こんにちは！
I hope everyone enjoyed their summer break, or is still enjoying it if it's evidently still going. During my hiatus I did a lot, as you could probably tell by the places I posted. My recent travel in China is posted here. Only Beijing & Chengdu are up as I am still writing: Chongqing, Shanghai, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Originally I wanted to do a massive drop of all my travel logs, but I feel like getting the foreign exchange reflection out should be top priority. Everything including North America will be posted, I just do not know when yet 😅.
Let's begin!
Today is the day of my flight, and if you do not know already, I do not want to go home. I do not want to go home, so much I made a YouTube video about it:
50 views in 7 days, that's more than the last video I made that took me over a week to edit 😂 Thank you all!
Moving along, my mind is fogged up with this lingering question I cannot seem to shake for the past week or month:
Why am I, why was I, rushing my life?
For the past 5 months and 16 days, I truly felt right where I was supposed to be, on my own terms. Not ahead, not behind, just present. Finally, being able to just exist and not pretend or perform was liberating. I was content with myself and my life, and that has not happened in a very long time.
I met some of the greatest, most genuine people in my life that I now have the privilege to call friends. Having friends who liked me for me, the whole package, was refreshing, something I only came to realize once I had it. Most of my "friendships" I have been having felt only one way. Transactional. I felt like if I wasn't the hockey player or the student, no one wanted me around. As a byproduct of this feeling, I tied my entire value and self-worth towards my identity and output. As you probably know when both fell apart last year at UCSD and coming into this exchange, I did not know who I was, but I knew I did not want to be me. Nevertheless, I held up the same shield and ran the same playbook of hiding my vulnerable self, but the people I met here, discarded it. They did not care that I did not go far in hockey, or I pretty much flunked two quarters at UCSD, they just cared that I was present. Whether that be watching a movie, going to Kobe, playing a game, or eat. Having people actually reach out just to ask what I wanted to eat, or if I was down to go or do anything, felt strange in the best way. I don't know if I'll ever be lucky enough to experience that and meet such warm authentic people again. They all saved and pulled me out of depression without ever knowing it, and I cannot express how thankful I am for that.
I keep thinking about the dorm managers now. Every single morning, 行ってらっしゃい, have a good day, said like they meant it. Every single evening, お帰り, welcome back, like my coming home actually mattered to someone. I do not think I realized how much I needed that until it was almost gone. Such a small thing. Two phrases, repeated hundreds of times, from people who did not have to say them with any warmth at all and chose to anyway. That is a huge reason why this Kyoto felt like home. Not the temples, not the food, not the trains that always run on time. Two sentences, said with real care by genuine people, every single day.
It makes me think about how much we take for granted the smallest things until we are about to lose them. My legs, that carried me up The Great Wall and through exploring streets I will probably never walk again. My shoes, worn down from actually using them instead of just owning them. The healthy body I have, which let me do any of this at all. I am thankful for all of it in a way I was not five months ago. There is a word in Japanese, 物の哀れ(mono no aware), the awareness of impermanence, the bittersweet ache that comes from knowing something is beautiful specifically because it will not last. I understand that word now in a way I did not before I got here. I will never be as young as I am right now, sitting on this flight, and I will never get to experience this exact version of Kyoto with the same people, and this exact version of myself in it, ever again. That is not sad. That is just the truth, and there is something almost holy about sitting with a truth like that instead of running from it.
For years, I rushed my life as it was a survival mechanism. Moving fast and to the next goal meant never sitting with the weight of loss, or the uncomfortable silence of being alone with my own thoughts. Getting achievements was also a way to convince people I was not a loser, and I am cool too. I'm ambitious, and I want to prove things to myself, but I think I mistook that ambition for validation. "Look at me, notice me, guys." That cry never went through or more accurately it was "never enough", so I kept going. If I stayed ahead, if I conquered the next milestone before anyone could question my momentum, I did not have to face the gaps and the noise left behind. None of it was ever enough, because I was never enough for myself. The rush was not about getting somewhere better. The rush was about running fast enough that the emptiness and sadness inside me couldn't catch up. Just like Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I was not feeling fantastic:
I think the real reason I am writing this is gratitude. When I was struggling last year, I kept asking God why me, for the bad, but now I keep on asking why me, for the good that I’ve been given. What did I do to deserve five months like this? What did I do to deserve to pass my courses last quarter? Nothing. That is just grace, and grace does not check your resume first.
If I am being fully honest though, I abused that grace this exchange, and which rightfully adds to the anxiety I feel coming back home. I did not lock in academically the way I told myself I would. Three A's, a B, two C's, plus two more A's from my CC GEs, and I know I did not put in the work those numbers assume I did. Barely did I open my circuits notes and hardly did I study the way I studied for my other classes. So another reckoning is coming for me. I know it is. The law of entropy, when there is order, there must also be disorder. That's just the cycle.
I am scared. Going back means entering back into the pressure cooker, back to being the version of myself that forgets how to breathe between deadlines. Somebody living my life from the outside would call it a dream, and it is. I know that. But some days it feels like a prison I built for myself, brick by brick, out of my own standards. I just can’t seem to beat me. The thing is, it is my meaningful suffering. I do not think I get to sit under a Sakura tree and actually feel so present unless I first went through a first year that absolutely ripped me alive. I earned that feeling, and I have to earn everything else.
Amidst my doom and gloom the past few days, 3 legendary videos hit my YouTube recommendations, and gave me hope for the next 1.5 years.
Something about the way Coach Saban speaks just cuts deep through your heart. He deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom!
The too long did not watch is: things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. It's an investment on yourself to see the future that's better for you. Become addicted to the progress, not the product or the potential.
My all-time favorite Greg Plitt video. Probably the most powerful monologue I have ever heard in my life. The internal voice is the story of our lives, and drives us to be who we are. I am not going to summarize the video that's just 40 minutes of truth.
I got an hour until I board my flight back home, and everything is just pouring out of me right now. As scared as I am to go back to UCSD, to whatever is waiting for me, I have no choice and cannot skip this part.
So back to the question I opened with. Why was I rushing my life? I thought I finally have something close to an answer until yesterday. Although it is true that I was rushing because I never let myself believe I was allowed to just be somewhere, fully, without earning it first, it's not the entire story. Kyoto only stopped me in my tracks, and made me sit still long enough to actually look at my own life instead of just running through it. Yesterday, as I was doing my "leaving Japan" routine of walking the streets of Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ikebukuro, I stumbled upon this public art piece in Shibuya.
One unexpected wall art I just so happened to turn my head to just answered the very question I spent so long trying to figure out. That's really all there is, just to love, and be loved.
I just do not want to be alone anymore. I think society mixed up independence and isolation like they're one of the same. Being independent is a good thing. Being able to take care of yourself, make your own decisions, not need someone hovering over you, that's growth. But somewhere along the way we decided that meant being alone too, and those are not the same word. On my Peter Park mindset, I am tired of being alone. I think a lot of people are and just do not want to say it.
Japan is beautiful, Kyoto specifically is the most beautiful place I have ever lived, but the loneliness epidemic here is real, and it is at an extreme I did not expect. People can go their entire life without ever having a real connection with anyone. I had suite-mates this exchange that I never actually talked to, even after I offered a hand too. We shared a kitchen, bathroom, and shower for months and never once had a real conversation. That makes me sad in a way I cannot fully explain. We had every opportunity to know each other and just did not. I do not want to live like that again.
Social media trained us to be comfortable with para-social relationships, watching someone's life instead of being in someone's life, and somewhere in that shift more people started chasing validation than actual love, internal, external, romantic, platonic, whatever form it takes. I am done subscribing to that, that's why I started writing logs, made this site, and transitioning to YouTube (soon) 😂.
Who will I be when I land in 10 hours? Probably just the same person that has to figure out how to get out of a 2.32 UC GPA. I am really struggling man, but what a privilege it is to suffer?
The wall art had another good quote, I thought I share:
Isaiah 41:10 "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand"
Whatever waits for me back home, whatever grade I earn for not locking in the way I should have, whatever happens, I am going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do my best to live with no fear. That has to be enough, because it is all I have ever had.
Before I end this reflection, I will leave you with Bourdain quote and video.
"Travel is not reward for working, it's education for living."
Watch on YouTubeI came to Kyoto and went abroad to learn how to live again, and it was worth every single penny.
Thank you to everyone who has read this far, and to everyone who has been part of my village these past five months, my friends here, my dorm managers, my family and everyone back home who I know was rooting for me the whole way. I am not the same person who landed in Japan in March, and I am grateful for every version of myself it took to get here. One foot in front of the other, back to La Jolla.
Godspeed and God bless.
おしまいです！
- Tristan Ming Yu Taniguchi Lee