Contentment

I started drafting this a few weeks ago after learning my dad would be going into hospice. It was intended to be a reflection on how one spends time and about why, despite my lack of talent or inability, I keep on writing. The original opening was very flowery, and I honestly thought it flowed:

There are many phrases representing the positive nature of a temporary experience: A fleeting glance, an evanescent whiff of the smell of flowers, ephemeral pleasures. With human interactions, I do love the phrase “like ships in the night,” or in modern parlance “missed connections on Craigslist”; one certainly more poetic than the other, but all convey the yearning for more. More of the scent that the wind blew away or more of the fun that only a roller coaster could provide. Usually though, it’s just more time.

But since then, my father has passed on rather suddenly. In the gravitas of death, my first draft was far too light. Rather, a more appropriate piece would be a thoughtful conversation on what happened and the implications.

This is not intended to be an obituary; it is far too selfish a piece. The longer I ponder, the more I feel that a person is too multifaceted to be summarized in a few short paragraphs by anybody, especially by their own child. Society imposes certain expectations on a parent: to teach, educate, care, and stand as a role model etc. I felt my relationship with my father was primarily through that lens. It was interesting to hear of the impact he had on others, as a friend or organizer, during the funeral service, and yet, I was vexed that I was only hearing about it then and there. Of course, there are even larger parts of his life, like those in Japan or his own childhood, that I have only glimpsed through pictures.

It’s awfully unfair that humans can only see in three dimensions, and are not able to see a life like a Tralfamadorian where time is but another perspective. We cannot see our end, accept our allotment of time, and look at the triumphs and failures, the phases of life as a whole. Once decline sets in, we can only observe the frightening power of decay. What really stood out to me was the emaciated body of someone who were once very healthy and exercised constantly. The irony is that he was reduced to skin and bones by mutinous cancer cells which refused to starve. Those cells played a match the last couple of years against science; sometimes treatments would hold, and other times the cancer would break. The trajectory used to be oscillatory, but over the past year, it has been strictly declining. I guess in this silly metaphor, it was match point.

But before talking about that, it would be a shame not to reflect on the middle. I think I inherited part of my adventurousness from him. At new places, I would watch with a tinge of embarrassment as he would talk to random strangers, but would eat humble pie when he got the best local scoops. He was limited economically early in his life (China wasn’t exactly rich then), but managed to be a landlord with a capital L after being financially savvy enough to purchase properties after the ‘08 crash. To get to that point, he had to hustle or 吃苦, especially after being laid off earlier in the decade. One of the weirdest memories I have is of us cleaning a mansion owned by a Super Bowl winning quarterback in Tallahassee. Looking back, I’m grateful for his relentless work ethic and the sacrifices he made to build a better life for us, and allowing me to meander through life.

The ending happened rather fast. What I thought would have been a long hospice stay took a sudden turn. A low oxygen warning brought him to the ER, where pneumonia was found in his lungs. At late stages of cancer, the body’s immune system is so devastated that these bacteria deserve immense respect, which I think none of us paid. Sometimes I wonder if I was partially responsible for bringing in the germs after flying back. His heart rate couldn’t go down, staying consistently above the 130s, and by the end of the week, he took his last breaths in the hospital rather unexpectedly. He had been eating full meals the days prior, and was self-sufficient albeit bed-bound due to the maze of tubes. Honestly, he seemed to be recovering nicely. I wonder now if that was the classic terminal lucidity phenomenon.

It’s an odd feeling: the hard demarcation of death; the literal crossing of the Rubicon (or I guess Styx), that I still couldn’t wrap my head around. For a bit, I felt that the whole situation was a vivid dream, and I would emerge days, weeks, months or even years ago. Sitting there in the hospice room, it seemed that maybe he was going to just get up at any time.

But this being a selfish piece, the whole process also makes me reflect on what I want at my end of life. If the situation were exactly the same, how would I behave? Without digressing too much into nature versus nurture, parents, sharing half the genetics, offer a realistic lens, albeit at a small sample size, to how their children will behave. For a little while, I almost felt an unhealthy observation of my body, with the aches and pains of daily life magnified into thinking each minute tic or ache is a life-defining disease festering underneath. Is it just the physical manifestation of grief or something sinister underneath? Mindfulness can be a double-edged sword.

Besides the “standard” grief, there’s also inner anger tinged with regret in this swirl of feelings. There was a time in the hospital when I got a bit annoyed when he would rush to get dressed and to sit straight up, inevitably spiking his heart rate, and further preventing him from coming home. Now, that annoyance takes a rueful tone. The goal was to allow him to go home, a place of deep comfort, and be taken care of there. Instead, one night, he woke up confused and alone in the ICU at 2 a.m. and called us. There’s some anger at myself now that I was irked to be woken up then. There’s also misplaced anger: why then? Did he have a sense that the end was near, and didn’t want to tell us?

Not all my emotions are negative though. I’m relieved that his pain is over, and that he’s finally at peace. I’m content that our last interaction was his expression of gratitude and my acceptance of it before leaving his room for the night. Sometimes, content is all one can ask for.

Pied-à-terre

small living unit, e.g., apartment or condominium, often located in a large city and not used as an individual’s primary residence

Of course there’s a French word for this.

Grasshopper

The grasshopper laid on the small open air passageway between the stairs and the front door of my apartment. A streak of ardent green juxtaposed against the gray, brutalist pockmarks of the concrete walkway. And yet, I almost stepped on it. Not, on purpose mind you, but because of the very subtle pull from peripheral vision; a beckoning of sorts when one’s mind is on autopilot.

It looked like it was dead. A grasshopper is not considered an elegant insect, with its many sharp angles and rectilinear tagma. Nothing like the gentle curves of a butterfly. But with this, comes a natural orientation that I could clearly see even while erect. It was lying on its side, throwing off the alignment to the ground attained by millions of years of evolution.

But occasional twitches showed specks of life remained. Unfortunately, my hands were full carrying trash to the bin, and saving this tiny green mote involved several steps. I would had to lean my trash bag against the wall, find and gently use a piece of card stock or paper to scoop the little fellow. Finally, take this little specimen down the flights of stairs and deposit it among the shrubs.

Maybe “several steps” is overselling it, but I ultimately did nothing and continued with my chores after returning from the bins. Was it really that hard to do something for a helpless creature stuck in a foreign land? The activation energy required so large that I chose inactivity? (To be fair, it was three flights of stairs…)

Or was my laissez faire attitude the correct choice for it was too weak to survive anyways? The wind was strong that day, and I suspected that it was blown from the nearby tree onto the balcony. Perhaps the traveler was just catching its breath and would straighten up by itself after several minutes

Twenty minutes later, when I was throwing away the recycling, it was gone.

 

Tapping Out

I’m a fan of well-designed objects. One where its clear that an engineer spent some late nights thinking about the utility. They consciously insert themselves into the consumer who just want an intuitive experience paired alongside the promised functionality.

Things like the OXO measuring jug, where the lines are placed so that the baker doesn’t have to bend over. Or maybe just a door whose design clearly proclaims whether it should be pulled or pushed. A paperclip even passes this criteria.

The inverse is also true. Sometimes the pursuit for trends or profits causes a product to be utterly disgusting to use, causing pain (well, more so emotional damage). Even worse is when these products are procured by other businesses or the government, and just squirts soap or blows hot air when you want water….

In other words, I hate those stupid new faucets with soap dispenser/dryer that look alike. Shitty things like

or this…

or this…

especially this…

like who thought this was good… a three in one?

KISS.

A Terrible Philosophy

You are standing next to a lever that controls a runaway trolley. The trolley is headed straight for five people who are tied to the track. You can pull the lever to divert the trolley onto a different track, but there is one person tied to that track. Do you pull the lever?

You decide to pull the lever. Unfortunately, due to lack of infrastructure upkeep, the lever malfunctions and snaps off and you witness the brutal massacre of five innocent workers. It’s a good thing they were unionized and their widows are now receiving proper indemnity benefits.

A runaway trolley is headed towards five people who are tied to the track. There is no lever that you can pull to divert the trolley, but there is a large person standing next to you. The only way to stop the trolley and save the five people is to push the large person off the bridge and onto the track.

You try to push the person off the track. But you, a scrawny philosophy student who subsists on a diet of ramen and Cheetos, lack the power to push the large person off. As retaliation, the large person shoves you instead, and your last thought before you are crushed is about Camus.

You are a surgeon performing an operation on a patient. Suddenly, five other patients rush into the operating room. They have all been involved in a car accident and are in critical condition. You can only operate on one patient, and you know that the other five patients will die if you don’t operate on them.

After asking the RN to find insurance cards in their wallets and realizing that the five new patients are most likely on high deductible plans, you decide to simply operate on the original patient. After all, he has that new BCBS plan that will finally help you make a dent in that ridiculous $100,000 student loan. So much for the Hippocratic oath.

You are a self-driving car engineer. You are working on a new algorithm that will prevent self-driving cars from hitting people. However, you know that the algorithm is not perfect, and there is a small chance that it will cause the car to swerve into oncoming traffic and kill the people in the car. Do you release the algorithm?

Your boss is Elon Musk. Of course you do/did and was/will be the cause of a major pile up on I-75 one of these days.

Shared Experiences

The clue read

3 letters, 39 Across: Tamagotchis are digital ones

celerius: wait you don't know this noah? 
noahsfart: uhhhh no I don't
celerius: did you not have one like in early 2000s? everyone had one 
noahsfart: dude, I just never did. guess I faintly 
    remember classmates having one???
noahsfart: idk I was just playing too much maplestory lol

Noah started doing the crossword on Discord with his friends during lock down  as a way to feel connected. However, he didn’t expect a game, out of all things, to cause a moment of self-reflection.

“Why didn’t I know what Tamagotchis are? Oh god, what are other toys that I didn’t play with? … did I have a bad childhood? Oh my god, think of all the cultural phenomenon that I never will know! My friends already think I’m weird because I never watched Teen Titans…”

He didn’t have a terrible childhood. After all, it’s just a matter of circumstances that he couldn’t control that he never got to take care of a digital pet. The fleeting panic passed by the second the group moved to the next clue:

4 letters, 44 Down: Cubs slugger

snickerpunch: isn't slugger a baseball term? is must be AROD
noahsfart: it's not AROD, it's definitely SOSA. AROD never 
    played for the cubs.
celerius: how do you know this baseball stuff???
noahsfart: ... how do you know about Tamaguccis
noahsfart: I mean i did play little league for 5 years.
snickerpunch: lmao guccis

Impressions

Trist sunk into the sagging loveseat immediately after throwing her keys onto the credenza. The air in the apartment was too warm, but she didn’t have the vim to stand back up to adjust the thermostat.

It had been a long day, with several of her clients being especially difficult. One wanted Trist to call his almost-estranged son and to convince him to visit him in the nursing home, threatening to leave him out of the large will. Another, unfortunately, was just never easy no matter the day.

It would be another hour or so before Luc, Trist’s husband, got home. Luc typically finishes his scheduled tennis coaching sessions around this time. “Scheduled” seems to be a suggested word. He was far too gregarious to just leave the kids at six sharp, and would stay after to talk and afford guidance in their personal lives. Luc and Trist agreed that kids for them were out of the equation, but Luc couldn’t help but pretend to be a dad for those on the courts.

Luc tore his ACL in the middle of qualifiers for a middling tournament, whilst figuratively also tearing any chance at tennis stardom. Since then, it had been difficult finding steady work in a field rife with athletes who flustered in the big leagues. Teaching kids at the high school made ends meet then.

For dinner, Trist had a table set with a large heaping pile of curried lentils with herbs, some sausages, and a bowlful of roasted root vegetables. All served on plain glassware as their precious china from the wedding sits unused. Festivities where elegant plates were appropriate just never arose in the year since their wedding.

The gibber jabber went as usual; Trist and Luc always loved their banter when together. A little light teasing here or there; a lot of complaining about their days recently. Usually, the nights ended with some light escapism. For Luc, it was scrolling through feeds while Trist enjoyed streaming dramatic series. Parallel play as the psychologist called it: the company itself was the entire point. That night though, they never stopped talking.

” … it’s just those people are so terrible. I know this makes me a terrible person, but I really want him to just… go away if you catch my drift.”

“Actually, you know what Trist? it’s been too long, we should go on a vacation. Maybe that’ll help? I know I need one too.”

“We’ve been through this. We don’t have the money for that yet. I don’t have the vacation days… your kids’ parents are gonna be mad if you have to cancel practice. So many things to plan. Maybe someday”

“Yeah I know….”

In that little exchange, the seed was planted. Several weeks later, Trist saw an advertisement in the nursing home promising the elderly the ability to travel like they were young again. No more of the shuffle onto coach buses, and being herded around the sights like animals. It promised adventuring with the vigor of youth.

The product Zephyr was a state-of-the-art implant alongside pills which loaded “experiences” to the implants. Essentially, it engaged the remaining senses that VR goggles ignored by interfacing directly with the brain to stream in what it feels like to surf the waves of Bondi beach, or zip line across a Costa Rica jungle. Fanfare for such a revolutionary product was massive.

It was also far cheaper than any physical journeys, and the implant was noninvasive. There was a catch though: after an experience, one must still pony up the monthly fee. It turns out the plasticity of the human brain means that it actively will seek and diffuse away those memories. After a few days, it would be as if the experiences never happened.

Trist showed Luc the website that night.

“Remember how we talked about taking a trip awhile ago? This is so much cheaper!”

“Yeah, but we’re not actually doing it. Does it really count?”

“It says it can pretend that days has passed and …”

“… And there’s a subscription cost. What exactly are we subscribing to anyways?”

“Oh that’s for making your brain remember the whole thing.”

“Pfft, so not even really remembering it.”

“Come on, it’s not even a hundred dollars, let’s just try it.”

A week after getting the implants, Luc and Trist opened the mail to discover the package has arrived. The two initially couldn’t decide on what they wanted to do, but ultimately chose the couples package to Belize. The box contained just two pills, one for each of them, and the remaining space where filled with brochures advertising this-or-that “trip.”

The actual experience was magical. The getaway was a “reservation” at a cabana on the beach for three days with all excursions included. There with other people on the shore, but they were AI generated and got out of the way when prompted. The weather was, in every sense of the word, optimal. Water, crystal blue. And best of all, the two were somehow able to interact while in this simulation.

It was legitimately a fun adventure for Trist and Luc. And oddly enough, the pictures they took while “in” Belize showed up on their doorsteps soon after. Truly unBelizeable as the trite T-shirts would say.

This became a tradition for them: every half year, they would pick out another adventure. It provided just enough glimmer in the rat race for them to push on.

Some time later, the cycle of capitalism hit a nadir. Trist’s nursing home laid her off, and Luc’s coaching gigs dried up. They struggled to stay afloat, even with the unemployment checks. Those also eventually shriveled up prompting the two to start cutting expenses.

By the fourth month, the Zephyr monthly cost came onto the chopping block. They knew that all those experiences would be erased, but figured it’s easy enough once things were better to do it again. After all, don’t many people wish they could re-experience a transformative movie or music for the first time?

Six months after the lay offs, the maintenance pills stopped coming. Unbeknownst to Luc and Trist, their implants also malfunctioned. One day, they woke up in bed, and stared blankly at each other’s eyes, waiting for the rush of memories to kick in.

It never did.

The memories wiped extended beyond their little vacations. Somehow, their entire relationship was among the trail of destruction left behind. The two kept on starring into each eyes inquisitively as if the act of looking could remove the hoarfrost that clearly was between the two strangers now.

As Trist and Luc individually got up and looked around their room, they realized how fragile love was. Just bits of neurons firing at the sight of a certain person triggering other portions of the brain to respond; a little hormone here or there too. Yet, from the photos of the two happily together in unknown lands, it was clear that it had meant everything to the two.

Terrific Trio

Pressure is trying to pass for four when you just turned seven, at the “Miss Toddler Panama city” pageant.

You’re crammed into the same five-inch heels you wore the year before, blood pooling in your toes.

But you know if you don’t win, mom can’t fix the hole in the gator fence, so you’ll be up all night, s*ab gators.

Pressure is performing on a party boat that catches on fire, your throat burning from the smoke.

You still sing so beautifully that it calms the passengers, so that you and the crew can escape.

Pressure is singing the Yemeni national anthem while a handsome but ruthless general pushes a scimitar into your neck, Kristin Chenoweth’s corpse at your feet.

That’s pressure. – Jenna Maroney

Pressure is trying to finish the New Yorker magazine before the next issue arrives.


STRFKR concert was dope.


I guess I’m a poet now: