From an early age, I had been afflicted with a case of a fickle heart.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I was Agent Crystal, a top-secret spy for WOOHP. Armed with my pink Barbie sunglasses and lipstick recorder (ordered from the Scholastic magazine my school used to hand out), I would dedicate myself to the art of multilingual eavesdropping (Hong Kong is a ripe place for that) and high-kicking. My espionage career would take a turn on Wednesdays, as I would fancy myself an inventor for the rest of the week, though my conception of what that entailed in my childhood appears to approximate the job of a potionmaster â mixing strange liquids to create a steaming, murky-coloured elixir, and very occasionally making something combust (never re-enacted in our kitchen, to my mumâs relief). Once the weekend rolled around, I was no longer Kelly the inventress, but the demi-goddess daughter of Zeus who, for some odd reason, was enrolled at Hogwarts as a junior member of Slytherin House. Sometimes, in ambitious moments, I was all of the above. It was a constant cycle of falling madly in love and then out of love again within the space of a week [1].
Perhaps all kids begin with wild, whimsical dreams, easily tried on and discarded. Such is the beauty of tabula rasa, the illusion of infinite time and possibilities. An open space beckons them and calls to be filled, and they do so with haphazard fervor â the cerulean of the oft-visited skies, the scintillating gold of discovered treasures, the olive of an excavated Compsognathus, the first bold shouts of colour on a white canvas.
As time closes in on us and the heaviness of reality shuffles in (with a never-ending list of standards for âwhat we should beâ), many attempt to refashion themselves to fit the standard mold. They slather on layers of white paint over themselves and attempt to start anew â this time with a purported sense of âcoherenceâ, but much more timidity and much less ardor.
Fickleness is encouraged in children, but criticised in adults. To be a dilettante is frowned upon, perhaps rightly so. There is a youthful, airy beauty in limitless possibilities, but a richer and more sensuous beauty in their realisation and unfolding. The former exists on another plane amongst daydreams and phantoms; it is elusive, immortal-seeming, but ultimately unfulfilling. The latter is grounding. Actualisation is an act of birthing. The period of gestation, of forming and becoming, is often lengthy and painful. The moment of birthing itself, the bringing into being, is in some ways grotesque: the cacophony of wails, whimpers and cries, the fleshy, clammy tangle of limbs, the waxy film of vernix caseosa. However, there is a deep spiritual aspect that cannot be disentangled from the sensory, which demands the mother to yield completely â to surrender, to soften and to open, ultimately emerging transformed and reforged. Then, a quiet joy and peace that blossoms into elation and storge at the new life created.
Despite understanding the perils of fickleness â that being fickle eventually limits your ability to be fickle â and the much more fulfilling path of committing and creating, I remain steadfast in my fickleness (haha) towards things big and small. There are days when I yearn for an idyllic Inaka life in Ohara, Kyoto, where I would spend my days sitting cross-legged on worn-out tatami, reading and writing, a cup of steaming matcha in hand. Then there are those nights; nights where my megalomaniac shadow emerges, nights where I want to tower over the world from my penthouse in Roppongi as a child does his lego-set [2]. This specific conundrum has been haunting me since my high school years and I have yet been able to reconcile these two conflicting ideals; my impression is that whichever side I choose to feed with time and attention will ultimately be the victor. I could perhaps take the middle way (in both senses :â) ) and do something halfway in-between both extremes, but my intuition here is that compromise would be the most unfulfilling option.
Over the past few years, I have also developed a sense that I would like to do something meaningful for the world. I must admit that I feel this desire less viscerally than the other two (which I do feel guilty about) despite endorsing this view the most on a rational level. Actually, scrap that â thatâs sort of untrue. Itâs more like I do feel very strongly about doing something meaningful, but because this ideal does not have a specific shape or form that can act as a container, the feeling only hangs in the air briefly before diffusing. In other words, the lack of a specific vision of how I can contribute makes it hard to constantly sustain this desire given my need for a clear mental image. You, dear reader, might argue that it is this attachment to transient emotions that is at the root of my fickleness. âIt is impossible to accomplish anything if your schedule is driven purely by emotions,â you might cry. I agree that your day-to-day progress (or lack thereof) should not be subject to such variable winds, but I do believe that it is of utmost importance for you to have a strong sense of feeling â a deafening âyesâ â towards the vision or goal you have in mind.
I speak from personal experience. Back in high school, I was obsessed with becoming conversational in Japanese due to my love for anime, Yuzu and the beautiful culture. Although there would be day-to-day fluctuations in my felt desire towards doing the thing that would help me progress towards the goal (e.g. studying keigo), I remained unwavering in my strong feeling towards the ideal of becoming conversationally fluent in the language (which is what kept me going even during those little blips). It is important to disentangle the minor daily fluctuations in your feelings towards working on a specific task that would bring you closer to your vision from the feelings you have towards an ideal. You can want to land a double axel, but oscillate between excitement and frustration in falling on your ass every day. You can want to write like Nabokov, but struggle to piece together a coherent sentence on some days. Obviously, it is important for you to enjoy the nitty-gritty aspects of the process to some extent (e.g. if you want to write like Nabokov but hate stringing together words 100% of the time - then youâre going to be completely miserable :( ), but you donât have to be feeling it 100% 100% of the time.
Let me now try to diagnose the source of my fickleness and propose potential remedies.
Source 1: Iâm a very excitable person and have way too many dreams that I vibe with!
Exhibit A: being a top-secret spy still sounds super sexy to me. âWhat about this âvisionâ appeals to you?â Badass fighter, polyglot, air of mystery, cool gadgets⌠To help narrow things down, it might be useful to answer the following questions: 1) Is it still plausible for me to achieve this vision? For example: as a 21 year old female with little to no gymnastics training, there is no way for me to become a world-class/Olympic-level gymnast. However, I could settle for a more realistic goal such as being able to do a backflip. At this point, it is important to ask: 2) What are the costs to achieving this goal? Itâs hard to evaluate opportunity costs, but the main thing to consider is the amount of time that is required to work towards the goal (e.g. 30 hours a week) Iâm going about this by a process of elimination as it seems to be the most straightforward for me personally. Next step: 3) figure out whether or not you would enjoy the nitty-gritty bits of working towards that vision. This can be done via theorizing to some extent (e.g. As a spy, I would have to constantly look over my shoulder and fear for my life - which I donât want. As this is a necessary part of being a spy, this is now out of the question), but ultimately requires experimentation (donât fall into the âtheorizingâ trap!). For example, if I want to become a very good writer, I could try writing for 1 hour everyday for the next week or two. This should give me enough data to puzzle out whether or not I enjoy the process of writing in general. One thing to look out for is getting addicted to short feedback loops [3]. Some people (me included) get a high from observing skill progression. However, it is important to disentangle whether or not it is the process itself that you like or the âlearning highâ. Feedback loops tend to get longer once you progress as well. If you realise that you do not like the process of doing X, then move on. If you enjoy it, then commit to it. Then break the vision down into goals and find concrete actionable steps that allow you to work towards it.
Source 2: The exploration VS exploitation problem
You sort of like this one thing, but what if there is something that youâd enjoy more out there that you havenât tried? Thereâs always an upper bound on options that you can test out before it becomes too time-consuming and costly. My thoughts are make exploration as cheap as possible if possible. But at what point do you stop exploring and stop exploiting?
âExplore when you will have time to use the resulting knowledge, exploit when youâre ready to cash in.â - algorithms to live by - Griffiths and Christian
Griffiths & Christian (Algorithms to Live By)
Basically, whether you continue exploring vs exploiting depends on the time interval available. This is why we accept fickleness in kids but less so in adults. Iâm still trying to figure out the right balance for my case so Iâm afraid I donât have any further useful thoughts about this.
Source 3: The stranglehold of real life
I do know what I want to pursue but I hesitate to act due to my societally-induced doubt. Is having X dream looked down upon? Is it a useful skill to acquire? Would it make me look cool? I didnât use to struggle with this as much in high school, but alas, I am in the real world now and must deal with such worries :(
In my previous piece, I touched on how it is okay to feel confused. âBut isnât being confused the same as being fickle?â, you might ask. Not necessarily. Thereâs a difference in sitting with the confusion while simultaneously actively trying to dispel it via exploring and experimenting versus passively staying confused and going wherever the wind takes you. There is a tendency to lump the two together despite the nuanced differences between them. In my opinion, society should have more tolerance for confusion. Once we hit our teenage years, there is this expectation for us to follow an expertly-crafted and super coherent narrative of some sort. Not only does this put immense and unnecessary pressure on teens, it is also not helpful. You want to give people with time room to explore rather than forcing them into a local maximum, or worse, into thoughtlessly following the âconventionalâ path.
Anyways, that is my braindump for the day â let me know what you think! :)
[1] Fortunately (or unfortunately), my capricious tendencies only extended to flights of fantasy of what I could do and who I could be; the potency of my emotions keeps me anchored to a handful of places and people.
[2] Japan seems to be a running theme â I guess my fickleness has bounds :)
[3] https://ava.substack.com/p/long-feedback-loops