“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.” – Joy / Everything Everywhere All at once
If you haven’t seen this movie, please, go watch it in the theater. Then it will all make sense. Not just the quote. But life. Ok, maybe not that, but my melancholy will make a bit more sense to you. In general. Or not. In a nihilistic way, the everything bagel collapse within its own weight of everything-ness.
I was trying to figure out why I resonate so deeply with such an absurd and deeply silly movie. Maybe because it was a movie about an Asian American family struggling to accept their queer Asian child. Maybe it was a movie about how many “what-if” there are versions of us out there that we need to reconcile. Or maybe, just maybe, at the heart of it, is a movie about the nihilistic world we live in and our need to seek out our own joy and kindness to radically embrace it.
The only thing I can change about my world right now is how much I can change my expectation of it.
I was sick for about a week now. Maybe it’s Covid. Maybe it’s not Covid. Again maybe it’s Covid because half of Canadians now had it and we are all exhausted and our Premiere believed in banning municipalities to make their own rules about public safety, because, you know, Freedom, but also votes.
And I realize, the world, just like everything bagels, will never change. And I can’t change it.
Americans will continue to vote for Republicans no matter how many more human rights they will take away. Putin will continue to evade Ukraine no matter how many sanctions (or clever jokes) the West made about him. Alberta will continue to defend, protect, and revere Oil and Gas no matter how manytech investments and tech success we have. Senior Execs will continue to want things done exactly the way they want no matter how progressive and embracing of diversity and inclusion they are. Partners and family and friends will continue their habits with their phones or their diet or their daily routine no matter how much they care about you, or how often you spelled out the roadmap of what you need to hold a little space in your darkness.
Nothing really matters, because there is nothing you can control. You can weave stories and tales. And you can retell the ups and downs and ponder as many what-ifs as you can, but life goes at its own pace, and every moment is a one-in-a-seven-billion chance to create divergence.
And so, a crossroad, an answer that I knew (from Buddhism) – and one that is offered by the movie itself – Radical acceptance. Accepting life at its messiness, darkness, and joy, too.
Rationally, that is.
I wish depression and anxiety is as simple as a matter of rationality. Because as an Asian person with A+ blood type (Yes, even my blood is an over-achiever), I will master the fuck out of radical acceptance if it was rational.
What if I quit Software altogether. I need to call Blair. Ask him if he wants to start that off-grid farm together. Maybe help him build a Farm-to-table business. What if I stop building digital assets and blockchain and creating real life and real assets instead? Learn some real skill. Too late to be a doctor now. Maybe learn to start a vertical farm and invest.
I know it sounds insane to some of you. But I was so at peace.
I literally just came back from vacation 10 days ago, determined to learn to love my life and my work, and radically embrace my imperfections. And here I am, collapsing within my own weight of failed attempts like a burned everything bagel.
Maybe it’s Covid – the everything-bagel variance.
Even my Covid is more over-achieving than the normal people’s Covid.
Pace Fine Arts 