Good change vs bad change

Dear J,

Miss Soup is one of your teachers at the Koala room. Your other teachers are Miss Lupe, Miss Maria and Miss Marsha. Of course, her real name isn’t Miss Soup. It’s Miss Sue. You just called her Miss Soup the moment you met her. Actually, when you first said it, it sounded more like M’sp.

What’s funny is her teacher friends also thought it was funny, so they started calling her Miss Soup too. The picture above was on the bulletin board on the wall outside your classroom. And that’s your friend Sumedh.

(By the way, one day you came home with Miss Sue’s accent. We said, “That’s your button.” You corrected us, saying, “That’s my butt’n. BUT-NNN!” Don’t worry, we fixed you. You’re back to talking like your Chinese-PuertoRican self.)

Everything we do, consciously or not, even just by being who you are without trying… changes things. It changes the people around us. Especially those closest to us. As you move through the world, you change the world around you whether you want to or not. It also changes your outcomes. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.

So anytime you ever feel stuck on a problem, it might just be because the solution doesn’t exist around you yet. Do something, and something will change to reveal new opportunities. Whenever you get stuck, the best way to get unstuck is to do something to make something change.

It’s 12.30am and Mama’s asleep now. She’s getting more and more tired and Julia is growing bigger. Mama says Julia feels like a gymnast alien baby somersaulting inside her. And she says it feels like Julia is going to fall out.

Speaking of change, here’s a bad one. Music. By the time you read this, your mom and I have no doubt introduced you to some pretty cool music. After all, we’re both musicians and we have some passionate tastes in music. But… you’ll still end up liking whatever you and your friends like. That’s okay. You were born in the 2010s, and music tastes are generational.

I think… we have reached a point where music will only keep getting worse.

I have a terrifying theory about when exactly music peaked for the human race, and where it started to dive downward forever, and it’s impossible for anyone to experience an era of new awesome music again.

Let’s wind back the clock to the pivotal era: the 60s. A couple of very world-altering things happened in the 60s.

It was a time after the 2nd world war. America catapulted into the forefront as a world superpower. The land of ultimate personal and economic freedom. A boom that afforded indulgences, leisure, entertainment.

Meanwhile, technology. Overnight intercontinental travel for everyone, borderless communications. TV, Radio, telephone.

All of which, when combined, created the catalyst for a music nuclear fission.

Right before that perfect storm, cultures evolved and matured in isolation. Salsa incubated in Puerto Rico. Then New York. Then it spread among the latin americans. Take any other art before the 60s. Music, dance, fine art. Jazz. Blues. Folk.

They all developed in isolation, experiences and knowledge passed down from generation to generation. Each generation getting wiser, introducing new ideas, evolving. But still, Blues was Blues. Jazz was Jazz. Gospel was Gospel.

There was very little mixing, and it was likely that each proponent of their craft dedicated their life to it. Honing their skills taking their craft to the limit. Specializing, refining, delving deeper.

So, like fine wine, each culture had time to mature.

Then, the 50s and 60s happened. Cultures smashed and blended. Experts in each category were introduced to experts in other categories. Most reacted with indifference or disgust.

But some experts reacted to each other with curiosity. “You do WHAT with your piano? Show me.”

And that, I believe, is the PERFECT substrate for creativity: when you have two people who have achieved mastery of their own craft coming together and exchanging notes.

But for that to happen, people first have to get good at one thing. But for someone to get good at one thing, they need to spend time on it. There is no way around it. Genetic differences matter some. But getting good at something is just a function of how much time you investing in it.

Now here’s why creativity is dead or dying…

Nothing is allowed to mature in isolation anymore. Because of the speed of communication, the mixing happens too early. An artist isn’t given enough time to mature and find his or her own “voice”, before it is diluted with the world’s voice.

We have reached a plateau in human creativity. And will soon be impossible for someone to move to a new mountain. Everyone will get used to scurrying around the plateau, climbing up and down little rocks, and forget that at one time in the past, every artist reached his or her peak by scaling his or her own Everest.

The ONLY way anyone can create a bubble for himself to evolve anymore, is through IRREVERENCE. Willfully giving the finger to everyone. E.g., not using an instrument the way everyone says it ought to be used, like Jimi Hendrix and Tom Morello.

My suggestion to you is, yes keep an open mind, but:

Don’t mix until you’ve mastered. And take pleasure in pissing people off.

You no longer have physical boundaries to protect your creativity, so you need to create mental barriers to protect your mind. One barrier is not giving a fuck what the majority think. Another is going against the majority.

More change at your school

Your teachers miss you, because you moved from the Koala room to the Starfish room last week. Just after a few days at Starfish, your demeanor changed drastically. You’ve become more outgoing. More fearless. I told your mom you must be copying what older kids are doing, because you’re now doing things way outside your ability, like jumping off high places. Whereas before, you have been more incrementally improving and extending your world and abilities.

You don’t cry that much at drop-off anymore. Mama dropped you off the other day. You held her hand and walked her to the kitchen. You showed mama where to put your water bottle. Then you said, “Mama said mama has to go to work.”

Then you let go of her hand, and walked away. Mama gasped, “At least give me a hug!” You came back and gave her a hug. Then Natalie came and gave mama a hug. Then Jacob came and gave mama a hug too. Then Natalie hugged you.

And you were okay. You repeated, “Mama has to go to work, and daddy will pick you up.”

Then when I pick you up later, you like to fill me in one what happened in the morning: “Mama had to go to work. Daddy picks you up.”

Whether we like it or not, you’re growing up every day.

You’re expressing your feelings more too. You love saying “I like mama” over and over again. Sometimes you’ll suddenly hug mama and say, “I love mama.” This makes her tear up every time.

Change in after-school routine

Remember how we showed you dandelions in the park last week? Since it’s spring, they’re sprouting everywhere. Our after-school routine has changed to include picking up dandelions for mama. You say, “Joshua take it home and give it to mama. Mama will like it!”

One thing that still hasn’t changed

Before bedtime the other day, I gave you milk as usual. After drinking it, you started staring into space, passed some gas, then your face turned red and you made a milk waterfall, as I tried my best to catch it in my hands so it didn’t get on the couch, but failed. A few days later, I woke up to the sound of your mom screaming, “HELP!” I barely opened my eyes when she thrusted you into my arms, and said she had to go back downstairs to clean the carpet and asked me to give you a bath. She had poop on her pants and you had poop on your knees and feet.

I joked with your mom about how I’m always the unlucky one who gets your bodily fluid disasters. Every time you’ve thrown up, had diarrhea, etc and something went wrong, I’ve been the victim.

Backseat conversations

You’re recognizing most letters now. But mama taught you her version of some letters. For example, D is for daddy, J is for Joshua, M is for Mama and K is for Kimi. So as we drive by signs, you will call out alphabets. “D for daddy!”

Now that it’s spring and we have more daylight, you’re also mentally mapping out our routes. You know exactly where the bridges are, and even though you’re facing backwards, 10 seconds before each bridge, you say, “I want to see the bridge.” You know we cross 3 bridges on our way back, you know we take 2 turns before the last bridge, and you say, “I wanna go under three bridges with bunny?”

Yesterday, you tried to give your dandelion to your backseat bunny. I tried to explain that bunny doesn’t have hands, so he can’t hold it. Then you conclude, “Bunny not can hold it.” I thought this was a great insight into how your mind processes logic. “Bunny” is the object. “Can hold it” is the property of the object. And “Not” is the inverse operator. I tried to correct you a few times by saying “Bunny cannot hold it.” But you repeated, “Bunny not can hold it.” Logically, you are correct. English is just broken and logically inconsistent. So I said, “Yes, bunny not can hold it.”

Love,
Dad

P.S. Happy birthday! Mama brought a cake to school and we celebrated your birthday together. She bought small fire trucks for you and your friends. But she put your fire truck on top of your cake:

You loved it so much you carried that little one around everywhere. To school, on walks, to the dinner table, to bath time… even to bed. At least, until this one arrived:

P.P.S – We sing songs after we turn off the lights now, because you get upset we make it dark when you still want to read. After your birthday one night, you were singing “You are my sunshine”, and you gave your mom and I a good laugh when you ended it with, “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take… my fire truck away.”