#294

The first time I was supposed to leave the country, I missed my flight from New York to Tunis, Tunisia. I remember running through the JFK airport, getting to security and trying to negotiate my way through without a boarding pass. I accepted defeat and checked Find My Friends to see who I could ask for a couch to crash on. One close friend was doing an internship in the area. I could ask him. But then I saw my mother was also in New York, just out of coincidence. I called her and ubered to her. We found a flight to Tunisia that left the next evening that cost $900. That was double the ticket I already bought. Welp.

The next day we visited my grandmother. I didn’t know her name. I still don’t know her name. She didn’t remember me when she saw me. Dementia or something. She was in some old person’s hospital with a gigantic swell on her forearm. She didn’t speak a single word of English and the nurses didn’t speak any Chinese. The environment made your skin crawl. I watched my mom struggle to have her sign a paper. She barely scribbled on it.

She died a couple weeks later. I think about those $900 I spent because I missed my flight. That might be the most valuable $900 I’ve ever spent. The previous time I saw my grandmother, I was in middle school? I didn’t know anything – too worried about the girl I liked. This last time, I was 18, about to leave North America for the first time. None of my siblings had seen her since that very first time. What a privilege it was to see her, see my mom with her. Even though she was in a bad state, there’s no amount of money you can pay to see a relative for the last time.

Kiubon

#293

5.15.22

4:02p

Those who have seen the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once, knows how much of a masterpiece it is.

It’s new, weird, wacky, daring. That’s why it’s doing well in box offices and might do well in award shows. It pushes the boundaries of story, protagonists, and film form.

Just like Twenty One Pilots, Andy Warhol, Inside by Bo Burnham, Chloe Zhao. It stretches creativity.

Nobody wants normal. Nobody wants to watch the same movie with slightly different plot points.

Now comes the challenge of pushing the boundaries of my art.

How can I be more daring? How can I care less about what people think? How can I subvert their expectations?

Kiubon

#292

5.14.22

9:39a

Not sure what to write about today. Missed the past three days. I don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike according to this wonderful quote.

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
— W. Somerset Maugham

I don’t have to be ready to move, to start a new job, to take on an adventure, to ask out a girl.

No more procrastinating. No more waiting till you get a sign from Heaven saying it’s your time.

The right time is now. You only have now. Nothing else is guaranteed.

Kiubon

#291

5.11.22

7:46p

My mother told me about some good news at work today. She loves her coworkers. As she smiled and recounted the details, I couldn’t sympathize with her. I simply don’t care about her coworkers.

I called my friend in France today and I shared in her victories, completing her exams. I don’t care about her exams either. Yet over the phone, I was ecstatic for her.

Why am I acting this way? I know despite whatever reaction I show my mother, she will continue to love me. I don’t need to display positivity when she told me about her coworkers because she’s my mom.

With my French friend, what if I go to France and need a place to stay? Then I should be happy and encouraging around her, right? This French friend has and will do nothing remotely close to what my mother has done for me.

So should I treat my French friend with honesty? Not caring about her exams? Although I’d like to say I’m praising her because she’s my friend and I care about her, which are all true things, I wouldn’t mind having a place to stay if I ever go visit.

Or should I just treat my mom with more praise and encouraging behavior because she’s my mother?

The answer is obvious here.

Kiubon

#290

5.10.22

4p

Debbie Miller asked on Tim Ferriss’ podcast, what is the one most important thing to you? You can ask this question

• before making a career decision,
• before marrying someone
• before choosing your university
• before getting a divorce
• before big life crossroads moment

It seems as though mine is finally being okay with myself. Yes that is more important to me than family, money, fame, making movies, women (although these are all related to that).

As much as I’d want to appear noble and say the ONE thing most important to me is family, God, serving poor people, my actions don’t back me up.

Why do I workout? Why was I addicted to porn? Why do I make movies? Why do I want to be financially stable? Why do I sometimes want a girlfriend? Why do I want to fix my relationship with my parents? If you boil it all down and find the true reason, it is wanting to be okay with myself.

Realistically, that will never happen. The finish line will keep moving. So what if I just started being okay with myself now? Make that decision and live it out because nothing will change. No Oscar or money in the bank or even fixed relationship with dad will truly make me okay. So I start now, today, and find something else in my life to live for.

Kiubon

#289

5.8.22

8:17p

Sometimes I wonder if I’m destined to abandon my parents, give up, and live my life without them.

My Dad and I don’t talk. We’ve spoken three times in my whole life. I cried the whole time for two of those conversations. Yet we live under the same roof.

My mom is delusional. Making up stories to assuage her fear of abandonment, while still living with her divorced husband who has strangled out every ounce of her happiness.

I want to leave Columbus already, run away from the problem. This house is moldy and gross, we are boarder line hoarders with all the clothes we bought to try on the American Dream. The walls are stained with my parents screams.

Yet the only reason why I’m here, typing from my $2800 macbook pro is because of them. They worked their asses off, and still do, both currently working two jobs, mom is flirting with a third, so I could grow up in Columbus, OH, learn American English to a degree that makes it extremely difficult to speak Cantonese with them now.

My family is the hardest and biggest problem of my life. I am only just now trying to fix things. And it’s hard. Harder than quitting porn. Harder than quitting sugar. Harder than climbing Half Dome while every leg muscle is cramping, harder than finding a date for the prom when you’re an ugly high schooler. How funny all of those problems are first world. Access to a computer to watch porn, hooray! Access to fat, delicious foods loaded with sugar, more please! Access to a touristic mountain to hike up for fun, yippie! Access to education at a great high school where we dance to celebrate literally nothing, hopefully my date is hot!

What about swimming to another country so you don’t have to be sent to labor camps for “reducation?”

What about not being able to afford oil, or meat, or soy sauce, or vegetables so all you eat is rice?

What about learning how to chop of a chicken’s head and cook when you’re 12 because nobody else is going to take care of you?

What about having your “family friends” steal all your life savings?

What about constantly searching for illegal jobs to feed your infant kids who will one day grow up to help you translate job ads and applications so you can get more money to pay for their fucking clothes, iPods, and shoes so they can win the approval of their white classmates, who actually don’t give a shit about them while their white parents bully the fuck out of you at your shitty grocery store job?

Even though, I want to say my parents did a terrible job raising me, there is nothing I can do to repay them. Nothing. As a powerless infant, they fed me, clothed me, raised me. Just because of that simple fact, I can do nothing to repay them.

So I can quit right now, accept the fact they’ve sacrificed their whole lives for me and run off and try it on my own (which I have multiple times).

Or try and be a good son, to talk to my dad, to tell my mom not to worry.

Thank you mom.

Thank you dad.

Kiubon

#288

5.7.22

9:14p

A recruiter made me feel really good about myself, after I had an initial interview with him.

Commence the romanticism. I better stop myself from looking for roommates in LA. It was a screening interview, nothing close to a job offer.

Plus, I blogged last month about committing to the dream of filmmaking instead of sitting at an office job and wasting my life away.

What if the company is making an impact in the future?

What about everybody like Tim Ferriss who says not to quit your day job so you can pursue your creative goals without financial insecurity?

What about the people like Kevin Kelley and Gon Freecs who say detours are important and really shape who you are?

What if I actually like this job, and the downside is it takes up a lot of my time?

A lot of what if’s here. If somehow I get this job (more romanticizing), I won’t know unless I pick a direction and go full force.

What will make me more proud on my deathbed? Filmmaking for sure. Yet I still want to take the job (again still not offered anything).

168 hours in a week. Minus 40 for work. Minus 56 for sleep (should those be so similar in quantity??), minus 50 for miscellaneous = 22 hours. Enough to make my passion a part time job…

Not a bad idea…

I’ll let you know on Thursday.

Kiubon

#287

5.5.22

7:13p

Doug stumbled downstairs with a grumbling stomach, opened the fridge and was met with emptiness except for a plate of brussels sprouts.

“Gross”, he said, as he turned on his heel back upstairs, but caught a reflection of himself in the window.

He glanced down and gripped a fistful of his stomach, held it there for a while, and swung open the fridge.

Yes there was a half eaten burrito in the corner, maybe even skim milk and colorful cereal, but Doug took the plate and unwrapped the saranwrap with his fingers.

“These aren’t that bad”, he said and dashed upstairs with the plate.

Kiubon

#286

5.4.22

11:30a

I could move back to Yosemite and get a job there, making okay money, moving up in the ranks. Or get an office job somewhere else. Or I could focus on the dream. Give me 100k in an office job, and I know I won’t be satisfied. Focus on the goal. Kill distractions.

Kiubon

#285

5.3.22

4:11p

I’m writing this piece of advice largely for myself, spoken to me by a friend who just got a job offer at SpaceX.

We are young without any large commitments and responsibilities. The only person we have to take care of is ourself, so don’t settle. Take risks, experiment, go for the dream, because when other people are in the mix, other obligations, we won’t have this same opportunity.

Kiubon

#284

4.30.22

11:27p

When I was in Europe, hopping from country to country, I blogged more consistently than this. I’m at home, sitting on my ass for 10+ hours a day. I shattered my Europe routine when I arrived back in the States. Which makes sense because a Europe routine can’t exist in Dublin, OH.

So in order to prevent myself from going nuts, I need to make a routine. But I want to leave. And run from all this shit here in my home.

Or I could wake up and shoot a couple of baskets to get some sunlight, meditate, journal, edit, workout, more work, blog, eat, etc etc etc. Is that also a way of running from the problem? (my dad)

Maybe. Sometimes I feel like an idiot blogging in here. And this is one of those posts.

Kiubon