what I'm doing now #28
watching the World Cup
Watching matches with friends and strangers has been special. Vancouver is alive with the World Cup. Among the most memorable moments was seeing my friend Isaac revel in attending a game in Seattle. I bought four tickets a few months ago and he was the first I knew I’d invite. Like me he grew up in love with the game, dreaming of playing for the biggest clubs in the world. We didn’t know each other until I moved to Victoria and we started playing against each in other in youth soccer. Eventually we both gave up that dream, went to university, and got Software Engineering jobs in Seattle. We became roommates, then friends, then best friends. The best moments are shared moments.
trying to write efficiently
I’ve not been writing much, though I’ve had ideas, and things to say. So I’ve been thinking – how can I
write succinct pieces quicklyhow to write
Writing is an iterative activity. To write one thing, you write many times. Write, rewrite, revise, refine, release.
As an amateur writer without a writing routine, I think about ways to write more efficiently. I have more ideas than I am able execute. How can I use little pockets of time to produce little pieces? Dense little things, meaningful though brief, worthy perhaps of elaboration but worthy enough themselves?
Incomplete drafts are not so worth publishing as are small, complete little things. Less ambitious but complete. A piece of writing can’t succeed aspiring to be what it isn’t. Let writing be like a sketch if that is all you have time to make of your idea. Later you can return and make of it something greater. But if you try too early or too quickly to flesh it out you’ll be left with half a carcass and no good set of bones.
? I can avoid preludes, summaries, detours, but what if I also leave out the little connecting bits so I can lay out without interruption the main ideas? Poetry and prose are two things but they exist on some same spectrum. Can I nudge my prose towards poetry to make it more dense in expression? That way I can produce more from less volume. The piece
what is ego? #2what is ego? #2
Ego is a failure of humility. Difficulty distinguishing between humility and humiliation. A narrowing view of reality that conflates and thereby impoverishes. Conflation of weakness and vulnerability, of inadequacy and fallibility, of self and others.
Ego cowers easily to foreclose against the threat of slights and criticism. It strikes preemptively to assume the dominant position. So much to avoid denigration. Aversion to humiliation is not so condemnable. The problem is how broadly humiliation is defined.
is such an attempt.
questioning my job
For a few weeks I felt dissatisfied with my work and demotivated to do it. For the first time in years, I updated my resume. In the last week or so, I’ve found again my footing. There are many great things about my job and for now I remain content.
grieving a friend’s passing
On Sunday morning Z and I got the awful news that our mutual friend through whom we’d met had passed away. It was totally unexpected. I went to high school with him and we had since remained friends. He and Z met in university and were close friends for a while. It hasn’t been easy on us.