I carefully wrote down each thought, each idea, each quote. They were like little gems handed to me from ages past, from the greatest thinkers and the wisest sages.
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
The little shreds of paper were like oversized fortune cookies. It was somehow disappointing that these ideas would even deign to fit on them.
Be yourself and I promise people will enjoy it. And if they don’t, forget them.
Each one fluttered to the bottom of the bin in a different manner, some twirling like helicopter blades, others tumbling, some dropping directly while others looped in circles.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.
My hand was beginning to cramp up. I hadn’t written anything in a long time. Nothing by hand, anyway.
There are three choices in life: Be good, get good or give up.
I swept my arm against my shirt to soak up the sweat. The sun arched overhead, hot and humid.
Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.
When the wind picked up, it was like a giant dog panting at my back. I could feel the air, heavy with its slobber, wetting my clothes against my body.
Love is wanting others to be happy.
I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. The metal bin was filling up.
What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? In a month? A year? Everyone dies. Only a few truly live.
Sometimes I didn’t realize where the thoughts had come from, or how they’d affected me.
People first.
Sometimes, I didn’t remember who had said it, where I’d read it, what it even meant. Just that it was important.
Courage, originally meaning to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.
Like tattered photographs of relatives I barely remembered, but photographs that made my lips turn upward in a smile nonetheless.
Who would you be, what would you do if you could not fail?
I took one final look at the words that provided guidelines for my life, words that have comforted me in times of sorrow and driven me to strive against my limits.
Ideas are worthless.
I took one final look into the bin and then lit the match.
But I know just what it feels like
To have a voice in the back of my head
It’s like a face that I hold inside
A face that awakes when I close my eyes
A face watches every time I lie
A face that laughs every time I fall
-Linkin Park, Papercut
I constantly wonder at how naive I am. How flawed. How incapable. How narcissistic – look at how many of my posts begin with “I” !
I really am quite insecure.
We all have a voice inside that mocks us for trying, erodes our confidence, and holds us back. When we give into that voice, we become lost, always turning back on ourselves and second-guessing our choices, our appearance, even our own character. We can become convinced that, at our hearts, we are just crappy people. It is the voice of insecurity. Of paranoia. It is our greatest critic.
Sometimes, I wish I could eradicate that voice entirely. And yet, there’s something surgical and heartless about silencing it entirely. While it is a painful voice to give into, pain has its own purpose.
The voice of insecurity is also the source of our greatest strength.
What we take from our critics, including our inner critics, is up to us. So listen intently. Feel the sharp pain of inadequacy. Hunt for your fears in the dark of the night – do not let them find you first. And when you listen to them speak, you will hear them tell Truth. They will tell the stories of what makes you who you are. And they will look to you for the endings to those stories. But first…
Just listen.
This is my greatest failure of character – the inability to listen and understand. The inability to listen to and understand my own emotions has sabotaged relationships and organizational undertakings. The inability to listen to and understand other people has resulted in stunted friendships and burned bridges.
The inability to truly listen to and understand someone when they’re hurt is the worst of all. Because without that understanding, there’s no way to know how to help, or even if there is a way to help.
So help me, for I have failed you. The voice inside says I’m not good enough today. And so I will rise and fail again, tomorrow.
I woke up and asked myself “If I died today…?” I fought to answer it. I fought harder to finish asking the question. Then I turned over in my sheets and I went back to sleep.
I napped after lunch. I took another nap before dinner.
My world spins a bit before I lock it down, leaning against a wall. My friend doesn’t notice. We keep shopping. I don’t mention it. Secretly, I hope she notices, but I am over it and she is talking about something else.
I am gaseous constantly. It’s a reminder of the weekend’s food poisoning or stomach flu that had me moaning on the floor on Friday. Whatever it was, it has left me with episodes of diarrhea that have left me dizzyingly dehydrated.
I am at my friend’s place for dinner. I forgot to bring vegetables. People are coming over. When they arrive, I remain staring at the television.
If I died at midnight, in an hour and a half…I would just turn over in my sheets and go to sleep.
I feel angry. Depressed. Alone.
It is all my fault.
It is my fault that I didn’t finish asking myself, “If I died at midnight, how would I spend today? If I died before 6pm? Noon? In five minutes?” It is my fault that I rolled over and went back to sleep. It is my fault that I didn’t get off of the couch before lapsing into another nap. It is my fault that I didn’t tell my friend that I felt unwell. It is my fault that I didn’t talk to anyone. Even the diarrhea is my fault.
This means that I can jump into the air, rotate 360 degrees along whatever axis I please, and land without damaging myself.
This is the least of what flying has taught me.
For me, tricking has a long history. If you boil tricking down to its essential concepts, it is simply:
Jumping
Rotating
I started both at a young age. In fact, many do. Both are very natural motions: jumping, and rolling, really. As a child, I copied a move from Sonic the Hedgehog while play fighting with my older brother. I employed the Sonic Dash (AKA front roll) on him until he sidestepped and I ran into a wall. That was tricking, pain and all.
Tricking was there when I started to copy moves from the martial arts movies I’d seen. The fancy kicks, jumps, and spins. Tricking was there when my brother taught me the butterfly kick, which I would tweak and improve through the years. But mostly, Tricking was there when I hobbled on a bad ankle, bruised shins/waist/knees, dirty and scuffed arms.
Tricking was there when I looked up at myself in my reflection and thought about how cool it would be to place a foot on a reflected surface, foot to foot, almost like my reflection actually was a real body, equally and oppositely balancing me. Then running at it, placing my foot beautifully just so, living that dream, and then, with nowhere else to go, flipping over backward.
A wall flip
Tricking was also there when I tried the second time and landed on my face. In fact, Tricking was laughing at me. I had failed the second time because I had hesitated.
What flying taught me was fear. Visceral fear. Fear of death. Fear of injury. Fear of the unknown. But most of all, what Tricking taught me was to be afraid of fear itself. Besides the cliche, the physical reality is that hesitation and fear must be erased from physical performance in tricking, otherwise injuries increase many times. Incomplete moves are much more injurious than completed or overly rotated moves. If you stop halfway through a backflip, you are upside down and headed for the hospital at 9.8 meters per second squared.
What flying taught me was to fear, then, as I picked myself up off of the floor, dusted myself off, and cataloged my injuries, to hate fear. To hate the small voice inside that clung to me as I leapt, froze my muscles as I tucked in tight, screamed bloody murder as I saw the ground rushing up for me, then smugly said “I told you so. Don’t try that again,” as I lie, broken, on the floor.
What flying taught me was to hate the weakness in me that limited me to what I knew. It taught me to assess the risks and the rewards. It taught me that when you rise to the occasion, you do so with your entire heart and soul or you risk pain and suffering and debilitating mental and physical scars. It taught me that to even barely succeed, you must first set your sights as high as you can, and then leap toward it with everything you’ve got.
That’s why I walked to Chicago. That’s why I lived out of my car for a semester. That’s why, every year, I write a book in a month. That’s why I will continue to live my life to the fullest that I can, because I don’t even know what I’m capable of until I push myself higher. And I plead that you do the same.
Fear is frustrating. Fear of failure…Fear is paralyzing.
Inadequacy drives me. Drives me forward like a slave driver, a whip of failure.
There is a direct correlation between the rate at which you experience failure and how fully you are living life, a direct correlation between your discomfort and the amount you’re growing. Do more. Do the unusual. Do everything. Finish things. Live more!
You will win this challenge, and then you will move onto the next challenge, and you will fail many, many times, if past history is any indicator, but then you will succeed. This month, you rewrite the endings to all your stories.
Again, I need to fail five times faster than your average person in order to learn the same stuff. So let me make a mistake.
The Koreans playing Starcraft are too loud. The lights are too bright. I’m too tired. My friends need me tomorrow.
I just read my NaNoWriMo 2009 entry and everything is strange. I’m remembering who I was and how I got here. Everything is perfect. Everything since then has been a smooth transition.
Can I do this again? Not the 50,000 word count. I have no doubt I can do that. But the amount of personal growth I went through in this month last year…that is what I am excited for.
Wish me luck. There are lots of people counting on me tomorrow. One of them is me.
I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned so much that I don’t have the energy or willpower to dredge up what I’ve learned right now, on a moment’s notice. So perhaps I shall merely write a list and then expound upon it later.
Independence is worth it.
Less is more.
Strength is what you make it.
Life is what you make it.
Keep a diary.
Don’t park far the fuck away from everything to go to sleep, it’s a waste of time.
Don’t park in shady parking lots with nails. WTF.
Hang out often.
Hygiene improves?
Health improves?
Cheapness is only worth so much
Two sleeping bags. Woot. Maybe three when it gets colder. What a dumbass strategy.
Life is easier when someone’s got your back.
Lock your doors. If nothing else, less interruptions by potheads when you’re trying to sleep.
My dream is a van.
I laugh every time I realize I can take my whole life anywhere with a road.
Food is a luxury.
Whatever I started out thinking this would be, it is now something else. I have no regrets
“Where do you live?” *thinks of last place I parked* “I live at *last place I parked*.” It’s just easier.
A place to call home is a luxury I yearn for more and more. Constantly dreaming of home.
Laundry is a bitch!
Computer labs are wonderful.
Free stuff is wonderful. But not if it takes up space.
Dreams can make any kind of life worth it.
Listen and understand.
One friend saying “Yes” is worth the world. Thank you.
Anything is possible.
Anything is possible.
Anything is possible.
Truth.
Love.
Hope
It’s incomplete, but it’ll do. In fact, perhaps a bit too verbose and more than half of it is written to myself. But, in that vein, keep on trucking!
So as it turns out, I did a lot of things wrong and a lot of things right. First of all, I got to Chinatown. From the very beginning of the trip, I visualized being right there in front of the rabbit statue, and I eventually did it. I wouldn’t say that was THE most important thing, though…if I wanted to, I could have packed my bag and then driven to Chinatown easily enough.
The most important thing was…that there was no ‘most important’ thing. The experience itself transcended any goals, brought me to what I thought my limits were and beyond. Lydia, one of my saviors, said that it was a rite of passage. Honestly, I don’t really know why I did it except that it was scary and I wanted to see if I could face that fear. In retrospect, it has definitely turned out to be a rite of passage, though to what place I’ve passed through to is a mystery. It’s a better place for sure; I know that much.
I spent the week before in cold chills with no concrete fear other than the magnitude of the task in front of me. To combat that, I focused on the image of taking that first step on the road, the dust rising around my shoes, committing to the path ahead of me. The image was concrete – I could practically feel the gravel grinding underfoot. The fear, on the other hand, was vague, and if it was a specific fear, I thought of a specific solution. I didn’t realize until now how much that helped. In my mind, concrete visualizations turned into successes even before I’d set foot outside and specific fears became problems that were overcome, a different kind of success. The cold grip of fear was still there, but I could do something about it. I realized that the unnameable fear came down to a lack of faith in myself. I normally think of myself as a confident person, so that came as a shock. It’s not until you test yourself that you know yourself.
Anyway, I came into this with a few preconceived goals, many of which were realistically impossible. Basically it comes down to making it all the way on foot and making it in two days. Technically, it’s possible, but much easier if you are prepared for it. These two goals caused me trouble from the start. I knew I wasn’t in the proper physical condition to do this; I’d never done anything physical long distance before, and I hadn’t done any special training for it. Furthermore, I have had very few successes with all nighters – I need my sleep. To convince myself it possible, I actually partially convinced myself that being on the move would awaken super powers that lay dormant in humans who never moved across the land like our prehistoric ancestors did. To some extent, I still think this is true. I am operating on very little periods of rest, fragmented across the trip…and I am still going. Well, sort of. The bit about not being physically prepared is still true, so while I’m still going, I am limping. And I doubt our prehistoric ancestors carried 30-40 pounds of gear everywhere they went.
However, it remains the case that I wasn’t completely convinced, so I packed a lot of 5-hour energy drinks and, most controversially in my mind, incomplete camping gear. I brought everything but the tent, deeming it too heavy to be able to complete a 130 mile trek in two days. I brought a self-inflating mat, a sleeping bag, and a small tarp, figuring that if it rained I would wrap myself up like a burrito. No, that doesn’t work. Yes, I am stupid. The worst part about all of this, though, was that it conflicted with both goals. There was no way I could bring all that gear and complete the trip in two days on foot. If I brought the tent, I might have been able to complete the entire trip on foot, but not in two days. If I ditched all of it, I would have a better shot at completing the trip in two days…if I was physically prepared, which I was not. I remarked on Facebook that leaving just the tent was a bad compromise and it turned out to be a terrible compromise, as I would find out in the middle of the storm from Hell.
Let’s see, other mistakes…bringing anything electronic besides my cell phone and the GPS. The chargers, the power strip, everything took up a lot of space and hampered organization efforts. Organization makes a big difference when you need to get to something in your pack fast. Not making sure my gear was waterproof. Bringing too many clothes and not enough of the right kinds, like socks. I could have left all of my underwear behind, as I stopped wearing any not even midway into the trip. Bringing my journal, again just conflicted with the time requirements, because when was I going to have the time or energy to journal when I’m constantly on the move? Packing only large quantities of rice for sustenance – initially, it did fine, but it’s incredibly heavy and mostly water weight. Something like matzo would have been better…light and full of carbs. Speaking of heavy things, I ended up throwing out a jar of peanut butter because it was insanely heavy and inconvenient to eat.
Anyway…
The Story
The week before I set out was a mess. I knew the various things that I wanted to get together, and I accumulated them in fits and bursts, throwing them in piles on the floor. Thursday, the day before, I began to carbo-load, which consists of a high intensity sprint followed by eating 12g of carbohydrates per 12kg of body mass. After doing the appropriate conversions, it came out to the equivalent of 1.68 pounds of rice…dry weight. So I started cooking rice. Honestly, I have no idea how much carbo-loading actually helped.
On Friday night, I got everything packed up, started cooking the last batch of rice to take on the road, and had dinner with David, Victor, Fong, Jeff, Ying Ying, and Pei, which was super kind of them. It gave me hope. I should have insisted on doing the dishes, but it was almost time to go. I got back and instantly knew something was wrong when I tried lifting my backpack. It was unreasonably heavy, possibly up to 40 pounds. DK stopped by to wish me luck, and we chatted while I put the finishing touches on the pack – reflective tape.
I had asked Don to give me a boost to just outside of town, so I left when Don and Wilson stopped by. They took me to the outskirts of town. I got out and started walking and Don and Wilson drove alongside for a while. We had a cinematic moment as Don strummed on his guitar and I sang Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Then I got back in the car and we turned around. I had forgotten bug spray. And I would need it. At about 9:30, we got to the actual dropoff point, which was about 5 miles farther than they had originally dropped me off. Along the way, the bugs were so thick it was as if the cornfields were snowing. They were highlighted by the headlights like a blizzard of blood sucking snow.
Oh. Exhaustion finally hit me. I’ll finish this in another post when I wake up.
UPDATE
I never passed out. Too busy replying to stuff and getting this nifty thing set up:
This pretty much traces my path. Most of the points are chronological, but not all. I went back here and there.
I’ll actually let you go through the points to see where I went and what I was thinking at the time. For an idea of what time passed, by the time I got to Paxton, it was about 7am and I’d been walking for 10 hours. I got to Loda at 8am, called a coworker who happened to live there (who I’d only just met the day before) and slept again for a bit. I headed out again. Sundown next was during the bus ride between Kankakee and Manteno. Joe Park, Richard Chen, and DK actually called while I was getting my shit together in Kankakee and really motivated me to keep going, but I remember this specifically because I had to cut my discussion with DK short as the sun was going down and I had shit to get in order, as I said.
OH, BY THE WAY
THANK YOU:
Jeane Choi, Spence Lome, Annie Choi – for the Camelbak! God, what a lifesaver! I don’t think I would have made it anywhere during daylight hours without that thing.
Matt Sanghwan Lee – for the GPS! I would have made it places, but I would have had no idea where the fuck those places were. I depended on the GPS a LOT.
DK - for the health kit (lolz yes, I said health kit), words of support, and visit just before I left.
Fong Fan, Jeff Zhang, Ying Ying, David Jung, Victor, and Pei – for dinner and support just before I left!
Jen Chen – for the ankle braces and painkillers!
Don Mach, Wilson Thai – for the warmhearted drop off and insect repellent! And texts throughout the trip!
George Wu – for helping talk me through it before, trying to anticipate problems ahead of time.
Joy House – for inspiring me. Seriously. You are bad ass.
Kin Fong, Perry Chu, Spencer Lome, Deen Farooq, Brent Trotter, Winnie Cheng and Nathan Cheng – for the words of advice on my blog. Definitely needed them! And Kin…What?! XD
Officer Berns – for the ride! If I’m ever in Loda again, I’ll ask around for you. My gratitude!
Sunny Choi, Leslie Elizabeth, Jake Chen, Peter Hu, Kyou, Sigmund Ku, Jamie Lang, Nathan Cheng – for the texts during the trip. These kept me going at checkpoints.
My family, Alyson Kung, Khin Way Kung, and Malina Chin – for picking me up and saving my ass and then treating me to dim sum!
Lydia and Alyssa Hernandez – I have no words, no way to convey my debt to you. You were angels in the darkness. Thank you so much for everything you did. Lydia, I hope your husband came back skunk-free!
Everyone – for your support and for giving me Hope! Truth is, I Love you. But next time I try to kill myself, one of you act like you care and try to stop me, alright? Haha, just kidding.
Probably couldn’t stop me anyway.
Weird Random Thoughts
I think rice vaporizes when it hits the stomach, because I didn’t take a sizeable crap the whole time.
I lost 5 pounds on this trip
My stomach shrunk…I filled up fast at dim sum
People who stop to ask if I need a ride are nice
People who scream as I pass are assholes
People warn me against hitchhiking and against people giving rides
I think more people are nice than are mean. And besides, the nice actions have more meaningful effects anyway.
Part of the reason I did this is to face my fear, like I said. But another part is because I wanted you to know that it’s possible, and to reach beyond what you think you can do.
Days I can eat just rice and furikake rice seasoning without hating it: 2
Times I wanna see large containers of rice in the near future: 0
Times people stopped to ask if I needed a ride: 7
Times people drove by screaming: 4-5
Times I screamed back: 1
Times I saw a glowing, ethereal memorial at the side of the road during the storm from Hell for someone who had died and thought the area was haunted: 1
Number of Clif Bars eaten: 2.5
Number of 5-Hour Energy shots downed: 4
Number of times I brushed my teeth, dry: 1
Number of times I showered (rain): 2
Number of times I showered (sweat): 2
Number of times I showered (soap): 0
Number of times I uttered “Truth, Love, Hope” with every step: Uncounted. Many, many times. It helped me keep moving.
Number of miles traveled (foot): ~55
Number of miles traveled (train): ~30
Number of miles traveled (bus): ~10
Number of miles traveled (squad car): ~30
Number of miles traveled (Wilson’s grocery getter): ~5
Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up: 3
Number of brilliant ideas I had after waking up that turned out to be stupid and make me look like a fool or a lunatic: 1
