When Specks of Time started playing, I knew the night was going to be an emotional rollercoaster. Just 90 minutes ago we were forced to chug two cups of boba in front of the security guard at the Midtown AMC. He looked as if he would rather have let us in than having to bear the awkwardness of that scene. And now I was crying.

In Los Angeles, I had to apologize for my loud sniffling that only got worse through the screening at a friend's Airbnb. In Tokyo, I scavenged for toilet paper from the IMAX theater's bathroom stalls. In Phuket, I futilely attempted to hold back my tears as other cruise-bound tourists were jumping in the van. The breaking news just came in: Michelle Yeoh was the first Asian to win Best Actress at the Oscars.

Also in a bathtub in Bangkok, in my bed in San Francisco, in the British Airways lounge in Edinburgh, the list goes on — too many tears have I shed for Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The film was an instant classic to me. Yes, the buttplug and sausage fingers felt a tad bit excessive, but everything else was perfect. The visual and sonic maximalism was riveting. The screenplay sustained a coherence that Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness wishes it had. The story was simultaneously as vast as the entire universe and as intimate as one family. All the performances were exceptional.

The Chinese internet bashed the film for its cliched solution to despair. Sure, answering nihilism with love and kindness is cliche, but that doesn’t mean the story isn’t worth telling. Basic is good. And in this case, the message of “be kind, especially when we don’t know what’s going on” is eternal. That timeless theme, the first-generation immigrant experience, and the fear of not being enough, those are the reasons why I keep crying.

Like Jobu Tupaki, I think about death all the time. My favorite exclamation is “kms.” I consider morbidity a positive trait. Dying right now is fine by me, taking that I’ll be remembered for my youth and not my baldness. Our difference, however, lies in that Jobu sees death as a solution to the pain in her world where nihilism overwhelms all meaning, while I see verbalizing my mortality as a method of adjusting expectations to find meaning. Acknowledging the uncertainty of my own expiration compels me to live each day more fully. It incentivizes me to pursue joy and search for beauty in every passing moment.

“You can be pessimistic because, at your core, you’re optimistic that everything will eventually work out,” a friend once said to me. But I think it’s actually the other way around. Under my optimism lies a foundation of pessimism. I don’t have faith that things will unfold perfectly; rather, with the lowest expectations, every unfolding is already better than what it could’ve been. Pessimism is a gift that makes everything else a gift. The breeze on a lazy afternoon. The one-dollar bill offered by a kind gentleman for bottled water at the cash-only shop. When accumulated, these gifts inspire gratitude that decorate this imperfect world.

Jobu thinks nothing matters, because then “all the pain and guilt you feel from making nothing of your life disappears.” But I prefer an existential lens to her nihilistic one. If nothing holds inherent significance, then it's okay if you don't carve out some grand narrative. Any destination you reach marks a fresh adventure.

Jobu thinks that it’s a “statistical inevitability,” that it’s “only a matter of time” before everything falls apart. However, I believe in regression to the mean. Life is a stochastic process, much like fluctuations in weather patterns and the stock market. Stochasticism introduces randomness and extremes, yet there is a statistical inclination for extreme values to gravitate toward the mean. Adversities are unlikely to persist indefinitely. At some point life’ll tick up!

Hence, while I’m happy to die now, I wouldn’t actively seek death. Should I end my life here, I would forfeit the opportunity to witness the ensuing spectacles, where people regress to the mean or experience extreme probabilistic disruptions. Of karma catching up to some, and luck striking others. Who knows which way it might go. That’s what keeps me going — I am at the edge of my seat from anticipation.

Everyone will reach an end, sooner or later, by their own volition or the hands of others. But before you do so, you can learn more about the world: secrets to overhear and mysteries to unravel. That process is full of joy, just as Evelyn proclaims: “there is always something to love.”

So Evelyn chooses to be kind, despite not knowing what’s going on. Chooses to believe, despite being in an absurd world turning to shit. Chooses this life, despite her success and wealth in many other universes. Chooses to “be here, with you,” despite knowing everything we do might get washed away by every other possibility.

Last summer, I went back to China. Four years since my previous visit and my longest time away from my hometown. I reached out to a bunch of my elementary school friends and made a WeChat group for our class. Some fifty of them joined. We reconnected over dinner and talked about the days when we drew maps of the tunnels we dug up in the school playground. A decade's silence lifted like morning mist. Their voices, dormant in my head for years, were alive once more. As if no one's aged, just the same as I’d known.

One of my classmates remarked how sixteen years passed in the blink of an eye (十六年一瞬间). I’ve been chewing on those words ever since. I think when I cried at the Edinburgh airport, it wasn’t for the movie. It was because I don’t know when I’ll see them again, after this one last ride. That despite traveling the whole wide world, despite realizing the infinite possibilities of our lives, I would still choose to be here, with you. Hold on to the memories when I was there, with you.

In the song 勿念, Yoyo Sham sings about how “at times, when I close my eyes, I’m afraid of my memory thinning.” I, too, am afraid of my memories departing me. You never know that a time is going to be some of your best, until what was in front of you is now behind you.

I turn 23 today. It’s my first birthday alone. I claimed my free Starbucks. The wine I blind bought turned out to be good. Yesterday’s weather was beautiful. I plan on celebrating by finishing a Whole Foods cake in one sitting. Life is going swimmingly. I think I will cherish these specks of time.