Recently after James glanced at my blog,
he commented: “A certain blogger hasn’t updated in a long time.”
Looking at the only 3 articles updated in 2023,
I can only directly face and embrace my excuseless laziness.
(I)
Last year I didn’t read many books. WeChat Reading says my fastest read was “The Dao of Strangely Strange Immortals.”
The emotional impact this book gave me was no less than reading “Mercenaries’ World” during my chuunibyou period.
Mercenaries belongs to a young hothead encountering a fully built western fantasy world.
“Dao of Strangely Strange Immortals” belongs to the top-tier crazy literature of this chaotic era.
The past month I’ve been bombarded with various year-end recaps.
It seems any decent app on the phone
allocates part of its product-engineering team at year-end to do a year-in-review project.
Many habits develop into customs in strange tacit agreement.
I personally don’t like calling new cultural customs “innovation.”
For example, last year there was Wen Huijun who went viral on WeChat Moments for a day,
his interesting point was inserting discordant parts into daily life,
essentially the same as “brain-dead games” where the fun comes from those who can’t wake up.
But I’m nobody too. I also posted Wen-shen-style states and had fun.
(II)
People always fall into one contradiction or another.
A while back I made a big deal writing 《Why I Hate Smoking》.
A few years later, today’s me suddenly discovers I don’t dislike smokers.
On the positive side, tobacco at the social level contributes income, jobs, provides consumption and entertainment,
On the negative side, smokers have shorter average lifespan, reducing pension pressure,
As for smoking itself, this behavior isn’t hallucinogenic, has little impact, can be self-restrained.
As long as the people I care about don’t smoke, smokers actually look quite friendly.
Writing to this point, I startle, and can’t help but think of a classic conversation with my dad before.
I asked my dad: “What do you think about homosexuality?”
My dad: “Oh, very normal existence in modern society, they’re also normal people blabla”
Me: “What if I were gay?”
My dad: “Ah you can’t be gay.”
The “interests-relevant principle” is a rule that mature social humans must learn,
but it’s also part of what I secretly mourn — “adults are no longer as cute as kids.”
(III)
Before I grumbled to Mia, lamenting that recently I often feel quite slimy, not cute at all.
Mia comforted me, saying: “Being a bit slimy at your age is very normal. Men in middle age are all like this.”
Me: …………
The experience of moaning-and-sighing being turned back on you and leaving you speechless is hard to respond to.
Luckily I later lost a few jin and encountered the song “Earth Thunder Lord,” and was able to quickly turn the mindset around.
There’s a saying that someone who knows their own stupidity isn’t stupid. So someone who knows their own sliminess probably isn’t slimy.
The brave enjoy life, the ignorant are always happy.
All my life I have not cultivated good fruits, I only love to kill and burn. Suddenly the golden rope opens, and the jade lock breaks here. Hey! The tide on the Qiantang River comes, today I finally know I am me.
—— Gatha, before Lu Zhishen’s nirvana
Sometimes I feel being a guy is pretty simple.
Not being a successful man means not much social pressure.
As long as you don’t get fat (exercise more), are humble (brag less), self-disciplined (love learning), clean and restrained — you can stay like a youth forever.
And becoming a youth itself is the happiest thing.
(IV)
2024 is my favorite year in recent years.
The number 2024 itself is wonderful.
It’s a multiple of 2, 4, 7, 8, and if you calculate wrong it can also be a multiple of 3, 6.
It’s the year of the Dragon, also an Olympic year. Compared to the doomsday year 2012 it’s double doomsday, compared to memorable 2008 it brings triple memories.
And this year everyone’s birth year plus age equals exactly 2024.
In short, 2024 is a year I really like.
Like adjusting TV volume — 25 is a suitable volume, 24 is also a suitable volume, but 23 definitely isn’t, you have to lower it to 21 or 20.
Everyone has a slight case of OCD.
For programmers, OCD is like cleanliness for doctors,
a slightly distressing but career-developmentally beneficial issue.
Besides the correct use of full/half-width, line breaks in text files, correct use of “的”/“地”/“得” marked in “My Bit of OCD,”
in recent years the issues I care about most include “correct pronunciation of 优惠券 (coupon) and 阈值 (threshold),” “don’t misspell words in APIs,” and “say ji jiu bu shuo ba civilizes all of us.” (slang/wordplay)
A life without ups and downs is a relatively dull life, not fun.
(V)
Recently most of my time has been given to work.
These past few months working at Opus are some of the most exciting times in recent years for me:
teammates are three-headed-six-armed, growth-side breaking through thorns, strategy-side cautiously optimistic, development-side everything-to-do.
I have a lot to say. I’ll wait for the honeymoon to end, think it through, and write separately.
About work, the deepest thing I’ve felt is what an upperclassman always said: individual struggle and historical process.
In a career spanning decades, many who lay flat early are no longer connected to the word “struggle.”
Many people happily waste their talent. In my view it’s just a bit regrettable.
And in remaining careers, “historical process” or “cycles” is a threshold you can’t cross over.
However outstanding the individual, however brilliant the decade, however good the generation of young people — all may get consumed in some phase of the Kondratiev cycle.
But this little bit of dialectical difficulty is too easy for Chinese people:
just like climbing a mountain — during the plains phase, rest and enjoy the scenery, but when going up, hold firm to the goal and climb hard. Then you can enjoy the view from the peak.
What’s called “store force against the wind, ride the surge with the wind.”
I hope I can convert my bit of talent into a vigorous flame, throw it into Opus’s big fire.
(VI)
A really fun feeling at work recently comes from speaking English.
Yes, speak English.
Even though it’s a startup team, our colleagues come from various countries and regions.
Everyone speaks the same English in different accents.
Hot tip: when two friends communicate in English, the one with better English is actually the one straining more.
Because their English is more standard, the friend on the other side understands more easily,
but the friend’s brain doesn’t track tenses or word-forms — more relies on hearing for understanding.
Secret thanks to my colleagues — my smooth English communication is entirely thanks to their powerful listening.
Besides language ability, English is more direct in semantics than Chinese,
this feels especially clear to me.
For example when giving a technical opinion, in Chinese by default I’d euphemistically express “that might be better.”
But in English I’d more bluntly say “No, I don’t recommend to do this.”
More direct semantics brings clearer viewpoints,
this really is closer to the “adult culture” in Netflix culture.
(VII)
Outside of work time, I’ve also been quite into exercise recently.
But given that for exercise, results matter more than process, I’ll wait till there are results before sharing :)
The debate of process vs result is always a fascinating topic,
whether it’s the ending of Mia & Sebastian, the justice debate of Joker & Batman, or even the lockdown & opening-up debate,
all are worth seriously experiencing and appraising.
The most precious possession a person has is time. Time is also wasted equally on each person.
From this point, people are destined to be long-term-ists.
Of course, that’s another article. Hope my future articles are more nutritious and more cute than this one :)
(end)