the driving force by which humans accomplish their goals

I went to a neuroscience seminar this past week, and the speaker started his presentation by talking about motivation. To paraphrase: 

Everybody has to have a motivation for what they’re doing. I love talking to young people about their motivations because for them, their motivations are so much more clear. But for me, my motivation is figuring out how people think. I acknowledge that there are several different ways to figure this out, but to me, the most interesting one is the molecular perspective. That’s why I became a scientist. The molecular perspective might be incomplete, and it might turn out not to be the best way, but it’s the most interesting to me. 

It’s an interesting point. This guy realized he loved science, and decided to use it as a tool to accomplish what motivated him, to figure out how people think. Since then, I’ve been thinking about what motivates me, and I remembered these wise words: 

“Sometimes the only way to take a really good look at yourself is through someone else’s eyes.” - JD from Scrubs 

So I had some of my closest friends describe me: 

“Nobody else sees the world quite like he does, and is so comfortable analyzing and discussing conclusions on life.” 

“Over the course of my life I have yet to meet a person more thoughtful, and reflective. When I read his Sidenote blog, I remember the long runs in which we shared these thoughts with each other. It looks like all the uncertainties that Ken and I had then still linger 8 years later.” 

“Nobody else has been willing to talk to me about all aspects of life as much as we did on those nights.” 

What motivates me, is that I just want people to be happy. 

Sidenote: why I want people to be happy:

And as my friend’s suggest, I love thinking. 

In particular, I’ve been thinking about people for the past few years. I’ve had conversations with roughly six hundred people. I’ve lived with eight different people during that time, whose brains I’ve thoroughly picked. I’ve read somewhere between one and two hundred books about other people’s thoughts. I’ve wrote over a hundred short essays on my own thoughts. All that to say, I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what makes people tick.

So I’ve been thinking about how to get people to become happy. It’s been hard, and it’s been confusing to sort through the piles of ideas I’ve gathered from these past few years. Sidenote – here are the few fundamentals I feel like I solidly believe: 

1) People are not good at being happy 

2) People love their own kids, even if they aren’t able to show that love effectively 

3) It is hard to extract meaning without other people 

Anyways, it’s hard to say if thinking is important. I’ve met people who don’t think much, and they live perfectly content lives. In fact, a lot of times it’s hard for thinkers to get out of their heads and into real life where it actually matters. 

The author Donald Miller has this quote about overthinking: 

“I do this with good things; I think joy into its coffin; I analyze too much. I don’t want to think about life anymore; I just want to live life.” 

It’s a good point, but I still love thinking about things, and though it might not be the best way, it's my way. I might die in twenty or fifty years, not having been able to come up with any ways to help people be happy, but at least I'll be happy that I got to think about it. 

See you on the other side.

from ken

If you have a driving force by which you accomplish your goals, I am interested to hear about it.  Maybe you can help me expand my understanding of what makes people tick.  

the best quotes ever

I’m in a huge writing slump. I can’t think of anything good to write. I viciously hate everything I’ve written the last few weeks. In lieu of a post, here’s a collection of quotes. I picked out some of my favorites from a list of 900 quotes I’ve been collecting over the last ten years or so. 

“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music, and never forget that you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.” 

       - Hunter S. Thompson 

“Beware the day the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.” 

        - Emerson 

“I’m going to build my own fucking hospital. And there’ll be none of that there, thank you.” 

        - Paul Farmer 

“In the fight between you and the world, pick the world.” 

        - Frank Zappa 

“And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.” 

        - Kahlil Gibran The Prophet 

“You adjust the paints’ values and hues not to the world, not to the vision, but to the rest of the paint.” 

        - Annie Dillard 

“It was never about the grapes or the lettuce. It was always about the people.” 

        - Cesar Chavez 

"It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything." 

        - Donald Miller A Thousand Miles in a Thousand Years 

“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.” 

“I had to go see about a girl.” 

        - Good Will Hunting 

“In mind’s special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the 60 minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists at all in the real world; it is all out on the trail somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there.” 

        - Once a Runner John L. Parker 

“The good thing is we are good at so many things so if we run out of things we are good at we just make up something new so we can be good at it.” 

        - Eric Morris 

If anybody has any ideas of how to break out of a writing slump or a slump in general, let me know. 

See you on the other side.

from ken

Elm Bank

“There are two ways of exerting strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.” 

     - Booker T. Washington 

-- 

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write this week, and I can’t think of anything good, so instead I’m going to share a story my friend Amulya wrote about me. 

-- 

It was the fall of 2005, our senior year of high school, and our cross-country team had one of its final meets of the season at Elm Bank Reservation. Ken was one of the faster runners on the team, and I was one of the slowest, but on this fateful day that was going to change. 

During warm-ups, for whatever reason, Ken approached me and he told me - he didn’t ask - but told me that he was going to run with me, and more specifically let me draft off him for the entire race – breaking the wind for me and allowing me to run faster. 

At first I thought Ken was kidding, actually. Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken. 

As the race began, I started off in my usual position at the back of the pack. But with Ken leading the way I felt myself getting stronger, mentally and physically, with every stride. Together, we continued passing runner after runner until the finish line, and when it was all over I had surpassed my personal best by more than two minutes. As euphoric as I was in that moment, nobody there was happier than Ken. 

Never before, and not since, have I felt that same exhilaration of exceeding all of my own expectations. My best friend helped me realize something I never thought was possible and more importantly, reminded me of the incredible power of relationships. 

-- 

I loved where Amulya wrote, “Why would he slow down and sacrifice his race just so I could shave a few meaningless seconds off of mine? In the answer to that question, as many of you know, lies the essence of Ken.” Sidenote is really just an attempt to understand the essence of Ken, so I figured this would be a good story to overanalyze. 

I had thought about pacing Amulya through a race all season, but I wasn’t sure if it would just be embarrassing for him or if it would even help at all.  But I remember something about that day feeling right, and about a mile into the race I realized how epic this day would be. 

We were going around a sharp turn in the woods, and he told me to pick it up. I remember at that moment having one thought going through my head, “That’s what I’m talking about.” From there we picked off runner after runner, all guys that Amulya never races with, and he was flowing past them effortlessly. 

There was this indescribable energy flowing between us with every step we took. An energy greater than either of us could experience individually.

Sidenote - I’ve been sitting at this coffee shop for a couple hours trying to articulate exactly what this energy, flow, or spirit is, but I can’t explain it. I know that it’s the sort of energy that makes life worth living, and that it’s the sort of energy that can only come through supporting the dreams and lives of others. I know that it’s that energy that makes me believe life is about relationships. Maybe you can describe or articulate this energy for me? If so, please comment! For now, I’ll have to think about it more. 

See you on the other side. 

from ken

That'll do

A few summers ago I waited tables at a restaurant in Wyoming. It was one of the most life-changing and memorable summers of my life. I climbed mountains, ran miles, worked long days at the restaurant, and spent many nights thinking under the most beautiful night sky I have ever seen. It was unreal. 

When I tell people about that summer, I am often asked, “How did you end up in Wyoming?” Well, that was easy, it was the first place to offer me a job. 

Here’s how I understand circumstances: 

When I was considering the job in Wyoming, I had three criteria to be in the blue area of that pie chart. 

1) I wanted to be in a memorable location: picturesque Teton mountain range and Yellowstone, check. 

2) I wanted to save money: isolated ranch = cheap food + housing, check. 

3) I wanted to do something bold: drop everything and go to Wyoming where I didn’t know anyone, check. 

Of course, those criteria could have been met at hundreds of places, but I figured I wouldn’t become happy by finding the perfect circumstance. Here’s how I understand happiness: 

Sidenote – I think the second dot isn’t quite on the diagonal line because of the initial amount of work I spent taking responsibility for my own happiness, but I’ll have to think about it. 

I figured as long as a destination met the criteria to put me in the blue space of the pie chart, I could focus my time and energy on developing that situation, and I could force my way up the happiness spectrum. 

In essence, once I arrived in Wyoming, I spent a whole lot of energy meeting new people, finding meaning in training to prepare for an epic cross country season, and developing excellence at my job. 

All that to say, this past weekend I went on my first med school interview to Minneapolis. I’ve been pretty anxious and excited the past week, losing an unnecessarily amount of sleep, but it turned out to be a great trip. I found motivated students that I’ve been dying to be in community with since leaving college, a supportive training program that could help me grow, and a pleasant family-friendly city. 

Before I went to Minneapolis, I was worried about choosing the perfect post-Portland home, but while I was in Minneapolis I remembered the pie chart. Really, I just had to reassess the criteria to put myself in the blue area of the chart where it would be easy for me to be happy. Three important ones off the top my head: 

1) A community of motivated and intellectually stimulating peers 

2) A training program that would allow me the independence to flourish but also enough guidance to keep me on the right path 

3) A city that is cheap and vibrant enough for my future family 

Many schools would land me in the blue, and maybe the school-selecting process will be less anxiety-ridden from here. Of course, I’m sure that will change if I take another trip. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

about this blog

Over the past month or two, I've been slowly working on updating the "about" page. It's something of a vision statement for my blog, but also my life at large. Here's a temporary final draft: 

about this blog 

"You write in order to change the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it." 

                - James Baldwin

Sidenote is a concept originally invented in an epic summer email chain by Iyer, A* and Noguchi, K*, 2008 (*both authors contributed equally to this work). We all have a set plan for our life, but every once in a while something peaks our interest. Maybe it was an intriguing new relationship, maybe it was a forgotten hobby, maybe it was just a daydream. Most of the time, we never pursue these sidenotes because we have to keep to our set track. Which is fine. But what would the world look like if we had the courage to take sidenotes seriously? 

That is the sort of world Sidenote envisions. It might be a better world, it might be a less productive world, but one thing is certain, it would be different. And at it’s core that is all Sidenote envisions. An alternative to the current reality. 

I have come to believe that an alternative to the current reality is necessary from my intense introspection. By studying myself, I have come to see that I am the most important person in the world, and that other people are a mere afterthought. 

That said, I have a vision for the world. I am convinced that life is about other people, and that every day should be made up of small or large sacrifices for other people. I'm not sure how the world can be turned into a less selfish place, but I figured I would experiment on myself and figure out how to live an other-people-centric life. You could say I am striving for proof-of-principle. 

If I figure anything else out, I'll let you know, but in the meantime, I would encourage you to think about sidenotes, or to daydream, or to run a 100 mile week. 

See you on the other side. 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

The Study of Early Christians

About a year ago, I hosted a bible study at my old home, and I figured this fall I would host another one. Here's the blurb for it: 

One of the common conversations I’ve had with other Christians is about doubting the state of the church. These words really stuck with me: I still put my faith in Jesus, but I don’t know if the church is the right place for me. Maybe you’ve had these conversations too. 

I wanted to have a home community that would provide a safe place to discuss these doubts. I imagined a place with a loving husband and wife, a potluck dinner, and supportive friends. And specifically, I wanted to study the book of Acts. 

From what I just learned on Wikipedia, Acts is about the first Christians, and what they did after Jesus. They were followers of Jesus before Christianity existed. They didn’t have anyone else telling them what it was like to be a Christian. They had to learn from Jesus himself, and figure out how to be a Christian without Donald Miller or Sunday morning sermons. 

So this is the question I wanted to raise: If you could imagine being in their shoes, with Jesus as the only model, how would you be a Christian? 

from katie and ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.