Fire By Sea

I’ve been through a lot in the past week: got laid off on my birthday, had a semi-meltdown about it, then reconciled with the CEO today.

But that’s not what I’m getting at.

I’m getting at the fact that all the thinking and intelligence in the world can be superseded in an instant by a sign. And that’s just what I got today.

As the CEO walked into the coffee shop and we picked up our hipster-ccinos, he ran into someone he knew, who was with someone that person knew, who happened to be Om Malik.

We shook hands—it was brief and courteous—but it was a sign.

At high levels, more better things get done. And revealed.

I am to be a blogger. A real one this time.

I’m writing the the first thing that comes to me as soon as I wake up and this is it: it’s being separated from my family. Right now I think it’s hitting my wife more than me from an emotional point of view, which makes it even harder.

One of the biggest problems is logistical. I have no privacy where I live. I cannot talk freely and when I can, the Internet is of bad quality so the video chat (skype) doesn’t work.

Furthermore, I’m working harder than you can imagine. Up until 2am in the mornings. At the rate I’m going, I’ll never get anywhere. The money I get paid for the time I put in will never be enough for us to be together.

But I may have figured out a path. It’s something I’ve been working on for several days in the wee hours of the morning. It is a content site around the work I’ve been doing, which is freelance WordPress development. There’s still al lot to do but I think it should work. After all, failure is not an option.

Yay, another bitter rant about a subject most people either love or don’t care about! (if that’s you, then you’ll totally understand what I’m about to say…uh, yeah).

It’s cold. Need I say more? I learned in 8th grade science that cold is nothing more than the absence of heat. Great, that’s just what I love to hear—NOT! We were nurtured in a warm liquid-filled womb. Where the fuck does cold come into that scene?

I’m cold. If it’s cold around out, chances are I’m cold, too. Even being dressed like a master Russian furrier doesn’t make up for much. Dress like a polar asshole, I guess.

Other people are cold, too. And there’s no way they’re happy about it. Everyone I see on or around the streets blurt out “It’s really cold out.”

I could be warm. But I’m not. I could be back in Hawaii where I belong, but no, I’m in fucking San Francisco where it’s cold as shit. Cold shit, that is, because shit is usually warm, at least when it’s fresh.

People are Cold(er). If there ever was a time for people to get even more robonazi than they are, it’s when it gets cold out. You think bundling up and “layering” is going to help your problem? It’s not—your heartlessness is the problem! When it’s cold out, people’s humanity scores go straight to hell. You know what I mean because it’s all relative. Cold people get even colder, and so on.

Cold is way too dry. I have the driest skin right now, and it’s so unappealing. Plus my lips are either chapped or peeling, or both. Flat hair and lotsa boogers.

You can’t enjoy outside. Nobody likes standing around or hanging out in the cold. It’s not a natural human thing to do. So why the hell would anyone want to be in a place where you can’t enjoy being outdoors? Go to hell, skiers.

Cold is not natural. Cold is naturally-occuring, but it’s not natural for humans to feel its wrath.

Cold requires technology to survive in. That can’t be right, right? If you strip away all human shit we invented, you’re left with a creature with very primitive biological survival mechanisms. The cold has got to be one of the very first hazards we have deal with. Why do it when you don’t truly have to?

Cold kills people. I’m willing to bet there are more cold-related fatalities than warm weather ones. Strictly having to do with air temperature, that is.

Cold irritates. Just look at the shit I’m saying right now. Do I not sound irritated?

Being cold is a choice, albeit a bad one. We have dreams and freedoms in life, and one of them is to be sitting on a beach in a tropical place being warm and feeling good. Is there anyone who dreams otherwise? WHo dreams of being in a cold place? (those who do always have a bear-skin rug and roaring fire going).

I’m cold right now. Dammit!

Cold is anti-sensual. Sure the fur parka can be kinda cute, but why not just show the bikini? Show us that you’re not inhibited by your body and that the warm air makes you feel sexy and sensual?

The cold brings back bad memories. No need to get into details, but let’s just say I once knew someone who hated me so they kicked me out into the cold as much as they could. It was icy hell!

We feel cold when we’re about to die. Do you ever hear the person in the movies say, “I’m cold” when they’re dying? What up with that?

Progress really slows down. Winter (when it’s cold) calls for a downtime, which means you’re not getting shit done. Or maybe you are, like me writing this post. Whatever, cold sucks.

Start with China and their 1-kid policy. Then hop on over to the US and what do you got? I call it a 2-kid policy. Any more than that and you instantly get booted into another class of people, a less respected one that is.

People think you’re fucking crazy for having so many kids

It’s cost, it’s career, it’s sanity—it’s the things they think disrupt your life, and “why the hell would you do that to yourself” mentality. It’s those stares of contempt I get when I tell them I have not one, or two, or three but four children!

So the going trend is to have one kid, then maybe—just maybe—if things work out, have another. Then you’ll have your two kids and that’s how life will be. It will be all planned and calculated and timed and shit, so nothing else in your life gets pushed aside.

And it works. Those people have their two kids and everything is copasetic, dandy. Totally mediocre.

The two kid-policy is all about the parents

And here’s why: Mom and Dad have jobs. They want a family. Mom has a kid, but then she turns around and goes right back to work and shoves the kid off onto daycare, at like 6 weeks and shit. What kind of parenting is that? Do you have a kid like you do a pet, a token for your amusement?

There’s something about the people in this world, or at least in this non-cultured white world of a country I live, and this is what it is: they don’t seem to have the deep-rooted spirit about them. Like the plastic soul. It’s this humanoid stare I get when I look at them, too. Creepy and cold. No wonder they’re white.

But here’s the irony

I’m an asshole, too. Just a different kind. I have so much passion for my wife and kids and our family bond, that I didn’t go out and build the proper safety net/nest for them and now I’m freezing my ass off alone in an apartment in San Francisco writing this post at 12:30 while my hot wife is 3,000 miles away horny in our bed without me.

So yeah, I fail. I didn’t follow the unofficial 2 kid rule of America, or even squeak by the car manufacturers maximum capacity of five per car. I just went ahead and had four, for a grand total of six. No pets for us.

But…at least, at least this: when I plow through this bullshit time in our life and get everything back in order and thaw the fuck out from this cold bullshit, I’m going to have four beautiful kids who will grow up knowing me as their dad and my wife as their mom. We will be closer than ever and untouchable, god willing.

We will NOT be cold soul-less humanoids. We will care about humanity (not just ideas or programs or companies or gadgets or abstractions). And best of all, we will care about each other.

Remember what the great rapper Ice Cube once said: “You don’t like how I’m livin’? well fuck you!”

“Content of character.”

Those three words have been on my mind since hearing the Reverend King’s speech a few days ago in a cab ride. And it struck me this morning as I was leaving my temporary apartment that Dr. King wasn’t really referring to race, but about overcoming the insurmountable obstacles of life with an indomitable spirit.

That was a profound realization, actually. Race really does seem behind us. King’s words have a more purer meaning.

In fact, when you listen to the speech, the context of the terrible situation he was referring to made it so had no other choice but to focus on liberating generations of oppressed African Americans.

So it makes sense that he really didn’t need to mention “judging people not by” their income level, sexual orientation, education, intelligence, etc. The metaphor of racism is so powerful that all other forms of discrimination and the ability to overcome it is automatically applied.

I am very moved by Dr. King, and he fills me with strength and hope. I’m just grateful to even feel that kind of appreciation.

First of all, being cold brings back bad childhood memories. My stepmother used to lock me out of the house in the winter and I fucking froze. For years this happened until we moved back to Hawaii. Then I moved back to Alaska an an adult and guess what—I fucking froze again.

But that’s over-simplifying things. The reason why I don’t think cold is awesome is because it adds a layer of distraction and cost to life. It requires you to use technology to stay alive. For example, you need a coat to go outside, (cost; colder = more expensive coat) and when you’re outside, it’s not really comfortable. When you’re cold, you mostly think about being warm (distraction).

But let’s move beyond the body. Let’s talk metaphor. When we refer to something as being cold, it means heartless and detached. Lacking in compassion. Ruthless. Who the hell is attracted to that?

Conversely, to be regarded as warm is to be open, loving, caring, affectionate. That’s why, on the whole, people from warm places tend to have a warmer culture, and vice versa.

I know that’s really generalizing, but I’m just speaking from experience. If there’s one thing I do appreciate about the culture of a cold place is a toughness and knack for survival and being industrious. Having to rely on technology to survive pushes you to get shit done, fast.

I wouldn’t be writing this post if I wasn’t so damn cold!

We have six members in our family, 3 females and 3 males. Out of our four kids, two pairs look alike (a boy and girl in each group – two are dark featured, two are light featured), and those same pairs share very similar character traits.

If you split those two pairs and then combine them one member of the other group (one light, one dark), you’ll discover other things: one is athletic and the other is not (the older two are less athletic). Both are the same sex.

Different children and parent combinations produce different results. For example, any child exclusively with both parents always works well, but less so as you add children (this is obvious because children compete for their parents’ attention).

Being with the older two brings a feeling of deeper roots and nostalgia from the early days. The younger two are completely innocent. Girls will be girls and boys will be boys.

Three are messy and one is clean. One loves music, one filmmaking, one drawing and the other—that one is too young to know yet. Of course, all are beautiful, artistic and funny.

Then there’s me and my wife. We love being alone together but we also love what we’ve built. I can’t wait to see how this family of ours is going to turn out when we start seeing grandkids.

I’m with my family. Everyday, not just random trips every now and then. Each one of them are healthy, and there’s lots of love in the home. The only instances of friction are ones that help us grow and typical kid squabbling.

Money—I’m making it. Enough of it. Now I know this is not part of the holistic version of success I’m supposed to talk about, but goddamn it I’m sick of being broke. Plus it’s baked into my Asian genes that making a lot of money is a part of being successful.

I’m helping people. We’re helping people. It’s what we do because we have the first two things (love and money). This means we’ve taken the equity we’ve worked and suffered so hard for, and instead of complete self-indulgence—which might be very tempting—we share.

How I’m going to Get There

Be strong, work hard, never stop loving. Exercising, eating well, keeping a good attitude—if not always cheerful, at least headed towards achieving the bigger goal.

I feel like I have love, but not money.

It’s true. Because of some disappointing really shitty experiences in my childhood, I have a built-in fear of being successful through writing.

Yet the only way I’ll be successful is by writing. It sucks, and I want to face this and get rid of it once and for all. I want to be able to write a blog post in one hour, not 3 days (can you believe that shit?).

Here’s what normally happens: I sit down to write and then freeze up at every word. It’s a terrible habit. I change each sentence literally 10+ times before moving on to the next.

I know this is a problem. There are people far less writing-oriented than me who are wildly successful because they stuck to it and they DID it.

So I’m going to make a vow to write in this little sand box each and every day until I get shake the disease. And it is a disease.