Last December I. figured out the new year resolution for me– resume blogging. My guess is given that I’ve constantly been ranting and raving about jibberish at him, he thought it’d be fun to see if I can do that in words (and in public). To be honest, I found this idea utterly fantastic, for it forces me to think deepr before speaking of anything. On top of that, I also enjoy a place where we can have fun laughing at each others’ seriousness.

As it happens, many things didn’t pan out in this depressing year of 2017 and here comes the end of it. Though I don’t particularly enjoy blogging (explicitly) about my private matters, I’m going to give a bit of reflection on some of the predicaments I was compelled to deal with anyway. But here’s the disclaimer. Since I’m still sorting things out, this is not gonna be a well-thought-out revelation-like epiphany. It is rather a collection of slightly curated contemplations that may not be pertinent or well-connected at all.

This Monday, when my friend Chris asked me how am I doing, I instinctively replied “better than I deserve.” This ambiguous answer immediately elicited a follow-up question.  Given the context I said it in, I was by no means referring to any religious sentiment like we who fall short of the glory of God shall be thankful for all we’re granted by this benevolent deity. Instead, what I meant to say was, “I really don’t know, and I have no idea why am I still here joking around.”  In the past few weeks, I was faced with stresses from different aspects of my life, some of which deeply troubles me in ways that I could never imagine. I always think I’m rather good at stress control. I manage my life well and have every reason to believe that even when bad things happen, I can count on many people to have my back. But what I didn’t realize was the gravity of impact when problems arise from the deterioration of more than one of supports I thought I secured. I panicked, said and did something I shouldn’t have, thus hurting the people I care for.  Now when I try to get down to the root of all these failures, I discover that I know little about myself. How is that possible?

There are so many things that I thought I’ve learned from the past and thus won’t be stumbled by again. As it turns out, unfortunately, I’m once again trounced entirely. For whatever reason, I recall a botched adage that I precociously annexed with a bit of cynicism in middle school: “What goes around doesn’t always come around.”

I guess the gist of this sentiment isn’t really to explain away the merits of causal reasoning. It instead underscores the disappointing truth that unknowns or things we have no control over sometimes have tremendous impacts on the outcomes. There’s definitely something stochastic about how our social lives work, but there’s also something hard-wired in our biology regarding what our brain determines how to react. The nerdy (but rather logical) part of me tried to reason that what we did/said doesn’t really reflect our intentions since our prefrontal cortex was hijacked by our amygdala to execute quick but often irrational responses. And even after our prefrontal cortex regains control a few milliseconds to seconds afterward and we start to feel regretful for what just got blurted out, our perception still coerces this part of the brain that helps us make tough decisions to commit to it. What a convenient reliever!  A part of me nonetheless actively resists such an idea, for this sort of consilience sounds like a smokescreen for a hostile take over of humanity by Philistines in white coats.

Though extremely unsettling,  I think I still learn something from this period of excitement and disillusionment, frustration and joy.  Perhaps at this stage, all I can say to myself is that life is not all bad, for at least there’s timely good news about my work.  And I still get to enjoy the holiday season with a bunch people I love. There’s comfort everywhere, indeed.

Here’s the “Love, Christmas tree, and Ohio” holiday cookies I made with the awesome de Jong family from Uniontown, OH on the very first night of my winter holiday this year. The love, passion, and content this family demonstrate about life inadvertently rekindle my extinguished vim. Although wind is howling outside my window in this white-out midwest winter, I have this bit of warmth and energy to keep my sanity alive.