Vulnerable fun fact: One thing that has never changed about me in my life is that I’m always searching for deep, meaningful human connections.
Ok, it might seem a little generic, but it’s the one thing that is 100% true about me. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking for. I only knew that I was not satisfied with my life. I didn’t get as much as I wanted from my upbringing and didn’t know what I could do about it.
I was a little cynical and sometimes arrogant. I wondered why people around me didn’t care about the pain and crises in the world as much as I did. That was when I was in my late teenage years. I traveled to India and Mongolia to volunteer at a child laborer shelter and an orphanage. I didn’t admit it, but looking back, I know I definitely thought I was better than others. I thought maybe I didn’t get to connect just because people are “too basic”, so if I can meet with more intellectual people I will find the connection I want.
The most obvious way my search for connection plays in my life is through romantic relationships. I often found myself getting into relationships with people I think are smarter than I am: seniors at school or people that go to a better school (In my case, it’s always National Taiwan University). With all my curiosity, I found it satisfying to have people talk about philosophy, linguistics, and justice around me. I got addicted to feeling a bit dumb and being shamed intellectually. It might sound a bit sick, but it was how I got to feel like I transcended to a “better world.”
I wanted to run away from my past so badly, resulting in my constant pursuit of brighter, shinier objects. When I started working on international affairs, I pursued a more Westernized community. I worked for Americans, dated Americans, and secretly tuned my accent to sound more “natural” when I spoke with them. I wanted to build deep relationships with these people, and I thought the most straightforward way was by becoming one of them. They resemble everything my family of origin can’t offer: the beacon of upward mobility.
I read a lot in English, watched the movie they recommended, and spoke only English when I could. Haha, I even did therapy with a white lady who has no experience in cross-cultural practice to make sure I’m “qualified” for the world I want to be in. Despite all my efforts, my Taiwanese American boss still found my writing “weird” and once even refused to text me. I was so hurt, but I decided to turn all the pain into power to work even harder to be appreciated.
I didn’t get the connection I wanted. I was instead lost in all the pursuit, seeking something that might not even exist.
I started working in the DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) space in the past two years. At first, it was fun having a group of intellectual people gathering and talking about smart stuff. (It was also fulfilling for my pursuit of human rights, but that’s another story) I was so inspired by how people dissect the world and analyze everything. I stayed in the Boston area for a bit and attended many meetings with professionals from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and more. I was even invited to speak at some of these gatherings. I felt intellectual just being around these people. It was the ultimate pursuit of my “connections,” but I wasn’t happy.
I felt lonely. I constantly worried that I’m not smart enough for any of the topics, I feared that I didn’t learn fast enough and would soon no longer fit in. The fear took me big time. I spent nights and nights fighting my imposter syndrome. I got into the smartest community I can think of, but I’ve never felt so empty.
Despite all that, I’m still searching. How are these not the connections I wanted? What do I really want?
Let’s come back to the pursuit itself. In Bittersweet, Susan Cain pointed out that longing is the gateway to belonging. She mentioned that the word yearning is linguistically associated with hunger, thirst, and desire. In Hebrew, it comes from the same root as the word for passion. So, if I may, I would interpret my search for connections as my passion for the world. It was my way of experiencing the world, to know more, and to learn more. I guess there’s nothing terrible about it.
The problem is that things went wrong when my search was tied to the hatred from my past. Instead of running toward something, I was more running away. The search became my way to escape. I chatted with a friend about the difference between “fighting against” and “fighting for.” When you fight against something, you know what you don’t like, you recognize the world with imperfections; but when you fight for something, you know exactly what your position is, and with a clear vision for what the future may hold.
I am against child abuse, against any kind of inequality, and against authoritarianism. But what am I fighting for? What is the future I envision? I know I still want deep connections. But what exactly are these connections like?
In the past two years, I have thought a lot about the technicality of a community. A decentralized community is like a small democratic society, where people share some common ground and make decisions through collective intelligence. Trust is at the core of that common ground, and mechanisms can be designed to build trust.
All of the above statements might be correct, but they ignore the most fundamental thing - LOVE and COMPASSION. Ok, I know I’m getting into cliche. But I never agree so deeply with this.
In the Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama shared a story about a fellow Tibetan imprisoned by the Chinese Community Party. The Tibetan said that after years of torture in the prison, his biggest fear is to lose his compassion with the CCP soldiers who tortured him. With compassion, you get the power to understand people’s behavior more profoundly. You see their fear and everything that drives their action. You see the child inside them, see their insecurity, and learn to appreciate them besides all the wrong they did to you.
Compassion is derived only when there is love and the attempt to understand. Trust can be built by working together, but without love and compassion as the foundation, every mistake can turn into endless bitterness. While there are all these frameworks and mechanisms in building communities and organizations, nothing is more fundamental than the basic human instinct we share.
Now, back to my search for connections, I thought it could be found in smartness, but instead, I found it in kindness and understanding. I feel like I belong when I don’t need to be “better”, better than myself or better than anyone. I feel like I belong when I can be this silly person who occasionally makes mistakes but is still accepted by my friends. While I may not yet have all the answers, with the practice of love and compassion, I think I’m getting closer to what I’m searching for.