That was in the beginning, there was a hum

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what will you do with it?

In the beginning...

That’s the question that awakened the writer within me last summer. In that first post, I raised the idea that you should stay in the moment and love your life now. It’s too easy for people to think: my life would be so much better if I had a job or my life will be exactly what I want as soon as I find a great woman.

Of course, this is not a novel idea, people have been talking about it, probably for about as long as people have been talking. I recently read the classic novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the take home message is that you can easily ruin your life by mindlessly pursuing goals. Clearly, people are aware of the dangers of obsessing about the future and not doing things you love in the day to day.

Knowing it is one thing, but living that life is a completely different plane.

My perspective has come a long way since that first post. I don’t know if it’s much different, but it’s certainly come a long way. I’ve written about 80 posts, read about 40 or 50 books, and spent countless nights sitting in the dark thinking about life. Sidenote – this was my favorite post Thank you running, and my favorite book was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Both are my favorites for the same reason – they bleed emotion, and that’s what good writing should do, it should be infectious with soul.

This is why I love artists. I don’t particularly love art. I can’t remember the last time I went to an art museum, and I probably couldn’t tell you the difference between Mozart and Van Go. That said, to pursue something off the beaten track, it takes a whole lot of resolve to say, no I’m not going to follow the track set out for me by society. Instead, I’m going to carve out my own path, and work way harder than other people have to, so that I can live my dream out, every day.

I spent the other day filming a Justice Conference promo with two inspiring artists, Nate and Jarod. I’ve never filmed anything, so it was a novel experience to work with them, and to see into the eyes of film-makers. They had day jobs, but they also spent their weekends making films, trying to launch a career in film making. I would consider myself to be a hard working person, but if I work a ten hour day, I’m probably complaining about it all night. Here were these guys, waking up at 6 AM on a Saturday, shooting all day, wracking their minds to figure out how to reach people through their art, scavenging the Mt. Hood trails to find that perfect one second shot of me running between some trees.

As I saw into their day and heard their stories a little bit, I saw more. I remembered, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life, what will you do with it?” Seeing Nate and Jarod that day, I saw two guys who were really alive, and on fire for their dreams. More, they weren’t preparing to live their dreams, they were living their dreams, that day. They spent the day creating their artistic vision into reality, so they could communicate a small message of hope to the world.

As for myself, I feel like I need re-evaluate my life a little bit. When I spent the day with Nate and Jarod, I left inspired, knowing that someone out there was living the dream, but where did that leave my own life? If someone spent a Saturday with me, would they leave inspired, knowing that someone out there was living the dream?

So, today is the first day of the rest of your life. What will you do with it?

from ken

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

Some of my friends

I wrote this piece to introduce the groomsmen at my wedding. I think the friends you have are a good representative of your values. I think it’s good to have friends because otherwise you are just by yourself, and being lonely is not as fun. I have been lucky to have some good friends, and here are some of them in alphabetical order:

Amulya Iyer – Everyone loves Mooks. I think he is uncontestably the most likeable person I will ever know. But I think I love him a little bit more than everyone else. What I love about him more than everyone else is how comfortable our relationship is. I feel like I can be myself with him: tell stupid jokes, talk about how awesome we are, and discuss our most serious dreams. I hope one day he finds someone that feels the same way I feel about him.

Eric Morris – Probably my biggest influence in high school. I was blown away by his leadership and attitude towards running, but what I love most about Eric is his intentionality in our relationship. Despite being friends solely through running, our relationship blossomed after I stopped running with him. He has always been intentional about calling, visiting me at Kenyon, and we’ve both succesfully put a lot of work into supporting each other through some tough years.

Geoff Anderson – My first friend in college. I lived with Geoff my sophomore and senior year of college, but I probably saw him a total of six times in those two years. I think we’ve talked maybe once or twice in the past year, but what I love about Geoff is that even when we never see each other, we can pick up our relationship from any point and be in perfect stride. I know Geoff and I will be friends forever whether he lives in Texas or Italy.

Heath Newton – My first friend in Portland. What I admire most about Heath is, simply, what a caring friend he is. He has always been thoughtful towards our relationship and has been willing to go out of his way to develop our relationship. Heath and I lead a hiking group at our church, and it has been an inspiration for me to see how much he values relationships. I hope to continue to be inspired by him.

Kaleb Keyserling – Keyser and I became friends in college because we were both cross country teammates and biology majors. We spent many nights in the biology reading room bonding over studying for orgo, and then leaving to put in a good hard 15 mile long run. I feel like Keyser and I have been through a lot, and he’s put up with me through a lot. In my dreams I would go to med school with Keyser.

Tom Herer – More than any friend I’ve ever had, I always associate Tom with love. He is a thoughtful man, and one that I have seen transform more than anyone else over these past few years. My favorite thing about Tom is that I feel like I could count on him to love me regardless of what I do or who I am, and there isn’t much more to life than having friends like that.

Will Kessenich – Will was my cross country teammate and senior year roommate. We put in a lot of hard hard miles together, but the thing I will always remember about Will were our late night chats over beers and giant bags of Kettle chips. We talked late into the night about classes, girls, just generally about how silly life is, all the while consuming 1000 calories per night. Plus I was the first person Will ever met at Kenyon, so that counts for something.

from ken

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

Natural disaster reveals human disaster

Yesterday I came across something I wrote about a year ago. It was a news piece I wrote from the Kenyon newspaper in response to the Haiti earthquakes last year. I ripped it off a couple articles I read, but it's not bad. And really, I rip everything I write off something else. If I could write it over, I'd do it differently, but it definitely took me back, and I thought it might be fun to share here:

About 20 years ago, an earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude hit one of the richest cities in the most powerful country in the world. Just a week ago, another earthquake registering as 7.0 magnitude devastated the poorest country in the western hemisphere. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco, Calif., left 63 dead and an estimated 10,000 homeless. The 2010 Haiti earthquake in Port-au-Prince has, thus far, left 200,000 dead and an estimated 1.5 million homeless. The term "structural violence" explains the ways in which social structures put certain groups in harm's way. Some such social structures include racism, sexism, heterosexism and nationalism.

The disaster in Haiti was unavoidable, because technology to prevent earthquakes does not exist. The level of poverty at which most Haitians live, however, was certainly preventable. The infrastructure in Haiti was horrible even before the recent earthquakes and could have been mistaken for that of a country recovering from a crisis. Haiti has only two modern airports, while its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has nine international airports. Only ten percent of the city dwellers and a paltry three percent of rural inhabitants have access to electricity. Roads in Haiti are notoriously unreliable; they have potholes large enough to be actual roads, so they are not capable of handling large construction vehicles such as trucks or bulldozers.

Now, after the earthquake, the situation is dire at best. Because of the lack of infrastructure, there are not enough medical supplies to go around. Even the simplest necessities such as routine antibiotics, rubbing alcohol and blankets are in high demand. Thousands of patients who need immediate medical attention are being ignored. The clinics set up for emergency care resemble war zones; surgeons are operating without anesthetics and using rusty hand saws sterilized with vodka. Dead bodies are being shoveled into dump trucks due to the public health risk of rotting corpses lying all over the city.

A non-profit called Partners In Health (PIH) has been right in the thick of the medical situation. Since many aid groups were located in Port-au-Prince, PIH's rural location made it uniquely able to respond to the earthquakes. The World Health Organization has put PIH alongside the Haitian Ministry of Health to take charge of the Public University Hospital because of its long history in Haiti. The PIH's current focus is a two-step plan to set up makeshift clinics in Port-au-Prince by moving in materials from PIH's rural facilities and to establish a supply chain through the Dominican Republic to bring in medical supplies from the U.S. PIH does not consider itself a charity group, but a collection of people who live within communities to build healthcare systems and promote solidarity.

Despite these unimaginable conditions, the spirit of the Haitian people, as always, is still alive. They have been through hurricanes, enslavement, colonial oppression, foreign army invasions and homegrown tyrants. According to doctors working on the ground, Port-au-Prince is empty. No police or United Nations forces are around to keep order, only regular people helping other people out. The co-founder of PIH, Paul Farmer, said, "The Haitian people have a lot to teach us about climbing out of hell."

In the face of such dismal circumstances, it is easy to feel helpless and act passively. There are, however, many things one can do. A first tangible step is simply to learn something about Haiti. It is difficult to expect to help anybody if you do not care or know anything about them. You could read the works of Edwidge Danticat, a 2009 MacArthur Genius grant recipient and is a novelist who specializes in the narratives of the Haitian daily life experience. One of her most well known books is Krik? Krak!, a collection of short stories that was a National Book Award nominee.

Abstractly, I would encourage you to start simply and consider the words of Gandhi, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

from ken

PS - I have to add this in, have you heard anything about Haiti in the past 12 months? This is the world we live in.

1/29/11

http://www.kenyoncollegian.com/2.14787/support-haiti-relief-1.1925728#.TjSZqm-ktIc.email

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Why teach

The ever-popular NYTimes columnist David Brooks had a hit column a while ago called, “It’s not about you.” To summarize: the traditional sequence for recent college grads is to find yourself, and then go out and do something. As a counterpoint, Brooks suggests that life is about going out and doing something, and finding yourself in the process.

It made me think about my own dreams. I was recently browsing through OHSU med school’s blog and I saw they had a series entitled “Why I teach.” They were interviews with OHSU professors well-known for their commitment to teaching. It reminded me of my goal to mentor/teach, partly because my dream is to empower people who are passionate about their own dreams, but mostly so I can tell people what I think about life.

I attended a small liberal arts college where the professors deliberately chose a teaching-focused career, and now I attend a growing church that invests a lot of energy into developing leaders. Between the two, I feel like I’ve been spoiled. I can remember three professors from Kenyon in particular, that brought three different positives to teaching that I would love to emulate.

One was Chris Gillen, a biology professor I had for several classes. Despite teaching at Kenyon for years, he maintained a contagious enthusiasm during his 8 AM lectures that made it much easier to learn something, and actually stay awake.

A second was Joan Slonczewski, my research mentor who always went the extra yard to give her students experiences to move them forward beyond Kenyon. You could tell she just wanted to help.

A third was John Hofferberth, a professor I had for six grueling semesters of chemistry. The best part of Dr. H. was that even though he loved chemistry, he knew the students in his classes were not there because of their shared love for chemistry, but rather to excel at standardized tests. I admired his effort to prepare lectures, grade exams, and in whatever way train the students to get out of the classes what they needed.

My favorite part of all these great professors was that they understood their crucial role in the education process. They knew that whatever the students learned at Kenyon was not the ultimate goal of their education. But at the same time, they had developed a keen understanding for how to reach students, and help them get exactly what they needed out of Kenyon. Maybe for a pre-med student in Orgo, it was to excel on the MCATs. Maybe for a pre-scientist, it was getting hands on research experience as an undergraduate. Maybe for a confused 18 year old, it was simply to be enthuiastic about life.

Anyways, seeing these great professors has really inspired me to love mentoring. Working on all the med school applications, the most common question is: Where do you see your career leading you?

And of course I have no idea, but I know I love academic medical centers. I have spent some time working at the behemoth of Harvard med school, as well as the smaller but still huge OHSU. Walking around these centers, I love seeing the nursing students, the physicians-in-training, the young scientists. Though these people are adults, as professionals, these people are almost infants, and I love the parent-like training role of leaders at these academic medical centers.

I think that parent-like role is fundamental to the balance of life. Start out being trained and taken care of, and then as you learn more, teach others.

from ken

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Pantheon Kenyon Commencement Speeches

I’m going to make a bold prediction. The last time you asked someone how they were doing, they told you one of these three things:

A) I’ve been busy.
B) I’m tired.
C) Both.

Thanks to the industrial revolution and the advent of iPhones, the modern world is dominated by multi-tasking and efficiency, which is great for mass producing TV’s and hot dogs, but it makes for a bunch of tired people. I figured the solution, of course, must be rest. So I posted a couple months back on wanting to get better at taking rest… and as you might expect, I’m still terrible at it.

The last few weeks, I’ve been super tired. The days in the lab have been longer, and nothing’s been working, so it leaves me drained and demoralized. The med school applications are piling up in my gmail inbox as I procrastinate further by writing this post instead. I also recently moved, so the packing and unpacking has been stressing me out. I know, I know, cry me a river, but really between all of it, I’ve been feeling like I have no time to myself.

When I’m tired like this, I just want to be lazy. I want to completely shut off and do nothing. But I think shutting off like that is a little bit like dying.

That’s what Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace argued. These are two men who became powerhouse novelists through their attempt to make sense of the word by writing. They philosophized about life on a pantheon level. And on top of that, they both gave commencement speeches at my alma matter, Kenyon College.

Franzen gave a commencement speech called, “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.” He argues that modern technology makes people passive. People would rather sit on facebook and follow their digital friends or watch porn than go out and form messy but real relationships. It's a hell of a lot easier to have virtual friends that never ask anything of you, ruin your plans, or make you look stupid.

Wallace spoke five years ago on a similar topic, explained via parable:

Two young fish are chatting along and swimming through the water, when an older fish swims past them, and asks them, “Howdy boys, how’s the water?” and continues on. Later, one of the two young fish asks the other, “What’s water?”

He was asking everybody in that Kenyon audience to turn their heads away from their iPads and pay attention to the world. He knew that the more you pay attention to the world, the more apparent it is that the world isn’t about serving your own personal needs.

I had a friend ask what he thought was the greatest problem facing the world. I think the world got confused about the meaning of the world. Everyone is convinced that the world revolves around them, but actually, when we die, the world goes on.

Franzen and Wallace both came to a similar conclusion: good things take work. Technology might have deceived us into thinking that we don't have to put work into relationships, but how satisfying is it to watch a funny TV show or a friend's blog post? I know I've never sat on my porch at the end of the day and thought to myself, "Damn, I watched some hilarious TV shows today."

I don’t mean we aren’t “working” enough, as in we aren’t filling out our days with impressive to do lists. I mean that society as a whole is not paying enough attention to the water around us. We’ve stopped appreciating our best friends, making small talk with our Trader Joe’s cashier, or looking out for that beautifully optimistic dandelion sprouting out between sidewalks.

It takes a hell of a lot of work to always pay attention, sometimes it hurts. I know when I when I’m having a bad day, I’d rather ignore everybody else and sulk away in my rotten mood.

But why turn inward?

Is it really easier to get through life if you turn off the surrounding sounds?

When did life become about comfort?

from ken

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Will the real John Galt, please stand up?

Atlas Shrugged spoiler alert

“In fiction you can pose a question, but you dare not answer it.”
- Anton Chekhov

I finally finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which is over 1000 pages. I started reading it back in February, and I’ve spent roughly three to four full days reading it. It was a serious hinderance to my goal of reading 50 books in a year, and my new plan is never to read another book over 300 pages. That said, Atlas Shrugged was truly a beautifully crafted novel.

There are several writers that I highly admire, including: Christian author Donald Miller, sports columnist Bill Simmons, pop psychologist Malcolm Gladwell, author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert. Reading them makes you feel like you’re having a chat with your buddy, thinking, “Hey someone else feels just like me!”

When I read Malcolm Gladwell or Bill Simmons, I think, yeah these guys are hilarious and amazing, but I could dream about doing what they do. Accordingly, I’ve crafted my writing after these guys. The pop culture laced title to this post screams Bill Simmons. However, Ayn Rand is just on a whole different plane of writing that I can’t even wrap my head around.

She develops several complex characters through a thousand page journey, and creates an incredible page-turning sensation that I have never felt before. Having read about three novels in the past year, I am comfortable calling Atlas Shrugged a literary stalwart.

Anyways, as Chekov’s quote explains, fiction is meant to raise questions and conversation, not answers. So what is the most relevant conversation raised by Ayn Rand?

First, some background on Atlas. Rand’s words:

“This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world – and did… It is a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder – and rebirth – of man’s spirit.”

Atlas is set in an industrial era when the government is worried about business giants getting too rich. They try to place restrictions on these businesses, but in an act of rebellion, the business leaders leave the world to create their own Atlantis-like community. There, they build a pursuit-of-greatness utopia with only the greatest minds. The world is left without these intellectuals and goes in a tailspin.

John Galt is the man who started the Atlantis-like community and stops the motor of the world by depriving the world of all the great business leaders.

I could easily write five blog posts on ideas I had about Atlas, but here I’ll talk about Galt’s victory.

In my eyes, the greatest accomplishment of Galt and his followers is that they break free of societal constraints. They have no qualms stating that they are out for their own greatness, and they will not stand for a government that limits them in any way.

I can see the left wing/humanitarian argument building against this: life is about sacrificing for the whole, the rich shouldn’t be greedy. Arguments I’ve tried to make on this blog.

From the one who has been entrusted with much,

But Galt had it right. Life is about being real.

Last winter I read a book by self-help/addiction expert Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. The short summary: Brown has found that the most satisfied people are not afraid to be themselves, and believe that they will be worthy of other people’s acceptance despite their flaws. Ie – drug addicts are not defined by their addiction, friends are not defined by their selfishness, etc.

So, who is John Galt? Galt is a man who stood in front of the world, and asked them not to be ashamed of themselves. Society might say drug addicts are uselss, or that it’s wrong to be out for yourself. Society might be right, but I don’t think I am at any point to judge what is and is not wrong. I think Galt and Brown are in the right camp. They just want people not care so much about what other people think, they just want people to be themselves.

from ken

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Better Together

"Happiness is only real, when shared."

So for those of you that haven’t heard I recently got engaged to be married. Someone asked me the other day, “Do you mind if I ask why you chose to get married?”

I thought that was a good question, so here are some thoughts I had on relationships.

I have to admit, I am still a skeptic on marriage. That said, I am a full on believer on relationships.

For those friends who have been here for thick and thin, I assume you already know this, but I like friends. If I had to define myself as any one thing, I would say this about myself: I am just a person, who at one time, wanted to have some friends and tried to go out and make some. The rest of my life is just little details.

Sidenote: Friends is my most common label on my blog. And here are some posts I had on friends:

I'm gonna soak up the sun
Same as it ever was
New writers
All my friends (probably my favorite)

Thinking back on my friends from Needham, my friends from Kenyon, my friends from Wyoming. I miss them, and I love them, but the frustrating thing is that none of those friends are a part of my life now. Sure I talk to them every once in a while, but I don’t get to engage with them on the day-to-day scale. Basically, I don't get to sit with them, drink some coffee or Guiness, or eat an entire can of Pringles in fiftenn minutes, and talk shit about life, which is really all I ever want to do.

Here in Portland, I’ve been working on building relationships, and it’s been great, but even here in grown up life, inevitably, people move, people take new jobs, people attend new schools, some people just want to uproot their lives. On top of that, in about a year, I’ll probably be setting up a whole new life somewhere else.

And after that, I’ll probably move again two or three more times. And every time, I’ll have to uproot my entire friend support system, say good bye to another batch of friends, and struggle to meet more people that I can become friends with. I’m assuming this doesn’t get easier with time.

So I guess I think of marriage as a kind of agreement. It’s like making a friend, but with the agreement that you’ll be friends forever.

You’ll have the courage to be honest and confront problems you have, forever.

You’ll get on each other’s nerves over little things like the way the towels are folded, forever.

You’ll have fun playing together, forever.

You’ll just enjoy sitting together talking about the minutia of life, forever.

And I guess that’s what I wanted. I just wanted a friend that would be willing to put up with me, and spend time with me, forever.

from ken

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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

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No one laughs at God in a hospital

This is a double Book Review for Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup and Love Wins by Rob Bell AND a theological debate.

Here If You Need Me is an easy to read and laughable memoir about a minister that serves search-and-rescue workers. I highly suggest this book. Braestrup has an incredible story of encountering religion on the frontlines of life and death.

Love Wins is the latest by New York Times Bestselling author Rob Bell. He discusses the confusing co-existence of an all-loving God with suffering. It raises some interesting conversation points, but it’s kind of scattered. I feel like he was pushed to get this book out to make some cash. Not highly recommended.

Sidenote: I’m on a quest to read 50 books during the calendar year, and I recently finished books 18 and 19. I usually read 5 – 10 books at a time, a product of modern day attention spans, so I’ll occasionally have awesome weeks when I finish a ton of books at once, and I’m in the middle of such a week now.

Anyways, it was interesting to read these books at the same time. Both the books apexed to the same major point.

In one story from Here If You Need Me, Braestrup writes about a day when she accompanied the wardens as they searched through snowy woods and freezing cold lakes for a missing five year old, only to find the missing victim under a thick sheet of ice. The girl was long dead and there was nothing they could do for the family.

This raises the question, and the major point from both books. In any god believing paradigm, how can a god be just, and stand by as five year old girls drown to their deaths? How can gods allow war? Why does suffering exist?

Braestrup suggests that this question, “Why does evil exist?,” is the ultimate theological question.

The answer she gives, is by far the best answer I have come across (slightly paraphrased):

“I am willing to have that theological conversation with a cop, any cop – faithful or faithfree, not because he arrives at my answer, but because he has had to look suffering right in the face. Whatever words he uses for God, he is still the one who had to take the little girl’s body out of the water and see her face and hear her mother crying.

Here is my answer: that cop took the child out from under the ice with his own hands, tried to give her his own breath, and his own heart broke when he could not save her life. He is the answer.”

I believe church is a valuable component to life. A lot of my friends now come from church, and it’s a great place for community, but I think religion/spirituality/God/etc, is found outside of Sunday. This is why I believe God has been walking with me long before I became a Christian a few years ago. This is why I believe God walks with lots of people that wouldn’t be caught dead in a church.

I guess I wasn’t able to answer why a just God would allow five year old daughters to drown. But I will say that God works despite five year old daughters drowning.

I believe God exists in the rescue workers, who hold no conception of working overtime, who are out there in the bitterly cold Maine winters searching for lost five year old daughters.

I believe God exists in teachers forgoing fancy schools and big paychecks to work with disadvantaged youth.

I believe God exists in hospitals where nurses look after patients and scientists hope to find cures to uncontrollable cancers.

I believe God exists in a good friend that will sacrifice their free time to help another friend.

Anyways, I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this.

from ken

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Stages of Life

I touched ground in PDX on May 27^th, 2010. That means I’ve officially been here for twelve whole months. If that sounds familiar it’s because I started the “I’ve been here for 6 months” post with the same sentence. Congrats on noticing! This post may or may not be similar.

Anyways, I recently decided that a year is a good unit of time to label as a stage, so I labeled my last year as: the stage Ken goes off into the wilderness to pray/think/meditate/write.

The last four years of my life I was in college, so I was basically surrounded with people non-stop. Going from roommates, to classes, to the dining hall, to the study lounge, to track practice, even as an introvert I couldn’t avoid being with people all the time.

The biggest difference in my life since then is that it’s a lot more solitary. Since I didn’t know anyone living in Portland, I chose to live in a studio. On top of that, I thought I would save some money and live sans TV and internet. And surprisingly, or maybe not, the alone time has been life-changing.

With no roommates, constant community, or distractions like ESPN or gmail chat I’ve had a lot more time to analyze my life to an unnecessary level, and read more books than ever before.

Sidenote: here are the top 5 books I’ve read in the last 12 months in the order I’d suggest them:

1) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Super heart-warming and inspiring, you could read it in a day.

2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie – A novel written from the perspective of a teenager growing up on the reservation but going to a white school.

3) Bird by Bird by Anne Lammott – Readable book about writing and being honest with yourself.

4) The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons – Absolutely hilarious, breaks down the history of the NBA, would be #1 by a moonshot but it’s about 800 pgs long.

5) The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown – Self-help/addiction recovery book about accepting your flaws.

But of course, the practical question: has all that alone time really changed anything?

I think my set of beliefs is about the same as it’s ever been in my adult life. Some mix of: serve people, follow your dreams, relationships are the point of life, and work hard. I would say the biggest intangible I’ve developed is the ability to be honest with myself and allow myself to be guided by my internal GPS.

I’ve used this newfound ability to debunk old life goals I had for myself, be the next Paul Farmer (global health icon), and replaced them with new ones, be the next Atul Gawande (surgeon and NYT best-selling author) or Siddhartha Mukherjee (physcian-scientist and Pulitzer Prize winner). I decided this based on a key realization: my new favorite stress-relieving activity, showering, is hard to come by in a doctors-without-borders setting.

Sidenote: I thought my all-time favorite showering setting would be post-practice locker room showering with ten other distance runners, but I’ve actually taken a liking to the peace of showering by myself.

I’ve also used this newfound ability to change how I behave now. I’ve learned that I don’t need to transform myself into a socialite to cultivate community. I can be the same awkward introvert I’ve always been and still contribute in my own niche way.

So I guess what I’ve learned can be summed up as: you do what you can.

Top 3 predictions for next stage of life:

1) Ken moves to Texas, buys a Texas flag, loves irrationally talking about how awesome Texas is

2) Ken moves to California, learns to surf, becomes a beach bum/scientist

3) Ken changes his mind about life, again

from ken

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