I Went In Thinking “50/50″ I’d Be Depressed; I Came Out 100% EXCITED!

(Source: Amazon)

I wanted to watch “50/50” (2011) because I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, mostly because he looked so hot as Arthur in “Inception” (2010). I also wanted to watch this film because I wanted to do some minor research on a potential article I will write in the near future (more on that later).

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as "Arthur" in "Inception" (Source: The Guardian)

Anyways, I watched it with a good friend after work today.

I walked into the theater with bunches of tissues and a mini-bag of touch-up, just in case, you know. RottenTomatoes.com had rated it 93% and I had heard from some friends that they (macho men) teared during some of the scenes. Hence, with tissues and make-up in hand, I prepared myself for the depressing movie in front of me.

What happened surprised the HELL out of me… but let me back track.

The movie, in short (because you can read the long synopsis on RT or IMDB), is that this 27-year-old dude named Adam is diagnosed with some crazily long-syllabled spinal cancer and his chances of living is 50/50 (duh!). He goes through the motions of dealing with the shock, living his life as normally as possible and preparing for what could be his last breath.

The story unfolds to show a typical 27-year-old boy’s life: a mediocre job, a selfish girlfriend, a hilarious best friend who wants to get laid all the time, an over-protective mom and a “hands-off” dad.

Yet, what really moved me was the sentiment behind all the humor. Every time the audience (or, in this case, me) was about to tear, a character, usually Seth Rogen, would crack a joke. Don’t get me wrong, it was done beautifully. The jokes didn’t downplay the tragedy of the situation; instead, it reminded the audience the other side of 50/50.

Yes, Adam has 50% chance of dying from cancer…. but that also means he has 50% chance to live… to really live his life… and that’s what the audience, especially me, came out of the movie with.

The movie isn’t about the difficult experience of having cancer, or of being shocked to reality, or using humor in the face of tragedy. The movie was about LIFE… about the ephemeralness of life, the preciousness of life, and the delicateness of life…

I came out of that movie more empowered and inspired than ever. Yes, I am a bit of a hypochondriac and will probably WebMD any symptoms I feel tonight, but in all seriousness, I came out of that EXCITED about life.

If it’s not because it’s 1:51AM over here, I would be running around the street, expressing my excitement for the things I will not settle for… for the future moments I will cherish… for the friends and family I will shower with love… and for the things I will do that truly make me happy.

So, my avid readers: STOP worrying about work, STOP obsessing over that guy who didn’t text you back, STOP wondering when the right girl will come into your life, STOP hoping to be recognized, STOP ALL THAT and DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

You have only 1 life to live…

So why wouldn’t you live it to the fullest?

RIP, Steve Jobs. Thanks for being the father to tech geeks, dreamers and innovators everywhere.

(Photo credit: Johnathan Mak)

Today, Steve Jobs passed away.  When I went to the Apple webpage, it had an email address to send “thoughts, memories, and condolences” about Steve Jobs.  I had to share my thoughts… This is what I wrote:

Having grown up in Silicon Valley, I’ve always heard the name “Steve Jobs” thrown around—“Founder of Apple,” “Creator of Macs,” and “Innovator of iPods.”  To be honest, none of that really captured my attention… until recently.

About a year ago, I started digging deeper into Pixar (because I loved almost every single Pixar movie that came out since its inception).  I love understanding how a company overcomes hardship and succeeds at the end.  Pixar was one of those that came from nothing and eventually grew into a strong and innovative company. 

The more I read and watched documentaries on Pixar, the more I realized that it succeeded due to one man’s belief in its potential and power to change animated film industry.  This man was Steve Jobs.

He saw what others hadn’t recognized yet.  He spent $10M and 10 years believing and cultivating the geniuses at Pixar (John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Andrew Stanton, etc.)… and in 1995, it all paid off.  The first animated film, Toy Story, was a huge success and it catapulted Pixar into the forefront of animation and film.  To this day, when I watch Toy Story, I can’t even tell it was made more than 15 years ago.

Since that moment, I have followed Steve religiously.  He is my inspiration.  He is a true visionary, a true believer, a true innovator and a true leader.  He makes people outside of his realm want to follow his lead (aka me). 

Today is a real sad moment for the world… to lose someone as amazing and different as Steve Jobs.  However, this moment is also the perfect time for the world to stop and appreciate Steve Jobs as a great father to tech geeks, dreamers and innovators everywhere.

Thank you, Steve, for clearing the path for the next generation.  We will miss you dearly.

•Sliding to Death: Luge – A Dangerous Sport?

I don’t know about you, but I really don’t know much about luging, except that it looks like a waterride that can go deadly wrong at any point…

 What is luge?

According to Wikipedia, luge is the sport in which someone lies on a small sled and slides face up and feet-first down a snaking course.  “Steering is done by flexing the sled’s runners with the calf of each leg or exerting opposite shoulder pressure to the seat. [...] It is a competition in which these sleds race against a timer.”

 Why the Sudden Interest?

I became interested in this sport only after reading the WSJ article today.  The article notes that the Georgian Olympic Committee publicly blames the track for the death of Mr. Kumaritashvili. 

Right before the opening of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the 21-year-old luger Nodar Kumaritashvili from Georgia took his very last turn on the luge track.  The last scene he witnessed was speeding into a steel pole at 90 mph. 

The International Luge Federation blamed the crash on the luger, claiming he didn’t compensate for the curve well enough due to his inexperience.  However, on Saturday, the chairman, Josephe Fendt, acknowledged that the track itself was faster than its designers intended it to be and as a result altered the track to fix the problems it posed for the lugers.

Now, another athlete, Werner Hoeger, comes out of the shadows to remind the world that he had once raised these issues, including a lack of access to practice runs,  to the Canadian and international luge officials back in November after his own crash.  Yet, he was dismissed.  The NYT article notes that although most Olympic host countries guard access to their tracks in hopes for home-court advantage, “what set the Canadians apart was their reluctance to grant extra time to developing athletes unlikely to challenge them for medals.”  Of course, the Canadians claim such an accusation is unfounded.  Nonetheless, there is a dead luger and a previously injured luger emphasizing a major problem with the track… 

The result?  Depending on the investigation, Georgia and Mr. Kumaritashvili’s family might puruse a lawsuit.  Either way, I hope the International Luge Committee will make an added effort to insure safety on its tracks as well as the sport.

How I Feel About All This?

I have to give major props to these athletes.  They are literally giving full reign to track designers and nature itself.  One wrong turn of the shoulder or one wrong flex in the leg might mean the end of a career, or worse, a life.  Frankly, I can’t imagine competiting with nature because that’s what you’re doing when you’re going down a slope at 90 mph with nothing protecting you except your thin layer of clothing.  There’s no way you can win in that kind of competition…  But, for all the lugers out there, congratulations in dodging death, you thrill-seekers!

Vigilante Justice: The New Movie Theme?

For the past several years, most of the thriller/action/horror movies have been mindless attacks on the visual and audible senses.  No inner debate over right and wrong necessary.  Just simple bloodletting. Think about it, how many “SAW”s have been out already, six… seven?  Goodness sakes.  The first one was quite interesting because it provided some sort of unexpected meaning to scenes of torture and cruelty… but after that, there is nothing left but mindless bloodletting.

However, recently, directors and screenwriters have moved away from pure gore to vigilante justice.  Take these 3 movies for instance:

1. The Last House on the Left: A family on vacation meets danger when the daughter is sexually molested by a group of bandits.  When the bandits are forced to take refuge in this family’s house, the parents take revenge by torturing and killing the murderers.
2. Gamer: A death row inmate tries to win freedom by participating in a real world killing game where outside players can control the human killing machines through computer chips installed in the brain.  Through the process, he attacks and tries to kill the Game’s creator when finding out that the creator threatened the lives of his wife and daughter.
3. Law Abiding Citizen: Because a district attorney rather win with a lenient sentence than try a murderer and lose the case, the man who’s wife and daughter had been brutally murdered by this person goes on a killing rampage, killing everyone associated with the case, in order to impress on the DA what it means to bring about “justice”.

For all these films, the audience (or at least me) is torn apart by the moral of the story.  Should we feel disgust towards the person who murders and destroys in order to protect their loved ones?  Or should we applaud these vigilantes for their bravery when they exterminate the bad guys?  Or should we feel horror at the very thought that by condonig what these main characters do, we might actually be condoning murder?

I can’t answer these questions because I don’t know what we’re supposed to feel.  I guess that’s part of the reason people are so drawn to these types of movies… because it puts our very question of right and wrong in the spotlight.

What do you think?  Is seeking justice allowed as long as the end goal is morally sound?

•A Review of The Past Decade

I’m sure all of us have done the “what has happened in the past 10 years” dig through New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, [Your City Name] Chronicle, etc.  Although the collective memory of this past decade exist in those documented articles, everyone’s experience and history is different.  So, in order to contribute my part, I’ve selected to write about the key moments of each year…

2000: I bought into the whole Y2K bug, like many others, so I forced my parents to buy tons of canned foods, fill our bathtub with water, print out all the important documents stored on our PCs, and then ended up sleeping through the new year, only to wake up at 3am and realize that nothing had changed and our digitized world didn’t explode.

2001: Who can forget 9/11?  I was getting ready for school when the radios and TV stations blasted the fact that the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane.  Although we didn’t shut down school that day, everyone’s attention focused on the news.  I remember just feeling an unexplainable pain for the families of those who died.  For them, it was just another typical day where their loved ones went to school, work, store next door, etc… but on 9/11, they never returned…

2002: I made a list of all the places I wanted to visit/live in before I turned 35: LA, New York, Paris, Venice, Madrid, London, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, and more.

2003: Looking out the window, I saw the wings of the plane glide through the white cloud.  I was on my way to the East Coast… leaving everything I knew behind and starting on a new adventure.  I didn’t know what was ahead of me, but I was excited.

2004: On our drive down to LA, my friends and I encountered a large bee/wasp that flew in through the window.  It stung my friend and we had to use frozen pees from a local supermarket to stop the swelling but that didn’t stop our journey.  We continued and right outside of the city of LA, I had a leg cramp from gassing and breaking for over an hour due to traffic.  I hate LA traffic!

2005: My director stared at me and obstinately said “No” to my proposal.  I gave her a written proposal of changing the way the program had been run for the past several years.  My proposal meant a reversal of everything we did, but I knew that it was either make a change now or fail miserably in the future.  Finally, I convinced her that this change could be temporary and that if it didn’t work and we didn’t get the results I had promised, we would go back to the past… but we never had to because it was a success!  Determination, perseverance and good politicking goes a long way…

2006: Met some of the best friends I could ask for, who stood by my side through thick and thin.  You know who you are!  Thank you!  (Oh, and by “met” I mean not just 2006 but 2003-2007!)

2007: Like any other typical training day in Investment Banking, the analysts listened to the drum of the instructor’s voice as he tried to teach us about finance.  My colleagues snoozed in their seats, while I wrote down every single word.  I had no idea what anything was, but I knew I had to learn.  I promised myself that I would gain as much out of Banking as I possibly could.  The end result…?  I did.

2008: I watched with horror as our company stock dropped to single digits in a matter of hours.  We hovered above the $1 mark.  How did all this happen?  How did we go from boom times to the deep recession?  The first thing that came to my mind was my parents.  What about their 401k?  What about their retirement money?  I haven’t earned enough in my lifetime to be able to support them… at least, not yet.  I could do nothing, but just watch and hope for a recovery.

2009: My MD gave us his notice of resignation that Friday noon.  We were shocked.  He had been one of the best MDs in the bank… perhaps even on the Street.  He understood our need to be the best as well as our need to have a life of our own.  He was like a father to us analysts… and he just up and left us.  This moment made me realize something pivotal… that nothing is forever.  He did a cost-benefit analysis and saw there were other opportunities elsewhere.  I realized then and there that I had to stop and reevaluate what I truly wanted… what it meant for me to be happy and successful… and, like him, make a change in my life.

Although I am still exploring my options, I now know that fear is only 50% of the process… it’s my checks in life… it’s something that keeps me to grounded in reality, but the other 50% is to push aside those fears and push myself from the ground and into action.