It takes time to think through our past and come to conclusions about our present. As we grow up, the simple black and white nature of our youth slowly breaks down. As a result, we get stuck in stalemates with familiar people and familiar ideas alike. Conflicting experiences beg the question: what is the right way to make sense of the world? There’s that cliché rom-com line, “I need some time to figure things out.” So, with the request for time, we often come to a standstill in our personal growth. But, a standstill isn’t a plateau; it’s a moment of recalibration. A pause when we might not be moving forward, but our minds are racing in a million different directions, unweaving the simplicity with which we used to characterize our surroundings.
This episode, we interview Brandon Wu, a junior in college, and Korean-American poet Eugenia Leigh. In our conversations, notice how, in both coming of age stories, our guests find themselves in moments of stillness. Once we discover the simplicity we took for granted as children is counterfeit, stalemates and standstills give use continuous opportunities to pause and reconstruct our perspectives anew.
(content warning: this episode deals with themes of abuse)
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We release episodes every other Friday; growing up is timeless.
Stalemates and Standstills: Why Getting Stuck Moves Us Forward (S2 Ep. 4)