I cry on planes.
There I said it. It’s not illegal. I cry on planes.
In my day-to-day life, I’m not much of a crier. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I cried outside of this very specific setting. I don’t have some old-school, men-don’t-cry attitude or anything. Tears just don’t come that easily for me… until the seatbelt sign dings above my head, then for some reason, I’m all waterworks.
Okay, I’ll be honest, I don’t cry the whole flight. It usually happens when I’m watching a movie. It could be the saddest movie of all time or How to Train Your Dragon, it doesn’t matter. If it’s playing on a small screen above a copy of American Way magazine and a pamphlet that tells you to shove your head between your knees during a crash landing, it will make me cry.
Last month, I flew solo to Miami to visit my grandfather who was undergoing treatment for an aggressive cancer. My mood getting onto the return flight to Houston was already melancholic as I contemplated the brevity of life, the stress my family was under, and what the next few months could have in store for us.
The plane was one of those newer 747s with personal screens on the seatbacks. I figured I’d watch a movie to distract myself. I decided to watch Everything Everywhere All At Once since I’d heard it was really good and I’ve loved almost every A24 movie I’ve ever seen (The Green Knight, The Lighthouse, and The Tragedy of Macbeth are on my list of favorite films). I knew the risk I was undertaking when the movie started playing. Luckily, I was sitting by the window so when I inevitably started sobbing I could just look out the window and cry discreetly. Look, I’m not saying you should hide your emotions from people, but what I am saying is that a grown man on a plane who randomly starts weeping might freak some people out.
This film did not disappoint. Everything Everywhere All At Once is an absurdist, comedy-action-drama, mind-bending film. It’s a complete tornado of a movie. If you haven’t seen it I won’t summarize it too much here, but to give you an idea there are hot dog fingers, an everything bagel that could destroy the world, and at one point a man gets killed by enormous dildos. It’s completely insane and incredibly dense. If I had to oversimplify it though, I’d just tell you it’s about a Chinese-American immigrant, Evelyn Wang, who jumps through multiple universes and fights against an agent of chaos named Jobu Topaki who threatens to destroy the multiverse. To me, the film is an allegory about how to navigate the fear and uncertainty of our modern world, especially the internet and its infinite “realities”.
This next part may or may not be a spoiler alert… Towards the end of the film, Ke Huy Quan’s character, Waymond Wang, is getting completely overrun by Jobu Topaki’s minions. While trying to protect his wife, Evelyn, he delivers an epic speech, and as soon as I heard it I totally lost it. I had to pause the film and catch my breath and try not to draw attention from the people sitting in my aisle. I swallowed the knot in my throat and managed to only let two or three tears squeeze out quietly.
The scene jumps through several universes and between multiple Waymonds speaking to multiple Evelyns. It’s confusing and hard to explain if you haven't seen the film, but I’ll tell you what he says in the main “anchor” universe where he’s essentially facing death at the hands of Jobu’s soldiers:
“Please!” he begs, “can we just stop fighting?! [...] I know you’re all fighting because you’re scared and confused. I’m confused too, all day! I don’t know what the heck is going on…but somehow this feels like it’s all my fault. I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind! Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”
This scene was so touching not only because of the way Waymond delivered his speech–through pleading tears–but also in the way that it so perfectly addresses our collective uncertainty and turmoil over the last few years. In many ways, since March of 2020, it feels like we’ve all collectively had the veil removed from our eyes and seen the world in all of its naked absurdity. At least that’s how it’s felt for me. We are all trapped in our own versions of reality that can seem ever-changing, confusing, and terrifying.
In this scene, Waymond provides such a simple and powerful antidote to all the toxicity encompassing our society: to just “be kind”. More importantly, in my opinion, he tells us that it’s okay to be “confused and scared”–to not know “what the heck is going on” and to persist despite that.
I know this isn’t exactly in line with the usual theme of this blog, but I am writing this on my 27th birthday (March 13) and I want to talk about this very point that Waymond highlights in this emotional speech–the fact that we’re all confused and nobody knows what is going on.
But first, let me tell you about one sentence that I heard when I was 8 years old that I’ve never, ever forgotten. I don’t remember much from this day in 2004, except that I was at a tennis match with my cousin Erik and my uncle Luis. I know it was sometime in March because we were at the Miami open. Back then it was known as the NASDAQ-100 open, which takes place every spring. My grandparents were big tennis fans and they always had seats reserved in the grandstand that my dad and his siblings’ families would take turns using for different matches throughout the tournament.
I don’t even remember who was playing or what the context of this conversation was, but at some point, my uncle belted out a timeless piece of wisdom that echoes Waymond’s message–though my uncle’s version wasn’t as heart-wrenching and fuzzy.
“You see all these people?” my uncle said, waving his hand toward the crowd of tennis fans, “All these people… they’re all idiots.”
Again, the context of this conversation is long gone from my memory. My uncle is a warm and extremely nice man. I don’t think he meant this to denigrate anyone. What he meant was: You see all these people? None of them really have their shit together. No one does.
Today, I am turning 27. This is the age that 8-year-old me thought I’d have it all figured out and everything would make sense. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that my uncle was right. No one has it figured out. We’re all idiots, and I don’t mean this in a bad way. I just mean that there is never an age where everything clicks and it all makes sense. This is the arrival fallacy–the idea that once we achieve a certain goal, make it to a certain point, or get to a destination, we will achieve lasting happiness, or that life will suddenly make sense. That’s complete buffoonery.
No matter what stage of life we're in, what we’ve achieved in our careers, what awards we’ve won, or how many fancy cars we can afford, we’re all trapped in this absurd project we call life–trapped in this mysterious quest that makes little sense, and is confusing and scary as all hell. Whether we are king or peasant, there’s very little that’s actually within our control. The pandemic proved that. COVID didn’t care who you were or how much money you had, if it wanted to take you it could. All the political and social turmoil, all the fighting and shouting, and discord we’ve witnessed over the last few years is nothing more than a projection of our insecurities en masse–a manifestation of how out-of-control we all feel.
All throughout high school, college, my athletic career, and beyond, I’ve always felt as if everyone else had their lives together and I was the only one trudging through a mire of uncertainty and confusion. I would look at other people who were older than me, or more “successful” than me, or better athletes than me and I would envy them. I thought I was the only one who was “confused and scared” as Waymond says. But as I’ve gotten older and (hopefully) wiser, I see through that lie that I was constantly telling myself. Uncertainty and confusion are part of life’s great mystery. No one is spared.
The illusion that there was some way, some place, that I would have complete control of my life, or finally figure things out, was an obstacle that was preventing me from cultivating the best version of myself. Thoughts that started with “when I get older” were only stopping me from sinking my feet into the present moment and fully living.
Whether we like it or not, time is agonizingly linear, and uncertainty will never, ever leave us. The only cure for uncertainty is to truly live despite it.
I’m 27 now, and things I thought I’d have all figured out by now are still very much in the air. At times, my life can feel messy, out of control. I feel confused often, and intimidated often, but this year I will change that. There’s no need for me to cover insecurities, no need to put on masks, we’re all lost together. We’re all idiots and that’s okay. Look at us, we're humans… We build stuff, and drive cars, and pay taxes, and twerk on the internet, and yell at each other over politics. For what? Just to distract ourselves from the fact that none of us know what is going on, and we’re all just a little bit scared?
As Waymond Wang says, just be kind. That’s one solution to all the mayhem. But also, just live… just be present and live deeply regardless of the uncertainty. There is no place, no age, and no time where it all makes sense.
I am 27 now. It’s my birthday and god dammit I’ll cry on a plane if I want to.
“They’re all idiots” love that line and what it actually meant.