Living Without Want

 So, it's the start of Ramadan today and, while I don't consider myself to be particularly religious, it got me thinking about what the whole point of it all is. If I were to guess, the whole act of fasting is about abstaining from wants in our life. It's to help us realize that we don't need all these extra things to survive or even be happy. We don't need fancy, indulgent meals but rather the goal is to remind us to always be humble and take us back to a simpler way of living.

It also helped me work through something about people's attitude towards the vaccine that sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like so many people (including some "friends") had this strong sense of urgency to get it to the point where they were willing to disregard the rules and/or lie about their health conditions just to receive it a few weeks early. In addition to being selfish I also just found it kind of bothered me - in most cases, getting the vaccine is just a convenience unless you are a front line health worker or do something that requires you to interact with people in high risk settings. As such, we should be fine with waiting, there's no need to rush. I feel like this sense of urgency just points to some deeper insecurity or lack of patience people must have. In fact, I believe the ultimate goal should be to attain peace/happiness while possessing almost nothing at all. Maybe this is a dumb hippie way of thinking but, at the end of the day, I think it's kind of a pre-requisite to achieve true happiness because in the grand scheme of things we really don't "have" anything.

Maybe a more practical way to phrase it is that you'll be happier overall if the set of "things" you need to be content is as small as possible because we never know what will happen in life. If you were on of those people who defined their happiness by being able to travel, go to clubs/bars or any other social things then COVID was probably devastating for you. Same idea with people who's sole source of happiness comes from a relationship with their S.O. I guess another approach would be to try to have many things in life for you to derive happiness one, so losing any single one isn't a big deal but the other general strategy seems to be making your "happiness set" as small as possible. 

I suppose then a natural question is what is my "happiness set"? What things in my life make me happy? I would say it's pretty small - I don't really care about food/travelling in any significant sense. I would say things like writing, spending time with family, playing video games with friends, exercising and maybe like hiking/being in nature. 

The last point was that I was also thinking about how adaptable humans are. I put on my mask today to go to the doctor's and realized I didn't even give it a second thought, it just felt like something we have to do now. In that sense, I don't really care about the world going back to "normal" as long as the general population can remain healthy/safe. Maybe it's because I'm introverted but I think it goes beyond that. While any change is uncomfortable at first, eventually we can and will adjust to this new baseline - it's quite literally what humans are meant to do. It's OK for life to change sometimes and we ("humanity") can probably endure much more than we think we are capable of. Perhaps one philosophy of life is that it's all about testing our limits of how much we can endure and, the realization that we can endure more than we expected is what generates happiness itself in some strange way.

There And Back Again

 So,  I've been back in Cali for two weeks now and starting to feel more settled in. There still are times when I feel anxious especially at night when I think about how far away everyone is but I'm gradually getting more acclimatized to it. It's difficult to say how I feel upon coming back, it doesn't feel as exciting as it used to back in August. COVID or not, there is an impending feeling like my time here is winding down and maybe that's fine. Five years is a long time to stay anywhere and I think I've proven to myself what I wanted. On another note, without people around to talk to I feel much more introspective and aware of my own thoughts which is something that I definitely miss.

Of course, the big looming question is what to do next. In some ways, I think I'm kind of a coward - I tend to sign up for enough obligations (school, work, volunteering) to keep myself busy so maybe I don't have to seriously think about what I truly want to do. It's like a conversation I had with J one time about how his biggest fear was, now that he quit his job to write full-time, what if he was just really bad it? Or even that he's too unmotivated to succeed despite all his other obstacles being removed? It's like by keeping myself busy I have an excuse for why I'm never able to complete my "deepest" goals such as writing a book, doing neuroscience research or building a VR game.

I guess it's not a bad way to be fooled. I'm still being productive and doing interesting things with my time but I think ultimately it's all just mental gymnastics to avoid the fear of truly pursuing my dreams. But, for better or for worse, it's getting to the point where this excuse won't work anymore as it might be soon for me to feasibly retire early if I wanted to. How will I be able to face things then?

Maybe this is totally first world problems and I recognize that. But probably the most important thing in life is to be true yourself and I've always been plagued by the fact that I'm not really doing that. Even with respect to relationships, I feel like most of the time I'm just trying to do things because I think that's the way life is supposed to be (in the sense of even being in a relationship or getting married to begin with) but deep down I know it's not really what will bring me fulfillment in life. It's frustrating sometimes because, when I was younger, I used to feel smug about the fact that I was different, that I didn't want the same "traditional" things that most people did out of life. But there is an aspect of loneliness to it - now I have to find my own to happiness and there's no clear place to start.

This reminds me of Joe Rogan's first podcast with David Goggins that I watched recently. His story about how he turned his life around from being a fat slob in a dead end job was nothing short of inspiring (as it should be). However, what I found the most interesting though was how he always talked about this voice in the back of his head, the voice that wasn't happy even if his life seemed chill at the time. I think I have that same voice too, the same nagging whisper that makes me question if everything I'm doing is just a coping mechanism to avoid listening to it. Eventually, I'll have to take the leap, take some risks and try to adhere to what it says or will be stuck living my life in a perpetual state of wondering "what if...?"

The Lull of the New Year

 It's been a quiet start to the new year and, for the most part, things have been quite relaxing. Or they would be if I didn't have to all these choices looming in the back of my mind. Choices about the logistics of taking a leave from work, worries about going back to SF due to COVID and then the whole Florida plan which ended up falling through. But, in the end, we can't expect life to be easy all the time.

In fact, it's been about 3 months since I've been at home and I am starting to feel restless now. The issue with home is that I feel there's no sense of progress. While that may be fine if I knew there was a concrete end date in sight for this pandemic, I feel this is just how the world is going to be for a while and I need to just start moving on with my (modified) life.

Am I scared about going? Not really, I think if anything I would have been more scared in August about not knowing what to expect. I'm scared about the logistics of it all and naturally worried about getting COVID (and having to take a test before and all that) but I shouldn't let a day of inconvenience stop me from doing what has to be done. All I can do is take precautions to the best of my ability and continue forwards.

What about everything else? I decided to only take 2 classes this quarter and am taking a few weeks off work. Honestly, I don't feel that motivated about work anymore and might interview at some other places. It just somehow feels like the magic is gone ever since Prashant left and I finished the Egghead paper. As M said, "all good things come to an end" and I can kind of see that I'm drawing things out longer than they need to be. That's not to say it's bad, things are actually pretty good financially but I can definitely see myself being unhappy if I stayed another year (unless something changes significantly).

What else to say? I guess the whole relationship thing is on hold. I sometimes think about Dez now and again but there's not much to say - it is what it is and sometimes there isn't really a reason why we don't find others interesting anymore. There's not always a clear rationale for everything.

I am curious about seeing ?? when I get back and it is something I'm looking forward to exploring more. It's a bit nice to have something to look forward to though I'm not sure how it will turn out or I'm just doing this because I'm trying to fill some kind of gap in my life. Nonetheless, only time will tell.

The world has changed so much but somehow I feel the same. I never much cared for travelling or big events anyway, I'm more annoyed by the inconveniences and, of course, the mounting death toll. On a micro scale, I'm more concerned about not writing enough (but when am I not?) and how I can get out of this local maximum that I feel my life is currently in.

Oh, I guess one other tidbit is that I read a story J shared with me today about this lonely new grad in silicon valley working at some unnamed tech company. It's clearly too real to not be based on his real experiences and I was wondering a bit why I never felt that way. I think, honestly, it's because I had the true "Friends" experience when I lived in downtown ?? and met ?? and ?? and ??. We had a really great friend dynamic and, as I've said other times on this blog, I came to understand what it was like to truly have a "friend" group. When I moved to ?? I had already experienced that and wasn't longing for it - it was more like a new adventure and I was ready for it. 

Anyway, it is what it is. There's no point wanting or hoping life will be comfortable all the time - the only way we can make progress is through struggle and adaption. Sure, we all need a break once in a while but inevitably we can only achieve true happiness by going back to rolling the stone up the hill, again and again and again...