The First Five - Kevinn Chan

Welcome to Only a Handful, a site dedicated to lists, little things, and other musings. It's a space for the overlooked, underappreciated, and all that inspire. You may know more about Handfuls by clicking here.

This is Only a Handful's pilot post.

I'm sitting in a CBTL as I write this. It's the one across Salcedo Park, which apparently has a proper name - the Jaime Velasquez Park. Anyway, I'm not sure when this post will be published and I don't know when this post will get to you, but as you read this now, I hope it finds you well.

If you know me, then you'd know how much I enjoy spazzing over the most random things. I would give anything remotely interesting more attention than it actually deserves. So you can imagine how difficult it is for me to narrow anything down to five, but here goes.

If I could share absolutely anything but I could only have five things, it would be these. This is the first five.

In the Spurs locker room hangs a quote by Jacob Riis. It's been there for over twenty years and it's translated for every international player who joins the team. Head coach Gregg Popovich had decided to make it the Spurs mantra:

The quote hanging from the Spurs locker room. Photo taken from: cbssports.com

“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” - Jacob Riis

For years they’ve been called “old” and “worn out” but just last season, the Spurs made it to the NBA Playoffs for the 20th straight year. The Spurs have proven themselves to be one of the most consistent teams in the league. And in three years, they will have set the record for the most consecutive playoff appearances in NBA history if the streak continues.

There was no need for forming elite teams via trade or for recruiting a Kevin Durant. Just good old-fashioned rock pounding, night-in and night-out.

I'm 90 percent sure you've seen the movie. But if you haven't, make it the next movie you watch.

The 1994 Comedy-Drama is perfect for anxious times and for days when we just feel lost. I remember taking long breaks during hell weeks back in college to stop whatever I'm doing to watch this. Then I would catch myself wanting so badly to think the way Forrest did, which means to barely think at all. This doesn't mean avoiding all our problems but thinking less about things that don't really matter... and there's a lot of them ricocheting around our heads at a given moment.

Aside from the pop culture allusions, such as the release of the Nike Cortez and the start of Apple computers, and the American historical references, the film is filled with great lines.

Forrest: *running* I had run for 3 years, 2 months, 14 days, and 16 hours.
*stops and turns around*
Person Running Behind: Quiet, quiet! He’s gonna say something!
Forrest: I’m pretty tired… I think I’ll go home now.

Here is a scene from the movie. It's a monologue by Forrest and is arguably the best scene in the film. But you haven't seen the film yet, skip this and go watch it (!!!).

Fact: Jenny is played by Robin Wright, the same actress who plays Carrie Underwood from Netflix's House of Cards.

If there's anything I learned from my entire college stay, it's that enlisting for an 8am everyday class schedule is a really bad idea and that we should have courage. Courage. I don't remember which class I learned the word's etymology from but for some reason, it stuck.

Courage was derived from the Latin cor, which means "heart."

When we are told to "take heart" or to "have heart," we're really told to be brave. I think it's great that the organ that beats to keep us alive is the same organ that bleeds courage. It's almost as if the word is trying to tell us that as long as we're alive, as long as blood flows through our veins, we can be brave. After all, the heart is the only part of our bodies that is in constant motion even when we're totally still or fast asleep.

This is two of my favorite things in one. It's a podcast on the TED Stage. Although I'm also sharing this because 99% Invisible was a huge inspiration for this site. It's a podcast on design and all that are left unnoticed. In this episode, Mars talks about flag design, the good, the bad, and the horrible.

"When you decode the world with design intent in mind, the world becomes kind of magical. Instead of seeing the broken things, you see all the little bits of genius that anonymous designers have sweated over to make our lives better." - Roman Mars

This song was recorded in 1962 during the Civil Rights Movement in the US, and its lyrics make sense when heard in that context. However, the words ring true for the world today.

Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Fact: Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016, but from this came a lot of controversy, since the award would usually be given to a writer of novels and drama.

Also published on Medium.

Welcome to Only a Handful, a site dedicated to lists, little things, and other musings. It's a space for the overlooked, underappreciated, and all that inspire. You may know more about Handfuls by clicking here.

This is Only a Handful's pilot post.

1. Pound the Rock

2. Forrest Gump (1994)

3. The Etymology of 'Courage'

4. Live Deconstructed Podcast on Flags by 99% Invisible's Roman Mars

5. Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan