Call Me Kung

Tracing an upward curve

Shit’s so boring when it’s going according to plan.
-me

Yo! It’s been a long time. I haven’t updated because I felt like nothing that eventful has happened. Nothing has surprised me, and I haven’t disappointed myself too much lately, which I’ve found is a great reason to start writing – so that other people don’t make my mistakes. Everything is pretty much on track.

I guess a few updates are in order:

Teaching

I seem to keep acquiring people eager to learn programming, and it’s exciting and scary to be guiding them toward…toward what, exactly? For those who are motivated and interested, I want them to achieve their goals. That generally means a job in the industry, which, while I don’t think is as difficult as many make it out to be, as developers are in such high demand, I find myself wondering who actually can do it. There is probably some truth to both statements: that some people just can’t program, and that everyone can program.

It’s the play between the two that’s scary. At least, when it comes to helping people achieve their goals of entering the industry. But, I live to serve. I will continue to be a resource for as long as I can.

Aggrego

Work is still awesome. It is a great, relaxed environment, built by programmers for programmers. I am organizing a hackathon in April, so stay tuned!

Speaking of which, I think the cool thing about work is that I am relaxed enough so that my personality bleeds into the company culture. My coworker, Erick, made a powerful comment when we were visiting another company, something along the lines of the fact that, as a young company, each of its members is crucial for the formative company culture. It’s true, and it’s incredibly empowering. But it’s also effortless. It will become who we are. That said, I think it’s still important to keep an eye on what kind of company it becomes.

I think I’ve been the most active in the Chicago development community, and I’m thinking about leveraging that activity into ways that helps Aggrego/Wrapports out. We’re hiring, for instance, so if you’re a Rails dev or a User Experience person, you should email me at brian.kung AT wrapports DOT com to say hi and get the ball rolling

Life

The opening self-quote and the title of the blog post are really what I was supposed to write about – about how I am basically on track and things are proceeding as planned. I am being challenged, personally and in career, but I feel like these are challenges that I anticipated. These are learnings that I knew would happen. I’m building up a nest egg for launching into my own startup and building up my technical skills.

No surprises. Just tracing a slow upward curve.

Life: Red, Green, Refactor

Breaking in my Creative Recreations a month ago.

 I’ll build my life around it.

-Brian Kung, Code Academy Interview

I have a lot of things going on in my life at the moment – dance, tricking, software craftsmanship, entrepreneurship. My intent upon entering the Spring class of Code Academy students was to focus entirely on Code Academy. This, though admirable, was complicated by the fact that Code Academy has a dual focus: learning software development as well as entrepreneurship. The former is mostly studying, the latter is mostly networking. Both can take up all of my time.

Furthermore, it was far too tempting for me to start dancing, as Chicago has many more opportunities than the suburbs for that. Dancing with EVO was actually the first thing I did after moving into the city, and now I am dancing with Troy Darnell. Meanwhile, tricking and growing the Chicago tricking community are inseparable parts of my life.

Long story short: I’m a little frazzled by these multiple pursuits.

My life needs some Single Responsibility Principle, which I see as an expression of Curly’s Law for Success (read: Do One Thing). But, barring that, I could really use a refactoring of the existing codebase to make my life leaner, meaner, and more organized. Most importantly, I need to be able to get a grasp on what’s going on in life immediately (Clear Intention, anybody?). So I went to the drawing board…literally.

Refactoring life: Capturing current pursuits and to-dos. Having visual targets is a must.

I have a chunk of the board dedicated to the single most important thing I can do out of all of these targets. It’s useful in orienting myself toward a task that I know will have an important impact on one of the four aspects of my life.

The Long Road

I still have a Long Road ahead of me, but at least the landmarks ahead are clearer.

Alignment

I awoke from the nightmare of the American school system bent on reclaiming my lost time. I spent the summer practicing spoken and written word with Jeff, biking into the heart of Missouri with Wells, and making trips out to Iowa to visit my sister and Albany, New York, for a friend’s wedding. I spent a month getting to know the Chicago trickers and wander around downtown. Then I returned home with a mission to carve out a work space from the untamed wilderness of my parents’ home or burn everything to the ground.

Living at my parents’ house is not something I’m ashamed of, whether it’s because of our Chinese culture or our ability to work out our individual problems. But after living in a car and out of my backpack for so long, “less is more” was not as accurate as “less and more,” and the house drives me crazy. It is in a state of endless clutter, which is what happens when there’s too much form and not enough function. Like their namesakes in web design, the function of our tables is to hold clutter so that we don’t have to deal with it in a concise, purposeful manner.

Once my room was in a workable state, I began to launch ideas. Real estate, t-shirts, drop shipping, digital goods, movement concepts, videogames. Websites, godawful websites with cats. Thankfully, they failed. Most either turned out to be unactionable at that point in my life or just a momentary infatuation. I learned a lot, in terms of knowledge and self-knowledge, but when the perfect opportunity came up, everything else faded into the background. My life clicked into alignment.

When I wake up, I know what I’m supposed to do. I know where I want to be next week, next month, next year. I have a reason to get a full night’s rest every night, to exercise every day, and to eat well.

Our time on earth is limited. We’re all counting down from about 100 years. What would you do if you had to spend just one of those years doing any one thing of your choosing?

And why aren’t you doing it? Because you will end up doing what you choose. As difficult or unrealistic as it may be, why not choose what you like?

Life is better in alignment.

PS, I’m following my childhood dreams of becoming an author: eepurl.com/fjpKk

New World Order

I was just going to move the phone. Where it sat on the floor, in the middle of the piles of books, clothes, and other pieces of my life, just wasn’t very accessible. Ironic, because its enormous dial pad was adorned by inch by inch-and-a-quarter numbers. An elephant could use it to dial home. Somehow, I had more doubts as to the abilities of the aged demographic it was targeted toward than the elephant’s.

The problem wasn’t the phone. It was the trio of tennis balls right next to it. If I could just leap to the phone over the pile of belongings I had left on the floor my Sophomore year and not land on the tennis balls, I would be alright. Or maybe it was my Junior year, piles and piles of papers I would never look at again, stacked against the wall, that was the limiting factor. Or the two mattresses from the bunk bed I had disassembled when I was bored. They took up a good chunk of my room and they weren’t even particularly comfortable.

I had to move the phone.

So I had to move the tennis balls. And in order to clear a path to the tennis balls, I had to shift my Sophomore year out of the way, and to really clear a space, I had to get rid of Junior year, too. And while I was at it, I tossed Senior and Freshman year in the trash. My fifth year in college didn’t count – I had checked out by then. I had graduated on time, I was just bogged down by bureaucracy for a year after that.

I bumped into middle school and elementary school and found them a home with college and high school. They had swirled around, vagrant for decades, and only now could I usher all these scraps, like little puppies yipping for attention, into their respective cubby holes. I gave each a reassuring pat on the head before I bid it good night, to be cherished another day. What remained, I simply tossed out. I didn’t have time for memories that didn’t love me back. And I didn’t have time for objects that didn’t have memories associated with them.

I tore down the corkboard in a fit of pique and discovered a hole in the wall that my house uses to breathe. The picture I hung over it flaps idly with the house’s tidal exhalations.

I stood back and looked at the work I’d done. My room stood, empty and barren, like the first time I’d seen it at seven years old.

I lay down in the middle of the blank room and looked up at the ceiling. The tiles were scarred by a sabre blade. Some things, you couldn’t get rid of. You just had to clear your mind, mind your scars, and move on. After all, there was so much more left to do. So many more things, carefully chosen and carefully placed. It was the beginning. Another beginning.

It’s time to start again.

The phone would need a desk to rest on. It was a rather large phone, after all.

The Torment of Solitude

All throughout high school, I went to the dances “stag,” which means I went by myself.

I was a strange one. I still am. But I was never afraid of being “strange,” or “weird,” or “stag.” Growing up, “weird” was always a compliment. Being the third of four kids was like being in a club where the weirdest and the most unique flashes of personality were marks of belonging, to be worn with pride, in lieu of tribal tattoos.

I am only beginning to appreciate how much support I received from my siblings just to be myself. It takes courage to  be yourself openly, flaws, deformities, and scars all exposed to the light where everyone can see them. Open to your greatest critic: yourself. My siblings, without my knowing, slowly inculcated a deep-rooted sense of courage in me.

In her TED Talk, Brene Brown recalls the definition of courage as being “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”  This rang like a clarion bell throughout my memories, whether it was throwing myself against the sky attempting to express with my body my frustration with gravity, learning to sing for the world, or standing face to face with a thunderstorm. All my life, I knew that my advantages, whatever they were, amounted to one thing: Courage.

Yesterday, I ran a few miles in the rain. A tornado warning had been issued, so people were rushing frantically through the rain to get to their homes and safety. I had been through worse. But the real reason I was running was because I could hear Nature slamming against the rooftop, demanding my tribute. So I went.

Just before I left my apartment, I paused and tried to think of  someone who would go with me. Names and faces rolled through my mind, but I could not think of a single person crazy enough to defy a tornado warning, willing to get dirty and wet for the sake of exhilaration, a breath of fresh Life. I left without a partner in crime.

Outside, I wondered what kept people inside. Fear? Of what? Truthfully, the only threat was falling branches. A lightning strike is one in a million and the cold and the rain are bearable, if not enjoyable. If you keep an eye out for trees, then the likelihood is that you’re perfectly safe. I’ve done it enough times. As the bass rumblings of thunder rolled through Frat Row and across campus, I wondered – did our ancestors’ hearts race as this primordial bass line prompted them to find shelter? To run from true danger? Pitch black, gale force winds, and confusing rain could have separated families. Today, we have street lamps, jackets, and GPS to help guide us back. But we still dance to the sounds of thunder.

I realized as I ran that it was much like starting a business. Most of today’s population believes that starting a business is too risky. And yet, entrepreneurship is the basis of value creation. Without entrepreneurship, there would be no jobs to work. Every big company began with a simple concept and a handful of people at best.  They started out small. And if they can do it, so can we, if we just watch out for falling branches.

I also came to realize that, with running in the rain as well as with starting a business, I will be alone.

After so many years, and so many close friends, I’ve found that very few are willing to entertain the thought of going into business. Fewer still, are willing to entertain the thought of going into business with a partner. And none, none at all, will jump at one of my ideas, no matter how compelling. I understand this. No one will do my job for me. No one will create the visions that I have. That responsibility is solely on me. It takes a leader to follow, and I would not follow promises of something good until I saw the product with my own eyes. And until I create something, I should expect nothing more from the people around me.

I had heard that new ideas need to be shoved down peoples’ throats, but I had never understood, viscerally, that nobody cares about your ideas until now. Theft of an idea is hopelessly vain, because nobody cares enough about your concept to steal it or buy into it. Not even your friends.

Truthfully, we are all alone. Life is not cut and dry. At best, it is a game, but it is a game in which we decide what success means, and it means something different for everybody. We are constantly creating our own game and playing it by ourselves. When you throw out all the rules but your own, the game you’re playing is a work of art. The canvas is blank. You may not even be using a canvas, but raw marble, or a brick wall. Life is art. It is up to you, and you alone, to determine what that piece of art looks like, feels like, smells like. What it means. How you want it to be received. Where you put it. Where you take it.

We are always alone in this. If you rule out death, then we have no choice but to continue alone.

Someday, we may be lucky to find close friends to share our art, our lives with, but the struggle of creation is still ours.

So be brave. Tell your story. Run in the rain.

We are all struggling, united in the torment of solitude.

Life is Full

     I guess a quick recap of my life so far would not be out of order.

     Running continues to be a boon in my life. Not so much running, as the excuse to get together with some buddies and chat while crunching miles. I’ll admit, I’m a social runner.

     Tricking is becoming a really big part of my week. With open gym available 4 days out of the week, conditioning Tuesdays, and open session on Fridays, there’s a lot of shit that I could be busy with. Not to mention trying to get the club to a point where I’m not afraid it will implode like ASA. Okay, ASA didn’t implode, but I don’t recognize it anymore.

     Dance remains as fickle as ever. But I think we’re drawing closer, she and I, in her own distant way.

     Working at the dining hall has taught me so many things. But chief among them is that, I don’t need to care about the job to work there, just the people. I LOVE my dining hall buddies!

     In the process of breaking my no-employment rule. I just suck and have not gotten around to it. I have very little time. The time usage transition will probably be very rough and I’ll need some solitude in order to get everything straight before I go for employment.

     I think I’m beginning to feel where I want to improve myself and where I’d be happy to let other people help me. I want to keep improving at dance, singing, spoken word, and being a better friend/person. Finding awesome people. What else? Writing. I’m on the fence about writing code, but I’ll probably go for it. In fact, I will. And let’s see…math up to DiffEQ and Linear Algebra. Other than that…I’m not entirely sure.

     People are always worth it. Taking more chances. Vulnerability. Courage. Stories.

     That’s my life.

Money

     I have a problem. I don’t know what to think about money.

     On one hand, I believe that it is not necessary. There are many accounts of this, so I won’t go into detail. My basic hypothesis is something like this: The good that people can do for each other is incalculable in terms of economics. For example, a baker can make bread. He can either sell the bread for $2 a loaf, or he can give it to someone who is starving. For the person who is starving, the bread is worth infinitely more than $2. And the baker makes more than one loaf of bread per batch. Therefore, the baker regularly creates an infinite supply of value.

     If basic needs can be met this way, our wants can be met through time expense or bartering. We want what we can’t have. What we can’t have is that which is outside of our expertise to acquire. What we are paying for when we pay for a service is time – time spent learning, time spent executing said skill, time spent building or crafting. In this equation, time is almost literally equivalent to money. In an ideal world, bartering would work perfectly.

     Of course, I’m a dreamer. This shit doesn’t work. Just ask Communism. The root problem is that our needs and our wants are not entirely separable, as sad as that is to me, and those who won’t give up their wants for others needs jeopardize the entire system. But, as a dreamer, I would like to see the world progress toward the ideal. Someday, maybe, we can figure out how to get rid of this money business.

     On the other hand, if I am to follow the herd and begin to acquire currency, then I have to have justification for it. I have to have things that I want to spend money on, and this is primarily the reason that I’m awake and writing right now. What do I want money for? This is a basic question, but it conflicts with my other view that money isn’t necessary whatsoever. If I go with my usual answers, I will have to ignore that belief, which is a source of dissonance for me.

     Let’s do it anyway. What do I want money for?

• My debts and my family members’ debts.
• Basic needs
• Food – because the appreciation of food is its own aesthetic
• Creative ventures – cool, funny, or weird ideas I want to make reality and share with others
• Among creative ventures we might as well place businesses and art.
• Art – experiences that I appreciate.
• Gifts – things or experiences that make people happy.

     A lot of those are almost interchangeable. Basically, in order of importance: basic needs, debt, and Art, though the latter two are arguable. Philosophically, I would prefer Art take precedence, but realistically, debt and repayment is more important to me. I can’t conscientiously ignore my debt to someone and continue on as if that extension of their faith meant nothing to me.

     On a side note, I like the definition of Art as an experience that is appreciated. With that definition, it makes a gift the natural expression of Art and Love, which, according to the Buddhist definition I subscribe to, is wanting others to be happy.

     That said, I estimate basic needs once I’m fully operational to be:

• Rent (or equivalent): around $800 per month.
• Food: Around $50 a month.
• Water: Roughly $15 a month.
• Annual total: $10,380

     Hypothetical debts for my entire family are probably…nearly incalculable. However, let’s just count my siblings. I’m going to assume $50,000 debts for college for all of them, excluding myself, because I will be at around $14,000 when I graduate. $164,000 for myself and all my siblings. And let’s say theoretically that my parents maxed out a business banking account for loans at $500,000. So, all in all, debts number around $664,000.

     In order to meet basic needs and debt, I would have to pull in $674,380 in a single year, or $2593.76923 per day, or $324.221154 an hour, assuming 8 hour work days and 260 work days in a year.

     I wonder how I could do that. Then again, assuming that all four of my siblings tackle it, it would be significantly easier. We’d only have to be fully employed at roughly $80 an hour.

     Anyway, once that debt is gone, I guess the rest of life begins.

     Suddenly, I am having doubts about my earlier prioritization.

The Art of Seduction

     A few years ago, I was challenged by a friend to read Neil Strauss’s book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick Up Artists. Basically, it followed the journey of the author, Neil Strauss, as he struggled to gain mastery over the art of picking up women. He made himself into a new person, with a new name: Style. No woman could resist Style.

     After reading through this tome and following the progression of Style from a zero to a pick up pro, I began to apply the concepts and strategies to my own life. It was difficult at first. It seemed like how to be rejected was the only thing I was learning. But slowly, I began to have minor successes, which snowballed into major successes and before I knew it, I had 9’s and 10’s fighting over me in clubs and making me eggs in the morning.

     Yeah, that was all bullshit. A nice story, though, right?

     I read the book, but what I took away from it was at once more and less than the Art of Seduction. What I took away from it was more like footnotes for something more important to me – the Art of Life. What had happened to change Neil Strauss was entirely his doing. The person he had become was completely himself, yet completely and thoroughly put together in a conscious way to attract women. This resonated with me on some level, but I wouldn’t know how to put the pieces together until I talked to a friend about it much later.

     Pickup made me uneasy. Pickup artists struck me as inauthentic, craven beasts who calculated every move. I would read someone’s opinion online that pickup artists viewed women as nothing more than masturbatory aids, and I agreed. It felt that it was demeaning to women and dehumanizing. There was a part of me that was tempted to try it out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It didn’t fit with what I believed, it could end up hurting people, and I was too scared.

     Years later, I would meet a real pickup artist, though his days were behind him, at least for the moment. We became good friends. Finally, when the topic came about during a long drive, I asked my friend how pick up artists could be authentic, to which he responded that it was “about being yourself…about being your best self,” and furthermore that people only got hurt if you failed to communicate your intentions fully. He said he looked at it more as bringing adventure into girls’ lives. I began to realize that this was something I might be able to get behind. I began to realize that pickup and seduction could be a positive thing.

     But the biggest takeaway for me was that it was about becoming a better person by dint of your own hard work. “Better” was whatever you wanted better to mean…for pickup artists, that meant they attracted women. For me, while that may have played a part, the message was that wasn’t the best me that I could be…yet. And having a clearer idea of who that person was to me was a good first step. I figured if I was my best me, there’s no way I couldn’t also be attractive. Just live my life the best way I can think of, and everything else will fall in order. I still believe it.

     Recently, I began to delve into reddit’s seduction sub-community. After reading <">