September last year I made the decision to fly out to New York with no plan on how things would happen once I'd land. At the end of May this year I did the exact same thing, all over again. They say "third time's the charm," so I wonder if I'll need to do this again, retrying my luck, betting that next time will be better. Where I am now is no cause for worry, however. In fact, I've never felt more liberated. But it is because things seem rather fine that I wonder if my luck will soon run dry again. I wonder if I'll need to make another reckless decision for how I hope things can fall into place next time. I'd rather not worry my mother again.
__
My mom was always the pragmatic parent. The way she would always keep me and my sisters quiet while she told the buffet cashier we were three years younger than our actual age; how she refused to let me do extracurriculars in school because of how much gas it would cost to drive me; as she mourns about my decision to not pursue medicine and live somewhere 2000 miles away from her, in a lifestyle she considers "sinful." I still love her, and I always remind her that I do. Who did I raise? my mom has bemoaned. You raised me, I remind her. I hope she's proud of that fact. I surely am.
__
When I was younger, I usually didn't get the opportunity to make my own decisions (do any of us?). Sometimes I would be okay with it (my mom forcing me to eat her freshly picked guava was nothing I had trouble with). Other times it was much more difficult, like which high school I'd attend or stretching Thanksgiving leftovers for over a week. Insufferable was shared faith.
When I was baptized, I was 14. I felt it was clear to me that this decision was my own, perhaps the first one that was actually mine. Perhaps. The pastor brought our baptismal class in a dimly-lit study room to utter a prayer before we would get dunked in a makeshift pool. The church was about to bear witness to our own individual decision to a life with Christ. They were about to witness my decision. A promise with God that I have to keep, as the pastor reminded us.
Since then I've had to make much bigger decisions of my own, such as breaking said promise (do you think God writes tragedy?). But when those decisions are anchored to the people you love, the weight that comes with it inherits the mass of 10,000 suns. To decide, for example, whether to completely renounce my faith by speaking it plainly to my mom was always paralyzing. Not because I was afraid to go through with it, but because of the consequences that might follow such a decision. The fear of after impedes more than any physical obstacle could. I pursued art anyway.
__
Why am I wasting my money on you?
Is there anything so crushing and simultaneously motivating as the disappointment of your mother? I was never disillusioned by these new realities I would inherit. I still wanted to make my mother proud, but what else could I do except own that this was how I wanted to navigate life? Sadness stained her already exhausted face. Her tired eyes now heavy with disapproval. This was a woman who struggled to send me to school while taking care of the entire family. Now she has to sit through me explaining my decision to pursue a path she's unfamiliar with, a path that to her was a waste of her money, a decision she saw as a mistake.
At this point, I have no one to blame for my decisions except myself, no one to relieve me of my own mistakes. Studying art is your responsibility, leaving home is your responsibility. You're on your own. I think this truth that my mother distressingly impressed upon me, prepared for me an endurance I never anticipated to acquire. Underneath her disappointment was a lesson.
__
When a decision is made, how it is handled afterward is equally important, if not more important, than that moment you decide. Decisions can cloak themselves as opportunities, thinly veiled mistakes obscured by our own delusion. Whether we acknowledge with candor what our decisions truly are, reveals our own character and capacity for self-respect.
Joan Didion: People with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. Admittedly, many decisions I make are mistakes I have to reckon with. Many this year, many of them costly. But I'd be lying if I said these regretful decisions didn't nurture a confidence in me, or that they didn't teach me to better say “no” to people, or that I didn't gain clarity on why I do what I do.
Unsurprisingly, decisions form our beings. But truly owning your decisions, your mistakes, and your accomplishments, this is self-respect. Sycophants are masters of self-respect because as repugnant as their lifestyles are, they know what they do is slimy, and they know exactly why they do it, and they don't seek absolution because they absolutely own their decisions. They have the courage of their mistakes, they know the price of things. Their self-respect is uncomfortably impressive. They connive with their whole chest; not a shred of shame.
Jenny Zhang: You have to both be incredibly willing to be humbled and also, at the same time, hold an incredibly high level of delusion. Delusion helps us move mountains, and humility separates us from Republicans. Self-respect ensures we can do both. My mother wanted the same for me. Perhaps not being a sycophant, but being mature enough to make a decision and having the self-respect to stick with it; to put faith in myself; to have what matters to me, matter to me. I think it's why although she can never properly explain to her Indonesian friends and family what I do, she always maintains a pride that her son carved out a piece of the Earth for himself and fosters it deeply.
Eric Hu: "He went on his own path, but he's fine now. He's safe now. We don't have to worry about him."
__
On the red-eye flight from LA to NYC that September last year, we had to stop in Nashville. On that flight we were packed like sardines, a sight revolting for those still weathering this pandemic. My mother disapproved of me flying out to the city without any real plan, but she still wanted to see me off before her son finally cemented this decision of his. She still had faith that things would fall into place for me.
She motions toward her shoulder for me to sleep on, as she always does when we’re on planes. Sleep. You need rest before we get there. When I was young, I felt embarrassed to rely on my mom like this, but I realized this would be one of the last times I could rely on her at all. I decided to lean on her one last time, and let her firm shoulder pillow all the dreams I had of New York.
Joan Didion, “On Self-Respect,” Slouching Towards Bethlehem (Zola Book, 2015), 190.
__
A PDF transcript of this writing.
__
If you enjoyed this issue, won’t you share it & subscribe for more? 👉👈
Darin Buzon works with letters in Brooklyn, New York, thinking, writing, & creating all over the place. This newsletter is one of those places. Some other places are here, here, & here.
I remember feeling inspired to take more risks in life after we first met at that Pattern x Sanctu event in Downtown Brooklyn. You shared with me that you just moved to NYC from Southern California, which I was stoked about since I made the same move 3 years before.
The difference between our moves was what inspired me: I moved to NYC with a job and girl in the city, while you moved out of sheer drive. A duffel and a dream!
I still feel inspired to take risks when I read your writing. Keep it coming. <3