Thought Diary - Upside Down Snow Globe

Sometimes, we feel like we are missing something. We don't know what exactly we are missing, but we are sure we are missing it. When we walk, we hold our head up high and look around, searching for a hint, a clue, that will lead us to what we are finding. Most days are routine.  We get up, wash, eat, and drive. This repetition is boring, and we pay little attention to it. Now, imagine you wake up in the morning and eat oatmeal while clearly pondering about an aspect of your life. There is no rush. There is no grogginess. There is vitality. Art from Kimi no Na wa. What is the difference between the two lives? The one we live in right now and the one we are searching for? We don't know... That is why we are searching, waiting, and anticipating. Break compromise.  People often mention that we have to keep accelerating, keep moving forward with passion and zeal. However, we don't have that much continuous passion to spend; we are human, after all. We don't h...

The Lagging Game We have preferences. Noise annoys us. Cold irritates us. Light disrupts us. Heat disorients us. The list goes on. When we are not comfortable, we are easily distracted and not productive. It is very important to maintain an optimal environment for productivity. This is why places like libraries attract many people to study there. Art from Kimi no Na wa style advertisement.  Productivity is like lag.  Whenever the weather is too hot, I get distracted and feel too tired to do anything at all. I just end up doing nothing and staying in a state of discomfort. This is similar to lag. If a video buffers every two seconds, the video will get very annoying to watch, and it may not be worth it to watch the video at all because the lag disrupts the stream of entertainment or education. Lag sucks, but it is definitely present in our lives. Reducing lag is as simple as eliminating the variables that distract us. If temperature is a problem, then we should...

Random is defined by a chance process. We do not know what exactly will happen next, but we can assign a probability that approximates the distribution of the chance process in the long run.  In life, not many things follow probability. Dice rolls may be random, but within a game that rolls the dice a hundred times, the results are not uniform at all. We can say that the game is random, and it takes luck to win the game.  Photo by me from Pixel 2 XL. Luck.  Many see luck as an abstract cause of something good that happened. You met the right person at the right time today? That's luck.  Others see luck as the intersection of opportunity and preparation. You met the right person at the right time, because you have been preparing for potential meetings directly or indirectly and acted upon the opportunity that came up.  Either way, cause and effect relationships cannot perfectly explain events in life. That is the reason we use "luck" and ...

The Choosing Game is easy to play. Your actions, or lack of action, are permanent choices.  Your actions are limited by existing guidelines.  Time moves in one direction.  That yet. The game that is so simple to play leaves us contemplating ceaselessly. The most worrisome choices are the ones that involve a significant portion of our life's asset, which includes time and energy.  If I choose to do this for five weeks, I am putting five weeks of my life on the line. In the end, I may be satisfied or dissatisfied with my investment. The uncertainty of satisfaction drives the pressure for us to make good choices.  Snow Light  by me from Pixel 2 XL. Good choices.  Good choices make us happier and more fulfilled. Bad choices make us regret. Naturally, we want to make good choices, but The Choosing Game is not like Chess. There is not a universal end goal to "win," and there are nearly infinite possibilities of choices.  What...

Cliches are true. Things are prettier after a storm. I experienced a "winter" storm just the past and lost electricity and WiFi for about 4 days. When I saw the street lamps light up, my heart burst with excitement. I cavorted around. I felt so happy.  Photo by me from Pixel 2 XL. Even the sunset.  I swear after a storm, the sunset looks prettier. There are more flat clouds and they take on the glow of the waning sun.  Intensity is relative.  Maybe it is just perception. When we turn on the lights at night, we quint our eyes to protect them from the intense light.  Relativity never ends.  Talking about relativity is getting boring. After all, everything is relative. Everything is pointing towards the obvious that our experiences in life are relative. Our perceptions are relative. And relativity is beautiful.  Even in the worst of situations, there can emerge the best thing. 

Giving up is harder than it sounds. Most of the time when you think you have given up, you are probably just being lazy. Giving up is more than just being lazy. Giving up is making a firm choice. Giving up is deciding that you will no longer be hindered by an excuse and you will move on. Art from Children Who Chase Lost Voices. When you give up, you have fewer excuses.  Sometimes, we follow through with something because we are scared to give up. We are scared to lose a part of us even if that part of us does not provide us with satisfaction and fulfillment. We do not want to dive into the cold pool. We do not want to step outside into the uncertainty.  We hang on to our excuse.  "I am so done."  "I am tired."  "I will rest a little bit."  "I still have tomorrow to do it."  "I didn't want it that much anyways." We constantly make excuses to justify our laziness. Instead of following through with a challe...

Purpose is a buzzword. Even Zuckerberg delivered a speech about inspiring a "sense of purpose" in all people. I explored many variations of purpose in my blog posts: hope is immortal, uncertainty is powerful, life is beautiful...  Art of Nier: Automata from caveman. They all paint the same picture.  A picture of not giving up. A picture of going against all odds. A picture of trying really hard. A picture of lots of emotions. A picture of a future that we want to live.  In the end, it comes down to effort. It comes down to a measurement of sacrifice. How much are we willing to sacrifice to achieve something we want? Our free time? Our bedtime? Other commitments?  I have also talked about relativity countless times on my blog. Without sadness, there will be no happiness. Otherwise, how can we differentiate between the two emotions? Without sacrifice, there is no effort.  Otherwise, how can we distinguish effort?  We have limited ...

Have you ever felt a sudden, unexpected sense of familiarity? A view that you can swear you've seen before, but can't figure out when. A sudden rapport towards a place or a person that brings back nostalgic memories that you can't quite remember.  Picture by me from Pixel 2 XL. There is this theory that there are many world lines, and our world is just one of them. In nearby world lines, we have nearly identical lives, but with a few distinct differences. In faraway world lines, we are living completely different lives. Many like to entertain this theory because it gives them hope, hopes that life will not be limited by present problems and hope that life can be changed for the better.  Some dismiss deja vu as simply memory failure. Others take deja vu as evidence for the multi-world line theory. They say deja vu comprises of fragments of your memory from nearby world lines. I take it as a fanciful perspective.  Life feels like a grind sometimes, and i...

Falcon heavy.  When we think about space, we seem to be enchanted by its expanse. It is something big beyond imagination and filled with mysterious that we can not begin to unravel.  How did the universe being?  What is at the edge of the universe? Can we travel to another galaxy?  Falcon Heavy is a mere rocket. It is a big rocket, but it is trivial compared to the size of our universe.  Picture by me from Pixel 2 XL. Insatiable.  It is pretty clear that human desire is insatiable. The best examples are ourselves. We wish for goals, we give up on them, we reach them, and we set other goals. Last week, I talked about the unreacheable state of complete satisfaction. Insatiable desire is merely another way of saying it.  Falcon Heavy's launch brought me back to this topic. Elon Musk said something along the lines of wanting to make humans an interplanetary species. Everyone can share the primal human awe and desire to explore ...

Relativity is awesome but also cruel. Like how a magnet always has two poles. Even if you cut it in half, the magnet will still have two poles. A single pole magnet does not exist. Everything in life has two extremes.  Happiness cannot exist without sadness. Good feelings cannot exist without bad feelings. Life is built on top of relativity. The classic example that money cannot buy happiness shows that once we achieve a previous goal, we set our sights higher at a better goal.  Art from Children Who Chase Lost Voices. Does this limit us? Is life just a joke for us to approach an asymptote? If life is built on top of relativity, then it is impossible to achieve a state of complete satisfaction. This also justifies religions that focus on clearing the mind and reaching a nirvana like state. People try to overcome the limitations of relativity by clearing themselves of desires. Relativity seems limiting, because no matter how far we go, we will always automa...

Ideas are likes seeds. They grow, and they wither. Nothing is permanent, not even the universe. The long life of galaxies may seem permanent in comparison to our own, but it is still not permanent.  Those who reach too far are burned by the sun. It's been awhile. Racing towards the sun is no longer as attractive as it used to be. The way there is treacherous; we are being roasted left and right. There is no comfort anymore, and I can no longer shrink back to my previous, smaller, state.  Photo by me from Pixel 2 XL. The fall.  Now this is funny. Why did I grow all the way up there to only fall down? Why did I try to reach the sun to only burn up? Why did I live to wither? Youth is fleeting, and time is unrelenting.  Photo by me from Pixel 2 XL.  Good night.  At least I didn't go gentle into the good night. I was a mere seed. Then, I grew fervently into a resolute blade of grass. Now, I am a thin, withered fiber.  Photo ...

Characters Express meaning. Somehow, we trained our brains to interpret and imagine complex scenarios by seeing letters and characters. We associate symbols with language and ideas. Typed words and spoken speech are forms of communication, but how powerful is language?  Art from 5 cm per second. Text.  We see them all the time. This is text. We mostly read texts to gather information. This event happened. This is the consequence. This is what they think will happen. We read books for intellectual exploration. We transcribe words into a story in our mind, and we enhance the story with our emotions. Legal contracts and official documents are written in words. Words are written symbols for spoken languages. Spoken languages communicate ideas. Words communicate ideas.  But is it dry?  Imagine reading a history textbook. It is hard to get into it if you are not super interested in history. Now imagine watching Schindler's List , and seeing history through...

Ideas are like seeds.  They grow into magnificent trees and beautiful flowers, but not all seeds survive the journey. Seeds need water, soil, and dirt. sunlight, and a sky to grow. And their limit? The sky.  I woke up.  This energizing feeling is definitely water! Water mixed with mossy moss. So comfortable! I just want to sleep a bit more, and I need to stretch myself. Good night.  What is so bright? Is that what they call sunshine? Ahhh. It is too bright for me. Why can't I just sleep in a little more. And the moss is drying up around me. I am thirsty. I want to reach a bit deeper to taste water. Wish me luck! Sunshine is so sweet! I can't get enough of it. It is comforting and inviting. Maybe I can touch it. It seems a bit high in the sky though. Whatever, I will touch it and find out how high it is. My friends all want to touch it too! But I will be the first.  Photo by me from Pixel 2 XL.  I am so cold! I am freezing. The white...