pablos

Now and again, in moments of weakness, I think about you. It could be the horrendous way you drive, or your begrudging grin after a particularly stupid joke, or even your silent excitement when I finally agree to watch a “cult classic rom-com.” I smile and imagine a future together, but then, reality tethers. These memories are not shared.

I lie in bed, struggling to sleep, so I conjure comforting thoughts. I imagine a perfect partner—my other half—someone who unapologetically steals my carnival cotton candy and snorts when I suggest we practice Bokononism. With you, I thought I’d found her. But these dreams were not shared.

I’d seen you around, but I never approached. Luckily, fate intervened, and we chatted idly over our identical coffee orders. You shocked me. Before we spoke, when I used to fantasize about saying something, I presumed you were the silent, bookish type—the character who, in a movie, would wear thick-rimmed glasses. Instead, you were an unexpected whirlwind. Together, we orchestrated “3 AM McDonald’s raids” and outlandish machinations to deceive shared friends. Yet, through the chaos, we shared earnest dreams. Our desires and tastes seemed to align perfectly. I found this tightrope walk—chaos weighing one end of the balancing stick, authenticity the other—sardonic.

You had me enamored, but I wondered if I was more than a fleeting presence. Was our connection special, as I believed it to be, or was I chopped liver, just another presence you were pleasant to but never truly invested in?

And so, I waited for you to say something. Of course, you never did, so I knew I had to confess. I gave myself until the end of the weekend. If you were silent by then, I would speak out. On Monday, I changed my mind. I was far too lethargic. A confession required gumption. The coming Friday was far more sensible. But on Friday, I had to help my father clean his garage; how could I confess with such trifles sullying my mind? Certainly, it would be better to do so next week. The week passed, then the next week, then the next months. We still talked, but our conversations were undead. We went through the motions, responding or calling when obliged to, but never reaching out just to do so. Perhaps it was an unconscious tribute to a long-lost spark, or a fear of committing some social faux pas.

I don’t recall who stopped talking first, but there was a mutual understanding: even though we never acknowledged it, it was also over. A friendly wave became a furtive glance, and then nothing. In my soul’s soil, I attempted to bury the memories of what could have been, but I found this impossible—how could I blot out fiction? Yes, it’s easy now to say it would have been better to have loved and mourned but instead of moving on, I find myself restless from a mirage, scrolling through texts and old photos, wondering what could have been. The connection we’d shared was circumstantial and the rejection was unsaid, but the silence was shared.

When I was young, my parents frequently took me and my brother to the New York Hall of Science in Queens. In the center of the museum lobby stood a large plastic funnel, its edges encircled by grooved ramps, its body covered with countless shallow scratches. On the base read "Gravity Well." Children queued around it, eager for their turn to set a quarter spinning around the rim. Silver flashed—looping, spinning, spiraling—accelerating until inevitably, it disappeared into the great funnel’s dark center with a messy rattle.

I’d stand at the side, perturbed, watching as silent forces pulled the coins inward. The quarter had no say in the matter. “Science” dictates its every rotation—no choices, no detours, just the groove and the dark center waiting at the bottom. All the way down, their chattering voices seemed to whisper:

“We are you, and you are us.”

I never had a good response.

This past January, I finished my first semester of law school and received my grades back.1 They weren’t bad, but they were below the goal I had set for myself and among my close friends, they were the lowest. Immediately, my mind was filled with familiar chattering whispers.

“Perhaps you were set off with a bit more fanfare than the rest of us—that’s not uncommon, some children like to admire silver Washington before sending him spinning—but look around, you’re here with the rest of us, aren’t you? Some of us are meant for greatness, others aren’t. The grooves are set in the foundation of the funnel, and there isn’t anything to be done. Try as you may, and try as you had, you were always going to be here. There’s no shame in having tried, but now you know. Deep down, we’re sure, you always knew that 'We are you, and you are us.'”

I knew these thoughts were irrational. But I the silent force of a childhood colloquy was pulling me inwards, and I had no good response. I was miniaturized and strapped to a quarter, spiraling towards the patient void.

In February, I met the former General Counsel of Exxon at a conference. He was heading off for a ski trip at the time, but I was able to have a brief conversation with him about how he conceived of free will in his most important decisions. Fittingly, he shared an apropos ski analogy.

“The first time you ever go skiing, as you stood atop the course and look down, you’ll probably plan your route—make a right turn there, avoid the salmons, go through the moguls, left and right and left and right… But the thing is, what really happens is you push off, you make your first turn, and you fall. Then you get up, embarrassed, you pizza again, then you fall again. Around and around you go. There’s clearly some agency here—whether you’ll get up or not—but that’s not a real choice anyone makes. There’s never any real doubt that you’ll get up again, that you’ll make it to the bottom. No, I think the real choice is where you choose to look. The people who enjoy skiing keep their eyes up. They take in the views.”

One month later, I landed my dream position. Since then, I’ve thought about that conversation and the funnel often. I understand the logic of the funnel. When you’re in it, the spiral feels like fate, like the center was always waiting and always will be.

But I’m not sure it’s that simple. When I look back at my life, things have—often, miraculously—worked out. Not because science dictated my every move, but because of a series of small choices: to fall and get up, to point downhill, to keep my eyes up high and trust that somewhere on the way down, in the turns I chose, was a view worth tumbling for.2

Perhaps it’s true, that at the end, some dark center—an inevitable bottom—awaits us all. Nevertheless, I don’t think that’s the point. The turns you make, the views you catch, the people you tumble alongside—these shape what you see when you finally reach the end.3 I think they shape everything.

The chattering hasn’t gone quiet. I don’t think it ever fully will. But I’m learning, slowly, not everything needs an answer; sometimes, Faith alone is enough.

1. As context for anyone outside the field, applications to “BigLaw”—the most generally desirable positions for law students—are now almost entirely based off first semester grades.↩

2. Funnily enough, the first time I ever went skiing I rode a ski lift to the top of the mountain and did exactly this all the way down. My poor mother nearly had a heart attack—though she bought me a cheeseburger when I showed up in the lodge an hour later.↩

3. This could be Heaven or this could be Hell. More secularly, it's the difference between being on your deathbed and thinking “I’ve lived a good life” versus “I wish I spent more time on what was meaningful.”↩

There is perhaps no convenience so humble, so plain and unremarkable in its daily use, as a pair of glasses. While the oculist grinds the lenses and the optician fits the frames, the wearer carelessly hooks the wires behind each ear with the ease of a man tossing on a beaten coat. Though his vision focuses, he thinks nothing more of it.

But let us not be so easily dismissed by the mundane.

The eye, left to its own naked effort, betrays the owner. Words swim, edges dissolve, and what ought to be a face is a scrubbed-out Picasso. And yet, praise to the great human ego, man may not recognize his affliction. He would tell you, with perfect seriousness, that his vision is fine. He would be wrong, but the diluted illusion is all he knows, so it must be the true world. And so, the afflicted man does not reach for a corrective. He dares not dream that what he sees is a mirage, and moves through an approximation of the world, approximately happy.

Until, for some, the scales fall from their eyes. Of course, this is not always welcome. The blurred world is often comforting, and when lens meets eyes, the sudden sharpness can be painful. Sores atop the ears, aches behind the eye, and an endless insistence of detail in the mind that pounds in a disorderly rhythm chanting: there is more that remains unseen.

The corrected man squints. In those first hours, he may long for the soft edges. The world, accurately portrayed, is a thing one must grow accustomed to. In response, some remove their glasses. While this may be understandable, the wise recognize that clarity is not an option, but a demand, for he has now seen a face, and that cannot be undone.

And here, the oft overlooked glasses on the nightstand become more.

Our souls reach within for what they most urgently desire—purpose, guidance, companionship—and find themselves unfit to the task. Like our eyes, they do not recognize their own affliction, moving through an approximation of meaning, approximately satisfied.

For what is faith, in its essential motion, but this same invisible surrender? While theologians offer the lens fit into frames worn smooth by thousands upon thousands of devoted and desperate hands, the believer struggles. Of course, the glasses call to him—put this on, tell us what you see—but faith does not slip on easily. It pinches. It sits uncomfortably on the bridge. The believer squints, and adjusts, and adjusts again. Disoriented as he may be, he will not remove them, for he has seen His face.

The skeptic calls this weakness, and he is not entirely wrong. We are afflicted; our vision is shot. But the eye that refuses the lens on principle does not thereby see more clearly. It simply calls its blur the truth, the sharpened world a fabrication, and stumbles on.

The wise man, knowing his affliction, reaches for the corrective. He sets them on his nose. The world, just like that, is made new. He goes about his day and does not think of miracles.

But a miracle, by any fair accounting, is what has quietly occurred.

As I’m drafting this, we’ve just passed the holiday season; from it, I have some general thoughts about what makes a good gift. While these reflections aren’t exhaustive, they may offer a helpful starting point for future gift-giving occasions.

Let us consider the characteristics of the ideal gift. Most chiefly, it must be personal. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to pull out the crinkle-cut scissors and cardstock (unless that’s your thing). It does mean that what you’re giving must be specific to them—whether that’s a photograph that they’re in, a reference to a shared memory, or simply an item that they have directly expressed desire for. Here’s a quick heuristic: if it could reasonably be something you might have previously received and are now regifting, try again.

Equally important is for the gift to be unexpected. This doesn’t have to be elaborate—it could simply mean giving something they didn’t expect to receive (the slightest thoughtful wrinkle will suffice) or presenting it at an unexpected moment. Surprise signals that you’ve been paying attention beyond what the gift receiver realized. It signals that you’ve noticed something about them they hadn’t consciously broadcasted. It’s the difference between “I saw this and thought of you” and “I’m giving you this to pay an obligation.”1 I hope the difference is apparent.

Following these prerequisites, many good gifts fulfill additional conditions. While not strictly necessary, these traits appear frequently in memorable gifts. First, many good gifts are useful items that will be used regularly or that address some ongoing inconvenience the recipient has been tolerating. Second, many good gifts are expensive. This may be controversial, but I’ve observed that people often want pricey items they would never buy for themselves. When you give such a gift, it naturally satisfies both prerequisites: it’s personal (you knew they wanted it but wouldn’t splurge) and unexpected (they’d resigned themselves to never owning it).

On a final note, I’d like to turn my thoughts to what ultimately ties many gifts together. I’ve focused on the mechanics of a good gift and while that is helpful, I think it’s vital to stress that the greatest component of a gift is what it represents between the gift giver and receiver.2 A good gift communicates that the recipient matters to you, that they’re worth the effort. The object itself is secondary; what you're really giving is proof that you see them clearly and care enough to show it. You may disregard my mechanical ramblings but never forget this intrinsic quality behind all gifts.

1. For this reason, I find Christmas lists insulting. They strip away the very qualities that make a gift meaningful. It reeks of laziness, and if you’re in a position where you’re giving someone a gift, you should know them well enough to give a real one and not pay off a tax/obligation.↩

2. Imagine a stranger approaching you tomorrow with a parcel containing your most desired item. While most of us would accept it, the moment would feel hollow compared to receiving that same gift from a close friend.↩

From a liminal space
—a world between worlds—
Doom’s empty gaze fixes upon me.
He takes great delight in knowing I see him;
I close my eyes to think about

the first time I met Doom:
On a sleepless night, then-rare,
no amount of sheep counting or
sleeping draught worked, for as I now know,
Doom has power to poison sleep.

Even with eyes clamped shut,
sleep eluded me for Doom was here.
His footsteps thundered in my chest,
reverberating into the weakness of my mind;
His horrible sneer curled in my empty stomach,
rising like bile till I drowned in hot air;
Suffocating, I know he’s
winning, I know I’m losing, flailing, clawing, but
can any man defeat Doom?
I pray for peace, for the demon to be cast off, for his exile
to Elba,
to the Gulags,
to the Château d’If,
but there is no response.

From a liminal space
—a world between worlds—
Doom’s empty gaze fixes upon me.
He’s won, he’s circling, he’s waiting for my fall;
I open my eyes in surrender to poisoned sleep.

I’ve burned my fair share of bridges. For a while, I thought that this made me more righteous. I would tell myself: “Unlike my peers, who pretend to care for someone while detesting their every breath, I am upfront with my distaste. If I do not like someone on balance, even if we had long been friends, I am happy to cut them off quickly and directly.” While I now regret such an impractical stance, having held it taught me the importance of last impressions.

Long after the reasons for disliking someone slink into the cobwebbed corners of your mind, the emotions will linger. When I’m asked to explain why a specific friendship ended, I hesitate; not because I cannot explain the proximate cause, but because I know that last interaction—whether a fight, a casual goodbye, or an unanswered text—doesn’t fully explain why the friendship dissolved.

Relationships are complicated, and unless we’re vigilant, resentment will build up over time. Inevitably, when it reaches its critical mass, minor inconveniences and slights become major, and fights burst from nothing. But years later, what will you recall? Certainly not the countless grains of resentment that formed the foundation beneath each slight—no, you’ll only recall the slights themselves.1 Stripped of the circumstances that fueled your resentment, they lose their gravity and seem quite silly. It’s like attempting to understand a dream’s logic after waking up. The emotions may remain vivid, but the reasoning that justified them evaporated. Resentment operates the same way: crushing while we’re in it, incomprehensible once we’ve left.

We now face a question. If, with distance, a fight’s logic becomes incomprehensible, how should we assess it? Was it meaningless to begin with? I think not. Our inability to reconstruct the reasoning doesn’t invalidate it—just as a child’s confusion about topology doesn’t disprove the field. Furthermore, even if the conflict was meaningless, resentment rarely yields to logic. Despite my best efforts, I’ve rarely reasoned my way out of any lingering emotions. Regardless of the merits, we’re left holding emotions we can neither justify nor escape.

So, what are we to do? Truthfully, I do not have a clear solution beyond mitigation: treat every interaction like it may be the last. Refuse to let resentment build up; if something bothers you, say it while you can still articulate the logic defensibly. This doesn't mean constantly walking on eggshells, but being deliberate about how you leave things. You never know which moment becomes the last impression until it already has.

1. Because each grain of resentment is too small to recall individually, only their accumulated weight persists.↩

When I was born, my parents did not have much. I had a brother, but my parents couldn’t afford to take care of him and I at the same time, so they sent him to live with my paternal grandparents in China. Still, my parents did not have much. They worked full time to afford a basement in Queens that we called home. On most days they weren’t there, so I spent my time with my maternal grandparents. They too lived in Queens and were a highlight from my early childhood. I would spend many mornings and nights at their tiny apartment. There were three rooms—one kitchen, one bathroom, and a bedroom. In the hallway connecting them, we stuffed a makeshift table and stools my grandfather carved for a makeshift dining room. The furniture was uneven and took up too much room, but he was proud of the set, so we kept it. Like my grandfather, the whole apartment smelled of cheap wine and cigarettes.

On clear mornings, my grandfather would take me out on the balcony, and we would point at the planes flying above. He called them “fart machines” because of the trails they left behind. In the afternoon, I would follow him onto the apartment roof and into the makeshift greenhouse he’d built. As he tended to plants, repotting and watering, I would tap on the wall with a stick, coaxing out and squishing the clover mites. At night, I would be squished between my grandmother and grandfather. The space was tight and I often woke up with the bamboo slats of the mattress topper pinching my skin, but it was bliss.

As I grew older, fortunes changed for my parents, and we moved to a proper home in suburban America about an hour from my grandparents. I still saw them, but the visits became less frequent with each passing year as I became more integrated into my new life. Of course, it didn’t help that my ability to speak Chinese deteriorated rapidly after my parents decided it would be better for us to speak English at home to try and “catch up” before we started school.

Ironically, with the distance, I grew closer to them. My mother took it upon herself to tell my grandparents’ story, even as I spoke to them less. She told me about how my grandfather was highly respected in China but chose to move his young family to the United States hoping that it would be better life. That when he arrived, his efforts fell short and he became a lowly fry cook in Chinatown. That he scrapped and saved, joining a partnership with a close friend to open a restaurant. That this friend took all their savings and ran. That he grew bitter and resentful, and prone to drink. That he kept himself busy with woodworking and gardening, cursing America while dreaming of a return to China—until I was born.

By the time I was in college, my mother told me that he had lung cancer. By then, I was barely able to communicate with him. My Chinese was rudimentary at best, but as my grandfather grew older, his language decayed as well. He didn’t speak Chinese anymore—he spoke a hybrid of his native minority dialect mixed with Chinese. Only my mom and grandmother could understand him. With every Thanksgiving or New Years, he faded more. That’s when things get truly scary—when someone who has looked old your entire life starts to look even more haggard and aged. And yet, he’s hung on. It’s been almost five years since I was warned to make peace. Now, he’s flickering and paperish, He spends most of his time in bed or on the couch, a man who once couldn’t sit still for an afternoon. And yet, on occasion there is a sudden moment, and I’m reminded of his flame. One time, I mentioned to my mother that I was looking for a watch. About half a year later, I saw my grandfather and he was passionately insistent on handing me a cheap Seiko that “glowed in the dark.” In that moment, he was animated—just like years ago. I’ve worn it ever since.

Now, at Thanksgiving, there is only so much I can do. So, I smile at his comments about my height, nod at his ramblings about a new life without heart aches and pain, and hand him a crab leg in celebration of the fools who dare to dream.

I was home recently and took the time to reread my high school yearbook. There, I found a message from someone who was and is one of my closest friends. She was always the precocious and eloquent one, so I’ll present the relevant snippet from her directly:

“I want to cry, selfishly, because I am losing the regularity of your presence.”

Kind words, but I recall reading them with confusion; back then, “losing regularity” seemed inconceivable. I understood that new chapters meant new people and less time and so on and so forth, but I couldn’t imagine how people “lose regularity.”

Years later, my old friends and I are busy people. We’re in graduate programs, or at an assortment of impressive firms, or getting married. But sometimes, when the stars align, we’re able to meet in person. After high school and as time passed, distance grew further. There were greater lulls in the conversation and an increasingly notable period of “de-rusting” before conversations felt natural. Truthfully, if we were to meet today as strangers, I’m not sure if we would even be friends. At the very least, we would not mean what we do to one another. Time, distance, and itineraries have driven wedges between us, but that is an inevitable fate only spared by spouses and family.

That reality may seem distressing, but they’re still my old friends. In some ways, we may not be as close as we once were, but in other ways, I’m closer to them now than I could have ever been back then. I can appreciate aspects of their character that no longer exist—trace the origins of thoughts and tendencies that have since evolved or disappeared. I can appreciate these latent qualities—invisible to anyone who has not watched them grow. That sort of unspoken history and intimacy is something unique, something I cherish.

There’s a confidence I have with old friends. Regardless of the temporary stiffness of conversation or what could be lost from helping, I trust—in a manner that was forged over countless hours, in circumstances that no longer exist—that they would be there for me.

There are a time and place for everything. Gone are the days where we could spend hours together doing nothing, and frankly, if we tried to recreate that now, it would feel hollow for us all. This is a new kind of friendship, and while some cherished habits are left to the past, that doesn’t mean I’ve lost anything essential. I still share my life with old friends—just differently, and that’s enough and that’s eternal.

The author of this soliloquy and the soliloquy itself are, of course, fictional.1 Nevertheless, the author exists in all of us. His experiences are inspired by our experiences. As the title may suggest, he is an agnostic believer and it is from his rambling, hastily educated, and—above all else—passionate perspective that this address is presented. I ask you, hear him out. He is one representative of man that is still living out life. And so, I implore you, imagine you're at lunch or dinner with him. Please, ask him to say grace. He is eager to respond.

“Well, this is unexpected but…

the first time I prayed, I was a child. My brother took off after a fight with my father and for a variety of reasons that I don’t care to recount, I feared he would do the unimaginable…

For an hour, I remained at home, paralyzed…

It was then—in my ultimate futility and desperation and powerlessness—that I dropped to my knees, hands clasped, head bowed, seeking the Lord.

‘Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy; Bring my brother back to me,’

The words were foreign on my tongue but as I recited them, I expected the supernatural. Instead, I found no holy light, no angels, no foreign voice in my mind—only the faintest pang of hope…

Where was I again? Ah…

So, I began searching for him, my brother, and to my delight, he was found mere moments after I set out. I asked for him and there he was, returned and unscathed. For many, this may be good enough proof of His kindness. But not for me, tsk… you see, I needed more—I demanded more! This occurrence was coincidence. If you would allow me to proffer: Mere dicta! Post hoc ergo propter hoc. I will not be the victim of some low-minded ‘plague of the mind!’ I was above ‘that.’

I would not pray again for years…

Brothers, I confess, I am a louse. God granted my pleadings, but I couldn’t care less! My mind was fixed on this material plane and its fleshly pleasures—on feeding the noxious insect dwelling within us all meals of corruption and sensual lust until it consumed my very being. It was most pleasurable, and I relished in my degeneracy.

In this enjoyment, I found guilt… though in this too, I found pleasure.

‘I am better than these lowly degenerates,’ I would say. ‘I feel guilt, so I know what I am meant to be. I’ve felt that faint pang of hope, of the touch of Someone more. With His spark, I am superior.’

Do you see it? Even at my basest, I clung to the dream—to the faint pang beating from my core as a ghost note to Heaven. I knew there was something more to me, to man. Forgive my pride, forgive my loquacity, ignore these trifles and listen: We were made to be higher than the angels, but we’re lower than the apes—and we know it. How else do we explain that desire to reach for something higher? If man is a pure beast, how can he aspire for greater? How can he invent something as wonderful as God?

Learned men will quickly respond with their science and mathematics. ‘It is quite simple!’ they exclaim. ‘As surely as 2+2=4, man must strive to be greater! It is biology, how can we, as a species, otherwise proliferate without ideals geared towards cooperation and “higher good”?’ Alternatively, they guffaw ‘God is an invention, consider the psychological benefits of a wholly insulated epistemic framework!’ These are quite powerful statements and to your chagrin, I’m sure, I will offer no direct intradomain response—how can I? I’m words on a page.

Instead, I say: for how complicated man is, reducing him to mere processes is a fool’s errand; confine him to being numbers and mathematics and watch how quickly 2+2=5. From this simple observation, I cannot and will not accept the hypotheses of the learned men. I reject them. Perhaps a most sophisticated formula will one-day emerge, capable of explaining ‘all’ but even then, their reason be damned; I will look back on my life and see meaning. I will not be an automaton; we must be higher than that loathsome insect within. I choose to see the invisible hand of God drawing my path, and so it shall be.

You understand now, don’t you? That I choose to believe—to sanctify a chapel on the faint beat of hope. That faith, in the Lord as my Shepard, remaining by my side—unseen but felt—coaxing me toward something greater. I’m certain that one day, as I stare back upon my life, the scales shall fall, and for the first time, I will see. It’s an indelible impression that the most modern, rigorous surgeries can never remove.

Please, please, I sense that I’ve gone on for so long so let me say one more thing. Put the fork down, please.

We live in a fallen world and so tragedy is abound. Quite recently, I passed by mankind and heard their cries over the world’s wails of despair:

‘God have mercy. Jesus have mercy.’

In a silent gesture, I joined in. Nothing supernatural occurred, but that faint pang has never firmer. And so, I choose to believe that in 100 years, in 1,000,000 years, in an uncountable number of years, I will be knelt over, hands clasped, head bowed, heart full, and singing:

‘Hosanna, Hosanna to the highest!’

The world has order, and I choose to believe it.

Amen.”

1. The concept of this piece, and indeed, the language of this opening notice is heavily inspired by the premise and language of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground.↩

Over the past few years, a confluence of life events and new relationships prompted me to work toward greater emotional openness.1 Though the effort continues, the progress has been both meaningful and beneficial in unexpected ways. I feel more human than I have in years.

The weight of that claim—feeling more “human”—is not lost on me. Not long ago, I prided myself on “being a monster.” There’s certainly some merit to this idea. People ought to have the capacity for evil—not to exercise it per se, but to understand it. The alternative is becoming Prince Myshkin, the titular fool from The Idiot, whose saintly innocence rendered him vulnerable to evil and madness. Comprehending evil means recognizing that we all possess this capacity—that in a fallen world, no one is above temptation and only by acknowledging our own potential for darkness can we steel ourselves against it. What I missed in this wisdom was that benefits only come from having a monstrous capacity without exercising it. Monsters must be disciplined, kept as a tool of discernment rather than indulgence.

Instead of wielding these insights as a shield, I reveled in them. I found satisfaction in spotting people’s vulnerabilities. I took pride in emotional detachment when others were struggling. I was unflappably prideful—and convinced that this made me superior. With due time, as the consequences of my ill-behavior manifested and the edifice around me crumbled, I realized that this was no way to live.2

By nature, I am an individualist. I always believed in pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, so it was with this natural tendency that I intended to engineer my rehabilitation. I journaled, I wrote short stories, and I even started a blog. With each independent endeavor, I thought I could unravel underlying patterns in how I thought. That by mapping out my subconscious in a mix of artistic expression and imposed honesty, I could write my way out. To a certain extent, this belief was true.

Translating vague feelings into concrete words forced me to confront truths I had long avoided. Despite a prior belief that I was generally conscious of my thought processes, I quickly recognized contradictions in my thinking and elaborate justifications I had constructed for my behavior. I began to see how low I was, that insights had become excuses for cruelty, and “skepticism” was ad hoc apathy. Understanding alone proved insufficient. An issue rooted in how one relates to others cannot be solved by retreating into solitary reflection. I couldn’t do it alone. The practice was foreign, but as I leaned into connection, I developed a slow, sometimes painful practice of cross-bearing.

It required genuine admittance of wrongdoing—the kind that readily accepts consequences without expecting immediate absolution. It meant stopping to consider, in real time and charitably, when I might be wrong rather than reflexively defending my position. It meant taking responsibility and apologizing for the smaller cruelties—the casual dismissals and the other ways I had weaponized my being against people who deserved better. More fundamentally, it meant accepting and—where appropriate—articulating vulnerability. Where once I would have retreated behind analysis or detachment, I began sharing my emotional state with people who had earned that trust. The process was and remains excruciating. Every admission feels like handing someone ammunition to be used against me. But by these very acts, I’ve realized that what I believed would destroy me is a prerequisite for connections that I have unconsciously craved.

There’s wisdom in the promise that “the meek shall inherit the earth”—a statement that makes little sense until you’ve experienced the joy of laying down your weapons. With this decision, everything has shifted. Yet, as I reflected on this past year, I’ve realized that despite progress, I remain fallen, prone to the very tendencies I claim to have recognized and addressed. The only thing that remains certain is that I am on a better path now, one that stretches ad infinitum but also one that I believe will lead to joy.

1. The specifics of these would be a faltering of a long-term relationship, the blossoming of a new romantic relationship, a realization that I was unhappy with the state of my social life, the achievement and loss of several goals, fracturing and rebinding of family ties, and more. Truthfully, the specifics do not matter beyond knowing that it has been frenzied—marked by jagged peaks and valleys.↩

2. Refer to the footnote above.↩