03.16 | setting reminders that things are ok
The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say, ‘My tooth is aching’ than to say, ‘My heart is broken.’
– C.S. Lewis
✉️ letter #30
I have a brain that tends to default to shame.
It will automatically take any days I have that are action-packed and planned out to 15-minute intervals and set that as the expected baseline I should be striving towards every day of my life.
And when I can't keep it up - because nobody in the world has the energy to GO GO GO more than a couple of those days in a row - it will flood my mind from morning til night with admonition and disdain.
"You should have waken up earlier." "Did you need to eat all that?" "You'd be able to concentrate and get this done if you weren't an idiot." "You had every advantage in life and you've only gotten THIS far by now?"
Learning to recognize that these comments are automatic and not actually indicative of any reality has been one of the most postive transformative aspects of my adulthood.
I remember listening to a radio segment where a guy with a similarly rude brain would write these disruptive thoughts down and then set them to auto-send to his inbox at random intervals. And as counter-intuitive as it sounds, seeing all those insults appear in writing helped a lot. The takeaway was that you realize, when it's finally placed in the physical world, how nonsensical and ultimately useless comments like these are. And once you've taken notice, you can move on.
So that's what I do these days. I acknowledge, I laugh, and then I move on.
But it took me a while this time to notice that my brain was doing this to me over this newsletter.
I'd had an incredibly busy early week (which is, well, normal actually), and felt too drained by Wednesday to write anything up. And every day after that, I put off drafting this newsletter while my brain yelled bloody murder about how I had no discipline, I can't plan properly, I lack the "true creativity" (whatever that is) to make something of my own. And then today it hit me that my brain was doing that nonsensical useless thing it does again.
So this morning, instead of feeling shameful about not writing this newsletter, I jotted down what I was doing instead of writing this newsletter. Turns out... a lot!
- I got my cat back last Tuesday and it was big drama! My brother, who flew over from California with her, nearly lost her in the SFO airport after she got loose from her harness and ran into the scanning machine. Luckily he goes to airports really early (peak Dad behavior, Jon). He was able to spare the hour he, my sister, and various TSA agents then spent finding and extracting her from the belly of the machine.
- When my brother finished the business part of his business trip this week, I took him out for a whirlwind tour of New York City. We went kind of non-stop all Friday night and Saturday, which was super fun! Hitting up old favorites and discovering new awesome hangs was a beautiful reminder for me that the city I'm living in is, duh, amazing. And I'm glad I got to share that with him.
- I actually started exercising again for the first time in ages. My god, how my muscles had atrophied. I could barely walk the day after my first HIIT strength session. But subsequent days have led to less pain more gain. And as a happy bonus, Saturday exercise classes have also turned into a weekly excuse to hang out with a good friend from my Shanghai era. It's been absolutely lovely.
- I have assembled a new dining table, dining bench, a bathroom cabinet, a full on wfh desk experience, a kitchen that can actually be cooked in... and I also finally figured out how to set up medical appointments in this city (this took a ridiculous amount of time and effort, by the way. Healthcare in the USA continues to be agonizing).
- I signed up to volunteer with an organization I respect very much in this city, and am excited to begin helping out this Sunday.
- Plus, of course, I finished work stuff. A lot of work stuff.
Things are ok.
There are many other things I want to start, restart, or optimize, but I don't need to do them all at once - nay, they are impossible to do them all at once - and even if I didn't do any of them, I don't need to beat myself up about it.
Things are ok.
Things are ok.
Things are ok.
🌱 the ethical ideas newsreel
- Another week, another Asian woman getting brutally attacked in NYC. I was vaguely considering writing about it, but ultimately that felt like me upsetting myself for no good reason.
Instead, I'll just point to activism others are already doing. The Asian Justice Movement had a nationwide event today, the 1-year anniversary of the Atlanta shootings to "remember the victims and #BreakTheSilence on anti-Asian hate and violence that continues unabated." You can see the livestream (and hopefully the whole recording after the fact) here.
- A Debt Jubilee doesn't just sound sweet, it's a profoundly interesting concept that ought to become more mainstream: "For centuries, debt and indebtedness have had profoundly destabilizing effects on human societies. In the ancient world, rulers and their subjects had a solution: known as a debt jubilee, it involved a periodic, unconditional wiping out of debt. We need such a jubilee today." From the same publication and especially timely, did you know that Ukraine owes billions in foreign debt? "If Western governments were serious about helping Ukrainians amid a devastating war, they would push for those debts to be canceled."
- A new book proposes two solutions for the United States' broken housing system: 1) stop building in areas that don't support human life very well, and 2) build more in places that people are naturally moving to. It sounds so very simple when you put it like that, but not surprisingly, the ability to do either of those is mired deep in political muck.
- The final session of negotiations to help create international waterway protections for migrating whales is taking place this week in New York. The treaty they come up with should create marine "protected areas" in the high seas that restrict activities which could threaten whales and other marine species.
🎵 song of my week
Sometimes you just come across a song that is an entire vibe. And "Fuck Your Sunshine" by Łaszewo has been that vibe for me this last week.
Incidentally, I found out they were actually playing in New York City last weekend, but despite the mask mandate being lifted and nobody even bothering to look at vaccine cards anymore... I still feel kind of iffy about being in crowded club spaces?
A lot of people have asked if I've had "culture shock" returning to the United States after all this time. And honestly, the only thing that truly feels off to me here has been the absolutely different approach America has to this pandemic compared to China (which, by the way, is currently locking down parts of Shanghai because of a bunch of mostly asymptomatic cases).
✨enjoying: one final piece of pop culture fun
The most delightful series I've come across recently has been Our Flag Means Death, the new comedy show from Taika Waititi about the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet - who was a real person, and I knew this because I remember missions involving him in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
It's both funny and heartfelt, a great slice-of-pirate-life adventure.
Taika Waititi's got a track record of great comedies, but I admit that I never really got into series like What We Do In The Shadows because I really need to actually like the characters I'm spending a decent time watching.
It's a strong personal preference that's probably indicative of some kind of deep-seated trauma, but I can't stand cringe. Our Flag Means Death has a bunch of buffoons doing the worst pirating on the face of the earth, but with such earnestness and good nature that every episode just brightens my day a little more.
Did you enjoy it?
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