Learning How to Surrender

This is a post for all my friends. Please take the time to read this post because I took effort and consideration to mention you. :-) As a budding writer, I don't intend on being ostentatious with my writing skills, I simply want to entertain and to inform you of my emotional moorings. :-]
Much love (that I cannot physically express [yet]), Ken Ruan

It doesn't matter how alive you are, but when you are sick, you're enfeebled, you're debilitated like a vegetable.
-My Mom<3

The cold air is evil; it's your enemy.
-My Dad<3

I haven't left the house in three days, I want to go outside.
-Me

I suppose one of the best things about being sick is that I get rampant thoughts scurrying through my head. A flashback of disparate memories and a coalescing of quaint memories tumbling into vision. I have been sick for the past three days. This has forced me to stay in bed and to spend more time with Mom and Dad. Dad has scrambled to aid me with a mixture of Tylenol and Chinese herbs while Mom coddled me with Chinese take-out (orange-beef) and dosages of lum-dung-cha. At my Dad's behest I stayed home. I did this because I wanted to conserve my Dad's emotions--I didn't want him to infuriate him. Usually this would trigger his infinite rants about what a failed and ingrateful son I am to him. I stayed home because I learned how to surrender. I learned how to listen to my [parents]. I realized that my parents want the best for me: they wish me a speedy recovery, so why would I leave the house and expose myself to germs that would only "compound" my illness? I implored my Dad to go to Starbucks and he reasoned Why would you want to go to a place full of people? That's where germs thrive, stupid son! For some reason I felt that my comfort was Starbucks, a third home that I grew accustomed to after writing three to four term papers/drafts there in the comfort of strangers and with quotidian indie songs blaring overhead. I really enjoy basking in the company of strangers. I suppose I give ultimate trust in being seen and in being visible. I am aware that people judge others within nanoseconds time, but I don't mind being judged when everyone seems to be enveloped in their own tidings, e.g. a girl tends to her Mac Book and a guy makes a phone call on his iPhone while fiddling with his hair. Besides Starbucks "culture" allows me to concentrate on my short story writing. The faint aroma of coffee and the creeping exhilaration in patrons ignite the atmosphere of hipsterness; I thrive under a roof of creativity where everybody is doing their own artistic thing. Besides I'm longing for that one day where I will strike up a conversation after surreptitiously stealing a glance at an artistic gal twiddling her hair over a blank notebook.

My comfort with confiding in strangers started with a photography meetup via Meetup.com. Linda had last-minute invited me to a photography meetup in Greenley Square, three blocks from my apartment. I was initially reluctant to join because I was inundated with depression (after having exiting a bruised relationship). But this meetup allowed me to do two things: to ignite a lasting friendship with Linda and to confide in strangers around me because they were harmless and benign. During the train ride home, I was especially vigilant of my own awkwardness and my own sense of inwardness. I seldom spoke to Linda because I wanted the chance for her to make me happy. It doesn't take much, I should say. It shouldn't take much because she told me, "You shouldn't expect so much from your friends." Why waste all that time getting your hopes up when at the end they don't deliver? Friends exist for a variety of subjective reasons left and right. My reason for having friends is so that they can partly substitute what my parents did not bear: showering me with physical love and support and embrace my artistic-lifestyle. support. Often times I don't ask much from my friends. But I cannot hide the sheer fact that I do expect continuous hangouts that do not languish. I am aware that people have lives, but I do not want to have hangouts where enormous amounts of time has elapsed and the hangouts become "time to catch up." I don't want times to catch up because I don't want my friends to be MIA. It is not necessarily an obligation but it would be nice to know what they're been up to, not just missing or unavailable to return a single text. I am aware that there are extenuating circumstances e.g. You cannot text or you don't feel like texting a single-word response, but I am giving my friends the benefit of the doubt. Friends offer to hang out now and then, but sometimes "friends" forget each other which in retrospect, alarms me because it prompts me to question the bond and the strength of the friendship initially. It's obviously not as BFF-like as you had imagined if your friend was to disappear on you when you needed them. However, this need for them becomes insurmountable in times of self-appreciation and times of must-love-me moments. I understand that we all need self-esteem boosting where the Me needs to be stroked relentlessly.

My directress Samantha raised a good question: Instead of asking who your true friends are, why don't you ask yourself, have I been a good friend to them? Hmmm. It's a two-way relationship, a friend can only be there for you for so much, you gotta be there for them too. This is a good prompt because it doesn't always ask how successful a friendship is from one-side. It doesn't usher the friendship towards a receive or give or take position. It measures the friendship in a reciprocal manner the way friendships are supposed to be, in my opinion. However this is colored by many subtle moments where the receiving end (me) believes that I have done more than necessary while penning blame on my friend that he/she has not done enough. This is relevantly skewed for many reasons. It can be debated that humans are inherently selfish and that we only want to inflate our own egos, but I believe that selfless love is possible and there is something that transcends altruism. However, I have not met a single person besides my Mom who does not want anything in return for something she did. My Mom has worked for over forty years of her existence and survived on meager wages, shuffling from one seamstress employment to another with barely clothes on her back. She has not acquired a single change of wardrobe since the day she emigrated to United States. She does not ask anything from me, but instead she buys me nearly everything in her monetary power. She does not treat herself to clothing or indulge herself in lap of luxury. Her lifestyle is not in tandem with mine. Our lifestyles are simply in stark contrast because she lives a practical life devoid of material wants. It hasn't been until lately that she has treated herself to McDonald's number two orders and bootlegged handbags. My Mom would always come home with either a take-out meal for me, or prepare a home-cooked meal in under half an hour, abetted by Dad's early preparations. She would move around the kitchen and magically whip up dinner. But she does not unfold this creation by magic, she does it with her own hands, her own flesh as she does for a grueling ten hours a day, vexing her body and pumping her fingers under a sewing needle in a sweatshop swimming with toxins and other immigrant bodies coated in sweat and gossip. And how dare I ask Where is the love the love the love? The only evil evident is taking guardians for granted. Had the situation been far worse I could scream out to God, but I am lucky, I am grateful for having two parents who allow me life, as life is all I could ask for. To exist is better than not to exist. Of course, these epiphanies do not occur until I am drenched in sweat in bed, and wishing for God to exonerate me from this illness.

I often wonder what is the chemistry between friends. I often wonder if my friends are thinking about me as hard as I think about them. I don't think that friends should question each other's friendship unless they are in doubt. And when they're in doubt it could only mean that the friendship has holes and unmended seams. Otherwise why even bother thinking about a friendship when it's smooth as a baby's bottom. In my case, I am incredibly grateful to have a best friend and a homeboy who calls me when I'm sick. I'm also grateful to have a false brother who I rarely speak to, but he calls me to see how I'm doing. While I feel a tinge of happiness to receive these calls, a spark of discomfort also ignites inside of me: I ask why are these people so nice to me when all my life I have been bullied and tormented? Do these people want something from me? It's not the norm for these friends to be so nice to me? When did I even have friends? My friends in high school betrayed me and blackmailed me and scorned me behind my back. In fact, having friends is a novelty for me, so why should I give them my trust? I might as well suspend my trust and F love under all circumstances. No, I don't think that anymore. I am grateful for friends who let me into their lives. I do the same by letting them into my life. Besides there's a doughnut hole of bad people out there, so why ration goodness? Doestevsky was incredibly cynical and aimless when he cited that goodness is useless. When I spontaneously help an old person across the street, I do it spontaneously, I don't question myself if I get anything in return, I just act because it is the right thing to do!

Sometimes I wish I had the life of a character on screen. I love watching Felicity because it reminds me of the 90's where my life was the heyday of drama. Now I lean back in my chair and I ask, where is my drama? I am soo lucky for having no drama in my life. I have extinguished all external conflicts while accumulating internal conflicts with me, myself, and I. I have built up a love for being a false character named Dan Humphrey. I impregnate myself with his witty remarks and I communicate a pompous facade of hipster-sophisticatedness. I parade the city and Starbucks-hop with a dictionary in my doctor's bag and a philosophy book to top it off. I have acquired over two grand's worth of attire, but I am not done conquering the materialistic world just yet. I awake just to surf the J.Crew website for interesting shirts and bags; I wish upon a 100$ wallet and I dream of acquiring a 2000$ camera. This is all impractical because having an expensive wallet poses a real problem when I do not have enough money to satisfy that wallet. Besides who will observe my wallet? I spend 90% of my life sitting on it. Practicality often trumps the need for material objects.