Who would you go to war with?

Steve Nash is a point guard on the Phoenix Suns. He’s a back-to-back MVP winner, in ’05 and ’06, one of the best players ever. But he could never get to the NBA finals, and this ate at him. Here’s a paraphrased passage from Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball: 

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Falling short in ’05 and ’06 hardened him. Before the ’07 season, Nash spent the summer mulling over the two years before, when he won back-to-back MVP awards, but still couldn’t make it to the finals. 

That summer he decided the only thing left for him to accomplish was a championship. Then, he thought long and hard about how to get that championship, ultimately cutting off his hair, and getting in unbelievable shape so he wouldn’t wear down in the playoffs. 

That year, Nash was on a higher plain. He used the first forty minutes of a game to get his teammates going, then took over in crunch time if his team needed it. Sometimes he’d even unleash the “Look there’s no way we’re effing losing this game!” look. 

You know Nash’s team will never get blown out – they’ll be fighting until the very end, and he’s the reason. At the end of the day, Steve Nash can’t play defense, and he has a back that could go out at any second, but you could go to war with Steve Nash, and really, that’s all that matters. 

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Who would you go to war with? 

This is one of the top questions I think about. 

Many NBA players are gunning for their moment in the spotlight, their brand, and cash. Guys like LeBron James - rolling in highlight reels, shoe deals, and conversations of best ever. Then, there are players like Nash – flying under the radar, loyally sticking to his team, and quietly being one of the best players of his era. Who would you rather go to war with? 

Of course, you’d line up behind Nash. 

I have a hypothesis about war guys. If you asked a group of people who ran in the same social circle, “Who would you go to war with?” They would come up with the same few names, and those few people would share common qualities. 

 

Guys like Billy Beane have a career because they figured out ways to analyze value better than other baseball teams. While other teams were courting flashy homerun hitters, Beane went after scrappy guys who racked up walks. 

The market inefficiency goes beyond sports. Take science - scientists are hired based on their publications, but is that really the best way to find good scientists? 

A resume can tell you a lot, but it doesn’t tell you if the person likes science or if they can come up with their own ideas. In science there are inefficiencies – hire the scientists with the best publications on their resume, and you might not get the best scientists. There are scientists that you could plug into a lab, and they’d have an impact on the environment, and swing it into a productive space. You could say they’d have a Nash-like quality on the lab. 

My hypothesis is that we are bad at analyzing other people's value. We overvalue certain qualities and undervalue other ones that would actually produce a good society. 

So anyways, I want to overanalyze the qualities of these war guys, except this is already too long so I’ll start next week.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

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

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.

What is greatness? A KXC tribute

“Running to him was real. The way he did it, the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as diamond. It made him weary beyond comprehension, but it also made him free.”

- John L. Parker, Once A Runner

So I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, but never really solidified what to write.

I recently finished Bill Simmons’ The Book of Basketball. Simmons is an ESPN columnist called the Sports Guy, a Boston-bred sports fanatic that religiously breaks down sports and pop culture. I think he is the funniest person alive.

I loved the book, and definitely suggest it to any sports fan. I think it’s a must-read for any basketball fan since he takes being a basketball fan to a whole new level. He breaks down the best teams and the best players of all-time, including a 96 player pyramid ranking.

The most important thing the book made me think of was something I think about all the time. The topic of greatness. In his 96 player ranking, Simmons analyzes exactly what made a player great. He highlights players that introduced dunking, players who revolutionized the point guard position, players that had unstoppable shots, and so on.

Of all 96 players that Simmons breaks down, the player that stood out to me the most was No. 72, Chris Webber.

Webber entered the league labeled as a sure-fire hall of famer, and he lived up to it.

Kind of.

He was a great player, but he was only ever good enough to finish at 72. He was hurt a lot, which isn’t entirely his fault. He never won any titles, so he’s accused of not always showing up when it counted, but that can be attributed to the quality of his teammates. He had the potential to be better, but it isn’t really his fault that scouts overrated him. All that said, here’s Simmons’ conclusion:

“So yeah, Webber finished no. 72. But he still goes to sleep every night knowing he could have been forty or fifty spots higher. And if he doesn’t think about it, then that explains everything.”

This made me think about my own experience in sports. I ran cross country and track for seven years of my life, and I can think of one or two runners that I would say were truly great athletes. I’m thinking of one teammate in particular, my former roommate Jim Boston.

Those of you reading this that had the good fortune of running with Jim are probably nodding along in agreement.

First off, Jim was consistently the fastest runner on our team, so he had the talent. But there was more. Jim was the sort of the runner that Simmons would rave about. The kind that obsesses over greatness. The kind that loses sleep because he knows he could run just a little bit faster. The kind that makes unreasonable sacrifices for greatness.

He was the kind of runner that John L. Parker writes about in the epic novel Once A Runner. I saw Jim as the kind of person that found life and meaning in the suffering involved in the quest for greatness. That’s what I always admired about Jim.

Of all the lessons of greatness I could graft from sports, I think this is my favorite. To be great, maybe you have to be obsessed. You have to care, not just more than everyone else, but more than other people can imagine. You have to be the kind of person, that years later, we still remember how they cared a little too much. You have to have such a life, that it might be filled with exhaustion and struggles, but you couldn't imagine living any other life.

I believe that in a world filled with Chris Webbers and Jim Bostons, I'm in the foxhole with Jim Boston every time.

from ken

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

Med School Personal Statement

The following is a draft of my med school personal statement. I hope it will make you think: This person wrote something slightly less boring than the million other personal statements I have read, and it is clear why they want to be a physician. I would like to interview this handsome gentleman for a position in my medical school.

It all started, just another day in the life of Ken Noguchi. Kicking back on the picturesque quad of Kenyon College. Lush green grass, tossing a Frisbee with friends, and passing the hours drinking cheap beers…

Actually, reality was more like: long days holed up in the stuffy science quad, tearing through stack after stack of flash cards, and bonding through suffering with my fellow pre-med friends. One spring day, we took a study break to check our PO boxes. I was hoping for a care package from my mom, some candy to fuel my late night studying.

Instead I found a small postcard. It was a notification to attend Kenyon College Honors Day, the yearly awards ceremony, so I could receive an award.

Fast forward to the day of the ceremony. I was shaking in my seat. The short postcard told me to expect an award, but I couldn’t help thinking it was one big joke. Being a self-proclaimed late-bloomer, this was my first time ever receiving an award without the word “participation.”

In the first half of the ceremony, the dean presented the departmental awards. I received the Robert Bowen Jr. Prize, the top Biology award, and I was zoned out in my own world after receiving such a high honor from my professors in the Biology department. Before I knew it, we were at the last part of the awards ceremony, when the dean began announcing the prestigious collegiate awards, reserved for those taking a leadership role in influencing the actions of the student body. Still a little zoned out, I started hearing these words:

“The Humanitarian Award is given to a student who has made a significant contribution to the general welfare of others. Described as being “radically transformed” in the past year, our winner became involved in the community through Justice Week, a week of programming dedicated to service in the global community.

He found himself inspired by the work of Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to providing healthcare for the less fortunate in Haiti. With that in mind, he began planning a student service trip to Haiti for Spring Break 2010. In the midst of fundraising for this trip, a massive earthquake hit Haiti. Despite cancelling the trip, he shifted his focus to education and fundraising for Haiti. He quickly organized a well-attended forum focusing on global, political, and economic injustices at work before the earthquake. He continued to connect the entire Kenyon Community to the Haitian plight, raising over $2,000 to send to Partners in Health.

In the past year, he also served as a student leader for the Koinonia Programming Board and brought four panels of the AIDS Quilt to Kenyon for World AIDS Day.

Please join me in congratulating Ken Noguchi, the first winner of the Humanitarian Award.”

I was only half-listening in the beginning, but as I started hearing about Haiti, I realized, “Whoa, they’re talking about me.” I took a breath to recount my radical transformation.

I thought about my past.

I kicked off my first Kenyon semester with a 2.7 GPA. That year was a reality check. Seeing my other pre-med classmates fly past me with honor rolls and distinctions, I realized that if I was serious about medical school, I couldn’t just cruise through on natural intelligence.

I slowly got my act together, studied how to excel at college, and worked hard. From there, my GPA improved every semester until I reached a 4.0 in the fall semester of my senior year, I wrote and published a bench science honors thesis on bacterial physiology, and I became a campus leader for social justice. I attached my identity to becoming an advocate for Haiti, a country decimated by global injustices.

I thought about my future.

I love medicine, and its ability to give people hope.

I remembered a patient I met while shadowing Dr. Simon Robson in a liver clinic. She was a drug addict, hoping to prolong her life and take care of her two kids. She was slowly making positive life changes, but she also had endstage liver disease. Without a new liver, those small steps were all going out the window.

I remembered all the patients I saw with Dr. Catherine Allan in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Many of her patients hadn’t even been given a first chance at life. They were victims of mutant genes, born with structural defects in their hearts. Dr. Allan told me that she saw very few happy endings. If her patients survived their stay at the hospital, they would still be in and out of the hospital for the rest of their lives.

I knew that I had been lucky. I never struggled with anything as difficult as drug addiction, nor had I ever been diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic disorder. Sometimes I wondered why I had been fortunate enough to have Biochemistry be my greatest struggle. Dr. Robson’s patient would have to be incredibly lucky to get a rare liver transplant. Dr. Allan’s patients would have to be similarly lucky and show an unexpected improvement from heart surgery.

That moment, sitting in the auditorium, at Kenyon College Honors Day, when I heard the words, “Please join me in congratulating Ken Noguchi…” I was proud of how hard I had worked. But I also knew that the gods of fate must be smiling. I hoped my life could be about helping others feel lucky.

from ken

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

The Wisdom of Surfers

Jack Johnson once asked, “Where’d all the good people go?”

Several times on this blog, I’ve tried to work through my thoughts on what angle I want to take on social justice. [What is Social Justice?, From the one who has been entrusted with much] I’ve been involved from several different angles ranging from global poverty awareness, biomedical research, homelessness, to drug addiction. Seeing this range of problems, and combining that with the introspection that goes into this blog has really focused my eyes on an overarching question.

“Where’d all the good people go?”

I think the world lacks virtuous human beings, those that my friend Mooks and I would refer to as beasts at life.

Sidenote: Mooks and I once did a beasts at life fantasy draft over email, which was mostly to discuss people we knew, and the qualities that made them good at life. We did this to emphasize to ourselves, that there were traditional metrics used to measure human beings like physical appearance, income, popularity, number of cars, hotness of trophy wife, etc., and then there was a separate set of qualities we thought made you a beast at life.

Reading this book reminded me of something I said to myself last summer. I had just wrapped up my undergrad and I was planning on taking two years off before heading back to med school. I thought about why I wanted to take those two years off, and I reached the conclusion: I am at an academic level necessary to be the doctor I want to be, but I hadn’t attained the level of human being, aka beast of life status, that I needed.

Sidenote: you might think it’s cocky to try to be a “beast at life,” and you are probably right.

Anyways, I recently heard of Ben Franklin’s quest to attain moral perfection, which he started as a twenty year old. He took a systematic approach by listing out thirteen essential virtues and the days of the week. Each day he failed at one of the virtues he would put an x next to that box, with the goal of attaining as few x’s as possible.

The combination of the Jack Johnson’s song, Mooks’ idea of “beast at life”, and Ben Franklin’s systematic approach to attaining moral perfection, has motivated me to make a similar list of virtues. But instead of having the goal of attaining moral perfection, I would like to attain, being a beast at life. Mostly because I think it sounds better.

Anyways, based on qualities Mooks and I loved in others, here’s my list

Humility – Prioritize others, swallow pride.
Moderation – Some is good, more is not better.
Independence – A Ken can only be a good Ken.
Sacrifice – I want to sacrifice, but without placing this sort of burden on others: “FINE! I’ll do this for you, but you owe me a BIG one.”
Working Hard – When I die, I want my friends and enemies to say two things about me. 1- Yeah, he was a good guy, he helped me once. 2- Yeah, I don’t know if he was a good guy, but he sure worked hard. In fact, I might just want to hear the second one.
Gratitude – Keep on the sunny side.
Control – Have emotions, don’t let them have you.
Humility, again – Accept my limits.

To bring this back to social justice, the word radical and the word radish come from the same latin word meaning root. And so, a radical, like a radish, must always be concerned with its roots. I think the root cause of the global AIDS epidemic, homelessness, drug addiction, and maybe all social justice issues is that there are not enough good people in the world. I think we as humans need to be stronger.

I want to know what makes a beast at life, a beast, and more importantly, I want to know what prevents people from becoming a beast at life.

Arthur Lydiard, a legendary running coach who revolutionized distance running, was famous for having initially experimented his radical training methods on himself, an average runner. So, I figured it would be appropriate for me to experiment different aspects and angles on being a beast at life on myself, an average human being.

I have no deceptions about this, and I don’t expect to ever attain moral perfection, or maybe even reach a level of human being that I can accept as beast at life, but, I think I will have a lot of fun trying.

Worst case scenario, to turn back to the words of Jack Johnson:

“I want to turn the whole thing upside down, and I’ll share this love I find with everyone.”

from ken

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