My designer sensibility halted me in my tracks. I have always wanted to start a food blog—more to document all the food adventures I have both in the kitchen and traveling. Yes, I did the 31 flavors project, but once I completed it, I was…just confused as where to go from there. And then I thought about a food blog. But I instantly became stuck. What is it really about? How is it different from other food blogs? What’s so special about me that a food blog would make it so worth for someone to read? What do I have to offer others?

Or is it just some self-indulgent work?

It can’t just be a cooking blog. It can’t just be a food travel blog. It can’t be a foodie who happens to be Asian American and loves cooking frugally. It can’t just be a “food life in San Francisco”, because that’s what all bloggers do in San Francisco.

Otherwise, it simply ends up like this blog with a mix of thoughts.

Sometimes I wish that I would blindly dive into projects, but that isn’t me. I need to think about everything holistically, plan for any barriers and challenges, and hypothesize a possible resolution.

Last year, when I was heavily promoting my Kickstarter, I attended several food blogger events. Nearly all the attendees had a food blog. But they struggled with a focus. There are mommy bloggers. There are vegan bloggers. There are former chefs and bakers. But as we all know, there’s only a few that can be successful.

Then again, all of this just got stirred up, because I love the blog from David Lebovitz.

You feel complete and satisfied.

You don’t need control. You don’t need power. In fact, power seems silly. Because by being a master, you have already achieved greatness through merit. You have reached this level through diligence and dedication. You know that you are a master.

Once a long time ago, insecurity and doubt consumed you. You had no idea what you were doing. You just knew that this is where you wanted to be. You may have spent hours cowering in the dark corners, shameful of your failures and disasters. The challenges knocked the breath out of you. The climb exhausted every inch of you, but you kept trying even if someone tripped you or an obstacle stood in your way. Tears may have streaked down your cheeks. Your muscles ached so. Your heart breaks, but the following day, the sun rises again and you keep hoping. You may have laid face-down in bed, pounding and wondering why do I do this to myself?

And now, you really have. Others see you in awe. People want you as a mentor. People seek your wisdom and knowledge. They are awestruck by your words. They want the secrets to your mastery.

And you tell them only this: Because I kept trying and I never stopped…

I was enchanted. What can I say?

Almost twenty years ago, I discovered the Internet. Or more specifically, chat rooms. I used to say this as a bio, “If the Internet was not invented, I would not be here.” I meant it truly. Because without it, I would have never developed a voice. I would not have developed an identity and a self-expression that allowed me to be heard. With words…this medium allowed me to speak. Chat rooms paired with my incredible speed of typing allowed the volume of my voice to be heard with everyone else. Loud, quiet, male, female. I could be anyone. And it was so empowering.

But this is not to say that I delved into fake identities and embraced anonymity. I reveled in being me. But now in this medium, I was heard. I was the first one who I knew…who embraced the idea of online friends, online relationships. It was just natural for me.

And yet.

Just recently, I discovered the new medium on the iOS app on Secret. The familiar feelings came rushing back. I have always disliked the image-focused element that dominates the web. Facebook, instagram…and nearly everything else. Twitter barely satisfies that void when my voice is drowned out by everyone else whose reputation supersedes mine.

Suddenly, with Secret, the words I say are equalized in my network. I am as loud as the person next to me. People will pay attention and will pay more attention if they like it. It’s the words itself after all.

Like this secret.

Yet, what’s so alluring is also dangerous. Anonymity allows us to quickly pass judgement. It asks us to judge as we would of a dangerous persona. It prompts us to protect ourselves. It allows our own fears to bubble up without any consideration. And that’s what doesn’t work.

Yesterday as I sat in Samovar (patiently) waiting for a friend to arrive, I listened to the conversations around me. As a tea lounge located squarely in downtown San Francisco, the environment invites…a certain group. There was an Asian couple in the corner, giggling over something a guy was showing on a screen. There was a pair of women, obviously relaxing from a shopping spree around Union Square. Then next to me, parents who was meeting their daughter and a visiting boyfriend. And on my right, a couple…seemingly on their first date.

It’s a place of conversation. With an extensive tea menu, the drinks encourage long, wandering conversations, not burdened by alcohol. No sticky tables, no drunken outbursts, no squeezing by fellow singles here. It’s just the truth. Bare honest truth.

And sitting alone, I somehow was almost bothered. The snippets of conversations that traveled to my ear were very light. Very false. A topic of someone’s company that was acquired. The worry, the general concern that work was going to get tough. The small talk conversation of the parents about what an interesting city San Francisco is. And a woman who seemed to just nod in sync with her date, agreeing with every word. I could sense her intention for the night: I want to give a good impression. Let me be the best that I could.

And my friend re-centered me. Everyone is afraid of breaking their reputation and smearing their self. We don’t want to be seen as a bad person, so we spend energy and effort pretending to be someone amazing, someone awesome, someone strong. We hide our weaknesses in our attitude. Then one day, the charade is done. Our curtain breaks down with a disappointment, a rejection. Sometimes we explode. But really most of the time, we just build it up even more…keep pretending and pretending to be someone we’re not.

What if as the worlds poured out from your fingertips, you couldn’t see what you just put down. Would that change the way you write? Would you rehearse the words over and over again in your head? Would the writing be more clear?

Is it almost like…speech? Where once a word is said, then it is gone. No takebacks. No deletions. No revisions.

I write this as my vision is blurred from dilation from an eye exam. I would have rather opted out, but I wasn’t given an option. And for the next several hours (and hopefully less), I cannot see (clearly) anything close-up. I need to squint to read reads, especially those on screens. But it occurred to me, would it make a difference in writing if I couldn’t see? If I couldn’t mercilessly return over and over again to my work? Would I be less critical? Much like the time that my broke my right hand and had to literally write my left hand (during that semester, my handwriting was horrible and I could never read it). Would I get a free pass?

Certainly not due to the high standards I hold myself up to. But I keep asking myself over and over again. Would I behave differently? Would I question myself if the words never had to go in front of my prying eyes? That the writing that flows out, just simply flows…and it waits until the sun has passed where I can visibly view again for critique?

Emotions are true. Tell them. Stop holding them back. Tell the truth. And ignore everyone who says “you should…”

There is courage in exposing vulnerability.

Like a puppy, it’s exposing the belly. This is where you can easily hurt me deeply, but this is also where you can show me deep affection.

In high school, in a moment of teenage angst, I handwrote a multiple page retort to a friend’s belief. “Here, this is what I think!” I exclaimed in a flash of excitement.

I wouldn’t say that was the proudest moment. I wanted to prove something. At that time, I wanted to prove that I was right and that other opinions don’t matter. And I did it in the harshest way possible through intense scrutiny and argument.

I know better now. And when I see something or hear something that I vehemently disagree with, I hold back my tongue. Because people don’t change their mind overnight. Because in social situations, it’s just a showcase of who can speak better and who is quick to think on their feet. It’s unfair.

But I can’t stand to see a friend say something so….off course, so bullying, so judgemental, especially on the Internet where rumors swirl out of control. I had to respond. And I can sense that teenager inside me rearing up in battle and unleashing the deafening roar.

But then it stops. With wisdom, a drop of guilt circles my heart. Because isn’t better to say nothing than something?

At the moment that the kid fell from the lift, I was thinking about how I could get around the seemingly two expert skiers to me. They were going to go straight while I wanted to wiggle my way right in my awkward skier skills.

But at that moment, the lifts had stopped. I had guessed that the kids from the ski school had fallen when exiting so the instructor was helping them up. The three remaining kids were waiting in the next lift to exit. I was right behind them, pushed to another chair by staff.

And then the kid fell screaming from the lift. Poles and skis and all. For at least 10 feet. His face hit the snow below first. He cried in pain and blood poured from his mouth onto the snow.

Two other kids left in the chair remained, awkward like a hat misplaced on a chair.

Shock gripped me, and this is the part that I feel guilty about. Because I did wonder if the staff noticed, the staff that at the booth controlling the lift and the first aid guy lurking nearby. I was silent for a moment. Then the two guys sitting next to me started yelling, “Hey hey! A kid fell!” Someone immediately ran down from the booth down the slope the kid. From above 10 feet, I heard the word “parents” and “pain”. Then the voices grew quieter.

Moments later, the lift started moving again. And I got off the lift. The guys skied away. And I saw the kids in the chair crying from the incident. But you see, I didn’t have the tools or anything to help. And so I changed my intended path while I watched from a distance as a crowd started forming around the fallen kid.

Whether it’s a bad habit or good habit, I always think in design, I can come back to this later.

I have a belief in iteration. Even more so, I believe that nothing can be perfect the first time, the second time, the third time. I also believe that every product has the ability to change and adapt.

But not writing. I desperately want to submit, but every time I look at something that I write, I keep changing the words around and around. Rarely is there a piece that I find so utterly perfect. For that to happen, the words somehow rush out of me and when I return to look at that piece, I think…there’s no way that I can create like that. Again.

Then I start this path where I think that the first draft (with a few tweaks) is perfect. But then I sit down to mold and shape it more until it becomes a sad lumpy mess and I want to be that writer that has a trash bin with overflowing crumpled pieces of paper.

When is enough, just enough? I went through at least 100 entries of this blog looking for something to submit and found myself tearing the pieces apart until the meaning, the goal of the piece became nothing to me.

There was a researcher that shared her insights from writing a how-to book. Every single time, someone asked, “What was the hardest thing in the book?”

She would describe the endless nights of writing. How she gained respect for writers. And she would always end with, “I can never go back. It’s done. Stuck in the book forever.”

For the last seven years that I have lived in the same apartment, I always heard noises from outside my window. It sounded like muffled cries. Of pleasure? Of anger? Of simple communication? Birds, orgasms, neighbors, puppies?

Yet whenever I went to my window, I saw nothing. My building is awkward. My window faces opens to the a small unused space. To the right, the bathroom window. In the front facing me is the unwindowed wall of the kitchen. When I moved into the apartment, my roommate then made double my salary, and it seemed fair that I took the smaller room with a window that looked out to nothing.

When opportunities rose to move to the larger room with bay windows overlooking of Twin Peaks, I still did not move.

I felt satisfied to be in my room with awkward closets and the window with no view. But the sounds that echoed up to my desk, which I had always faced the window…it puzzled me for no end. Why would my neighbors have sex in the middle of the day? And I could never find the source of the sounds, peering as much as I could into the space.

But then today, as I sat at my desk, another day to feverishly write and letting words pour out of my fingertips, I finally saw the source. A pigeon. A fat one reminding me of the childhood cartoon from the early nineties. I finally saw the flap of its wings, the flutter of the feathers and the coo that echoes in this empty unused space.

As I was struggling to come up with a compelling arc for a short story, it gave me a look. A look that said, “You silly girl, all you have to do is sit at your desk every day and work hard. If you had sat here every day, you would have noticed me all along.”