Clear Water

On Patience and Timing

Do you have the patience to wait
until your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
until the right action arises by itself?

― Lao Tzu

Now, having read my first MONOLOGUE entry, “The End of Everything,” you can see where I’m situated. Every year, I forecast what will happen next in culture. This time, I am without a sharp opinion. It’s hard to see which way the world is turning, and you may even find that your own compass is directionless. Take it as a positive. A blank page can be paralyzing, but it can also be liberating, inviting new art and interpretation. 2023 is a rare moment when creators are called to take risks and innovate, instead of deferring to the same formulas and patterns. No rules are the new rules and I’m here for the Creative Renaissance.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about Patience and Timing. One of my most pronounced faults is impatience. As a writer, I’m prone to think of my life as a tidy narrative and in this manufactured timeline, events are set to unfold a certain way. Of course, I’m not the author of the universe – I’m not even in command of my own story – and so most things aren’t necessarily going the way I’d like them to. My life is often messy, frustrating, haphazard, and sometimes, parts of it seem purposeless. As I write about in my book, sometimes it takes some time. But sometimes it also never happens. Or at least it seems that way…

I’ve spent some time with the actor Ke Huy Quan this week. We first met at a lunch and then last night, we celebrated the Lunar New Year together (Gong Xi Fa Tsai!). Ke is currently garnering acclaim in Hollywood for his role in the feature film, Everything Everywhere All at Once. In the last couple weeks, he’s not only won a Golden Globe but a Critics Choice award for his performance. On Tuesday, the Oscar nominations will be announced. Not only is Ke favored to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but it is also predicted that he will win the Academy Award.

Movie fans, however, know Ke Huy Quan better for other roles. Almost four decades ago, Ke was a popular child actor in movies like The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (When I remarked on Brendan Fraser’s parallel come-back story in The Whale, Ke reminded me he and Brendan are old friends having starred in 1992’s Encino Man together!) Hollywood, however, didn’t look kindly upon Asian actors and storylines in those years. Although Asian male leads like Sessue Hayakawa were Tinseltown’s first sex symbols, the second World War, U.S. economic decline as Japanese auto manufacturers came to power in the ‘80s, and an increasing number of Asian immigrants inspired Hollywood to write propagandistic, stereotypical characters that demeaned Asian people. Instead of getting more Ke Huy Quans, America got Long Duck Dongs and that spoiled generations of attitudes towards the Asian community. As an Asian-American son of immigrants during this period of American history, I can attest that Hollywood really fucked us.

Over the last several years, catalyzed by the success of Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite, and Squid Game (and the epiphany that there’s a lot more money to be made in Asia and from Asian-American customers), Hollywood has finally started considering the Asian as a complex and nuanced character. Enter Ke Huy Quan, who had given up on ever acting again after his childhood success. He’s in a different season of his life now, but he’s emerged from the background to not only accept trophies, but better roles (next up is the anticipated Disney+ television series, American Born Chinese), he’s been a vocal advocate for his community, and was even voted Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine. As a kid, if you’d told me Short Round would be the one to reclaim the Asian-American man’s position as a pop culture hearthrob, I’d have spit out my gum!

Ke has been taking his time in press opportunities to talk about grace and gratitude around his rebirth. He thanks the Daniels for casting him in Everything Everywhere. He praises the hard work Asian-American Hollywood has put in to insert themselves into the conversation. I think Ke is also aware of how much of this moment is spun with serendipity and magic. If you watch his Golden Globes acceptance speech, he is overwhelmed by the immensity of it all and arrested by the mystic qualities of life.

Even though I prefer to believe I’m in the driver’s seat of my own journey, the cold reality is that much of what transpires is happening to me. I can’t explain why specific milestones of my career haven’t panned out or why I haven’t been recognized for that one thing (I do it so much better, why haven’t I been recognized for it yet!!). I wish I was further along as a designer, a writer, a father and husband. Surrendering to the mystery and letting it remain open-ended is hardest on the ego. It shatters all sense of control. It is humbling to be still when everything – and everyone – around you is in constant motion. I often say that my depression is provoked by lack of momentum, but what’s really happening is that the momentum is a distraction from the unsettledness underneath.

I haven’t gotten everything I’ve ever wanted, but I’ve had everything I’ve never needed.

Let me say that again.

You haven’t gotten everything you’ve ever wanted, but you’ve had everything you’ve ever needed.

I believe we can sit and be present with that knowledge and welcome any extra blessings that life brings to our footstep. No matter how miniscule or majestic they may be, they are all miraculous. I hope they take your breath every single time.