Suddenly with the onset of anxiety (an upcoming presentation, a person you’re potentially meeting, the dread of being blamed, the worry that you lost something)…

it is consuming.

It takes over every single through. You can’t cook, you can’t eat, you can’t sleep. The worry settles deep inside your stomach. It settles all through the muscles, cursing down your veins and then circulating back to your head through the life-saving arteries. Your eyes are bulging.

Then perhaps perhaps…something, someone helps you overcome it. Perhaps it’s a movie. Perhaps it’s a drink. Most likely, it’s an activity. You pause the anxiety for a moment. And for a moment, it doesn’t exist. Because your attention is elsewhere.

When the moment returns, it’s back. But perhaps it better now. You have better cognitive dissonance…and the anxiety hopefully fades away.

But by now, the anxiety is so consuming that it exhausts you. And you fall into a fitful sleep because you no more energy left to think about the anxiety. Perhaps the best sleep? Maybe only if in your mind, you stumble upon a solution in your dreams.

Good question.

The original impetus for the question?

This video:

This picture:

And because the Street Food Scavenger Hunt is beginning again!

Reasons why I must subject myself to this:

1. As much as an introvert that I am, I love performing.
Remember that online personality test (the website that was before okcupid…thespark?), against all odds, I consistently tested as a performer. Granted, it’s not my immediate personality. But I have this deep-seated harbored desire to…perform. When I took improv classes in 2007, I loved it. Although there’s definitely a side of me that hates being the center of attention, there’s this side that craves it, lusts after it…and will do anything for it. If it’s to entertain people or to make people think differently.

2. I have this insatiable desire to create
Once I was old enough to figure out the video camera, I latched upon it. I was the one in the family who came up with random ideas for film. Writing scripts. Doing a rendition of Alanis Morisette’s Ironic (I should find that VHS and digitize it…and get it on YouTube!) Stories. I have pent-up creativity that nowadays only manifests in short bursts like on this blog, cooking…and things like this. For now at least, this can be my creative outlet.

3. I want to make sure that I can look back on my life and say…I did something
Sure…I want to be known for something. That crazy San Franciscan who did multiple scavenger hunts in one year. But it’s not that. I often look back at my college years in stark amazement…that I did almost nothing beyond Rescomp, getting a bachelors and starting a blogging club. Granted, I am sure tons of other people feel the same way. My many regrets in life right now are the things that I did not do in college—study abroad, join more clubs, explore my interests in organizations, seek out support, take extra classes. Instead, many hours were wasted away…thinking about how I couldn’t do them. No, my years in SF are to be something great. Right now.

Well at least for now…

There’s always this worry about the other side. What if Chinese radio starts talking about how incest and animal coupling can happen? What if there is more propaganda about same-sex parents with bad parenting? What if the line can’t be held?

Unlike the rest of twitterverse…and other social media, I was unaware that today was the important day for Proposition 8, passed in California in 2008. But when the proposition was struck down, I immediately heard about it.

And cheers all around! I was intrigued with the one line in the NYTimes The Kids Are All Right movie review: [It] starts from the premise that gay marriage, an issue of ideological contention and cultural strife, is also an established social fact.

When will it be?

And yet, I am always still embarrassed about my first encounter with LGBT. Like many people…in the 80s and 90s…and even my parents, the idea of LGBT didn’t really exist. It wasn’t at the top of mind. I had very few friends in high school, but there was one that I trusted a lot. She was smart, quick, funny. She was awkward as me, but wasn’t as fearful and anxious. One day, she appeared in history class with her head shaved. I asked why and she told me that it was because she was gay. Not prepared for the revelation and surprised, I laughed instead. And for the rest of the period, whenever she looked back at me…I started laughing.

I know that there are some members in my family that don’t understand. Yet. In college, my parents were very reluctant when I had declared that I wanted to live with a male roommate. When I told them that my male roommate would be gay…they paused…and paused…I think…that’s ok?

When I used to have a 24-minute daily commute, I took it for granted. Now I labor over my long commute, the excuse for not doing the following. And yet is it a justified excuse?

What else am I missing?

In elementary, middle, high school…I got horrible grades for…participation. C would usually be the score, because how could teachers fail me in that if I did well in everything else?

You can’t annoy people by saying nothing at all.

For so many years, I thought it was a nurture thing. If my parents had encouraged me…if I wasn’t so rejected…but then I met Chris.

Surely, an Asian parent can’t encourage a kid to be extroverted, talkative…and all-around obnoxious, right?

In grade school, he did well in every subject. He was the Hermione Granger. The one who would shoot his hand up in class and wave wildly, “Pick me! I know the answer!!!” Because he often did. But at the same time, it was also analogous to a comment on one-too-many report cards: “Talks excessively”.

Not only that, he liked talking to everyone. Can you imagine being on an airplane where two 8-year-old kids kept talking and talking…when later you find out that they didn’t even know each other before boarding the plane…and they sat together because their parents wanted to sit in first class…and that one of the kids was the biggest talker of all?

So then the argument must suggest that it is nature.

Of course, due to nurture or in our own case…perhaps our understanding of environment and what society expects of us, Chris became quieter and reserved…while I found ways to express myself if not loudly.

But yet talking to some…is a sign of courageousness, bravery. It’s expression. It also means that it is a sign of self-confidence.

During my last year in college, I had been going through some rough times. But then I had a revelation one day…what if I told people what I really was feeling? Granted, there were a few times that it backfired, but…in all…it suddenly really did make me feel better by talking excessively.

I have practiced it all my life
Looking down, looking away
Allergies, would be the instant excuse
I am focusing on the screen
Focused, so truly focused
But eye contact is a definite no
Because they will find out
A natural touch of the face
A hidden swipe
Breathing slowly
This is how I hide it
But I was discovered

I am a non-acceptor.

When someone complains about their work, but then they spend more than 10 years doing the same thing…and eventually say, “I am comfortable here”.

It is the kind of thing that mows my brain into mush, the kind of thing that a deep scream wants to violently tear through the room…it’s that kind of thing.

But if that someone doesn’t know what to do…then that’s a different kind of thing.

Most people—in general in my observations—don’t have a clearly defined idea of what they want to do. It’s usually aligned with a I want to make money so that I can be like everyone else.

Unfortunately, when I was 8 or so, I had decided that I wanted to create. Create big things…create ideas…create masterpieces…and create things that could change people…to make people say “Wow, I never had thought of it that way before.”

Of course, along the way, I found that I had a natural talent for analytical subjects—math, science…development. I was good at project management…and had this slightly organizational side (digitally, fyi). And so that smothered some of that creative yearning.

I wonder if everyone is born with natural motivation, goals in mind. It doesn’t seem like most people are both with it. After all, if that’s the case, then we wouldn’t have so many bus drivers, so many cashiers, so many accountants. Or are there people who really dream of being a cleaning lady?

There was once a friend said that careerwise, she just wanted to do something easy. It was appalling to me. But I have Western middle-class ideals completely entrenched in higher education and yuppie-ness—aim higher. Add oil!

Facebook made me remove “stalking” as an interest. Or rather, I was becoming aware that friends who didn’t know me…might take that the the wrong way. So I stuck to writing, watching movies, eating as primary interests.

There’s something incredibly compelling about Foursquare, Gowalla and all those other location-based applications.

Back in 2003…or even 2002, I was wary of such things. While at Berkeley, I did research in location-based mobile applications in Friend Friend to Coupon Pusher…I didn’t get it then. But I get it now.

Where the reason why people engage with technologies…it’s more of a broadcast, it’s enlarging the “hey look at me” shout, it’s becoming part of something bigger.

And it allows stalking.

But what’s wrong about stalking? Surely, this story about a woman “stalked” by a man through a phone…isn’t the creepy part? I thought technology is supposed to allow us to get over hurdles, perhaps commit a few social faux pas, but ultimately it’s supposed to allow us to connect better.

Who was that person who said How can you be friends with someone who you never met?

Oh right, that was one of my friends in college.

In 2005, I would read the bios on a department pages at school. Then at a party, I would walk up to someone I recognized…perhaps commit a faux pas in reciting what I read…but then we would talk. It led to two successful friendships.

In the past year when I started using those location-based services…I have yet to use it to connect with people. There was one time when I saw a user’s tip on Foursquare…and thought that it was incredibly insightful…that I went up to the person and thanked them for sharing. I received only a blank stare…not even a smile.

What’s wrong with the sudden jump from the digital world?

Some may point to my request to meet people who tried to add me on Yelp or Facebook…so that I can verify that they are friends. I am still friends with one of them. Many of them were offended that I refused to be friends with them on social networks unless I had determined that they were of friend-able nature in person.

My point is…why can’t we allow those social networks, this technology help us climb over the barrier that is built? Why can’t we make it easier to talk to each other? At least so that I don’t have to suffer here…in this self-built social anxiety.

I have always loved technology. Not because of its abilities, but the differences it could make. Like almost everyone of my generation, technology was a means to an end. To make communication easier. To make creation quickly. To be closer with everyone.

When Friendster came out, I was immediately on it. The same with Orkut…and many others. Same with Facebook…and all these others. In college, I was slowly saving for gadgets. First…web cams, digital cameras…mp3 players…it was fascinated.

But when the iPhone came out, I back-pedaled. Perhaps it was the fact that everyone wanted one. I have a history of trying to be different. Then one year passed, I still had a Nokia. Another year passed…and another…I upgraded my phone to a Blackberry Pearl. Without a real sufficient data plan. And yet…I still refused to get a full smartphone.

I was suddenly that minority. I do borrow smart phones frequently from work. But there’s something absurd about it all that causes my own reluctance.

Like Hayao Miyazaki of Spirited Away and My Neighbor, Totoro fame, there’s something incredibly isolating about those personal devices. I admit that I am dampened by my ever-present social anxiety in public places…but I do want to have the ability to talk to people without feeling like I am interrupting their concentration on a small device. But there’s more.

What happened to arriving on time to places? Yesterday was the first time in a long time that I had arrived on time without calling or emailing the day of. In fact, the time had been set five days prior without a single reminder. Was that ok? Of course it was.

What happened to serendipity? I know that I am cursed with wanting to research all places? Sure there are apps on phones that can surprise you in suggesting a nearby place that you may be interested in viewing…but it’s often too incorrect. What if we could browse, walk, look…allow ourselves to be pleased with an unexpected enjoyable surprise? What if we looked at buildings, people…instead of checking the digital map in making sure that we’re going the right way?

What happened? I miss phone calls.

At least now I feel closer to people that I cannot see regularly.