Category Archives: Inspiration

Quirky Nerd, or “When In Doubt, C4.”

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Angler Mountain Trail, Silverthorne, CO, October 2022

Okay so let’s see if I can make a coherent post out of random nerdy bits!

On the elliptical tonight, listening to Book 12 of Anna Durand’s Hot Scots series, I was so excited to learn about the different types of twilight! Baahahahaaaa, yes, that is what makes open door romance audiobooks so exciting, I’m sure every reader lives for the science dropped here! I can’t remember if that was before or after the hero talked about strapping C4 to his chest during a treasure hunting adventure. I felt gratified and proud that I knew what C4 is, from watching season upon season of Mythbusters. You just never know when something you pick up in one place will come in handy somewhere else. Bet you ten dollars I’ll be telling someone about nautical twilight by this time next week!

***

Daughter and I have always stopped to observe dead animals we find on the ground. Our morbid fascination is encouraged by our friend, a biology teacher at her school. An upper classman donated the family dog after it had been euthanized. Daughter spent free time last year dissecting it with friends. Currently it’s a bucket of bones, waiting to be reassembled, Sue-style. So when I found naturally picked-clean deer leg bones (likely a mountain lion kill) on a hike in Colorado last month, I had to bring it back for our friend. I covered it in plastic wrap in my carry on, getting through security without issue. He appreciated it very much, and it made me happy to make him happy in this quirky, nerdy way that we both are.

On Halloween, Daughter came across a freshly expired bird, who likely died from traumatic brain injury by colliding with a window. We found out from Daughter’s friends, who participated in the ornithology events at Science Olympiad (her ‘bird nerd’ friends), that it was a European starling. Its remains now also reside at school. I wonder if they will find skull fractures upon necropsy?

***

Husband and I may really be ubernerds who belong together (so Daughter comes by it honestly). We have been known to binge watch Modern Marvels; my favorite episodes are about hand tools (learn how the monkey wrench got its name!), power tools, and fast food tech. We tortured our friend once in med school. She came over for dinner and afterward we two sat deeply enthralled by an engineering show on bridge building; she could not figure out how to leave politely. Weeks later, when we watched a round table discussion between local TV meterologists on the PBS station, we made sure we were alone.

*sigh*

It’s just how we are. Everything is so interesting, it catches our attention and we have to see, feel, explore. You just never know what there is to know unless you slow down and look. And the more we learn, the more we see how everything is connected. The butterfly effect is real, it is fascinating, and I respect it. I stand in awe of it, and it makes me happy.

Peace Joy Love

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Rubber stamp washi tape handmade greeting card, CC, c.2020

What would happen if we challenged ourselves for the next day, week, month, rest of our life, in all of our intentions, words, actions, advocacy, and relationships, to both ground in and aspire to, simply these three core experiences? No really, stop laughing. I’m serious, what would that look like? How would it feel? How would we be and do differently?

It occurred to me recently that in life, in (and literally at) the end, what do we really need other than these? What if at the time of my death, I can look back at my work(s), my family, my friends, at everything I remember and leave behind, and really just bask in peace, joy, and love? Sign me up!

I label them experiences rather than emotions on purpose (is there yet a better word, though?). I’m not talking about superficial sensations of calm and happiness that come and go like weather. I’m after that deeply rooted, unassailable knowing–living, in each moment, consciously, in peace, in joy, and in love. It occurs to me that we can practice this; we can actively cultivate it, with each and every breath.

Of course, that’s it. Peace, Joy, and Love don’t just happen. We get to choose them. This is not an original thought or idea. But I have a new level of insight about it now. I can be peacejoylove at any moment. Would I call it a mindfulness practice? Sure. It’s a choice and an intention, a constant attending to both my outer environment and my inner world. It’s about maintaining a certain resonance, a sustained frequency, a rhythm, that keeps its own time, resilient to distraction and derailment, and that also simultaneously adjusts, adapts, and reorganizes as needed. Like a heart beat. I feel more peaceful just typing this.

I will fail. Repeatedly. Severely. But as they say in mindfulness, rather than judge the departure, I can simply, calmly, and lovingly acknowledge it, and then celebrate the return. Because as long as I commit, I will always return. I can keep going, keep doing, keep being.

So then, what would I actually be like if I did this? How could you tell?

I think I would take deeper breaths, and breathe more slowly in general. I might walk more slowly too, except when I bounce and sashay in rhythm to my favorite songs on the sidewalk. I would pause longer before entering clinical encounters, answering phone calls and text messages. I might pray, meditate, and be still more regularly. I might use even more fun emojis? …nah, I think I may have maxed out on that one already.

I already hug tight. I laugh out loud and often. I look people in the eye and tell them why they are great. I make time and go places to see people, be with them, do things that make meaning and memories. I try new things. I revel in all kinds of awesomness, all around me, all the time. I feel peacejoylove often already. But do I live it? Yes, sometimes.

I have triggers. I react. I lash out; I regret. I have a lot of work to do. But I’m on the path.

ODOMOBaaT.

Bring It.

Range

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One of my favorite books of 2019; read to see how NASA crowdsourced solutions to their most vexing problems, and other amazing true stories of the value of meandering.

I am a doctor. I do medicine. This is my identity.

Yes, and no.

“Did you always want to be a doctor?” Hell no. I resisted mightily the Chinese-American pre-med stereotype. And no, my parents never pressured me. But then sophomore year of college, I became a dorm health aide. I got a tackle box filled with cold medicine, cough syrup, ibupofen, bandages, scissors, tweezers, rubbing alcohol, etc. Dormmates sought out my fellow aides and me for help with hangovers, food poisoning, splinters, and colds. I taped condom packets to my door. Every month we convened in the student health service basement for case review and didactic education, led by the physician and nurse who ran the program. I was hooked. After that, I could not not be a doctor. Damn.

So I did all the things: Went straight through, taking all the classes and exams, following the well-trodden, traditional path to today. I regret nothing that I did to get here. I also wish I had meandered a little more, taken some more time, maybe… travelled more, seen more, and done more, before committing at age 19 to the rest of this professional life.

So I encourage my kids to study abroad, to take strange, interesting jobs, gap years, to suck all the learning out of every divergent experience they can get, all in service of becoming more of who they are. I want their range to be wider and deeper than mine was at their age, and then to expand further. Son is a sailor and world traveler, and Daughter explores widely in art, fashion, literature, history, and their intersections. They both feel the freedom to make things more than I ever did growing up. Score!

As for myself, it’s not too late! Yes, I’m a doctor. I could not love it more. I’m also a speaker, a writer, a counselor, a dreamer–and who knows what else yet!?

Oh, I’m a book club member! That may be one of the best things I have ever done–exposed myself to smart, diverse women who read fiction, omg. I always thought I had nothing to learn from and could not understand the point of novels. Now I’m slowing getting it. [The Midnight Library, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Portrait of a Thief–highly recommend these, if you have not already read.] Amazingly, I’m currently binging romance audiobook #41–more on that in a future post. 😉 Through fiction I can live vicariously, explore my own inner world from different angles, and just wonder, not to mention connect with others whose experiences of the books diverge acutely from my own. It fosters empathy–how fascinating!

In the end, why expand our range–of experience, perspective, thought, and relationships?

Range allows us to reframe, to expand how we understand things, to realize how much more we have yet to learn. It stimulates curiosity, which fosters both earnest humility and audacious creativity. If we pay attention, really observe and witness the range of diversity around us, we inevitably, paradoxically, come back around, over and over again, to how those differences actually bind us together, and point us to our shared humanity, in the grand scheme of things.

By living and learning widely, paying attention generously and openly, even frivolously, we connect–to one another, and simultaneously more deeply to our true selves, in the fellowship of all of humanity. Wow.

Why, then, live any other way?