Irrational Confidence Guys

 I have this tendency to go through slumps in life, it’s usually when I get busy and I don’t have time to process life. It’ll take something to knock me off course, force me to step out of my life, and appreciate it.  

This time, two friends knocked some sense back into me. 

First, my friend Jason sent me an uplifting email. After graduating, Jason moved out to Chicago where he was mugged at gunpoint, but that was only the beginning. He found himself in an ugly work situation where he hated his job as a technician in a high-powered microbiology lab, so he chose to move back home to the east coast in an attempt to switch careers.  

Despite struggles that would leave me in a one man pity party, Jason capitalized on the positive. After leaving college, Jason wanted to spend time in a research lab, to see what was out there besides the medical school track he’d been on for years. After his lab experience, he was at an all-time high confidence in his medical school path. He explained his confidence: 

“Take my health, take my job, but you may never take my confidence.” 

He struggled through a job he hated, knowing it would ultimately maintain his confidence. I love that about Jason, he walks with that swagger – an obnoxious combination of self-confidence, self-deception, and a heck of a lot of talent. I wish I had that swagger. 

My second friend, Kara, moved out to Portland, OR on a whim. She found herself frustrated with the world, and had this burning desire to shake up her life. After she graduated from Kenyon, she worked in her home of Connecticut, but soon after she committed to move out to Portland. She had no job prospects, no friends, no home, but she still moved, because of this confidence. She believed life was something to be taken seriously.  

After about six months, Kara found that Portland wasn’t the right fit. She didn’t meet the same daring people she was hoping to find, and the culture didn’t quite fit her, so she was packing, again. 

On her last day in Portland, I asked what she was thinking. Surprisingly, or maybe not if you know Kara, she was still confident. I sensed the hurt on her heart, but she still held that familiar poise. She told me of her vision as she moved back to the east coast. I wished her luck, and she left me with this Steve Jobs quote: 

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” 

After all the struggles that Kara had endured in Portland, she still had that swagger. I have tremendous respect for Jason and Kara. It’s sure as hell not easy to move, nor is it easy to shake up your life, yet they both kept their head up. 

That attitude urged me to reflect on my life. 

About three weeks ago, I opened my email to see this: Invitation to interview at Duke Medical School. A couple years ago going to Duke med was the dream of my dreams. I don’t know where it falls on my wish list today, but I was almost giddy when I saw that email, and I am not the giddy type.

It reminded me that I might be drained – but I’m living the life I’ve wanted for myself for years. Really, at 23, I’m exactly where I want to be. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

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

See you on the other side, friend.

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May the road rise to meet you 

May the wind be always at your back 

May the sun shine warm upon your face 

May the good Lord hold you in the palm of His hand 

May the rains fall soft upon your fields, until the day we meet again 

- Irish funeral blessing 

-- 

I’m into a lot of things, but my obsession is relationships. 

I was reading an old letter I sent to some of my friends, my college cross country team. I concluded it with this sentence: 

“For the time that was college, without all of your friendships, I would never have survived the pile of shit that is life. So, thanks. I appreciate every one of you more than I could ever say.” 

And it’s true, I would never have survived college without my running buddies. People weren’t meant to survive on their own. Allow me to break off on a sidenote: 

I’ve been trying to come up with a signature closing to my posts. “from ken” is memorable, but I’ve been wanting something more. One sign off I like is, “may the force be with you.” 

One of my college mentors told me that as I walked into the room to defend my undergrad thesis, and it’s stuck with me since. It implies that there’s something greater than your own powers that could help you, which is comforting. 

But the sign off I’ve been trying for now is, “see you on the other side.” It means several different things to me, but I like it because if you’re reading this blog, you are my friend. And whether or not I will actually see you again, I like to think that I will. 

I learned this phrase from Donald Miller, a Christian author who used it to sign off his book, Searching for God Knows What. This is a book explaining what it means to be Christian, but I’d guess he saw the other side as a place where we’ll be after earth, heaven. 

I’m not exactly sure what I see on the other side. I think it’s a bit like this. 

--

You and I are on one side. There are other people on the other side, but we can’t quite make them out. And for some reason, we’re trying to get to the other side. 

We'll probably have to part ways to get to the other side of the river, and maybe we've already parted.

But my hope is that one day, we would meet again on the other side. 

--

It’s hard to remember the important people that have come and gone through your life. 

Go ahead, imagine an old friend that’s not in your life anymore. 

What I’m saying is, the other side of the river is a place where, at least in your imagination, you could be with that person again. 

You’ll laugh about old times, catch up on your lives, and of course, enjoy the other side. I imagine it like a wedding, there will be goofy dancing, bottles of local Portland beers, and it will be a celebration. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken

Why I love Wyoming pt 2: A well earned celebratory hand gesture

One of the big running mile markers, pun intended, is the one hundred mile week. It doesn’t really mean anything, but at the same time, it means everything. I had several consistent 90 mile weeks, but the 100 mile week just felt like a higher level. 

One week I had unknowingly racked up the miles, including a 20 mile long run. Near the end of that week, it was Saturday afternoon, the last day of my running week, and I was sitting at 93 miles. I had scheduled a six miler. 

Was it worth it to go seven miles to reach one hundred? 

Would I just be caving into looking good rather than being good, and wanting that three digit week? 

The answer to both those questions, was yes. But I didn’t know that when I departed. 

I set out the door that afternoon settled on a six mile run, and I saw one of my buddies, Samet, a Turkish soccer player. He was about to leave for a short twenty minute jog to stay in shape, but when he saw me running I could sense his competitive side awakening. He casually asked to run with me. 

We set out jogging easy, and I told him I was planning to run six miles. He told me he’d turn back when he felt tired. We checked past the two mile marker, and the three mile marker. Eventually, we passed the tree that signaled three and a half miles. 

We would be running back on the same road, so at that point I knew. I had one hundred miles this week, in the bank. It felt a bit surreal, but it was hard to take in at the moment because Samet and I were in the midst of a heated discussion about the philosophical aspects of our sports. 

We talked about what made us train at grueling levels and why we fell in love with our sports. We had lots of aimless tangents, but ultimately settled on one point. These sports, these challenges, they tested our character. They tested the amount of soul we had in our fragile human bodies. Maybe we were just too proud to give up. 

As we went on, I realized I was doing most of the talking. A rare thing when I'm with a new friend.  Samet was breathing hard, real hard. I paused my ranting for a second to check if he was ok. He told me, inbetween breaths, that he had never ran more than four miles. At that exact moment we were approaching six miles. 

I tried to encourage him, but I knew this was out of my hands. He kept telling me he had to walk it in, he had to give up. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I just kept running. 

Before I knew it, the employee dorms were just a short 100 yards away. When we turned that last corner something in Samet’s dead tired body just clicked. The way it clicks in a toddler’s head when he first walks on his own two legs - Whoa, I can do this. 

At that moment Samet muttered, “Thanks,” and with that he took off in a dead sprint. Samet was screaming at the top of his dried out lungs, in broken English, “NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP.” I get chills just putting those words down on paper. 

Samet had gained noticeable ground on me as I got back to our starting point, the employee rec hall. When I stopped, I made eye contact with him and silently acknowledged that we had helped each other reach a higher level of ourselves. He had ran a longer distance than he ever thought possible, and not only that, he had proven to himself the exact reason why he got into soccer in the first place. He never wanted to give up. He wanted to give his best, every moment he was alive. 

And for me, I had reached the seemingly impossible. When I started running in high school, I was a below average runner at best, struggling to break 20 minutes in the 5k. I never thought I would attain the level of running and strength it took to run a one hundred mile week. But here I was, standing with Samet, 100 miles logged on my legs over the past week. 

I will always remember that moment. Seeing the look on Samet’s face, I knew we had attained a connection only possible for those working together, shooting for levels of life higher than the normal person would dare to imagine. We had achieved, together, what life was like when you stick to the grind. 

I stuck out my hand, and he slapped me five. A good day.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

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

Why Wyoming is my favorite state pt. 2: The Trial of Miles

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“You know people just don’t, people just don’t see how much work is really involved in this rap shit. I didn’t know it, I didn’t see it, I never saw it until I was actually in it. You really gotta be in it, to understand what it’s like, but you always gotta, people always gotta see you smiling, you always gotta put on that fake, you know what I’m saying? Like, no matter what you just been through, it has gotta be right.”

        - Cypress Hill

When I shipped out to Wyoming, I made a list of five goals.  In retrospect, I don't even remember them.  Except for the one I stuck to: Running 1000 miles in the 90 days I would spend in Wyoming.  Some quick math reveals that, on average, I would need to run over eleven miles every single day.

It was the summer before my junior year cross country season.  As everyone who has run cross country knows, the real preparation is done in the summer, and when the season rolls around in the fall, it’s all just fine tuning.  That summer, everyone on our team knew we were getting ready for a huge season.  We had a strong class of seniors, and we knew this would be our big shot at making nationals.  Everyone was amped, and the summer really showed it.  Every week people were putting up 70, 80, 90 mile weeks like it was nothing.  It is not nothing to run over 10 miles a day.  It is hard.  And it takes a toll on your soul.

When I reached my summer training grounds, Wyoming, the first challenge was adapting to the climate.  For one, there was snow until late June.  On top of that, it was over 6,000 ft altitude.  My first run was a three miler - for a runner at my level a three mile run was the equivalent of walking down your front steps to pick up the morning paper - but the second day I got there when I went on that three miler, I thought I was having a heart attack.

The second challenge was deciding where to train.  There was a gravel/dirt road, Grassy Lake road, that lead out from our ranch all the way to Idaho.  So everyday I chose to run on that road, out and back.  It could have been nice to train on different terrain and varied scenery, but there was something unexplainably valuable to training on the same road day in and day out.  So after the snow melted, I began my daily ventures on Grassy Lake road:

It took me a couple weeks to shake off the rust and get my legs back underneath me after the track season, but soon enough I was hitting the high mileage.

There are always different philosophies on training, but I was always a big fan of two a days.  I got up before work and cracked out a real easy half hour jog.  It got my heart rate going a bit, and helped my legs recover from the main afternoon run.  In the afternoon, after work or between shifts, I would pound out the main session – a good hour or more.

On my days off, I would crank out a good two hour long run.  Those runs were thrilling in the sense that they made me feel powerful.  I saw my pre-conceived limits bowing down to the reality I was creating.  One such reality was the volume of running my rail-thin body could handle.

To be continued next week.

See you on the other side,

from ken 

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

Why Wyoming is my favorite state

Wyoming is my favorite state, and not only because my wife and family are from there.  It’s also a place where I spent a once in a lifetime summer.  I realized I’ve referenced Wyoming, and that experience several times, but I’ve never written at length about it.  So I thought I’d put together a short series of pieces about it.  It’s a 5 part piece describing:

1) why I chose Wyoming

2) the running I did there

3) climbing Middle Teton

4) my work friends at the restaurant

5) my conclusions

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Why Wyoming is my favorite state pt. 1: Why I went to Wyoming

I was moving towards summer during my sophomore year at college.  I was talking with a biology professor about sticking around to do summer lab research.  Simultaneously, I was looking into summer jobs at resorts in Michigan, Cape Cod, Yosemite, Yellowstone, everywhere.  Sidenote – I wish I had writing from back then, so I could go back and look at my thoughts, but instead I’ll have to rely on human memory.

I remember that winter break I was in Lawrence, Kansas with some of my college homies.  We were sitting in a coffee shop, and I noticed an email pop up in my inbox from Flagg Ranch.  They were offering me a job that summer, waiting tables in Wyoming. 

The next couple hours I was calling my brain trust, some of my friends from home, about the potential decision not to come home for the summer.  Really I just needed someone’s approval.  I’m needy like that.

One of them told me,

“Damn, such a Ken thing.  Always doing weird bold things out of nowhere.”  

The next day, with the approval of the brain trust, I took the job.

Flagg Ranch was located in the awkward inbetween space between the two Wyoming national parks, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  It was geographically isolated since it wasn’t in the parks, but on top of that, it didn’t have ready access to the internet, nor did it have cell phone service.  Basically, you were only going to interact with the sixty or so people at the ranch, which was a weird experience in and of itself. 

I hope these next few posts will explain my story in Wyoming: the relationships I formed at this isolated ranch, the miles I covered by foot, and the mountains I climbed.  If nothing else, it will be valuable practice for me as I train to write books, and stories longer than 500 words.  Sidenote - I think my story about Wyoming will be one of my first books, which will eventually get re-published after I write a hit memoir about medicine, and people will be duped into buying it because I had one successful book.  Yes, this just happened to me and I’m bitter about it.  But anyways.

Overall, I can’t tell you what I wanted to get out of Wyoming, but I can tell you what I got from it: Wyoming was where I learned the answer to this question. 

“There will come a point in the race.  When you alone will need to decide.  You will need to make a decision.  Do you really want it?  You will need to decide.”

            - Paul Tergat, 2004 Olympic Marathon Gold

See you on the other side,

from ken

 

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

Avoid Boring People

Avoid boring people. That’s the title of a book I read recently, a memoir by the Nobel Prize winner James Watson. He co-discovered the structure of DNA and birthed molecular biology as we know it. 

I wasn’t sure whether the title meant to avoid boring other people, or to avoid interacting with boring people. Either way, it’s a great title. The book itself is too long, and reads too much like a personal journal – too much material only he or people closely involved with his life would understand. It did have a couple good pieces of advice, and if nothing else it showcased him as a dick. As always, people who are successful, are dicks. Sidenote – nothing wrong with being a dick, I plan on being successful. I’m just saying. 

Anyways, something I’ve been worried about recently, is that I’m boring. Looking at my life – I wake up, take the bus to work, read some books, work in a lab where I’m not thrilled by my projects, take the bus home, hit the gym, write a little, and spend some time with my wife. 

And really, the most frustrating part is that I’m not doing a particularly excellent job at any of them. 

It’s not a terrible life, in fact, it’s pretty idyllic in a sense, and it’s definitely comfortable. I could probably ride cruise control like this for a long time. But at the same time, I’m struggling to find meaning in a lot of my life, and frankly it just feels boring. 

I’ve had this same feeling several times before, a classic emotion that typifies the modern 20’s. Not then nor now do I know what to do, other than to complain to anybody who will listen. 

A previous post on the topic

In Avoid Boring People, James Watson’s biggest piece of advice was: To avoid becoming boring, avoid being bored. 

One thing that comes to mind immediately – another book I read recently was called Walk on Water, which was an exposé into the world of pediatric cardiac surgery, one of the most demanding professions in the world. A quote from the book: 

“You cannot lie in this work. There are so many people in this world who have no idea who the fuck they are. When you do this work your entire body is charged with it.” 

The resounding point throughout the Walk on Water is that heart surgeons know that heart surgery matters. They take their work seriously, and they are obsessed with it. 

When you take anything so seriously as to push your absolute limits – mentally, physically, emotionally, it reveals the character deep inside of you. Recently, I haven’t been challenged to see that part of me, and confront my real identity. 

So pushing yourself, and finding a place in life where you really know who you are, and what you’re about, is necessary to feel engaged in life. And, of course, to not be boring. 

But anyways, I’m trying to figure out, how can I be less boring? I’d love to hear some thoughts from anyone who isn’t bored with their lives. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

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

A Giant of Introspection - Herman Hesse Book Review

"It was never about the grapes or the lettuce, it was always about the people."

I’ve read two books by Herman Hesse (he wrote Siddhartha), Demian and Strange News from Another Star. Hesse’s main focus is on an individual’s search of self-knowledge and enlightenment. 

Demian is a pseudo-autobiography of Hesse’s youth as he learns how to understand his own unconsciousness. Hesse is initially lead into his unconscious by a classmate, Demian, who brings forth a counter-cultural understanding of the bible story of Cain and Abel. 

In this story, Cain and Abel are two brothers that work on a farm. Abel is much more successful, so Cain grows jealous and murders Abel. God punishes Cain by forcing him to be a lonely wanderer, and Cain walks around with a mark on his forehead for the rest of his life. Society’s understanding is that Cain is evil and Abel is a martyr. 

Demian suggests an alternate interpretation of this story. Cain’s mark was not an actual mark, but a personality trait that caused him to be exiled. People misunderstood Cain because he was so different, and automatically labeled him as evil. Sidenote - Isn’t it funny how quickly people label different = bad? 

Demian challenges society’s view that Cain was the bad guy, and further, that people should decide for themselves who is evil, what is the truth. After Hesse is exposed to such radical thoughts, he can’t take school or his parents seriously, and has to leave his home to discover the truths of the world for himself. Essentially, Demian is the story that follows. 

Cain represents Hesse's main focus, that certain individuals stand out as weird, and represent a different subset of humanity. Hesse and Demian are both such individuals, described as: 

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” 

Basically, Hesse believes only these hyper-introspective types are really alive. Sidenote - I've come to disagree with this, I’ve met plenty of excellent non-introspective people. That said, I’ve also chatted at length about these marked individuals, referring to them as being on the plane. 

I’ve been trying to understand the plane for a long time. 

I’ve read several authors on the plane, three off the top of my head: Herman Hesse, David Foster Wallace, and Bill Simmons. All of these authors share the common trait that they are involved in the intense pursuit of truth. 

I’ve also met several people on the plane, and the unique thing I’ve experienced is that it’s a pretty immediate and mutual understanding that we’re both on the plane. Conversations blossoms more smoothly, maybe based on the mutual recognition that we both empathize and share a strange life on the plane. Most recently, when I went to interview at Wash U med school, I met a professor with whom I had a heartfelt conversation about solving the great problems of mankind. 

From these books, and these people I’ve met, I’ve learned a little bit. In Hesse’s novel, Demian is clearly on the plane, and he helps Hesse on to the plane by instilling the confidence to believe in his inner voice, and to see the importance of introspection as a way to listen to the voice inside. So, part of it is about the confidence in believing in yourself. 

But there’s more than just being a deep thinker. It’s also about taking your own life, and the world way too seriously. It’s about feeling the weight of every single moment, and understanding the unbelievable significance of life. 

If you think you know what I’m talking about, please feel welcome to shed some light on my confusion.

See you on the other side. 

from ken  

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

We might lose

It was winter 1998. The NBA conference finals had the five-time champion Chicago Bulls pitted against the underdog Indiana Pacers. Michael Jordan and his Bulls were in a bind, forced all the way to a game 7. 

In a tight must-win situation like this, what would you expect a coach to tell his team? 

“You’ll come through.” 

“If you play this game ten times, you might lose nine, but not this one.” 

Instead, the legendary zen Bulls coach, Phil Jackson, told his team: 

“We might lose.” 

-- 

This past week I went for an interview at Washington University in St. Louis, one of the best medical schools in the country. I thought I was a pretty good applicant, but I wasn’t really expecting to be given a shot at such a prestigious school. Just by the numbers, I would land in the lower 10-20% of their entering class. Numbers aren’t everything, but it means something. 

The first day was a casual day for the nine of us being interviewed that day to meet students and see the facilities. While eating lunch, we chatted about where we were coming from, etc. Everyone else was from Harvard or the NIH or Penn, top cut institutions. I guess I should have known that these are the kids that come to interview at a top 5 med school, but I was still caught off guard. 

I came from a small school in Ohio, and since getting out of college, I’ve gotten used to the casual attitude of Portland. I guess in those five years, I forgot about all the eliteness, and it definitely threw me off. I spent a few hours after that being intimidated as we took a tour of the facilities – shiny and expensive. 

The second day was the real test, a lineup of seven or eight faculty interviews, including a 20 minute panel interview with thirteen faculty members. I didn’t do my best, but I walked away feeling like I tried my best. I had good conversations, made some friends, and communicated at least to a couple faculty members what I was about. There’s not much more to life than feeling like you’ve given it your best. 

But walking away that day, the realization on my head was that I might not be going to medical school next fall. I always thought since I was a good candidate I would get in somewhere, but I realized the pool of candidates is overflowing with qualified candidates. 

If you’ve tried to find a job in the past couple years, I’m sure you know all about this. 

--

Phil Jackson showed some serious swagger to acknowledge that the Bulls, despite having an unmatched history, could still lose. Jackson didn't want a pity party, but he just wanted to lay down the simple straightforward reality. In sports, one team wins, and another team loses. And it is always important to know the reality. 

Nobody ever wants to talk about losing or making mistakes, but it doesn't have to be a negative part of the reality, and it should be ok to talk about it. 

Of course, the 1998 Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

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

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 

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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.

Who is a leader?

About a year ago, I started a two-part post about leadership, and of course I never finished it. Link to first leadership post. So here’s part deux:

When you imagine a great leader, you might think of military leaders like Pharaohs of olden day Egypt, with thousands marching behind him, willing to sacrifice their miniscule lives for his holiness. I kind of imagine the epic battle scenes from Lord of the Rings, Aragorn leading an entire army, the hero, leading by his greatness.

But here is the Tao Te Ching on leadership:

When his task is accomplished and his work done, The people all say, ‘It happened to us naturally.’

This runs counter to conventional beliefs about leadership. Which would claim that it’s about power. That it’s about dominance. That it’s about making your presence felt.

According to the Tao, maybe being a great leader isn’t about having strict control over your underlings. Maybe the mark of a great leader isn’t about the leader at all, but the people the leader serves. That’s why great leaders are hard to come by, because like anything else, it’s deciding other people are more important than you.

Here’s a story about a great leader to emphasize the point.

A couple summers ago I worked in a lab at Harvard studying under a well-known scientist who had hundreds of publications. Of course, when I first started, I didn’t know anything. I had much to learn, but my boss believed in learning by practice, so he threw me into the fire, and I was clueless. I had to take care of some cells, but I didn’t know anything about cell culture. It was almost 5 PM on a Friday, and I couldn’t find anybody in the lab, when out of nowhere Ryan, one of the technicians, asked me if I needed help.

Surely, Ryan was headed out of the lab, and he had something better to be doing than waiting around watching me learn the routine skill of feeding cells. But Ryan stayed, and sat with me for an hour. He talked me through it as if he were having fun, and his positive attitude took the pressure off of me. My first day in the lab ended without me getting fired, so that was a win.

In this situation I have to question, who was the leader?

My boss, who was the designated leader, chosen by society as the leader of the lab?

Or was it Ryan, who was actually around the lab and making sure the newest naïve member of the lab didn’t go home from his first day dreading his second day?

Or did my boss set the tone for Ryan with his own hard-working attitude?

As always, life is confusing.

from ken

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

Pre-wedding running diary

In Bill Simmons-style, a running diary of Ken’s pre-wedding adventures, up through the ceremony.

9/13 Tuesday

4:15 PM: Ken leaves work until next Tuesday, forgets about HEK293 cells and mTfR2-venus chimeras for 160 hours.

5:00 PM: Ken thinks about everything he still has to do before the wedding, panics.

5:02 PM: Ken realizes it’s like four things, sits on the couch and reads a book.

7:43 PM: Ken and mom reunite. We drove in circles for about an hour trying to find Sellwood. Partly because Sellwood is hard to find, but I swear, if we could have taken the Springwater bike trail we could have easily gotten to Sellwood.

9/14 Wednesday

11 AM: My mom’s mom arrives in town, she came all the way from Japan! She is your traditional cute little old Japanese woman, the way cookie cutter grandmothers should be.

12:30 PM: After lunch, my mom, grandmother, and I are driving around downtown, and out of no where I saw one of my best friend’s from college Anna Griffin! I knew she was in town, but we hadn’t seen each other yet, and we had an awesome impromptu run in.

5 PM: Katie and her mom are moving Katie into our apartment. Ken walks into the apt. This conversation happens:

Katie: Hey, we’re reorganizing!

Ken: Oh, hey the couch didn’t used to be there. Huh, the plates didn’t used to be there. What? Yeah, of course I love the new location for the toilet paper.

Katie’s mom: Ken here’s some advice Katie’s dad would have given you. Just say, “yes dear.”

Marriage begins.

6 PM: Celebration of Ken’s first day of wedding vacation at Hop Haven.

My favorite part was that my friend Barry came. Barry and I ran Hood to Coast, and we are also on the finance team at our church, so we’ve bonded over the past year or so. Barry’s also a grandfather, but I keep telling him he’s way younger than he thinks.

About a year ago I decided that I was too mature to judge maturity based on numerical age. Mostly this was out of defensiveness for this statistic:

Age at marriage for those who divorce in America:
<20 – 12%
20-24 – 39%
25-29 – 22%
30-34 – 12%
35-39 – 7%

I’m 22. I swear I’m a mature 22.

9/15 Thursday

3 AM: Ken wakes up. Officially starting to get nervous and having anxiety.

3:30 AM – 9 AM: Ken goes in and out through sleeping and waking.

10:15 AM: Ken, Katie, and our moms all go out for breakfast. I’m glad they all get along. We eat greasy American breakfast, I don’t think my mom likes it, but she’s polite.

Rest of the day, a nervous blur. Somewhere there was coffee and beer involved.

9/16 Friday

2:30 PM: Keyser and Ken are getting lunch downtown, with plenty of time to get to the rehearsal at 3:00 PM.

3:00 PM: Ken is lost. Close to Tigard, a suburb of Portland. Keyser and I have this conversation:

Keyser: Aren’t you stressed out about this?

Ken: Hmm, I’m not sure if I need to be, I should check with Katie.

3:30 PM: Ken finally arrives at the rehearsal. The minister is also late, so it blows over. I’m telling you, it’s even hard to find Sellwood with God on your side.

5:00 PM: Everyone arrives at Ken’s mom’s rental house for a Japanese rehearsal dinner. Lots of photo’s are taken.

8:00 PM: Ken and friends arrive at 24 hour fitness, pay $20 to work out. Ken plays in his token one basketball game of the year. He took a few shots, and one went in. It was awesome.

My friends Keyser and Heath have the following conversation about five times the rest of the night:

Heath: We could’ve pick and rolled all night.

Keyser: Yeeah, we were all about the pick and roll!

I’m still not exactly sure what a pick or roll is. Oh and this one:

Keyser: Hey, who do you think is taller, you or me.

Heath: Dude we’ve compared like three times already. You’re taller.

2:30 AM: Ken and Needham friends, who’ve known each other of upwards of ten years now, have a slumber party on Ken’s floor. This might be the last night Ken ever gets to sleep on a floor. For some reason, this is a luxury.

9/17 Saturday

12:20 PM: Ken has his first nervous breakdown. Probably the first of many. Ken doesn’t like posed photographs. Sidenote – I’m pretty sure I have some sort of social anxiety disorder.

3:00 PM: Ceremony starts with only a little bit of rain.

3:01 PM: Ken sees Katie and the bridesmaids doing a group prayer, so Ken tries to top them by doing a groomsmen huddle snap bomb. It’s complicated, but you take a snap in your hand, throw it in the air, and snap when you catch it at the bottom. It’s complicated.

3:30 PM: Ken walks down the aisle with best man, Mooks, tries to hold his hand, doesn’t work.

3:35 PM: Mooks tells Elm Bank story, epic. I almost cried.

3:45PM: Ceremony ends, Ken is a little bit relieved.

I wish I was as funny as Bill Simmons.

from ken

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