by the Riverdales from the Riverdales
Hello after a much extended blogging hiatus. I guess I can't call it break since it has been over a year and a half since I blogged last. I wonder if anyone is still paying attention to this blog. There a myriad of reasons why I stopped blogging including being busy, using Twitter/Facebook more, and overall just maturing or getting older and no longer needing to blast/rant out my thoughts like I used to do when I was younger. One thing is that is has not been for a lack of something to write. There are plenty of things I could have written about but never found the chance to collect my thoughts properly.
So 2012 is ending and the world is still here. Damn you John Cusack and that really bad disaster movie for trying to convince us differently. The cliche and plenty of people say the years start to fly by as you get older. I generally agree but 2012 was very different for me. It didn't seem like a short year at all to me. I think it is was same for me as 2006. Mainly so much changed for me this past year. Obviously the big thing was that a bought a townhouse in downtown Mountain View this year. So I am typing in my office in my house/home. Which is still pretty weird for me to type. I moved in 6 months ago but it seems like years since I was living in my old apartment (which I did live in for 6 years). Plus there has been other things too. I ran another half marathon but this time in Maui, so I got to visit Hawaii for the first time in my life. It was a great trip and I vow to go back again. I went other places too like Zurich, Austin, and Houston. Plus there is all the other stuff, hanging out with friends, weddings, birthdays, holidays, dates, work shit too. It all added up to make a full year. So full that I forgot what I did for last New Year's Eve when someone asked me the other day.
But I think the one thing I noticed this year (and it kind of relates to why I stopped blogging) is that I kind of realized that I am missing the chip(s) on my shoulder. Let me explain. Back in 2000, when I started blogging. I was still pissed off at high school, depressed that I couldn't get a date, stressed out about having to support myself while going to school full-time, bitter about my family life, and countless other things that contributed to a pretty big chip on my shoulder. And I would rant, rave, and be pissed off at the unfairness of it all. Even after college, I was pissed off that was making shitty money working as a contractor and being unable to get a full-time job with benefits. In grad school, I was having a ball but yeah I could still complain about living the cheap, no frills lifestyle of a grad student. After grad school, there were student loans to complain plus my non-existent love life to be "chipped off" about.
But as the years have gone by, those things that contributed to me being bitter or stressed have dissipated. I love visiting Jinah, Drew, and nephew Owen a few times a month. I paid off my student loans. I own (or more technically owe the bank) a townhouse in I have to admit in awesome location. I have been working at Google 6 going on 7 years. Even more amazing, they seem willing to promote me twice, give me raises and bonuses. On top of it all, I had an offer for really attractive opportunity at other company late last year and Google made an all out effort to convince me to say. Even more amazing, I went out on dates with like 12 different ladies this year (well..I could write an entire entry or two on that subject alone). But my point is that all the things that used to stress me out in my life, don't really anymore. So I feel less justified bitching about them than I did in the past. Sure, there is stupid shit like something at work that may get me riled up but it is nothing compared to say, not knowing how I am going to pay for school or pay my rent. So what do you do when lots of the stuff you were bitter about are no longer there. To me, it means complaining less. When the Occupy movement was making news, I definitely agreed with their viewpoints but part of me felt, I don't know, separated from their plight/movement. I know what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck, have hard time in the job market, to feel hungry, to live without health insurance. However, that was many years ago for me. And contrary to what happened to too many people, I didn't lose my job, house, insurance etc. In fact, I gained economically while too many people lost far too much as the result of the financial crisis and resulting depression. So I can't act as if I have all these huge problems or stress to deal with because in realty I don't and I wouldn't be honest, especially with myself, if I acted like I did.
Which brings me to something I have noticed something steadily rising. I call it act-as-if-ism. It's taken from a speech Ben Affleck gives in a pretty forgettable movie called the Boiler Room. But basically it boils down to, "If you act like a success, you will be a success." Now I have nothing against confidence or taking the initiative, but I think "act-as-if-ism" has been taken to beyond absurdity to a point of corrosiveness. For example, Romney and Ryan ran on an economic platform they claimed reduced the deficit but when in fact, in reality, by the arithmetic, by the math, actually raised the deficit. And when critics pointed this out, their only defense was "we say it reduces the deficit so it does." They acted as if it did, along with plenty of their nonsensical positions, and the sad part about it, is that 47% of voters bought it. Act-as-if-ism was so strong that people attacked the polls saying Romney was behind because they just knew or they just had to act as if he was leading. So they "corrected" the polls because they need to act as if they were leading even when they were not.
It's not just politics either. In almost every facet of our society it is becoming increasingly clear that appearing to be a success takes precedence over actually being or doing the things to be a success. On Wall Street, all those firms manipulated shitty mortgages, bad investments, their own balance sheets to make it look like they were worth a lot of money. At some in time, like in a financial crisis, you are going to actually have to be worth the money you claim to be especially if invest and leverage based on that. In sports, we have an epidemic of steroid and performance enhancing drug using because hey it's better to look like you can run that fast, hit home runs that far, or bike that hard rather than actually putting in the work to do it. Or better yet just do what Paul Ryan did and just say flat out lie about it (for instance claiming a sub 3 hour time) and then laugh it off as an honest mistake when someone calls you out on your above 4 hour time.
I have had a long standing aversion to act-as-if-ism. In high school, I saw scores of over achieving kids loading up on classes that weren't interested in taking, clubs and activities they didn't care about just to act/appear as that "well rounded" dream candidates colleges salivate over. At least those kids went though the motions. Now a days you can do what Scott Thompson did and claim a degree you don't have and get away with it for years and years and only get caught in an extraordinary circumstance. My problem with act-as-if-ism is that, in the end, it is all bullshit unless you actually be-as-if or do-as-if. You can't act & spend like a millionaire if you don't have millions of dollars. You can't act like an expert if you don't know the area you are supposed to be an expert in. It just seems people are no longer willing to put in the work to actually be-as-if or do-as-if and are just skipping to act-as-if. And when they get called out for it or their act finally catches up with them, they get a slap on the wrist or in some big cases, nothing happens at all and they prosper more.
The reason why act-as-if-ism bothers me so much is that it skips the hard part. In my mind, you can't act like the president of your firm, a millionaire, a world class athlete, or whatever unless you put in the work to actually be the president, millionaire, athlete. And that work is usually far less fun that strutting around claiming to be whatever. It means toiling way doing really hard, shitty unglamorous grunt work. It means having to punch the clock day in an day out, making sacrifices, paying your dues, and yes, suffering through stress and bitterness. For example, I trained for a year to a run the SF marathon 2 years ago. I woke up early on many mornings for my training runs, suffered through sore legs and muscles, winced in pain after every step during the last mile of 20 miles training run, all to get my above 4 hour time. And to hear some act-as-if douchebag claim to run it in under 3 hours, when obviously didn't put in any of the effort to actually run in under 3 hrs is an insult. Be it in sports, professionally, socially, or whatever, act-as-if-ism is lying, plain and simple. And for people like myself and others who had to endure so much to achieve what those act-as-ifers lie to say they have is infuriating and pathetic.
So I have many hopes and goals for 2013. But one thing I won't do is to act-as-if I already achieved them when I didn't. I hope you have a happy holiday season and new year. Peace on earth.
