5/31/01, 11:31 p.m.
I relate. Especially with the losing of a loved one.

But I'm also a much different person now than I used to be a few years ago. The Seiko childhood story in Scarab #3 was in many ways my own. I experienced a lot of "impact" in my very early years.

Like Seiko, I experienced physical discipline as the first response to a situation and I suppose I started to react physically as my own first response to a situation.

I took it as a natural response. Physical confrontations were no big deal, and even in play, I didn't know when an activity was over until someone was bleeding.

It didn't matter if it was me or someone else. I didn't even realize that this was abnormal because a lot of my friends played the same way. But, in my early twenties, it sort of dawns on [me] that you are not supposed to get in fights so much and have so many open wounds when you are trying to do business in a business setting.

I really, really related to Fight Club.

I learned to let it "slide". I started to have a lot more appreciation for everyone else's point of view and their right to see reality the way they need to.

I also started to see the world from a "we" point of view rather than an "I" or an "us" versus "them" perspective.

9/27/01, 7:36 a.m.
I won't go into too many details about it, but Anh's parents always planned for her to be with a guy who was an engineer, Vietnamese, and Catholic. Of course, I am none of these three things. But I get the sense that they sort of come to terms with it on their own over a period of time. I figure it is best not to get into that stuff until they have time to work it out on their own first. Depending on the circumstance it may take years for them to settle into it on there own, so I decided from the beginning not to be confrontational about anything like that. And not to take it personally, because it has nothing to do with you as a person.

I've seen this sort of experience through several perspectives. You may know that Rick Mays is black, and sometimes people from another culture will say things to him that should be insulting without them really meaning it to be. One time, a Japanese woman on a plane was, like, "Wow, you're black. So you can dance real good, right?"

And he heard all kinds of other things that seemed like they should be obviously disturbing remarks, but people were stating them in complete seriousness.

And, of course, he was pretty concerned about being accepted by Tomomi's family.

My view is that you want to keep the focus on the relationship between the two of you, and anyone else is welcome to accept it whenever they are ready to. That's been working for me so far. I find that over time they are able to work it out for themselves. But you don't want to worry about it, be confrontational about it, or take it offensively. You just let them evolve on their own cycle.