so what's on my mind? reading about ubiquitous AOL in the
new issue of Wired and
thinking about my personal insight that I have a regular
need to connect with people, most importantly at the heart-
to-heart level.. going through the motions of life and work
usually leads me to the path of emotional shutdown and
demotivation.. if not genuine authentic soulish
conversation, i can sometimes settle for a substantive
intellectual dialogue :)

i feel overwhelmed and surrounded by task-oriented automaton
machines of people.. all around me, growing up, and in
most of life, the people that i've been put in the midst of,
are for the most part tasky people.. and my emotive reaction
is feeling suffocated.. surrounded.. disconnected.. breath
taken out of me.. perhaps i've tipped my hand in saying
this, but i'm a relational people-oriented person.. a social
being that we were created to be.. now at times in my life,
i've been misunderstood and misreacted as a tasky person
(ugh!) when in fact and substance i'm for the people.. have
you seen those personality tasks, the one that maps people
vs. task? i may be rare in this, but i was square in the
middle of that chart- both people and task! so i think for
me to feel connected, both elements have got to be there..
and there is a hard place to find.. i'm fighting to resist
emotional shutdown that this suffocation tempts me towards..
and recently got language for this phenomena- that in the
young adult phase of life, a person wrestles with whether to
move towards intimacy or isolation.. and my closing thought
winds up here- that all people are inherently social but
many choose to express their socialness through tasks

here's an actual snip from my friend's email: According to
Erik Erickson's stages of development, the key crisis for
people 22-34 is "intimacy vs. isolation."

my thoughts today stray toward personal rejection and
cliqueishness.. it seems to be part of human dynamics [and
particularly pronounced among certain Asians] to be cliquey
[being closely knit to a few friendships and excluding
others] and for those that have their few friends, they
don't seem to care about other people or other
relationships, and obliviously ignore other people and even
reject them.. the pain of rejection, and the energy
involved in building new friendships seem too high a price
to be paid, and so people will isolate themselves in their
own enclave, live their life their way, rarely venturing
outside their comfort zone, resulting in net zero personal
growth.. yet i wonder, is this necessarily the human
condition given that for most people, their
maximum "healthy span of care" is 6 to 8 people? [this
concept is that a person can only meaningfully nurture and
care for a limited number of people]

so the life i have is a gift of God, and no one but God
knows how long that will be.. and with the time I am given,
how am I spending it, and what is it that God wants to have
accomplished in my lifetime through my lifetime? does it
break down into goals and objectives? does it take shape in
the form of relationships? does it take the form of how i
have been shaped and how well i finish? or, does it etch
itself on the life of others and how they are inspired and
impacted?

now that i know i have [at least] 2 people that read this
journal.. my thought for the day came as i was driving in,
as i think about doing the work of ministry, and how to be
part of the process of helping people grow in spiritual
maturity.. much of it comes to how badly does someone want
to grow [a concession point, as you should know how much i
dislike reductionism], and what i call a momentum theory of
spirituality.. that a person who may have grown up in a
church environment is perpetually babied and taking
neglible steps toward spiritual growth and lulled into
passivity for his/her spirituality.. while a person who
comes from a secular background and is draws in a
relationship with Christ, builds much more momentum in
spiritual progress, not only to come into relationship with
Christ, but to continue growing in that relationship.. and
as that happens, the ingredients of using one's mind, and
thinking about the values and priorities of life, and
developing intangibles like wisdom, discernment, and
emotional & relational maturity, become such commodities..
those in fact are the qualities that form substantive
character..

got an email this week from someone who thinks i am 'happy'
and able to encourage others.. a surprising curveball for
many who go on first impression and superficial
interactions, for i'm mostly a laidback unhyper type of
personality [presentationally speaking]

24 hours in cyberspace
is just a media driven glimpse into the new world being
created by internet, affecting even the smallest of towns,
connecting the most isolated, and leaving behind those who
don't have a love for learning.. that's the new pace of
life- you have to keep learning, and there's no rest for
the weary

my thought today was that many people are normal, just
trying to survive, get through life, no frill, go through
the routines of working, eating, resting.. maybe add a few
personal hobbies.. but few recognize their internal
compulsion to make a significant change to the world, as
the world is given to us in an chaotic state and each
person is supposed to move it towards order. that's my take
on life and the role of the individual and the community

the other thought was re: marriage and divorce.. marriages
weren't meant to be carried and shouldered by the husband
and wife alone-- it's no wonder when the times get tough,
and the issues get more personal, deeper, more core, that
one or both want out.. the couple has to refrain from
isolation, and be a part of a community, and the community
together upholds the marriage, not as a commitment to the
institution, but a commitment to the relationship between
the husband and wife, and the relationship of the couple to
the community

discussion today touched on the essence of life's
routine.. it really boils down to responsibilities and
passions.. can't do one without the other, tho' some try,
and wind up being passionless or irresponsible
(respectively).

for those of you who are technically savvy, or plain ol'
curious, my exchange client was fixed.. was running Outlook
2000 and that didn't seem to be a source of the problem, and
the tech's removed it and installed Outlook 98, and probably
changed some other settings, and now I have href="mailto:djchuang@att.com">work email access.

i like seein' personal web sites that have good substantive
content, not that they have to reveal too much, but enough
to get an understandin' of who someone is.. i noticed lots
of interest [among Asian-Ams] for import cars and the other
gender [depending on perspective], but not much for
spirituality.. graspin' graspin' and graspin' for somethin'
to fill that empty void in the soul that only Christ can
fill..

so Roo surprises me on Friday night, taking me to Les
Miserables at the National Theater, and we had a group
totalling 9 people sitting together for this momentous
event.. [this was my first time seeing this; i'm not all
into plays and operas and orchestras].. it was a wonderful
story and a great production! we wind up staying up until
3am hanging out at Silver Diner, and then the rest of the
weekend was layin' low; got to attend a little friend's
birthday party on Saturday afternoon.. really enjoyed
visiting with some new people.. and then sunday we tripped
over to Winchester, to visit my 'rents