One of the weirder meals I ate in Korea was at this eerily quiet rice soup store.

It was a tiny rice soup store in the Michelin guide, and inside it only had enough room for a stainless steel bar that sat 7 people. We got there 30 minutes early and waited in line for the tiny number of seats.

The entire place had a brutalist concrete building vibe, and the menu selection was limited, and the waiters and chefs barely spoke, we just pointed to their main offering (pork soup with rice), they nodded and proceeded to make the dish in what seemed like absolute silence. Like the staff and the other guests, I also didn't speak at all.

— That dish stood out to me because up till now i've never seen pork broth this clear. It didn't feel like it had oil in it, and it feels like you can really see deep into the soup.

I felt pretty disappointed when I started on the dish, it didn't have any flavoring – felt like it was just thin-sliced pork. Over the course of the meal though, for some reason I felt myself focusing on the flavor of this dish more intensely than most of the meals I've had before. The lack of distractions – both in the external environment and the broth itself, made me want to seek more experiences, the and only stimuli with enough depth to dive into was the pork itself. And so because the pork was made so simply, it made me appreciate the natural flavor of pork much more.

To be honest, I didn't think the meal was in my top 3 in the trip when I left that store. However, in the months after the trip, I find myself thinking to that meal, and the headspace that it invoked in me, often.

It's actually the case that everything we encounter in life produces a lingering sensation. It's subtle but rich in variety, much like the sensation that food gives us. This is why we call the ability to appreciate it “taste”. And in the past few days, I found myself noticing the relationship between the calmness I feel at the moment and how deeply I can dive into the flavor of the moment.

— The place I notice this the most, I think, are in social interactions.

My mom is an extremely social person while my dad is a super antisocial one. I think in some ways, my tendency gravitates towards that of my dad's. Things that other people pick up socially seem to take just a smidgen longer for me to pick up, and I sometimes wished that I was someone who naturally had a lot of charisma.

Something I noticed though, is that just by being practicing being grounded in the moment, I'm able to detect more nuances in social interactions now. A focused but relaxed mind naturally hones itself for depth. And just like how the blank environment at the rice place made me observe the taste of everyday pork at a deeper level, I find myself more aware of how distracted I am at the moment, and how I'm able to understand things much deeper when I approach it with a calm mind.

And all that was because of a bowl of some pork broth rice.

— Categorized under: #psychology, #interactions, #meditation

In the circle I hang out in nowadays, there is a lot of lament that people don't take the small risk of taking time to discover themselves even if they don't feel passionate about their jobs.

There is a book called “The Pathless Path” that does basically exactly this. It argues that too many people are stuck at the grindy jobs prescribed to them by society for a sense of safety, and that one day it would be too late for them to do so.

The book has a lot of followers, and I said a lot of such laments myself – why aren't people doing more to actualize themselves, even when the risks appear to be so low?

A few months ago I saw a thread on Twitter that changed my opinions on this. I've only read it once and the thread has now been deleted, but at some point I realized that I've been passively thinking about it for a few months.

The gist of it is that “a person pursuing their own path is on a constant, endless quest to discover their value systems, pursue it, and justify yourself to other people. A person on the default path does not need to justify their purpose and usefulness, while someone on the non-default path needs to be thinking about it all the time. This is effortful enough that it can be rational to do away with the process altogether and stay with the default path”.

Over the past few month, this thread has been reworking my perception of people with common day-jobs, to the point that I don't really think negatively about people on the default path more. Sometimes, I even admire it. And overall, this has been a beneficial change to me.

— Categorized under: #social, #interactions, #life

Setpoints

Being more convinced over time that happiness setpoint isn't fixed, but rather a function of how much people (who have mostly unblocked themselves emotionally) habitually gravitate towards negative thoughts vs. positive ones. Specifically towards the feelings of gratitude, awe, beauty, connectedness, loving-kindness, peace, and joy.

The habits are so small and fast that most people tend to not notice.

Fun

The degree to which an interaction could be fun but isn't is actually kind of scarcity coded.

Optimal Eating

The objectively correct way to dine while travelling is to ask locals to recommend unassuming restaurants. The more unassuming the better. Twitter/Reddit are next best. Atmosphere is often overrated while travelling.

Focus on local cuisine. You can't have that easily at other places.

Map Recommendations

Put them up immediately! It's important to spot good nearby places to go to.

Plan out museum visits

It's important to know EXACTLY when museums close and EXACTLY how to get to important spots. Visit the important spots first, then visit the rest later.

Buy tickets in advance

~15 days to a month is a good measure.

Be ok with small regrets

At times during travel I'd notice concurrent regrets for not using my time optimally or missing something I wanted to go to. An interesting observation is how quickly these recede over time. Don't act on them, they won't matter within a few hours to a few days.

Small Decisions

I've been travelling with a friend who's pretty different recently and it's been interesting to observe small push and pulls of preference for places.

Imo communication of exactly how important certain preferences are is important. Most requests require the same level of effort to accommodate, but it's important that those effort be allocated to what the other person most prioritizes.

Rome is quite a beautiful city! I've fallen in love with the architecture here. I feel like the spirit behind the architecture and statues have meshed with my thoughts in subtle ways when writing this.

1. Moments of anger, annoyance, jealousy

People who are loosely acquainted with me generally remark that I'm a very calming presence – soft spoken, relaxed, positive, regulated. Although people who know me really well actually know that I'm a really, really moody person.

A lot of quietude comes from regulating expression (mostly speech) – when I feel an emotion, there's a filter that examines whether that emotion is appropriate to express, and that emotion is expressed only when it feels appropriate.

The regulation is rather interesting – it can make you calming to other people, but at the same time it can suppress spontaneity – by the time positive emotions passes through that filter, they tend to be a lot more muted.

On the other hand, I'm also noticing acutely when that regulation fails, when moments of sharp negativity make me say things that I don't really intend, and a lot of me wonder whether its possible to be spontaneous while also not being spiky.

I think that it's probably possible, and that the way to do it is to basically recognize emotions faster through practice. I suspect that meditation is basically this, and will probably tune some of my practices towards that direction.

2. Moments of projection

I was visiting a restaurant with my mom and stepdad the other day, and my mom struck up a conversation with one of the staff.

It had been a long day and by that time both my stepdad and I (who are both more introverted) didn't really feel like conversing. I distinctly remember observing the staff's vibe and body language and noting that he didn't seem interested in talking.

To my surprise, the staff was actually really happy to engage, and brought up conversation topics and kept the exchange going for a while.

To a certain extent, people mirror what vibes others put out, so my mom's openness to conversation probably contributed to that outcome.

Despite that, I usually consider myself pretty good at reading people, but clearly there was a moment of projection here as well. The moment that that evaluation was made, you are already biasing that conversation towards a certain direction too. I think my learning here is to not take my evaluation of people's vibes too seriously, and understand that they could change as well.

3. Initial Impressions

One benefit of living in a 3rd space is that you get a vast trove of data on how people interreact with you and each other. And one of the fascinating observations so far has been how people form different mental models of how the 3rd space operates based on their initial interactions.

For example, they tend to assume that the people they interact with the most is the most in charge of the space. They also assume that the events they went to first were the primary types of event for that space.

Seeing this has actually kinda drilled home to me how important first impressions is when interacting with people. I kinda always knew that it was important, but had nothing analogous to compare it to. When you see how differently people form first impressions of a space, you see how differently they could form an impression of a person as well.

There has been times in my life when I consistently gave people better or worse first impressions, depending on where I am in life at the time; but I don't think there really is a time when I paid much attention to first impressions, and now I distinctly notice when I unnecessarily come across to people as being unlikable, and how that could be improved with slightly better habits.

(I notice how I could fine-grain track the impression I'm making on people too, but am hesitant to pursue this because it could be construed as manipulative. I probably should feel less anxiety around this.)

4. Who's Going to Listen to Me?

Over the past few years, I feel like the notion of listening has become a relatively rare resource.

At least from my personal experience in both 1-on-1 and group conversations, conversations tend to stay at the surface level more often compared to a few years ago.

I'd like to dig deeper into what's changed, but at least for myself personally, I think a contributing factor is how often I hoist my immediate thoughts onto others.

My mind doesn't do much internal calculus on talking to specific people about specific subjects. Instead, it identifies people who seem to have a lot of similar interests, and sends all subjects to those people.

Thinking back, I don't think that's a great method. It contributes to a less exciting conversation usually, since the topic lands less. The topics would have been better matched to people with those specific interests.

Furthermore, the info-dumpy aspect of it makes it harder for me to provide others the space to tell me more about what they're interested in.

In an ideal world, I'd like conversations about the topics I'm specifically interested about to be directed to people who share those exact interests, and this opens up space in conversations outside of my immediate interest range to become opportunities to learn more about the worth.

That might be a good step towards a society that listens more.

— Categorized under: #psychology, #interactions, #communication

One of my initial design inspirations has been Patricia's blog: https://www.wellnesswisdom.xyz/p/-wellness-wisdom-vol-48-the-spaces?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

I think these designs are extremely nice, but one common issue is that they lack a sense of energy that keeps one awake and active. For this reason, my bedroom (at least the upstairs) always feel a bit “too cozy”.

This is something I'd like to accommodate better for sure in terms of design.

Zu

Recently I've started to pursue habits in order to create a more structured life and to achieve the life outcomes I want. In order to do that, I've been journaling a lot more (like 500-1000) words a day just to process my life more without the inhibitions that usually comes with a public blog.

There's a link there somewhere on the blog, since having theoretical accountability does help mem improve writing quality. If you do find it, feel free to bring anything up with me.

I do occasionally anticipate to update here – but we'll see where life takes us.

— Categorized under: #life

really strange sense of ick when navigating the world today – causing a desire to want to revert to being a kid. Uncommon emotions, for sure.

outside of external circumstances, I think there is a part that dislikes how current social status quo works, and want to work towards something different.

ick :( ick ick ick.

z

Had a hectic week last week, just returned from a one-day camping trip with some friends, and was genuinely surprised by how calm I felt afterward. The subjective difference felt somewhat like going from 120 heart beats per second to 20 beats per second, and it feels like a complete reset from the exhaustion of the week (and this was despite doing some running to let off some steam).

I think being away from everything that reminds you that you need to hurry/hustle, including your phone, was amazingly healing even if it was for just a day. Its like how 20-40 naps gaming sessions tend to rejuvenate me, but for a whole day instead.

Anyways, just wanted to record a nice moment :) peace out.

— Categorized under: #chill, #psychology, #nature

Ikaruga is one of my favorite video games to watch. In particular, chapter four of the game is incredibly beautiful. It combines an aesthetically unparalleled stage theme with an utterly gruesome level design. In the game, you have to get the same-colored enemies three times in a row to earn a “combo”, and the particular type of movements that the stage encourages you to do in order to combo this stage is truly beautiful to behold.

Beyond all that though, what I really love about the stage is that it can be seen as a metaphor to life. Each chapter in the game captures an essential human concept like “Ideal” or “Faith”, and chapter four holds the ambitious title of “Reality”. The game delivers. Throughout the stage, you tackle the absolutely gargantuan spaceship Misago (Osprey) by systematically destroying its constituent parts, until at the end you destroy a sort of “core” so that you can advance to the next chapter.

The scale of the spaceship really brings the theme of “Reality” to focus. The player's plane feels like a tiny ant compared to the elephant that is the stage, and I'm enamored with that metaphor – that reality is an overwhelmingly large object, but something where with determination you could break it down to constituent parts so that you can eventually gain victory over it.
Recently though, I've been rethinking what that reality really means.

For a long time, I conceptualized reality as the physical reality. Things like physics, chemistry, biology, economics, psychology, social dynamics. Once your figure out how to navigate these parts, you will feel that reality is your playing field.

What I've been feeling more recently is that those might not be the right metaphors for the stage. What to me has been feeling bigger over the course of the past few days is the concept of “Ego”, and the understanding of how “I” handle my philosophy and my emotions. There is something about that system that feels as intricate as the economy of a whole country, and if anything much more instrumental to my attitude on navigating the world. It is also something much, much harder to understand. Reality is like a photograph that you can always trace given enough time. Ego feels like a fleeting scene that we barely catch during a car-ride, and we spend the rest of our time figuring out how to reconstruct that scene.

If there is a crux of what I'm getting at, it is this – it's not difficult to survive as an American in today's world. It really isn't. Even with a minimal understanding of the physical reality (which is easy to understand, but just takes a lot of work) physical sustenance is possible for most people. However, the real challenge is the pursuit to satisfy the self in an emotional way, and I feel that very few people I know have that figured out. So there I was thinking of understanding physical reality as the biggest challenge I should overcome, when all the while the actual tough part is to figure out my emotions.
A while ago, I thought that I had my emotional system figured out, in the sense that I no longer feel a sense of baggage coming from my childhood. While the latter part is true, the prior part is not. Even without past traumas, emotional baggage can still come up. The pride of wanting to be better than others, the jealousy of wanting something that others have, the disappointment that you didn't live up to your image, the loneliness of finding yourself in a temporary social lull. These still exist, and they are a vaster and tougher barrier to personal happiness than many physical objects are for me today.
And so I think that I should conceptualize the challenge of Reality differently. When I see the Osprey ship in Ikaruga now, I no longer see the different components of physical and psychological sciences. Rather, I see the nooks and crannies of my own psychology, the way that certain parts are scraped, dented, stripped, and sometimes bent out of shape. I see parts of my emotions and actions that don't flow naturally, places where speech might not align with intent, intent don't align with action, and I want to understand that Reality instead.

I supposed I should provide more loose thoughts here, but it is getting late tonight. I will come back soon, but in the mean time, I'd like to think about what the following means to me: pride, status, double-binds, ironic detachment from desires, the conflict between what I want to do when hanging out with others, and what society tell me is rational to do. I suppose that will be for another day, but I eagerly look forward to digging into it.

— Categorized under: #psychology, #philosophy.

Just got back from Vibecamp. On the very last day when I was relaxing on a the grassy hill outside of dining cabin, somebody handed me a bubble wand, and I played with it while watching the people around me.

Right before Vibecamp, I spoke with a pretty devout Buddhist, and have been thinking about that conversation a lot.

While blowing bubbles by myself at Vibecamp, I experienced a lot of equanimous joy, and there was something I really valued in it. It seemed to me that a moment of equanimous joy is equal to hours of excited joy. Equanimous joy feels sustainable, while excited joy (think about the likes of going to a rave) stems from a large amount of expectation, which I think is the same thing that leads to much of our suffering.

Buddhism attests that all emotions are suffering, and I think equanimous joy to be a sort of sweet point in terms of positive emotions to strive for. Maybe it's the case that I prefer it now over hours of ecstatic joy, and that it's what I might look for in events and chats going forward.

— Categorized under: #philosophy, #buddhism, #interactions