Things to write about when on holiday at Krabi:<\/p>\n
Different types of music in different places. It\u2019s interesting to listen to the music that plays on Thai speakers. It makes me think of both Chinese pop-rock power ballads and \u201cMat jiwang rock\u201d. Their guitar solos are moderately technical and nuanced. The Thai language itself is pretty fascinating \u2013 it seems quite emphatic and emotional. I\u2019m curious about how all the various Southeast Asian languages relate to one another \u2013 are there similarities between Vietnamese and Thai? What are the relationships between the nations? <\/p>\n
I was reading up about the history of Korea, wanting to understand again how North and South Korea came to be divided. And it turns out that Korea was annexed by Japan in the early 1900s. The Allied forces (USSR and US) took them back, and then Korea was \u2018temporarily\u2019 divided during the Cold War. And those temporary divisions are now North and South Korea respectively. So it turns out that Korea in general doesn\u2019t have a good impression or relationship with Japan? And the same is probably true for a lot of China?<\/p>\n
I want to know more history. On one hand, it seems daunting and infinite. On the other, if you can watch a bunch of TV and learn about fictional characters and universes, you can definitely also take the time to learn about the world we live in. I remember enjoying Crash Course world history.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s interesting to think about how my priorities and interests and perspectives have changed over the years. I quite distinctly remember being 19 and being really excited about the prospect of learning tonnes of things about the world. I wanted to know philosophy and science and math, and the histories of all of them. Somewhere along the line \u2013 I guess in the process of becoming an adult with bills and a mortgage – I started to get a lot more provincial in my thinking. I was scanning some earlier drafts and saw that, if given $3m, the first thing I would do is pay off my mortgage. Which isn\u2019t a bad thing by itself \u2013 I\u2019m really saying that I want to be free from my current set of constraints. But it\u2019s also a little saddening and troubling to me that I am so\u2026 constrained (lol) by my constraints. I\u2019m allowing them to define the boundaries of my life, of my thinking.<\/p>\n
Like, take right now. I\u2019m writing this from a hotel room in Krabi. I\u2019m thinking back to December last year, when I took a week off and spent it at home. What an unimaginative use of my time. I could and should have gotten on a plane to somewhere. I just know for a fact now that the mere act of getting on a plane and going somewhere changes my perspective and experience quite radically, and that change of scenery is really good for me. It makes me think bigger thoughts. It makes me think in longer time scales. It makes me see a bigger picture. And those are all really good things, those are all things I want more of in my life so that I can live a bigger, richer life for its own sake, and so I can contribute more, give more, be happier and more fulfilled.<\/p>\n
Think bigger. Dream bigger.<\/p>\n
These things feel relatively easy to say now that I\u2019m on holiday. I know that life is going to punch me in the face the moment I get home, with lots of todos and obligations and so on. And that\u2019s okay. I am aware of this now. I have been here before. I am more cognisant of the cycles and rhythms of life, and where I fit in them. I now know more clearly than ever that I should take regular breaks \u2013 plan them in advance, schedule them. It\u2019s just something that I want to have on the psychological horizon so that life doesn\u2019t seem so ridiculously relentless. Life should not feel like a jail sentence.<\/p>\n
The thought that entered my head next was, \u201cthis is pretty much full-contact living\u201d. But immediately I know that that\u2019s not true. So many people have it so much worse. It\u2019s tougher if you\u2019re poor. It\u2019s tougher if you have kids. It\u2019s tougher if you have family members who are sick and dependent on you. And those are all things that are almost inevitably going to happen. I\u2019m living a life of relative calm right now. It\u2019s almost too calm. The nature of life is that everything falls apart. And the point of life is to experience it all, to try and have a modicum of Zen through it all, to see it as an adventure more than an ordeal, even as it becomes a hell of an ordeal just to get through each day. And I have it so much easier than billions of people. I owe it to myself and my circumstances to be bigger than this. <\/p>\n
Looking at my time, it\u2019s clear that I spend the vast majority of my time on social media. On Facebook, Twitter, Reddit. Why? Because it feels like I\u2019m going somewhere, achieving something. Something is happening at the micro level, though not much is happening at the macro level. I need to switch this around. I need to spend the vast majority of my time working on what I\u2019ve identified to be the highest order bit in my life: creative output. Social media should take up no more than 10% of my day. Ideally, it should take up 5% or less. The majority of my time should be spent writing.<\/p>\n
I suppose a part of my frustration has to do with the technical debt I\u2019ve incurred over the years. By not being better at tagging and sorting things, I\u2019ve gotten to a state where \u2013 if I\u2019m writing on a fresh sheet of paper (digital or otherwise), I\u2019m going to end up repeating myself again. I\u2019ve repeated myself before. And while I\u2019ve said that I\u2019m okay with repeating myself as much as necessary, this doesn\u2019t feel like \u201cnecessary\u201d repetition. This feels like pushing against a pull door because I haven\u2019t figured out how to pull it. This is searching under streetlights because that\u2019s where the light is, not because that\u2019s where I dropped my keys. I need to look for my keys. To do that, I have to be willing to leave the comfort of the light and walk into the dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things to write about when on holiday at Krabi: Different types of music in different places. It\u2019s interesting to listen to the music that plays on Thai speakers. It makes me think of both Chinese pop-rock power ballads and \u201cMat jiwang rock\u201d. Their guitar solos are moderately technical and nuanced.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[626],"class_list":["post-10753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit","tag-navigation"],"yoast_head":"\n