Unanswered Questions

I recently returned to America after my third season overseas and most people I see naturally want to know what it's like to live in Azerbaijan. There's a lot I can tell them about the city of Baku, the level of volleyball or the food. But sometimes it's hard to describe to people what it's like to actually go live and play in a foreign country as opposed to just traveling and seeing the sights. So I thought about how I could sum up that part of the experience and I realized that-- thanks to language barriers, cultural differences and a whole host of variation in perspectives-- life overseas is mostly just a series of unanswered questions.

I thought I'd share some of my questions with you that constantly go unanswered. And if you have the answers to any, by all means, let me know...

Common questions from a confused American


Is this taxi going to take me where I want to go?

When are you allowed to park on the sidewalk and how do they know?

In countries where they drive on the left side of the road, if I'm crossing the street do I walk to the left or the right? (because honestly the locals aren't making it clear)

Why is smoking still a thing?
Why aren't dryers a thing?
Follow-up: Did you know if you didn't buy cigarettes you could save all that money and buy a dryer with it?

Pizza Hat? Is this a rip-off of Pizza Hut? Do they think people will confuse it for the real one? DO people confuse it for the real one? Or are they trying to be a totally different company? And if so, can someone explain to me the connection between pizza and hats?

Finally, the two most common questions overseas:
1) What is happening right now?
2) Why? Just...why?
I ask myself both of these questions multiple times daily, which I concede is pointless because they consistently go unanswered...


Pretty much, what I'm telling you is that life overseas means reconciling yourself with the fact that you will never really know what is going on. And that's ok. Sometimes in life you just have to sit back and let that taxi take you wherever it's going to go (because the driver isn't going to understand you when you correct him anyway).

The speech I would've given

Here's something pretty much nobody knows: my senior year at Stanford I was a finalist to give the speech at Baccalaureate during graduation. I wasn't selected so no one except the committee ever heard the speech. But guess what I just found in my documents folder?

So, here it is-- the speech I would have given: "What I Believe"

http://cassidylichtman.blogspot.com/p/what-i-believe.html

Look to the children

I often find myself walking down a street in some far-off city that I never thought I’d see.  And as I watch the faces pass me by I sometimes start to think about how I’ll never really understand their stories.  We grew up worlds apart—or at least thousands of miles—with different cultures, values, rules.  We’ve been taught different sides of history, learned different prejudices and embraced different “universal” truths.  And every one of those things has molded and defined us, creating nuances that I’ll never even crack the surface of, even though I try to learn, because I can’t even ask them their names.

When all of that feels like an insurmountable wall erected between us I look to the children.  Because no matter where I’ve gone in the world, the children are the same.  They run down the street for no reason.  They hold hands unselfconsciously with boys or girls.  They get excited for the first day of snow in the winter.  They chase pigeons in the park.  They do cartwheels just because they can.  Just like I did.  And as I recognize myself in them I start to understand that we may be sculpted in different ways through our lives but we all start with the same base.

So it doesn’t really matter that we can’t talk to each other or that none of the faces passing look like mine. Because whatever the nuances in our stories, I know that we share a common core based in the very nature of humanity.  And I think that you can see that best in a child— in Azerbaijan, in California, in Poland or in Ukraine— as he chases a bird and giggles when it flies away. 

Low Expectations

Sometimes on our many ten plus hour flights across the world Karch Kiraly, Tama Miyashiro, Lauren Paolini and I discuss life’s deep questions.  That sounds like the beginning of some weird volley-related joke but we really do and it’s awesome. 

So, one time we were on the subject of happiness and Karch was telling us about a book he had read which argued that happiness comes from low expectations.  It might seem a little pessimistic at first glance but it’s really just about not taking things for granted.  For example, if I expect my food to be bland then I’m really happy when it’s delicious.  Most of us harbor fairly high expectations—we expect to be healthy, loved, well-fed, etc—so when our lives simply meet those expectations there’s no cause for celebration.

I’ve found that life overseas is definitely aided by this philosophy.  We get used to a lot of comforts in America that aren’t necessarily always available overseas.  So we can spend all of our time lamenting over the luxuries we no longer have or be happy when we get them.  Every time I shower I expect the water to be freezing so when it isn’t I mark it down as a victory. 

The fact is, the times that we’re unhappy, it’s usually because of one bad thing that went wrong that day.  But we’ve completely disregarded the hundreds of things that went right because we just expect them to.  If we learn to stop taking all of those little things for granted though, all of a sudden every day life becomes something to be happy about.  And let me tell you, a hot shower makes me really happy.    

Why I Love the Olympics

I love the Olympics.  I love that they still exist in a world that seems to be full of commercialism, intolerance and apathy.  And yeah, you can argue that it’s not immune to those issues; we can talk about corporate sponsorships and Russia’s anti-gay policies.  But the fact remains that when that Olympic flame is lit, it means something.  It means something in every country in the world.  For two weeks we all have the same goals.  We all play by the same rules.  We all celebrate the same values—sacrifice, discipline, sportsmanship, a commitment to excellence.  We all recognize the power of achieving your dreams.

The celebration of that unique Olympic spirit is somehow able to consistently transcend the fact that we’re in competition…

Like when Jeremy Abbot fell hard during his figure skating routine and the crowd cheered until he got up.  Not because they were fans of Team USA, but because they know what it took for him to even get to that moment.  Because they didn’t come just to see their countrymen win but to see people who have given everything to master their craft.

Or when these men in a Russian bar responded to their loss to the US like real men do.  By shaking the hands of the only two Americans in the place: http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/15/sports/la-sp-sochi-mens-hockey-plaschke-20140216

Or when the figure skating gala brought the skaters from every country out onto the ice together.  No competing, no worrying about points.  When can you ever see all of the best in the world just hanging out together doing what they love?

 The fact that we can come together in this celebration, that we can all appreciate the pursuit of a dream, that we’ve assigned a collective meaning to these games that exists worldwide—all of that gives me hope.  And we all know the world can always use a little more hope.  That is why I love the Olympics.

Also, curling pants…

And so it begins...

Welcome!  I want to start by being clear about what you’re getting yourself into…

This is not going to be a blog detailing my daily life because that would be boring.  Mostly for me.  So instead I’m just going to write about whatever I want.  It’s going to be random.  Probably really random.  Some of it might be about volleyball, some of it’s going to be me nerding out over things I think are cool and the majority will most likely just be my observations on the world around me.  Hopefully that will be interesting to some of you.  You might not learn all about my day-to-day life but I think you’ll end up learning a lot more about me.  Whether or not that’s a good thing…I’ll leave up to you to determine.