Eric Tian

I watched Get Out last week; it was my second time. I thought that since I knew the twist, it wouldn’t be as magical, but this time around was more enjoyable than the first. If anything, knowing the plot beforehand made early scenes more meaningful and impactful. When it finished, I realised I was engrossed the whole way through.

The movie the second time wasn’t the same as the first. Well, technically it was, but since I received it differently, it felt different. It is a mistake, I think, to assume you know a piece of art just because you’ve encountered it once. Our attention spans are too limited to fully grasp everything. Thus, rewatching, revisiting, and rereading great works is one of our greatest tools to true understanding.

C.S. Lewis once wrote:
“To me, re-reading my favourite books is like spending time with my best friends. I’d never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favourite people.”

From Clayton M. Christensen, American academic:

“If you study the root causes of business disasters, over and over you’ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you’ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered most.”

I was surprised today to learn that Alois Alzheimer – the man who discovered neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques in dementia, hallmarks of the condition now known as Alzheimer’s disease – was not a neurologist, but rather a psychiatrist who fancied some neuropathology.

Neurology and psychiatry, while both dealing with the brain, are vastly different in practice. Neurology is in principle a biological specialty, where conditions have organic pathologies attributable to genetics, blood markers or other measurable disturbances. Psychiatric conditions on the other hand, have no lesions or neural abnormalities that distinguish them from normal people. The brains of patients with schizophrenia, mania or depression aren’t obviously different from those without these conditions. These are often referred to as invisible conditions of the mind.

So a psychiatrist studying post mortem brains was, as you can imagine, odd. Yet Dr Alzheimer, with the help of fellow neuropathology enthusiast Franz Nissl, persevered in his lab work and in 1906 discovered the signature of the dementia that he had been working on. To this day, neurofibrillary tangles and amyloid plaques remain key hallmarks in Alzheimer’s disease – one of the only psychiatric conditions found to have an attributable biological cause.

Alzheimer’s research motto was, quite fittingly:

“Excessive reservations and paralysing despondency have not helped the sciences to advance nor are they helping them to advance, but a healthy optimism that cheerfully searches for new ways to understand, as it is convinced that it will be possible to find them.”

Last night, with no real agenda, I went out for a walk.

I passed the security guards at the strip club downstairs. Waved at the kebab joint I occasionally dine at. Waited at the lights instead of jaywalking. Walked far slower than usual.

I came across a part of town I hadn’t seen before. There was a ramen store, an Italian restaurant, a bar playing jazz; three worlds colliding in a single strip of land. The sun was setting still, and basked the brick walls with a golden hue. As I stood, taking in the sight, an old couple with their dog strolled past and the dog stopped to sniff at my feet.

It was not “productive” by any means. There was no audiobook in my ear, I wasn’t studying while walking. But there was a magic about the whole ordeal, a feeling of childish fervor at experiencing something new, right under your doorstep.

I went back home. On the elevator up, I noticed the time: I had been out for 14 minutes.

Today, I completed my final major assessment of medical school.

There are a mix of emotions. Exhaustion, relief, anticipation, uncertainty. But at the centre of it all: gratitude.

Onwards and upwards.

I was meditating this morning and old memories kept hitting me. It was like some floodgate had been opened and events I hadn’t thought about in a long time began making their way back.

The time I verified death on a person who had just died; their body was still warm.

The time I watched a movie with my school friends and we were the only ones in the cinema; the three of us put our feet up on the row in front, delighted at our freedom.

The time I sent a Valentine’s letter – to the wrong address.

The time I got lost in a supermarket and couldn’t find my dad, and began to cry until a balding man ushered me to the front counter and they called on the speaker, “Quan, please come to aisle 3 where your son is” and in a flash, he appeared, holding a new fishing rod.

The time I kicked a goal in year 7 soccer from midfield; the ball soared so high, and seemed to float in the air, slowing down time and deafening all noise, until it went right over the goalkeeper’s head and into the net, and how I jumped and yelled and my teammates surrounded me doing the same.

And so many more.

I think memories are like fireflies, in a way. Floating around in our subconscious waiting to be caught. Only we are often too distracted; too angry; too busy worshipping our gods to pay attention.

In 2016, one year after its Pulitzer prize award, I bought All The Light We Cannot See in a local book market. I returned home that day, excited, ready to revel in this esteemed work of literature. Yet after the first few chapters, something was off. The writing felt foreign; unreadable. Sentences didn’t make sense in my head. I stopped and started the book many times over those weeks, but never got beyond the first 20 pages. The book evidently wasn’t for me.

This week, seven years on, I started the book again and it now clicks into place. The writing is elegant in its subtlety, something I can now appreciate. Characters have life now; the plot thread is apparent. I am now 100 pages in and consumed in some psychedelic high. It may very well be my top book this year.

The book, seven years ago, is the same book as the one today. The only difference is in how I have received it. It was not the right time for me to receive the book then. The perfect time is now.

There is a lark in my chest that
Wants to escape
But I don’t let him.
He sings and flaps and
Makes a big ruckus and I say:
Quiet!
Nobody wants to see you,
Not the beggars, the whores,
Especially not the priests,
And he quietens a little.

There is a lark in my chest that
Wants to escape
But I don’t let him.
I ask:
Do you want to ruin all I have built?
My company, my name, my kingdom?
Don’t screw me over now.
And I bury him deeper inside,
Where he will never be heard.

There is a lark in my chest that
Wants to escape
But I drown him
In vodka and smoke and coke
A chamber of blissful death,
And he sleeps a little.
But whenever I think it’s over,
He sings that that stupid song
Again and again and again.

One night, I am weak and
have had enough,
I let him out and he soars and sings
And the world listens, pauses,
Like an oak bending
Towards the sun.
Then the heavens open and
I am blinded by
Glory.
Come back, I say
And he turns,
Looks at me, and sings a song of
Love.
I fall to my knees, shiver,
And almost weep.

1. “Just be honest”

Remember: what you say never matters. What matters is what the person hears. People filter things through context and their internal state, so if someone feels insecure and thinks you’re out to get them, everything you say will be interpreted as an assertion of dominance, even if you are giving genuine praise or criticism.

Not advocating for lying here (though I think we generally overestimate how much truth we want). But better advice is,

Read the room, and adjust.

What they hear > what you say.

2. “Be kind”

True, if being kind actually meant being kind, and not nice. And I think many people confuse being nice for kindness.

A kind person will tell you that you have spinach in your teeth and maybe suggest seeing a dentist. A nice person won’t because it feels uncomfortable. Heck, they might even say you look great.

For certain situations, being just nice is fine. Being genuinely kind to everybody is terribly exhausting. It forces you to consider what is best for somebody else, rather than just nodding and smiling. But remember that being nice is often cowardice and laziness formatted in a socially acceptable manner. In the long run, you want kind people on your side, not just nice ones. And if you cared for others, you would be kind to them, which means acting in their best interest. So better advice is,

Be (actually) kind.

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These two modified adages, on some level, appear contradictory. The first suggests that honesty is not always required, but the second places truth on a higher pedestal than another person’s feelings.

The distinguishing factor is in the intent. For “Just be honest”, if you say something simply because it is true, and maybe you get a kick out of being right, you are being, for lack of a better word, an asshole. Honesty without genuine healing intent can be painful and unproductive. Read the room.

For “Be kind” (i.e. “be nice”), if the true intent of your actions is from fear of an uncomfortable situation, you are not truly helpful. Which, in many instances, is fine. But if the intent is genuine and you deeply care for them, you will act in their best interest, which often means telling the truth. That is true kindness.

Poet Charles Bukowski on the meaning of life:

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system.

We are here to drink beer.

We are here to kill war.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

We are here to read these words from all these wise men and women who will tell us that we are here for different reasons and the same reason.”