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.

Movie Review – “The Social Network”

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

Nostalgic, much? Always.

On the tram this morning I overheard a conversation between two young women discussing their long weekend. One had gone snowshoeing in the glorious Oregon snow. The other had gone to her best friend’s funeral.

For whatever reason, my mind went to: what is good about this? and I remembered a passage from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet:

“When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

My friend from Kenyon College, Keyser, was in town visiting me this past weekend. On the way to the airport to pick him up, I couldn’t help but think about the opening scene from “Love Actually.” The scene takes place at the arrivals gate of Heathrow Airport, where couples, old friends, all combinations of loved ones are meeting each other. A narrator ponders, “In an ugly world, this sort of scene reminds me that love actually is all around.”

Anyways, Keyser and I saw each other for the first time in forever, in the bathroom. I was peeing. This speaks volumes about our relationship. Anyways, we had a great visit hanging around my new home of Portland, Oregon.

My favorite part was that nothing had changed. We chatted and had a back and forth just like the old days: running through the rain, drunkenly singing stupid rap songs, discussing the challenges of upcoming med school steps, and complaining about girlfriends. Er, only speaking the highest praises of girlfriends. All in all, it was relieving to know, we would be friends forever.

For the final hours of the visit, I accompanied Keyser to the airport, and eventually we had to say goodbye. As I watched him walk away with the same old dark blue jacket, dark blue JanSport backpack, and purple Kenyon track bag, I realized, even his appearance hadn’t changed.

As if on cue, that realization rushed me with sentimental memories of the past. After that, I sat at the airport for a little bit.

I feel like I’ve been in a semi-daze the last month since my friend from home, Mooks, came to visit. Both Mooks and Keyser visiting were a blast, to live even briefly in that old give and take was something I cherished. But both times, it’s been hard to deal with the sorrow in accepting their departing flight. It’s been hard to leave the metaphorical waiting room at the Portland airport.

This brings me back to my original story. It must suck to go to your best friend’s funeral. I can’t even imagine. But if I had to, from my small-minded 22-year-old perspective, I’d probably imagine it like an airport goodbye:

It would be hard.

I would wish I had spent our time better and not gotten impatient about some stupid little thing.

I would pray for the clock to turn back, for another chance.

I would remember the first days of our friendship, the highlights, and the tough days.

It would feel near impossible to get up and engage back in life.

It would be hard.

But then, I might remember a passage from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet.

“When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

And in that, I would breathe easier. Well, maybe just a little. And maybe one day I will finally gather the strength to leave the Portland Airport departure gate.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com