Porter Robinson’s sophomore album “Nurture” has so many songs that served as a pivotal backtrack during a period of my life in 2021. Lately, I’ve outgrown the ability to fully sympathize with some of the themes, but back then, they spoke to me in a profound way I haven’t experienced similarly since.

The single for the album is “Get Your Wish”. It’s not really what you expect from an album that touts hope and commiseration from a place of darkness. This one is about a unique, quieter type of suffering.

When feeling incomplete and unsatisfied with my life, I’d promise myself, “if I just had this one thing, if I can get this, I can be happy.”

When the glory tries to tempt you

It may seem like what you need

But if glory makes you happy

Why are you so broken up?

So tell me how it felt when you walked on water

Did you get your wish?

My interpretation is that Porter Robinson is singing from the perspective of a naive past self talking to his current self. He’s reached an enormous amount of success with music. A lifelong dream attained, but he still feels a void. He’s wealthy. He’s famous. He’s progressed his passions. The lyric asking himself “did you get your wish” is unanswered, but we can roughly assume the answer would be, “it wasn’t enough”.

I’ve always been driven by tangible milestones. In school, I’d persevere until the next exam, next final, next semester, next diploma, and so forth.

In relationships with people, I force myself into frustrating situations, with the promise of it’ll be okay once it’s over/we’re closer/etc.

For hobbies, if I could master a specific skill, spend a set duration spent on it, or get external acknowledgement, it would make it all worth it.

Sometimes the reasons are more vain, such as trying to feel a sense of superiority or to impress someone. Sometimes it would be pushing myself out of spite.

It’s a bad habit I have that is a major contributor to the crumbling motivation I have after an accomplishment or failure. Whatever reason I’d fabricate to get my ass across the finish line is usually artificial in nature; the reprieve I get is ethereal. George Bernard Shaw said,

“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.”

I think the quote in particular is describing the nature of humans to yearn for continual progress; achievement in itself is not enough. If your goalpost is static, the joys of improvement wear off relatively quickly. Sometimes it can be more gratifying to have something you’re working towards, than having the thing itself.

Doing things we don’t want to is a part of living, but for the things I DO want to do, squeezing that extra few drops of effort out of myself using an arbitrary end goal, felt like it led to inefficiency for me long term and mild burnout. In the worst cases, I’ve experienced, where I feel like I’ve sacrificed a lot for not enough gratification, it’s led to bouts of depression and existential crisis.

I watched Beef for the first time in summer of 2023, and it remains one of my favorite miniseries. It was at a time when I felt like I had everything I could want on paper, but still felt a dissatisfaction. Spoilers ahead.

The plot accelerates with the desires of the two main characters. Danny wants general financial stability, to bring his parents to America, and build them their dream house. Amy wants to attain a substantial level of wealth such that she never has to compromise her personal life for her career again. These objectives completely define what drives them.

Something interesting happens in episode 7 where, after a time skip, we see that both Amy and Danny have achieved their initial goals. They’re no longer struggling in the way they were previously, and are seen enjoying the fruits of their labor. But Danny finds a way to contact Amy again to ask her,

“I just want to know if I’ve got to get to where you are”

in reference to Amy’s newfound success.

Danny still isn’t happy despite having hit the milestone of earning enough money to build his parent’s dream home, and wants to know if Amy’s even greater level of wealth has brought her happiness.

She says,

“Everything fades. Nothing lasts. We’re just a snake eating its own tail.”

Music has easily been my primary hobby beyond everything else in 2025. In terms of hours, where my thoughts lie, fun I’ve had, it’s been music, and it’s probably not even close. When I started out last year, I’d use the method of developing an artificial desire or urgency to get myself motivated. After hitting a goal, I’d wonder what the point was at all and take a step away for a few weeks.

As cliché as it sounds, I’ve been progressing more trying to just find a general enjoyment in the hobby - no milestones and no major expectations from myself, although I try to remind myself to remain curious as a way to fight complacency and stagnation.

It feels very unserious to say all of this to lead into the new years - I still made some resolutions, but I kept them intentionally vague, with the overarching theme of being proactive in whatever I’m doing.

This new tenant in which I try to live my life is still experimental, but learning to stay present feels like the first genuinely sustainable thing I’ve tried. I’m finding solace in trying not to have a wish.

Thanks for reading.

EN: Unsure how this one reads tbh - would love some feedback. It’s been slow for my media consumption and general contemplation time, so my writing feels stifled. I’ll get back into a groove eventually.

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The phrasing would stick with me the most when my parents would say (roughly), “it’s so weird, but I inexplicably feel 정 for X”.

It’s simple at it’s core and after some research, the best English translation of it online seems to be “attachment”.

For myself, I’ve started to describe it as an “inexplicable familial love”.

What made me think to write this post is because of how there’s been a feeling of disconnect lately with some of my relationships.

Sometimes relationships work really well on paper. I’ve long since held the belief that three tenets establish the core structure of my friendships: compatibility, convenience, and history.

Compatibility is pretty straight forward. Convenience is how easy it is to maintain the connection. For example, an LDR isn’t conducive to staying close. History is how many meaningful memories you’ve shared with someone - having an endless bank of memories to pull from or trauma bonding, anecdotally, enriches long-term bonds.

Where I have cognitive dissonance is when either:

1. All three requirements are fulfilled in some way, yet I don’t feel any 정 for the person

2. Not all three categories are hit, and I feel an overwhelming sense of 정 for the person

Summarized, this comes down to expectations. As you may tell from the above, I’m constantly weighing the viability of a relationship (which is debatably healthy). When there’s the rare instance when my expectations are broken, I feel that innate, underlying sense of love, whether it be pouring out of me or evaporating. This is the narrow gray space in which 정 operates.

Ultimately, it’s hard to pinpoint when to act on this gut feeling. The emotional high is usually ephemeral; before I know it, the reality of why or why I don’t have the relationship returns to me. Do I put in effort to spend more time with this person (who may live inconveniently far, or I’ve only met once on an off chance)? Do I put distance between a person whom I’ve shared a rich history and relied on previously? All based on a fleeting instinct?

This concept of 정, paradoxically, should give me a sense of clarity. To provide me a brief moment to re-evaluate a system I’ve built up using decades of heuristic data. Such that, one day, I’ll make a new decision and realize my experiences hadn’t accounted for a way forward for a relationship that is or isn’t possible to maintain. At least that’s how it would be ideally.

A lot of the time, 정 instead reveals instabilities in my emotions.

Where this has especially been an issue relates to the “loss aversion” part of my brain, where negatives hurt twice as much as positives feel good.

The metaphor for trust seems to apply similarly, where “정 is gained in drops but lost in buckets”. Those one-off negative experiences are more often the ones that permeate my mind regarding my immediate connections.

I would be quick to act on these feelings, but part of maturing has been remaining steady through a larger variance of plausible interactions. Accurately judging a moment’s negative 정 has been a work-in-progress for the better part of a decade. I used to frequently rubber band between feeling slighted and loved - all it would usually take is a basic in-person reminder of why I’m close to that person in the first place for it to shift back to love.

Knowing the pain points is half the battle. To cure myself of this overthinking affliction, there are a few things I try to consciously think about. Like sharpening my boundaries to easily categorize how an interaction made me feel. Or finding better ways to let go of smaller instances of negative 정. I’m already satisfied with how I act on positive 정 but perhaps something to improve is reducing expectations of reciprocation.

It’s been hard wrapping up this post. I’ve had these thoughts sitting around for well over a month. My closing thoughts while writing this got too existential but came down to the question: is this the fun part about being human and young? If I were able to judge every interaction, every expectation perfectly, would I be void of any personality or happiness? Reading a lot of this back, the desire to optimize my social skills feels inhuman, yet reasonable, given the amount of headspace it occupies. I’m a long way from getting that sharp though so I won’t lose sleep over it.

Thanks for reading.

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Youtiate

“Youtaite” is a portmanteau of “YouTube” and “utaite”. At one point, the term was used to describe singers who upload covers of Japanese songs (predominantly Vocaloid/vocal synth) onto Youtube

It didn’t get anywhere, of course, and I’ve since taken down most of my (trash) videos and only have a handful left up.

I would record on an old Turtle Beach headset microphone that I got with my Playstation 3 back in 2011; it would also double as the device used to talk shit on Call of Duty. I’d record in Audacity where’d I’d do basic things like normalizing volume, cutting out extra noise (like mouse clicks), and adding reverb from settings I’d find on google.

I’ve used the same workflow for years - if I ever had the itch to record something, I’d default to what I had learned as a tween.

Late last year, I had the motivational burst to make a polished cover again which came with the task of improving the process and becoming more efficient end-to-end, from recording vocals to a final mix. It’s led me down a rabbit hole that’s eaten up 90% of my hobby time for the last 6 months.

This’ll be an interactive blog post where you can listen to some basic mixing before and afters.

I chose to swap to Reaper for my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), for no particular reason other than:

• The current Youtaite community loves it

• It’s “WinRAR free”

• If you do buy, it’s a $60, one-time, perpetual license for personal usage

• The base set of plugins are allegedly solid

What I quickly found out was how fantastic the Reaper community is. It’s still getting quite a bit of support, and a lot of creators make great free and/or open-source plugins for the community to use.

The one use-case I’ve been optimizing my skills for is for vocal covers/recordings. Alright, let’s get into a quick TL;DR of some of the basic concepts of vocal mixing.

My friend David recorded a cover of Keshi’s “Euphoria” that I mixed for him; I’ll be using that as the example piece today.

1. The first step was to remove excess sound (like mouse clicks or loud breathing) and normalizing the volume. I turned the mic input down while recording so that he wouldn’t clip (“when an audio signal exceeds what a system can handle”).

   1. It would sound really quiet, but here’s what it sounds like at this point with the volume turned up, and the instrumental turned down:

2. Tuning and Timing

   1. No Tuning

      

   2. With Tuning

      

   3. Since this mix is somewhat for fun, I didn’t time much, but the process would be adjusting the timing of the vocals to the instrumental. It helped that the original take is nearly perfect

   4. The vocalist in this case is great at ad-libbing, so I used melodyne very sparsely and will let autotune handle the more subtle pitch correction down the line

3. Compressing (reducing dynamic range)

   1. No Compressors

   2. With Compressors

      1. This example is easier to hear with earbuds but the above clips and cuts out noise

4. Equalizer (balancing volume across frequencies)

   1. No Equalizer

   2. Equalizer

   3. Arguably one of the most important part of the mixing process. Really ends up defining the final sound/style of the vocals

5. Autotune

   1. No Autotune

   2. Max Autotune (included to show where the autotune is working/contrast with more subtle autotune)

   3. With Tailored Autotune

6. Final w/ Reverb (my favorite part is 2:07)

   ---

It’s been a ridiculously fun ~6 months chasing this high. It’s a really fitting hobby for me - I can stay inside, I can do it alone (but also collaborate with others if I want), it’s relatively cheap, improvements on a track happen quick, and the results are tangible.

I’ve been more chronically online than ever, following other small musical artists and feeling inspired to push the envelope for improvement.

I actually wrote the first iteration of this post back in early January, hoping to publish the post while learning about the craft myself. I’m in a bit of a break period with it atm that seems to be the trend with how I write about my hobbies - just takes a bit to digest.

But yeah, won’t ramble too much. Thanks for reading :)

- chris

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In my 25 years of being alive, I’m deeply privileged that I can confidently say that last year was nearly all my own. I’ve long since dreamt of spending all my time doing whatever “productive” hobby pre-occupied my mind at the time. The years since I’ve had this motivation have been full of school and work, usually running in parallel.

This past year, the stars aligned, and I’ve been entertaining myself with most any hobby that crossed my mind, swapping relentlessly. Pottery, varying shades of art, singing, traveling, writing, etc. I tried to learn from others when possible and be courageous. A quote that I’d recite to myself during this time goes like so:

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.” - Anais Nin

Albeit, I’m still working on that too. But functionally, I had overcome my time restrictions, cost restrictions (within reason), and most anxieties preventing me from pursuing a hobby.

The final piece is ensuring my motivation isn’t bottlenecked, as my belief is that diligence trumps passion when it comes to maintaining a hobby. The level of dedication I have ebbs and flows throughout the lifecycle of a hobby, and I’ve found myself attuned to a consistent schedule.

Starting out on a hobby is exhilarating, and those first few weeks are the absolute sweetest. Progress isn’t the primary focus while I’m building up new experiences, and because I would have no basis for quality, there’s often little concept of self-doubt.

After this honeymoon phase ends, I’d feel a pressure building, since further developing mastery is oftentimes the end goal. I cross the Dunning-Kruger peak in terms of knowledge, and my expectations for what can be considered “satisfactory” are established.

Finally, stagnation is inevitable within the process of learning any skill. As the rate of my progress slows and the interest wanes, the intrusive thoughts settle in. With the time I have, why not try something else?

Recently, I’ve been pondering if I had continued to swap hobbies in hopes that I’d find some art form I was extraordinary at. It makes sense based on my cyclical habits; to keep my motivational engines roaring, my talent would need to accelerate me faster than my expectations could mount. But now over a year into it, I’ve found myself to be, at best, dead average at everything I’ve laid my hands on thus far.

This isn’t a bad thing, per se, since I’ve ultimately been gifted with the time to burn. But once I’ve passed that “the peak”, it’s easy to realistically see how mind-numbingly long it’d take me to get somewhere at the rate I’m going. Other discouraging facts are brought to light, such as how those younger than me have far surpassed where I want to be.

Granted, I have no stakes in any of this. By reaching heights in any one of these hobbies, I likely still wouldn’t abandon my day job unless the conditions changed drastically.

All this to say, it’s often hard to imagine how my life would be any different if I were to succumb to my vices instead of placing that time to whatever this “self-growth” is.

“Clip My Wings” is the name of a song I named this post after. Here’s part of the chorus:

It’s easier, easier to close my eyes

Pretend that I’m soaring through the open skies

If I don’t run, I will never fall behind

So douse the flames and let me stay blind

The lyrics tell a story of someone shielding themselves from self-disappointment, suppressing any passions they have; it’s easier to fantasize about your endless potential atop the Dunning-Kruger peak instead of enduring the agonizing failure that comes with progress.

My interpretation of the song feels like a commiseration of this nasty feeling that you’re bound to experience. To put expectations on yourself is to grow, and to grow, you’ll surely face self-doubt. The desire to run away and give up all expectations of yourself stem from the temporary mental respite that comes with it.

I’ll start to have a peculiar experience a few months after getting deeply into a hobby while nearing the stagnation phase.

When I was at an intimate local restaurant while visiting Japan, the chef’s assistant brought over a tray, revealing about a dozen small teacups that we were allowed to individually choose. Throughout the meal, I’d find myself fidgeting with the cup, not wanting to put it down. I’d repeatedly run my thumb along the maker's mark. At some point, the chef notices me appraising the piece and explains to us the artist behind it - the honor he had to use their pots in his restaurant.

The thought of the chef maintaining a relationship with a craftsman across the country and holding such a reverence for their handmade work was inspiring. I imagined what kind of glazes they used, the story behind their maker’s mark, what kind of clay was fired for the unglazed portions to feel texturally like basalt, yet a third of the weight.

Moments similar to this have been my most treasured this past year. There are plenty of amazing people out there, relentlessly pushing the bill for what’s possible in their respective passions. Lately, I’ll reassure myself that with my increasing expectations of myself are tied to additional context I learn. Context to better empathize with how and why dedicated people etch out their own microcosms in a world of endless things to do and see. The ability to re-examine mundane parts of everyday life in a different hue; even if I give up before reaching high mastery, I’ll have that.

Thanks for reading. More on my latest hobby next.

- chris

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EN: I’ve been sitting on this entry since early Feb. when I was having a meltdown. Reeling in disappointment seems to be a core part of the process for me. It’s been a chore trying to verbalize this first-world problem while trying my best to not come off like a spoiled fool. Excited to share what’s been making my world bigger lately.

After reading, my main takeaway was not any of these. Although they exist in there, in some capacity, the major theme I walked away with is one that makes you question the feasibility of the commonly known mantra: “do no harm”.

TW + Spoilers ahead.

The book is split into three parts, each part shifting the perspective and moving forward chronologically.

“Part 1: The Vegetarian” depicts Yeong-hye before she becomes a vegetarian, as well as her initial journey into it. It’s told from the perspective of her husband, but simply put:

Yeong-hye becomes vegetarian while doing her best to minimize the effects on anyone else → husband goes apeshit for no good reason and makes himself to be the victim

“Part 2: The Mongolian Mark” is told from the perspective of Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law and begins shortly after Yeong-hye and her husband have divorced. Yeong-hye begins to cross a blurred line of mentally instability; one action will reveal that she can remain autonomous, then the next is more akin to self-destruction.

Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law is not much better than her husband but finds himself curious with Yeong-hye, sexualizing her and creating an elaborate ploy which leads to the climax of the chapter in which they have sex (and he arguably rapes/takes advantage of a mentally ill person).

This leads to the brother-in-law’s suicide attempt and eventual divorce with In-hye, Yeong-hye’s sister, a wife who had provided him everything.

Yeong-hye did nothing to provoke her brother-in-law, but his curiosity with her and his “artistic pursuits” drove him to ruin multiple lives, including his own. Yeong-hye comes out of the experience seemingly unfettered, which really makes us question her sanity.

Part 3: “Flaming Trees” is told from Yeong-hye’s sister, In-hye’s, perspective. After In-hye divorces her husband preceding part 3, we’re shown how difficult her life has been since. A single mother running a business, all the while trying to stay accountable for Yeong-hye, who has now been admitted into a mental facility. In-hye is shown to live her life as a survivor; she shifts as many burdens onto herself while necessitating little support from others.

Barely speaking, starving herself to the point of malnutrition, acts of violence against the hospital staff, and vividly deranged desires of becoming a tree/one with nature solidify our belief that Yeong-hye is now unquestionably mentally unstable.

In-hye spends much of her time looking after Yeong-hye who is reaching a critical point. Her health is worsening rapidly and she is physically resisting any sort of treatment, seemingly hoping to die. In the climax of the final chapter, the hospital staff are trying to restrain Yeong-hye when In-hye, feeling sympathetic for her sister, bites one of the staff in the process of stopping forced treatment on Yeong-hye.

“The Vegetarian” helps you examine the lengths of your moral scale.

In part 1, it’s a no-brainer that resisting someone’s benign journey into vegetarianism is ridiculous, no matter how obscure their reason for it.

Part 2 shows that trying to be invisible and interacting as little as possible, you can unknowingly be forced into a situation with devastating consequences by other people.

And finally, part 3 shows how someone we’ve previously deemed innocent (Yeong-hye) to some can inflict suffering to others in the same action. In-hye is the golden star example of a diligent life lived but her unwillingness to abandon her sister, a trait most would acknowledge as honorable, results in her anguish as well as her physically attacking someone in defense of Yeong-hye.

All this to say, what?

We’re born into this world unconsentingly and put into a never-ending cycle of cause and effect with those around us. To think we can “do no harm” by removing ourselves from some sort of societal expectation or social contract is a lofty ideal at best.

Through Yeong-hye, we see that her desire to become one with nature and disappear in act three seems reasonable at first but is ultimately a selfish one - arguably equal to that of her husband’s desire to control Yeong-hye in act one.

Han Kang’s “The Vegetarian” asks us to be cognizant of our own existence - we should remain humble in our understanding of how someone will be the collateral of our choices, while consciously accepting how the unreasonable decisions of others will inevitably reach us.

Thanks for reading.

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EN: Wanted to write something short about this book, but not too happy with how it turned out. The book has a lot of depth, but this was by far my favorite theme from it.

When my cousins and I would play in the tiny room, we wouldn’t notice how restricting the area was. Instead, we’d soak in the light during the day, joking and chatting nearly incomprehensibly in our respective tongues. The communication barrier didn’t feel nearly as crippling as it feels today.

The apartment has stood there for over 18 years now, serving as the most memorable place when I visited in the summer of 2008. Now, visiting almost sixteen years later, what I remembered as surrounding empty plots of grass are now packed full of 24 hour unstaffed cafes, local restaurants, and new modernized apartment neighborhoods.

Near the tail end of lunch on the second day, my aunt got a call from 할머니. She took time to make bibimbap and wanted me, her beloved grandson, to have some.

We had lunch together with the whole family the previous day, but other than a quick greeting lost in the chaos, we barely spoke. The timing couldn’t be worse. Most of the family just had some malatang with me - bibimbap doesn’t sound the most appealing when your guts are bubbling with oily spicy stew.

My aunt hangs up and looks me dead in the eyes with a pitying smile. “You only need to eat a little bit.” I’m not so dull to only see this as food rather, a gesture of kindness; bibimbap is a hearty meal that takes especially long to prepare since each individual side dish needs to be made from scratch. I smile back, feeling a sense of filial piety well up inside me. I agree to go and eat some of 할머니’s bibimbap.

Aunt 윤정, uncle 윤구, mom, and I head over first. Having gone from a boisterous, silly energy I’ll come to know them for, the three siblings are uncharacteristically muted as we take the elevator up.

After our greetings, we settled into the apartment. I take a moment to soak in the nostalgia caused from nearly 16 years of separation. The low table was already set and 할머니 ushered me to take a seat. While I sit around, my mom and aunt serve as her sous chefs, speeding around the kitchen to help finish the last bits of prep. As my bowl makes its way to me, 할머니 secondarily offers bibimbap to the three siblings, whom all decline. I’m sure they didn’t have the stomach for it. 할머니 sits across from me, watching my reaction to each individual banchan I try so I feign as much delight as I can muster. Seeing her genuine smile when I thanked her for the food was enough to force down one and half bowls of bibimbap and banchan.

It’s quiet as I eat. The TV quietly hums. The oldest sibling, my eldest uncle who lives with 할머니, watches wordlessly from the far corner of the sofa. After having suffered a stroke years before, he mostly stays at the apartment watching television.

Uncle 윤구 sits restlessly two cushions from him. 할머니 intermittently cuts through the silence to dote on me which I try to continue to express appreciation for.

What lurks in the scene is invisible to the naked eye. Generational lapses in communication and trauma that was repressed for years fills the room in snide whispers or sardonic remarks. After a brief silence, uncle 윤구 whispers, “I wish I had a mom like this growing up.” It goes unacknowledged.

I’ve heard bits and pieces from my mom over the years as to what kind of mother 할머니 was but have had difficulty understanding it. Logically, it made sense but I never really “comprehended” it. Seeing the starkly contrasting atmosphere between my mom and her siblings that day solidified my belief that I likely never will.

It’s painful to hear such a deep rooted sadness seep out at what is an otherwise benign family gathering. 할머니, now in her mid to late 80’s, is deaf in one ear with an, at the time poorly adjusted, hearing aid in the other. When I look at her, it’s hard to imagine her as a source of any kind of pain. Her slow unsteady movements, her hearty laugh contrasted with her fragile frame is the definition of harmless. In fact, I pity her. She was born in 1939 into a Japanese colonial Korea. Growing up in the midst of the Korean war and living through the varying shades of poverty a developing nation would experience, her journey leading up to bearing five children in a neo-confucius patriarchal society seems, on paper, like an inexplicable hell. To make matters worse, she became a widow fairly early; my grandfather passed around the time I was two years old.

Unfortunately, none of this is what my mom and her siblings are thinking about. Uncle 윤구 remembers how she would turn a blind eye to my eldest uncle’s relentlessly bullying and physically abusing him and the other siblings. My mom describes how she would ensure her disdain of being their mother was explicitly expressed often. Aunt 윤정 laments, as a middle schooler, consoling and talking her down from threats of suicide after grandpa’s infidelity was discovered. They all recall how she was never present, treating her children as an afterthought and failing to do the bare minimum expected of a parent.

After uncle 윤구’s comment, a knock at the door breaks the silence. Two of my cousins whom I had lunch with earlier ran a quick errand then made their way over at my aunt’s behest. They look exhausted and I’m guessing uninterested in eating this second meal. They don’t say much nor really acknowledge 할머니, but it seems the concept of turning away a meal she prepared is a line of disrespect they aren’t willing to cross today.

They silently eat while browsing their phones and only nod when spoken to. My mom and aunt are busy cleaning up. I want to spring up to help them but the heavy atmosphere makes me self-conscious of any move I make. The two sisters deftly tidy up the kitchen and I convince myself to stay on the couch; I think I’d only be an inconvenience trying to join in. I take in the living room again and have a moment of excitement, wanting to reminisce about childhood memories with my cousins. I turn to both of them to bring it up but their backs are facing me. They’re on their phones.

Looking at the closet today, sixteen years later, it’s gray unlike I remember. Light no longer beams through the overhead window in the room. The sliding glass door is now an opaque brown from dust. Old calligraphy paintings lay on their side against the wall in stacks, seemingly untouched. Whatever youth that once filled the room is no longer there.

I make some small talk with my older cousin 은이 누나 (older sister). It doesn’t really go anywhere but each second we’re talking is a small bandaid on a void of silence. We talk about TV shows for a little but the conversation doesn’t hold long. My mom and aunt wrap up and are getting ready to leave when 할머니 asks them to stay a while. Uncle 윤구 aggressively says that everyone has busy days tomorrow so we’ll stay for ten minu- no five more minut- five and a half more minutes. That seems to be enough for her.

Everyone gathers around for the continuing silence, mostly avoiding eye contact with each other. Halfway through 할머니’s allotted time, 은이 누나 breaks the tension. “Uncle 윤구, you’re really balding, huh?” Formed as a question, but spoken like an assertion, the dichotomy of familial reverence shown to 할머니 versus an otherwise disrespectful jab stunned everyone listening. The silence is broken with my mom and aunt covering their open mouths and gasp. The room erupts with stifled laughter. My uncle is appalled and takes a moment to process. “Yeah, I guess I am.” My lip is quivering from holding back my smile. 현이, my other cousin, explodes out in a full-grinning laugh. The tension has fully dissipated now and everyone is laughing.

As if she just understood the absurdity of her own question, 은이 누나 begins to justify it with a story about how her boyfriend is also starting to bald a little and that her curiosity is genuine in nature - as if deprecating her own boyfriend makes her remark any more valid.

This is quickly followed by rapid-fire questions about his hair grafts, the family’s faulty genetics, and why he got it. My mom and aunt are getting into the bit now, adding their own jabs. Giving him half-baked roundabout compliments about his hairline before he says in a deadpan: “how do I even live like this.” This neatly caps the conversation while everyone is still amused.

A perfectly phrased question that allowed everyone to dance around an otherwise sensitive topic. For just a few brief moments, it seemed like all the pain faded away. No more repressed vitriol. As if I were a kid again, I felt like the sun was shining again through the panes in that closet room, saturating the apartment with a warm and safe ambience.

Uncle 윤구 ends it by smirking at 은이누나 and nonchalantly saying, “any other burning, uncomfortable questions you have? I’m here to answer anything you can throw at me.”

My oldest uncle interrupts, clearly annoyed with all the noise, and says, “isn’t it time you all left?” Reality sets in again and the other siblings immediately suppress the energy that seeped out a moment ago. We all quickly give a solemn agreement and get up to leave.

Waving off 할머니 from beyond her doorway, I looked past her into the apartment for a second and imagined what it might’ve looked like when I was younger. I would be running in and out of that closet with my cousins, smiling and laughing carelessly. Shielded from generational horrors that our parents had endured and continue to struggle with, our felicity is a direct result of a cycle of sorts having been broken. Our parents are not our grandparents and because of that, we are not our parents. I’m sure my childhood trip spent in Korea was just as beautiful as I had romanticized, but perhaps only because of their continual sacrifice that had allowed it to be.

For the rest of the trip, I felt indebted to that kindness. The kindness that my aunts and uncles have continued to show me, in the form of taking a genuine interest in what kind of person I’ve become. The kindness that uncle 윤구 has continued to show all of us, such that 은이 누나 felt comfortable making a pointed joke at him. Returning to Korea, I felt anxious, unsure whether I would leave disappointed, unable to truly connect with my family. But over time, I’ve come to realize that my heritage isn’t tied to a specific place or bloodline, nor is it fully about traditions or customs. It’s the context of my mom’s life—the sentiments I couldn’t understand as a child—that has brought me more closure than my studies of the language or culture ever could. Her reasoning and the unique idiosyncrasies I once found puzzling have become much clearer to me. And now, the traits she passed down to me feel as though they hold a distinct, meaningful purpose; I’ll always be connected to my heritage in this way.

After the elevator doors closed, I casually pat uncle 윤구 on the back and said “수고했어요!” (tl: “You did well!”), in a broken attempt to show my appreciation. My cousins and my aunt explode with laughter and he gives me a wry smile. “You know, that’s something you say to someone who’s under you (on the social hierarchy).” My cheeks flush, now understanding I unintentionally made him my junior in conversation. My uncle and mom start chuckling and I find myself joining in soon after. I find myself relaxed again even before we’re out of the elevator.

EN:
I wrote the first draft of this essay the night the story takes place, almost a year ago. It’s taken some time to turn it into something comprehensible and although there are still edits I hope to make, I wanted to share it in it’s current state. I removed most of the Korean but left a few bits here and there, mostly in the form of names.

I’m in the process of translating this essay to Korean, in hopes that I can share it with my family (and penpal) one day.

Thanks for reading.

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I got into a discussion with a friend in regard to our favorite romance movies; we couldn’t come to an agreement on what kind of endings were our favorite. Bright bubblegum sweetness paid out in a “love always wins” finale or melancholic devastation akin to a horror movie disaster. I, historically, have preferred the latter.

Immediately, “La La Land” comes to mind. The quintessential pop culture example of a bittersweet ending structure, the film concludes after a time skip reveals the main characters have become estranged and do not romantically end up together. By including the details about the duo achieving their respective career milestones by surrendering their star-crossed relationship, there’s a sweet varnish on an otherwise bitter resolution.

Sometimes, even that’s not the case, though. In the more recent “Past Lives”, there’s such no respite.

After the main female lead, Nora, lead rediscovers feelings of affection toward her first love, Hae Sung, she’s left to make the decision of returning his feelings. But with her husband and the life she’s built up on her own, she can’t bear to abandon what she has. The gravitational pull of pragmatism holds true.

If just a few variables were different, it may have worked out; but they weren’t, and the sole lingering consolation is: not in this lifetime… but perhaps in another. Some of the final dialogue goes as such:

Hae Sung: “What if, this is a past life, and in some next life, we’re something more to each other?”

…

Nora: ”I don’t know.”

Hae Sung: ”Me neither… I’ll see you then.”

It’s heart-wrenching, coming to terms with what isn’t meant to be. But beyond being impactful, it’s very human. Within my brief history of human relationships, the catharsis of a positive conclusion is a rare occurrence. Most are in ongoing flux, but in terms of conclusions, it’s far more common where relationships crumble for any reason from a seemingly infinite number of pitfalls.

When the feeling of loss and failure are too much, we’ll need to find some sort of reasoning to be able to move forward. Even if it’s “not in this lifetime”.

The kids call it “copium” and I find it to be a constant state of living. For example, it’s not often where I catch myself glowing from a huge relationship win.

In other words, I adore bittersweet endings for their ability to be a medium of commiseration. They acknowledge a common experience that’s, in my opinion, seldom discussed.

If I were to find solace only in poignant endings, I’d classify myself a masochist, or I’d self-diagnose myself with depression. I’d still say I’m a romantic and enjoy feel-good endings, with a caveat; they need to feel hard-earned.

The strongest example I have of this is Evangelion as a whole series, albeit it’s not what I’d classify as a romance story. The first episode of the series aired in 1995. The final remake movie released in 2021.

The official ending for the series that kicked off in the 90s was named “The End of Evangelion” (EoE). The story as a whole is too complex for me to summarize here, but TL;DR the main protagonist, Shinji, struggles with self-doubt, depression, and loneliness throughout the series. In “The EoE”, he still has yet to overcome these inner conflicts, and experiences the death of his friends as a result. In the final scenes of the film, (loosely) he is able to save the world, on the reasoning of: suffering is part of the human experience. He almost kills his friend immediately after saving them. Pretty bleak.

The creator, Hideaki Anno, wasn’t satisfied with leaving it to end there. The first remake movie of the four, released in 2009, over 10 years after EoE, under the name: “Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone”.

Here’s an excerpt from the booklet insert from the DVD release:

We... what are we trying to make once again?

The visual opera "Evangelion" has been realized following many desires.

The desire to portray my sincere feelings on film.

…

”Eva" is a story that repeats.

It is a story where the main character witnesses many horrors with his own eyes, but still tries to stand up again.

It is a story of will; a story of moving forward, if only just a little.

It is a story of fear, where someone who must face indefinite solitude fears reaching out to others, but still wants to try.

We hope that you look forward to the 4 new retellings of this story.

…

September 28th 2006, a sunny day in Kamakura.

Creator/General Director, Anno Hideaki

Sparing all the details, the reprised canon conclusion is one where Shinji is able to grow up, find peace, and reach a sense of normalcy. And it’s so fucking sweet. The viewer has grown up alongside the creator, who had spent the better part of their life on telling this story, struggling with these ideas. Ultimately, watching an ending representing self-forgiveness and self-love, after being left with a brutal ending of EoE for two decades, feels hard-earned.

A cosmically unlikely victory seems to be the only way I could put it. In those rare moments where love wins out, it’s so fucking gratifying. But we have to continue to hope and endure, using any reason we can justify to make the wait a little more bearable. And bittersweet endings sit there with you during the wait.

I guess you could call me an elitist romantic of sorts.

your local hater,

- chib

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To review:

IAMT #9 was about the lasting despair that comes with losing friends, especially if it feels like you’re at fault

IAMT #10 was about finding appreciation for a friendship that has temporarily lost its luster

IAMT #11 was about the self-serving importance of friends to personal history

IAMT #12 is about the best parts of a well-maintained, long-lasting friendship (and how that dictated the direction of “Retro”, my video editing project for my high school friends)

Thanks for reading my brief series on friends. I’ll wrap up this year with what’s in store for me from here.

Rewind seven years when I started living in a city after starting college; I would experience constant external influences, whether I wanted to or not. Interesting people from different walks of life and unique experiences I opened myself up to occupied my time outside of school. And well, outside of that, I was grinding away in game dev.

It’s an exhilarating feeling to be constantly inspired by the world around you, and being on my own at the time, I could channel any time and energy I had left to do whatever I found stimulating.

As I get older, I have fewer new experiences that shape my worldview. Between work, daily mundanity, and maintaining existing relationships, the inspiration comes far more seldom now. But to create and improve our own work, we must consume.

A few times a year, I’ll make a “wishlist” - a list of things I want to do when a certain deadline is over or time passes. I made one while making “Retro” since it felt like I was putting parts of my life on hold to finish it. It’s comprised of different types of media: games, movies, TV shows, books, etc. It also has smaller hobbies that I might’ve tucked away temporarily.

In the past, I would use my wishlist as an excuse to relax and reward myself after hitting a milestone, but lately I think it’s an imperative part of my creative cycle. For example, how will my writing ever improve if I’m mostly reading back my own journals? Even for personal growth, for example, how will I become funnier if I’m not exposed to unfamiliar comedy chops?

Especially as of late, I find myself falling into the trap of closing myself off from the world. But the world is vast and there’s always more to learn, more to experience. All of this to say, I’ll be spending the next few weeks to months soaking in ideas from new and familiar sources alike. I’ll be putting the pen down for a bit, in part to alleviate any expectation that I have of myself to produce anything.

So TL;DR, I’ll be hibernating for a bit.

So far, I’ve played a few games on my backlog(Wildfrost, Frostpunk) and am nearly done with the miniseries “Chernobyl”. I ugly cried after watching the short film “Look Back” and am catching up on all the TIME magazines that have been collecting dust on my desk. It’s all been spectacular so far.

If there’s anything you can confidently recommend, lmk and I’ll add it to the queue. As always, thanks for reading and happy holidays.

brb,

- chib

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imitative of a style, fashion, or design from the recent past

“Retro” is the name of this video editing project I’ve been describing for the past few months. It’s an interview-style home video which includes my high school friends of about a decade now. I’ve been informally recording them since ~2017.

The lot of us have spread further apart during the Covid years, further exasperated by some moving away for work. The one time a year I hope to guarantee seeing them is around winter, when we book a cabin not too far from home and go isolate with each other for a weekend.

There’s something really pure about the fun I have with them on these trips. The encyclopedia of inside jokes we have with one another span half a lifetime. We default to the different roles we were typecast in at various stages of friendship. Reaching high levels of vulnerability comes naturally; we’ve seen each other at lows and highs.

Not to say we regress, but on these trips, we load up on our vices. Sleep late, gamble, eat obscene amount of junk food/booze, mindlessly play games, etc. It’s not pretty, especially at the end of it. But the average level of focus and professionalism that’s demanded of us on a daily basis has definitely increased since we were rowdy teenagers. Simple days when we’re in each other’s company and disregard nearly all human responsibility have been minimized to these two to four days a year.

The annual end of year trip feels like the reward we all get to relish in for the collective effort put in to maintain this uncomplicated friendship. Referencing “It’s your friends who break your heart” one final time, this is part of the friendship luxuriating business.

This kind of video project is perfect under these conditions. Friendships with long timeframes and high certainty of consistency reassure me while I slowly build up a library of videos that will eventually be stitched together.

Prior to “Retro”, there was a different project I completed back in 2019 that we’ll call “Rosy”. At the time, I thought “Rosy” was my magnum opus, although now, it’s hard to get through the first 5 minutes without my face contorting from the embarrassment.

I rewatched “Rosy” for the first time in a while and can tell I made it from a place of genuine adoration for these people. The support system I have today didn’t really exist when that project started, so I know it must’ve mattered all that much more back then. It’s sappy as all hell.

Comparatively, “Retro” has a more acute focus on exposition; the previous video was shitting around non-stop and rapid-fire chops with the intent of making you laugh. “Retro”, in totality, is a little over two hours, double the runtime of its predecessor. The interviews have a guided pace, with a mix of serious and unserious questions/responses. You really get to learn more about whom the people in front of the camera are.

I chose this path forward for “Retro”, as I think it will be important to memorialize who my friends are at this specific point in time.

It’ll be valuable when we reminisce; they’ve shown me we’re in it together for the long run, after all.

made with love,

- chib

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[en]: For technicals, I was considering devoting a whole other post to my video editing process, but that’ll come later, if ever. For a quick TL;DR, I used Davinci Resolve for the first time. I went from Sony Vegas in high school, to bootleg pirated versions of Premier, to finally what I hope is the last video editing software I’ll ever have to learn.

It’s unfortunate I can’t show really any of the video, since all of it has the faces of my friends in it. I can’t show the audio since we’re talking about personal stuff most of the time too. It doesn’t really make for a great “hobby showcase” post, which is another reason I talked more to the personal side of the project.

I’m not good at letting thoughts escape me (hence the neurotic need for a blog and a journal chock-full of complaints) and there are plenty of old friends I haven’t talked to in years that I still think about on a semi-frequent basis. Not wanting anymore to fall into that classification in my head, cue my high school friends.

I’d like to say I’ve served as a historian of sorts for the lot of them; I’ve been collecting random videos of them, formally interviewing them on camera, and now, finally, editing it all together into a gargantuan, structured home video. This is the second entry in the series of home videos, with the first being completed in 2019.

Nearing a decade out of high school, I’ve drifted apart from them for sure, only seeing most of them less than a handful of times per year and only talking one or two more times beyond that.

I’ve been loosely preparing for this project for years. Years. Combining clip collection, filming, editing, and even writing this fucking blog post, it’s taken me likely over 100 hours to complete. At times, all the effort put in felt meaningless and I would grow silently resentful. What do I expect of them? Bare minimum in my opinion, but I digress. This was for them, wasn’t it?

I was spending so much time on this project, watching my HS friends talk for hours, to the point I felt like I was developing a parasocial relationship with them. An odd epiphany I had was when I was complaining to my sister about this. She was questioning why I was doing this at all - if they didn’t care enough, fuck it, they don’t deserve a home video.

There was a self-serving reason keeping me going, and I remembered a friend had once told me I was their only close friend who knew them at a pivotal period in their life.

Since then, I’ve been nervously contemplating: do I keep certain friends close because they’re a part of a history I don’t want to lose? Similar to what my friend said, I have many friends who are the last human remnants from specific chapters of my life. Without them, there would be no one to remember it with, no one to validate my story. No one to prove that I even existed at that time.

It checks out. As I said at the beginning, I’m a hoarder of memories and stories. I collect and record profusely, and this video editing project seems to be no different. My HS friends are a part of my past that I refuse to let go of. So documenting them and stitching it together with the narrative of my choosing must be what I find easier than confronting the dread I feel when imagining myself growing indifferent to them.

This video is for me, in the future. This is the lens in which I saw my friends and a time capsule to remember this part of my life. Or all of this is just a giant cope that I’m using to get me across the finish line, since the deadline is coming up in a few days. Whatever keeps me sane in the final stretches.

At the very least, it’s helped me come to terms with the idea that I’ll hold myself responsible to the role of scribe within that group of friends as long as they provide me the content to do so.

To my high school friends, whom this video is for: thank you for being around to remember parts of our shared past that I wouldn’t ever want to live without.

finale on friends soon,

- chib

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[en 1]: debated uploading this since I wrote it during a low-point while grinding out the home video. Part 3/4 of friendship was supposed to be completely different, but I read this to a friend who liked it and that encouraged me to go through with it

this internal conflict about friendship i have is something i struggle with a lot. it’s not healthy and the baseline i’m trying to work towards is that of a secure, stable affection. but in times of crisis, thoughts like these boil over. This post captures that brief moment of frustration that comes with close relationships.

[en 2]: changed the style of the blog to essentially “dark mode”. we’re in a movie theater after all.

I have quite a few journal entries dedicated to this topic, but to summarize, no matter the effort I’d put into a single instance of a hangout, I couldn’t reach that same high I had felt in the past. The rush of getting to know someone and hitting every humor chord perfectly is unparalleled when you have seemingly unlimited time and similar life paths. Shared friend groups. Relatable problems weighing you down. Hopes and dreams that intersect.

The nature of the game had changed and after verbalizing it to the other party, we came to the conclusion that closeness ebbs and flows. I’m a romantic to the core, and never want to forget the “flowing” part of our friendship. And thus, came the project to memorialize it.

“Time is a Place” is a birthday gift I made for one of my best friends last year.

Music was a major part of our relationship. We continued to trade artists and songs we liked until, during the peak of our friendship, we essentially had the same music taste. The songs themselves became our shared anthems, the lyrics our inside jokes.

The present contained:

• two burned CDs and their respective CD cases

• 12 cover insert cards (6 per case)

• a CD player

There are 25 songs total, one for every hour of the day (plus one bonus song); this was intentionally done to resemble Animal Crossing’s music system. There’s a “Day Version” and “Night Version” with 12 and 13 songs respectively.

I made sure to get unique versions of some songs to keep it fresh, which included remixes, live recordings, and even two of my own covers.

The front of each cover insert card has an image of a memorable moment of our friendship with the date stamp. The back has two song titles and two short excerpts, recalling a related memorable moment or an appreciation I have for them.

I’ll abstain from sharing too many more details.

To end, I’ll share a message I sent to a different friend shortly after the completion of the project but before the gift was delivered.

As agonizing as it was to finish this project, I can confidently say all I need to do now is wrap it and think about how I want to deliver it.

…

On a more sentimental note, this project means a lot to me. In fact, I think it might mean more to me than it will to [friend]. “Time is a Place” is a reflection of our friendship from my perspective. Doing the [masters/work] really was like a time chamber for me and reflecting back to more relaxed days, it blows my mind how different our relationship was back then.

What do people mean to each other? What defines a life-long friendship? My friendship with [friend] has not been historically strong post-covid and working on this was like a suckerpunch; I don’t feel even close to a 10th of a connection with them lately. Every time I’ve met them the past year or so, the thoughts that always swirl around my head are related to some sort of distance I feel between us. I wanted to close that distance, but it’s felt like we’ve hit our peak in the past and this project is a love letter to the end of that era. I’d be grinning silly while listening to some of the songs I picked while reminiscing. Or some of the melancholic ones would sting as a reminder that we’re drifting apart.

I listened to the final print today just to test again and found myself bored with it. My brain has thought about this enough now and I’m sure I’ve talked about it enough too. It’s time to move on. I hope [friend] sees this and has some similar thoughts and we can meet somewhere in the middle. But on the chance that it’s just a silly birthday gift to them, I’m okay with that too. The project has given me some closure on this topic and I think I’m ready to put those thoughts to rest. All that’s left is the next phase of our friendship, whatever that may be.

Since then, I’ve better come to terms with the idea that friendships are forever changing; always yearning for the highest of highs seems plain greedy. The truly extraordinary relationships, if lucky, are briefly perfect in hindsight, and to know that I’ve gotten to experience that, I’m endlessly grateful.

stalling for time,

- chib

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[en]: “time is a place” was taken from a song with the same title from the game “finding paradise”

Mirror

When this first came out in 2022, I was obsessed with this article. I used to listen to this on the 2.5hr drive to and from my S/O without fail for a good two months. The original site now gates the read-over audio on mobile behind a paywall, so I thought I’d read it myself.

The original is 55 minutes long, which wasn’t the most digestible. I’d listen to it on 1.5 speed usually but wanting my recording to be a little different, I removed certain excerpts to cut roughly 20 minutes. There might be confusing transitions on a first listen, but I hope it’s not too jarring.

I’ll get better at being less monotonous.

Last week, I had this dream where I serendipitously met with an old friend whom I haven’t talked to in years. We caught up in a way that only genuine friends could: sharing life goals, how they’ve been, how they’ve felt. For a brief moment, I felt the catharsis of reviving something I had once thought of as lost.

I’ve found that the reality of repairing friendships is often disappointing. Even the last time we met a few years ago, we didn’t share anything of substance, as if we had a silent mutual understanding that there was no point.

In the past decade of my life, some of the most acute emotional pains I’ve experienced are derived from exactly this. There are many ways to lose a friend, but the most painful, I’ve found, is explained at some point in the article.

Friendships are a unique type of relationship, in that they require both parties to continually opt in. Having that desire to keep someone in your circle, contrasted with the realization that they’re purposefully opting out or giving you a bare minimum, is heart-wrenching. The relationship goes on life support and peters out.

Instances of nostalgia or small bouts of hope you might have for the relationship are followed by a dreadful relapse of these feelings, after you sober up to reality. I’m years down the line on some of these broken friendships and I still feel this, albeit I process through the emotions in a matter of hours rather than days/weeks it took me previously.

Let me know if any of you have been able to bring back a friendship from this point, because I never have.

This will be part one of (what I expect to be) an informal four part series. Although most of the solo projects I’ve done were for myself and for my own interest, my favorites generally involve my loved ones in some way.

This week’s post laments failed friendships.

Next week’s is about a project I made to celebrate one.

More on friends soon.

- chib

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The defacto American perspective of Japan I came to hear about anecdotally revolved around societal norms that don’t really exist in America; the baseline expectation of each individual to contribute to society is much greater.

For example, the streets are impeccably clean despite there being little to no public trash cans. People wait in lines without cutting, belongings are left around as stealing seldom occurs, and packed rush hour trains are “pin drop” quiet so not to disturb other riders. There’s a general acknowledgement of your fellow neighbor, and habits baked into the culture place the onus of responsibility on each individual to better support the society.

In terms of supporting the society, there’s also a push to better assist those who are most vulnerable. There are arguments that these are reactionary solutions, but I still think they’re good nonetheless. There are “women-only” train cars, disabled priority elevators, and signage to give priority to an elderly, disabled, pregnant, or otherwise “in-need” person.

Most importantly, the culture abides by these rules. I recall riding a bus and a young person was sitting in a priority seat. A woman who looked like she was in her 60s comes onto the bus, and the other passenger immediately gave up the seat to her. On the next stop, a man who looked to be in his 80s got on the bus, and the previous woman immediately offered up the seat to him.

These all sound like great things, but after two weeks in Japan, I’ve experienced some difficulty with it. Granted, I’ve been reassured heavily that as a tourist, there’s less of an expectation for me to know the customs. The friends I traveled with are fairly well-versed in Japanese cultural norms and have been trying to travel as respectfully as possible. As someone who only knew of the few most common rules, there’s been a significant learning curve to getting everything “right”.

Instinctually, I want to take a sip of water while running around all day in 88 degree heat, but as I uncap the bottle, I remember no drinking/eating while walking. Bottles and trash of varying materials accumulate in my book bag as the day lags on, no trash cans in sight other than an occasional ‘bottle only’ derivative. I have a loud voice with, let’s say, an “American” volume control, so I find myself immediately insecure after letting out a genuine laugh.

My anxiety in daily American life has mostly dissolved away after learning to become more indifferent to how others may perceive me. But in Japan it felt negligent to be indifferent - everyone else seems to be bearing the same cross, so why shouldn’t I do the same?

When I would be put in unfamiliar situations, I could feel my anxiety building. I’d stand to the side to watch what locals do and try to copy them to a tee. My friends and I would follow what we saw a local do, thinking it’s part of some unwritten rule, only to later see other locals doing something completely different; the desire to match the level of respectfulness ended up causing instances of paranoia.

After writing the above portion, I was curious to see the research on this and skimmed a few articles/abstracts. One term to define beforehand is Taijin Kyofusho or TKS which I saw used in most of the relevant articles. It essentially means, “other-focused social anxiety” which is the feeling I was describing above.

Arimitsu, K., Hitokoto, H., Kind, S. et al. Differences in Compassion, Well-being, and Social Anxiety Between Japan and the USA. Mindfulness 10, 854–862 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-1045-6

Consistent with the hypothesis, we found an interaction effect that self-compassion had a stronger association with positive affect in the USA than in Japan.

…

The results support the hypothesis that compared to self-compassion, compassion for others was associated with interdependent happiness only in Japan.

…

These findings suggest that the link between compassion, well-being, and psychopathology might be universal, although the effects of the two types of compassion have different patterns between the two cultures.

Norasakkunkit, V., Kitayama, S., & Uchida, Y. (2012). Social Anxiety and Holistic Cognition: Self-Focused Social Anxiety in the United States and Other-Focused Social Anxiety in Japan. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43(5), 742-757. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022111405658

Note: I interpret “holistic cognition” to loosely refer to collectivist thinking

The current study found that, … , social phobia tendencies, given their self-focused nature, were associated with decreased levels of holistic cognition while TKS tendencies, given their other-focused nature, were associated with increased levels of holistic cognition.

Thus, holistic cognition served as an important basic cognitive feature which distinguishes between the two culturally divergent versions of social anxiety.

All this to say, the TKS I experienced is a huge first-world problem, and something I believe I can adjust to, given time. I’m not forgetting any of the perceived benefits.

As I was getting off the plane to go back home, other antsy Americans from the back rows lined up in the aisle, blocking people in rows ahead from grabbing their overhead luggage. In fact, people were tackling through, creating a weird, unfair flow of traffic just to get off the plane a minute or two faster than others. Getting shoulder slammed by a guy who sat six rows behind me who was impatient, was the most American welcome I could have received. In other words, I missed the collectivist social norms in Japan before I even made it to customs.

Bit more yappy, but as always, thanks for reading.

- chib

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The school project was called Message in a Bottle, a web-app where people could anonymously send, receive, and reply to (what we hope would be) encouraging messages. How could that possibly go wrong? I believe the site is still up, albeit unused and likely broken somewhere.

The chib.dev site was going to be used for written entries, as well as a canvas for any random web app projects I would want to tackle. Perhaps a resume booster to show off other projects I’d done. Spoiler, I barely touched it after it went up. I frequently hoped I’d return to resurrect the site and make it all pretty, but alas, given the title of this post, we know where this is going.

I’m planning to make a CNAME record to point ‘chib.dev’ to ‘chibdev.substack.com’ so the site will no longer be reachable from that URL. Setting a custom domain has a one-time $50 cost with substack.

Other than the 1/20th of a band I just dropped on this substack, I’m generally a cheap bastard and proud of the fact that I kept the cost of running the site to ~$12/yr, the only cost being the domain name. This entry cost me $50 to write, more than it cost to run self-hosted chib.dev for 3 years (~$36).

I’ve always wanted to talk about the simple tech stack for the site, so I’ll do that here, at the new, inaugural home of chib.dev.

1. Domain Name

   1. Purchased from Google Domains in early 2021 for ~$12/yr

   2. Squarespace Domains bought Google Domains in June 2023 so now I pay them $12/yr

2. Github Pages

   1. Created a Github page that is hosting my site. In 2021, you could have one GH page for free from a private repo

   2. Looks like that’s changed to a paid feature and I can’t change any options for my GH page as long as I’m keeping it part of a private repository rip

3. Cloudflare

   1. Free tier allows for DNS records while using Cloudflare’s name servers

   2. This is what essentially points chib.dev → “GH page URL”

   3. SSL certificates also managed here

4. Vue.js

   1. The website is a static page made with the front-end javascript framework Vue 2 and the Vuetify 2 library. Vue 3 had a stable release when I started to build the site, but Vuetify 3 wasn’t out yet, so I stuck with Vue 2. Vue 2 is now in End Of Life(EOL) and no longer maintained

   2. The only interesting code I had written for the site was a dynamic blog generator. I would write a blog in Markdown, place it in a certain directory, and Vue would generate a blog post page and domain path upon building the static files

Below are some stats from Cloudflare (as of 9/1/24):

Thanks to those who’ve browsed the site before, thanks to @captainturnip for the art/styling, and thanks for reading.

And with that, chib.dev is closed

- chris

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Pottery is time-consuming. There’s a built-in waiting game to it, as pieces need time to slowly change. Completing a piece end-to-end would take on average three weeks for me, since I’d throw the piece the first week, let it dry, trim it the second week, bisque fire it, glaze it the third week, and I’d get back a completed pot on the fourth week. If the firing schedule for the kilns was off, it’d take even longer. On top of this, my studio only has a few slots of additional studio time, which really limits the time I can work.

Earlier this year, I would excitedly watch a few hours of pottery videos before each class but lately have been phoning it in most lessons; it’s on the back burner right now because I have another long-term project in the works as well as some travel plans coming up to round out the year.

The video editing project I’ve been working on is coming together nicely, and I have a soft deadline for myself to be the end of the year. I’ve been preparing it for years now, and although it has a lot of PII, I hope I can share a part of it when it’s done. Week to week, though, there’s not much to share. I originally created this substack to maintain a log for my hobbies, but with the hope it would reduce overhead in sharing my ideas with my friends. Sometimes, writing here is the overhead.

There’s a niche part of YouTube history I think about sometimes, related to the YouTuber Devon Crawford. He mainly does tech related projects and vlogs but has been on a hiatus for a while, working on a longer term project. During this gap, he sent a message to his community that stuck with me when thinking about my own hobby projects.

“When building a real product there is practically an unlimited number of problems to solve. It makes more sense to keep working at full speed rather than explain every setback or solution in the moment…

… Only after the project is done or launched will I then edit everything together and explain the process in hindsight. This is technically the same strategy with my previous YouTube videos, the only difference is that now my project is taking years rather than weeks to finish… I still consider myself a YouTuber/developer, I just have a longer-term plan. Hope that makes sense.

- Devon”

Dropping pottery for the few months while I commit myself to other projects seems like a fitting and necessary sacrifice. All this to say, I do hope to return to pottery in time.

Below are some of the final pieces I created.

This one feels a little half-baked but getting it out felt important to staying consistent.

More about the trip soon.

- chib

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In previous documentaries about Miyazaki(NHK’s “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki”, “The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”, and “The Never Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki”), Miyazaki battles feelings of self-loathing while managing his selfish desire to create more movies.

Over the course of the nine years “Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron” encompasses, the number of memorial photos of deceased friends that are put up around the studio gradually increases. The pressure mounts from all the loved ones he’s lost; all he has connecting him to these people is his work. How can he preserve their legacy while his own body is deteriorating? The gradual decline of proficiency that comes with age isn’t framed pessimistically, though, but instead as a force of nature. The stove top turns from a gas to induction. The pre-schoolers that sing him happy birthday each year continue to change with a new class. He more frequently feels that his “brain is broken” and has incidents of faulty memory. He continues to lose friends to old age and cancer. His relationships that preserve his life’s history are gradually fading.

By far my favorite part of this documentary was the ending. The final scene for many of these documentaries was the press conference for the movie release, where Miyazaki would announce his retirement from film making. The dichotomy that this film draws for us is in a letter Miyazaki writes on the release day for “The Boy and the Heron”(or “How Do You Live” for the Japanese title) after the initial reviews are out.

“Miyazaki will keep making movies. No matter what it takes, he’ll go on.

He made that choice a long time ago. Stop whining and get moving.”

His inability to develop a healthy relationship with his craft pained him film after film, which resulted in repeated declarations of retirement. Known for his life-long dissatisfaction with himself and his own work, I’ve seen many creatives commiserate with his quotes from previous documentaries about his love-hate relationship with art.

In writing the letter above, Miyazaki reassures me that he is still growing and these end-of-life experiences are still having a profound influence on him. Ultimately, the creation of “How Do You Live” was painted as a journey of self-acceptance of one of the most stubborn, yet brilliant animators/directors of a generation.

There is so much love for him in this film. Posthumous clips of his deceased loved ones encouraging him and complimenting his work. Other skilled animators, voice actors, and singers explaining to Miyazaki how he’s influenced their lives for the better. Elementary schoolers telling him “My Neighbor Totoro” is their favorite movie. I can’t help but root for him, too.

Thank you for your hard work and I look forward to your next film, Mr. Miyazaki.

Less about movies next week.

- chib

“Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron” is on Max

“2399 Days with Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli” is on Youtube

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This wouldn’t be a movie theater without a little discussion of films, right? Given, the name of this substack, movies were a major part of my growing up; they’re a fantastic medium to share ideas with others. Being able to talk with someone about a film they loved is incredibly rewarding. Whether it be specific plot devices and clichés they may have enjoyed or a theme they resonated with, there are seemingly infinite conversation branches that can stem from a singular topic.

Watching films on my own has been an important proponent of my self-growth. Discovering a new movie when you need it rarely happens but its cathartic when it does. For example, when I was having friendship ails and bouts of self-loathing, I watched “A Silent Voice” for the first time alone in theaters. Ugly crying in public never felt so good.

All this to say, ever since 2021, I’ve kept a running log of movies I had seen along with an informal review. This was tucked away in a Notion page that progressively got more mismanaged with every entry. I converted to Google sheets at around ~50 entries but now, at a whopping ~130 films and plenty of encouragement from a friend, I decided I need to reduce the overhead of managing my movie reviews. This is where Letterboxd comes in.

Letterboxd is a movie review site mostly composed of amateur reviewers. Thankfully, they have a route for people like me who kept their own lists and want to import it into Letterboxd. Their importer takes various valid file types and the specific fields/formatting are specified here.

Since my categories were different from what the importer asks for, after I exported my ‘media-queue’ to .csv, I wrote a quick Python script using the Pandas library to rename and reformat the columns. After finagling with the date/time formatting for a bit, I had a new .csv file to import to Letterboxd.

And now my Letterboxd is populated!

I have two gripes with it right now after some light usage.

1. I hate that it’s a 5-star rating scale in increments of .5. It’s essentially just 1–10 integers only. Previously, I would rate from 1-10 in increments .1 which gave me a high level of granularity. I’ve been wondering if it’s too pretentious (how would I tell between a .1 difference) but it just intuitively feels right. I know some people agree and circumvent this by adding their real rating in their written review

2. There are missing some major TV show entries like “The Bear”. I believe this is somewhat intentional since they’re trying to stick to films, but there are plenty of K-dramas and a few one-off TV shows in their catalog.

Otherwise, I love it and I think it’ll save me a lot of time. This past year has been slow for my movie consumption so far, but it’s always an ebb and flow.

More movie reviews to come.

- chris

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The design of my maker’s mark originates from a combination of my initials but, more crucially, a cat nose and mouth.

Before creating my maker’s mark, I would use a potter’s needle to etch my signature to the bottom of a freshly trimmed pot. It’s an inconsistent process to say the least, especially since I have been using a tan speck clay body with a lot of grog(wikipedia: “a raw material usually made from crushed and ground potsherds… used in pottery and sculpture to add a gritty, rustic texture…”).

Honestly, I have little interest in 3D printing as its own, standalone hobby. But as a means to an end for another hobby? My local library has a 3D printer that’s free to use and has classes on how to operate it.

I made the design in inkscape, exported/converted to .STL, brought it into a CAD web app, tinkerCAD, and finished designing the stamp there. Printing at the library took no more than 30 minutes per stamp, and I left with 3 variations.

And I love how they came out. Opting for the pink filament has gotten the stamps a few comparisons to the breast cancer ribbon, which I find doubly neat. In application, they look consistent, which is all I can hope for. My ultimate goal with pottery has been to be able to throw near-identical, functional pieces, and creating my maker’s mark stamp has felt like a small win for the consistency.

Thanks for reading. More pottery updates to come

- chris

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I seldom share full entries, as they feel deeply personal and oftentimes overly edgy; they contain rage-induced rants and unfair examinations of my surroundings. For stretches of the past 10 years, I’ve spent a lot of it in my own head, and my entries (too clearly) reflect that.

Lately, though, things have been better. I’ve always been a glutton for consuming media, hence the draft name of the substack, “in a movie theater”. Always admiring other people’s work, late nights studying were often spent dreaming of what I could one day create. Given those days have been behind me for the better part of a year, I’ve been trying to hold myself accountable to more actively pursue my hobbies.

I’m not kidding myself with desires to create something culturally impactful at scale. Instead, it’s the small daily/weekly habits that have been keeping me moving. Learning small tidbits of information I’m passingly curious about is generally enough for me.

All this to say, I can’t wait to share some of the hobbies I’ve been exploring, content I’ve been watching, and notes I’ve been taking.

see you online,

- chib

I Found a Love

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