There is no movie spoiler in this post. I was excited to watch the so-called facebook movie, the biography of the awkward-genius-nerd Mark Zuckerberg. It also happened to be the first Netflix movie I chose, and I was pumped about that. And the quick one sentence review is: I highly suggest the movie, I'd describe it as a sort of human emotion thriller.
“The Social Network” is the story of facebook: how Mark conceives the idea with the help of friends and classmates, how he develops the idea from an Internet sensation into a multi-billion dollar company, and how the few relationships resembling actual friendships are buried in the process. It’s an exciting story of entrepreneurial success at its highest, but at the same time, it’s a human tragedy of the greatest scale.
I wanted to highlight one scene in particular that I really felt for, the scene that ends the movie. Mark is sitting by himself and taking in what facebook has done. In his cut-throat attempt to build facebook and get himself to the top, he ditched his only real friend, and the girl he worked so hard to impress by getting to the top.
I know that exact moment. When you’re sitting, maybe by yourself, and you're thinking, and it hits you: “Wow... It’s gone...” The last vivid time I felt that was the day after my roommate moved out last year, just before I graduated college.
Sidenote on my roommate, we had always been great track training partners, so we roomed together my senior year, and we were great roommates too. Especially that last semester of college we really bonded. We ended many a night sitting in our room downing beers, eating about a thousand calories in salt and pepper Cape Cod Chips, and going on and on about our stupid lives.
Anyways, a day after he had left, I was in the car with a few of my friends driving around. We were all kind of zoned out, and as I was staring off into Ohio farmland, it hit me in succession.
My roommate had moved out.
My friends were all leaving.
I was leaving Kenyon.
I might see my friends again, but that time was lost forever.
I knew moving to Portland meant leaving college, but I hadn’t internalized that those unique “college” experiences might be gone. Being sprawled out on my couch drunkenly chatting late in to the night and sharing a Papa John’s pizza with my friends, or catching an hour of shut eye on the biology department couch in a failed attempt to stay up all night finishing a paper.
Back to the movie, I think that’s the moment Mark was having. Thinking back to his time with his girlfriend Erica and best friend Eduardo; realizing in his vicious devotion to the mission of facebook, what he had lost; maybe wishing he could have another chance to be better to them, to appreciate them, to tell them how he felt about them. That moment, that feeling of, “Wow, it’s really gone,” it sucks.
That’s something I’m still internalizing. That life happens in seasons with a beginning and an end, and that life is about adapting to those new seasons – both sunny and rainy. Change is hard to swallow, but I guess that’s something “The Social Network” reminds us of. People may move in and out of your life, but at least you can still stalk them on facebook.
(facebook friends, be warned)from ken Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
Life in those years right after college, the most immediate thing I’ve noticed is: Shit. I can do whatever I want. My life road is wherever I want it to be.
Anyways, I was just drinking a beer, enjoying a contemplative moment listening to iTunes on shuffle, and “In the beginning” by K’naan came on. This was the song I titled my first post after. Hearing the song made me go back and read that post, which in turn reminded me of the goals I had in coming out to the west coast.
- love my life now- and of course, pursue “sidenotes,” which I defined as those random interests you have in your life that you never take the time to pursue, to figure out the right roads for me Thinking about these goals has made me realize something important about sidenotes.
“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
- Rene Descartes
I came out here as a scientist to work in a cell biology lab, but when I hit a real struggle in my research, for a time, I thought I would throw it all away and pursue nursing or public health. Research can move so slow, and be so frustrating at times that I hate it. Some weeks, I randomly spent 50 60 hours in lab, with nothing to show at the end of it. I could have spent the week on my couch eating Lays and watching Glee and my week would have been equally as useful.
But when it comes down to it, I love the prospect of taking courses like “Eukaryotic Molecular Biology,” reading about cell signaling molecules like Akt and TfR2, and racking my brain to think of the necessary experiments to complete a publication. It’s a love/hate relationship, but realizing this made me set on applying for a research oriented grad program.
I also came out here as a college cross country and track athlete, which basically meant, I was a gym junkie. In college, several times a week I was at the KAC (Kenyon Athletic Center) twice a day. Not only because I wanted to be more fit, but because it just made me feel at peace to exercise.
But when I moved out to Portland, working out seemed like a boring hobby and didn’t really mesh with the alternative culture out here. After running a marathon, I ditched running cold turkey, cut off my gym membership and tried out several hobbies ranging from cycling, yoga, hiking, photography, playing the harmonica, drawing, baking, and none of them fit the bill.
About a month ago, I ended up rejoining a gym, and I’m currently in the process of taking up working out as a stress-relieving hobby. I don’t run, but I still love hitting the gym. There is nothing in my life that brings me more internal peace than a quick semi-intense 30 minute workout.
I guess at its essence, the concept of sidenotes is to try new things and figure out what you like, but more importantly what you don’t. By both considering a life in research, and a life away from it, I’ve basically figured out the next ten years of my life - hopefully training to be a physician-scientist. And by trying out a barrage of random hobbies, I’ve been drawn back to a hobby I’ve had all along that will hopefully keep me sane through those ten years - working out.
When I came out to the PDX, I was starving for that missing piece of the puzzle that would complete my life. But I guess really, pursuing those sidenotes has just brought me back to what I lived and loved in college, and the road narrowed, a little.
from kenAre you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
This week is National Cover the Uninsured Week. At OHSU, the medical institute I work at, students have organized an array of events including panel discussions, seminars, and free clinic events.
Today, I went to a panel discussing providing healthcare for the uninsured. I think the panel members, mostly from the non-profit world, were supposed to talk about healthcare policy issues. However, that wasn’t really the mood. Most of what I was hearing was encouragement.
I think the panel members saw their past selves out in the crowd. I think they saw a bright-eyed batch of students unprepared for the struggle of caring for the neglected. They talked about supporting the neglected populations we were supposed to be talking about, but moreso they emphasized taking care of the optimistic students and young health professionals that are diving into these careers, and protecting them from burnout.
The talk was inspiring, or relieving, maybe. But one woman, the youngest, and easily the most enthusiastic of the bunch, had a comment that really struck me. She said: “I think cynical people are just people that were idealistic, but had their hearts broken.”
When I think back to when I first read the inspirational biography Mountains Beyond Mountains a couple winters ago, all I can remember is how fired up I was. Reading the courageous story of a physician working with the rural poor in Haiti, I could feel the optimism and will to change the world rushing through my body.
I was obsessed. I ate up anything and everything about the struggles of the world. I read about the civil struggle in Zimbabwe, social entrepreneurism in Rwanda, epidemic drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti, all of it.
I thought if I just pushed myself a little more, if I just stayed up another half hour studying biochemistry, if I just ran another mile, if I read another article about social medicine… I could move myself closer to becoming a stronger human being, to my dream of reaching medical school, to being on a stage where people might hear my voice, to changing the world.
I don’t know what tipped the scales. I think it happened sometime earlier, maybe the summer before my senior year when I worked in a lab at Harvard med school, poured on the miles to get ready for one last cross country season, and spent the rest of my time hammering away at the MCAT. (the med school admissions test)
I piled through flash cards, page after page of practice questions, and I think at some point, I snapped. I couldn’t handle the work, the stress, and it clicked. I couldn’t stop war in Zimbabwe. I couldn’t cure drug-resistant TB. I couldn’t save the world. It broke my heart.
It’s caused me to grow a cynical side since moving to Portland. It’s made me afraid to push myself, and I find myself being lazy a lot. I pretty much notice at the first sign of stress and cut myself slack. I tell myself I’m still a productive member of society.. But I have this one thought running through my head every day: "I use to be strong."
There’s a quote I’m reminded of: “The good news is that there is a way out of the dark forest. The bad news is that the way leads through hell.”
It sucked to burn out. It sucked to struggle through a year running on fumes to keep myself afloat. It sucks to feel past my prime at the ripe age of 22.
But on some days, when I can feel just a crack of that optimism leaking out of my heart, I can see that this initial burnout was necessary for me to ditch some of my unreasonable optimism, and cultivate a more realistic optimism.
Today, I read a quote from JFK’s inagural address that I hope to one day say, and mean. “And this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
I suppose, just because I can’t save the world, doesn’t mean I can’t try, eventually.
Related post, "What is Social Justice?"
from ken
Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
I recently started reading a guide to meditation, Meditation: Simple Steps for Health and Well-Being by Andrea McCloud. It provides a more practical approach than becoming a monk. Of course, there are benefits to putting a lot of work in the practice of meditation, etc., but there has to be something to be said for accessibility. For myself, I would be happy putting in 30% effort into meditation to get 70% results back.
Anyways, I do really like the perspective this guide offers to meditation. Here’s the definition it starts off with:
“Meditation is a fancy word for paying attention – paying attention to yourself and paying attention to your world. Any time you are focused on one thing or you are absorbed in a specific activity – be it painting or running or eating – you are meditating.”
I feel like the core concept is the practice of bringing yourself back to yourself. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed and caught up in the moment. Just imagine, you’re sitting at your desk at work, doing your own thing. Then suddenly someone catches you off kilter and nails you with a, “LOOK AT THIS TERRIBLE THING, THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” The stress-inducing HPA-axis of the brain lights up, and the stress hormone cortisol flow through your veins. Your pupils dilate, your heart rate increases, you even think defensively and aggressively.
I heard somewhere that the first ten seconds of an anger response is beyond your control. The hormone instinctively gets released as a shock to the yelling and you can’t help but be defensive. But after those ten seconds, if you can realize you’re misbehaving and bring yourself down from your cortisol high, you can stop, or at least blunt the overreaction.
This of course, is where I think meditation can be handy. Going back to the definition of meditation, “Meditation is a fancy word for paying attention.” In those times when you want to react violently or negatively, you have to bring the attention back to what’s going on. Is this really a big deal?
Evolutionary biologists hypothesize that the HPA axis existed for a “fight-or-flight” response when a hunter encountered a potential prey or predator. The hunter’s stress axis would turn on, and the hunter could make a quick aggressive decision, to flee or to fight. Either way, the increased heart rate, blood flow, and pupil dilation all contribute to the instinct. These days, of course, our stressors are different. When our bosses criticize us, it’s not really appropriate to throw a spear through their face. And realistically, they are probably just trying to help us do our job.
Anyways, I’ve been trying to practice the first chapter of the meditation book. It’s pretty simple, and probably how every single book on meditation starts, but it’s called “Room to Breathe.” It suggests responding to stress by focusing on your breath, and shifting the emphasis off of whatever brought on the stress. It’s definitely helped me keep my emotions in check, and make sure that I can respond appropriately.
I won’t say using this strategy has been successful in eliminating stress, nor has it always prevented me from overreacting past that ten second free zone. That said, I think it’s been a step in the right direction. Now I feel like I’m at least being intentional about being patient. In the lifelong battle that is self-control, I’ll take it.
from ken
Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com
