We run away from fear.
We run towards desire.
One pulls us. One pushes us away. Is it opportunity or temptation?
How do you strike the right balance?
Maybe we should run in opposite directions. Maybe we should forget everything we know and do what feels hard. Do the hard part first.
Do you ignore it? It’s only a penny after all. Mere one cents or a dollar. Do you hear it? Where does it go? Does it roll away? Is it face up or down?
Do you care? Are you one cent richer or poorer?
What does it mean?
Will you take out a piece of paper, eraser and pencil to work it out? It should be easy enough. Only one cent after all?
But perhaps it was the coin that kept the door ajar. It was the one cent you needed to buy the one dollar lottery ticket that couod win you many millions. Or a cent to pay for an exquisite meal.
Or a cent holding you back. The one small ounce that broke the camel’s back? The one cent that you don’t need in your purse full of dirty and useless change you carry with you but cannot be used.
When the penny drops, do you chase after it, or do you let it go?
I am choosing to work out the problem to see whether the penny should stay or go
Covered from head to toe in self doubt.
Blindfolded and bumping into all the wrong people and all the wrong places.
Blocking out all sound.
Shutting her mouth, and closing off the world.
Until her skin burned.
Until she grew tired of all the bumps and bruises.
Until she grew too bored.
Until she starved and parched away.
She disrobed.
She opened her eyes.
She unblocked her ears.
She unlocked her jaws.
Light radiated from her body.
She could see farther and clearer than ever before.
She could hear her loved ones calling out to her.
She could taste the bountiful food and water bursting with flavor.
She was awakened and she was alive.
Stop screaming at me. I can’t hear you.
There are no headers. No taglines. The executive summary is missing even though the title says otherwise. My eyes don’t know where to focus. Rainbows jump from all four corners. Too many graphs, pictures and icons makes me feel like I’m in a hoarder’s house. And why are there tens of slides that don’t tell me anything?
You spent a lot of time on this. You had fun and went a bit overboard. But… It’s as if your presentation swallowed up the English dictionary and threw up all over the pages. I don’t want to read your slides. My eyes hurt and I don’t know where to focus.
You’ve made it too hard. Why won’t you just tell me what I need to know? Before getting upset, please remember I’m just trying to be honest. The purpose of every presentation is to tell the story. To get the message across.
I can’t hear you through the clutter and the noise. Take a step back. Figure out what you’re trying to say. Say it! Get rid of all the other stuff that doesn’t tell the story.
Imagine watching a movie with someone you know. Have you noticed them laughing out loud when you don’t understand why? You are shocked when they barely notice? You are startled when they are calm?
Same movie. Different reactions. Why is that? We see vastly different images in our brains based on our angle of attack, sensitivity to light and sound, past experiences and current state of emotions.
Although we seemingly share same events, the way in which we experience them is unique.
Imagine a cube with different color on each side. The most you can see is 3 sides at once. So you see, red, yellow and green. Someone else sees it from a different angle. He sees red, blue and black. Someone sees blue, black and white. We are presented with the same objective, but at different angles.
Who is right? Everyone and no one.
Even a six sided cube has sides we are unable to see, for as long as we stay stationary. For as long as the cube doesn’t change its sides.
So how can we expect to understand a three dimensional human being? Under layers of skin and subconsciousness is the complex human who is always learning about himself and the world. If he doesn’t know who he is, what chances do we have to have true understanding of this strange human? The only way is through continued engagement, communication, listening to understand, moving together to expose layers that peels off only when catalyzed, and lots of patience. Even then, given the dynamic nature, we will never understand. And that’s ok.
The two are close in age. Only two years apart, in fact. One day, the youngest decides to challenge the eldest’s authority. The eldest grows tired of another tantrum. She retaliates. They start pulling on hair and biting each other. Like savages they fight, they create quite the sight.
Moments later, their mother finds them tangled like cobras spitting venom. She separates the two, and laments out loud. “You have each other and nothing else in this world. I told you not to fight. You two have to get along. Look after each other. How many times must I tell you both? The eldest must set the example as well as be patient. The youngest one must respect and listen to your older sister. ”
She grows quiet and pulls out a long branch from the closet. All emotions drain from her face.
“Roll up your pants,” she commands.
Begrudgingly, they each pull up their pants to expose small calves.
The eldest steps forward and turns around. Three sharp and long slashes mark her calves. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t make a sound. She steps away to make way for her little sister.
The youngest steps towards and turns around. The same three strikes. Her legs feel hot and sharp against the pain. She feels guilty and regrets being the belligerant one. She wonders why she is so bad. Why she has to win at everything. She wishes she wasn’t so angry all the time.
Mother applies ointment on the pair of small legs. She holds both in her arms and whispers once again. “Be kind to each other. Don’t fight.”
Children fall asleep, forgetting their mother’s words filled with tender love and caution.
The youngest awakens and wonders if it was all a dream. It was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Why did she tell us not to fight? Why didn’t she teach us how to fight better instead? Teach us to use words instead of using our bodies? As good as her intentions were, she wishes her mother had taught them the importance of good fighting techniques.
But how could she? The child looks back in the rearview mirror and sees what she could not before. Mother did the best she could. She had flaws. She made mistakes. Nothing she did was perfect. Her mother was a young woman who did her best to raise her little children without her husband. The father who abandoned them. The husband who ran away from his problems because he didn’t know how to communicate. He knew how to run away. And he never learned how to find his way back. He is still running.
Her mother’s parents… An alcoholic father and abused mother. She grew up not knowing how to use her words to resolve her own issues. So how could she pass on the wisdom she did not have?
The child is of course, no longer a child. But she is also not asleep anymore. Her eyes are open. She sees her past with a new set of lens to let the truth in. Although her mother did her best, her best was simply not good enough. She must do the work to fill the gap. She will have to teach herself to stop running and find her way back. And in time, stop running altogether. Face the problem. Own it. Resolve it. Move on.
A pair of travelers almost stepped into the hole and avoided a fall. Just a moment earlier, a tiny avocado fell into a hole full of leaves.
Their heads lift to find a tree full of green leaves and branches, peeking behind a house, into the street. Eyes dart back down to the ground, and they see small avos all around them.
The tree was only visible when we noticed the fallen avo. Avo is small. Tree is big. Before we can notice greatness, we must be to see something small and insignificant.
What do you lock away?
What do you hide?
What is banging inside of you to be set free?
Let them come out. Let them join the rain drops and drain your sorrow. Let them wash away the tears. Let them evaporate into thin air and paint steaks of rainbow across the sky.
Let your truth power the downpour and lift you up into the sky. So that you can appreciate the beauty after the storm.
Crack the armor.
Expose the soft underbelly. Pierce the stubborn lies hiding your truth.
Let the truth pour out.
Another pre assignment: write a mythical character about myself.
A farmer brushes her eyes after a lazy afternoon nap. It’s the end of harvest season. Happy to have few months off before having to till the soil with her bare hands in the new year, with no help from her friends. San’s skin, no longer covered in dirt, is the color of deep ocean, a dizzying swirl of blue and green. Her eyes the shape of two half-moons illuminating the darkest of the night. Her hands and feet are long, covered with soft white quills. Atop her head is a set of curls like fuzzy white clouds rolling against the clear blue sky. She’d float away if it weren’t for the helmet she uses to hide her tamed hair. As she gets ready to leave, she puts on a grey jumpsuit, followed by sunglasses to protect her eyes. She applies white cream to her face and exposed skin as the blue and green turns pink and beige. San covers her hands with satin gloves and dons a pair of thick black boots.
Stepping out, her slow walk breaks into a gallop. As she runs through the night sky, her half-moon eyes fill with stars scattered against the horizon. Giddy with excitement, she finds herself in front of a small house tucked behind a tree. She scratches and raps against the door. When no one answers, San peers through small window to find Nan, Wan, Ban, and Fan fast asleep on the floor covered with thick blankets.
She knocks on the door once more before blowing on the small house, startling them awake. She smiles and waits patiently for them to get ready. San is grateful for the small creatures she considers her best friends.
One hour passes. Then another. Then another. It’s almost midnight, and the teenies have yet to emerge. She pleads softly, “Please hurry. We’ll be late. You will be fed and you will be wined”
To which the teenies complain, “but it’s too far, and we are too tired to walk.”
San offers to carry two on her shoulders and another two on either side of her hips. Finally, the teenies emerge, with frowns on their tired and disgruntled faces.
“Off we go!”
This time, she slows her gait. San doesn’t want to scare her tiny friends clinging to her body. While tiny, they are dense and full of demands. They pull and tug against her jumpsuit, scratching and biting. But she’s used to them, and this is all she knows. Sweat runs inside her gloves and boots. Her head feels hot, and the skin doesn’t feel like hers anymore. They complain incessantly. They ask her to slow down and stop to rest. She ignores them.
She crosses dense woods and fields covered with thistles and thorns. After some time, she crosses the ocean dividing her home and the new world. San has only heard of this place, unknown (therefore feared) and mysterious, permitted by invitation only. Once she steps onto the soft sand, a set of colorful cosmos sway left and right, as if to welcome her into a new and exciting place.
San breathes in. Her lungs fill with familiar yet strange sensation. The heaviness lifts. Wispy clouds of her hair untangles and flows out of her helmet. Wan and Ban sitting on her shoulder scream and fall to the ground. She lets go of Nan and Fan as they fall to the ground. She peels off her gloves and boots. Shaking her hands free, she lifts them above her shoulder and removes her helmet. As she does so, she starts to float across the cosmos as tall as she.
Teenies protest from being abandoned and command her to return. They try to catapult to re-attach themselves to the floating creature as she disrobes her jumpsuit, and they have nothing to latch onto. San floats away. Teenies’ cacophony of complaints fades away.
Alongside smoke and steam, the mornings sun lifts the veil of night.
San follows her ears and nose. She hears pots and pans clanking against stove tops and open fire pits. Peering inside open kitchen, San can’t believe her eyes. Bushels of potatoes and turnips try to escape sharp edges with every chopping motion. Colorful vegetables slide across chopping boards, straight into the boiling water. A variety of meat is heavily seasoned with spices, pepper, and garlic. It sizzles and smokes as the aroma of burning flesh fills the wide-open space. The kitchen readies itself for an important guest tonight, as the head chef shouts out instructions. Sweat beads down blue and green faces marching to the beat of ordered chaos.
She laughs out loud, and her stomach rumbles after a night of traveling. She thinks it must be a special guest for all the fuss to be made.
She walks into a dining room to find a tall and grand table set for five. A crystal vase of clear liquid is in the middle, surrounded by five large plates and fancy cutlery. Luxurious table cloth covers the round table. An empty seat in the middle has her name tag in front of the seat. San notices four giants smiling and inviting her to join them.
They have different color skin and hair. Red and pink hair with white skin. Black and white hair with red skin. Yellow and green hair with transparent skin. Violet and white hair with black skin.
Scared and no longer able to disobey her stomach. San takes her seat. Smiling red and pink companion pours clear liquid in front of her. As she peers into the porcelain bowl, she sees a giant staring back into her half-moon eyes with flowing white hair covered with blue and green skin.