After writing The Weight of Both Worlds, I found myself thinking more deeply about how many parts of my life exist between two sides, not just in the obvious ways, such as language or work, but also in quieter and less visible ways. The parts of myself that are not fixed at one end or the other, but shift along a spectrum depending on time, place, and circumstance.
There are times when I find myself closer to one side, and other times when I seem to live through the other. But more often, I return to somewhere in between. Not necessarily in pursuit of balance or harmony in the Confucian sense, but because standing at the far ends of anything often feels lonely, or simply too much to hold.
Of course, not everything comes with a spectrum. Some things are binary, like being a non-smoker rather than a smoker. That is a matter of choice, not a position between two points.
In this series, I will be reflecting on things that hold a range: progress and tradition, joy and grief, ideals and reality, researcher and writer, and many more. These are not essays with conclusions, but small attempts to look more closely at where I stand, and how I move through what lies in between.
I hope you will join me for these quiet explorations. They are, in one sense, stories about me. But I believe they are also stories about all of us. Not about life at the edges, but somewhere in between.