Thinking

This past Memorial Day Weekend I headed over to one of Southern California’s hiking highlights: The Bridge to Nowhere in Azusa. A pretty intense hike, with several inclines and climbing areas, as well as no less than 8 places where crossing a creek/river is required and getting shoes/ feet wet is necessary. I definitely did not have the right gear, but after about the first 3 times I got used to wading into the water; it actually feels pretty refreshing, as long as you can tolerate the “squishing” of the shoes after you’ve dipped in. The whole hike took about 3 hours there and back, and probably could have taken long if I paused to admire the scenery more or had a dog with me (as many hikers did) or stopped at the actual Bridge to Nowhere to do some bungee jumping. I did none of those things but still enjoyed all the different rock formations, mountain ranges, and hiking along the creek.

What was most refreshing, though, was the ability to walk and THINK for 3 hours. There was no cell phone reception, which meant no calls to others and NO INTERNET for 3 hours. It’s hard to imagine that in this day and age, but it’s good to take a social media/ internet vacation for at least half a day. I found myself actually thinking about life, about what I’ve done before and where I go from now, new dodgeball techniques I might try, what to write about in this blog, different japanese terms I’ve learned over the last few years, all kinds of things. Most importantly, I took the time to EVALUATE things and focus on them for as long as I wanted. Much like the trails of the Bridge to Nowhere, the roads of my thoughts were not clearly defined by legal statutes, the boss’s orders, or some sort of personal agenda I had. They were just free flowing thoughts that came about because I let my mind wander. I also wasn’t talking to anybody but myself, so I could be truly truly honest about myself and not have to give political answers or tell white lies like the ones to my parents (I try to limit these to things like, “Sure I’ll get married soon, don’t worry, you guys just wait!”)

I used to have tons of these thoughts, long hikes and long car rides where I pondered things. Over the last few years I’ve limited these times because I’ve had other things to focus on and I’ve tried to “not waste time,” but once a while (like a long weekend or on a vacation) I let my mind wander. I think it’s where my best ideas come from, where I dissect different things that have been on my mind and my mind comes up with a solution or looks at it from a different perspective. I always think of it like the movie Inception, where there’s layers of dreams that go into creating an idea; thinking allows Leonardo Dicaprio and his group of inceptors to go in and establish new ideas.

Learning a language or learning the law, or learning how to play dodgeball, anything really involves thinking too. It’s one thing to memorize words or concepts and read them off a piece of paper, or just play dodgeball, but it’s another to be able to describe the concepts and master it. That creates going over things in one’s mind and recreating it over and over again, so that one can access it anytime, (ironically) without even thinking. Basically the test of whether one has thought enough about something to learn it comes when you can repeat it without even thinking, effortlessly.

Lesson of the story here: Don’t just be a sponge and absorb. Once in a while, think.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan