As they always say: Location, location, location!! We have finalized the venue of our phat Blogger Prom, and it will be on the rooftop of The Hyatt Andaz Hotel, located right on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.

That’s right – the rooftop. Caroline and I (Esther) made a visit to the space and were absolutely floored – so to speak! The north view is of the Hollywood Hills and the south, The Sunset Strip in all its glory.

Not only that, Andaz will be providing food featuring their very own chef Sebastien Archambault, who hails from France by way of a short stint in Mexico. He procures the menu at the hotel restaurant, RH, with fine detail and is always revising and perfecting. Our blog-happy guests will enjoy a very special Summer Californian menu at Blogger Prom.

So be ready to enjoy nothing short of a posh, pool-side setting nestled in between some of the best views available in all of Los Angeles. Better wear your bathing suit underneath your cummerbund or sea-green ruffle dress.

Because bloggers are the new rockstars.

Andaz West Hollywood
8401 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, California
90069

323.656.1234

Cross-posted at The Official Blogger Prom Blog

But don’t be mistaken. It’s not that I’m sad you are already committed. If you weren’t, I would feel obligated to feel more for you than I am capable. Right now. It’s easier. I need easy right now.

I couldn’t lie though and say I wasn’t ever curious if you were single. How old you are. What your passion in life is. What your craft is.

Though I’ve never met her, I respect your girlfriend. The Code is more important than ever. The keeping or breaking of it is our contribution to or detraction from society. Never in the middle. Besides, if we’re a part of something greater than ourselves, this is The Way. If I am the end to everything in my words, my actions, we are all in trouble. I believe that.

This time is different. I’m not lost in transition and just looking to grab onto the nearest thing to attach myself to achieve a sort of false sense of stability or distraction. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone. I know it didn’t stop me before, but denial is so early-twenties. I’ve decided it’s about time to grow up. Besides, I’ve become an expert at distracting myself with myself. It allows me to live out the respect I have for others by not using and abusing them for my own, trivial fancies.

I’m telling you - I am here and I will relish this moment; I have arrived. I don’t need you (or you, or you) - but you’re welcome to contribute if I think you’re worthy. After all, only the most spectacular or stupid (self) can spoil this. I will enjoy this – I am enjoying this – and now I know I will never settle again. I won’t need to, because I will hate you for holding me back, for requiring me to expect less of you. Like I said – it wouldn’t be fair.

I’m different now. I’ve changed. Now, I can appreciate beauty without always wanting it for myself, without wanting to attach myself. There is an art to interacting from a distance. In what better city than L.A.? Before, maybe the problem was that I was made to think I had no beauty of my own. I have learned that when you start to be able to appreciate all kinds of beauty because you can grow it from within, you learn to just be in the moment and love that, learn from that.

I’m not jaded, just educated.

Jaded people don’t risk. They have rendered the verdict that cynicism has won out before true beauty has had its chance to shine. And that’s the shame – all evidence hasn’t been introduced and you’ve squelched whatever peace that has remained. The uncertainty? Sure, sometimes it’s painful, but the pain isn’t permanent without help from yourself. As with all things, you get what you put into it. The hard work, I’ve learned, is worth it.

I have been with cynics before. I used to think that I myself was a cynic; in reality, cynicism is a fall-back for anyone. It’s a cop-out. It clouds your judgment so that you can’t see clearly and won’t – even if beauty was right in front of your face for years. That is a waste. Cynicism is a mask for weakness. A decided lower rung on the ladder to hedge against a bigger fall.

You can’t reach the stars without climbing. You can’t climb without risking. Let it go. Risk the truth; liars are cowards.

I’m looking forward to this journey. Beautiful you (or you, or you) and I may meet up eventually. But I’m not waiting around. After all, I wouldn’t expect the same of you. I will only be earned.

In Myers-Briggs personality world, you’re either: A thinker, a feeler, or evenly split between the two. I’m officially classified as a thinker, but what the 4-letter diagnosis doesn’t touch is why and how I got to be one, nor because of some things and despite others. Of course, I think a succinct diagnosis is always a good thing. But it’s been a recent crazy exploration of the “F” side of me that has been largely untouched for the other 95% of my life.

Feelings are an unstable phenomenon. You just can’t count on them. Hell if they can earn you a living. But they sure can make you feel alive. And after awhile comes the real danger, when you break the dam of it all. You just might be thirsty to only be alive.

Feelings are unpredictible but they are truth. There is no process to test if feelings are rational or not – chances are, they’re not. There’s no way to contest that they’ve occurred and will occur in the future. But it’s a common phenomenon these days to think that feelings just get in the way of the ultimate goal of what we think we want. We might think we want (ok, or actually desire) “stability.” It’s as if sanitizing the path were the ultimate goal in achieving some sort of utilitarian utopia. So really – is that what we really want? To become machinists of comfort? Because it sure seems as though the actions we take are reflecting that way.

“What do you feel?”

To correct the patterns of the past, it’s a question that I’ve been becoming accustomed to – whether it’s asking myself, asking friends I’m having conversations with. There is no fear anymore that acknowledging feelings will yield crazy results in action, or that being honest about them will fail to impress the right people. I am flat-out sick of thinking I have to impress. In fact – and I’m not talking about pouring out sob stories to perfect strangers, here, but - the right people will accept you where you are in the right doses. I can do without everyone else. In the end, failure to acknowledge them now will definitely yield crazy, unpredictible results in the future from having boiled beneath the surface.

When you ignore your feelings, you become disconnected to your passions. Following your passions is a volatile path. Shouldn’t we strive to conquer that fear? As they say – being courageous isn’t being void of fear; it’s overcoming those fears that makes one courageous. Isn’t purely living, though, just worth it? And if we have any faith in anything, shouldn’t it be in the idea that things will be okay as long as we’re following our passions?

(Is money really your passion? Seriously? And how much money is enough and can you honestly say that that number won’t change in the future? What are you really chasing, here? What is keeping you from being happy or passionate now? Greed? And if it is – I’m fully supporting that you acknowledge that and come to terms with that, and also what lies behind that.)

Because comfort – if indeed that’s what we’re all striving for - yields complacency and I don’t really know that I want to give myself that sort of cushion. Too often is responsibility equated with not taking risks, or even being bound by the expectations of others or yourself. But as in economics, without risk there just is no reward. Examine where the so-called obligations came from – does it include saying No to your own wants and needs? I think that if we could simply just be in the business of fulfillment, we’d all be much more … well, fulfilled. And feelings are just as much a part of that as our think patterns.

So when I ask you, “How does that make you feel?” I can’t promise that I’m not being Therapy Worldly Facetious. But now you know that it’s coming from a conversation that’s deep inside and I do mean it seriously on at least some level. It’s because I’m officially an advocate of feeling and being alive.

So, an obligatory I’m-not-stalking-you-but-can’t-quite-stop-thinking-about-you couple days later, he saw about a second date by giving her a call. Her cell rang a couple times then went to voicemail. A week passed. No return phone call. Another message later, still no answer or call back.

He thought, “Odd.”

The dots just didn’t connect. He recollected the date and tried to think of what could have possibly gone wrong. They conversed well, he remembered. They were compatible, or so he thought. And she was real. She said so. In fact, she had said that she just really “didn’t like fakeness.” She was all about “being real.”

Hold. It.

Real, huh?

Surely, a girl person who was into “being real” could be up front, no? Truly, if a girl could say she was not about teh fake, she could tell a guy whether she was “just not into” him, right?

It’s interesting how, when we’re not honest with ourselves, we project the qualities of the person we want to be as if we actually exemplified them. It’s as if the more we say things, the more likely they’re coming from a point of view that we have authority over the issue – and thus the act of saying it, of lying about it – makes it true testimony.

In fact, there’s something we hide underneath that. Duly, we refuse to acknowledge and fear that others will find out about it. That would just make us too honest, too vulnerable; we can’t have that now.

I mean, we all like to pretend a little bit and escape into a place or person that we don’t often visit or manifest. It’s really just so tiring to take responsibility sometimes. Honestly, now. Do we really owe anybody any favors?

No, not really. All I have to say to that, though, is don’t be so surprised when it comes back around. No one else really owes you anything, either. Including thinking you’re not disingenuous when you talk, or believing everything that comes out of your mouth. Because eventually, we won’t be surprised when your actions don’t follow through on them. And hopefully, just for your own sake, you will give youself what you deserve - the truth. When you stop overcompensating you’ll be on your way towards being the person you wished you were. People can tell because you exude it, not because you say it.

Our instincts and our intuition will be all that much better for it, too.

Sometimes that includes writing about myself and sometimes the only component in a post is that it is my opinion coded in html. Then again – that’s a pretty big component – coming from me and all. And so, if I haven’t already, I present this to you: My personal blog. Completely scattered in subject matter and incomplete thoughts flying in, left and right.

The “quofda” is a good question (even a fundamental blogging question) and provides a good occasion to pause and examine my own place in the blogosphere. Why do I write here? And now I will proceed to prove myself wrong.

It’s interesting that I had never kept a journal until short of a year ago and even then I had already blogged at least intermittently for 3 years. If you think about it, there’s a lot more you can put in a journal; it’s not under public scrutiny. In fact, for me, it’s a place where I can enjoy my own handwriting – the construction of each unique letter form is a cathartic act of fleshing out my unique thoughts in their present place and time. A tactile experience, if you will.

And so, the act of writing only for myself by blogging is probably untrue and more fulfilled in keeping a journal. (Well, perhaps if I derived great joy from typing for some reason this would be another reason why I love to blog. I have capped out at 110 wpm before – so there might be the additional perk of expediency.)

So it follows, then, that I write for my readers – whoever they may be. Well, you, of course. Not just myself. And I do enjoy the comments each of you make, while putting out the hope that what I’ve written has provoked some thought not reflected in your feedback. And the little notoriety that comes my way as a result is – I can’t lie – a great perk. I am just conscientious 100% of the time to not make it the aim. But let’s face it – if I were to say I write for myself and damned be everyone else, that would be a flat-out lie.

Once upon a time while in grade through secondary school, I was especially weak in the area of reading comprehension. Because I’m Asian, I was good at math. I was also good at most subject areas like history, science and in writing. But when it came to reading comprehension, I was weak. It came up in the diagnostics and standardized tests. There was a incongruency in this because this meant that I could make the output (writing) and quite beautifully in fact, but not process the input (reading).

It became an epiphany recently that this weakness was a result of my environment. I disassociated myself from a lot of the world around me in order to “deal” with the hurt feelings that I wished not to feel anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, here. I’m not looking to place blame, only to understand that which I came from so that I can address it, get even better and move on. This condition with which I was accustomed to was a very closed-off, fearful, protective place.

Once I came to a place where it felt safe to open up, I was able to process that input and I could effectively work on that weakness. In turn, it enabled me to become that much more skilled at writing (the output) because I was able to come to terms and embrace everything that was going on inside, not be afraid, ashamed of or closed off to it. To really embrace the person I was created to be. For that I am eternally grateful.

And it is not only for me but for so many others whom I write for. Everyone whom it is enjoyable to interact with as it is entirely a 2-way street. I feel as though I’m interacting with all who may enjoy my writing at least once in a blue moon even though I may not know it because somehow I still feel that our thoughts are connecting – I love being open to that. I work on my comprehension (the input) by reading some of my favorite blogs and I can appreciate all the ideas floating around the infamous blogosphere. That openness was not always there because I was made to feel afraid of it so now I can truly appreciate it because I’ve worked so hard for this.

The fulfillment of myself is the meaningful relationships with others. So if you have a blog, I invite you to link yourself below. I may or may not put you in my blogroll but please know that I wish that you may write for me … because I certainly write for you. And I’m honored you came here.

There is probably no disclaimer I hate more. How about, “Don’t take this the wrong way but you have inarticulate communication skills?” Or, “Don’t take this the wrong way but using that phrase is indicative of your projecting passive-aggressive behavior onto me?” If you’re trying to absolve yourself of any responsibility that’s attached to anything that comes out of your mouth thereafter, try a more discreet way of doing so.

Or here’s an idea – how about giving the other the benefit of the doubt with a chance to respond?

It’s as if the recipient were to take offense to that which the speaker is disclaiming, then he or she is doomed from the start. It was clearly “taken the wrong way” since the speaker has called it. Now if he were to care less, it doesn’t matter because the verdict was already passed – the speaker has already judged that the other has been “too sensitive” as a pattern and most likely to “take it the wrong way” and so he’s already been judged as defensive. It’s a lose-lose situation. It’s meant to make one win and the other lose.

I’m not saying that everyone should be a most articulate linguistic improvisor all the time. But I think it is a simple thing to ask to try not heaping all of the emotional baggage or responsibility onto the other person. How about other disclaimers like, “I’m not sure how to put this but…?” Or, “I don’t know if this is going to come out the right way but…?”

And then other times, I think the most asinine personalities actually use this phrase willingly and knowingly in hostile manners. Well, perhaps subconsciously, but asinine all-the-same. The phrase makes the responsibility 100% belonging to the other person and 0% to his- or herself. It makes a loophole for the speaker to redact on what he or she actually meant without taking responsibility for hurtful words – because hey, the other person took it the wrong way.

Own up, people. Your words are hurtful and if you don’t take responsibility for them – and be the person behind them – then you’re not just projecting your unreleased anger, you’re also a coward. An apology for hurtful words doesn’t make you any less worthy, it makes you more credible for the words you say. Because a sincere apology isn’t just words – it’s action behind those words. And we all know actions speak louder than words. Own them both.

I will give you that to not have expectations means you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t have goals to meet – nor intervals of time with which to meet that which you haven’t set – it means you haven’t failed. Not having goals is a win-win situation, really.

Or lose-lose. Depends on who you ask.

Clearly, I’m not goal-oriented. That is not to say that I lack ambition. I think the intention behind the action is more important. Progress is a process. So while it’s good to have goals, it’s good to have expectations with which we fulfill by our daily activities – what is it about this time of year that we have to lay out what they are just before we perform a little kindergarten math and add 1? If each goal or benchmark is unique, isn’t its timing as well?

It’d be ignorant to pretend that things didn’t happen in cycles. I have respect for the seasons, the months - yes, even the numbers – if only because I realize I would be completely erratic without the cycles that take place outside of me, thus centering me somewhat. And it’s these revolutions which make us reflect upon where we were 1, 2 or 20 cycles ago.

I also respect the process of goals, but with the way I’m wired, I think of goals more as the extension of our priorities. I know that personally, in 2007, my priorities have changed immensely and so much for the better. The goals, as they existed for the year, were just semantics and became irrelevant once the priorities changed. Goals are static and inflexible. Too often are there forks and curves in the road where it is the best thing to do a bit of reassessment.

Clearly, I am not of the structured type but of the unstructured. I am not good with follow-through. And so flow the alignment of my priorities – which I am continually figuring out. If they’re not changing by a landslide, they’re being constantly manipulated and tweaked. So in the end, the goals I set will remain in the niche areas of life, also general if not outright vague. Let’s take a look:

• Become more financially secure,
• Work hard, play hard,
• Be a good mommy to Rufus,
• Continue growing spiritually,
• Find my passion(s)

There’s nothing specific about these goals to 2008. And as is so apparent, I am incompetent in the area of details. Goals are good when they’re specific (so you can figure out if you’ve met them), so it follows that I’m essentially horrible in goal-setting. I give up – my brain works with concepts and ideas, not blueprints. Quite frankly, I’m too lazy to come up with goals that are meaningful. Priorities are exactly that, inherently.

This is my ode to a progressive 2008. Lord, grant me the ambition wheretoforth the meaning of that may be. I am improvisational. I am always listening, and I am always open.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Maybe, just maybe, we could classify blogs in this manner. Even blog traffic and the aggregation towards the subjects that reflect the lowest common denominator.

People

Not to say that I haven’t had my qualms with celebrities in past posts. And not to say that I don’t do my share of guilty gossip reading (The Superficial and Go Fug Yourself) from time to time. So yeah. Maybe I should just shut up.

But I swear there’s a larger issue in here somewhere. Something like my peeve with needing to speak for or about other people in a manner which makes the judger seem able to qualify the worth of another. Yeah, celebrities included–even if they are easier targets because they put themselves out there. I cannot stand this and it amazes me to no end how some do not see how blatantly they do not really know a person yet are so quick to think their own insight is so special. That they themselves are such perceptive people to definitively be worth more than those they’ve judged and–quite honestly–are envious of.

Naturally, we fear what is unknown and rely on what little we do know, or think we know. Nobody can qualify entire ideas–or maybe it’s just too much work–definitively and so we deduce things about and blame those who personify our fears. As you have probably read, 1,000 Sudanese protesters actually call for this British teacher to be executed for letting her 7-year-old students name a teddy bear “Mohammed.” Fear and hate is surely alive and well in this world–and it has to be displaced somewhere.

For comparison’s sake, talking about others allow us to elevate ourselves, because too often aren’t we the ones who are front and center? It’s ironic that in reality we are damaging our own character as we do so.

Events

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call journalists “average.” It’s their way of living and their chosen craft. Contrary to what many think, I don’t believe a career defines us–though it certainly is a big part of who we are. The best example I can think of references what Edrei of Kamigoroshi.net calls “noodle posts” amongst bloggers.

FYI, this is what I did Wednesday:

1. Walked to work,

2. Worked my 9-5,

3. Walked home,

4. Got my in car,

5. Went to PetCo,

6. When I bent down to squat while looking at teething cat toys, my work pants split right in the crotch,

7. Went home thanking god I was wearing my longer-than-my-butt coat.

Seriously. C’mon, you have to admit it was worth reading 1-5 to get to Number 6.

You get the idea. And at my own admission, I used to be an event blogger on a network called Xanga once upon a time. I blogged practically every day. And as Kamigoroshi says in his post, there was no freedom. No incentive to write only kick-arse content–just as long as it was better than most. I was a slave to my own traffic and comment count to get on “Featured Content”–which topped at 1,000 and 50+ per day on the high end, respectively. (Lack of freedom as far as URL, network peers–some-of-which-were-good-you-know-who-you-are, design customization, ads and feeds is an entirely other issue.) What did these Xanga posts consist of? Stuff like the 1-7 you see above with 1 little quirky psychological twist compliments of my conscience.

Ideas

So it follows that this is where I try to maintain the essence of this blog. There’s simply more risk involved when it comes to ideas. People get emotional and heated–which is why it’s often said to not discuss religion or politics. But there is so much more freedom in developing and expressing ideas. It is the fulfillment of our humanity to exchange ideas in our interaction or even further, make ideas come to fruition. With more risk comes more potential for reward.

Of course, there are so many instances in which the three cannot (and should not) be separated, which makes the quote first mentioned a bit oversimplified. But a lot of it is discussing what we don’t necessarily know, probably will never know and being okay with that–at the demise of those who need to decide. Just the process of discussing it and moving towards an end unforeseen is the human condition. Ideas are also the enemy of the most oppressive governments known in history.

Someone close to me genetically yet so afar once asked me, “So why do you blog then? Why don’t you just shut it down?”

Because I wouldn’t be free to be me. *e.

“Naw. I think it’s like, the crazier they are, the more guys are driven crazy or nuts. So, they just think that they love ‘em more.”

I understood. “Ohhh… So like, it’s kind of a ‘hurts so much’ -type thing where the emotion is so strong, even though it’s a bad emotion, the drama makes them feel alive and intense or something. And it feels like love for some reason.”

“Yeah.”

“Got it.”

Let me do the honors:

• “You’re better than this.”
• “You don’t have to live like this.”
• “He/she doesn’t deserve/appreciate you.”

Anything else?

I admit I was probably a crazy girl, once. Crazy in that angry kind of way. I waited for people to fail me, whether I trusted them prematurely or not. But sometimes you just gotta look at yourself and see if your perspective was right in the first place–if you’re making too many excuses for any one person, including yourself. Generally speaking, extraverts operate by deriving their energy from other people. I’d learn eventually. Trial and error, really.

Unless you pretend to be better than everyone else all the time.

While I was still sorting stuff out, I gained a quality of reclusiveness while becoming desperate for more connections. (Don’t ask if that’s even possible.) It’s a dichotomy of sorts. There are different behaviors associated with both–that is, devolving into the black hole you’ve created for myself, while other times passing on the bitterness and projecting your anger and fears onto others. With other people, you might even become too forgiving just to have the companionship of, yes, crazy people. It’s a way of dealing with the pain of being yourself or something. (Cue the addiction post.)

Where is the point where it all becomes too unbearable–making us determined it’s time to change things for good? When is the crazyness a charade to deal with things and where is the point where it becomes who we are? Some of us just need a sort of intense emotion fix. Drama for your mama.

Just calm down. Please. Be nice to people. Be nice to my friends.

Besides, that stuff so early-twenties.

*e

And despite the fact that I try to remain conscientious about this and do my best to love, the best to respect the other person’s situation, I still think sometimes that my side of the story is plain and simple: This other guy’s a cocky bastard.

It’s just easy to pass it off as that. As if that summary were enough to explain things.

Sure, I’m not saying that I don’t have my share of issues. After all I’m human. I’m not perfect–though once upon a time I thought the goal in life was to appear as if I were.

But “at least” I’m not cocky. I don’t know how cocky became this entirely fatalistic character trait, but I’m gonna give it a whirl anyway. To necessarily be full of oneself. To frustrate at first interaction because now you know that all the other guy is interested in is himself. Like how they say, “Well you know, gotta look out for #1.”

No, I don’t really agree with that. It’s a blanket excuse for acting like a jackass. Disowning the consequences of action you’ve taken so you can relinquish the responsibility of the outcome. And then there’s the question of being wise with one’s resources and not disseminating influence or energy to others who horde it only to themselves.

There are a few behaviors that are certainly off-putting. I’ve been learning a lot about them lately. (Yeah, psychotherapy tends to do that.)  Especially about abandonment and invalidation. And to me, it’s like someone’s turned the light on on noting human interaction. In short, there are signs that flag types of people who just hog all the energy in the room or from select people. Also, individuals who add to that energy–and others who kill it. Depending on the situation, roles may be changed or even reversed.

It feels like it’s an intrusion of personal space, of personal worth and value–when others hog our energy. But the truth of the matter is that we all do it. I definitely do it, and sometimes I realize that I’m doing it as it’s happening. Sometimes, we get duped into thinking that the only energy available is from other people.

But we can all work with consciousness and intention towards being the people we want to be. Potential is such an awesome thing, as is our place in the world and how we work to channel a greater energy that’s bigger than us.

In the end, we’re just broken people who have been bent out of shape by our interaction with other broken people. But we all have the power to move towards something better. We can let go. We can choose to not receive (or subject ourselves to) that which makes us feel less whole. And we can also help others to realize that too.

It’s interesting that sometimes we note that “cocky” people may simply be compensating for something that’s incomplete inside. Before, it would be so easy to just pass them off as not worth the time…until I remember that I really just have no idea. 

Love,
*e