My Year Abroad: A Novel

Pong was generous because he had a bottomless wonder for our multitudinous human family, this perpetual appreciation of how people are. And maybe: can and will be.

haole

Jamesonian view of capitalism’s

“You have a business,” Pong said to me quite seriously. “You just don’t know what it is yet.”

be greedy in your appreciations. Practice extravagant gratitude. Savor whatever your portion. This may sound like carpe diem but what I really mean is for the dies to carpere te, to have the moment, the person, the world, grab you right back in their full rankness and glory.

I understood at last that it was a con I needed. Now and from the beginning. For maybe your favorite teacher or coach or best friend conned you, too, into believing in a version of yourself you hadn’t yet imagined, a person many factors more capable, a person who might not have otherwise bloomed.

a semidiasporic postcolonial indeterminate like me

the main thing you learn about yourself and everyone else toiling away is how much of your mental activity and chatter is about dreaming of doing something else, whether noble or debauched or downright silly.

Most situations, as someone once instructed me, depend more on the style of entry than escape.