Progress is a spiral, but it does happen

I'm a math nerd, in case that wasn't clear before. So when someone said that progress was like a spiral that felt like a circle and showed me a picture, I squinted and said, oh hey, that actually looks like a "screw", which is one of the Simple Machines that makes work easier (you move up not in a straight line but at a more gradual incline; it's slower but it makes it more doable). A fantastic poetic insight, if I do say so myself, but it still doesn't always make it possible to recognize when you're moving up and not just around.

Fortunately, even spirals sometimes have milestone markers.

 

It only looks like you're going around in a circle

I homeschool my sons. That feels like a confession every time I say it, because I grew up believing in institutional education (even if I always felt like an alien in those environments). I was so earnest, it took me years to realize something was off. Actually, it took the suffering of one of my children, and then the incredible boredom of another. Schools failed my children in one way, but they fail other children in other ways. Not all children, perhaps, but enough that my conscience doesn't ping me as much as it used to about my decision to pull my children out.

I tried very hard to replicate "school" for my younger children, but it took me less than two years to realize that wasn't what they needed. We prioritized play, and I tried to focus on what they did well rather than what they didn't, with the theory that when they were older everything would basically even out. I wanted them to enjoy their childhoods as much as possible, even when I could feel other adults glaring at me because I was doing it wrong, and even when I could hear in their voices the concern that I was somehow ruining my children. Sometimes that made me dig in deeper, sometimes that filled me with anxiety that maybe I was using my kids as a social experiment and not being their mother. But every time I thought of changing course, the cues I got from my kids indicated that they wouldn't do better with more of a regimen.

Mind you: this did not mean that they loved homeschooling with me every step of the way. They rolled their eyes at me so many times they must have pulled some ligaments, and every mistake I made I was called out on. There's a rightful concern that parents can be the harshest teachers of all and make their kids feel stupid; not too many people talk about the ways in which our kids make us feel stupid (but, you know, maybe they should).

It had always been the plan to send them to community college at about this time. "About this time" because I would have ideally done it last year, but that wasn't much of an option given the pandemic. So we plugged along, with the normal attendant dramas along the way. Finally, we got to the point where they were ready to register for classes at one of the community colleges in Boston, but first they needed to take a math assessment test.

Long story short: they both did really well, in spite of the fact that they had never taken a standardized test before and one of them has significant anxiety around math. That one tested into Pre-Calculus, and the one who likes math better tested into Calculus.

I was overjoyed -- one of them will never have to take math again, and the other *might* be able to get out of a Statistics requirement, but if not, that's the only math class he'll ever need. More importantly, they both know that 1) they can handle standardized tests, and 2) that they can handle math. And we did it without "drilling", year after year, something they didn't like into their minds in a way that would make them dislike it even more.

There was no guarantee this approach would "work" if working means performing intelligence for anyone. But that was never what I wanted for them. I wanted -- and still want -- for them to explore the topics that they are interested in and find the things subjects that thrill their minds. Letting them "play" in different ways with what they liked helped foster that, I'm convinced.

It only looked like we were faltering in place...right?

Deb in the City

How I survived the Year of Hell - a story in Tarot

I'm so grateful for my posse of bloggers (Caroline, Jami, and Kerrie) who join me on these fun blog hops. I spent a lot of last year looking forward to talking about "the end" with them, and once again they came through.

I feel like a lot of people slowed down in some way during the pandemic, because they didn't have a choice. Lockdown meant being locked down, so most people were home a lot more, and since most people's lives were "out", that was a big adjustment.

That's not what happened to me.

I got this brilliant idea at the beginning of 2020 that the climate action group I was working with should have an arm that focused on the connections between climate change and agriculture, and I got people to agree with me. The pandemic meant that we could do all of our programming online, so between April 2020 and February 2021 we did the following:

• Four webinars on topics including victory gardening, compost, "foodprints", and bringing Jewish values to the garden as we fight climate change
• A film series
• A three-part class on trees
• A two-part webinar on the importance of native plants

Oh yeah, between September of 2020 and April of 2021, I was also working on a conference for said environmental action group, including not only organizing sessions around agriculture but also making sure planning got...done for the rest of it. (I guess you could call me the project manager?)

 

This was as exhausting as it sounded, but in the middle of that, I also decided that I should put together a learning circle on Self-Care with my friend Jordan. I thought it would be really easy, but it took several months to finalize. I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out -- hope you agree.

 

During this time, I continued to homeschool my sons, albeit at the pace I've always used (let's call it "relaxed"). We managed to cover a bunch of material, including physics, calculus, chemistry, some biology, history (boy, was this a good time to re-read Stamped From The Beginning with them, as well as America for Americans), and "random" stuff like computer science and some classic literature. Oh yes, I also started a correspondence with the author of their physics and calculus book, and gave him a few suggestions for answers to two of the physics problems (after I spent three days figuring one out). The seventeen year old in me who did NOT do well in physics senior year was a little chuffed, I admit it.

 

It wasn't all drudgery. I had a lot of fun getting into Tarot with a friend of mine and sharing our spreads daily. No, please don't worry, I am not going to start talking about messages from beyond or anything like that. I see Tarot as a much prettier Rorschach Test: each card has so many meanings, though only a few "speak" to you. The question is why. That's been what I enjoyed most about it, and I enjoyed tapping into that intuitive part of myself that I was told to shelve years ago.

 

I also enjoyed deepening my friendships with two people while we worked on the learning circle and getting closer to two others as we shared some of our writing. (This made up for having to abruptly walk away from a critique group that, to put it mildly, wasn't working out for me.) Yes, of course we talked about the pandemic every time we met, but we also talked about the things that were, literally, giving us life. I'm truly grateful for those connections. And it would not be fair to talk about 2020 without also mentioning how much I loved the fact that I was already in a gardening community that has been putting up the good fight in the community for decades now. I got a lot out of working in the soil, and I'm so glad we're back at it. (And, oh yes, I made a project out of that as well; didn't my daughter do a great job on this video?) 

Mostly though, I was busy, so busy that I felt kind of empty and dried up, and looked forward to life returning to a new and better normal in May. That included getting back to my writing, which had to take a back seat because, well, there are only so many hours in a day and days in a year.

But life did not become a better normal. I had to come to terms with the fact that I felt empty even when I wasn't hustling, and it wasn't because of my activities. Something was *wrong*. And mid-May I realized what that was: I was living with addiction again, and I don't mean my own.

 

I'm not going to go into the details, because as anyone who has ever been in this situation will tell you, after a while they don't matter (but I will tell you this: there's a fine line between a "healthy hobby" and an addiction). Hell is not just the substance, it's everything that goes with it: the lying, the rationalizations, the inability to plan for a future because there is no future past the next fix, and, as I said, that feeling of emptiness. Addiction is the fun house mirror version of "living in the present".

Someone else is on a path toward rehabilitation...perhaps. I am trying to plan for my future. Normal? No clue. But definitely happy.

 

Come at me 2021 and 2022; if I was fortunate enough to live through the last 15 months, I can get through anything.

Deb in the City

A Meditation at Boston's Long Wharf (Poem)

sunlight on ripples and waves

undulating like a snake

expanding, receding, becoming, being

waves on waves

lighting the path on water

 

I *might* have read a collection of Li Po's poetry very recently. 

In all seriousness, this has not been a great few days for me, and when I feel that way, the best thing I can do is go for a long walk -- in the case of the walk this morning, one that went past the three-hour mark. I covered a lot of ground -- did I mention that Boston isn't very large? -- but at the two hour mark I needed a break, and Long Wharf was the perfect spot. The sound of waves lapping against the stone wall inspired me to meditate, and it was the peace I needed. 

But the sunlight on the water, which my phone did an okay job of capturing, was what made the respite so peaceful, and what inspired the above poem.

If only I could be there every morning!

How come no one cares unless there's sex?

I was moved to write Needs, Wants, and Other Weaknesses because I couldn't stop thinking about the exploitation and human trafficking present in our every day lives. There's a bit about prostitution, but the prostitutes I glance at aren't trafficked, and they're not the main story. The exploitation in the books deals with those mundane things we see all the time but do nothing about, whether it's someone who works for a low, low price serving us food at a restaurant or the really cheap shrimp we can buy because the people who do the hard work on shrimp boats are slaves.

But people don't want to hear about that because there's nothing remotely fun about it. Exploitation is dreary and ugly -- but if you sex it up a little bit, then just wait to see people clutching their pearls and delivering condemnations about the ugliness of human trafficking and demanding that something be done.

So we know this. It's not okay, but okay. But that same dynamic struck even closer to home than usual last week.

Asian Americans have been being literally pushed around, beaten, and killed for over a year now. Actually, it's been much longer, but it spiked 150 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic. So many of the victims have been elderly, and the things they have done to draw the ire of their attackers are things that are symptomatic of a normal life: grocery shopping. Getting money at an ATM. Taking the train. For the crime of existing and not hiding, they have been beaten and sometimes killed.

This is not a secret. I am not part of any secret cabal, and certainly not one that focuses on Asian American life (sadly -- no one invites me to these things like they're supposed to). This has been in the news, but it hasn't the media's greater attention. Yes, thank you for condemning the former president referring to COVID-19 as the China Virus and Kung Flu, but where were you when we couldn't leave our own homes and had to organize people to escort our elderly to the grocery store?

But wow, they can't get enough of what happened to the women in Atlanta. I feel sick thinking about a gun man going after these women, but who was going to stop him? Nobody cared when other Asian Americans were being hurt, so why should they care about someone going after them?

Because the completely not racist murderer had to make it about sex. (Throw in guns and Jesus, this guy should have just written a movie script. Or wait, haven't we all seen this movie before?) And now the media can't shut up. Now, suddenly, they're talking about how we've had targets on our backs for years, and they've only gotten bigger, and our attackers more vicious.

Gee, thanks. Now I just have one question: where will they be the next time?

A meditation on South Korean entertainment

I used to joke that I didn't watch any entertainment that wasn't in Korean, only it's so frequently true that it's not really a joke anymore. Not that I'd be inclined to feel guilty about this for any reason, but even people who are shouldn't. It's too easy to snark about how unoriginal Hollywood productions are these days, and I find myself watching something made in South Korea and think, "why can't Hollywood do a story like this?"

I recently finished Delayed Justice. Two unrelated Parks -- an attorney who only went to high school, and a reporter from the wrong side of the tracks who recently lost his good-paying job -- team up to get justice for one downtrodden group of defendants after another, all connected to a corrupt judge, an uncouth businessman turned mayor of Seoul, and a kingmaker who used to be a prosecutor during the last military dictatorship. It was a fun little show, and I'd be lying if I said that some of the backstage drama -- one of the original actors got picked up for drunk driving and needed to be replaced -- didn't add to some of the appeal.

I also recently enjoyed Lucky Romance, but that was primarily because the leads (Ryu Joon Yeol and Hwang Jung Eum) are so charming and talented they could move me while reading the phone book. And A Korean Odyssey was one of the best ensemble comedies I've seen in a long time. And while sometimes I tire of derring-do in Korean action, Vagabond was AWESOME. Now if only they come back for a second season to close the loop...

K-dramas are fun, but in general they're just not as satisfying as the movies. (I don't think this is specific to Korean entertainment.) Not all movies are perfect -- I can think of more than a few that have fallen flat -- but when they're good you feel like you've spent two hours (or more) wisely. Best movie I've seen in several months is Beasts Clawing at Straws. By the title, you can guess that it's about the poor and/or desperate of South Korea trying to pull themselves up with one fever-pitched, make or break attempt, and you'd be right. The stories are intertwined, and even when you think you can see where it's going you'll still feel hit by a curve ball at least once. Can't say it had a happy ending, but most people will be satisfied by it.  

Beasts Clawing At Straws...everyone is as well-adjusted as you think they are.

I'm probably like a lot of movie viewers in that I'm prone to following good actors. Ryu Joon Yeol, mentioned above, is REALLY good. The first movie I saw him in was Believer, and he played the kind of character that made me want to hide under my covers while I hyperventilated. Then I saw him play completely different roles in Little Forest, The King, and Hit-and-Run Squad that made me feel, well, a little less panicky. He's an actor I really hope we see more from soon. 

Gang Dong Won is another compelling actor. I knew this from some of his recent films, but I was surprised at how adept he was over a decade ago in The Temptation of Wolves (look, I'm not the one who makes up these titles, okay?) and Haunters. He, like Ryu Joon Yeol, is a good actor for a director to enlist when they need someone to sell something absolutely crazy and make you believe it. 

Ryu Joon Yeol: trust me, this guy can play scary as easily as he can play charming.

 

No discussion of Korean cinema is complete without Song Kang Ho (you can think of him as the Parasite guy). With the glaring, horrible exception of Drug King (just...why?), he's been universally fantastic. The oldest movie I've seen him in is a ridiculous little film called Foul King, but he managed to be really touching and made the best of the material. After that, he really took off, starting with Joint Security Area and then Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance. (People have probably seen him in Snowpiercer and The Host, but those just aren't my cups of my tea.) He was excellent in both The Attorney and A Taxi Driver, but my favorite of all of his roles is Age of Shadows. Basically, if you see Kang featured as an actor, it's an almost sure thing the production will be good.

Wait, aren't there Korean actresses? Um, yes, but I'm sorry to say that with few exceptions, women have better roles on television than in the big screen. Many of the movies fail the first two questions of the Bechdel test, and I've seen very few that pass the fourth question. Actresses who consistently work in movies include Kim Hye Soo, Jun Ji Hyun, Kim Tae Ri, and Kim Go Eun, but even those actresses arguably had roles with more depth on television than in film. In that regard, it's more than a little depressing that South Korea has the same problems that Hollywood does. 

Kim Hye Soo: A talented actress who should keep playing leading roles.

Deb in the City

PS Just about all of these movies are available on Netflix or Viki. Also, I am not getting any consideration from AsianWiki.com, their information is just more consistent than Wikipedia's.

Short-Term Planning and Parenting, FTW

Finished Range yesterday. The chapter about letting go of our familiar tools was surprisingly devastating. As in, by the time I realized what was actually being discussed, I gasped. And then I gasped again. Let me not spoil the surprise, but it's worth reading.

In a nutshell, the thesis of the book is that it's a myth that only those who specialize early will ever achieve success is a myth. Of course there are Tiger Woods, Mozarts, and Bobby Fischers, but no one -- individual or parent -- should feel like a failure if they haven't "arrived" by the age of thirty (or twenty). As one chapter discusses, personalities change over time, and the best way to arrive at a vocation that fits is to experiment or, as we lay people might put it, live. No one can guarantee greatness, but broad exposure to a wide range of materials does a better job of ensuring fit and, perhaps, happiness.

I feel comfortable saying Range speaks to the value of short- and medium-term planning, and in such a way that leaves us open to taking detours if we discover the path we're on isn't for us. That's good advice, but it's also lousy advice as the advice industry goes because it isn't neat and it doesn't come with easy to follow steps. That is, of course, part of the point, but I suspect that will be one reason why the plan early and thoroughly crowd will continue to have dominance in parenting circles. 

And that's a shame. When I've been able to step back from my hyperventilating paranoia that my children will never amount to anything if I don't make sure they are following the exact path proscribed by -- who again? -- I see and hear them creating magic. Do they spend too much with video games? Yes, as do most teenagers right now. But they're also making art, making music, and digging deep into the things that interest them. 

 

One of the best examples of someone who did it his way

 I haven't loved all of it -- there was a period a few years ago where I heard a little too much about a certain snarky "public intellectual" who used specious logic to demean non-binary people, among other things -- but conversations with us and exposure to critical reasoning and media literacy went a long way toward ending that phase. So, too, did maturing from a preteen to a teenager, but perhaps the most instructive was the sheer ugliness of what they saw. (Why this isn't working for people who aren't teenagers, I have no idea.)

Don't sweat two decades out; sometimes getting through two months is an achievement. Trust your judgment -- trust your children's need to explore -- and dig into the discoveries you make along the way.

Confirmation Bias

I've been reading Range for the last few days, and for some reason it's slower going for me than I thought it would be. I suspect those reasons have more to do with general exhaustion than the book itself, which I'm really enjoying.

I just finished the chapter "Fooled by Expertise", which I think most readers will recognize as a meditation on confirmation bias. Yes, you're right to groan when you think about a certain relative or friend who is unable to change their opinion about anything but particularly their pet subjects, evidence be damned. The solution may or may not be "education"; what this chapter and really the whole book show is that the more expert you are at one thing, the more likely you are to only be able to see a narrow perspective. 

I am also in the process of reading To Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu. I still think he's an amazing writer, but of course I'm disturbed -- if not completely disgusted -- by revelations about his position on what's happening to Uighurs, as well as perhaps his orientation about the Chinese government itself. He's not opposed, let's just put it that way. I'm forming certain opinions about the man as opposed to the author based on that information, and those opinions don't improve after reading We Have Been Harmonized.

Now throw into the mix Liu's short story that I read last night, "Full-Spectrum Barrage Jamming". To be honest, my jaw dropped. I am not opposed to reading something from the perspective of the Russian military, and I'm not opposed to the Americans being villains, but OH MY GOD. The megalomania ascribed to the Americans here is excessive enough that I can't help but see some paranoia, especially when the author threw in a discursion about the South China Sea...

I felt both better and worse after I read that story. Better, because a pre-existing notion seemed to confirmed, and worse because a pre-existing notion seemed to be confirmed.

I don't like being wrong, and I like even less having someone telling me I'm wrong. Which is why when I see confirmation of something I've thought or said I feel a little lift. ("Look at me and how correct I am.") As if that somehow insulates me from criticism. But I don't like being correct -- being right -- as much as you might think an opinionated person would, and boy, do I find it irritating to be among people who constantly agree with me. It gives me the feeling that the world is much narrower than I've been told it should be, and that some important function I should be enjoying -- the one we usually call "learning" -- has been shut off from me, and I usually grit my teeth if I have to sit somewhere or with something that is too intellectually familiar for too long. I'm gratified to read in Range that I'm not alone.

Please don't take this as a recommendation that we should all be consuming "alternative" news so we can "form our own opinions". (There is a distinction between reality and fantasy, and it can usually be confirmed with a fact check.) And what Liu said about Uighurs is just plain wrong -- human rights are not subject to debate, full stop. What I am saying is that we should look at the same set of facts from a different perspective, preferably one we haven't been exposed to before. It's definitely uncomfortable, but not as much as always thinking you're right.