Simmering
Returning from China at the start of 2024, I was full of hope and energy after reconnecting with my friends, knowing that I was missed and loved by many. Soon, it took a sharp downturn.
First, the agency I was contracting with failed to follow through on their promise of getting me in the H1B lottery. Then a new project at work started to consume me while I was clenching my teeth to meet the deadline I had promised for a side project. On top of juggling all that, I was anxious about a physical condition that needed a pending surgery, a lease that was coming to an end, and an urge to find my next job.
All these coalesced into a serious burnout. There were so many yet so interdependent moving pieces that it was paralyzing. I had no idea how to untangle them and move forward.
Surgery
My plan was to look into whether I could do the surgery in the US to save a 26-hour round trip and secretively “prove” my independence not needing to rely on my parents. If not, I would fly back over the summer. However, as I didn’t feel unwell at all and the surgery was only a preventive measure, I never truly prioritized it and did the research.
Some time in April, out of the blue, I decided to travel before the end of the month. Partly, now thinking back, is wanting to get it over with as soon as possible and eliminate at least one uncertainty.
I wasn’t too worried, but there were still these little voices in the back of my mind: What if the operation went wrong? What if I couldn’t recover soon enough to come back in the US and as a result I lost my job and hence everything I have here? As an immigrant, it is a common slippery slope to go down for basically every setback: What if I have to leave?
Thankfully, the procedure went well, I basically got under and woke up and it’s done. It was a smooth recovery, I got back in time though I did extend a week of leave. However, having gone through it now, I don’t know if I could do it by myself.
What hit me hard was waking up from anesthesia unable to command my body. It was embarrassing, even in front of my parents. Needing assistance just to turn over and move around on the bed is another level of vulnerability that I haven’t experienced since I graduated from diapers.
It didn’t take long for my body to recover, but the surgery’s collateral damage, a complete shattering of my sense of agency, would take me the rest of the year to heal.
Solitude
It didn’t feel good, experiencing the powerlessness of a baby with the dignity of an adult. But what made it worse was the fear that nobody would take care of me at times I could not take care of myself. Had I done it in the States, I wouldn’t know who to call. Whom could I burden with the ugliest side of me, helpless, bedridden, moaning and whining? None of my relationships was intimate enough to provide the psychological safety for me to be so unashamedly vulnerable.
Friendship was the answer I had in mind, as I advocated in last year’s review. However, in this place and time in particular, I don’t know if it’s possible to have a friend-knitted support system. Old friends are oceans away, new ones are scattered apart in this Country-of-Cars™, not to mention many are already in a heteronormative exclusive relationship with no incentive to seek alternatives. Maybe “looking for Alice”, finding just one another person—though not easy in its own right—will be a better bet than rallying a village?
Still, chances are slim. Especially for someone like myself who is not social and less inclined to meeting strangers with mating intent. Sometimes I did have these crushes on passing acquaintances that I knew were fleeting. As my feelings ebb away, an eternal loneliness of unable to seize anything would flood me at the same time, leaving me wonder if I would ever have an intimate relationship in my life.
The looming existential threat and the loneliness of an immigrant often strike without preamble. One night, I woke up from jet lag at 2AM and looked into the darkness, tears streaming down my face, body quivering so hard to smother my cry in the pillow. On one of these nights, it’s easy to convince myself that no one loves me. It’s not true, but the feeling of it wasn’t false either.
Stunted
Over the four months living with my mom and a Christmas with friends staying at my place, I realized I was not a terribly good host. In fact, I was a terrible host.
I couldn’t drive people around, dropping them off or picking them up at the airport. I didn’t know where the best restaurants were and had no idea what fun places to visit. I was and am still not social, outdoor, or athletic. I am perfectly fine just by myself but whenever I am with people I feel like I am utterly boring.
Burdensome. Redundant. Someone who cannot show up as a mature individual that takes serious responsibilities for oneself and others. When peers cook up a household-level meal, I barely make food edible. When friends give each other a ride, I sit in the back shamelessly idle. When people exchange financial insights, I put up an awkwardly ignorant smile. I have little motivation to work on these but I do have pressure. I do feel like being left behind when friends are walking through the world not only independently but also dependably.
I suspect part of the reason that I fear no one will be there for me when I need them is that I don’t have anything to offer in return. I would be honored to be an emergency contact but I can’t drive and hardly know how to deal with insurance and navigate the hospital. I wouldn’t trust my life on myself, why would anybody else? I will forever be the one who needs care, only that no care will be granted because no one wants to always be the giver for a taker.
There are these two voices that have been fighting in my head. One shouts: “Grow the fuck up!” The other counters: “Don’t! It’s a trap!” The former feels like a rightful “you should” and the latter a rebellious “no”. Some time during the year, I wrote down that I wanted to expand. Expand to appreciate the things I cannot appreciate, to find more joy in the mundane. I am not sure if there’s any success, but for better or worse I can tell some changes are underway.
Maybe above all, I should love myself for who I am before someone will, or maybe someone will be the reason I decide to become a grown-ass person. Maybe it just takes longer for me, and maybe it’s okay.
Split
August, a new job brought me to Northern California. For a good while, I was busy living the real life, settling in my new apartment, exploring the town, and ramping up to the new job. I had no thoughts, no feelings. It was peaceful, until the novelty wore out and the peace turned into numbness.
It’s not the place, it’s what brought me here. You see, it’s an objectively good job by all secular standards, but it was also a difficult decision for me because it entailed everything I despised: a revenue and data driven business in a big corporation whose product I’ve gone all the way to ablate in my life—ads.
At first, the decision had a surprisingly freeing effect: since I had violated my past self so much, I might as well just throw everything away. I felt less obligated to the person I had been and freer—if I rewrite the script for a new me, what could it be? I didn’t know, all I had was a genuine curiosity and a slight excitement. For the first time in years, I was not terrified by a potential break in the continuity of self. My tight grip on core identities had for once loosened.
Towards the end of the year, the framing of self-renewal lost momentum and the one of self-betrayal caught up. It was hard to completely break free from the past because for one, I still lived in the analog and digital environments which my past self had grown from and thrived in. Every time I went online, I was again exposed to the interests and ideas endorsed by my past self as if the inertia was pulling me back. I started to feel a sense of guilt and regret.
The hardest part was that both narratives could be true. Something could be good (materially, externally) and bad (spiritually, internally). Something could take courage (to defer judgment and validate my values) but also display cowardice (why am I chasing security instead of aspiration). On a good day, I felt light and free of baggage; on a worse one, I ruminated on the cognitive dissonance between words and actions that posed a serious attack on personal integrity.
This tension gave my life a fluid texture that made it less legible. I could no longer tell a coherent story of why and how I arrived at where I am with intent. I might be the one who pulled the strings but my puppet had few moves to start with. The turbulent currents of realistic constraints have left me stranded in the identity limbo for a while and—I suspect— many days to come.
Severance
“Too impersonal to embody my taste, too petty to represent my skills, and too technologized to have a place for what I love about the artistic aspect of design”, I described my frustration with the corporate job in a note I shared with another designer.
One day it occurred to me that just like all the other white-collar jobs in the world that mostly comprised of having meetings, writing documents, and making slides, my design job isn’t anything different. Why did I expect it to deliver something that it never promised—to do my best work that I am proud of?
I need to stop looking at the job as if it’s the totality of who I am as a designer. I need to stop confining myself within job descriptions. I am a designer first and foremost. Design is how I see the world and how I want to live my life. The job is but a part of it.
Ironically, I cannot relate to my current job so much so that it’s easier than ever to emotionally detach from it. To treat it merely as a money-making means to a bill-paying end. I still try to be a responsible and helpful person at work, but I no longer feel like it has anything to do with me as a designer. It might use a fraction of my design skills, but that’s all there is.
Of course, this is not necessarily the right way and certainly not the only way to approach work-life relationship. Some jobs will fit better than others. It’s likely and lucky to find one where there’s a significant overlap between what one’s looking for and what the company has to offer. In fact, I believe one should indulge the urge to work with heartfelt intensity if one does feel a magnetic pull to it. Such a life isn’t inferior.
However, from where I am standing, it’s better to separate them for the sake of my mental health. I’ll still need to curb my perfectionism and keep negotiating the boundary with work when it becomes stressful, but the decoupling is relieving. Hopefully one day when I have less existential concerns and more bargaining power in the market, I would feel safer and more empowered to ruthlessly prioritize my values.
Soulcraft
While it’s great to continue testing and clarifying what I want and pursuing jobs that align more with my values and interests, the question remains of what am I looking for beyond employment. My goal as a designer isn’t to work at so-and-so company. It shouldn’t be.
At the end of the day, I just want to make beautiful things. I want to make my own things on my own terms. I want to expand the breadth of my creative spectrum and keep learning and pushing the envelope of what I am capable of doing. What I aspire to is greatness of craft.
Detaching my job from my identity as a designer was revealing. I don’t need to wait for a perfect job to give me any of these. In fact, few jobs are optimized for my goals. While I am mostly designing for other people at my job, I want to try designing for myself. To follow my guts and whims. To design like an artist and look for my voice. And above all, to have fun.
My favorite book last year was The Making of Prince of Persia, a collection of Jordan Mechner’s journals documenting his journey of designing and developing the first version of the game. It’s inspiring to read because it reminded me of what got me into software design in the first place—a phrase that has unfortunately turned into a trite: the intersection of art and technology.
On May 17, 1989, Jordan wrote in the journal: “Added a balcony window that looks out onto a starry night. It really helps define the palace section as a different place. Someday I’ll make the stars flicker.”
“Someday I will make the stars flicker.” Reading this sentence in isolation without the context of game design, it appears to be delusionally ambitious. No average person on Earth can do anything about the stars even if they want. However, in making a game—in the creation of a virtual world with bits and bytes, humans are able to wield the immense power and freedom that render the unimaginable so mundane that one would casually leave himself a note to “make the stars flicker”. The agency of a software maker revealed by an implausible ambition in the real world is so moving that it’s almost romantic.
Apparently, adding a flickering effect to a starry night scene was not required. It’s a polish. It’s attention to detail. It’s the urge to do more than enough in pursuit of beauty and excellence. The sentence is so rich in meaning that it reads like a mantra to me. A mantra that perfectly captures an unfulfilled yearning. More than anything, it’s a promise to myself—even though I might not be able to do it now, someday, I will. Someday, I will make the stars flicker.
Maybe someday is today.
Synthesis
A lot has happened in 2024. I flew to China for surgery. I moved from Seattle to the Bay. I left a job and started a new one. I missed an H1B lottery and got a nerve-wracking RFE for my STEM OPT extension. I started shooting films. I swam again. I owned and rode an e-bike for the first time. I got a PS5 and started playing games.
2024 was also a year I lived less in my head and much more out there. I knew I had been in the evaluative mode too much and not enough in the appreciative mode. I am still working on it but I’ve made progress. I stopped taking everything so seriously and trying so hard to do everything perfectly. I stopped going meta all the time and allowed myself to just do things on impulse. I became lighter.
This also means I read and wrote less than before. Instead of making a negative judgment and seeing it as “degenerating” or “betraying”, I want to look at it more neutrally as “evolving” or “unfolding”. I can return to what always makes me happy, but in honoring the impulse to try new things, I might find new anchors that ground myself in more ways.
As a lazy way to end this essay, here’s a short list of notes from this year to my future self:
- Values need to be tested and lived out in real life.
- Not every decision in life has to perfectly align with your values. Defer value judgment if it hinders action.
- Doing things that don’t align with your values for practical reasons won’t necessarily change the core of who you are and in fact it will help clarify and strengthen your beliefs.
- However, do brace for inconsistency, for it could be a blessing in disguise from which someone new can emerge but also an internal storm that ruptures the mind apart.
- When you do need to play the game of others, cooperate, don’t conform. Don’t victimize yourself and antagonize the people and world around you.
- Take charge to be the agent of your life. Don’t lose that rebellious spirit, but be a critical optimist.
- Which one of the infinite parallel realities you live in depends almost entirely on your state of mind.
- Choose hope.