Final Days

The end is near! Or is it just the beginning?

Today I picked up my passport from the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. It now proudly bears a large sticker permitting me access to the PRC (People's Republic of China). You know how your passport has profound, inspirational, patriotic quotations on each page? Well, the sticker of my Chinese visa is taped directly over the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. It's like they're trying to tell me something. "Say farewell to your freedom, silly American. You're coming to red China."

Of course I kid. I'm very excited to be doing this. Just yesterday, I was saying farewell to my friend Amanda (to whom I credit the closing phrase of my last post). She thankfully brought up a vital concern. "Can you use Facebook in China? And Google? How will you stay in contact with everyone?" After all, almost everything I do on the internet is mediated by either Facebook or Google. This very blog is hosted by Google. It would kinda defeat the whole purpose if I couldn't actually update it in Beijing.

So I've been doing some research on The Great Firewall of China. Turns out censorship is a big deal over there. Who knew? Of course, as an American, I take my freedoms for granted. "Of course I'll be able to use the internet just as I always have. It's a big city after all." And sure, they have the internet. But it's not the same.

I'm thinking that I'll have to use what's known as a VPN (Virtual Private Network). Basically, rather than directly accessing the web through the local service provider and having to deal with radical censorship, you connect through the local ISP to a foreign server. That way, I'll be able to use Facebook and Gmail and everything else that's blocked by The Great Firewall. A few kinks still need to be ironed out, but if everything goes according to plan, there won't be anything stopping me from regularly updating this blog. So don't worry! I'm on it.

In other, non-tech news: this is my last week at work. I only get to work with my peeps a few more times before I go. Maybe it sounds silly, but I'm really going to miss working at Peet's Coffee. I've forged some really great relationships with my coworkers and customers, things I know I'll think about in the weeks to come and remember fondly. But, as a number of people have assured me, "This is the right time for this, Kelly." I don't want to spend the rest of my twenties working in retail, earning minimum wage. When I'm on my deathbed, I won't regret that I didn't serve more coffee. Sure, I love coffee (and tea!), but ultimately, it's just coffee. It's not the end of the world if someone's cappuccino isn't dry enough, or if you rip the coffee filter and have to re-brew. It might seem like a big deal at the time, especially when there's a lot of customers waiting to be served, but there's a bigger picture to keep in mind.

As another of my friends has told me time and again, and always emphatically: "This is life." There's no do-overs, and this isn't a test. Life matters. For all the stress and suffering we're forced to endure, shouldn't we strive for something bigger? Something to redeem our own suffering, and that of others? On this point, I remain staunchly existential. We are here to give life meaning. Stop asking yourself what it all means, because a meaningful life isn't just going to drop in your lap. You've got to fight for it. So what are you waiting for?

Ships at Sea

Listen. "You have nothing to lose." I would say it; I would mean it. But it's not really true. There's always something to lose, something to gain, something at stake. But that's not the point. The point is that you should let go, and anything that you have to tell yourself, anything you must believe or disbelieve in order to finally and fully let go, that's something you've got to do, and it's fine.

What do we hold onto? More than anything else, ourselves. But we're human, and damned stupid. We jealously guard a chest, knowing nothing of its contents. We're so possessive of ourselves - but what are we? Who are you - really? When you start really looking into your constitution, you discover nothing but a bunch of contingencies. "Well I happen to be like this because of this and that." Can that really suffice for self-knowledge? It's too flimsy.

And the most annoying thing of all is finding out that all those things that aren't that great about you, well, those are contingent too. You can do something about them - you can become a better person. Really! But it's such a bitch to do. Your whole life, you're building a ship while lost out in sea. It's really amazing that we have selves at all, except for the fact that most of our selves are so shoddily built. Can you blame us? You work with what you've got, and each of us is hard-wired to keep going, keep building, keep patching leaks and fashioning makeshift sails from soiled underwear. We're wet, we're cold, we're despondent - but we're still going.

So you've got some nice things about yourself on one hand, and some not-so-nice things on the other. You know which is which - you can't help but know. We get plopped down into the ocean of the world and spend years of our lives just trying to survive. Finally a moment of respite comes and we step back to look at what we've built. And what a surprise! Not only is there the ocean and the sailor, but also a ship! At first we're pretty impressed at how the ship all fits together, almost as if it were built on purpose.

But this ship which protects us from the elements is also our prison. The world, and our experiences of it, is filtered through our self. We draw conclusions, make inferences, establish arguments. But our self is our prison. Where are our loyalties? Over and over, we side with ourselves and against the world. What cowardice!

Our flaws are caught up in the web of our self; their excision is not easy, cannot be surgical, and necessarily entails radical transformations in areas previously thought unrelated. And so it doesn't surprise me that few have the courage to undertake a radical restructuring of themselves, and most who begin rebuilding ultimately give up, afterwards discrediting the whole enterprise as futile.

"You have nothing to lose." No, you have everything to lose. I think of it as a game. You put something of yours at stake, in hopes of gaining something better. But the stake of the game is nothing short of the game itself, that is to say, life. Probably, your life isn't going to amount to anything. If you make a lot of money, you'll eventually die and that wealth will mean nothing. If you raise a family, in three generations that family will forget you. Statistically, we're all irrelevant.

So what really matters? What is at stake in life? What is worth striving toward? What victories confer real honor? Each of us will answer this differently. For me, I am possessed by certain unshakeable drives. Honesty. Truth. Virtue. These are the things that are worth something to me, these are the things which make everything worth something. Perhaps it is my ultimate stubbornness, that I should pursue these things alone, at the cost of all else. But ambitious men have always been called stubborn and arrogant by those who could not understand their motives.

So let them sneer and jeer, and judge me odd or dangerous. A good friend of mine said it best. You can dis me - just don't dismiss me.

Disposal

By the time I leave for China (less than 3 weeks!), I will have practically no possessions. I don't know what to say about monastic existence, except to note that I have fantasized about it quite a bit. After all, it's easy to say "less is more", but to live it? That's a real challenge. I started learning the skill of living with less when I was a teenager. I lived with my mom and sister in a small apartment, and space was at a premium. It was a choice between having a cluttered, cramped home, or having to throw stuff away. So I got used to getting rid of things.

I'm getting rid of a lot of junk right now. Last year when I went to Costa Rica I rented out a storage unit, just so I would have one less thing to worry about. Now I'm throwing out everything.

Okay, I am exaggerating a little. There are still a few things I can't part with. Philosophy books, margins crammed with notes; old records of Led Zeppelin and Creedence Clearwater; a bookcase I built with my father when I was a child. All told, aside from the bookcase I have maybe 10 boxes. Can you imagine fitting everything that you own in 10 boxes? It is almost unthinkable.

I wish I could literally live out of a suitcase. But, in all practicality, that's what I will be doing. After all, those ten boxes aren't coming with me - and I don't really even need them. I just like them. All that's coming with me is two suitcases, a backpack and a gym bag. There are others who live with even less, but for me this is an achievement. The road to minimalism is long and arduous, but the goal is quite simple: self-sufficiency, self-reliance, independence.

But while you're on that road, just make sure not to get caught throwing your junk away into someone else's dumpster. People get real moody about that.

Welcome!

Welcome to my China blog! On August 31st, I'm heading off to Beijing to teach little Chinese children how to speak Engrish for a year at a school called First Leap. It's a private school that works as a supplement to the public education system, so it operates after normal school hours, and on the weekends. My schedule is going to be 4pm-8pm Wednesday through Friday, 9am-6pm Saturday and Sunday, with Monday/Tuesday serving as my "weekend".

I'm really excited to dive into this new experience! I've never lived in a big city before, let alone one populated by 20 million people speaking Mandarin. I don't know any Chinese, but whatever. I'll learn! After all, I didn't know any Spanish when I went to Costa Rica last year, and I survived. (Actually, the only Spanish you really need is the phrase "uno mas". Comes handy in all sorts of situations - especially when you're trying to get drunk.)

That's it for now. I'll be periodically posting updates about my experience, along with pictures! Stay tuned, and make sure to "subscribe" so you don't miss anything. In the meanwhile, you can peruse my pictures from Costa Rica and Panama, or read my philosophy blog. Peace!