Day 338: skillz

personal

i’m having trouble dedicating the time to write two posts that i’ve had in mind for several days now: (1) how to thrive in quarantine (2) how taiwan does quarantine

the main reason for this is that i’m spending most of my day out and about rather than on my computer, and when i’m back in the hostel, it’s much more fun to hang out with the people here rather than go off on my own and journal for a while. even when i do try to journal or work, there’s always something happening so it’s hard not to get distracted by everything that’s going on around me

i guess this is a good problem to have! i’ve socialized more in the past three days than i have in the past 9 months and these days have felt extremely long because of all the novelty. like every major transition, i know that the days will start feeling shorter once i develop a routine and get used to everything, but for now, every day is full of surprises.

today i went to my first bjj class and got my butt kicked as expected. it was great! there’s nothing like the adrenaline rush of fighting someone and trying not to get choked out. as with my japanese, i’d forgotten pretty much everything i’d learned while taking bjj classes in tokyo. i thought about how much better i’d be if i had consistently trained in bjj since 2017.

there are several skills / hobbies that i wish i had the discipline to practice on a regular basis because i know that many years from now, i’ll be thinking “what if i had been consistent with that thing all these years?”

some things off the top of my head:

  • music — singing & guitar (tried to start a “one-year challenge” in the middle of last year to build the habit of practicing regularly but that completely exploded when i started making tools to help me learn music and got sucked into programming)
  • drawing
  • calisthenics skills (handstands, front lever, straddle planche, etc.)
  • languages (korean, japanese, chinese)
  • bjj
  • craftsmanship (e.g. woodworking, electronics, 3d modeling)

things i’ve been pretty consistent with in the past several years:

  • meditation (only started 4 years ago but it’s stuck and i expect to continue practicing for the rest of my life)
  • programming (had a 3 year hiatus when i was a pm at google, making videos, and meditating, but i’ve basically been coding since 2010)
  • working out (think i’ve had some sort of work out routine for most of the past 5 years, even though i’ve definitely plateaued in a lot of ways)
  • writing? (i’ve journaled quite a bit this past year as well as in 2017 but i’d like to focus more on writing as a craft)

man these days feel so full

feeling a nice kind of exhaustion that comes from experiencing so much in the day

dear dk, socializing is great but don’t forget to launch browserflow at some point so it’s not vaporware thanks