(This letter is being sent to current and previous students of mine in the past 2 years, as part of a series I started when UWB first went into lockdown. An archive of previous emails can be found on my website. If you want off this mailing list, let me know. If you want to stay on it after you graduate, send me your non-UW email address.) 

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything to you all so apologies for that.

Usually, I’d send something out at the beginning of the new school year — just some words of encouragement or whatnot — but this summer and fall, I was going through a high-stress period, and I couldn’t bring myself to write anything, feeling a bit hypocritical giving you all hopeful thoughts while I was myself feeling extremely anxious and down.

For the past 2 years, I’ve been saying over and over again that to live a good life is to be true to yourself and stick to what you believe. If you make decisions that you believe are right, you won’t have regrets and you can minimize self-doubt. Attend to yourself and loved ones. Stay connected.

Also, remember that you are part of something bigger, and be in awe of the cosmos and your place in it. Any troubles you may be experiencing are tiny blips in the overall scheme of things. You’re temporary configurations of star stuff that for a brief moment means you’re human and alive, and your only job is to live. Experience life in all its glory, both the amazingly good things and the really crappy things since it’s all exquisitely beautiful.

When life is absurd, the only sane response is to fully embrace it and laugh. Elect to partake and you are in control of your attitude if not your circumstances.

But this year has really made me rethink some of these things. It’s not that you won’t regret things; I think now that it’s natural to have regrets and wish things could have gone differently. But also, it’s more that you have to learn how to be at peace with yourself and accept that you did your best at the time. At the end of it all, if you did your best, you did your best. That’s what being human is — perfection in the imperfection.

I had a friend who went through medical and financial distress and asked me for money, and I gave her money. But then she kept asking for more, and I kept giving her more. Each time I asked myself What would be the ethical thing to do? Can I afford it? Would this money mean much more to her than to me? and each time I decided to give her what she asked for. But I became The Giving Tree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree , https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/parenting/we-need-to-talk-about-the-giving-tree.html) and gave her so much until I could not give anymore, and, in hindsight, I realize now that she was manipulating me (maybe without her even realizing it), guilt-tripping and emotionally pulling me… taking advantage of the projected identity of myself that I consistently tried to live up to and strive for. This shook my belief in myself and I didn’t know how to live anymore or how to give advice to you all anymore. I felt guilt for not being able to help more, and I felt guilt for helping too much, jeopardizing my own future livelihood and that of my family. But I also worry that I was inadvertently feeding a drug or gambling habit. I just don’t know what her outcome ended up being, but, because she kept asking, I eventually blocked her from all my accounts. I imagine she feels abandoned, and I have guilt about that, too.

So now what? I got better. I sought help and have talked to many friends and family about this. I developed severe anxiety, but I found ways to deal with it through counseling and medication. And yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I had a truly happy day, celebrating the culmination of a quarter-long project with some of my students and then playing tabletop games at a board game cafe afterward. It reminded me of what I love: guiding young people toward a brighter future and having fun while doing it.

So I’m writing again. I think maybe I’m better prepared for life now; the image of myself and who I want to be was tested and has stayed true. But I have limits and balance and social checks in place now that weren’t there before, to make sure things never go so awry again. It helps to talk about things with people, you know?

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and, if you’re a student, a good end of the quarter. Let me know if you need anything.

love,

mark

P.S. I’ve been watching the World Cup!

P.P.S. Some good resources:

• Teen Vogue Dictionary: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/teen-vogue-history-dictionary
• Ambient cafe sounds: https://coffitivity.com/
• 10 quotes for fighting imposter syndrome: https://www.inspiringquotes.com/10-quotes-for-fighting-imposter-syndrome/YvbC6mlWmQAHMoEt?liu=4a73d6498b954fc0f112c44c4319452b
• Modern Loss: https://modernloss.com/
• Cosmic Consolation: https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/03/15/john-burroughs-an-outlook-upon-life/
• And go watch Everything Everywhere All at Once!
• New awesome images of the Pillars of Creation thanks to the JWST (click one of the bigger sizes on the left)! https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01GK2KKTR81SGYF24YBGYG7TAP

Hey all,

As most of you know, I’ve been sending out periodic emails to students and former students over the past couple of years*, starting from when the pandemic first hit, trying to take an open approach to you all since, honestly, I didn’t trust others to do the same. I felt like you deserved to be informed about the virus and UW’s response to it, but then that sort of morphed into thoughts I’ve been having about how to best support you all, to give words of encouragement, to give advice about how to be good, and to generally try to uplift.

After more than two years, I do find myself starting to run out of things to write about. Usually, at the start of a new quarter, though, I want to catch new-to-me students up with these emails so I suppose this email serves that purpose. So, yeah, new-to-me students, an archive of previous posts can be found on my website.

Things are great, things are good, things are sad, things are melancholy, things are listless, things are… things are absurd, things are everything everywhere all at once.

But here’s another thing: I reread this amazing post from The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings) about life through the eyes of Burroughs among others. It’s an amazing post in that it connects the thoughts of a whole bunch of philosophers, scientists, artists, etc. into one train of thought: that life is uniquely good… all of it: the ups and downs… and the totality and that it’s within this best possible universe is what makes it uniquely good.

If there’s only one post you read this year in your search for what to make of life, make it this one: Cosmic Consolation for Human Hardship: The Great Naturalist John Burroughs on How to Live with Life

And revisit it every once in a while, since there’s a lot to unpack and tendrils to follow and contemplate.

Seriously, if I could, I would just assign this one reading for my courses. It’s more important than anything my syllabi cover.

love,

mark

*If you want to be taken off this email list, lmk. If you want to stay on but are losing your UW email soon due to graduation, lmk a diff one to use for you. And, I guess, if you know someone else who should be in on these emails even though they might not’ve been a student of mine, lmk.

Hi all,

(I’ve been sending periodic emails to current and some former students since the start of the pandemic. If you want off this list, lmk. If you want to stay on as a former student, lmk and send me your non-UW email. And, if you’re interested, you can see an archive of past emails to students on my website.)

You know… when I first started writing these emails to current and former students EXACTLY TWO years ago tomorrow, I really didn’t think I’d be writing regularly for so long… Then, of course, you know… stuff happened. The pandemic lasted waaaay longer than people were predicting, then we had BLM, “Karens” became a thing, Asian hate increased, we lost RBG, we had an election, and we had an insurrection. Also, unbelievably–but, actually, you know what? not at all unbelievably–we got anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers. If there’s anything the last five or so years have taught me, it’s that people are idiots. Indeed, the more the months passed, the more it became just bizarre. The darkest timeline. The Bad Place. We even had murder hornets and now flying spiders. Everything is just a blur, actually. I don’t remember if some things happened this year or the last or maybe even pre-pandemic… The climate steadily got worse, smoke from wildfires became the norm for Seattle summers… and it just became for me a numbing sort of long-game effect where like… I mean…

Do you remember when I first started writing these emails? In that first one, two years ago, I just said that I was here for you in case you needed support since we started the first round of state-mandated social distancing and it seemed like UW would hold Spring Quarter remotely, and I was worried about anyone who didn’t really have the best home situation or whatever. Then, in just two weeks, I felt compelled to write another email, laying out some cold facts about the virus and its exponential growth (cases and deaths were doubling every three days). Remember how I was freaking out that we’d have as many deaths as we did during WW2 (300k) in just two weeks? Well, thankfully, the rate of deaths slowed… but, you know what? Sometime in the last year, we definitely shot past that milestone and have close to a million deaths due to the pandemic in the US now… That’s FOUR times more than the White House’s projections from two years ago. And like… no one seems to care? Everyone is just numb? We’re in wtf times, let me tell you.

And, yes… goddammit, now we’ve got a war in Ukraine that might turn out not thaaaat bad (for us) but might alternatively turn into nuclear fire… it sort of seems like 50/50. That’s kinda freaky. Isn’t it? I mean, it seems most Americans just care that gas costs more (though that’s more due to corporate greed than anything else)… jfc.

Ok… so why am I writing this? I think I write these emails, honestly, more for me than for all of you. Every time I feel compelled to write something to remind you that I’ve got your back should you need it, I guess I sort of try to remind myself that someone has mine, too… my own back-getter… and I write what I want them to tell me. So, what do I need to hear right now?

I have to constantly remind myself that I am human and what makes me human is how I behave like a human. To me, this means rising above the crap and stepping up when needed, listening, communicating, and doing good in mindful ways. And I believe you all are human, too, and, like everyone else, you deserve love and support as you try to step up, as well. There’s no reason to suffer alone, and, being there for each other means that we’ll eventually celebrate together, as well.

And, in truth, the last two years have not been without joy. I’ve met some incredible people these last two years. It seems like when I decided to open up a little and be transparent with you, many of you decided to do the same for me, and it’s just… I dunno… like… I find myself caring about you more than when I first started teaching years ago. And I find it more meaningful… maybe more stressful, but also more worth it.

I’ve seen some of you graduate and move on (and get engaged), and I’m super happy for you and proud of you. And, generally, I’m hopeful for the future because I think maybe the rest of us have done enough to support you so that you’ll return the favor for all of humanity, too. Maybe I’ve done enough. Life goes on (hopefully for a long, long time). 

Ok, enough pep talk. Haha. I’ll leave with this thought I’ve been having. You know how we sort of believe that symmetry is what is beautiful? Nature seems to do things in symmetry… but I recently was reading about chirality and how it seems like if you zoom down to the level of molecules and protein structures, things aren’t symmetrical anymore; they’ve got a “handedness” to them. My thoughts stem from there: on a surface level, we’re symmetric, but, ultimately, each of us is uniquely nuanced if you examine us close enough. Getting to know someone enough leads to the understanding that they’re beautiful, just like everyone else, each in their own way.

love, mark

P.S. Just want to make sure that you get help when you need it… If you’re a student, UWB has some really good counseling resources for both acute and long-term mental health and distress issues. https://www.uwb.edu/studentaffairs/counseling

P.P.S. Some students have asked me to run a DnD or other TTRPG campaign over the summer. Let me know if you’re interested.