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letterstostudents, Life

blips

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Hi everyone,

So much has happened since my last letter that I’m not sure what to say. I mean, for weeks now, I haven’t been sure what to say, and that’s partly why this has taken so long. It seems like we keep getting hit by tragedy, both nationally and close by. The close one, a death of a student right as Spring Break was starting left me just not sure of anything anymore, especially because they were always the light of the room. It is extremely distressful and heartbreaking, and I will always remember them and try to live up to their hopes and dreams.

Yet the longer I waited to send something, the more it became clear that America is the most absurd place to live right now, with each week showing us that gun violence, police brutality, and racism are unrelenting issues that seem intent on reminding us in the most horrendous ways.

There are two posts I found this week that pretty much cover my sentiments:

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hell of a paragraph.jpg

I’m not sure what I could add. Maybe more about AAPI hate because jesus christ…

But, anyway, I guess I’ve waited long enough that things seem easier to say, or maybe I’ve hit a point where I feel like I just have to say something… and, I guess, maybe the sunshine also helps. It’s like a dark cloud is lifting (tho I can’t tell if it’s a facade or a distraction)…

One of the main issues and why we’re at a boiling point, I think, is that people feel helpless. We desperately need to feel hope and find some agency in our lives (and that agency needs to come in forms that don’t then take away agency from others, goddammit!).

So I guess I’m writing now to remind you that finding agency is mostly an incremental endeavor. Things improve gradually. It starts with realizing that small steps matter, but also that these small steps add up. Also, they are collective steps where the aggregate is what creates lasting change. So even if things seem stuck, your little push may have lasting effects, when combined with others’ little pushes, for things to be a little less stuck.

But also, maybe you’re stuck because you don’t see the larger picture. If you read one of my previous emails, you saw how we could be considered just a tiny blip in the overall scheme of the universe. But the scope goes inward as well as outward. Whatever you’re stuck on is just a tiny blip in the sum of your life. Whatever your life is, it is also just a tiny blip in the sum of humanity. And whatever humanity is, it is also just a tiny blip in the galaxy. The galaxy a blip of the universe.

So long as you have some vision of tomorrow that’s better than today, you can maneuver towards it in tiny blip-like fashions. The arc bends ever so slightly. It also helps to have a vision of yourself that is better than today. You might not be the best at something now but you can be better at it tomorrow than you are today, and that’s enough to aspire to from day to day.

Or… maybe you can’t help yourself right now, but maybe you can help a friend. Or maybe you can’t help this one friend, but you might be able to help a different friend. There are always opportunities for growth and learning; sometimes you just have to take a step back and defocus from a problem where you’re stuck to refocus on a different problem, and this includes defocusing from yourself to refocus on others in need. 

Attend to what you can.

Finally, realize that words have power, and how you say something matters. I was reminded of this today in a moving way, which is another reason I’m writing this. I feel like this is one way I can help with words so I find I have to do this. I hope you know that I’m rooting for you and for me and for all of us and for our future selves, as well. We can be noble so long as we realize it takes all of us to work at it for humanity’s blip to shine.

love as always,

mark

TW: @mcdanger | DS: mcdanger#6611 | FB/IG: markdangerchen

P.S. Black Asian solidarity.

letterstostudents, Life

There’s a place for everyone.

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Hi all,

So… last week the Perseverance rover landed on Mars and transmitted the first audio recording from the surface of another planet. It’s worth listening to while just imagining the wondrous nature of our universe. Seriously, go do that now…

You see, Mars is very far away (it took about 7 months to get there) yet the sounds are as familiar as trying to talk to someone with your smartphone while they’re walking across the street downtown. That’s the amazing thing for me: how huge and how small the solar system, galaxy, and universe can feel.

The distance always boggles my mind, made more acute since I’ve been playing this game called Elite Dangerous, which has a simulation of our galaxy with 400 billion stars in it, each of them visitable. After being out for several years, by 2017 hundreds of thousands of players had only visited like 0.003% of the galaxy. I think now the number is closer to 0.01%?

The game has become something of an obsession for me, and I’ve even upgraded my monitor set up as I prep for a months-long journey to circumnavigate the Milky Way. I have a ship that’s outfitted with a sci-fi jump drive (engineered to the max) letting me hop about 75 light years with each jump. By contrast, the rocket that took the Perseverance would take about 1,900,000 years to go 75 light years (if it didn’t accelerate the whole time). But I’ve got a journey ahead of me that’s about 330,000 light-years, so jumping 75 light years at a time seems pretty damn slow. (The diameter of the Milky Way is approx 100,000 light years, but I have to get to an edge from Sol first.) I estimate I’ll contribute about 4,000 to the number of visited star systems (maaaaybe), which would add about 0.000001% to the total number that players have visited.

Yes, it kind of boggles the mind. And that’s just our galaxy. The current low estimate is that there are 100 billion galaxies in our universe.
Take heart in knowing that you’re part of something bigger… like seriously much bigger… much much bigger… than you can even begin to fathom. There’s room for everyone, but not only that… it’s kinda miraculous that we exist in the forms that we do. Each of us is unique among billions and billions and trillions of uniques. You must believe that there’s a place for you because there’s a place for everyone. There’s a place for everyone.

NASA named the last two Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance. These two things are mantras we can all live by. Use curiosity to propel you forward, asking questions, challenging beliefs, discovering the world and yourself. Persevere when the going gets tough. It’s not always going to be easy, but persisting is what gives you power and creates a layer of infinite meaning on top of the base layer craziness of the stuff of the universe.

love,

mark

P.S. If anyone wants to join me as I fly through the galaxy, I can stream the game whenever. I’m basically a hobo with a home and a very fast computer, I’m often free and always will be for you.