Why We Write Letters.

I read an article recently that talked about the merits of writing letters as part of building your narrative on specific chapters of life. (It was especially pleasant to think about it that way after listening to talks like this about internet tattoos and all of the recent scandals about leaked emails etc.) Yes, my life and activities are being recorded to some extent through facebook and twitter, online purchases, credit cards, online bank transactions... All of these mediums.

But I also have the option to hand write letters that will fade with time, lose their meaning to anyone except the recipient... but they are beautiful because they make time seem more tangible. Instead of forever, we have the chance to make something that will fade with memories.

Society might be pushing towards immortality -- how will I be remembered? What can I leave behind to keep people thinking about me?

But I crave something tangible. Something with a real time line.

And for me, that is a letter. So intimate, you can imagine the brush that someone's hand has over the paper as they write.

For me, it means I have a box of letters sitting in the corner of my apartment that was waiting for an address until yesterday.

Letters suddenly mean a lot more when they become the only option. The life line to a friend so far away. And right now, they are. So my days are poured into words that clunk and don't fit as well as the experience itself, but we make the effort to recreate and remember these chapters, these moments, to share them when it matters most.

And as I send them all off tomorrow, I'm sending a piece of my memories as I lived them, to someone who matters most.


In defense, here is a TED talk!

A Year of Tomorrows

A dear friend of mine (actually, two friends of mine) are enlisting. One of them entertained me with stories of his experience in a nearby ROTC program (since Yale, until recently) did not offer a program for it. He woke up earlier than most of us ever did and worked very hard, making friends and learning a discipline that I was never exposed to besides the conversations that we shared on the topic. His commitment was inspirational to a lot of us. And it was a pleasure to open my email this morning and glow with pride for his accomplishments.

Though I was able to learn more about it over the course of the year, I came from a very academically focused family. We value service and I have devoted a lot of time to find ways to serve and solve interesting problems. But this service is very different in its mindset and goals.

It was a transition for me to embrace. The other friend is someone I have known for many years now and has been adopted into my life in a way I never really expected from someone whose politics are very different from mine. First we learned to coexist and respect each other, and quickly we became very close friends. We're both pretty quirky. I think that's what did it.

So when he told me for the first time that he planned to enlist once we graduated, I watched him with the same measured stare that he gave me from across the table. "Oh. " was all I could muster.

I am endlessly proud of him. The same way I am of my own younger brother. Though he was too modest about his accomplishments to tell me things himself, like when his next cross country race would be, or that he was killing it at higher level physics, math, and economics classes, or when he did particularly well in a race. I learned how to ask. Though too often I forgot to.

It was a year (or several years) of tomorrows. I would go to his race, tomorrow. We would catch up, tomorrow. There was always tomorrow. We sure as hell enjoyed the todays. The todays when we went to a driving range (golf) and both tried to see who could hit the golf ball furthest (he won), or hit the truck picking up the balls (I won), and ended up ripping the skin off my hands because I only know how to swing golf clubs the way I learned to use a field hockey stick. I think he pulled a muscle in his arm that day. Clearly, neither of us had any idea what we were doing and probably looked ridiculous. The todays were early morning runners to our favorite diner, no matter how early he had to leave the next day. Or the afternoons when he would dry the running clothes that he had used earlier on his car, after he washed them in our sink, and my mom would insist that he try the washing machine upstairs. Or the afternoon when I called him after the marathon bombings and he tried to make it better. We had a lot of todays. But always with the promise of tomorrow. He wasn't going away... yet.

This is how I have conceptualized my goodbyes: it's not goodbye, almost ever. It's not hard to stay in touch or reach out, and we may very well cross paths again. We can have years of todays and tomorrows.

But I am wary of putting too little weight in the time that I do have with some of my friends before we part ways in the directions we've decided to take. It's not goodbye, but time and space add their own elements to friendships, relationships and conversations. We wont always have shared contexts.

He left with a friendship bracelet that I made for him -- just like I did our freshman year. I guess, in that way, I'm still right there, as he knows I always will be. Even when I cannot be physically present.

Accepting Vulnerability

ENRIQUEZ: Accepting vulnerability

BY DIANA ENRIQUEZ

GUEST COLUMNIST

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

“I can imagine the face you are making right now,” says my best friend over the phone. And it’s true: He probably can. That is part of what makes this relationship and a few other friendships as rewarding as they are. He knows me well enough to know not only how I will react to something, but also how I will communicate this reaction publicly.

Many of the Yale students I have come to know and love started off with similar social patterns: They liked having big networks of friends. These networks are filled with people to talk to on the street corner and ask “How was your summer?” without necessarily wanting a long and detailed answer. They come with promises of lunches and coffee that may or may not actually happen — and yet we aren’t offended when someone didn’t really mean she would follow through. We also have friends and suitemates with whom we spend nearly all of our time — and yet some Yalies still feel lonely though they are constantly surrounded by activity and groups of so-called friends.

We have all learned to manage challenges and failures and move forward. It’s part of the reality of being a student here. You simply will not be able to do everything offered to you and do it perfectly. Every single other student I know was in some way unprepared for academic, social or mental challenges. During those low points, we feel more alone than ever in our lives. We are surrounded by some of the most talented students from across the country and around the world. How can we admit we’ve done something wrong?

Vulnerability is terrifying. It means standing in front of the mirror of your own judgment and scrutinizing yourself for much more than your physical appearance. You can put on your war paint and a smile for every day you spend at Yale without developing the internal strength and understanding of who you are as a person. What will carry you through every challenge you face here and when you leave Yale comes from that personal fortitude that only you can build up by allowing yourself to be vulnerable.

University of Houston professor of psychology Brené Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability went viral shortly after it was posted on TED.com. Her message is simple but profound: She defines shame as a fear of unworthiness of peers’ acceptance and friendship. If they know this about me, we think, then they will not accept me. We choose to “numb vulnerability,” Brown says. But we cannot do this without turning off other emotions like excitement and anger and joy, because numbing vulnerability also means numbing emotion.

How often I have listened to this TED talk and felt the weight of truth in her words. But where could I start when I, like many other Yalies, learned to turn off emotions to get whatever I needed to done, come off as completely put together at all times and be able to adapt quickly and effectively to all environments?

I found peace and acceptance in my friendships — in relationships where everything is laid out in all of the beautiful and ugly truth it holds. My best friends call me out on my mistakes, bad decisions or good work, even when I will not reach these conclusions on my own terms. My friends’ words hold weight for me, because we are able to see, understand and respect each other for all of the pieces that come together and make the whole of the other person. These friendships I have formed at Yale come from late nights sitting in common rooms and hallways, tears, frustrations, failure, unexpected success, celebration of jobs well done, criticism to push the other toward improvement — and acceptance when I never thought it could come.

I could only form these relationships that give me the strength to do everything I do because I accepted vulnerability as part of the bargain. There’s a constant pressure to duck out early and stay emotionally safe. But it’s not worth it. I will tell my friends that I love them because it is true and we both know it, even with the occasional pain that sometimes comes from trusting people on this level.

I believe in them, the same way they believe in me. And that is always worth the price of being vulnerable. So take the time to say what you really mean to those who matter. The results are something you will always carry with you.

100 Day Project

Just to link a few more things together (and help make sense of all of it), here is the tumblr I have been adding a picture to every day and will keep adding to for what is left of my 100 days. My friend Josh and I created it as a challenge to ourselves. We each have a theme, and we need to communicate it through pictures.

In the subject of friendships, today's entry is dedicated to my oldest friend. Here's to you.

100 Day Project: Sinestesia

Every day would be a holiday from real.

Points for anyone who knows which song I am referring to.

I spent a good deal of today doing my favorite thing: reading all about illicit market structures in Colombia (unfortunately, this was much later than my research. I was looking at data from late 90s, early 2000s, but it was still helpful theme-wise) and the characters that ran its infamous cartels in the 1980s.

Each day it gets a little clearer what I am looking to answer. it's hard though -- I get really really excited about different topics and themes related to illicit markets, Latin America... the usual... so it's been difficult to track down a focus. I'm sure I'll have one by the end of the week.

It's also been helpful in terms of letting my mind wander to other topics... like TEDxYale. And curating the next conference. I pitched a few ideas today for speakers, I guess we'll see where that goes.

So maybe a good place for this to end, is one something funny and on something serious.

The funny thing:
A few of my friends and I started a 100 day work-out challenge. So far, I am completely dominating everyone in terms of total completed and consistency. Mostly because I am so consistent. It has been really nice to go for a run through the neighborhood every day. I need to work on timing because I keep going around noon, but I'm sure that it will work itself out.

the Serious thing:
Yes, it gets a capital S. I was thinking a lot about my friendships today. It's always that question of, who will stick around when I move onto the next phase of life? Who will I keep in touch with after college? Am I doing this right? Is it bad that I have grown apart from some people and not others?

I gave myself a gift last year. I learned to RELAX. We cannot control everything and we cannot decide to change/reshape the past. And that is ok. Just as you werent the same person freshman year of college as you are today, your friendships will change and adapt based on what you need. The ending of different chapters doesnt make some friendships more valid than others. It doesnt make some valuable and others not. It just depends on what fits into your life at any given time. And that is perfectly fine with me.

Funny/Serious ending:
I've been on a ROLL with my fortune cookies lately. They've been kind to me. Most recently one told me that I am the only one who has the power to shape and define my life (truth.), but it reminded me, super randomly, of one that I received sometime last August. It told me that I was about to make a life long friend or two. And as I sit back responding to emails and shaping out my summer plans, I realize that it was absolutely right.

Good night, all. 

Working Through A Few Things Right Now

Hello all,

Long story short, I had a longer blog from Mexico and High School about travels etc. but I decided that one was good as it was and this was a better space for me to write about where I find myself now. Plus, this is linked to my other blog for MEChA, and I write for both of them so it made more sense for me.

Right now I am working on my trip to Colombia in August, where I will be researching Campaign Finances, the 1978 and 82 elections, and the role of Cartels operating near Medellin and Bogota during these periods. I spent a few days at the Harvard David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies conference last week and talked to a series of people about working in Colombia/sourcing which was PHENOMENALLY helpful. I can say this because I spent the afternoon entering data into my excel sheet of contacts, reading loads of articles and requesting specific books for the library.

It's been a thought experiment kind of day... in truth, I pretty much dropped everything in my head into an email as fast as I could and sent it off to a partner in crime, of sorts. He's kinda become my go to for discussions about ideas of this variety. It's REALLY helpful. My first piece of life advice: Go find that person. Seriously. We all need someone who just cuts through the crap and tells you when you are being an idiot or when you are on to something.

So I was thinking about illicit markets today. And really, I was also kinda shaping my ideas for the year after college. At some point this year, I stopped being afraid of what comes next. Is that good or bad? I'm not sure I'll ever have any way of measuring that. But I going to keep my eyes and ears open, and see where this project proposal leads me.

In the meantime, I'm posted a few more things I've written so you can have a better sense of what I have been up to recently... or really, where I was this year.

Till next time.