A Realization of Reality

It has been an especially prominent idea in my head for over the past year, with high school clandestinely skulking upon me with time, passel amounts of tests to study during the year on top of stress, but when I mindfully reflect upon my purpose for working hard in the first place, I can only pinpoint the desire to do something big with my life. It’s my drive. I suppose I view “doing something big in life” as being a business entrepreneur, working among a small, eclectic group of erudite personas. Yes, CEO appeals to me. And for some incorrect, banal, non-open-minded reason, it is one of the few vocations that strikes me as “something big.”

It came to me a few days ago, with supplementary ponderment, that I do not have to be the CEO of one of the most successful and futuristic companies (though I still strive for this outcome. My life would be in nirvana if it happened:)) yet still be doing something big. I was at dinner with my family to celebrate the graduation of college and acceptance into graduate school of my Mom’s friend’s son, Brian. He is a graduate from UMass and is heading to Illinois to earn a doctorate degree in material science. Brian is cultivating his best self. No, he is currently not a CEO or some colossal company but yes, he continues to epitomize someone doing something big with life.

            It is makes me heartsick apprehending the reality in which I am not the next entrepreneur, CEO, or consultant. Brian’s life is showing me this truth: most people are not the next greatest CEO. The majority finish high school, go to college, get a degree and then

maybe follow up with a MBA or Ph.D. Then they find a job, raise a family and live on. This startles me and it makes me conscious. In my dreams, in the clouds, I’m following the convoluted life of a successful business person. In my dreams, in the clouds, I have started my own company. But now, I am beginning to view my future differently. Just because I have a business idea, or the desire to start a business, doesn’t mean this aspiration will be granted. Just because I obtain the leadership skills or the education to start a company doesn’t mean it will be successful. This startles me. But the most important example set by Brian is that I can do something big with my life in any field, whether I am a CEO or not. I guess living life is really where the size of it is derived. It’s a realization of reality when my head is dragged down to Earth, yet my heart remains within the clouds.

Accompany Time

If you must look back, do so forgivingly

If you must look forward, do so prayerfully

However, the wisest thing you can do

is to be present in the present…

gratefully.



~Maya Angelou

The Marvelous Truth About Life

Here’s the truth, sometimes things don’t go our way. Other times they’re a surprise. We fail. We learn. Then we grow. For me, this is a powerful reminder of how I should aspire to live my life: expectant of setbacks, yet willing to learn and conquer them.

Here’s the truth: with this consideration, life may be deemed as capricious, erratic, precarious, twisted or all of the above. We all have our highs and lows, and often times life’s route will twist around and strangle us. But incorporating “carpe diem” into the picture, I unintentionally observe that the moments of strangeness, and singularity are the ones that may really bring about the biggest metamorphosis, respect, courage, kindness and light.

Honestly, I feel I sail through life setting a high bar of expectation. And when failure shows his figure, I find myself unprepared for his magic. It was two days ago when I was at my friend Sophie’s house that I noticed myself setting this bar. I was waiting for Sophie at the bottom of the main staircase where a beautiful console table sat. Having nothing better to do, I

Bridge I painted showing Earth on one side and an unknown world on the other.

observed the shade of its wood, the angle of its cuts and the shape of its pedestal on the bottom. Yet the part of the table that grasped my attention was the neck which connected the pedestal to the surface. It was made with two skinnier pieces of wood, twisted together to form a spiral. Twisted, I remember thinking, never seen one quite like this. It evoked a sense relating to life: twisted, ever-changing, and precarious. Staring at the twist in the neck some more, I realized how this related to my life in some ways. I try to develop the best version of myself that I can, yet there are always kids, nature, society, hopes, goals and simply fate that throw me off track. This is where I become tangled within the many routes I could possibly travel to reach my final goal. Maybe I’ll find a new route. Maybe I’ll across a bridge and enter a completely new world and maybe I’ll stay. Regardless of the path I select, now, I am more consciously aware of the nature of setbacks and failure, darkness and gloom. As Krista Tippett puts it, ““You know, the moments I look back in my life and think, God, those are the moments that made me, were moments of struggle.” So here’s the marvelous truth about life: it is felicitously twisted.

Everyone Counts

It somehow occurred to me that people do not appreciate what the world has to offer, enough. I think it was today, standing outside, looking at towering tree that perches in my yard that I realized this fact. My dad was observing the woodpeckers relaxing in the branches. Then he told me how interesting this humongous tree was, containing a variety of wildlife. It is a sanctuary for many. I had never paid much heed before, but with some musing, this thought circled back to the thought of appreciation. So I guess this post is another appreciation, but it could also be defined as an awareness.

Firstly, there are the animals. They are contingent to our survival if considered in different perspectives. Birds, bears, wolves, bugs, spiders, cats and even mice are important! Personally, I believe that many people in the United States have been raised to overlook these little creatures of nature. Mice equals pests. But I refute this opinion in some ways. Mice are pests to humans, but what about all that garbage we litter everywhere? Mice almost help clean up our messes by making nests out of papers and cans they find and by eating what we leave in trails behind our lofty feet.

We leave trash in the trails on which we walk upon, but we also have leaders, followers, haters, hubris, and appreciation. If we take a look around our communities, we see unintentional discrimination and haughty attitudes from those perhaps making more profit, of a dominant race etc. However, we are all surrounded by people who live with an intent to make life easier for the busy, the poor and children. Many aren’t recognized enough. In seventh grade English, we listened to a radio essay composed by Sarah Adams on NPR, titled Be Cool to the Pizza Dude. I agree with Sarah’s opinions of equality and empathy, “Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in honor and it reminds me to honor honest work…Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in equality.”

So here’s the reality: we all live for a purpose, and just like kindness, everyone counts.

The Puzzle to My Piano

One of my goals as a pianist has always been to play for my own pleasure. I find the deep, resonant sounds of the strings soothing. Each note reverberates throughout my mind after it has been played and then it is stored in a box of forever-remembered-tunes. I enjoy shuffling through my memory of songs I have learned in the past years of my studies.

I admit that when I was younger, I did not enjoy practicing the piano. It felt like a simple task, just pressing down those keys, but later I learned different techniques for “pressing down those keys.” Yet somehow, I felt an emptiness when I played. I suppose it was a lack of full indulgence within each piece.

It wasn’t until this year that I was able to find the missing piece of the puzzle. During art classes, our teacher always used the Pandora app to randomize music that was played. I became familiar with the app as the year progressed, because I soon learned that it was both free, and it was very easily customized to one’s own interests.

My first station was called New Age Solo Piano Station. This was an eclectic collection of pieces written somewhat recently. This is where I discovered the South Korean composer Yiruma. I listened to all of his music and videos. His music had a different, light, and fluffy tone of which I really appreciated. I purchased one of his books online and showed my piano teacher. She considers it pop music.

And even within Yiruma’s developed collection of pieces, there is one that protrudes from the others. It’s called River Flows In You. Every time I practice this piece, I feel different. Indeed the piece has the same notes and rhythm, however, how I feel at that moment of playing influences that overall mood. When I’m in an anxious mood, I can feel the slurs speeding by faster. When I am in a slow and torpid mood, I can feel myself emphasizing the highs and lows more often. Sometimes, this piece encourages an image of a meadow. Other times, it evokes the view from the top of a mountain. And every other time it simply brings me peace. I guess this music, because I relate so closely, is a symbol of me. It is my missing puzzle piece.

So I’m going to share this piece with you. Although Yiruma is playing this one version, just try to imagine differently.

Kindness Counts

The one asset that beats intelligence, athleticism, humor, and beauty mashed together, is kindness. I believe that personalities grow from the ground up, and the basis for

Kindness counts

maximizing this spoken-of growth in life, is to be kind. Consider this situation.

* * *

Once upon a time there was an actor named Isaac Newton. He was tall, strong and had perfectly straight, white teeth. He attracted a massive paparazzi, for all thought he was gorgeous, talented and intelligent. One day, he was walking down 5th Avenue in New York City when he encountered an old mendicant. She had scroobly hair and crooked yellow teeth. She kindly asked Isaac, who had made a colossal fortune from acting, if he had any spare change. However, Isaac’s miser persona made him clench his fists and kick the old beggar. She cowered in pain. Her spine crunched under the force of Isaac’s foot and austere blows.

The following day, the front page of  The New York Times, published an article on Isaac’s cruel encounterance. The whole world read this article, online, in the print magazine, and through gossip. Meteorically, many dropped their connections with the infamous actor. Isaac Newton’s 100 million followers on Instagram reduced to a mere 3 people; his mom, his dad, and great-great grandmother.

Yet Isaac felt no sense of loss. He had absolutely no clue how much society despised his superior attitudes towards those in poverty and he continued to act in like manners. He decided to create a line of shoes, branding his name. Sooner or later, he launched his brand. However, no one showed any interest his shoes. Resurrections of him kicking and nearly breaking the mendicant flashed through people’s minds.

Desperate to make money through his shoe line, Isaac tried to convince the world that his shoe line was indeed the best. On his website, he modeled in them, photoshoot after photoshoot, attempting to promote a better reputation. Indeed, the company continued to fail and soon, was shut down by Newton himself.

* * *

Even though Isaac Newton was one of the hottest, most successful, fittest and talented

actors, no one paid any heed to his brand of shoes. Why? Because he was cruel just one time. This actually says a lot about our perceptions of people. We behold such high standards of each other, to an extent where second chances are often times ungivable. Being kind is one example. It does not offer second chances. So you see? Kindness counts.

Post Script. Isaac Newton was actually a physicist and mathematician. He defined  a force.

Minutiae observations to grandest discoveries

“The more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more you become aware of the universal and infinite."

~Gail Godwin

   I observe summer is meandering its path, 1/3 of the journey towards the beginning of school. I cannot help myself from wondering, who will be my advisor next year? who will be in my homeroom together? who will i have for English? Eight grade will be difficult, different, yet irrefutably

enjoyable. Memories of seventh grade still weave their way through my thoughts. I think about my advisor and well paired we happened to be. I muse over the "seventh grade drama," which I happened to neglect during the busy school year. I can only remember that many people's educational careers are already half-way over (if you get a bachelors). Yet for others striving for a supererogatory supply of knowledge, this is may be only the beginning. This is the strange.

   We all take our own routes based on our individualized personas to serve the billions of people in our colossal community. First, we need to plant the seeds of observing the small. This will lead to awareness to a universal degree.

Admiration

I’ve written many posts circling the topic of improvement. Character development to world progression are all topics I am interested in tackling. But I have failed to mention an asset that I feel is important in progression. Admiration is its name.

Last week, I released the bikes which have been standing alone in the basement for a whole year. These are hybrid bikes. They are heavy. They are gray. And they have thick wheels. But they are still bikes. I rode about 4 times this week on the Minuteman Bike Path

and after months of avoiding the muscles exercised when biking, I felt a reduction in strength and weakness in my legs. I had a hard time kicking and even the slightest uphill felt a million miles to steep. Maybe this was due to the thickness of the wheels and the weight of the bike, yet I continued to observe the adults on racing bikes zoom right past without breaking a sweat. All I could hear was a gush of wind struggling to free itself from the motion of the wheels rotation and the faint smell of sweat. I must have been traveling at the speed of someone who hadn’t ever ridden a bike. Every single uphill and even the flat surfaces seemed too steep. My legs ached on the hills, feeling numb and exemplifying jello. Overtime my stamina would improve, yet imagine doing these slopes each day in order to go to work! I admire those who bike to work everyday.

I admire business entrepreneurs. Especially Jeff Bezos:)

I admire those who are gifted with storytelling.

I admire people who have ran marathons.

I admire fashion designers who aren’t afraid to challenge originality.

Alexander McQueen dress

I admire those who inspire and live life to its utmost possibility.

Departing Question: Who do you admire and what you think people admire you for?