Passions
Eudemonia. What a beautiful, elusive word. The Ancient Greek masters of Stoicism believed true happiness is the highest human good. We've been chasing it ever since. Some claim they've even caught it. The problem is we've all been defining it differently, and those who claim to have achieved this virtuous enlightenment tend to be lying, albeit unknowingly.
We all want to be happy, don't we? Well, what is happiness? Some answer that question as if you had asked them what they would do if they won the lottery. Well, happiness is living in my dream house, buying whatever I want, and doing whatever I want. I wouldn't necessarily say they're wrong, either. It's easier to be happy without the burden of debt and scarcity handing over your head.
The Stoics would have a much more intellectual answer. Happiness is peaceful contentment. Eudemonia is achieved by speaking philosophically and rejecting earthly pleasures. I think that's an old relic from an ancient world that has long since died along with the philosophers. They didn't have exorbitant student loans or an ever-rising culture of consumption that makes the basic functions of life impossibly expensive. I don't envy their lack of running water and electricity, though, so I guess it evens out.
They believed that there was great virtue in a passionless life. There's a place for impulse and spontaneity, for the irreplaceable joy that passion brings. Yet these so-called masters lived boxed into a rigid world built around logic and scorning these passions, which they classified as failures of reason leading to corrupt, deceptive forces. Inaccurately evaluating people, objects, and moments as good or evil is what leads us astray. They're right, to a point — but we weren't all put on this earth to follow a single path.
Delight, lust, and anxiety are mortal sins to the Stoics. I say to lean into the things you feel. Sure, apply some reason to your decision-making. But don't go through life without allowing yourself your favorite meal or feeling your lover's touch. Don't shy away from anxiety and fear. Lean into it. Dig deep to figure out why your body is drawn to certain impulses rather than just stifling them. Only then can you truly overcome them.
I believe there's nothing more natural than passion. The Stoics believed we had to return to nature, but nature isn't stoic. Nature is rough and rugged and raw. Nature is the lion sinking its teeth into the antelope's flesh and two lovers with limbs intertwined. Nature is both the expression and reasonable inhibition of our impulse. It is not to kill all that makes us alive.
Take their advice with a grain of salt. Read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and try to be a better person. Along the way, meditate on how you can find your own definition of happiness. You won't find in it any book, and I would distrust anyone who insists you can. Rent is just getting more expensive, and we are getting ever more distant in this increasingly digital world. So give your loved one a kiss and enjoy that slice of cake every now and then.
Quietly Loved
Today starts the same as any other, with the sound of a whispered “I love you” walking out the bedroom door. I lay in bed as the room rumbles with the movement of the garage door. I miss when we had few weekday obligations and woke up in each other’s arms. I wrap myself tighter in the empty sheets.
My heart still flutters when he texts me good morning, just like when we lived states apart. It starts my cold morning on a warm note. I smile and begin to pry myself from the comfort of our bed. I miss the time when I woke up feeling rested, but I miss the days when we woke up together so much more.
I brush my teeth and throw on the work-from-home special, a dress shirt with sweatpants. I look at myself in the mirror and am glad he isn’t home to see the witch hair I tried to tame into a ponytail. Then, my commute involves walking across the hall and into my home office. I sit down and the house is silent save for the occasional mild creak when a strong gust of wind blows through. There’s just something missing.
I preemptively wince when I open my work laptop. I already know what I’m going to see, a day full of back-to-back conference calls. The screen flashes on and shows me I’m right, much to my dismay. I start my first call with an artificial smile plastered on my face. The smile wanes along with my patience with each passing call.
After five grueling video calls, all I have to show for it is an ever-growing task list that I can’t tackle until the barrage of conversations finally ends. I have an hour-long block on my calendar to respond to emails and work on a presentation. It tricks me into feeling like I’m taking a break because finally, I don’t have someone’s voice chirping in my ears.
It’s hard to quiet down an anxious brain. My mind is filled with questions. Why did I choose this line of work again? Are there any remote islands I can move to? What time is it? God, it’s only 2:00 PM. My mind may shut down if I have to do this any longer. Have I begun to hate people? I ask myself this every day.
Then, I hear a familiar voice downstairs call out my name. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the garage from my office on the other side of the house. His calm, smooth voice cuts through the sea of nagging demands I had been drowning in. I run down to give him a kiss.
“What are you doing home so early?” I ask. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
He looks down at me and grins. “I snuck out of the office early to hang out with you.”
I smile, then immediately frown when I remember the mountain of work I need to dig myself out of. The boundary between work and home is blurred to the detriment of the remote worker. Even when I step away from my desk, I still get a constant flood of emails and messages to my phone.
Then I remember how I was checking emails at Disney World and responding to a “fire” on Christmas Eve. I think of all the trips I had to postpone to accommodate work needs. I think of my kids asking me why mommy never has time to play with them. I can’t let that happen. I give him a kiss and ask for a few minutes to wrap everything up.
I put my laptop and notepad away and sit down next to him on the couch. “Afternoon nap?” I ask him.
He nods and pulls me toward him. My head lies on his chest and nestled into his shoulder. I can hear every steady heartbeat thumping alongside mine and my breathing slows to match his. I wish life could stay just like this.
2 Immigrants and a Baby
My concept and definition of home is a bit more nebulous than most. I was born in Venezuela, a nation that I never got much of a chance to make a home in. You might have heard the chaotic headlines or whispered rumors from that one coworker who visited in the 90s. You see, Venezuela used to be a destination. It used to be a hot vacation spot known for its gorgeous beaches and women, and even a popular place to immigrate to for better opportunities. Now, it’s known for violence, hyperinflation, and a mass exodus from the country’s own citizens. It used to be a place to be proud of. Now, the actions of a violent few have corroded the shiny patina of Venezuela in the eyes of foreigners.
For the past 25 years, the beautiful land that brought me to life has been pillaged and plundered by a revolving door of murderous leeches. They come in walking on the backs of generations of Venezuelans toward their gilded podiums. They sit down, get fat off the land, and leave the nation a bit more crippled each time. They left my country tattered and decaying, a dying weed stuck to the northern coast of South America.
We left for the US with little more than suitcases of clothes just before things took an even sharper downturn. It took nearly ten years until we were finally able to secure permanent residency. Throughout that time, I felt like I was truly a person with no home. We took a couple of careful trips back to Venezuela to visit family where possible, but it was clear that the nation was falling into disrepair. It was plain as day that things weren’t safe for our family there so the last time I ever visited was in 2006, 18 years ago. With the way things have progressed, I think that might be the last time I’ll ever see it with my own eyes.
I thought everything would change when we became permanent residents. Now we had a legal document asserting that we could call the United States our home. But could we really? We’re an immigrant family that wasn’t exactly rolling in money. My parents worked hard to provide a roof over our heads and food on the table. It wasn’t ever easy, but they made it work somehow. Truly, the “how” is a mystery to me to this day.
We moved around a lot. The 2008 recession crushed our family, but we spent the next 15 years working hard for a better life. I’ve called a lot of rented apartments, townhouses, and eventually single-family houses my home. My parents sacrificed a lot to allow us to go to top American schools in good areas. Good schools cost a lot to live near. I’ve worked hard to make them proud of their investment in my future.
I’ve been at my current place for a year now. We thought we were going to get to call our last place home for a little longer, but our landlord needed to move back in. Something always happens, so I try not to get too attached to any place. This place feels different, though. It’s still a rental, but I’m making it feel like home. We go thrifting for artwork and bit by bit, we invest in furniture and rugs and all the other things that make a house a home.
Some people talk about going back home. Some people ask me where home is for me. I’ve lived in different countries, states, and cities so at this point, home is wherever I’ve currently got my two feet planted in the ground. I haven’t yet set roots anywhere too permanent, but I’ll get there. Until then, I’ll just shake my fist at the economy and try to pay down these student loans.
My First Computer
In line with many others from my generation, my first computer was the family desktop we bought on sale at Best Buy. It was a large, heavy Gateway in the standard-issue beige color for the era. The CPU tower was tucked under the desk so it would rest against your knees when you were sitting at it. It would beep and whir in delight when we would play together. The LCD monitor was a thick unit that covered the desk so I barely had enough space for the keyboard and the cow-print mousepad. The LCD screen sat so close to my face that I could see the outline of every pixel if I looked hard enough.
I used that computer much more than either of my parents, and certainly more than my sister, who was a normal little girl who preferred to dance around in princess dresses. I used it to talk to my cousins back home in Venezuela. They would practice their English and I would sharpen my Spanish over MSN and AIM. Those were simpler times. The messages slowed to a trickle until over time until they stopped coming in at all. We grew up and apart with thousands of miles between us.
Sometimes I miss the early days when technology so easily connected us. Now we have countless social media sites as well as court cases against them for melting our children's brains. I didn't grow up with selfie cameras or deceptive photo filters. Growing up with a screen didn't make me antisocial during the Wild West days of the early internet. It allowed me to keep in touch with family members a continent away and even make new friends online. It was a very different space.
I was a big fan of virtual pet websites like Neopets. Playing those earlier-internet games taught me how to code, design graphics, and write better. I would sit at that desk all day long until my parents forced me to power off the whirring machine. They said it wasn't proper for a young lady to spend so much time on the computer. That's not for girls.
My parents cherished their Ataris when they were younger. They didn't really understand or believe in the video games of the early millennium, though. They've only grown more confused and appalled at the others that have been released since, which I've come to support them on. When I was born, their minds were filled with visions of pink bows and pretty dolls. I also liked those things, I just liked exploring the wide world of the internet, too. It wasn't until many years later that my uncle finally convinced them to join the new age with a family Wii.
Like any other kid, I wasn't perfect. I would get frustrated at regular kid things and get upset when I thought my parents were being unfair. My parents knew I didn't care about missing a few playdates or awkward birthday parties. They would have to ground me by taking away my computer access because they knew it was the thing I cared the most about. Every time I protested, my dad would add another week onto the counter. I would watch the calendar like a hawk for those two, three, four weeks to finally be up so I could go back to my pixel pets and my online friends.
I like to remind my parents just how easy they had it. They eventually realized how lucky they were to have a kid who preferred to stay at home with family and wholesome entertainment instead of the kids their friends complained about. Those children would sneak out at night and come home slurring their words. I just wanted to play some games, write a story, maybe feed a virtual pet or two.
My grandpa understood me. He always loved getting his hands on the latest technological advances. He knew that's where the future was going. My future, at least. His cancer came back, this time as a rare, aggressive form in his brain instead of scattered throughout his lungs. This wasn't his first rodeo. Between that and the fact he was a doctor, he was acutely aware that he didn't have long left.
My grandpa came to visit us from Venezuela as part of his farewell tour. He wanted to see us up in the Northeast during a trip up north to Miami for one last treatment. He surprised me with a brand-new, flat-screen desktop monitor so I could more easily explore our shared passion. He loved marveling at technology and saw that same value in me. It was the last thing he ever gave me. I used that computer every day until many years later when my parents bought a family laptop.
Today, I'm writing this from my personal laptop, which I just replaced after spending a decade with my previous machine. I also have a work laptop, which I rely on entirely to do my job as a remote worker. I work hard at what I do and have built my career on my success working remotely through the computer. I think my grandpa would be pretty proud if he saw where his gift propelled me to today.
Undying Love
Every year I hope for an empty bed on Valentine's Day.
Every year, I wake up in the middle of the night to a heavy weight on my chest and claws like sharp arrows sinking into my skin.
“Will you be mine?” It whispers into my ear with a smile.
The corners of its contorted grin widen impossibly. It extends its ghastly hands toward my chest. Its icy claws graze my skin and leave beads of blood in their wake.
Every year I pray my wife's ghost will finally move on from here. The Vatican stopped responding to my letters.
Carbon Piles With Anxiety
I used to say I'd never be one of those desk monkeys shuffling papers around for 40 hours each week. I was right back then. I never did do that. No, instead I sit at a laptop for 50–60 hours each week. Progress is truly inspiring, isn't it?
I used to want to be an artist. Then I found out how hard I'd have to work at my second and third jobs just to support my art career. Instead, I went into advertising. I work really hard to bring to life the campaigns you actively try to block out.
I'm sensitive, you see. It's not just the money. I can't handle my creative work being criticized too harshly. I don't want to see my ideas get killed and over-sanitized into tasteless oblivion. I just wanted to be given the space to think creatively, given the environment in which overthinking was not just encouraged but rewarded.
Then I found the world of strategy, and I dove in with the methodical yet whirlwind nature it required of me. You see, my memory is fleeting but my mind's an incurable overthinker. I write everything down, agonize over it, review and rewrite, and share my good work with the team. They just see that final cut and get to skip past the stages where I'm pulling my hair out and wondering how I'm ever going to finish the task in front of me.
It's tough. It's a lot of hours to spend with your brain sprinting on a treadmill. So I just write it all down. I write down what I want to remember, what I need to save, what I hope to pass on. I think I finally found my place in this big information machine that our society is dedicated to running.
I don't beat myself up when I don't have the answers. I just know I have to start looking for them — or for someone with them. We're all just a bunch of carbon piles with anxiety crashing into each other and trying to sound smart. The only thing that expects you to be a genius is your own intolerable ego. So throw it out the window.
Yes, we're all such important people in our blazers and pencil skirts. We all decided to sell pieces of our lives and souls to the same buyer, and that's about all we need to have in common. We don't have to be tied by some cultish mission or deep life purpose.
The next time you're driven mad by anxiety at a spreadsheet or slide deck, take a deep breath and remember this quote by Kurt Vonnegut:
“We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
The Price of Admission
I shook her daddy’s hand
And the deal was done.
Her hand, a parcel of land
And I became his son.
The asking price seemed low
But the stakes were impossibly high,
For this is where we ended the show
And felt we could both die.
I met her right at home
My old one in the middle of nowhere, not the nearby commune
Her smile struck me like a baseball to the dome
And I stood there, grinning back like a loon.
She was going door to door
Spreading the word of the Lord
Or rather, what daddy had in store.
I just smiled and listened, she could never leave me bored.
Hannah chattered on about prophets and prayers
And how my soul could be saved, too.
I didn’t believe a word of it, just nodded along without a care
As I swam into those eyes so blue.
Hannah invited me to dinner the next day
To meet her family at the commune and talk about salvation.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and in a way
I almost saw this remote escape as a nice vacation.
It was easy at first, just getting to know each other
And escaping the woes of my desk job,
But life decided to give those happy embers a smother
Until all my heart could do was throb.
After a few weeks of what these folks call courting,
Her daddy called us all into the Big House.
He announced among the shuffle of pigs snorting
The consequence of women lacking a spouse.
He said God had come to him
And commanded him to produce a virgin sacrifice.
His words hung thickly around the faces left grim
And he smiled with that heart made of ice.
How proud he was to produce the gift
As he presented his youngest daughter, Hannah, and
Immediately, my thoughts began to drift
To thoughts of an escape I planned.
I knew he had a proper arsenal
And an army ready to defend him to the death.
All my movements had to be purposeful
Lest he take away my last breath.
First, I took courting seriously
And made sure he knew it.
I was going to make her my wife, save her life, you see
Or else I would see her burned in the pit.
Hannah and I were already in love,
So it was her father's heart I had to win.
I'm not religious, but I prayed to the stars above
That I'd convince him I was fit for his kin.
I quit my job, sold all my worldly possessions,
And stashed that money away in a secret bank account.
Father insisted at every introductory session
That every dollar coming in was his, and he would count.
Hannah was born and raised on these grounds,
So she didn't even have an ID card to her name.
One day when spreading the word, I walked deeper into town
And bought an instant camera for my dame.
Father banned cameras for their vanity
So I had to keep it hidden away.
I snapped some pictures despite his insanity
To take to the passport office the next day.
I committed myself to getting in her daddy's good graces,
Mended his clothes alongside the women
And went hunting with him with mud on our faces.
I even took care of the Big House's linens.
Eventually he held out his hand for a shake
With a stern look on his face,
Offering me his youngest daughter
And the fear within me was gone without a trace.
This was the moment I had worked for,
Looked forward to,
Though I dreaded opening the gates to an unholy war.
That night, we celebrated with dancing and a pot of stew.
A year after she first knocked on my door,
Our wedding day finally arrived.
I couldn't help but feel my anxiety soar
As our borrowed suit and gown were resized.
Her daddy wasn't well that beautiful day,
That day much worse than most.
His eyes were wild as he violently prayed
And preached about the wrath of the holy ghost.
He realized that with his last daughter leaving the nest,
He would start to lose control,
And heaven forbid he also lose all the rest.
We packed our bags early and swallowed our fear whole.
He needed to take back the reins,
And do so by any means necessary.
So he proclaimed that, with great pain,
God had returned with a heavenly decree.
Father insisted that the message was clear,
The marriage could not go on.
He still demanded a virgin sacrifice,
And Hannah, as the unmarried lady, must be the one.
We kept the joy plastered on our faces
And showered him with empty gratitude for his words.
I almost couldn't bring myself to look up from my laces
As I gripped the passports and heard the happily chirping birds.
We had no time. We had no choice.
We had to run.
We were left without a voice,
While her father held all the guns.
When her daddy's back was turned,
We made a beeline toward town,
This dangerous cult's offer finally spurned
Before they left her burned or drowned.
I had figured out the bus routes when we went out preaching
And knew which one would get us to the city center.
The bus left us at city hall with wheels screeching
And we held hands tightly as we entered.
We were free, but hadn't yet tasted freedom
For long enough to truly feel it.
We kept our heads on a swivel in case we saw someone
And were punished for the apple we both bit.
When we held the marriage certificate in our hands,
We laughed at our own anxiety
And went to celebrate in this new, safe land.
Then we sat down at the diner and heard the TV.
The cult led by her daddy had all sacrificed themselves, and
As one survivor cried, drank the poison up
Eagerly at his command.
The bodies were scattered among the empty cups.
What's more, Father's body wasn't found among the chaos
And the Big House had been ransacked.
Despite our relief at escaping, we wept together over this loss.
We still kept our heads low, God forbid attention we attract.
She shook her head, poked around at her fries,
And sobbed, "It should've been me."
Then a familiar voice appeared in the booth next to us.
"Now it will be both of you. Did you think you were free?"
Best Friends Forever
How do I put this delicately? She didn’t turn any heads when she walked into the room. Don’t get things twisted, though. She’s not the brilliant young woman who gets a makeover and turns into a princess, either. She’s neither beauty nor brains. She’s utterly forgettable.
Almost impossibly dull. Educated, technically, though she skipped the majority of her classes, so the important stuff didn’t stick. Her dad had to get her a job because she couldn’t get anyone to tolerate her past an interview. He sits her at a desk in his office and has her do data entry, like a child given a disconnected video game controller to keep themselves busy.
It’s tragic, really. I’m racking my brain trying to come up with just one redeemable trait. Everyone has to have at least one, right? I just have to come up with one. But she’s making it impossible. I really tried here, you know.
She slept past her alarm and woke up her parents before theirs went off. Her mother weeps every day that this woman is still living in her house. Can you blame her? Her daughter is pushing thirty and still sleeping in mommy and daddy’s safety net. That’s Jen for you. Pathetic.
At 9:05 AM, Jen finally rolled out of bed. She quickly ran a brush through her flat, brown hair and swiped on mascara to try to bring life to her cold, dead eyes. She’s so thoroughly boring that she would make a morgue look like a nightclub. She has been out of high school for ten years and still hasn’t figured out why she never won Miss Congeniality. She ruined so many classmates’ high school experiences, and she didn’t even care. She just never has anything nice to say.
I would know. We used to be friends. It was a very, very rough time in my life. She was shady from the start, and her boyfriend kept calling me to ask if she was still over at my house. The thing is, each time I was away from home. She loved weaving me into her lies. One day, I ran into her at the mall with a strange man. That’s when I pieced things together. It’s a shame, really. I always felt bad for the guy for getting trapped in her web in the first place. At least he made it out alive.
She didn’t like that I knew. That wasn’t part of her plan, and she always got what she wanted — including when she wanted me dead for it. That was the worst part. Jen loved to scream her heart out whenever things didn’t go her way. And when that didn’t work, she just had to push. First, she pushed me a little past my limits. She would hurl every deep secret and insecurity at me until I was crying myself to sleep every night. She threatened to ruin my life with her lies. Right after she started doing that, she pushed me into a canyon on an ill-advised camping trip. I thought we were repairing our friendship when she was plotting my murder.
I would say I’ve been haunting her ever since, but I don’t think she has the emotional capacity to feel regret, much less feel haunted by her past mistakes. I bet that in a way, she still feels justified for what she has done. At least karmic justice gave her a small slap in the face, because her boyfriend found out she had been lying to him not long after my untimely disappearance. I think it’s for the best. He might’ve gotten pulled into an early grave, too.
Speaking of karma, Jen did something monumentally stupid — even for her. She actually signed up for a dating reality show. Or, rather, she allowed her desperate mother to nominate her and then gleefully accepted the prize. What she ended up getting was her heart broken. You see, he ran into her at the mall when he was out with his fiancée. Turns out he had been hiding her from production the whole time while cashing their checks. I guess everything works out in the end. Or, I mean, they could if she gets struck by lightning too. We’re almost there.
Year of Prosperity
Years ago when dead rivers flowed into new valleys
And long-forgotten dynasties ruled the earth,
The Emperor held a race to find the 12 luckiest creatures.
All came from far and wide to prove their worth.
After four had crossed the line, the dragon swooped in
And claimed fifth place with pride;
The only animal we've banished to the mythological realm,
The ancient protector of the Emperor's bride.
In a twelve-year cycle, those born in the fifth year
Celebrate being born from the dragon's fire.
Families aim to create life in the year of the dragon
To bring good fortune and raise hopes higher.
People tend to fear the new year
Thanks to impossible resolutions and expectations,
But this new year of the dragon is poised to bring great success
To every home in every nation.
The hyacinths bud and bloom in the crisp spring air
And line the mountains that once housed the mighty beast.
The new year comes roaring in with a warm welcome
To bring luck to all from the east.