can better communicate my ideas; what good are thoughts if you can't share them and bounce them off others? What use is a concept that isn't brought into fruition? A thought is a thought is a thought if you never do anything about it.

Third, and perhaps most important of all -- this break in the past month has caused me to reevaluate a lot of things, chief among them, what skill set I can bring to the table. I admire so much people who've created for themselves an entire library of "Things I can do" and am just now starting to realize that I've spent too much time on the bookshelves and not enough time on the books themselves. I'm preparing but not doing, and while luck favors the prepared mind, I want to be sure I can take that next step once luck comes a-courtin'.

All this to say -- I'll be updating a lot more regularly from now on, and keeping my word too. Count on it!

P.S. -- If you can spare a moment, several of my pieces for The Avocado Jungle. Thoughts, in ordered format.

Sepiatone loving

I've been spending a good part of my three-month work hiatus at home in LA with family, and more recently, in Taiwan with the extended family. Even through college, getting to spend this much time with fam was such a rarity, and what I was mostly able to salvage through those years were only bits and pieces of a larger picture. So I've considered these last few weeks a real treat in terms of quality down-time with the people who know me best.

Admittedly, being out in New York and away from my immediate family hasn't always been the easiest thing. On the surface, I embrace the independence and freedom that the city has to offer -- but it's both a blessing and a curse to be so easily accessible to everyone and everything in the vicinity. I'm lucky to even be able to experience life on a different coast, I know, to pursue my passions at a time when practicality might seem the better path.

But realistically, the pace of life can be pretty dang draining. I put myself on a two-week communication silence while I was in Taiwan, and I feel like I learned so much more and used my time so much more efficiently not being bound to the tether of technology. No email, no Internet, no Facebook, no phone. I spent more time living in the real "now" than in the demands of a contrived "now" made up of updates and Tweets and email counters. I wasn't running to catch up all the time; I could set my own pace.

Rather than living vicariously through other people in other time zones, I was actually taking part in my own life and really getting to see beyond the distraction of the Crackberry screen.

It was refreshing.

I've always said that health and family are the only two things that anybody needs. Everything else is extraneous and will fall into place somehow. My entire family made this trip back to Taiwan because my grandfather recently passed away, and in those two weeks, nothing else really mattered. I knew the job hunt would still be here when I got back. The emails, they would pile up. But nobody needed to get to me so urgently that it couldn't wait two weeks while I spent time with family.

My grandfather was 100 years old when he passed. He'd gone from living in the countryside to training to be a physician to being a surgeon to being a husband, father and grandfather. That's a lot of years of life. That's a lot of life in his years. But I don't think he ever would have (nor would anyone in his life) defined himself by just any one of those labels. He was human, and therefore multifaceted, and I think being there at the funeral really caused me to think a lot about mortality and death and, truth be told, life.

I titled this blog "quarter-life musings of a life in transition," and taken literally, that means I'm already (almost) a quarter of the way through with this thing called life. It's pretty terrifying, really. It's not that this means I have the sudden urge to grow up, necessarily, only that I'm more conscious of my thoughts and actions now, and how it'll all make for a projected "later."

The crazy thing is that the people that I've surrounded myself with now are the ones who'll be able to help piece together the bits of my life later on down the line. They're the ones I'll be reminiscing with and sharing memories with and the ones who'll become characters and names in the story I call my life. And these things I'm doing now, they're all leading to a big unexpected place called "the future," and as unpredictable as that place might be, I've got to pay better attention to the now in order to trace back my deliberate steps to wherever I end up.

Hearing so many stories about my grandfather, learning about the intricacies of the family -- politics and history and all that -- is inspiring. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I want to live a life worth telling about. And so I begin. Now.

Mind over matter, matter over mind

The last two weeks have been a little bit chaotic, to say the least. In the span of less than a month, I've learned so much about myself, what makes me tick and perhaps most importantly, that the sludge that had built up to prevent said ticking was a congealed result of...me. I had let my thoughts, and my perception of how others might interpret my thoughts, take over. Rather than being confident in my abilities and constructive about my shortcomings, I was slowly filling with doubt and unease, two things I have worked so hard to avoid.

But avoid no more. Doubt and unease are two things that make us all human, and by trying to suppress them, I was essentially trying to fill an always-bottomless cup. Denying the existence of the two is, basically, going against nature and really only fooling myself. As such, I've figured out, life is more about embracing those thoughts briefly and letting them go rather than ignoring them altogether.

Two weekends ago, I ran my first half marathon. Thirteen point one miles. I'd been training for it for a month and a half, and lo and behold, it couldn't have come at a better time. Riding the subway deeper into Queens early that Saturday was such a heartening experience, with other racers casting sideway grins at each other with their telltale orange tags flashing from their shoes. It was like a secret sign, a kind of signal we were all giving each other, an acknowledgment that we were all bracing for impact. Thirteen point one miles. I think, had I been in a different mindset, I would have been more doubtful of my ability to pull it off.

But in the end, it was mind over matter. My one goal (aside from finishing, of course) was to never stop running. And this was all fine until mile 10, when everyone around me started to slow down to a jog and then a walk. I felt a fleeting moment of discouragement. Well, if everyone else is giving themselves a break, why push myself so hard?

But as luck would have it, there came a sign. A young-ish guy, maybe around 30, jogged past me, clearly exhausted and panting, but with his feet bounding off the pavement. What energy! I was encouraged. Then I looked down and noticed that he was hitting the ground at an uneven rhythm. He had a prosthetic leg. Really? Really. How was I thinking of slowing down when this guy was just picking up speed? I sped up.

And I finished all 13.1 miles, no stopping, no walking, just pure adrenaline. And it felt so good, to know that my mind had overcome my body's weaknesses, that I had succeeded in my own race, at my own pace.

Then last week, I embarked on a very different personal journey, to upstate New York for a three day silent meditation retreat. No reading, writing, email, phones or talking. And it was glorious. One would think that a retreat like this would be all about the mind, but in fact, it was more about the body. Matter over mind. The focus was on the body, on being aware of breath and footsteps and small subtle movements that we take for granted. And by focusing in on the tangible, the intangible, the mind, started to clear.

In the silence of the retreat, I heard my own thoughts louder than I had ever imagined them to be. There was so much noise, so many stray thoughts, no focus. And no distractions. So I sat and I meditated and I learned about connecting my breath with my mind and stilling my thoughts not with force and suppression but with gentleness and calm. And I was soothed.

These past few weeks have been a little chaotic. But I wouldn't have had it any other way, else I wouldn't have learned to feel so deeply, hurt so openly, or think so freely. The thing about lessons, though, is that they should always be followed by change. So I'm working to change the patterns of my life to make way for an existence that fuses matter and mind, taking care to pay attention to both. It's the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end.

Proof vs. faith

Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing.

You know the idea of proof? The concept that in order to fully buy into a thing, a person or a feeling, you'd have to find some way to substantiate its very existence? These past few weeks have shown me that, in fact, needing proof -- alongside being realistic -- are perhaps the two biggest roadblocks to creativity and self-contentment. I know it sounds a little far-fetched, naive even, but two very important concepts came to my attention recently that made this revelation clear: the balance between knowledge and creativity and the balance between inner and outer validation.

Seeing is believing.

The saying refers to the idea that one must be doubtful of a claim until there is some form of tangible, visual, or audio validation that it is, in fact, true. We can't trust that it's raining until we step outside and feel it on our eyelids or hear the pitter patter on our rooftops; the weatherman never knows what he's talking about. She can't possibly be pregnant unless we see it with our own two eyes; anything otherwise is heresay. And we can't know that we're making the right decisions unless we are reassured enough or have seen people succeed traveling down the same path.

But even that's not a guarantee.

That's the past. That's history. Doing things in a conventional way won't bring us new, innovative results; that's just illogical. Doing things in a conventional way does, however, serve as a way to reaffirm what we already knew would happen; that's knowledge. When we speak of someone who is very knowledgeable, we're usually referring to his or her stash of facts, his or her ability to recite proven facts. And while knowledge is something undeniably necessary in becoming a better (insert noun here), it shouldn't be the only thing. It's a foundation, not the whole creation.

That's where creativity steps in. When we have a solid grasp of the past (knowledge), only then are we able to reinvent and push boundaries and really learn. We learn by mistakes, by chances and by blind faith. Seeing shouldn't be necessary to believe.

Believing is seeing.

Rearrange the phrase and you would, upon initial glance, just get an alternate reading of the same concept. But look again. Believing is seeing. Once we begin to trust our own creativity and believe in our visions, sans precursors or safety nets, we start to really open up and see. Having faith in our own abilities is what makes for the best results. Were we to constantly worry about what other people thought of our progress or, heaven forbid, us, then we would be too afraid to try different things.

Inner validation is about trust. It's about having a solid basis of knowledge and from that, constructing a creation that hasn't been attempted before despite whether or not it garners others' approval. That's what sets those who love life and carve their own paths apart from those who mildly enjoy the pre-trodden roads -- neither is a bad place to be, but wouldn't it be better to be in a great place?

Faith > Fear

Plans, A-Zed

Having a Plan B is more harmful than helpful in the long run. True or false? I've been thinking a bit about this, and about whether my conclusions to this query are even valid given that I'm coming from a (largely) unrealistic mindset, one wherein I have the privilege of having a "rich man's troubles."

By this, I mean that having the option to pursue something I want to do in life is a luxury. I realize this all too well. Not everyone is blessed with the opportunity of choice. For most of the world, it's sink or swim. If you don't like what you're doing, tough noogies because someone has to make money to support the household, and your happiness comes secondary after security.

But in the grand scope of things, does having a back-up plan actually harm you, regardless of whether or not it's practical? Having a back-up to anything is like subconsciously telling yourself that the first option won't work out. Why would you need a second choice if the first one is the right one?

Choice, I think, can seriously hinder our ability to adapt (and I can't tell yet if this is a good or bad thing...am currently trying to think through it). Our Plan A is always going to be that dream, that almost-out-of-reach goal that we strive to attain. It's our Plan A because it's what we would want in a perfect world, be it a career, a relationship, or a life path, and moreover, it's that thrill of the chase that makes it a Plan A. Our Plan B is always something that we're willing to settle for, that we agree upon with a "Well, that wouldn't be so bad."

And not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, but realistically speaking (ha!), this is like saying that you didn't have the persistence, the passion or the patience to see Plan A all the way through. You opted to take an easier path and will likely spend your energy justifying it to yourself. Having options means never having to change and adapt, and if life isn't about changing or adapting, then what is it about?

Learning is never supposed to happen in comfort. Plan B represents stability, safety and sometimes...stagnation. Growing up and being in your 20s is about pursuing Plan A. I remember that line from "Up in the Air," when Clooney's Ryan Bingham told his firee (guy he was firing, I'm sure that's a word somehow...) that the reason why kids admire athletes so much is because they followed their dreams. There's a dignity and a drama to that.

When people tell me to be "realistic" or ask about whether or not my job is "real," I never know how to respond. I am being realistic. So were and are all the people who have been able to create their own definitions of reality. If you don't like something, change it. And to me, having a "real" job is not tied to the definition of clocking in and clocking out as per "standard." A "real" job doesn't have to be one that you're miserable at -- I think the idea that someone would actually like going into work is counterintuitive to most; it was also considered abnormal to "like" homework, wasn't it?

But in moving to New York, I meet people who love their work just as often as I meet those who detest it. And to me, I know which group I want to fall into. The goal was never to settle into something comfortable. The goal was always to learn and live fully every day. Maybe this is naive, but that's my Plan A.

And I don't know or really care to have a Plan B past that.

Wisdom

Came across this randomly and had to share. The best line in the whole clip:

"Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity."

A purpose-driven life

There's a reason why we're not born colorblind. Life in black and white, and even shades of grey, would be undoubtedly dull. And yet, why is it that so many elements in our lives seem to be defined by just this - a lack of color, a seemingly resigned sense of dull monotony? Where's the vibrancy, the pop of hue that makes each day worth waking up to?

New York City is known for its corporate culture. Reading the paper on the subway, staring at a screen all day, eating nondescript sandwiches for lunch, vegging out on the subway ride home and passively watching TV before falling asleep to do it all over again. Not exactly the most impressive showcase of the romanticized City so many non-New Yorkers aspire toward, the one wherein each day is fresh and inspiring and different. It's easy to fall into the daily grind of working just to live, to make money, to save up, to be practical.

But I read a few of the "Most Emailed" headlines on the New York Times website today, and that got me thinking. The articles that have been circulated and shared the most are about retirement, old age, mental health and career changes. Clearly, there is a trend. People spend many of their waking hours worrying about their careers (how to get one, if they don't have one; or how to get out of one, if they do have one), thereby literally worrying themselves sick. Stress leads to a weakened immune system (and probably sleepless nights and accompanying pills), which leads to illness and disease and other stress-triggered problems.

This concern over what to do with life, how to apply our skills, never ends. That is, until it really does end, when we retire. At that point, according to the NYT headlines, we start to worry ourselves over what to do with all this free time now that we've just gotten into the groove of work-life balance. How will I while my time away, stuck in the house with a spouse, having been too busy during my work years to cultivate my interests and no longer young enough to enjoy some of the activies I used to? It's a legitimate concern.

It seems as though once one phase of life ends - the bustling 20s, the strategic 30s, the settling 40s, the midlife 50s and the retiring 60s - another begins; there is no overlap. Black. And. White. And a great portion of each phase is spent worrying about the next phase. Hence the monotomy for some semblance of "living in the present" while really panicking over the future and mulling over the past.

A few weeks back, I spoke with Jason Reitman, the director for Up in the Air. He was telling me about the inspiration behind the film, which follows Clooney's character around the country as he detachedly "eases" recently laid off employees into the "rebirth" process of job hunting. He told me that he went into the film with one goal in mind: to convey the importance of purpose by showing a general lack of it in the screenplay.

"My biggest fear isn't waking up one day and having no money," he said. "My biggest fear is waking up one day and having no purpose."

Because where's the motivation then? If you don't genuinely do the things you love, then life will fly by pretty quickly and if something comes a-trotting into your straight-and-narrow, black-and-white path, you'll be completely sidelined. You'll have a map and a place to go, but no reason to travel anywhere. And then you're really lost.

You. Are. Here.

And then you color outside the lines.

Home, free.

I think, after nearly a month, I'm finally past the withdrawal period. When I first lost access to the Internet at my apartment, I didn't really know what to do with myself. After work, I would head home, spend about half an hour attempting to get the wireless to work, write for a bit, read a little, make a few calls and then kind of mull around and make lists of things I wasn't able to do without online access (sad but true, har har).

Now, though, I don't know quite what to do when I do get an extended period of time to troll the web. I browse a few sites and blogs, but consciously stay away from time-suck things like Facebook because I've grown so used to stealing just a few minutes worth of personal Internet use at the office (other than that, there's just too much work to be done!) that I'd rather just get what I need off the Internet and then log back into the real world.

I've somehow been given the rare opportunity to extricate myself from the digital realm, and after living life without the burden of the web for a bit, it'll be hard to go back. Thus far, the reasons not to be constantly plugged into other people's lives are outweighing all reasons to do so, and I kind of like it.

Remember Neo in The Matrix? Remember what a revolutionary idea it was at the time to imagine that our waking hours were actually part of a subconscious dream, and that our reality was some sort of bleak, technologically charged world? I know it sounds dramatic, but being cut off from social networking and chatting and everything and focusing in on the present - not just the now, but the HERE - is a little bit like that. Unsettling at first, but then refreshing and welcome.

Generally speaking, life is a little more productive this way, I'm more able to focus on my own goals and tasks, and I've eliminated so much of the white noise that's been permeating the day-to-day.

Yeah, it's a little harder to keep in touch with people this way, but it makes those infrequent phone calls and emails that much more poignant. And it helps to put quite a few things into perspective - split your focus among one too many things, allow yourself to be pulled in too many directions and your core can crumble pretty easily.

Family & familiarity

This might sound really trite and dumb of me, but I hadn't realized how much I had underestimated the value of family until this past weekend. I spent the better part of yesterday out on Staten Island, visiting the extended family - people I haven't seen in nearly 10 years, all of whom still remember me in pigtails or jumpers or both.

My aunt and uncle (Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, my closest relatives back in LA) flew out to New York for a weekend of reunions and meals and reminiscing. They're both just past 70, but are as active and social as ever (this is a common thread in my family, the longevity and the activeness). They've never had children and therefore take on any kids - that is to say, anyone in a generation past theirs - as their own.

My cousins and I all have fond memories of spending summers and weekends at their house, watching cartoons (theirs was the first house to get cable, and later, the first to have AOL back in the dial-up days), eating lots of candy and essentially having free reign over our days. They were the aunt and uncle who would say "yes" to extended bedtimes and "no" to homework, and we loved them for it.

What we didn't realize was that, along the way, they were building the kind of trust and bond between their generation and ours that would prove essential as we all began to grow up.

I got a phone call from my uncle on Thursday when he and my aunt landed in the City, and he insisted that I make the trek out to Staten Island with them yesterday, that it was important that I reacquaint myself with that side of the family. They all want to see you, he said. You've grown up a lot since they last saw you.

So I went. My aunt (recovering from some pretty intense physical therapy post-surgery), my uncle (exclaiming every two seconds about how much New York has changed), my cousin (just about to start his senior year at NYU) and I boarded a ferry in the early afternoon. Destination: memory lane, Staten Island.

A ferry and train ride later, we were in the heart of Staten Island, surrounded by trees and homes with dusty white picket fences and cars that hummed down small tarred roads. The aunt and uncle we were visiting were actually old college friends of Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, a wonderful couple that might as well have been family, if not by blood.

I hadn't seen either of them in ages, and sure enough, they made comments about how tall I've gotten, how much I've changed, how glad they were that I've decided to move out to the east coast (But don't tell your mother I said that). It was eye-opening to see the age in their eyes, the wrinkles that crept up around their smiles, the grey that shone in their hair at certain angles.

Clearly, we had all changed.

It wasn't until their daughters, Susan and Linda (my adopted cousins of sorts), joined us, that I really felt the weight of the change. I finally met Susan's 5-year-old son Michael, autistic and so charismatic (half-Chinese and half-Irish is a beautiful mix, his dad Kevin pointed out), and Linda's fiancé Chris (she had had a different boyfriend last time we met).

Knowing that these cousins had built a life for themselves in the interim between now and when I had last visited was an unexpected shock. Usually, visiting relatives means seeing physical signs of aging, but not complete lifestyle restructuring.

From their perspective, they couldn't believe that I had already shorn my pigtails and glasses, let alone graduated from college. It boggled their minds that I was old enough to drink, when the last time they had seen me I was still disgusted by the bitter taste of coffee.

We all went out to dinner, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around the generational shift that had taken place. Michael was calling me Auntie. Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul were now Grandma Jane and Grandpa Paul. My cousins, one nearing 30 and the other nearing 40, weren't the young, flighty girls I had remembered them to be. They had something solid, something established. They were creating their own sense of home and family.

But though the change was startling, it wasn't scary. Because honestly, seeing all the interactions at the dinner table - Linda dumping grape leaves on Susan's plate, Kevin talking football with Chris, a long-lost uncle catching up with Aunt Jane - made me see just how important those initial bonds still were.

In the middle of all the craziness of moving to New York and trying to find a foothold in the journalism industry, I had forgotten what it felt like just to spend an afternoon with family. And just...be.

I've always contended that if you have your family and your health, then nothing else really matters. Things fall into place, problems work themselves out, and the world keeps turning. This weekend confirmed that. At the end of the day, what I decide to do in the coming years and where I ultimately end up will be more than fine no matter what. I've been blessed with a loving family (and an intricate network of extended family), and that support is immeasurable.

Having that knowledge is invigorating, inspiring. From a solid base like that you can really go anywhere. Like I'd been taught by the great Sumi back at USC, roots before branches.

Roots before branches.

Forget regret

The worst kind of frustration is the knowledge that you didn't do something that you should have done. Nay, the worst kind of frustration is the kind that stems from the fear that you might have missed out on something great because you chose to go a different route. You know you should do differently, but you don't.

You're to meet an old friend for dinner, but you're tired and even though you know it's a horrible thing to do, you bail on the reunion.

You have every intention to respond to emails as soon as you receive them but instead let them back up for months at a time.

You cram pet projects onto the back burner because you don't have the time for them, though you optimistically believe that the results will somehow magically appear.

Very little of long-term, lingering regret comes from things that you did do - it's what you didn't do that sticks with you long after the deed has been done. And down the line, a buildup of these regrets make you feel like a pretty crappy human being.

This past weekend, I spent a good chunk of time reorganizing and prioritizing all the bits and pieces of my life thus far in the City. I answered emails dating back through June (guilty), sent apologetic messages to important people I've neglected (guilty), and began to revamp my plans for pet projects that have been buried under an influx of everyday busy "stuff" (guilty guilty guilty). I hadn't realized how horrible of a to-do pack rat I had become, shoving everything into a "to-do in the future" pile that was slowly overwhelming my life.

It was like a toxic spill of past "didn't dos" had begun to permeate my day-to-day living.

In being able to clear out my clutter from these past few months, however, I finally began to feel like I was able to start anew with the opportunities I have set before me. Forget living life with no regrets. I want to live life with no excuses. Trying to live with no regrets is only half of the equation. Having no excuses means being able to gauge a situation and acting on gut instinct or careful calculation or both - for the sake of no regrets in the future.

It's retrospective and projective all at once.

Part of this newly cleansed agenda and style of living means I need to clear my conscience on both ends and just focus on the present. Without focus (which is what I think I lost along the way), this transitionary period can mean a lot of pulling too much in one direction or the other, and ultimately, a lose-lose situation.

You get caught up in the past, and it's hard to move into the next phase of life. You worry too much about the future and you miss out on the present.

I get nostalgic about a lot of things, but the best memories are the ones that I've left alone, not the ones I dabble in and wish I could change. In looking toward my future, then, maybe it's best to apply the same approach: stop making excuses now for things I can't predict will or won't happen down the line, and just do what I feel is the "right" decision at the moment. The understanding being, of course, that everything happens for a reason and will pan out okay in the end.

Being more direct now means saving grief down the line, and more than that, it means being able to live without excuses to justify my regrets, or any regret about my excuses.

Live life daily. Rinse. Repeat.

What next?

Graduation slipped into June slipped into July fit perfectly into August. And now, more than two months after walking across the stage and accepting my (fake) diploma on the lawn just behind Doheny, I'm looking at the next step. Now that summer internships are wrapping up and people are moving out of the City and back into the realm of "normal" life and routine, I'm left with a creeping feeling that this really does mean that I have to (and I hesitate to use the phrase) "grow up."

The more permanent aspects of life here in New York are finally starting to fall into place. I'll be moving into my apartment in Astoria, Queens in just a week's time. And though my internship should be up just one day prior to moving day, come the following Monday, I'll be starting my first stint as a full-time temp. Exciting? I think yes.

I went bed shopping today. It was pretty telling, I think, that I've never had the privilege (chore?) of shopping for a mattress - not for myself, at least. Growing up, a lot of decisions like that were never mine to make. At home, all the pieces of my house, save for the more personal (read: ridiculous) parts, like old craft projects or awesome-but-useless posters and pillows, were selected for me. In college, I never moved outside of university-owned housing because I didn't want to have to deal with furniture or finding people to sublease my place when I went abroad.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm building my room for scratch. And this time around, I don't know how long I'll be there. Everything else always had a time stamp. High school, six years (this was Whitney and we smooshed junior high and high school together). College, four years. London, one semester. Everything was set in manageable chunks. This...this is different.

It's exciting, don't get me wrong, to be able to construct in my head what I want my little piece of New York to look like, and even the most trivial things seem to be important, but it's also a daunting task. It's hard to prepare for something without a more definite end date in sight.

Without classes to return to in the fall or a projected date of return to California and "home," the things I decide to fill this room with will become my own little kind of home. The semi-permanence of it all is exhilarating, because after the more transient nature of summer in NYC, I'll finally get a chance to experience what it's like to live on another coast, with another kind of culture, in the company of other people who have decided to call this City home.

I've said from the start that I fell instantly in love with NYC, that it just felt right in a way that no other place had before. And while this is still true, looking at being in the City for the next few years or so seems like such a huge commitment that the best thing I know to do right now is just enjoy it in the present moment and not worry too much about things coming down the line. Otherwise I might just spazz a bit with the finality of it all.

Fitting, isn't it? The commitment-phobe who's afraid to commit to her own life.

I reached a point a few weeks ago where I let doubt venture into my vision of New York. My mind was pretty clouded, looking out at the people around me and starting to let suspicion encroach upon our relationships. The City can be very dog-eat-dog, after all, and I think listening to enough people tell you that you have to be strong and preemptively keep away from opportunists can make anyone a little bit paranoid. Then I took a breather and realized that spending my energy focusing on the negatives really wasn't getting me anywhere.

If things get tough, I've always been taught, then do something about it.

And if you're not doing anything to actively change your situation, then don't complain.

So I literally sat down and wrote out a list of things I want to accomplish in New York, ranging from the small (find the best rooftop bar) to the big (get published in the NYTimes) to the fantastic (train for next year's NYC marathon). And I realized that, open-ended though this jaunt is in the City, I just don't have enough time in the day to waste on negative emotions.

Being put in a different context and learning to adapt is something I've gotten used to over the years, and this New York experience is none too different. The key, regardless of situation or location, is to stay hungry and to stay humble. Everything else will follow. With so many things up in the air, though, I'll admit that it is comforting to know that I'll at least (as of next week) have a place to call home for the next few ______s.

And in looking toward the next step, that's all I can ask for, really.

Best nuggets of advice

...and yes, I just said "nuggets." So I'm reading this book:


and I'm finding lots of bits of inspiration in it, many quotable things, so I thought I would share:

"A number of people said they were simply in the right place at the right time. Many of our respondents, Don Hewitt among them, used the word lucky when describing the arc of their lives or careers. While they may have indeed been fortunate in different ways, we should take this as a sign that they're thankful for their success - that they understand the value of humility. Most people understand that chance favors the prepared. Hard work, risk taking, refusing to quite, and the will to get to the next waypoint no matter how formidable the obstacles appeared helped to define these people." ...as stated in the introduction.

"Stop working for a living and start designing a life." ...as stated by Tony Robbins.

"The important thing to know is that one thing that was really beneficial to me was my naivete ... Those who need certainty don't do anything, because nothing is ever certain." ...as stated by Survivor creator Mark Burnett.

"The key to achieving success in business is passion. Don't approach the business with a formula or just expecting to make a quick buck. You must have a desire. A vision. And then go at it hammer and tongs." ...as stated by Steve Forbes.


...and I'm just four chapters in.

The importance of entertainment

Truth be told, just a brief two weeks ago, prior to starting my internship at People, I recognized the importance of entertainment in people's lives, but never found the time to subscribe to the daily ins and outs of celebrities and their lives. I'm a movie and music junkie, though, and thus am always looking to find the next big film or the latest on-the-rise artist. But I think there should still be that distinction between an artist and his work, to some extent. Delving into the lives of famous persons is interesting at best, invasive at worst.

Now, however, knowing the most minute details about a given celebrity has become my job - what they're wearing, who they're talking to, what they're eating. And this has brought me to really try to see the big picture as to why the public is so fascinated with these relatively unattainable, unrealistic lives that the stars lead. I was on set for a Robert Pattinson film just this past Friday, and was taken aback by how much his devout 11- and 12-year-old fans knew about his personal life. Everything these girls knew was part of a packaged image that the media had sold to them in the form of movies, interviews, posters and books.

At that age, you don't question a whole lot of what the media feeds you.

And it's a frightening thought, that each of these famous people have become such ... commodities. Franchises of their own name. They pretty much own their looks and mannerisms (if even that much) and sell off their talent and oftentimes, voices (both figuratively and literally, in the case of musical artists) in exchange for fame and consequential money. It's mind-boggling that people can give so much of their own humanity, whether or not by choice, so that they might gain some sort of fame in the long run.

It reminds me of the great quote from "The Talented Mr. Ripley":

I'd rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

I understand that people want to leave their mark on the world, and ultimately, to be recognized for what they've done. The same way that some people are passionate about saving lives or writing books, these individuals just happen to be passionate about entertaining others and adding a little bit of fun and drama to others' lives. It's just unfortunate that the people who are in entertainment for the craft are overshadowed by the drama queens and kings who find debauchery off-camera just as profitable as drama onscreen.

It's an interesting balance to strike, and what I appreciate about people in the business of talking about the business of people (aka, the magazine People, har har) is that they understand that talking about celebrities' lives is about as important as talking about the distant cousin who eloped for the fifth time last weekend: it makes for interesting discussion, but she's still human. To exploit information or try to itemize the person beyond what work the publicist has already done to do so would be wrong.

Because when people care more about things like whether or not Lindsay Lohan stole jewelry from a photo shoot than what's going on with nuclear arms in North Korea, I think it shows not just a break in reality, but also a NEED for this break from reality.

All this to say that celebrity culture and the people who love it will always be interesting. Whether or not it's relevant to our lives that Lindsay Lohan might have stolen jewelry from a photo shoot is debatable, but it's not wrong to know about it. I'm still trying to find a way to wrap my head around the idea of "celebrity news," but I guess a little extra information and a few extra blogs in the morning couldn't hurt, right?

Because really, as easy as it would be to dismiss entertainment as fluff, I can see how just knowing what's going on in the celebrity realm is instrumental to some people's days, to their lives. And so long as people care, I will learn to know the ins and outs of that ephemeral, glittery world, har har.

Love at first living

Call it a culmination of good timing, fantastic people, healthy eating, sleep, exercise, being on-point and focused, or some reason completely independent of all of this, but I feel so ALIVE in this city. I sincerely love it, and sometimes (okay, most times) I can't believe I'm actually waking up every day in a bed somewhere in the middle of it all.

It's such a blessed life I'm living, and I absolutely feel at home here. I'm finally getting a chance to sit down and reflect after a busy week, and there's a groove and rhythm to this city that I've fallen easily into.

You know that fantastic feeling that you get when you meet someone new and you both mutually, silently, agree to skip over tedious small talk? You introduce yourselves and five minutes later find yourself deeply immersed in conversation about purpose and passion and how blips of your childhood have helped to shape your views. You tell each other about your grandmothers, your fears, your proudest moments - things usually reserved for those who have built up your trust over the years.

The connection is uncanny, and you wonder how you've gone so long in life without meeting someone just like this, the yin to your yang and a true reflection of the kind of person you are and kind of person you want to be.

This is how I feel about New York.

I feel comfortable with the pace of life and the people around here like I really haven't ever before. Back in L.A., I always felt as though I was having to put myself out on the line to be judged, and a lot of the people I encountered in L.A. didn't feel quite solid, if that makes any sense. So many people were floating or just hoping to get by from one deadline to the next, one exam to the next project, just doing what they could to stay afloat. A lot of the time, I felt as though I was doing that too.

Something about urban sprawl makes it so easy to lose focus of what's important - why you do the things you do - in favor of smaller, less relevant details.

But in NYC, I feel like more people live for a common purpose - to live. There's so much energy, positive energy, flowing through here that it's hard to really feel like an outsider, or to stand still for very long.

With so many people around, everyone has to be a people-person. I think that's what's such a draw for so many people to come to NYC. Here, the human condition is ever-present, the kind of personalities that collide on the streets so diverse. Regardless of what people initially came to the city for, everyone is looking to learn and grow just by being among and with so many stories and persons.

New York is the kind of place where everyone is willing to help each other out because it's understood that people are working hard just to earn their keep here, and I kind of love it.

People have been nothing but pleasant so far here. At work, there are no egos and everyone works in tandem toward deadline - it's the kind of work environment most people only dream of.

I'm never bored and there's always something to be done, but at the same time, there's no stress. I'm finding that living day-to-day is so beneficial to both health and state of mind. I've never been in a single place and met so many like-minded people all at once. Open-minded, curious, ambitious.

I miss home just a bit, but for now I'm won over by life here on the east coast. It makes me swoon, haha.

The city's like the counterpart I never thought I'd find. (: