Category: Random

For the past year and a half, I’ve disconnected myself from all my social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  Those platforms still presumably store my data (e.g. posts, images, chat logs) but I no longer log into the system, neither consuming or contributing any content. This disconnect was motivated by several reasons.

First, I had originally cut myself off from social media because I found myself mindless scrolling through the posts, spending an hour here, an hour there.  This would happen multiple times throughout the day; anytime I needed to occupy myself with something.  I felt as if I losing what I consider the most valuable currency: time.

The second reason is privacy.  It’s not that I’m looking to retreat into a hole, never to be seen, hiding from the government.  If that was the case, I wouldn’t be posting on my blog.  But I do struggle with the idea that these organizations (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) mine my data, applying algorithms and selling my behavior to other organizations, other organizations that then, in turn, shove unsolicited advertisements down my throat.  But I’m not surprised: these organizations are in the business of selling information. You and I are not the customer; we’re the product.

But, despite my long absence from social media, I’m reconsidering using these platforms.  Because during lunch this past weekend, my sister’s 11 year old step daughter shared a different perspective, a glimpse of the value of social media.

Since she lives in southern California, only able to visit my wife (who she absolutely adores) and I about once every few months, she stated that with social media she was able to “stay connected … the only way [she] could see what’s going on in [our] lives.”

Touché.

Unless I’m blogging, unless I’m sending them direct e-mails, nobody has a damn clue what’s going on in my life. So, she’s got a point.

Unfortunately, I tend to forget that other people (i.e. close friends and family) might be interested in what’s going on in my life, just as interested as I am in theirs.

He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it – George Orwell

Are you a masculine man?

How does one even define masculinity?  By the American, western definition, a masculine man is someone who carries a heavy beard on his chiseled chin, speaks in a deep Clint-Eastwood voice, commands respect from those around him, seductively winks at women from across the bar, enjoys drinking a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, controls and suppresses his emotions, never revealing his feelings.  An alpha male.  A homophobe.  By those standards, I rate pretty low on the macho scale:  my chin grows two whiskers about every three weeks, my tone of my voice falls within the falsetto range, when I wink it looks like a nervous tick, I quit drinking beer and hard alcohol for close three years (part of my recovery), and since I started seeing a therapist (apparently, still taboo these days), I’m much more in touch with my emotions, crying more than all my childhood years. Combined.

But what made even think about masculinity?

To be honest, I’ve never really paused and contemplated my masculinity, let alone put words on (digital) paper.  However, I recently streamed a movie on Amazon Prime called “The Mask You Live In,” a documentary recommended by some of my wife’s friends from the “Viets who give a shiet” group, who joined us in our home for dinner a few weeks ago, when several deep conversations surfaced, one of them being on masculinity.  I had opened up to them, revealing my battle and recovery from addiction, a shameful part of my life that I had hid from everyone for many years. Including myself.  But that part of my life was something I came to terms with three to four years ago, when I began confronting my demons, facing them head on. Instead of dodging them. Cause you can never really quell your demons.  You cannot silence them through sheer force.  You can try and push them down, but like a slinky, it’ll eventually spring out.

And this lead me to thinking about my future children.

When I listen to my parents—divorced since I was a young age, about the age of three or four—share their view on having kids, their words basically boil down to “It’s love you cannot describe … it’s conditional.” They see how much I love the dogs, how I take them for walks every day (no matter the weather), how I feed them the ideal canine diet (all raw baby), how I sprawl on the carpet and smother them with kisses—but still, they say “Imagine that feeling, but 100 times more.”

The fact that I’m thinking about kids makes me chuckle because I never imagined having kids until recently, now that I’m in my late twenties (I tell everyone that I’m 30 now, to soften the blow for future Matt).  And when I think about kids, I deeply think about how I (along with my wife) am going to raise them.  If we have a son (and I hope we do) I think about my future conversations with him, how he’ll repeat the words that flow from my mouth and mirror my behavior.

What message do I want to send to him?

Well, I suppose a few things. First, I want to teach him that it’s okay to cry.  Really, it is.  I’ll encourage it.  I’ll actively fight the words that have been inculcated through society and media, words like “man up” or “be a man.” What do those words even mean?  At best, they hold no value, at worst they’re damaging, teaching him that a masculine man swallows his emotions, instead of understanding and most importantly, honoring them.  I want him to be in touch with how he feels, allowing himself to just “feel” (that’s probably the biggest take away that I learned from therapy).  Second, I want him to feel comfortable under his own skin, never carrying an ounce of shame, which is different from guilt.  Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done, and shame is feeling bad about who you are.

You see, I was never comfortable under my own skin until the last few years, and that lead me to adjusting my external, physical appearance—like tattooing my entire arm, from shoulder down to the edge of my wrist—to mask an internal insecurity, hoping people would perceive as some type of person that I’m not.

But most importantly, I want to be there for my children, physically and emotionally.  I want to show them that I’m not only listening with my ears, but with my eyes.

So, what message do you want to send to your children?

What mask do you wear?

Every day for the past two weeks, my friend’s stream of Facebook posts poured onto my timeline, engulfing my entire newsfeed with photos of him and his latest girlfriend, having such a comical time together. They can’t get enough of each other. They really can’t.  They are glued at the hips.  They must share every dish of food.  Pictures and pictures of them gazing passionately into one another eyes.

Then, suddenly, his posts seemed to stopped appearing on my feed.  At first, I made an assumption that Facebook’s algorithms was becoming so advance that it somehow read my mind and purged all posts that I considered rubbish.  But I was wrong. I hopped on over to his Facebook page and low and behold, most of his recent posts are gone.  Vanished. Disappeared.  Well, not all of them, just the ones with his girlfriend.  It’s as if she never existed.  What did replace those posts, though, were images with itaclized inspirational quotes on how to avoid dating a sociopath.

Then, no more than one week after they had presumably broken up, he began posting pictures of them together.

I cannot seem to find the right word that encapsulates how I feel about the entire situation.  But, I do find it interesting. Interesting that you can digitally erase someone from your history, as if you never met the person. One click here, one click there and poof, problem solved. You’ve rewritten your entire history (it’s like git rebase, but for your life instead of source code).

I find that unless the material you are posting is self incriminating, it should be left in tact. Those memories—failed relationships, embarassing moments during your drunken stupor, convictions of being with “the one”—are an important part of your story.  It paints an important picture.  They tell us who you are, and perhaps how much you changed. So please, don’t delete your history. I genuinely want to know if you dated a sociopath.

I’m pursuing a master’s degree in computer science and most of the schools I’m applying to— Seattle University, University of Washington, University of Southern California — require that I take the general GRE (graduate record examination).  Although I don’t necessarily agree with standarized tests, especially the GRE,  I recognize the necessity to establish some sort of bar for applications.  So, instead of fighting the process, by attempting to convince admissions to waive the GRE requirement (although some do), I reluctantly scheduled my exam for December 16th. That’s gives me about two months to study.

That’s not a whole lot of time to prepare. Magoosh, an online platform that prepares exam takers, suggests that most students should aim to study for about three to four months: ain’t nobody got that time for that[1].  Therefore, I’m condensing my studying to two months.  This plan of mine will still require anywhere between two and three hours, every day.

So, here it is. There’s a myriad of resources available (I’m starting to think that the GRE is a cash cow.  Money flows between Educational Testing Service and the institutions, I think) and I’ve made a conscious reduction of the material:

• 2/3 month study plan by Magoosh
• 5 LB book for math problems
• GRE preparation book
• GRE math review

Time to get cracking.

[1] If you haven’t already watch this video, at least a dozen times, you’ve been doing yourself a disservice.

I was standing outside the car, wiping the dogs’s feet when I overheard a voice.

“Are you a young lady or a man?”

Did I hear him right? I continued wiping my dogs’s feet and responded:

“Well, HER name is Metric. And SHE’S a German Shepherd.” I wanted to make it clear that that we were talking about the dog.

“NO”, he responded confidently. “I’m asking YOU if you are a BOY or GIRL.”

I turned to Jessica, my fiancée, who was sitting in the car, laughing uncontrollably. I started laughing too.

You see, I suddenly realized that the the old man was confused by my long hair and it didn’t help that my back was turned to him.

I couldn’t get mad at him. He spoke his mind – something I fervently believe in.