Good Energy Addendum

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Last week, I published a blog post entitled, ”Good Energy” on Faster Than 20. I try to reconcile what’s going on in this country with what I’ve been doing professionally the past few years. I tie it all together by describing my volunteer work doing habitat restoration at Skyline Gardens in the Berkeley hills.

It’s long and very personal. I thought about posting it here instead, but it felt important to share on my work website. My work is ultimately about social impact, and I want my professional community to know what I’m thinking about, what I’m doing about it, and why.

It’s my first post there since 2021, a record gap. Traditionally, my blog has been a place where I think out loud. Over the past four years, I continued to reflect in my private journal, but for a variety of reasons, I didn’t feel like being “public.” Some of it was feeling like the world is too noisy right now and wanting to shut out that noise so that I could stew in my own thoughts. Some of it was feeling like the Internet is not a safe place right now. Most of it was just not having the energy to write coherently.

When I started this essay, I felt like I had forgotten how to write. Writing has always been a tortuous experience for me, full of dread and self-loathing. I always felt like I had the muscles to do the work, it just was that the task was heavy and hard. This time around, I felt like I didn’t have the muscles. It was an interesting process trying to rebuild these at the same time as I was trying to use them.

The piece is called, “Good Energy,” but I might have more accurately titled it, “Try to Make the Bad Energy Good,” because that is what it felt like I was doing. Several friends reached out after reading the piece, and in our ensuing conversations, it felt like we were repeating that process together. Times are hard. It’s human to be feeling bad energy, but it doesn’t serve us, and the muscles required to shift that energy are as important as any of the other muscles I mentioned in the post. The most unexpected gift of writing this is that it’s continuing to help me exercise these muscles. Hopefully it helps others too.

I want to mention two folks who didn’t quite make it into the piece. The first is Kathy Kramer, the founder of Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour here in the East Bay. Everybody interested in native plants in the East Bay (and undoubtedly beyond) knows Kathy, because she has been a force for the past 30 years. The tour was an invaluable resource for me when I was just starting to learn, and it was where I first came across Glen Schneider. Kathy also organized the walk that Glen led, which set me down my Skyline Gardens path. Her impact has been stunning, and in many ways, she is a classic case study in not skipping steps, which I talk about in my post.

The first time I met Kathy, she welcomed me warmly and took time to get to know me. At subsequent events, she always went out of her way to say hello, even when surrounded by a crowd of others. When you are in a roomful of strangers, and you don’t feel like you belong, and someone important in the community comes up to you and greets you as if you were an old friend, it means something. It also makes you want to get more involved. It is no wonder that Kathy has been such a catalyzer in this community for so long.

The second is my friend, Joe Mathews. Joe is a long-time journalist and a leading scholar in democracy. He was our storyteller for the Delta Dialogues, which I mentioned in the piece. Yesterday, after a conversation with another friend, I went searching for something in my archives, and I inadvertently came across a column that Joe had written earlier this year during the Eaton wildfires in Southern California.

It’s a beautiful, harsh piece, more raw emotionally than I’m used to in Joe’s writings. It felt very much in line with what I’ve been feeling for a long time now and some of what I was trying to express in my post. He talks about the writer, Zane Grey, who lived in Altadena and whose lifestyle had not quite aligned with his exhortations:

In his hypocrisy and self-centeredness, Grey was like today’s prosperous Californians—moralizing to the world about living responsibly and respecting nature and seeking justice, while denying themselves nothing, and certainly not a nice hillside home with a view.

When our friends’ homes burn up, or slide down the hill, we tell ourselves that this is the price we must occasionally pay, the hardship we must temporarily endure, for all the beauty and bounty of everyday life. And in this age of climate change, we make resolutions—to retreat from the fire, to be more responsible, to live differently, to accept limits.

But do we really intend to keep any of our promises? Do we really believe ourselves?

We know the honest answer. But we never dare say it out loud.

Except when we gaze at the homes and businesses burned in Altadena. Or watch a row of billionaires’ beach homes burn on TV. Or drive down Mariposa in Altadena and find that the Eaton fire has destroyed the Zane Grey Estate, a well-preserved architectural treasure.

Then, only then, do we blurt out the truth.

“Unbelievable,” we say.

Of course, it’s not the scenes of destruction that are unbelievable.

We are unbelievable.

…

As Jim Lassiter, the main character in Grey’s greatest novel, Riders of the Purple Sage, says: “You dream or you’re driven mad.”

But we can only defend ourselves with dreams for so long. Eventually, the nightmares awaken us.

Maybe you’ll think I’ve been driven mad, but I believe the biggest nightmares, the disasters that shake us, are not a California curse.

Rather, they might be our state’s greatest gift. Because they rouse us from the distractions of our dreams. They make us look away from the arresting beauty of this place, and compel us to see one another, and even talk to our neighbors.

When we awake to the nightmare, we are at our most connected. We are at our most generous and human. We consider reality head-on and make new plans. We are, however fleetingly, believable.

Sunsets Are Special, Even Though They’re Not

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I have a colleague who makes it a point to watch every sunrise and sunset. I am in awe of her, but I’m also simultaneously troubled and resigned by how Herculean this feat feels, especially as an early riser who lives in a moderate climate. How hard is it to stop what you’re doing for 10-15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day and to look outside and enjoy the show that nature offers us every day?

Plenty hard.

It’s Fogust here in the Outer Richmond neighborhood in San Francisco. Sunsets and sunrises have been hard to come by. But yesterday afternoon, the skies cleared, and by evening, it was glorious. I haven’t been walking much recently, but I’ve lived in this neighborhood long enough to know that, when there’s a reprieve in the summertime dreariness, you take advantage.

At Eagles Point Overlook at the start of the trail at Lands End, there was a scattering of people taking it all in, clearly waiting for the sun to set. I wondered whether any of those folks were like my colleague, ritualistically waiting for nature to call it a day, or whether they, like me, had decided that this Monday evening was too beautiful to waste inside. I ambled along slowly, stopping often to photograph the rays of golden light wafting through the trees or to watch flocks and flocks of pelicans gliding along the Bay toward the ocean.

For the past month, the whales have been putting on a show along the coast, and I had hoped to take a peek just in case. But about two-thirds of the way there, I felt the sunset calling to me, and I decided to take a detour down the long set of stairs to Mile Rock Beach to watch nature’s clock wind down. There would be no whales there, although if I were lucky, I might catch a sea lion bobbing in the waves, checking out all the strange bipeds congregating on the shore.

I didn’t see any sea lions, but the pelicans kept coming. I felt grateful for how reliably these prehistoric birds flew along these shores in their graceful lines and V-formations, and I thought about how this wasn’t the case not so long ago. These wonderful birds never failed to mesmerize me.

Folks had gathered here too, waiting as the sky changed colors and the waves softly crashed onto the sand. I watched a group of friends amble up a large rock as the sun began to disappear. They watched in wonder, then marked the moment with some selfies.

Beyond the pelicans and a pair of oystercatchers foraging for their supper, the only other animals I saw were these other humans who had been drawn, like me, to watch this quiet spectacle. I enjoyed it. How primal it is to watch the sun go down. How easy and sad it is that we suppress this instinct.

Farting Around

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

My friend, Renee, recently mentioned The Red Hand Files to me, and she shared this post with me as an example of Nick Cave’s writing and engagement. The post was a response to a question from a reader asking about the benefits of using ChatGPT to write song lyrics. The whole post is lovely and funny and short, but here’s a taste:

In the story of the creation, God makes the world, and everything in it, in six days. On the seventh day he rests. The day of rest is significant because it suggests that the creation required a certain effort on God’s part, that some form of artistic struggle had taken place. This struggle is the validating impulse that gives God’s world its intrinsic meaning. The world becomes more than just an object full of other objects, rather it is imbued with the vital spirit, the pneuma, of its creator.

ChatGPT rejects any notions of creative struggle, that our endeavours animate and nurture our lives giving them depth and meaning. It rejects that there is a collective, essential and unconscious human spirit underpinning our existence, connecting us all through our mutual striving.

…

As humans, we so often feel helpless in our own smallness, yet still we find the resilience to do and make beautiful things, and this is where the meaning of life resides. Nature reminds us of this constantly. The world is often cast as a purely malignant place, but still the joy of creation exerts itself, and as the sun rises upon the struggle of the day, the Great Crested Grebe dances upon the water. It is our striving that becomes the very essence of meaning. This impulse – the creative dance – that is now being so cynically undermined, must be defended at all costs, and just as we would fight any existential evil, we should fight it tooth and nail, for we are fighting for the very soul of the world.

Reading this reminded me of this 2005 exchange between David Brancaccio and Kurt Vonnegut about Vonnegut’s book, A Man Without a Country:

DAVID BRANCACCIO: There’s a little sweet moment, I’ve got to say, in a very intense book — your latest — in which you’re heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say, “I’m going to buy an envelope.”

KURT VONNEGUT: Yeah.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: What happens then?

KURT VONNEGUT: Oh, she says, “Well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?” And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.

I think there’s a lot of truth to what both Cave and Vonnegut said, and I think it’s helpful to keep in mind as machines continue to push us to remember what it means to be human. But maybe there’s a middle ground.

Today is my nephew’s birthday. This morning, Google Photos put together a little montage of photos of the two of us over the years. I spend more time than the average person looking at and curating my photos, but I was still moved by the arrangement this tool had pulled together automatically without any creative struggle or farting around on my part.

I know there’s a world where tools like ChatGPT augment rather than try to replace the human experience. We do have agency as to whether or not this happens, although how much, I do not know. Either way, it helps to be reminded that we are dancing animals over and over and over again, and to proceed accordingly.

Reinhold Niebuhr on Hope, Faith, Love, and Forgiveness

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

From Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, The Irony of American History (1952):

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Via Katherine Tyler Scott. Hat tip to Joanna Levitt Cea.

A Special Moment Between Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

At yesterday’s U.S. Open third-round match, Naomi Osaka — the number one ranked women’s tennis player in the world — beat 15-year old prodigy, Coco Gauff, in straight sets (6-3, 6-0). It was totally expected, and most sports outlets didn’t even bother covering this early round match.

Then Osaka did something wonderful. She asked Gauff to join her for her post-match interview, which is generally reserved for the winner of the match. As Soraya Nadia McDonald of The Undefeated wrote:

“Naomi asked me to do the on-court interview with her and I said no, because I knew I was going to cry the whole time, but she encouraged me to do it,” Gauff said during the televised interview, still wiping away tears. “It was amazing. She did amazing and I’m going to learn a lot from this match. She’s been so sweet to me.”

What a moment — so raw, so genuine, so vulnerable and sweet, made even more so by the fact that Osaka, too, began to choke up as she made a point to praise Gauff’s parents, Candi and Corey.

“You guys raised an amazing player,” Osaka, 21, said. “I remember I used to see you guys — I don’t wanna cry — I remember I used to see you guys training in the same place as us. For me, the fact that both of us made it, and we’re both still working as hard as we can, I think it’s incredible. I think you guys are amazing, and I think, Coco, you’re amazing.”

As McDonald later wrote:

But Osaka’s actions did something else, too. Osaka took the love her hero, Serena Williams, expressed for her in an essay in the July issue of Harper’s Bazaar and paid it forward. Intentional or not, black girl magic became black girl solidarity. And it happened at the site of the ugliest championship finish in US Open history, when Osaka defeated Williams a year ago to win her first Grand Slam, only to have the event marred by boos directed toward official Carlos Ramos.

In a text message to Osaka, which Williams published in her essay, Williams wrote: “I would never, ever want the light to shine away from another female, specifically another black female athlete. I can’t wait for your future, and believe me I will always be watching as a big fan!”

Louisa Thomas of The New Yorker added (hat tip to Mark Szpakowski for the link):

What Osaka did after the match has been called an example of sportsmanship, but that doesn’t do it justice. It wasn’t a nice word of encouragement as she and Gauff hugged at net, or a few gracious comments as she addressed the crowd. It was an act of compassion. It was also unusual, and a little awkward, and brave, in its way. It probably mattered that Osaka had been there herself, standing in Arthur Ashe Stadium in tears the year before, although under very different circumstances, after a controversial coaching violation was issued to her opponent, Serena Williams. It certainly mattered that Osaka was one of the few people alive who knew what it was like to be a young woman of color at this level of tennis in 2019, an outsider in a traditionally clubby sport; to be a young person surrounded by people who want to make money off of her (and wanting to make money herself); to feel the intensity of the spotlight—warmed by it one moment, burned by it the next. She knew what it was like to lose a big match. She knew the tears. She knew the lonely shower. More than once during the U.S. Open, she has said that something about Gauff reminds her of herself. There was a protective solidarity in that moment.

But it was also generous, and it included everyone: the crowd, though much of it had not been cheering for Osaka during the match, and also people hundreds or thousands of miles away watching at home. (I felt it, certainly.) In 2019, kindness feels like a political act, perhaps especially in the context of competition. I thought, as I watched, of something that Gauff had said about Osaka: “I think she shows us how to compete, and the way to be off the court, too.”

Pretty great things happening from some pretty great leaders in women’s tennis right now.

As a little bonus, The New York Times Magazine recently did a great profile on Venus Williams, in many ways the matron of this current generation of exceptional black women tennis players.