My life has recently become more beautiful. My daughter Kiele was born on April 2nd and, I knew from that moment my life was forever changed. Since then, everything has seemed so amplified. My love for her and my wife, my gratitude for life, and even my fears and worries of losing it all. Nothing prepares you for the immediacy of change in life perspective, at least as a someone who didn't need to bear a child. The depth of responsibility thrust onto me by something so small. This juxtaposition is funny, precipitous, and inspiring all at once. Just five years ago I was romanticizing the youthful charm of self-sabotage, selfishness, and belief in being a better man tomorrow. Now I feel myself orbiting something so much more important.
Something I remember during my wife's pregnancy, was my constant worry for what kind of world we were bringing Kiele into. Indeed, I've heard many times over the years from friends and colleagues that they don't want to bring children into the troubled world we live in. Filled with poverty, crime, violence, and an unstable climate. It was difficult in my wife's pregnancy, to mull on the guilt of unavoidable suffering our daughter may have to endure in her lifetime. It wasn't until shortly after she was born that I realized the negativity of today’s world is not a new perspective but rather one that has always been present in the minds of humanity. And it is sometimes unproportionally amplified to greater heights by the sheer volume of noise present in social media and news. Yet, even with the new burdens introduced in the 21st century, I'm okay with bringing Kiele into it as long as I can show her the world is indeed filled with love, kindness, and empathy. Music and art. That the world is as much gold as it is grey. In fact, by bringing a child into the world, I believe there is so much more goodness in it now. Sure, we may inevitably imprint our own scars onto her, small and large, like all parents. But by showing her the wonders of life, helping her find her purpose, and serve her community, I think a child multiplies the goodness in the world and brings a hope that is necessary for a world as pessimistic as today. While we may not live in an equal world, the mere act of being alive brings with it the power to affect change. So yes. I'm happy to bring Kiele into this world, in whatever state it is in. But I'm going to make sure that I raise her to see beauty and goodness and ultimately believe that it is indeed a worthwhile place with enduring value. Today, after a December week alone in the lab, I get to see my daughter’s eyes seek my face and try to make sense of this world. I'm awed at the way she's learned to see the edges of me, as rough as they are. I'm so excited to see who she becomes. To know her and be known by her.
Annual playlist for Steph. This time with an updated version :)
It’s 7 pm and Iʻm biking home from campus. The warmth of a 48 hour heat dome pushes against my cheeks to remind me that summer is here. But this warmth is much more than that isnʻt it? Itʻs drought. Itʻs meteorological anomalies. In some cases itʻs death. And for some unlucky species, it is extinction. I used to stay up all night thinking of the existential threat of death of life. I remember when I was taught that current extinction rates are at least 1000 times higher than natural background rates of extinction. I used to panic about the world ending, thinking about the cumulative effect of societies’ mistakes, and our tendency to live as if tomorrow will be today forever.
I was certainly more anxious than the average kid, but being raised in the 21st century how can children not be? There is an urgency we’re conditioned to feel in every footstep as we trudge through our everyday lives. Our state of existence constantly looms under the shadow of the Anthropocene. Threatening to extinguish not just the light of humanity, but all other species who get caught in our wake, long before their due time. At some point I realized that I needed a new framework of conceptualizing the reality of our fleeting existence. Over time, I've become less saddened by extinction. Or at least less saddened in the same ways I used to be. Today, I think of extinction, and to a lesser extent death, as an opportunity to remember and find meaning in a universe not necessarily meant to make sense. By acknowledging these things we create validity in life and accept the impossibility of everything. I think this is why bones are so sacred in Hawaiian culture. They are the only remnants of our existence that persist beyond the memory of ourselves. Theyʻre what connect present and future generations to the spirit of our kupuna. The link between the dead and living is essential. I've realized that memorializing our ancestors is not unlike memorializing our natural world. Our most ancient of ancestors. Conservationist and philosopher Aldo Leopold referred to ecologists as living “alone in a world of wounds”. In academia, I've become comfortable with the vastness of these wounds and the daunting task of describing and preserving the memories of our world. Recently, I've been helping a dear friend, David Boucher, re-classify an endangered Hawaiian plant from one species into three. The Kauai Delissea (Delissea spp.). Heʻs dedicated his life to propagating rare plant species and preserving Kauaiʻs rare flora. By studying and re-classifying the Kauai Delissea he helps humanity remember the colorful strokes of the islandʻs canvas. Itʻs a powerful thing to reclassify groups of living organisms. The way we can will a species into existence. The process of realizing the genes that make an organism unique with the hope that it may not be permanently scrubbed from the natural world. Memory and documentation is our way of finding significance in our existence. And being comfortable with our inevitable fate to fade into the aether of the universe. Through research, writing, and poetry we constantly attempt to impose an order and understanding on wilderness. In return we are awed by the impossibility of the task, the overwhelming scale of nature, and the underwhelming supremacy of ourselves. A beautiful article by Marion Renault, describes extinction as an anti-climactic affair. They explain how, “[extinction] has no dramatic flourish—no final explosion or last gasp—to signal a lost cause’s conclusion. We simply listen until silence itself says something meaningful.” But the land, ocean, and sky have a memory. They remember. The molecules, genes, and organismal particles that travel through the worldʻs currents are imprinted into the the DNA of our surroundings. Ultimately, the world doesn't need our remembrance as much as we need it. Our ecosystems are constantly attaining equilibrium and they do so through extinction. The world moves on and species are reborn to live their own triumphs and struggles in a new millennium. Our memories, reverence, sorrow are not necessary for the celestial gears to continue churning. But they are, at the very least, what the universe deserves. Delissea populations continue to dwindle but Dave, myself, and many other conservationists push to preserve and help future generations to remember and honor the fleetingness of everything. Over the past few years, I’ve encountered what all other natives in academia experience one time or another. The feeling of failure and inadequacy to be a ‘good’ indigenous/kanaka. I’ve felt this feeling hit harder more recently. Being in California, the geographic isolation from the physical landscape of my ancestors has made me feel disconnected and at times lost. The natural environment we’re brought up in, the basis of our oli and mo’olelo, is as much an influence in our upbringing as our communities and families that live on it. How am I supposed to be a good kanaka when I can’t even feel a physical connection to my identity? Being a natural introvert has compounded these feelings due to my discomfort in social interactions. In a way, I think my whole life has been spent keeping a comfortable distance from my community, both physically and mentally. Itʻs an unfortunate personality trait and itʻs something Iʻm trying to work on.
Every day I think of rejoining my lāhui but these feelings of failure exhaust me and dampen my efforts. If I dwell on them too much it truly wears me down. I feel guilty, like I’m not trying hard enough to be the kanaka I’m meant to be, and frustrated, that I feel like I have no outlet or resources to accomplish this. On top of everyday academic imposter syndrome and general homesickness, it can be extremely exhausting some days. Identity is complex and I’m having trouble navigating it alone sometimes. Difficulties often force you to confront your inner-feelings and last year was no exception. When I traveled home last winter, a place I go to re-center myself and refill my naʻau, I was felt feeling even more lost by the end of my visit. In the first week back in Poʻipū, I was told to “go home” by a car driving by, thinking I was a tourist (I get pale in the foggy Bay Area). In the meanwhile, this year I’ve chosen to marry a white Canadian (who has supported me in confronting these feelings in the first place), making me feel more of isolated as a Hawaiian, where, in my community, there is a generalized distaste towards haole. Lastly, I’m often reminded by my kupuna to not forget home when Iʻm constantly trying to do just that! And to top it all off, there is a constant reminder in my own mind of my own complicit colonialist biases that have been ingrained in me from American culture. These things hurt me and really muffle my efforts in navigating my identity. But I needed to remind myself that many of these actions and ideas imposed on me are often the product of trauma induced by colonial interactions. Regardless of our frustrations, I really believe in the need to call in our fellow indigenous brothers, sisters, and non-binary individuals who are struggling and let them know that we are here for them. Expressing my anger can often make me feel better, but to be honest Iʻm tired of being in a room of angry kanakas. It makes me tired. I want to work towards a constructed future that isnʻt just hate and anger. Yes, it is absolutely fair to express the frustration towards past and current injustices occurring in our communities. But I want to channel that in a way that is constructive and makes me feel fulfilled rather than defeated. This year I’ve chosen to become more comfortable with who I am as an individual first, and then a Hawaiian. I have gone to therapy, done lots of reading, and lots of writing, and talking things over with trusted individuals, to come to a better place with myself. I’ve finally been able to acknowledge that I am still a learner in my native practices and that many are on the same journey as myself. Iʻve only recently been able to articulate these struggles and connections but now that I’ve broken them down I feel ready to tackle them. With these realizations, the first thing I want to do is make my research a part of my native practices. Relating my work to my journey as a kanaka. In many ways, we give away our intuition when we join academic institutions. But we can still make our scientific questions indigenous. And most of all we can gather courage by seeing other kanakas succeed. Now that Iʻve become comfortable with my inadequacies I want to start looking at my work differently and pull myself away from my western trainings to look at my research differently. Iʻve begun doing that by 1) understanding what questions are important for native communities and what I’ve seen needs to be answered, 2) integrating my native identity into my work and my interactions, and 3) understanding academia as a constructed environment and how indigenous individuals should be creating stories specific to their communities, when possible. Itʻs time to dictate our own narratives. This post and general organization of thoughts on this topic have been ruminating for a while. I wish I had more time to more eloquently convey what I think is such an important topic for all native academics struggling to find or maintain their identity. For anyone that has got something out of this post, know that there will be many times, especially in the cold of winter, where home feels farther away than usual. But know that your home never forgets you. ‘Āina is and will forever be in your bones. Those nagging feeling of ʻnot being indigenous enoughʻ or ʻnot being a good kanakaʻ may always linger in the rear of your mind. And wherever you are in your journey is okay. If that part of your journey includes stepping away from your broader kūleana and taking care of yourself that’s okay. But know that when youʻre ready, your community is waiting for you. They (myself included) are excited for kanaka and any other indigenous scholar to rebuild your relationship and find the best version of yourself. P.S. Here are some resources that have helped me in the past few months re-connect with my heritage and community in some way Resources Oli & Protocol
Outreach Books After reading through my last post, I realized that it was a bit depressing. Academic culture can have a real toll on you. There is no real structure and measurable points of success besides grant money and publications. And even the publication culture nowadays is often publishing to publish rather than for the strict advancement of knowledge. Talking to recently retired Ph.D. Steve Lindow, he mentioned how the academic culture has changed into something much more frantic and fast paced, compared to the slower more deliberate process of his time. And maybe thatʻs a reflection of a change in the general world culture as well. We want so badly to belong and to show our best selves to the rest of the world. We try so hard to get our work out that we get lost along our journey.
There is the ʻGreat Manʻ theory where we are supposed to be convinced that only a small minority of magnificently talented souls are able to make a dent in the monolith of recorded time. Many donʻt aspire to dent but rather try to exist peacefully beside it, but not so close that this monolith casts too great a shadow on them. I think I’ve come to the realization that I’d be content in a role removed from this train of thought entirely. I want to do work for myself and my community rather than just, what society deems, 'success'. Iʻve recently finished the book “The key is stillness” by Ryan Holiday and he mentions that society today is “overfed and undernourished. Overstimulated, over-scheduled, and lonely”. Ultimately, I’ve come away from my reading being more content with living a fair and simple life. While I enjoy the process of brainstorming interesting questions, I think I’d be happy with answering them at my own pace, purposefully, with the hopes that it will make a positive difference in the world. This year Iʻm still gathering data, heaps and heaps of data, but Iʻm now trying to do it more deliberately and enjoying my time on the way. Do I want to be remembered in the records of time as an excellent person? I think a part of me always will. But Iʻd like to actively try to be happy where I am at for the moment, be proud of my willingness to try, and excited about the endless possibilities of the future. Sometimes I want to finish my Ph.D. so badly that I don’t know why I began in the first place. Sometimes I get so fixated on getting that one result or that one figure, I forget to stand back and take a look at what I’m doing and why I chose science as my life. The need to slow down is so much harder than letting it take control of you. There are some weeks where my mind feels like its stretched in every direction. And my collar is worn tight at my throat. Those weeks I feel like spending 12 hours a day in the lab to finish an experiment and pipetting until my fingers seize. The more you do, the more want to, but differentiating between the want and need can feel like you’re losing yourself completely. I guess the idea of forward progress is what’s getting me confused. All of me doesn’t move in the same direction at the same time, and neither should my work. Maybe I just need to accept that my mind, body, and soul are often times asynchronous and that feeling of being pulled apart is growth. Maybe it’ll get easier. Or maybe the thought of it getting easier will be enough for now.
It’s a hazy Wednseday afternoon. The kind of day where the weight of summer and all its nostalgia bears down on you hard. The end of summer always requires the inevitable confrontation that the days will get shorter, the air colder, and change will inevitably come. Here in the Bay Area, the first month of school has passed and, for the first time in almost two years, sidewalks have seen traffic and the hourly tide of students has returned. It’s crazy to think that I haven’t seen ‘normal’ university life since the first year of my Ph.D. (I’m in my third now:P). Mask mandates and prolonged restrictions give the beginning of this semester a tenuous peace, but one that feels like I can begin to grow again.
Although the end of summer is only arriving now, especially in the humid Bay, I’ve realized I’ve been carrying this ‘end of summer’ melancholia for the past year. In fact the last year was the epitome of melancholy for me. Every week seemed to blur together and every idle moment balanced on the edge of stagnation and acceleration. Where worry was born out of worry. And I guess this realization is what’s driven me to finally write my first blog post. Theres a warmth and a bitterness in the reflections of ones experiences but with this blog I’d like to begin to make more sense of these things. I think that by putting these reflections out into the open I can see myself more clearly. And bring meaning to the strange that is constantly happening around us. “We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.” - In Wintering, by Katherine May Well, here’s my first blog post. Actually first(ish) blog post since there is another blog I began while studying abroad, floating in the ethernet somewhere. I wish it was more jovial but these are the times I guess. For anyone interested, the format of my blog will probably revolve around my rambling thoughts, such as this one, but will also include more structured posts related to academia (e.g. grad school advice, coding advice, etc.) and science (e.g. theoretical discussion). I also plan to occasionally post personal soundtracks which are often a reflection of my current state of mind. Side Note:
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December 2023
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