Some people are questioning why I’m suddenly reading about string theory. To which my first thought is, of course, that these people must not know me very well.

My behavior can be explained through patterns: I am a curiosity dabbler. When I find something that interests me, I pursue that something with aggressive interest until I feel I’ve completely and utterly dissected, understood, and therefore “conquered” said something. This is evidenced by the studious and constant annotation and quoting of whatever subject I happen to be studying or pursuing. I am simply curious.

For example, my constant analysis on sexuality. Or even my heavy dabbling in makeup tutorials via YouTube. Or my sudden interest in psychoanalytic theory. Or my ongoing obsession with how best to manipulate social media. Or networking. Or video games. Or yadda yadda yadda.

I think that, for the most part, people get so caught up in attempting to define other people simply by what they do for a living, or by focusing on a single hobby that a person has, with the idea that this single hobby or profession completely and utterly explains both who a person is, and what fundamentally motivates this person.

I argue the contrary.

I don’t feel that my molecular hobbies or interests define who I am.

The underlying foundation — the pillar of what I feel makes me who I am — is my curiosity. Or in other words, my naturally inquisitive behavior, and my pursuit to satisfy that curiosity by bringing the fundamentals of certain curiosities into awareness. My deeper psychoanalysis.

The other night, while up at 1:43 AM (thanks to my roomies talking very loudly near my bedroom door about boys or whatever other girly problems they happen to be having at the moment), I flipped on my book light and scribbled out the following entry in my journal:

With the example above and with the several examples you’ll probably find scattered throughout my various works online, one overwhelming pattern remains: My constant desire to understand the why behind almost absolutely everything.

I feel personally rewarded by uncovering the seemingly autonomous reasons behind basic human and unconscious desires. By simply making myself aware of things, I am able to ask: “What should I do with the knowledge of why I do things, or what am I going to do now that I know why I am going to do that?”

I am motivated purely by curiosity and the reward of satisfying that curiosity.

In the pursuit of that knowledge, I happen to end up devouring almost everything at an aggressive rate, and due to this, my constant changing from one area of interest to another seems almost rapid and incomplete to those who might instead prefer to move more slowly. This is understandable. I’m kinda freaky like that.

I relate my hobby for collecting hobbies to a character from the film, The Brothers Bloom, where Rachel Weisz plays Penelope, a woman who happens to spend her free time studying things she likes, and mastering these things.

For me, and much like Penelope (though on a more realistic scale, I suppose), once I’ve had my fill of one particular subject, I usually move on. It is only the things that I remain truly passionate about that I end up sticking with. Reading and writing, for example, while merely existing as a piece of the puzzle within my constant need to dissect and analyze the universe — these two things happen to also be something I am passionate about. And how fortunate that the things I love happen to make me productive, right?

But overall, my very human mind obviously hosts a collection of everything I’ve managed to retain. This is why you’ll often see recurring themes in my work, or suddenly catch me repetitively using a new word I’ve heard, or find me frequently quoting authors, speakers or philosophers that I’ve stumbled onto — all in the interest of retaining this new information.

And speaking of authors I love …

“Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus.” – Christopher Hitchens

By society’s standards, we often relate two things to each other that have absolutely no business being correlated in the first place: The idea that someone who loves pink, for example, must be a ditzy moron (although there are definitely people who prove that). Or in another example, the idea that loving makeup and fashion must mean you clearly know nothing about technology or business development. Or even on a more extreme note (and I mean this only as an example and with no harm intended), the idea that being Black, Asian, or Mexican etc means you’re dirty or incompetent.

I don’t feel that someone’s curiosity for a certain subject necessarily defines who they are. Though on the flip side, a passion for a particular curiosity might define a fragment of a person’s underlying motivations. But in the event that someone is particularly passionate about simply being curious, well … Then you get someone like me.

I’m very much a “don’t judge a book by its cover” sort of person who preaches the idea that one should both enjoy and embrace being underestimated, and that the minor and objective “flaws” that others seem to pin on us are inconsequential in the cosmic scope.

Or basically, fuck what you think you know, and in the words of Hitchens, you can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.

Back to reading about string theory,
XOXO Cheri XOXO

Some readers, I think, have ADD when it comes to reading. They are the sort of readers who simply want to dive right in, skip to the meat of the story, and completely look over whatever boring introduction the author might be offering in the foreword.

Fortunately for these readers (and perhaps unfortunately for the troubled author), this is usually a great idea. In most cases, I’ve found that completely skipping an author’s preface is far more enjoyable than bothering to read it. The only reason I know this is because I actually do read author prefaces and find them to be, for the most part, completely awful. This should not be the case.

The sad truth, however, is that most author prefaces I’ve read are full of distracting excuses, bullshit, and general whining that, had he or she eliminated the preface from his or her books to begin with, would have made for a much better novel without the attention-whoring melodrama (supposing the book is actually any good).

Let’s start you off with an example.

Take, for example, the fantasy novel Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder. When reading this book (admittedly awful compared to her other novels), reading Snyder’s preface pulled me too far away from the actual story. It gave me too much of a visual of the author behind her computer sitting and scrunching her nose in thought as she crafted the tale. Snyder’s entire preface consists of her explanation for how the story came to be, what sort of strategies she used to help bring its adventures to life, etc — but it wasn’t helpful at all. Instead of giving me a deeper understanding for her work that got me pumped to dive into her story, it forced me to picture her typing as I read, forced me to imagine her drawing from her experiences in the real world when, instead, I should have been focused more deeply in her actual tale. Her preface, in other words, completely distracted me.

… Of course, Storm Glass kinda sucked, and I often felt like I was forcing myself to labor through it rather than enjoy it, so that might explain why her terrible preface haunted me throughout its pages. Perhaps if the story was awesome, I would have been more “wow”ed. But you get what I mean.

On the flip side, the late fiction author, Michael Crichton, I’ve found, completely avoids prefaces (or the editions of his two books I just finished up simply didn’t include his prefaces). Therefore, no distractions. Also, his story spinning is so richly lined with real knowledge, scientific fact, and medical history that it becomes tough to determine what in his books are real from what is not. He’s a master of his craft. He doesn’t need the explanation for why he’s writing. What you see is what you get, and what you get is an amazing adventure.

But not everyone is a Crichton-level storyteller.
And thus, most authors feel that they need a preface.
And in my experience, most prefaces suck ass-balls.

What a Preface Should Look Like:

Having just finished Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain in compilation with another of his pieces, The Terminal Man (then lending this book to a friend who I’m excited to discuss it with), I’ve finally moved onto a new book: The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene. Non-Fiction, Science-based.

Maybe it’s just the deeply analytical subject matter that fascinates me (I’m obsessed with psychoanalytic theory lately), but Greene manages to write a preface that does exactly what it is supposed to do. That is, his preface introduces me to his work in a way that is relatable, gets me excited to turn the page, and pumps me up to discover the ideas he only hints at. No full-blown explanation for what is what and why or how — just a nod towards what I’m about to dive into, with the reassurance that turning the page will better describe the simple fragments of thought in his foreword.

This particular section in his preface, for example, got me stoked to dive in:

“Although the book agent to whom I first showed my proposal rejected it outright—understandably predicting that the subject was too specialized to attract a mainstream publisher—I could feel the enthusiasm for the science when I was lecturing in the field. It was palpable.

The Elegant Universe tapped into this enthusiasm, and the gratifying response it has received is testament to the innate drive so many of us have to explore thoroughly and courageously this place we call home. It also affirmed my belief that physics provides an author with some of the most wonderful material imaginable. We all love a good story. We all love a tantalizing mystery. We all love the underdog pressing onward against seemingly unsurmountable odds. We all, in one form or another, are trying to make sense of the world around us. And all of these elements lie at the core of modern physics.

The story is among the grandest—the unfolding of the entire universe; the mystery is among the toughest—figuring out how the cosmos came to be; the odds are among the most daunting—bipeds, newly arrived by cosmic time scales trying to reveal the secrets of the ages; and the quest is among the deepest—the search for fundamental laws to explain all we see and beyond, from the tiniest particles to the most distant galaxies. It’s hard to imagine a richer point of departure.”

The over analytical geek in me just had a braingasm reading that. I’m stoked to read the rest of his book thanks to that carrot dangled in my face.

But, of course, not everyone can write a solid preface.

What Not to Include in a Preface:

I’ll be using Snyder’s book, Storm Glass again in this example.

In Snyder’s preface to Storm Glass, she does a few things right, sure. She introduces her story, acknowledges those who helped her publish it, explains how it came to be, why she began to write it, and why she felt particularly attracted to the adventure behind the leading antagonist. However, rather than simply hinting towards the gems her readers might discover through her book, she instead fully explains every process within her novel down to the minute detail.

Again, it’s distracting.

I believe the term is “spoiler” — when something is revealed that brings something into awareness that would have been better left as a surprise via organic means. That is, the material she uses in her preface is too deep and too involved to begin discussing right away. The content she uses in her preface–in my opinion, really, which doesn’t mean much in the large scope of things–would have been much better suited as a supplement to the actual story to make the fictional tale she’s writing seem more realistic. So it’s not that what she included in her preface was terrible. It’s that she involved the reader too early with concepts better left for deeper reading. Or in other words, she hand-fed us the bait rather than luring us in with the hook.

Preface-style might vary by genre.

Fantasy and Fiction stories are, of course, probably a bit tougher to write than Non-Fiction pieces based on solid research and known fact (though this can be argued, I’m sure). In Fantasy and Fiction, it is up to the author to build a world where the reader can “live” while diving into the piece.

Knowing this, it makes sense why Snyder may have felt the need to further explain her fantasy story. Some concepts may have been too abstract to grasp for her target audience. But again, her preface did the opposite of what it was supposed to do. Instead of supplementing her story, it made her novel seem weak. It made it seem–to me, anyway–as if, had she left out the preface entirely, her story would not only have fallen flat, but fallen further than it did before being supplemented by the introduction.

Fiction author Crichton, however (and I keep using him as an example because he’s really just a fantastic fiction author), rather than filling a preface with spoilers and nonsense describing down to the details the science behind his madness, uses the characters in his story to embody the passion behind these ideas. Through the characters and environments in his books, he projects the reasons why and the motivations behind what. He understands that the story itself should convey the message rather than the foreword. His pieces are solid. They make the argument for him without any need for introduction. That is, Crichton uses the fictional worlds of his work to better describe what he may have included in the foreword and, therefore, makes the unbelievable believable. Pure skill, really.

If you suck at prefaces, don’t write one at all.

Some points to take away from this piece:

• Use your preface only to hint at what you’re about to introduce to your readers — don’t give away too many spoilers.
• Carve the bulk of your ideas out throughout your actual story.
• If you’re working with fiction or fantasy, embody the ideas and experiences you feel the need to share in your preface instead through the characters and environments in your writing.
• Bait or hook your readers with your preface. Your introduction is merely the lure, not the actual reward.
• Don’t spend too long explaining why you wrote your piece. Instead, work on the actual piece with the aim to completely eliminate the need for a preface. Don’t write one at all. Focus on solidifying your ideas within your actual work, a la Crichton.

But again, what do I know? /Shrug.

Sunday reading with a hot cup of black tea,
XOXO Cheri XOXO

Thank God for boredom, right?
I spent most of my day in Berkeley today sight-seeing with an old friend who I’ve desperately missed, and who I hope is reading this right now just so I can drive that idea home harder. Hi. It was fantastic seeing you, and I really needed that.

Anyway, I really have nothing to say about this picture other than: I arrived back at my apartment after my day across the bridge, washed my face, threw on some pajamas, and because I had to spend some time filling out tons of paperwork with my Wacom Tablet (I like to sign things digitally since I don’t have a freaking printer), I ended up spitting out this illustration. My tablet was already out — why not, right? I haven’t sat down to draw anything in for-freaking-ever.

This took me about … What. Thirty minutes or so?
That sounds about right.

The illustration above is loosely based on this photo of myself I snapped earlier today while waiting for the train:

Oh man.
So maybe I have one too many indoor hobbies. /Shrug. That’s what you get when you grow up as a sheltered little Asian girl. Herp derp.

Off to read something or probably play Skyrim,
XOXO Cheri XOXO