#sunnyv

While I was hunting for videos on how to become a writer (instead of actually writing because, it me and I’m timid and always need a lot more nudging, oiling, and hand-holding to get started on stuff I want enough to scare me), I came across a Masterclass ad of Malcolm Gladwell introducing his online writing course. Gladwell said something along the lines of, “good writing is about delivering exceptionally nuanced ideas at an eighth grade writing level.” I actually grumbled out loud, feeling mighty disgruntled. Like a child caught out in a foolish act. He knows full well it was stupid, but is either too embarrassed or invested in the potential of that foolish act to admit it.

I’ve always been aware of how belaboring my writing style can be. It’s wordy, takes forever to get to a point, and the way there is convoluted at best. I know that. My writing could have been baroque if it had the aesthetic nuances of rhyme, reason, and ratio necessary to be admired as such. I suppose it may have been easier for me to fix it earlier on if it hadn’t been for my firm belief that this style is an actual reflection of my thoughts, feelings, and the processes through which the former becomes the latter, and vice versa.

And there, I did it again. See? Would an eighth grader care to read that sentence all the way through AND to understand what I’m trying to say? In any case, do YOU?

How else could I have said that, though? I guess that’s where I have much to learn.

Being aware of this, I’ve also been very self-conscious of writing (and often, of speaking. As M- once astutely observed in much appreciated candor: “I think your problem in verbal communication may be in that you edit yourself AS you’re speaking, as if you’re writing an essay”). I feared what people read or hear out of my pen or mouth would have them questioning my authenticity, and therefore my motive in writing or speaking at all. That I’m being pretentious, trying to sound much more more sophisticated or intellectual or compelling than I deserve. This led to too many moments of hesitation, second-guessing, and self-doubt in speaking and writing alike, by which means, my fears became self-actualizing prophecies. My lack of self-confidence wasn’t inspiring much confidence in my abilities in other people, and that made me all the less confident in my ability to inspire anything in anyone at all.

As it turns out, however, the impulse to change my ways in order to abate my own fears was never strong enough for me to actually change the way I write. I chose only to write and speak freely to those in my intimate circle whom I could trust to not judge me or accuse me of being an impostor. But now...heck, if Gladwell says this is how I must write, I simply OUGHT to try, right?

I honestly have no real depth of familiarity with Gladwell’s works besides a couple titles and the vaguest renditions of their premises. And even these tidbits, I’d gathered from passing voices and mentions in popular media, not from trusted individuals who’ve personally read or listened to him. I’ve listened to one episode of his podcast, Revisionist History, and was honestly not all that impressed with his closing remarks, though I enjoyed his approach to investigative storytelling. Frankly, I was disappointed enough to not go back for another episode since. So why would I want so badly to believe he was giving reliable advice? How did he manage to convince me--albeit not without the childlike reluctance I mentioned earlier--that perhaps I may find myself in a much better place to improve my writing if I took his advice and forfeit what I deem to be my authentic voice for something simpler and much more publicly digestible? I wasn’t even able to give myself that sort of satisfaction. So why him, of all people? And in an ad of all places? Really??

Because what he managed to do in that ad was not convince me of his veracity, but of the objective, no-brainer truth that I don’t need to read or listen to my thoughts to be able to know them. Everyone else does. 

In any case, what’s Malcolm Gladwell without his avid readers and Podcast listeners?

I honestly don’t know if I’ll like any of his books. But his story pitches are certainly compelling. Even if I were capable of generating similar pitches, I’m not the one executing them from start to finish to critical acclaim. In the ad, he summarizes his book David and Goliath. Though I seriously doubt his claim that Goliath’s possible blindness (which is a common condition attributed to gigantism according to an endocrinologist he came to know) limited his ability to properly appreciate the world around him, the mere shift of perspective of attributing David’s victory, a classic Biblical story known not only to Christians worldwide, to the villain’s possible physical handicap rather than God’s incontrovertible favor for the protagonist was just so tantalizing. I want to learn from Gladwell because he seems to possess an unusual gift for weaving details that are often overlooked or left out into the fabric of what gives a particular idea, person, or being its irresistible essence and intrigue. It doesn’t matter if I disagree with his views; with the same techniques, my basket can display its own patterns and serve its purpose holding completely different fruit or color of yarn, or whatever else baskets are used to carry or contain. And borrowing Gladwell’s characteristic acuity and self-confidence, I could hopefully weave one to completion.

So I’m going to try putting my thoughts over a low heat, and with great care, intention, and patience, tend to it while it comes to a slow simmer. You know, dial it down a bit. Maybe it means leaving it for longer and giving it a stir only when absolutely necessary. To give others a taste and just breathe as I wait for them to respond without cramming in my last-minute, reactionary edits (a sprinkle of premature justification here, a dash of self-deprecating or self-discrediting modifiers there). To be conservative with my seasonings and trust in my whole ingredients to flavor the dish (a carrot’s a carrot and shall taste like a carrot). To slowly build my courage up to the point where I feel beyond pleased to be choking up $180 for an online class with a virtual stranger. As that may not be physically achievable for the remainder of my year of service commitment, maybe take these last months to read a few of his works and be prepared to discipline myself to learn from just reading instead.

Or, you know, maybe take these last months to actually write. 

Yeah, that sounds like a reasonable point of departure towards becoming a better writer.

Yeah.

23:10 PST

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Today is my last full day at home before I return to the East Coast, but it’s also the last full day of 2017 before the new year. Being aware of running out of time can either be an impediment or impetus toward accomplishment, one just as jarring as the other. Often at concerts I find it difficult to appreciate being there because I’m worried about it ending before I’m ready to leave. So I attempt to document as much of what I’m hearing and seeing, only to never look back at photos or videos I had to at least partially remove myself mentally in order to produce. Likewise, toward the end of retreats, I already find myself preoccupied by the inevitability of its healing effects wearing off when I go home and become reabsorbed into my usual routine. So, too, on this last day of being home and of the year, I’m already lamenting all the resolutions not yet made that are likely to never come to fruition. How silly! I’ve gone so quickly from rest to anxious worrying that I didn’t even have time to properly make up what it is exactly that I’m reacting to. When reaction precedes action. Existence, even! While indoors, I’m feeling guilty for all the things I’m not doing, like being outdoors in the crisp, California mountains, or playing with my dog, or having a meaningful conversation with my family.

So why don’t I get up and do them while I have the chance, you ask? Well, simply because even two things are one too many to choose from and I’m paralyzed both by the jarring pause imposed by my indecision and the unforgiving linear trajectory of time. Hence, I’ve finally taken to this blog I’d created weeks ago to write about it, what is to my mind at the moment a healthy compromise between the two beasts that feel to be closing in from both ends. Imagine my blog as an exit chute I’ve been standing on this whole time to which I’d forgotten I had the lever to release. Oop! Where did I go?

At this moment, also, I am recalling a conversation I had with a campus minister and friend yesterday. He is in charge of directing retreats and so surely he’s had to grapple once or twice with a similar dilemma I’m facing now. He has helped countless retreat participants work through similar fears of losing touch with all the intention, awareness, and connection to the divine and spiritual they’ve gained at retreat--what he calls a “retreat high”--once they return home to their “normal” lives. He has also accompanied students on immersion trips abroad, who were happy to be there yet could not shake the discomfort of the transience of their role there cheapening the authenticity of their immersion--what he described as “privilege guilt”, which he wished also to dispel.

I feel for those students. I, too, had a similar thought while on a month long immersion trip to India. I am now on a similar “immersion” experience, albeit somewhere closer to home, where the language is familiar even if the culture is slightly less so. And though even in my placement site there have been moments in which I had to confront my privilege as a volunteer, I didn’t let that bother me as much as I did while I was India, if only for the fact that feeling this way in India seemed relatively more justified, given the degree of poverty I was witnessing, the great distance from home that exuded exoticism, and the shorter commitment period--all the staples that together evoke what’s known as “poverty tourism”. I didn’t feel like I should or could liken my current volunteer commitment to my India immersion experience. And yet, I felt peculiarly defensive during my conversation with my campus minister friend.

It was also around this time that I observed that as much as my volunteer program tries to set itself up for its volunteers to become as integrated as possible into their service communities--what with their $100 monthly stipends, for one thing--there really was no way I could emulate the day to day lives of my neighbors, whose rent, utilities, jobs, and food are not guaranteed. In response to this, my friend mused that the $100 stipend is more of an invitation than a challenge, and we talked about how a challenge of this nature can distract one from fulfilling the broader purpose of an experience like this one.

Often we speak of challenges with such certainty and optimism, declaring that any challenge is one that will help us become stronger and better. Sort of like detox and cleanses self-proclaim on glitzy self care aisles at department stores. I truly believed there was nothing to lose when rising to a challenge, nor failing in one, even. Surely there was always something to learn and gain from each challenge.

However, there is another kind of challenge that I’d rarely considered. Challenges can, though do not always have to, have a competitive bent to them. As my friend described, they can quickly be reduced to badges of honor like reading however so many books during summer break, or traveling to every continent before the end of the year. Sure you may have accomplished a great feat that you can then rather annoyingly use as an icebreaker at your next mixer, but you may find yourself stuck, a little embarrassed even, when someone starts asking follow up questions in an authentic effort to engage.

As dieticians often say, weight loss tracked by our body’s overall wellness, that is to say, how we feel, is a better way to track progress than our actual weight in kilos and pounds. After all, what do those numbers mean if we’re feeling more deprived, hungry, and ashamed than we’ve started? Any goal like weight loss, most often than not, stem from desires for other things, say, health and confidence. Perhaps we ought to approach challenging ourselves as invitations for multi-dimensional possibilities than to approach it at face value.

In my case, that would be to accept my program’s simple living challenge not merely as a “challenge”, but as an invitation to live and spend more intentionally than I would have without it. This would also allow myself room for forgiveness when I fail so that I could keep going without guilt and shame weighing down my steps. Take the L and L-earn something about myself (aha help). Keep trudging forward. Don’t just do better next time, be better from now on.

Admittedly, there is also a certain competitive, performative flair in sharing one’s privilege guilt in settings like retreats or campus ministry. Talking about privilege guilt can absolutely come from the heart, but also from a desire to fit into a liberal, social justice oriented campus, especially in the company of members of the clergy who are compassionately inclined. My friend is good to take these comments as wholeheartedly genuine, but my more cynical and suspecting nature believes otherwise, especially since I’ve also been there. White and/or privilege guilt are often the easiest ways to fill the void during an uncomfortable discussion. That isn’t to say, though, that the motivations are always malicious and self-serving. 

Before I digress any further, I want to make the connection between the fear of losing highs (let’s call it FOLHO, just to evoke another FO- term that is so common among “millenials today”. Or shall I say, *Schmidt’s voice* yooouthhs) and privilege guilt more clear. Because, to be honest with you, if I don’t now, I’ll never know, either. Welcome to my blog, by the way.

I think both have to do with cheapening an experience with misguided ambition. Whether that’s spending time with loved ones, making new year’s resolutions, or volunteering in a new place, we want to make whatever we’re doing count. It goes back to what we were warned against at orientation, that perhaps it isn’t the best way to go about our year looking to change entire systems, change the hearts of all who make our work toward progress impossible, and change the world--all in one year. Yet, to make our time meaningful, we feel we must produce visible results. If those results don’t come in on time on whose time, might I ask?, or if they’re any less visible than we’re capable of seeing, we’re susceptible to feeling like we’ve failed, like we’ve wasted our time. 

It’s easy to point at our privilege as one of the main reasons as to why we won’t truly be effective, or at the very least, why we wouldn’t be able to have a complete and authentic experience for our self gain. But wanting this “complete” and “authentic” experience only adds unnecessary prefaces and modifiers to trivialize something which inherently holds value. It is also, perhaps, necessarily humbling to know we are workers and not the mastermind (taken roughly from a quote by an S.J.). There may be better ways to stave off complacency than aspiring to exercise powers beyond our scope and capacity. Likewise, it would be foolish to discount the validity of something truly incredible happening in our lives just because we don’t expect it to show--or to last.

As I also look toward ringing in the new year and closing a week-long holiday at home, I’m reminded that it’s okay to let go. There’s no need to disturb the inner peace I’m feeling now just because it doesn’t feels ill timed, or if only to prevent future regrets. This inner peace, too, is the gift of the present ouch, another pun. 

If I’m happy not doing anything in particular right now, I don’t need to feel any particular guilt. There are too many things to do and doing one thing inevitably means not doing a good handful of other things. So, do as the spirit moves you! 

This time, I choose to accept the invitation to relax, reset, and rewind before this chapter and year run out. My dog is currently curled up sleeping butt-to-butt with me. The mountains will still be here when I return. So, too, will I when she awakes.

19:01 PST

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Hammerschmidt Contrstruction, Inc. Award winning Bay Area Remodeling Contractor including home renovation, additions, kitchen remodeling and bathroom remodeling for Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and Mountain View CA. 1574 Country Club Dr, Los Altos, CA 94024 (650) 948-4200

Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element / Eberg / Sirus

The Wheatsheaf, Oxford

This year was without question the year that Sunnyvale was at its most popular, and by 'popular' I mean that up to thirty people would come to see us play in Oxford, but more so that the local music press mob were now giving us consistently good write-ups, and word was spreading the tiniest bit. To us, managing to play in Bristol, Winchester, Glasgow and other places in the same year felt like U2 on a world tour, only with scotch eggs instead of pyrotechnics. This gig was pretty rammed, though most had come to see Eberg, who I remember being impressed by, though opening band Sirus were a haphazard hotch-potch of post-rock and math-rock knock-offs delivered without apparent precision or insight. Still, they were young, and probably far better than Sunnyvale at an equivalent stage of evolution.