Machination

I must become a machine....

I met a physical therapist with whom I want to volunteer some time with over the next few months so I can learn more there. She is chair emeritus of the PT department. On Tuesdays she wakes up at 3 or 4AM, gets to UCSF to teach a group fitness class at 6AM, sees patients all morning, does leader duties until the evening, works out, gets home and does work and goes to sleep around midnight.

That feels like an inundation with insanity. But she does it all and she appears to be wildly successful.

As someone who operates in extremes and all-or-nothing, I don't think I've ever gone into full machine mode. And I think that it would be useful to obtain a machine mode. 

Subsequently, I can learn how to balance machine mode and life mode.

So, in addition to adding ferocity (aka anger) to my emotional repertoire, I must become an effing machine! These should be the central themes of my life for the next few months before Paris in June.

... not that I would completely disregard my social or empathic abilities - I just want to be able to explore these other opposed abilities. Next focus of my life after ferocity and machination will probably be emotional intelligence.

Currently Reading: Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut, 1961)

Currently Listening: Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)

#ferocity #machination #alacrity

What Are You Angry About? (Fixing Healthcare)

OKAY.

I've been reading this book, recently "Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Healthcare" and came across an interesting passage:

I reached the conclusion not long ago that anger, either white hot or smoldering, is a fundamental fuel for entrepreneurs. They don't have to be angry all of the time, of course; that would be no fun for anyone. But it helps if deep down they nurse some wound, grievance, or perhaps a sense of injustice. The anger gets them stoked. I think Steve Jobs was often angry. I often see myself as friendly and humorous. Sometimes I am, but in thinking through phases of my life for this book, I realized that during many of my most productive stretches, I was seething, and also terrified of impending failure. This combination of fear and anger, along with a good bit of luck, served me well during those difficult months.(p.54)

In lieu of this, I wondered what my great motivators were and what it would take for me to become successful. What would it take to be the productive machine that can accomplish all the wonderful, noble things I'd like to accomplish in life?

All my life, I believed it to be passion. (defined: "strong and barely controllable emotion")

I also believed that there are two forces at tension driving human behaviors: a pulling force, akin to love, that forces us to fight and a pushing force, akin to fear, that forces us in flight. We need both a pulling force and a pushing force to keep us moving forward.

Now, I am generally a very agreeable woman. Anger and strong opinions are just not part of my interpersonal repertoire. I like to believe I'm guided primarily by love and compassion.

Maybe I've been conditioned to dismiss anger as a negative fruitless emotion so I've never allowed myself to be angry. I was afraid of feeling angry and aggressively defending my ideals. I've been angry before, at people, and it was uncontrolled and untapped and sometimes hurtful. I can be scathing and cruel (hard to believe, I know, but just ask my ex). I would always feel guilt and shame, like a classic Mr. Hyde, and maybe that's why I'm so afraid of the emotion. 

However, the running theme in the past few months of my life has been the dissipation of fear--facing my personal demons head on. If demons are fallen angels, then anger is a corrupted emotion spun out of love and the need for preservation. Anger can be a force that helps us to fight for that which we seek to love and protect. Unbridled, however, it is as harmful as Cyclops' optic blasts.

Don't be afraid to admit you nurse your own wounds, grievances, or sense of injustice.

What am I angry about?

The broken and archaic healthcare system? The limitations of human movement? My friends and family getting hurt? Growing up less "privileged" than most of my colleagues in the Bay Area?

Will I ever own a rehabilitation clinic focused on new research/technologies? Write that sci-fi novel? Write those short stories? Will I ever go on that volunteer trip abroad? Will I ever be able to give back to my parents? So many smoldering ambitions and so many energy resource options...

I don't agree fully with Bush's statement on entrepreneurs and anger. But perhaps anger is an emotion I should let myself explore.

Also, a good video between Malcolm Gladwell and David Goldhill:

The Big Story: Fixing Healthcare

Currently Reading: Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care (Jonathan Bush, 2014); Jailbird (Kurt Vonnegut, 1979)

Currently Listening: Bad Girl (Usher)


Brainstorming thoughts
Energy resources / Analogous motivators:
Solar energy = love
Wind power = fear
Fossil fuel = anger?
Hydroelectric = physical

Catch and Release

After a swing of self-avoidance drove me to a few sleepless nights, I finally realized that the only thing to do is ... to actually do something. Instead of blogging last night to alleviate my restlessness, I did what any crazy person would: I followed my impulses to go watch the sunrise. 

This funny balancing act of patience and action, catching and releasing, has me occasionally jumping off the deep end.

It doesn't help that the seasons are changing and an increase in daylight might be causing a physiological effect resembling mental restlessness.

But... more daylight means summer is coming!

It means more sunrises and sunsets and summer meteor showers.

It means playing tennis on a warm Saturday afternoon and feeling sunkissed afterwards.

It means more energy to get in shape and work on my personal side projects.

It means friends' weddings and good times with good people.

It means dancing lessons and hiking adventures and new experiences <3.

In April, I'm volunteering at the annual conference for the International Society for Computerized Electrocardiography held in San Jose!

In June, I'm going to Paris for the International Society for Ocular Oncology for a workshop! I am finally taking that biking trip in Europe, yo.

I'm also planning a mini-instagram project with Stellina (#adventureswithmyunicorn) and Kepler (#wolfyadventures). The two will continue going on their respective adventures hoping to one day to find the one they can journey with together. They will often just barely cross paths. They will be happy but whimsical, often unable to place cosmic significance on the events that transpire during their adventures but feeling like they should. I'm still storyboarding but this was a really good idea inspired by Leo.

Though the future can be terrifying, I have many reasons to be brave. 

Many uncertainties also mean infinite possibilities. 

Currently Listening: Catch & Release (Deepend Remix) - Matt Simons,

Hide and Seek

In a few of my many pensive moments, I've attempted to write down what I'd like to be remembered by when my mortality catches up with me. I've got the basic ideas:

• an inspiring, charming person who was
• strong-willed and kind-hearted,
• weird in an endearing, d.g.a.f way,
• courageous, active, a leader,
• loving, happy, and zesty.

I almost feel a reflex of shame as I think about how I'd like to be remembered. Maybe because I'm not there yet or maybe because I've been conditioned against any sense of self, confidence, and overly-sentimental mentalities. Against this reflex, I just want to slap myself silly and say, who the f**k cares? So what you want to leave a legacy? Many people, deep down, are searching for a legacy and deeper meanings to their meager existences! Just know that somehow, you're going to write a book, forge new paths in health services, and make sweet, sweet love wherever you go. (Calm your silly minds, can I just use words without double entendre?)

Spitefully, I'm dissatisfied with my current legacy palette. I just can't pinpoint the missing ingredient. A little more spunk? More polarization? Or are my amiability and ability to see from other POVs facets of personality that cannot thrive in extremity? Can I start drawing lines in the sand without compromising the colors of the wind?

In the end, thinking about a potential legacy deeply means I must face my internal values and the pitfalls of my ego. I am by no means perfect and nowhere near a finished product. There are many other things I'd like to become and I'd be lying if I said that I would be completely at peace with my life if I died today. Boiled down: my internal compass directs me towards human relationships and passing on love, hope, curiosity, and exploration. Simply because those things, to me, are beautiful. And I'm happy that I have today, and hopefully tomorrow, to reach for those beautiful things.

Give a little time to me- we'll burn this out- We'll play hide and seek #givemelove

Currently Listening: Give Me Love (Ed Sheeran); Night Changes (One Direction)

Whims of Time Travel (microblog #2)

'If you could live each day twice,

Source: Libby Watkins Illustration

The first, take life as it comes,
The second, savor every moment's strums-
Change not a thing.'

'If you could live each present best,
Project the ends ahead by a day,
Prepare for the hurt and optimize the sway-
Change not a thing.'

I only know this: I need a rhythm.
Music can only be played in time,
So the only way to dance is in step-rhyme.
I can't change a thing.

But if a lifelong dream's a crime,
I would choose to be yours, as two outlaws,
Navigating time, a one-way dance without pause.
I won't change a thing.