The Death of A and How Suffering is a Part of Life

 This happened about a month ago now, but I figured it's something I should mention since I was thinking about it for a while. I found out randomly from another friend that A, someone I knew in passing from badminton, passed away suddenly when he collapsed during a game - due to a pre-existing heart condition that he did not know about.

 My first reaction was kind of one of shock and disbelief. I wasn't really close friends with A, but we saw each other occasionally at the club and he always had a "genuine/friendly" personality to him. We would chat about surface level things - like how work was going, travel and, of course, badminton. But he always was willing to chat and play, even though he was far above my skill level.

It just got me thinking about how abrupt and cruel life can be. There's really no rhyme or reason to why I'm alive and others are dead (in most cases). It also feels strange to think that I'll just never see him again randomly when I go to ?? to play, he's just gone forever or, at the very least, has gone to a place that none of us can reach from where we are now.

I'm not sure what the point of life is but I guess suffering is an essential component of it. I recently read the final post of a man who had passed away from cancer after struggling for years while trying to obtain experimental treatments to prolong his life. He seemed upset at the end, that medicine didn't move fast enough or there were too many rules in place and he wasn't able to try a certain drug or treatment in time. However, some random commenter made a post that I found very insightful though the "normies" disliked it:

Suffering only ends with death. And the promise of resurrection and eternal bliss. Cancer has killed my closest relatives and friends, young and old alike. I'm not sure which is worse: dying by cancer when young and before a long life of suffering or dying by cancer when old after a lifetime of suffering, cancer is such a cruel way to end one's long journey through this life. Are the lucky ones those who die young? I recently lost a life-long friend, whose positively belied a lifetime of suffering - suffering as a child when he was nearly burned to death, suffering as a young adult after getting hepatitis from eating shellfish causing permanent liver damage. And through it all he was the johnny appleseed who sought out the suffering to spread good cheer and never ending positivity.

But to [redacted] it's the FDA's fault, if only the FDA could allow drug makers the freedom to choose, then no more suffering. I suffer emotionally from the loss throughout my life of so many close friends and relatives from the scourge of cancer. The FDA didn't cause it and the FDA can't fix it. Suffering are us. The very idea that suffering can be cured is preposterous.

 
Essentially, the point being that suffering and our inevitable death is just a part of life. You can't "cure" suffering with experimental drugs - we're all going to have to face the end at some point. So this guy was "wrong" in some sense to care so much about trying to "survive" and instead of blaming certain institutions (like the FDA or whatever), should have sough other ways to come to terms with his impending death.  Even if we can upload our minds, or merge with AI or any other far-fetched sci-fi scheme, there's going to be an end. The only way out of this is if our life is just some mathematical object that exists "permanently" and we're doomed to just keep experiencing it again and again. But perhaps that's a story for another time.

Anyway, I digress. I think the point I'm trying to make is that as I get older, I'm going to have to face a lot of people close to me dying - in both expected and unexpected ways. I guess I've always known that. But A's death (and the dude's blog post about cancer) has also made me think about my personal feelings about my own death and how things might end.

When my end comes, I don't want to be pleading or searching for some way out. I don't want to be frantically trying to buy some experimental drug to extend my life by 1-2 years. I want to accept life and death as they are, I think that's perhaps the only true way to "beat" the system that we've been born into. I think it's hard though - not sure that many people can say they have truly come to terms with their death (especially as it gets closer) especially if you aren't religious. I think I have heard religious people seem to be truly OK with death because they genuinely believe that it's just the next step in God's plan - but I feel like that's kind of just kicking the can down the road. There likely must still be an end, even if it's in heaven or whatever - but they haven't really considered that. Either way, it's sort of a moot point as I'm not religious enough to have that explanation solve the problem for me.

I've always respected my parents for not wanting to prolong their lives too much or take a bunch of medicine/pills/chemo just to stay alive though I suspect my siblings don't see it that way. My parents recognize that they should be thankful for having the opportunities to live as long as they did and raise a pretty decent family. But if you prolong it, if you started being greedy and wanting to stay alive longer, then I feel like it's just digging yourself into a psychological hole. 

I'm not sure why I exist or why any of this does. I'll likely never know, but I hope those questions can be answered some day. But when my death does come, I hope I am able to face it with dignity and on my own terms.

I've also strayed somewhat far from the topic of A's death so I want to return to that before concluding. I messaged his girlfriend with my condolences which felt awkward but she said she did appreciate it. He seemed like a nice person and he clearly didn't deserve to die like this but I suppose none of us "deserve" anything in this life - as Jay (professor) said maybe we really are just a result of some random chemical processes. If that's the case - how can any of us really demand or act like a certain type of "life" (free of disease and always being healthy) is owed to us to begin with? It just seems ridiculous and entitled to even think that way.

Rest in peace, A - you will be missed, my friend.

2024 Year in Review

I guess it's a tradition at this point, so I'm not going to waste time reminiscing on how it got started. I'll follow the same template as last year - first re-reading my previous year-in-review post to understand just what I was thinking 365 days ago and then comment on it. It's pretty illuminating in most cases and reminds me of the reason why I started this blog in the first place.

2024 Holidays

The holidays started pretty late this year, I ended up going back home only 2 days before Christmas due to some work/research deadlines. It was pretty stressful leaving and getting everything done (cleaning etc.) but, as with every other time in the last 8 years, I was able to manage it. I thought this break would be less relaxing because I had a lot of work projects to still complete along with studying for interviews. 

I was kind of right in some sense, I definitely felt this break was less "social" than in previous years. I only really spent time with family (the usual civ games with siblings were always fun) but did feel somewhat stressed in the background about the interviews to come in the new year. 

Nonetheless, I was able to feel somewhat relaxed from the 28th until around Jan 2nd (it's 4am and I'm sitting at the dining room table at home writing this post now...). I feel somewhat guilty about not studying much yet, but I recognize that I probably needed to take a break mentally anyway. Somehow, when I'm here, I feel less ambitious about doing AI research or whatever and feel myself slipping into the familiarity of a quiet life in the suburbs (where perhaps I'm a full-time writer). 

The most social thing I did outside of being with family was hanging out with K and A from badminton, when A came to visit Toronto for the first time. I've gotten a lot closer to them in the past year, and we spent almost 14 hours together non-stop doing touristy things in Toronto (CN tower etc). I thought that I might like K at first, but I'm honestly not sure. It sounds weird (and something a "cuck" would say, lmao) but I'd also feel happy if her and A got together too. They are much closer in age and have similar ethnic backgrounds so idk...maybe it's something I can talk to them about in the new year. Either way, I'm grateful for their friendship and, honestly, sometimes I feel so grateful in general that I was able to make close friends and have good opportunities in my career. I've genuinely been feeling more grateful since near the end of 2024, maybe it's because events like A (guy from badminton) death helped put things into perspective...but that's a post for another time :(

Reflections on predictions from last year's blog post

Looks like some of my predictions for what 2024 would look like were as follows:

1.) Continue interviewing at startups and looking for opportunities. Maybe connect with Ali about independent research

2.) Have a real relationship with S?

3.) Sleep 8 hours a day and be consistent

4.) Do a concrete project with C

5.) Get back into writing and polish up HS novel

6.) Do original research

In terms of whether I met them, I would say:

1.) Mostly done, had an offer from Cart earlier on the year (happy I didn't take it), formally started a company with C and did a significant amount of work on it. Maybe didn't really get to "independent" research but I would say that all the startup with C definitely meets this criteria anyway. Oh, I did end up connecting with Ali too about research stuff, though not much came out of it except friendship I guess?

2.) This was probably the strangest one. Coming into 2024, I thought S and I were doing pretty well. We did spend time together but then there was a huge 5-6 month lull in the middle and we kind of rekindled things again in December. Who knows what 2025 will bring with her? I guess that all I've learned is that I shouldn't really worry about it too much, if things are meant to be then they will be.

3.) Hah, no way this happened. My sleep schedule got worst if anything but at least I started doing Saturday morning badminton with K.

4.) Yes, we did a a startup and incorperated a company etc.

5.) Unfortunately, writing took a back seat in 2024, but I felt it was for "good" reasons such as doing startup stuff and/or exercise like badminton/working out. I don't actually feel like I wasted too much time on 2024, which does make me happy.

6.) Similar to previous answers, I would say startup with C covers this.

Overall, seems like I was able to meet most of my goals in 2024, though the sleeping 8 hours and relationship with S were the biggest misses. Now for a more granular breakdown...

Scorecard

Fitness / Physical Health - 4/5

I'm going to be generous here and give myself a higher score than last year. Even though my sleep schedule is still awful, I felt like in addition to consistently working out / badminton, I also made plans to do half-marathon with K next year AND started to eat a lot healthier. I lost over 10 pounds due to eating healthier in general and my body felt noticeable lighter. The only downside is that I felt like my diet / gym schedule kind of fell off track in the last 1-2 months of the year but I'm confident I can get back on track when 2025 starts.

Mental Health -  4/5

I guess no real complaints here, but compared to 2023, there wasn't really much new experiences. I don't remember feeling particularly stressed at any points, but also don't think I did many "new" things like how I traveled to New Orleans last year etc. I think I was just able to focus more on hobbies and/or doing startup stuff which was interesting to me. My mental health might have even been improved from feeling like continued to deepen my friendships with A, K (badminton) and J, E (designer) as well.

Creative Hobbies (Writing, ML research etc.) - 2.5/5

Again, I'm kind of torn here because I really did do a lot of studying for research jobs and even startup stuff with C. But I definitely failed on writing and more "creative" hobbies - I hope this is something I can balance better in 2025 but somehow I'm doubtful especially if I get a new job. I might have to accept that there's just not enough time in the day to be both a great writer (hehe, civ pun) and AI researcher. Maybe I need to just dedicate my life to one of them for 1-2 years and then swap.

Dating / Social - 2/5

Didn't really have time (or care) to go on any dates except seeing S. But nothing really progressed with S anyway though we did see each other quite a bit in December. As I said before, I think I placed too much (unrealistic) hopes on S and I really becoming close in 2024 when I don't think it was really a priority for her to begin with. Anyway, I do still like her and think she's cool (which is rare) but I'm going to be more casual about in 2025 and prioritize other things instead.

There's also still the fact that maybe I could be with K but who knows..?

Career / Academics - 3/5

This one is also hard to judge but I guess the main datapoint is getting rejected for promo which, objectively, is a setback in my career. I stopped doing research with J's lab (probably a good thing for my mental health too...) so not much happened on that front either. I definitely feel apathetic at work now, especially with A leaving and I think it is really time to move on. But yeah...not much progress here except the usual EE rating at work and maybe writing a retrieval paper.

Reflections for 2025

So...what are my goals for the new year? I'll try to list them in priority order so that I can read this again in a year and see how colossally wrong I was:

1.) Secure AI research job, start it in Feb-Mar and make a great first impression

2.) Fix sleep schedule , get 8 hours a day

3.) Finish editing story / send to Gail / publish it

3.) Half-Marathon and/or badminton tournament

4.) Real relationship with S or K ...?

Final Thoughts

Somehow, I made it to the end of this post before 5am. I guess the main thing I feel right now, on the precipice of going back to work next week, is the desire for change. But I'm not sure what type of change. Getting a research job at ?? or ?? would be great on paper, but maybe I'd be too burnt out to really do my best work, or the honeymoon period would be over relatively soon and then the stress would set in. Maybe I need a longer time to "reset" and pursue research at my own pace or even do something completely different like writing.

At the end of the day, life is short and it's scary to think that I'm getting older. Sometimes I'm reminded of this fact when I hangout with A and K, who are still in their mid-20's. Sometimes, I feel like hanging out with them makes me fool myself into thinking I'm still around that age too, but I need to recognize that I'm a different life stage altogether - I want to really optimize for doing interesting things in this next few years and taking advantage of the situation that I've been grateful to be in (through a combination of luck / my own "hard" work, maybe...)

If I'm still doing the same thing a year from now, I'll be really disappointed in myself. I hope I can make 2025 an interesting one - even if things don't work out completely hopefully I'll at least learn something and, at the end of the day, isn't that all life is really about? As A's (from badminton) death reminded me - life is short so we should make the best use of the time we have.