Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

How a sojourn atop a mountain in Vietnam changed my life forever

Jay Wong
Education
May 8, 2020
Share
Tweet
Share

As the gentle rumbles of thunder became increasingly sonorous, the sharp crackles of lightning casting out the darkness of night, striking like the angry whips from a scorned martinet, and the torrential rain now cascading down from our awning like loose waterfalls, making heavy splashes around us every few seconds, I could taste the intoxicating smell of petrichor laced with pot in the air. All the while, we gathered around in musical revelry to Justin Timberlake’s arrangement of “500 miles” being performed on the guitars of a couple of Vietnamese strangers-turned-friends whom I had just met in the last few days who I can only describe as being the wandering, liberated youths of a modern-day Woodstock generation.

It was here, atop an endless acclivity of emerald-green tiers leading to the summit of an agricultural mountain in the breathtakingly rustic town of SaPa, an idyllic land of limitless alpine terrain tucked away in the northcentral-most region of Vietnam, that I sojourned for three days and came face to face with a bunch of former vagabonds who had made this mountaintop their humble abode. It was also here, at the freshly minted age of 25, that I came to conceive of something so spectacular and life-changing that I can only describe as the “mountainous perspective” (a personal protologism I created to capture it) which, right now, is more germane to the human condition than ever. 

When I initially arrived here in the early days of May 2019, I was quickly greeted by “Cookie,” one of the 20-something-year-old Vietnamese drifters who had completely abandoned their former lives to begin new ones with like-minded souls. Upon meeting Cookie, I immediately noticed a rather disarming quality about her resting facial expression and unrestrained smile. It was as if she were looking into me as opposed to at me, and her shiny metal braces, slightly unkempt hair, imperfectly fit eyeglass frames, and oversized tattered garments imparted an almost naïve quality to her aura. Little did I know at the time that this total stranger would eventually become the catalyst for a very personal rite-of-passage thus far in my life’s journey.

She embraced me with the tenderness that only a sister could provide and the warmth that only a mother could offer, and instantly I felt a connection with someone who was worlds apart. Though we seemingly had nothing in common, our minds, hearts, and spirits somehow transcended these differences and conversed in a lingua franca. Cookie could tell that I was a lost soul seeking refuge and self-discovery, and she, an experienced wanderer ready to confer upon me and every traveler that would come after me the very secret that freed her from the pain she had once felt herself that she saw so clearly in my eyes.

I always believed the shortest distance between two people is a story, and so while sitting alone and across from her on a bench one afternoon I asked in rapid-fire succession, “Aren’t you sad about being away from your family for so long and having started a completely new life with no long-term plan? Have you ever been stressed or angry or upset about your own existence since coming here? Does living this way truly satisfy you?” 

But before Cookie could answer in words, she looked at me with the kind of far-away gaze that tells you everything without saying anything. She slowly turned her head sideways and stared out into the bucolic valley and mountainous backdrop in the distance, squinted her eyes ever-so-slightly, then shut her eyes, let out a gentle but deep, heavy sigh, opened her eyes again, and simply smiled. 

That was when I knew. 

There is a phenomenon that astronauts have been noted to experience called the “overview effect,”  understood to be a cognitive shift in awareness that some have reported by viewing Earth from outer space. It would seem that one’s perceptual field becomes exponentially more macrocosmic, and suddenly there is a unity, coherence, and universal interconnectedness to things that may have otherwise appeared disjointed prior. Moreover, even the things in our day-to-day lives that could be a harrowing monstrosity of a problem (e.g., personal failures/adversity, lost loves) suddenly lose some or all of their negative influence and significance. The emotional tethering of our fettered mind all of a sudden begins to dissolve. From this “orbital perspective,” I extrapolated the concept of a “mountainous perspective,” whereby similar spiritual thoughts and feelings about a single system of interrelatedness and oneness that was previously imperceptible come into the realm of conscious visibility.

To me, the mountainous perspective isn’t about desensitizing ourselves to the trials and tribulations of our world or disavowing ourselves from the very things that matter to us. And it’s certainly not about renouncing our human emotions and feelings to become callous and impregnable to the plights of humanity and the iniquity of humankind.

Rather, it’s about a kind of psychological partitioning, a deliberate and proactive compartmentalization, and extrication of our spiritual selves from the tangible, the material, the corporeal. It’s about a shift in cognitive awareness whereby we selectively choose to occupy an elevated vantage point that not only holds space for all of the raw, visceral feelings we are simply not impervious to as humans, but externalizing that as something that is not of our inner selves for the time being. By doing so, we can simultaneously recognize all that is not well, all that is not perfect/ideal but still not be crippled or crushed under the weight of our mind’s perception of the seemingly insurmountable emotional turmoil and internal hardship. It’s about adding another tool and antidote to our defensive repertoire for combatting what I call the “trifecta of emotional assault”: vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and learned helplessness. 

We don’t have to be a mendicant monk who has undergone tonsure or climb up a precipitous mountain in a foreign country to rise spiritually to an internally equanimous state of emotional unflappability and resilience. We just have to have a sense of imaginative awareness to know that no matter what happens, a picture much bigger and greater than ourselves exists. And if we can just take a huge step back (or in this case, up) to truly see the smallness of the intricate processes that besiege us in our day-to-day, no matter how bad things get from COVID-19, we can always find an inner calm. An inner peace.

Jay Wong is a medical student. He received his undergraduate degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from Yale University. He can be reached at his self-titled site, Jay Wong, and on Twitter @JayWongMedicine.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

I graduated medical school while sitting in the parking lot

May 8, 2020 Kevin 0
…
Next

People remember stories in your speech. The rest fades away.

May 8, 2020 Kevin 0
…

ADVERTISEMENT

Tagged as: Medical school

Post navigation

< Previous Post
I graduated medical school while sitting in the parking lot
Next Post >
People remember stories in your speech. The rest fades away.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Jay Wong

  • Ethical humanism: life after #medbikini and an approach to reimagining professionalism

    Jay Wong
  • The war on drugs: America’s secret racist war today

    Jay Wong
  • You’re outraged by police brutality and racism. OK, now what?

    Jay Wong

Related Posts

  • Ethical humanism: life after #medbikini and an approach to reimagining professionalism

    Jay Wong
  • The life cycle of medication consumption

    Fery Pashang, PharmD
  • My first end-of-life conversation

    Shereen Jeyakumar
  • There’s no such thing as work-life balance

    Katie Fortenberry, PhD
  • Are the life sciences the best premedical majors?

    Moses Anthony
  • My grandfather’s death: What I’ve learned about life

    Munera Ahmed

More in Education

  • Graduating from medical school without family: a story of strength and survival

    Anonymous
  • 2 hours to decide my future: How the SOAP residency match traps future doctors

    Nicolette V. S. Sewall, MD, MPH
  • What led me from nurse practitioner to medical school

    Sarah White, APRN
  • Bridging the rural surgical care gap with rotating health care teams

    Ankit Jain
  • Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients

    Hiba Fatima Hamid
  • The hidden cost of becoming a doctor: a South Asian perspective

    Momeina Aslam
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • 2 hours to decide my future: How the SOAP residency match traps future doctors

      Nicolette V. S. Sewall, MD, MPH | Education
    • Why removing fluoride from water is a public health disaster

      Steven J. Katz, DDS | Conditions
    • When did we start treating our lives like trauma?

      Maureen Gibbons, MD | Physician
    • In a fractured world, Brian Wilson’s message still heals

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • When your dream job becomes a nightmare [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How doctors took back control from hospital executives

      Gene Uzawa Dorio, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients

      Hiba Fatima Hamid | Education
    • What the world must learn from the life and death of Hind Rajab

      Saba Qaiser, RN | Conditions
    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why shared decision-making in medicine often fails

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Conditions
    • My journey from misdiagnosis to living fully with APBD

      Jeff Cooper | Conditions
    • Why we fear being forgotten more than death itself

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • When your dream job becomes a nightmare [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Finding healing in narrative medicine: When words replace silence

      Michele Luckenbaugh | Conditions
    • Why coaching is not a substitute for psychotherapy

      Maire Daugharty, MD | Conditions
    • When the white coats become gatekeepers: How a quiet cartel strangles America’s health

      Anonymous | Physician
    • Why doctors stay silent about preventable harm

      Jenny Shields, PhD | Conditions
    • Why interoperability is key to achieving the quintuple aim in health care

      Steven Lane, MD | Tech

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

Leave a Comment

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • 2 hours to decide my future: How the SOAP residency match traps future doctors

      Nicolette V. S. Sewall, MD, MPH | Education
    • Why removing fluoride from water is a public health disaster

      Steven J. Katz, DDS | Conditions
    • When did we start treating our lives like trauma?

      Maureen Gibbons, MD | Physician
    • In a fractured world, Brian Wilson’s message still heals

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • When your dream job becomes a nightmare [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How doctors took back control from hospital executives

      Gene Uzawa Dorio, MD | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients

      Hiba Fatima Hamid | Education
    • What the world must learn from the life and death of Hind Rajab

      Saba Qaiser, RN | Conditions
    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why shared decision-making in medicine often fails

      M. Bennet Broner, PhD | Conditions
    • My journey from misdiagnosis to living fully with APBD

      Jeff Cooper | Conditions
    • Why we fear being forgotten more than death itself

      Patrick Hudson, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • When your dream job becomes a nightmare [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • Finding healing in narrative medicine: When words replace silence

      Michele Luckenbaugh | Conditions
    • Why coaching is not a substitute for psychotherapy

      Maire Daugharty, MD | Conditions
    • When the white coats become gatekeepers: How a quiet cartel strangles America’s health

      Anonymous | Physician
    • Why doctors stay silent about preventable harm

      Jenny Shields, PhD | Conditions
    • Why interoperability is key to achieving the quintuple aim in health care

      Steven Lane, MD | Tech

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

Leave a Comment

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...