DISCLAIMER: I in no way own any of the recognizable characters, or quotes throughout and for the duration of these stories. No profit is being made and no infringement is intended. I claim rights to original characters and original plot points.
Mature Content Warning:
This post may contain content of an adult nature. If you are easily offended or are under the age of 18, please exit now. This page is intended for adults only and may include scenes of sexual content, suggestive pictures, or graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.
Date: 10/16/2005
Time: 9pm
Location: Loomis Laboratory Of Physics, University Of Illinois
What do Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos have in common? They were all assholes. It didn’t matter because they constructed “reality distortion fields” in which their visions for future technologies and world-changing products were so beautifully compelling that tens of thousands of talented people bent backwards to work for them and endured their abusive leadership styles.
They possessed extreme power of persuasion and a burning desire to succeed. Whatever the costs. I often equated CEOs of top disruptive firms to historically battle tested war generals: you have to have a certain mentality to lead, balance, and sacrifice in order to achieve greatness. Greatness is a choice. No men are born great. A select lucky few men became great and left their marks in history. They were self-made. They gained respect through perseverance, intelligence, diligence, charm, fear, intimidation, coercion, and obsession.
There is a thin fine line between obsession and addiction.
Kobe Bryant was obsessed with the game of basketball and winning championships. He was willing to do whatever it took to win. Tedious warm-up, stretching, physical therapy, on-court drills, gym workouts, and cool-down routines. Mindfulness meditations and film sessions. Even reading the NBA’s referee’s manual to know the exact location each referee would be on the court at each moment so that he could get away with elbows and fouling without getting a whistle. Reading Mamba Mentality had been yet another eye-opener for me on Kobe’s thought process, dedication, and obsession to greatness.
Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was addicted to failure. Yes, you heard it right, failure not success. Because in this wicked world, successes are extremely difficult to come by, like my dear friend Bourne said, you have to fail your way up to success. I would argue for people like Bezos to whom an idea must be relentlessly executed until proven wrong or successfully implemented, they relished all the failures in the process. It would be too excruciating to be addicted to success, one suffers the withdraw and craving almost constantly on a daily basis. Workaholics are addicted to failures to an unhealthy degree. According to Forbes, Jobs seemed to have been sociopathic, psychopathic, narcissistic — or a cocktail of all three, and he was unquestionably manipulative. He had no remorse abusing people, lying to get what he wanted. The fact that both him and Bezos were adopted served as an interesting anecdote. Was it the abandonment and the lack of perceived love from their biological parents that molded, hardened, and twisted them to be the men they were?
Both addiction and obsession started as a hit of dopamine in a human brain. That neurotransmitter provided just enough a high that rewarded a behavior. It was biologically how humans learned. Unintentionally, evolution scattered this earth with special genetic mutations which produced countless men with a flawed dopamine reward system, leading to heightened release of such an enticing chemical. These men were cursed with an addictive personality.
I was undoubtedly cursed. Ever since I was little, I could concentrate on a task of my liking that time simply vanished before I called it quits. As far back as I could remember, it started from playing LEGOs. Fully immersed in the universe I created, 5-year-old me would talk in a self-invented language, sit on the floor for hours and hours, to build whatever was in my nascent brain using whatever LEGO bricks that were available. I was fully aware of what I was doing. It was extremely fun and fulfilling. Sometimes my creativity startled me. Have you ever felt surprised by what happened in your dreams? You didn’t know how you got there, couldn’t exactly see clearly the faces of the people you interacted with, and yet you knew what was happening as the plot of your dream unfolded. I was having the same kind of feeling fully awake as a 5-year-old. Uncanny. Weird. Funny.
Then I progressed from LEGOs to Gundam models. I was deeply enamored of the sophistication and the complex machinery. If tonight my mom, Linda, took me to the department store and bought me a Gundam, you could bet the next morning I’d be waking up at 6am just to play my favorite new toy before going to school. Every joint that moved, every chamber that opened, and every accessory that attached or connected, they collectively contributed to the overall futuristic anime sci-fi design language, and the precarious balance with which the models were able to stand without support on their own. I guessed that was when my love of physics sprouted. Mass, gravity, acceleration, force, and power. In the world of imaginary robot universe where wars raged on, power was of the utmost importance. Both physically and literally. The power of a laser cannon shot through a planet and killed billions of residents brought peace to the universe. I had always craved power, whether it was the power of a toy robot, or the power over women I liked. It had little to do with how expensive the Gundams were or how rich the women I slept with. It was always about control, not vanity.
Allen and I grew up together. We first met when we were seven years old. We were elementary school classmates from second to sixth grade. To say we were close would be an understatement. Allen was physically gifted. He had the build of Arnold Schwarzenegger, at least in my mind. He was taller than 90% of the kids in class, could throw the ball faster and farther, oh, and he ran faster too. I felt drawn to him not only because he was, for lack of better words, a physical specimen, but also due to the fact the we were both the youngest and only sons in our respective families. We both had two elder sisters. Up till this day, we treated each other like brothers.
Come to think of it now, some things you did as a child were absolutely absurd from an adult’s perspective. We used to play with each other’s genitals. It wasn’t gay. Not that there was anything wrong with being gay, but we were both straight. More like sharing the road of discovery on the intricacies of sexuality, Allen and I approached masturbation as if we were scientists experimenting with different variables. There was no lust, passion, or desire. We simply was playing. For fun.
“Attention class! We have a new member. Mona Ting just transferred here. Let’s welcome her!”
One day in fifth grade, our teacher made an announcement to the class. This was the first time I laid my eyes on her. My first crush.
Mona was tall, slender, with beautiful eyes and long hair. 11 year-old girls were more developed than boys of the same age. Her curvaceous body was very sexy to me at the time. I never felt that way towards any girls I knew before. A fire started burning inside me. I wanted her.
The interaction between us was cordial. I was never good at showing emotions, but I had humor as my weapon. I knew how to make people laugh if I wanted to, especially girls. If I liked you, if I felt strongly drawn towards you, every cells in my body would light up as if their survival depended on pleasing you. The game was on! The game of cat-and-mouse with the agony of failure. After all, seven out of ten times even a natural born predator like a domesticated outdoor cat failed to catch and kill its prey. But I would keep going, keep trying, because the desire burning inside me was like pouring gasoline on fire. It drove and propelled me forward, like a freight train charging full speed to the point of no return.
I’ll make love to you,
like you want me to.And I’ll hold you tight,
Baby all through the night.I’ll make love to you,
when you want me to.And I will not let go,
till you tell me to.
I was singing this song by Boyz II Men every night for the whole spring semester during my fifth grade. I had no idea how to make love or kiss a girl. Heck, I had never even held a girl’s hand. This young love was one-sided. I had no experience pursuing girls. Years later through countless heterosexual interactions I mastered the game of love. I became a womanizer. The game was natural to me like tennis. I served the ball to your court, waited patiently for your counter, and then decided my next move. I researched techniques like Russell Brand’s push-pull, Robert Downey Jr.’s “coolest guy in the room,” and Conan O’Brien’s self deprecating humor. I couldn’t be the coolest guy in the room because I lacked confidence. But I did have a resting bitch face, that was another weakness. People said I was difficult to befriend, which was not incorrect. I would rather spend time alone than wasting time trying to get along with inferior strangers. I was too proud.
As if singing “I’ll Make Love to You” would teleport my mind to Mona, I poured my passion into the ritual every night after school. There was an ancient book of Genealogy passed down in our Bao Family detailing back hundreds of years, all the way to the Song Dynasty with Bao Zheng as the root of this complex tree. There were aristocrats, poets, warlords, and felons. Those men who by sheer drive and discipline scratched a mark on this giant rock we called Earth. As little kids, we were all aware of the myths and stories within the Bao clan. The blood in our veins was special. We could, if we tried hard enough and by the gift of destiny, talk to God.
Therefore I sang, to Mona, religiously and enthusiastically. The lyrics were my prayers. My pure heart was bare.
Did you hear it, my love?
The first time and the last time I truly gave a girl a birthday present was to Mona. The year was 1996 and Mission: Impossible had just come out. I loved the original 60’s TV series. I was especially drawn to the character, Rollin Hand, a master of disguise with skills to be anyone a mission called for. Every reveal of Rollin peeling off his mask felt satisfying. I was a chubby little kid wishing he could be someone. Anyone.
Mona was a Taurus. The same horoscope as mine. I couldn’t give a shit as an adult to birth dates, horoscope, and any other pseudoscience. For me, those were conversation starters, nothing more. As a kid I didn’t know better. I asked my Dad Ivan to take me to Barnes & Noble. We bought a Mission: Impossible poster with Tom Cruise’s young handsome side silhouette, a cute piggy bank, and a birthday card. I couldn’t remember what I wrote on the birthday card to Mona. Perhaps I confessed my crush; perhaps I was too timid to.
All I knew was her heart belonged to another boy in class. A tall guy with energy and a head of unruly hair. We discovered it one time during a lunch gathering at Mona’s house. Someone read her diary. It wasn’t me. Such behavior was totally beneath my moral standards and my parents’ education. Mom and Dad valued privacy.
Kyle kissed me in my dreams. His lips were so soft. I love him so much!
Those were her words. Those words hurt me deeply.
But I didn’t shed a tear. The machismo traditions in the Bao Family refrained men from crying.
It scarred me and left a hole in my heart.
From that day, I vowed to be the one who broke hearts.
I started training myself. Push-ups, stair runs, and basketball.
The raging fire inside me only burned more and more with each passing day.
From that fire, my ego was born.
(To be continued… click here for the next episode)
Disclaimer: This blog post is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries throughout the world. Country of first publication: United States of America. Any unauthorized exhibition, distribution, or copying of this article or any part thereof may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this work are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. No person or entity associated with this blog post received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of tobacco products. No animals were harmed in the writing of this article.
