Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Died in the middle

It’s weird to read on breaking news the person I’m currently reading about is pronounced dead. Henry Kissinger died yesterday at the prime age of 100. I am about halfway through Walter Isaacson’s biography of him. The takeaway from the book thus far: my god was the Vietnam War just utterly and stupendously horrendous. That Kissinger seemingly had a hand in extending that human tragedy for a few more years, all for the sake of diplomacy vis a vis the Soviets and China, is kind of vile. The Vietnamese people - from both sides of the conflict - have a right to hate America for at least a century of years.

Or one Kissinger: he lived to 100! Let it be known that one can have a hugely stressful job, late nights and early mornings, a typical American diet, zero exercise, and still live to see triple digit age. What the heck am I doing? Working out consistently, keeping a good diet, and getting tremendous amounts of sleep nightly. I don’t even drink a lick of alcohol! Perhaps gluttony and hedonism is the way to go for a long lifespan. All in moderation? Negative! What we all want is the promise of a long life without the hard work.

For better and worse, Kissinger gave his gift to America, and the world. Not content with toiling in academia for a career, he pursued his interests and what he wanted to do with fervor (and a hearty dose of egomania). On this specifically, I think Kissinger is admirable. So many of us - and I include myself in the us - give up on even trying to fulfill our potential, to chase what we really want to do. We settle for a life of enough, a life of too comfortable to take risks. I’m not saying there isn’t happiness in that, but people like Kissinger sort of makes you think of what might have been.

That maybe at your death, there will be a litany of highlights and lowlights to look back on. And perhaps the world will know about you too.

Please sir, no more

I really need to stop buying books. There’s still so many on my shelves currently that I’ve yet to read. Just this week, four more books arrived from the overlords at Amazon. The COVID pandemic may be over, but my personal pandemic of compulsive book buying is here to stay. What I should do is stop listening to podcasts, because that’s where I usually get book recommendations from. The hosts would interview some interesting person releasing a book, and I would immediately go one click purchase (trademark) on Amazon.

No wonder book tours include going on podcasts.

There’s also the problem of running out of shelf space. The two Billy bookcases in my room is full (man have they gotten expensive since I bought them three years ago), and I prefer not to get more shelving. That money would be better used towards buying more books! My solution to this is to slowly donate the books I’ve already read. The rule: any new book I buy, one on the shelf has to go. Fortunately, it’s super easy to donate my used books. Our university library has a book donation drop-off. So I simply have to bring the books with me to work.

I would donate to the San Francisco Public Library - there’s a branch literally down the block from me. Sadly they do not except donations at branch locations. There’s a central spot on the other side of the city that accepts them. My housemate recently hauled a bunch of his old books over there. I on the hand will not be wasting gas for this endeavor. Sorry, SFPL: decrease friction if you want my donations!

There’s nothing better than an early Saturday morning, reading a book in front of my room window (with a requisite cup of coffee, of course). No need for any grand travel adventures; that simplicity is what satisfies me these days.

Books on books on books

I kind of promised myself this year that I will not buy more books until I’ve read all the ones that are already on the shelves. Well, that has gone completely out the window already. I’m about a dozen new books purchased this year, and it’s only been a month! There is literally no more room on my two IKEA BILLY bookshelves. I’ve resorted to stacking the news one horizontally on top of the books already there.

In my defense, I do tend to read all of the new books that I buy. But with shelf space becoming an acute issue, I soon will have to make a decision: either buy and create more shelf space, or donate a portion of the books. Because let’s face it, I’m not going to stop buying new books. That’s just not happening.

Donating the books will be easy: I work in a campus library that takes donations. The hard part will be figuring out which books to donate. That’s when the emotions and sentimental value kick in. Marie Kondo doesn’t have a solution for this: what if everything sparked joy? A more useful standard would be to toss anything that have not been touched/used in the past 12 months. The likelihood of such a book ever being touched again is near zero.

I previously had dreams of stuffing as much books and shelf space as possible into my room. A wonderland of books, if you will. The coziness scale will certainly be off the charts. However, that would clash against a strong sensibility of mine: cleanliness. It’s a simple equation: the more stuff you have, the more difficult it is to maintain it.

This is why I’m kind of rethinking about getting a second car. Sure it’ll be fun to have a different kind of car to drive around, but it will be two times the effort (and costs!) to maintain. That’s a tremendous time investment, even for something I am deeply passionate about.

Thursday afternoon

I woke up this morning absolutely tired. Even after seven and half hours of sound slumber, I could barely open my eyes this morning. This isn’t laziness talking either, because I closed my eyes and slept for another two hours. The radiant sun shining through the shades wasn’t enough to break me out of it.

It’s another stressful work-week, I guess. Too bad it’s only Thursday. At least I get to work from home today, which is immensely less strenuous than physically going to campus. The art college is christening a new building soon, so us grunts on ground are busy with the move. Sitting at home working in front of a lovely windows is so much better than lifting heavy computer equipment into boxes.

At least it’s good exercise. Lots of squats and lifts. Hashtag gains.

I recently rediscovered how fun it is to read fiction. I generally skew on the non-fiction side in the books I read because I want to learn about new things. In my opinion, fiction is for entertainment, a good story. Though for sure you can study the prose of great authors as well. Nevertheless, sometimes you need a break from non-fiction (I challenge anyone to read all three volumes of The Gulag Archipelago consecutively), so I make sure slot in a few fiction titles in between.

A novel with a great story can be very intoxicating. I usually read for about an hour every day, but I can’t seem to put Kevin Kwan’s latest novel - Sex and Vanity - down. So eager to find out what happens next that I just keep reading until it’s really time to stop, like needing to go to bed. The joy of reading isn’t just from learning something new, but also in embracing a wonderfully told story.

Being reminded of this, from now on I shall endeavor to read more fiction.

What's the topic?

This is one of those mornings I really don’t know what to write about, but the show must go on. I try hard to not skip any scheduled writing days, because like missing a workout, the regret of having done so afterwards is rather unpleasant. Nothing should stop me from putting down the few hundred words on this page every day; except for Fridays, and the weekend.

With nothing to write about, I instead picked up a book and read for about an hour. I thought perhaps doing another task first would allow the time for inspiration to hit me and I’d have something to write about. Well, that completely failed on this day, and here I am rambling about particularly nothing just to fill up the word count.

But the show must go on.

The next time I put words to this page, I would have moved to my new spot closer to work, living the solitary independent life for the very first time. I am looking forward to this big life change with humbled anticipation, though with a few days still remaining at what I can now refer as “my parents’ home”, I am trying hard to not fast-forward time with the excitement of the future. It would be too easy to take these next days off and sort of lounge around until it’s time to move.

In those moments, I remind myself the core of what I do, which is plastered on the landing page of this very website: writer, photographer, car enthusiast, reader, traveler. So long as I am doing any one of those five things at a given time, (not so much traveling going on these days, sadly) I can confidently say I am being productive. Not to say one shouldn’t have hours of pure leisure, but for those with a tendency towards laziness like myself, reminders and affirmations are helpful tools to keep me on track.

Until next time, friends.

Online news outlets should do pay-per-article

A great annoyance with regards to reading news articles online is when outlets block you from access because you’ve exceeded the free monthly limit, usually some absurdly low number, like the measely five free articles per month with The New York Times. Of course, there are various methods to circumvent the paywalls - of which I won’t state here - should you be really inclined to read an article. My guess is though for the most part, people simply give up and leave after encountering a paywall.

That’s not so good for spreading news and information, is it?

It’s for sure a tricky situation: proper journalism is something worthy of supporting, and we definitely should subscribe to these online periodicals so they can continue to report on news and investigate powerful institutions. That said, even the most ardent of newspapers supporters is likely to subscribe to only two: their local newspaper, and a national one like the aforementioned New York Times or the Washington Post. At one time, that was my system: I paid for the San Francisco Chronicle, and had a subscription The New York Times.

But that leaves coverage gaps for other online newspapers and journals. What if there’s an engrossing expose on Bloomberg? Or a food-review about the hottest restaurant on the Los Angeles Times website? If I’ve already exceeded the free articles allowance for a particular month, I am shit out of the proverbial luck. I don’t want to subscribe just to read specific articles, because I don’t have the money to carry so many news outlets, and also, these places tend to make it difficult to cancel. I had to call into customer service when cancelling my subscription to the Chronicle and the Times, having to sit through their lengthy attempts to retain me before successfully cutting cord.

To go through that just to read one article? No thanks.

It’s a mystery to me why don’t these newspapers create a system for people to pay-per-article: I’d gladly fork over 99-cent to read a piece behind a paywall. Connect the system with popular online payment methods such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and make it easy to one-click accept at the paywall popup. These companies get the revenue, and I get to read the articles I want - it’s a win-win.

I won’t even charge a commission for this idea, so someone please run with this!

Reading one book per month

I was once told that one should read at least one book per month. Doesn't matter what sort of book it is, be it fiction or non-fiction, story or self-help.

Of course, we're all so preoccupied with our screens and mobile devices these days, so who's got time to read anything substantial? Even on the Internet, long-form is largely dead. It's so much easier and faster for the ADD generation to parse through sordid lists and pictures instead of reading page after page of actual words.

It's no coincidence grammar and word usage has absolutely gone to shit. English is and can be a very artful language, but you simply don't see it much anymore. It irritates me greatly when I see slang or colloquial terms enter into what people consider journalistic pieces of writing.

Step away from the iPad, and pick up a book. Unless you're like me and you use the Kindle app on your iPad, then by all means - as you were.