Dear reader,
How are you?
I didn’t write last week because my heart wasn’t in it.
Spreading awareness of hate crimes against Asian Americans has consumed a lot of my energy.
The last few weeks have felt like a repeat of what I and many experienced last year at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement — intense internal examination, waves of outrage and grief, and an unsatisfied question: “How do we stop this?”
Tonight’s post won’t be about this latest expression of hate in America. But I wanted to share what I’ve been going through because if there has been one universal good to come out of this pandemic, it’s that sharing vulnerability is no longer a shame-inducing act. Instead, it has the power to unify and to inspire action and aid.*
On to tonight’s post.
Sometime last year, as I walked by the dog park that’s a few blocks from my apartment, I was struck by how many people were there, how strange it was that as humans, we can choose how to fill the time we have on earth, and here were so many people who chose to spend some of that time in the same way.
Before the pandemic, when there was freedom of movement, filling time wasn’t the question. The question, generally for the privileged, was how do I get ahead, or make tomorrow better than it was today and what things do I have to do to answer that question. Time then filled accordingly.
Now, as options have become more limited — career opportunities derailed, dating fields upended, vacation plans postponed — taking a dog to a dog park feels like a weighty act.
For context, I’ve never had a pet. I often want one when I see funny dog videos or cute puppies in real life. But when I watch and think about people taking their dogs to an enclosed, designated area of play, it elicits a feeling of absurdity similar to the one I feel when I’m on a ski lift: I’m sitting here to go up a hill just to go down the hill just to ride this thing up again?
Nihilism is new territory for me. And it’s not what this post is about either. I’m writing about the dog park incident because it made realize that I’m fascinated by how people choose to spend their time. And work fills huge chunks of time.
To choose to work at something, to choose to work somewhere — these are conscious commitments and the result of decisions made under various sets of circumstances.
The luckiest of lucky have circumstances that set them up to be able to choose whatever they want to do in life. The rest have to play Tetris with the pieces they’ve been able to gather or were available.
How does someone decide what they want to do with their time? How does that change when faced with an uncertain future? Exploring those questions is how I want to spend my time with this project. And I hope you’ve been enjoying the discoveries.
I’ll be back next week with Amanda’s story. And if you have a story you want to share, please send me an email. I’d love to spend some time with you.
Until then, take care of yourself and others if you can,
Hope
*To learn more about the racist acts against Asian Americans, to report an incident, and to support local groups, please check out https://stopaapihate.org.