Yuren's Blog - Life

The Afterstory of Pressing the Shutter

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I recently picked up a Kodak half-frame toy film camera on a whim, and when the developed photos came back, the memories they carried were startlingly vivid. Moments I’d completely forgotten returned to me. The two frames side by side like panels of a comic strip, each pair telling its own little story, pulling me back to the very instant I pressed the shutter.

Digital cameras and phones always capture the “now.” What you see is what you get, and you can check the photo immediately. But in that moment, it isn’t yet a memory. Only when you revisit those photos after some time has passed does the “now” have a chance to settle into something you’d call a memory. And in the age of social media, not every photo gets that chance.

Film photography, on the other hand, never has a “now.” The image imprinted on the film when you press the shutter stays hidden until the entire roll is shot and developed. In the meantime, those moments gradually fade. Yet some of them are quietly sorted through in dreams, brewing and fermenting. When the developed photos finally arrive, what you thought you’d forgotten comes rushing back from some deep corner of your mind, warmer and more vivid than you ever imagined at the time.

Film photography never has a “now.” It is always something brewed and fermented by time. By the moment it first takes shape, it has already become a beautiful memory.

Mount Fuji and the Sunset

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In Arrivals Hall, the author mentions that the key to transforming from a foreigner to a local is to stop constantly comparing everything to your homeland—which food tastes better, how clean the streets are, the different smell of the air. Having never lived as an outsider before, I recently found myself revisiting earth science because of Mount Fuji.

There aren’t many tall buildings near my residence, so visibility is excellent on clear days. One autumn day last year, I noticed for the first time that I could see Mount Fuji from the corridor outside my home. The reason I hadn’t noticed before was due to the climate—only during autumn and winter does the air become clear enough to see that far. Since that day, stepping out each morning feels like spinning a capsule toy machine, occasionally revealing Mount Fuji in the distance.

Even more surprising than the capsule toy excitement was discovering that the position of each day’s sunset was gradually moving closer to Mount Fuji. This reminded me of earth science class—the Earth’s axial tilt causes the sunset position to shift daily. With Mount Fuji as a reference point, this change becomes even more apparent.

Doesn’t that mean there’s a day when the setting sun aligns perfectly with the summit of Mount Fuji? A quick search revealed that this phenomenon has a special name: “Diamond Fuji.”

The weather isn’t perfect every day, but observing the sunset’s gradual shift is genuinely exciting—something not easily experienced in Taiwan. Like the sense of seasons, higher latitude countries have more distinct seasonal divisions, making the trajectory of sunsets more pronounced. But it’s not all good. The recent weather forecast said clear skies, yet at noon under a cloudless sky, the temperature was just 4 degrees Celsius.

In autumn, I could leisurely sit at an outdoor table sipping hot tea and reading. In winter, the wind blows so hard it gives me a headache. The direction of my apartment’s floor-to-ceiling windows happens to not catch any sunlight. One day, I discovered that the glass curtain wall of a distant building reflects sunlight into my room. I moved my hands and feet toward that patch of light, desperately absorbing what little reflected warmth I could.

This, too, is what it means to be a foreigner—unable to shake the habit of constantly comparing things to home, at least for now.

But recently, while flipping through old photos, I found one of sunrise over Taipei 101.

It was taken on a sleepless early morning in Taiwan, shortly after moving into a new home and still adjusting. That restlessness turned into an unexpected gift—a beautiful sunrise. Thinking back, I had also wondered then whether the sunrise would inch closer to Taipei 101 day by day. As I continued scrolling through photos, I realized that sunrises and sunsets have always captivated me. My album is filled with golden hours from different countries—from Greece to Turkey, from desert to ocean.

Whether foreigner or local, identity doesn’t have to be so binary. Like all those golden hour photos, each image is a slice that constructs the self. A person’s sense of identity isn’t formed merely by comparing two moments in time, but by layering memories and emotions from each slice together, weaving them into a story that is complete yet still unfolding.

Looking back, when I eagerly awaited the spectacle of Diamond Fuji, those two days turned out to be overcast. The photos I managed to capture before and after landed just to the left and right of the peak.

Even having missed it, this experience, this amusing anecdote, and this connection to my past life—all of it is worth pressing the shutter to preserve. Along with other precious memories, they’re filed away in the album, breaking free from the stark divide between foreigner and local, weaving together a perspective uniquely my own—one unconfined by existing boundaries.

Let these beautiful slices of context layer upon one another, building up to form the one-of-a-kind person I am today.

Language as the Scissors of Concepts

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

While learning Japanese recently, I noticed a fascinating difference between languages. The Japanese word “tsume” (爪) refers to both animal claws and human fingernails. In Chinese, however, these are separate concepts that cannot be conflated—a claw is a claw, and a fingernail is a fingernail.

This resonates with Saussure’s idea that “language carves up concepts.” Before language existed, concepts were a chaotic mass. When pointing at a person, the gesture might indicate a human, a woman, a sister, or a mother. These blurry boundaries only became clear once language emerged. The role of “older sister” finally gained a distinct definition.

But how roles and concepts get divided varies across languages. English uses “Sister” to describe a female relative sharing the same parents, while Chinese splits this into “jiějie” (older sister) and “mèimei” (younger sister). And the moment these words came into being, culture was born with them. Because seniority matters, distinctions exist.

If language is a pair of scissors, then concepts are the fabric. The different shapes cut by different scissors—that is culture.

By observing how language cuts through concepts, we can see what a particular culture values. Japanese has carved out the word “komorebi” (木漏れ日), the dappled sunlight filtering through leaves. In autumn and winter, the street in front of the station near my home is lined with ginkgo trees. After lunch, I often take walks along this street. Sitting beneath the amber-yellow ginkgos, I can feel the sunlight streaming through gaps in the leaves, hear the rustling whisper of leaves brushing against each other, and savor the lingering warmth of the winter sun in the crisp cold air.

Across the street stands a row of cherry trees. At the tail end of spring, walking down this street reveals what the Japanese call “sakura fubuki” (桜吹雪): a storm of cherry blossoms swirling like snow. Walking along, petals occasionally brush gently against my face. When cars pass by, they stir up swirling pink vortexes. Both embody the imagery this word evokes.

Yet the most fascinating thing about being human is the ability to encounter different cultures. After slowly chewing and digesting them over time, we can try to find our own place. Language is just a pair of scissors; culture is merely the cut fabric. But ultimately, a tailor is needed—someone to fashion the garments. Originally, we each possessed only one pair of scissors. But after exploring this world long enough, we accumulate more tools and materials. Yet when caught up in the busyness of daily life, we can only solve the problems right in front of us, making it hard to notice other options.

Only after pausing to reflect do we gradually discover which parts of our native culture we love and which we dislike. Only then do we have the chance to step back and survey the various fabrics we actually possess, alongside a dazzling array of needles, threads, and scissors.

It’s time to become our own tailor, stitching together a version of ourselves that we can truly love.

Wabi-Sabi in the Death of a Project

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

My account was removed from the previous project’s organization. An era has ended, but it also marks the beginning of another chapter.

I’ve been reading a book about wabi-sabi lately (perhaps not the interior design style you might imagine). One passage discussed observing the creation and dissolution of things, attempting to appreciate the beauty in these transitions. The example given was of ancient travelers who would cut rushes and bind them together to shelter for a night in the wilderness. The next morning, they would untie the ropes holding their temporary refuge, and the camp would simply dissolve back into the wild.

The rushes scattered in a circle on the wilderness floor would gradually be carried away by the wind, consumed and decomposed by bacteria in the soil. This kind of beauty is wabi-sabi—the essence of “death and rebirth.”

When the rushes were cut by the traveler, their life as plants ended, yet they were reborn as a new form: a shelter. The next day, once the ropes were untied, the camp disintegrated again, and eventually all those remnants would become the foundation for something new.

Life is the same way. When something ends, its traces slowly fade. But the nutrients left behind after decay always nourish the sprouting of something else. If you can appreciate this kind of transition, that too is a form of wabi-sabi.

Between Seasons

Sun, 16 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

“What are your impressions of your time in Tokyo?”

Several friends have asked me this question at different times—when I first arrived, after a few months, and even recently. The question surfaces now and then, and I often ask myself too. This question (and its answer) is like the sound of waves I once heard at a pebble beach on Taiwan’s east coast: waves rolling in one after another, and as they retreat, white foam sweeps up small smooth stones, their tumbling creating a flowing rhythm.

“The sense of seasons, I’d say.”

In my time in Japan, the passage of time leaves visible traces. The changing of the four seasons manifests in different ways, leaving marks of varying density, like tree rings.

In spring, cherry trees line both sides of the road near my home. A small truck speeds by, stirring up a flurry of pink petals. During the sweltering summer when hydrangeas bloom everywhere, I joined a festival carrying a portable shrine, shoulders covered in sweat. My shoulders still ache with faint bruises when the cicadas gradually fall silent, and the faucets in department store restrooms begin dispensing warm water instead of cold.

The distant view I never noticed when looking out from my apartment entrance—Mount Fuji occasionally emerges through the autumn clouds, revealing itself.

These past few days at Nansho-so in Morioka, the crimson maple leaves against the Japanese architecture seem to pause time itself. My hands and feet begin to feel the cold of the season, and when sunlight slants through the windows, I unconsciously stretch my limbs toward its warmth.

In my days in Japan, the sense of seasons washes over me like the rhythm of rolling waves. If I carefully fold, write down, and preserve these memories, they will eventually become my own tree rings, recording the traces of life lived on this land.

Writing as a Belated Understanding

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

A few months ago, I discussed with a friend the subtle differences between writing by hand and typing on a keyboard. Since then, I’ve gradually returned to using notebooks and pens for taking notes. I don’t even have the feeling of “reclaiming” handwriting because I never really started. Since getting my first laptop in high school, I’ve barely done any extensive handwriting.

This reminded me of an evening several years ago when I was driving my mother and several aunties who raised me back to their hotel after dinner. They had been with me throughout my childhood, so our conversation naturally drifted back to those early years. Before I started school, I spoke Taiwanese fluently—the native language spoken by the majority of Taiwanese people. But once I entered elementary school, the educational environment heavily favored Mandarin Chinese, which had become Taiwan’s official language after 1949. Whether due to the school system or because my classmates primarily used Mandarin, my Taiwanese gradually deteriorated.

“Are you a mainlander’s kid?” a relative who only spoke Taiwanese would often joke with me. This “joke” gradually spread among the family. In Taiwan, “mainlander” (外省人) refers to those who migrated from China around 1949 and their descendants—a group historically associated with Mandarin dominance and, in some contexts, a different cultural identity from native Taiwanese. To be mistaken for one while being ethnically Taiwanese carried subtle social implications. She meant no harm and was just joking, but over time I became increasingly reluctant to speak Taiwanese, and even avoided visiting that relative’s home because within a few exchanges, there it was again: “mainlander’s kid.”

From that point on, my Taiwanese never improved.

Of course, my English wasn’t much better either. Fortunately, as I grew older, I had a tutor who made learning interesting, and eventually my English reached a level where I could at least communicate. This made me realize that languages can actually be learned. Now I’ve started learning Japanese again—it’s difficult, but I feel like I’m slowly making progress.

Besides my poor Taiwanese, another thing that was frequently mentioned was my “terrible handwriting.” So after getting my first personal laptop in high school, I subconsciously avoided handwriting altogether. From then on began a two-to-three-decade life of typing out all kinds of notes and articles on keyboards. Typing has become an internalized way of thinking—a method of dialogue with myself that unfolds gradually with consciousness.

But after years of research into note-taking and writing, many people have mentioned the impact of handwriting with pen and paper on thinking. This is why I’ve reconsidered using pen and paper again.

Eventually, I bought a new toy—an e-ink notebook, a product that bridges the digital and the handwritten.

After trying to write daily journals with it for a few weeks, my journal entries have grown longer and longer, as if decades of unwritten weight has slowly seeped in. Of course, I’m someone whose enthusiasm burns bright and fast—whether I can sustain this practice requires long-term observation.

But at least right now, I’m enjoying the feeling of “reclaiming” writing. The continuous flow of handwriting does allow thoughts to be chewed over, organized, and brewed between the lines—different from the rhythmic, punctuated sensation of typing on a keyboard, yet both are different ways of thinking.

Looking back, when I was young, I couldn’t find a way to resist. It seemed that “refusal” was the only way out—refusing to write, refusing to speak Taiwanese.

But now that I’m older, I understand it’s not a zero-sum game, not the kind of confrontational relationship where one must lose for another to win. Instead, I can find an angle that suits me, positioning myself uniquely among various strengths and weaknesses.

Even though my handwriting is still messy, there are traces of thought between these strokes, which later transform into interesting ideas. In the end, this allows my older self to dissolve the confused emotions of childhood.

And perhaps one day I can also reclaim Taiwanese. I hope when that day comes, it won’t be for anyone’s criticism or praise, but simply for myself.

The Ōkuchi-no-Magami of Mount Mitake

Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

The innkeeper at Mount Mitake was a talkative woman who, during every meal, enthusiastically shared all sorts of things about the mountain—the exceptional quality of the water, how you could see Tokyo Bay and Kawasaki from the room, how adorable her Shiba Inu was, and so on.

I tried my best to understand her stories with my limited Japanese vocabulary, and realized that communication and language are two different skills. With just a handful of English words, plenty of Japanese, and a lot of gestures, she somehow managed to get about seventy or eighty percent of her message across to me.

The reason I came to spend a night at Mount Mitake was a fortunate coincidence—I had recently learned about the Orionid meteor shower. Lately, I’d had many interesting encounters related to the night sky, so I started looking for a place to watch the meteor shower. The peak viewing date was October 21st, but the weather forecast predicted clouds. I remembered visiting Mitake Valley before to scout bouldering spots and thought that Mount Mitake, with its minimal light pollution, would be a perfect place for stargazing. So I came up on a date that was still some distance from the optimal viewing day.

Of course, I didn’t see the meteor shower (laughs).

The closest I got was when I was adjusting my tripod to photograph the crescent moon. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a bright streak cutting across the sky. Startled, I thought back on it but couldn’t even be sure whether it was really a meteor. Every time I’ve had a chance to see shooting stars in my life, it’s always been like this—just barely catching a glimpse. It seemed this time wasn’t my lucky day either.

But I did have a sky full of stars. I moved the sofa next to the window and lay there gazing up at Orion until drowsiness crept in. I dozed off and woke several times before slowly crawling back to bed.

The next morning at breakfast, the innkeeper brought out a framed picture—six wolves rendered in ink-wash style. She explained it in great detail in Japanese, and all I caught was the word “Nintendo” appearing in the conversation. As I listened to her explain to the guest in the next room, I looked it up.

So wolves are called “Ōkami.”

Isn’t that the Japanese title of Capcom’s Ōkami game?¹ Gradually, I picked up on a few more keywords. Deer and boar eat the crops that farmers grow, but wolves eat these pests that trouble farmers. That’s why wolves are worshipped as deities in this region, and the “Ōkuchi-no-Magami” enshrined at Mitake Shrine is the divine incarnation of the wolf.

That’s why so many people bring their pet dogs (both are canines) to Mount Mitake to pray for their pets’ health.

Later, I looked at several more wolf-related artworks in the inn. They really had the feel of Ōkami.

These kinds of coincidences are truly fascinating.

These memories originally just sat scattered in my mind, but certain things that feel especially novel or significant are like particularly bright stars in the night sky, so I give those stars names. And as interesting memories accumulate more and more, sometimes they unexpectedly connect with each other, and the connected stars become a constellation.

It’s just that everyone has their own personal Orion. Even without meteors, that’s pretty wonderful.

I later researched and found that Ōkami appears to draw from a broad range of wolf-related mythology rather than specifically referencing Mount Mitake’s legends, but it’s still delightful to connect memories that I find interesting. Those six paintings were the work of Akira Himekawa (姫川明輝), who is responsible for the official manga adaptations of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda. ↩

A Frame on the Wall, Marked Out with Masking Tape

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a while since I outlined a frame on the wall with masking tape.

Lately, I’ve been listening to “Fujiyama” from the Jazz Impressions of Japan album most mornings. The quiet, flowing melody is perfect for those moments just after waking, when I’m still trying to make sense of dream fragments—brewing coffee, letting the aroma and music gradually ease me into a state where I can gather my thoughts.

Sitting on the couch, I look up and there it is: the frame.

I’ve been thinking about what to fill it with. Something that connects with me, I thought. Recently, I came across a postcard at a café advertising a small exhibition in Kichijoji and went to check it out, but didn’t find anything that felt right. Truth is, I don’t really know what would fit. Perhaps it’s impossible to decide until something is actually hanging there.

Then September arrived, and I was reminded by a past note to myself in the calendar: go see the solo exhibition at Seizan Gallery in Ginza.

Not long after arriving in Japan, I visited the SOMPO Museum to see Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, only to stumble upon a work by artist Yusuke Ishigami called The Day I Saw the Stars. It transported me back to a childhood memory—seeing thousands of fireflies flickering like a shimmering galaxy in the night. The impression was so vivid that I shared the experience on the ArtSticker website, and that’s when I learned about Ishigami’s September solo show.

At the gallery, I was lucky enough to meet Yusuke Ishigami himself. I was surprised and delighted that he still remembered my comment. Having the chance to speak directly with an artist is truly precious. What an artist wishes to convey through their work is received in different forms depending on the viewer’s own experiences. More often than not, a painting awakens the viewer’s own memories or thoughts. The Day I Saw the Stars depicts a scene of lying in a car watching a meteor shower, yet it carried me across time to a childhood memory—of my brother and me seeing countless fireflies like a river of stars.

The scene created by the artist and the memories evoked in the viewer overlap and blend like dream images, forming a unique viewing experience within the space of the exhibition. What’s fascinating is that when you exchange these thoughts with the artist, the different perspectives on a single thing might become seeds for future creations in each of our lives.

As for that frame on the wall—it eventually found its proper form. The blurred points of light in the night resemble the scene I saw as a child, but the distant mountain ridge illuminated in the dark, the elongated trails of red taillights—these fragments absent from my memory merge together in a way that’s both surreal and strangely fitting, just like a dream.

It’s like a window. But what you see through it is a dreamscape connected across time and space. The child I was, the adult I’ve become, and all the people and things I’ve encountered—woven together in this dream.

This is the painting Palace of Memories (Shimmering Atmosphere), by artist Yusuke Ishigami.

Nectar Coffee

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As we drive through the Hsuehshan Tunnel toward Toucheng, we always talk about the small things in life. Sometimes we discuss how the light slants through the window and illuminates the rattan chair, sometimes we talk about the podcast by the flower shop owner in Yilan, and sometimes we discuss trivial matters that seem to trouble only us in the entire world.

Usually, before we reach any conclusions, we’ve already taken the elevator to the top floor, greeted the owner Natalie, and pulled out chairs to sit down at Nectar Coffee. The conversation isn’t over yet, but now we’re agonizing over what coffee to order today—whether those ten circles on that limited edition coffee we both wanted have already been filled with other customers’ names, or whether we can secretly delight in signing our name in the last remaining circle.

The conversation continues. The owner joins the discussion, steering it in even more open-ended directions while serving coffee so delicious it makes our eyes widen and leaves us speechless. And so the topics branch out and continue right up until the moment before we head home.

Since there are never any answers, Nectar Coffee, which initially seemed like our destination, always becomes part of the journey instead.

Last month when I visited Nectar Coffee, I told Natalie that I’d be going to Tokyo for work. After her surprise, we exchanged many thoughts about life. Life is fluid, a series of choices with no right or wrong answers. Every decision we make at each crossroads offers no chance to start over. Rather than dwelling on regret and remorse, it’s better to accept that no one has the omniscient eye to see through every possible outcome at every fork in the road. Tell yourself that in that moment, you made the best decision you could.

All that’s left is to learn to appreciate the scenery along the journey.

Recently, Nectar Coffee posted an announcement. The last day of business would be in one week. I’m happy that Natalie has announced her own decision, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent in this rooftop café. We tried singing bowls together, discussed the musicality and colors in the taste of coffee, watched a friend grimace through a video conference while drinking on the balcony with its spectacular view of Turtle Mountain Island, I envied my friend pressing the shutter of their GR film camera here, and we talked about the emotions stirred by Perfect Days.

At first, as we drove through the Hsuehshan Tunnel, Nectar always felt like a destination, but it was never just that. When we waved goodbye at dusk, it had already transformed from a destination into a beautiful journey that my friends and I would treasure.

When I walked into a café in Kichijoji and received a stamp card with circles drawn on it, I couldn’t help but smile. I understood then that in this moment, Nectar Coffee had embarked on a new journey together with me.

The Pale Blue Night Sky at SOMPO Museum

Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Today I visited the SOMPO Museum to see Vase with Fourteen Sunflowers, the only painting from Van Gogh’s sunflower series in Asia. But unexpectedly, I discovered another work by artist Yusuke Ishigami related to the night sky, which brought back memories from my childhood.

The first was from a summer camp I attended as a child. One day, our group stayed overnight at a school in the mountains. That night, there were only faint insect sounds, and it was strangely quiet. On the school’s side, there was no wind or clouds, yet in the distant night sky, lightning kept flashing. Like pressing the fast-forward button, the lightning instantly spread like a spider’s web, silver-white complex lines crisscrossing and filling the distant sky in a moment. I expected a thunderous roar to follow seconds later, but it never came from that faraway night sky.

And so, the lightning repeatedly flashed, intertwined, and disappeared in the distant night sky like a silent film, until I drifted into deep sleep.

The second memory is from when my brother and I were in Nantou as children. One night, we went flying squirrel hunting with our father’s hunter friends. As we ventured deeper into the mountains, it became pitch dark, and the hunters could no longer bring children along. The hunter uncle told us to wait there, and they would come back for us after the hunt was over.

We two children were left like that in a forest deep in the mountains. Looking back, it was truly reckless - this place had absolutely no artificial light sources - yet for some reason, we never felt afraid. At first, we were laughing and chatting, but after a while, both my brother and I fell silent, watching the forest slowly transform in the night.

Then, our surroundings gradually grew brighter. We were surrounded by thousands of fireflies. It was like being inside the Milky Way, with brilliant constellations descending around us. Even without atmospheric scattering, these stars flickered on and off like breathing, displaying vitality like celestial bodies. This scene was deeply etched into my heart, becoming a sight I could never forget for the rest of my life.

At the Ryuichi Sakamoto exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, there was a passage:

How many times will you remember a particular afternoon from your childhood, an afternoon that has become so deeply a part of your life that you cannot even imagine yourself without it?

These two experiences truly constitute who I am. In the decades since I’ve grown up, I occasionally recall these nights, and they have become the foundation of my being as a person. Perhaps this is why I’m drawn to various artworks related to the night sky. For instance, when I listen to Emilíana Torrini’s song “Nightfall,” I feel that humans are like shooting stars in the boundless starry sky, and meeting anyone while crossing that sky is a rare and precious connection.

So when I saw this painting, The Day We Saw the Stars, I was similarly drawn to the night sky, the shooting star, and the dreamlike transparency of the human figures.

Looking at this painting, “Nightfall” echoes in my heart. Just as the lyrics describe, life is merely a fleeting moment of brilliance. Like a shooting star crossing the night sky, gently carried by the light and shadows of twilight, flying through this brief and beautiful pale blue night sky.

If we should meet in the night sky by chance, then let us nod, smile, and greet each other.

Loyalty Cards and the Sense of Belonging

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Unlike the blackout curtains in my bedroom back home, lately when I wake up, I see light streaming through the gap between the curtain and the window. In my drowsy state, it gently reminds me that I’m no longer home. But there’s another side to this. It gives me a clearer sense of the day’s framework, like the sound of temple sweeping every morning in Perfect Days.

Recently, I’ve had several conversations with friends about the sense of belonging. We talked about how, when you love a place, you no longer need to compare it with your hometown or anywhere else—when you simply love it, that’s a kind of belonging. But this realization often only emerges after you’ve become a local. So what about those who’ve just arrived in a foreign land? How does an outsider begin to fit in?

I think it still has to start with sorting trash. Understanding the boundary between burnable and non-burnable waste, distinguishing between PET bottles and “recyclable plastic packaging and containers.” After carefully studying the instructions, I suddenly got it, and that made me genuinely happy—perhaps that was the first step toward fitting in.

A few nights ago, I returned to Kichijoji and remembered the café my friend had recommended. I’d had coffee there before dinner once, and I really liked the atmosphere. Last time I visited, there was an elderly couple with their pet dog, enjoying coffee together. At dusk, people outside the window were strolling leisurely down the street. The shop sold coffee beans and café-branded clothing with “Light Up” printed on them. I could see why everyone loves Kichijoji.

Lost in these thoughts, the sky had darkened, and the streetlights were coming on. I checked my watch—half an hour until closing. I decided to get a coffee to go.

When I ordered, the staff suddenly asked me something. I didn’t catch the key word, so I just said “hai.” Then he pulled out a small card and carefully wrote the coffee type and date in the first box. It was a loyalty card.

Perhaps loyalty cards also represent a step toward fitting in. It suggests that I might come here ten times for coffee, collecting stamps until I earn a discount, and that discount would be like a badge celebrating my deeper connection with this community.

How many loyalty cards does it take to create a sense of belonging? Maybe one morning, when I see the sunlight streaming through the curtain and hear the sweeping sounds, and I no longer think about how well the curtains at home block out the light—that’s when I’ll be able to extend the feeling of home to another city.

The Questions Within Perfect Answers—Between The Garden of Words and Perfect Days

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Today, while talking with Chialin, I realized why I’m drawn to Makoto Shinkai’s work before The Garden of Words. Perhaps it’s because during that period, he tried to express something delicate, something most people barely notice—like the subtle emotions we felt as children. At the time, we couldn’t fully understand them, and even now as adults, when we occasionally recall those moments, we find ourselves still trapped in those childhood scenes.

In The Garden of Words, a young man falls for someone older than him. In 5 Centimeters per Second, an elementary school student is separated from someone he’s drawn to before understanding his own feelings, moved to a distant place beyond his imagination. In The Place Promised in Our Early Days, after making a promise, all contact is lost until adulthood.

Looking back as adults, we might smile at these memories of our awkward youth. But to our younger selves, these were completely incomprehensible, and the feelings and struggles in our hearts were the most profound memories of that time in our lives.

While organizing my articles these past few days, I came across a comment about my former self:

This time I finally made up my mind to organize all my articles from Blogger and Medium. Just like a physical move, the process is always messy and painful. But when I pick up something I wrote carelessly over a decade ago, I hate that naive self, while simultaneously envying him for being so carefree.

Truth be told, some of the questions from my childhood still remain unanswered. When they occasionally come to mind, I don’t know what emotions to feel.

Shinkai’s early films feel like he took the profound impact and confusion of childhood, let them settle over the years, and then conveyed them again through cinema. And those who remain confused are drawn to and moved by such delicate sentiments.

Perfect Days, on the other hand, represents a different kind of feeling. It’s more like after years of refined contemplation, through the repeated ritual of daily life, discovering that ordinary, monotonous yet unutterably beautiful path. Walking along that trail, rediscovering the beautiful things in life. Even when memories of the past bring tears, once you return to that cyclical daily routine, you can lift your spirits and continue noticing those beautiful parts of everyday life.

Shinkai’s confusion and Wim Wenders’ conviction form an interesting contrast. The former is trapped in childhood emotions, and in situations beyond explanation, projects the audience into the imagined world he’s constructed through scene descriptions that transcend detail, sharing his confusion. Wenders, meanwhile, firmly presents his own answers while simultaneously revealing his own uncertainties.

Whether questions or answers, both are forms of exploration. They’ve each walked far enough along their own path of answers. I, too, often answer my own questions. Every time I make a decision, I never know if that choice is good or bad.

In the end, perhaps there’s no such thing as good or bad. It’s simply a path that keeps moving forward. Between questions and answers, we redefine ourselves again and again, carefully polishing and carving ourselves into the shape we want to become.

Dreams, Daydreams, and Unresolved Matters

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

There’s a theory that dreams are byproducts of memory consolidation. When we fall into deep sleep, the various experiences of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure from the day are sorted and filed away in our brain. Some of these newly formed memories are stored into long-term memory, and the dust stirred up during this process forms our dreams.

On the other hand, during those moments of spacing out while awake, my thoughts occasionally drift away. For instance, when I sit in the unlit living room after waking up in the morning, watching the slanting sunlight cast on the curtains, I recall the awkward emotions from yesterday’s conversation. Or during the thirty-second wait for coffee to bloom, I remember a convenience store clerk’s thoughtful gesture.

In The Poetics of Space, this drifting of thoughts while awake is called “daydream.” This process clarifies my thoughts and unconsciously determines how I should act next time. These seemingly random drifts, when examined closely, are all about things I can’t quite articulate but deeply care about.

Dreams and daydreams form a cyclical process. Nighttime dreams arise from the brain organizing memories, while daytime daydreams lead to a reorganization of values. These reorganized values might then become new material for nighttime dreams.

Through this repeated folding and storing of memories, a self-prophetic book of answers takes shape. It can’t be casually flipped through, but when various things happen in the future, the heart quickly turns to the page describing the appropriate emotional response to that event, allowing me to feel happy when it’s time to be happy, and sad when it’s time to be sad.

Revising this book isn’t easy. But by frequently reflecting on ourselves and detaching to observe our emotional reactions and reflexive behaviors through writing or other means, we can gradually come to understand our impulsive actions and groundless sadness. We pat ourselves on the shoulder and find the right moment to reconcile with ourselves.

2024 New Year Card

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, I received a New Year card from a friend. Holding it at year’s end brings a sense that everything from this year has gently settled, worthy of revisiting—though I’d like to turn back a bit further, starting from the year before last.

2022 marked a significant turning point for me. Exhausted in both body and spirit, I left the workplace, only to return this year. Over these two years, I’ve spent much time asking myself and friends what they truly “love.” That “something” takes many forms—it could be work, a living space, a hobby like painting, or devotion to children.

This reflects my own inner confusion: What do I really love, and what do I want? From work to various hobbies and skills I’ve mastered, being good at something doesn’t mean I love it, and vice versa. And loving something doesn’t guarantee I can sustain it long-term. Love, aptitude, and sustainability—these combinations always confound us.

Throughout these years, what I’ve done most is explore and set life goals to achieve. One of them was walking the Kumano Kodō. I had visited this ancient pilgrimage route five years ago, but on the second day, I got lost and ended up taking a ride from the guesthouse owner straight to the destination. It became a lingering regret.

In 2023, I returned to the Kumano Kodō with friends. We chased cherry blossoms at season’s end, experiencing together what remained unfinished from before. We visited the cafe owner who sheltered me in the heavy rain, took photos with the guesthouse’s pet sheep, and enjoyed the packed lunch the owner prepared for us along the trail.

When we finally reached Kumano Hongū Taisha, I thought I’d be moved to tears. But I wasn’t. The moment I checked off an item on my life’s bucket list, what I felt was a calm yet lingering complexity—joy tinged with bewilderment. But I’m grateful to have accomplished this with like-minded friends. Without reaching Kumano Hongū Taisha together, I would never have experienced this intricately woven emotion.

Through these years of various attempts, I feel I’m gradually getting to know who I am, like turning the pages of a novel. Except the protagonist is still on the journey. Even as some mysteries unravel, the ending remains unknown—much like the experience of staying at Kamikura-Hideaway. Travel, bouldering, even the random conversations at Ganlu Coffee in Toucheng—to me, they’re all forms of self-exploration.

As 2024 comes to a close, if I ask myself again: What kind of person am I, and what do I love? I still don’t have a simple answer. But I certainly understand myself better than I did two years ago.

Receiving this New Year card truly warmed my heart, and I’m genuinely happy for my friend. I know he has another project—designing his own T-shirts. Seeing this designed card that merges his interests makes me realize: we’re all on the path of seeking ourselves. That self’s outline is always blurry, but through creation and practice, we gradually move toward that ideal contour—whether by changing our future outline through experience, or by transforming our present selves to match our ideal outline.

And now, the new chapter of 2025 is about to begin. The next page remains blank. Perhaps there’s an outline in mind, perhaps not—but that won’t stop us from embarking on a new journey. Along the way, we might encounter earth-shattering waves, or simply appreciate the pale blue wildflowers by the roadside.

Either way, when we meet again in some city or village in the world, let’s share our stories once more.

Onomichi, a Café, and the Fireworks Festival

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

“I saw you walk past the café thirty minutes ago,” the owner said with a smile, wiping down the counter.

Before hearing these words, I had spent the previous week working at a co-working space in Okayama, and only caught a train to Onomichi on Friday for a small trip within my journey. On that sweltering summer afternoon, as I searched for a restaurant, I passed by this café and caught the scent of what promised to be a good coffee shop. Naturally, after lunch, I made my way there.

Sliding open the large wooden-framed glass door, I entered the small, exquisite café with four seats arranged shoulder to shoulder. At the entrance, coffee beans in pure white packages—distinguished by different colors marking their origins—were neatly displayed, adorning the space in the most unobtrusive way. Sitting inside felt peculiar: the openness from the large windows offset the narrowness of having only four seats and a counter area. Yet this arrangement of sitting side by side and face to face, much like Alone Together, made conversation an essential element of the café.

The owner’s English was quite good, and the customer next to me seemed to be a regular. The owner introduced him as another owner who sold draft beer in Onomichi. Tomorrow evening, during the fireworks festival, they would set up together in front of the café to sell draft beer and food. Understanding only a few Japanese words, I couldn’t follow much of their conversation—most of it translated by the café owner. But from their warm, friendly tone, I could sense they were close friends. This atmosphere of visiting each other’s shops and supporting one another when needed felt fascinating. Sitting nearby, trying to catch the few Japanese words I understood floating in the air (like “hanabi” for fireworks), I too felt a sense of participation in the preparations for the local festival.

Fireworks festivals are the brilliant sparks inevitably encountered when visiting Japan in summer. The shoulder-to-shoulder crowds aren’t exactly my preference, but the enthusiasm of the food stalls and everyone dressed in yukata create a summer atmosphere worth experiencing—one of the reasons I returned to Onomichi. However, since I planned to take the ropeway up to Senkoji Temple on the mountain tomorrow to watch the fireworks, quite a distance from this seaside café, I wasn’t sure I’d have a chance to come back for that draft beer. In any case, after a brief chat, I left.

“I’ll come again tomorrow,” I told the owner before leaving. Finding a café that suits you during travel is difficult. When such a café occasionally appears, it feels as precious as discovering an oasis in the desert.

To me, Japan is a place both familiar and distant. The impeccable service makes me feel warm and at home, yet from various aspects of society, I can sense that people maintain a certain distance from one another. This is especially true for someone like me who has just started learning Japanese. Solo travel amplifies this feeling further. The barriers of language and interpersonal relationships make the loneliness of travel feel like searching for the boundaries of oneself.

It sounds lonely, but I actually enjoy this feeling. Still, when a café like this appears during my journey—one that offers a chance to break through these barriers—it makes me happy. I love those moments in solo travel when just the right amount of connection unexpectedly emerges.

The next day, while the morning temperature was still pleasant for walking, I returned to the same café for coffee.

“Can I talk to you?” the customer next to me asked in simple English. He turned out to be an emergency room doctor. It was his day off, and he had just returned to Onomichi from watching fireworks in Osaka. He told me the Osaka fireworks festival was extremely crowded and warned that Onomichi’s would be just as packed. Like me, he had stopped by the café in the morning to fill his thermos with energy (coffee) before heading to help at his father-in-law’s clinic. We were alike—both wanting to start the day with a good cup of coffee.

This café felt like a gathering place for locals. Besides travelers like myself, regulars continuously dropped by. I loved these moments during travel when you meet different people and can share life’s small moments together in the same time and space.

After the doctor left, the owner told me he was studying English and actively looking for opportunities to practice conversation. I mentioned that as someone who had just started learning Japanese a few weeks ago, I truly understood the difficulty of learning a new language. The owner had a quality that made casual conversation flow easily, and before I knew it, we had gone from discussing language learning to the importance of “failure” in life. I shared my experiences working at various startups, and he mentioned his previous coffee roasting business. I was surprised we could discuss such deep topics in English. Through this exchange, I felt myself gradually building a deeper connection with Onomichi and its people, evolving from just another tourist.

Before leaving the café, the owner said he had reserved a few spots along the embankment near the café where you could see the fireworks. If I couldn’t find a suitable place at Senkoji Temple on the mountain, I was welcome to watch from his reserved spot. I was touched. To him, I was just a customer he had met twice, yet he was willing to save a spot for me. I cherished this opportunity to build connections with locals.

That evening, amid crowds comparable to those watching Taipei 101’s New Year’s fireworks, I spotted the café owner from afar preparing dumpling dishes, along with the draft beer owner I’d met the day before. I waved to them.

A book that accompanied me on this trip, Arrival Hall, offers a remarkably apt description of home. The author writes that home is a place with layers of safety nets, ready to catch you from any predicament, while people in foreign lands must expend enormous energy to solve even the smallest problems.

Onomichi is not my home, and naturally lacks those familiar safety nets. But after participating in Onomichi’s fireworks festival this time, these connections with locals did gradually shift how I felt about this place.

The café owner selling dumplings at the fireworks festival, the regular who sells draft beer whom I met yesterday, the emergency room doctor rushing from Osaka to the clinic—through conversations and connections with these people, I seemed to gradually blend into this place, feeling the depth created by Onomichi and the people living here.

And as the fireworks bloomed in Onomichi’s midsummer night sky, everyone involuntarily opened their mouths wide, gasping in wonder. As we shared this same brilliance in the same time and space, through these connections made during my journey, I gained my own sense of familiarity with Onomichi.

Like traveling alone through space and occasionally encountering another starship—at the moment when our orbits are closest, it seems through the round observation window, you can see someone on the other side, face pressed against the glass, happily waving at you.

Hello, thank you, see you next time.

Boundaries: The Balance Between Rules and Innovation

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Have you ever encountered a task that seemed simple at first but turned out to be endless once you dove in? This happens frequently in both work and life. “I want to get rid of some clothes,” “Let me add a new feature,” “I want to go on a trip.” These seemingly simple requests or wishes often expand into unimaginable beasts.

After consuming more information about focus and thought organization, I’ve gradually clarified the importance of boundaries.

When you encounter something vague and unclear, you can establish boundaries to make things clear and even measurable. When you face a scenario that requires more divergent thinking, try to break boundaries to expand your thinking and connections.

“Rope” and “stick” are the two earliest tools used by humans. Rope can pull good things closer, and the stick can drive away bad things. These two are humanity’s best friends, born from human hands. Where there are people, there are ropes and sticks.

— Kobo Abe’s “The Rope” (quoted from Death Stranding)

Defining the Beginning and End of a Task

“I want to get rid of some clothes.” It sounds like a simple wish, but how do you do it? How many should you discard? When should you do it? How do you handle the old clothes? Just wishing creates all kinds of big and small problems. Many people get a headache just thinking about it and then give up.

Establishing boundaries can help. For various work items filled with uncertainty, you can establish boundaries for the beginning and end.

End: Specifically, after completing this task, what state will I (or the product) be in? In what state can I say this task is complete?
Beginning: If I want to start this task, what is the first thing to do?

This is from Getting Things Done (GTD) — the first thing to do when analyzing work items.

With an end state, you have a clear imagination of the future state you’ll be in, and based on this state, perhaps you don’t need to do what you originally thought you’d do (like getting rid of clothes) — there might be other ways to achieve it.

And with a beginning, your brain becomes aware that this can be started now, rather than overthinking until it seems too difficult and ultimately giving up.

For the task “I want to get rid of clothes,” I defined it this way:

End: Don’t feel a psychological burden when looking at the wardrobe, reduce the quantity, and select clothes that can be worn in multiple occasions
Beginning: Define the clothes needed for several common occasions

Although the end state isn’t yet crystal clear, it’s enough to let me know which direction to move toward. And defining the beginning allows me to start acting now. With a beginning and an end, things look more achievable. If you discover you want to do more, there’s no need to rush to complete it within this task scope — create a new work item and prevent the original goal from expanding infinitely.

For example, after getting rid of clothes, you might realize you need to buy some new clothes that can match multiple occasions — that can be another task. Don’t let work goals keep inflating; shooting while walking makes it hard to aim and achieve. For instance, after getting rid of clothes, I created a new work item: buy several pairs of casual-looking cropped pants that also have the stretch and durability needed for rock climbing, so I can wear them in multiple settings to reduce choices.

Putting Hard-to-Estimate Work into Fixed-Sized Boxes

Do you remember what work items you did yesterday? Often during morning meetings, you need to answer this question. When working on a difficult task, even spending an entire day only pushes progress forward a little bit. When a progress report is needed, you might sheepishly say: “The XXX work I’m doing isn’t finished yet,” but actually, you tried many things.

Such progress reports usually struggle to show the progress of this work, but you actually tried many things — it’s just that these attempts don’t necessarily bring substantial advancement. For work that’s hard to describe like this, you can put it into Pomodoro Technique fixed-sized boxes.

Each Pomodoro unit is 25 minutes (or fifty minutes, depending on how you adjust it). After finishing, briefly record the progress of those twenty-five minutes in a few sentences, then take a five-minute break.

With this standardized box, for work that’s hard to estimate, no matter how difficult, you have a record every twenty-five minutes, and combining them creates the picture of your day. Results are important, but the process is equally important. When other team members learn your status from progress reports, they can not only understand that you’re trying multiple different solutions but hitting walls — they can also give you advice to solve problems together based on what you’ve tried.

When you actually complete the work, you can also look back and see exactly how many Pomodoros you spent. When estimating work in the future (including both easily estimated and hard-to-estimate work), you’ll also have a more concrete imagination of how much time you need to spend to complete it.

The Boundary of Ritual

Often we’re chased by work, seeming to be exhaustingly busy every day at work, but not knowing what we’re busy with. The boundaries created by rituals can also allow you to open and close each day with a more settled and stable mind within a controllable and regular boundary.

When working from home, my day usually starts with wiping the desk, then showering and making coffee. When I sit down at the computer desk, I’ve already made the state transition from life to work. This day-to-day regularity gives my mind and brain a signal, letting me know that the working day has begun. After fixing the shape of the day, this regularity can stabilize my mental and physical state.

And this leads to the theme of breaking boundaries.

The Width of Boundaries

When wiping the desk, showering, and making coffee, it seems like a ritual and boundary for switching to work, but just like the seemingly distinct coastline, when you zoom in closely, the boundary of the coastline is white spray, foam, and fine sand. This also means that boundaries don’t immediately switch from one state to another after crossing.

Boundaries have width.

When wiping the desk, things from yesterday’s work also vaguely appear in my mind. What did I do? Which tasks aren’t finished yet? Are there any miscellaneous matters not yet dealt with? Was there anything interesting yesterday? A friend once said that the blankness during showering is like a radio in your brain — you don’t know what music will play, but these various trivial matters will slowly play softly in your mind.

And in moments like this, you can break through the boundaries of your thinking.

“I suddenly realized that both Pomodoro Technique and GTD eliminate the uncertainty of work items through establishing boundaries!” Many times, these views that don’t seem very related pop up at unexpected moments, rather than when you’re racking your brain thinking hard.

This is also why leaving some blank space is important. Those times of showering, sitting alone on the balcony drinking coffee, and walking aren’t wasted — they integrate cross-domain organizational thinking through passive thought flow. When you’re diligently sprinting through a busy day, during rest time, why not temporarily stay away from social media, walk alone in the sunset, drink coffee, or talk with people? These moments that seem to have no work — your brain is still quietly working, providing nutrients for inspiration.

Boundaries have width, and when you’re in the blank zone of boundaries, it can take you to break through the boundaries of different work or thoughts, integrating things from different fields, or thinking of solutions you’ve never considered before.

And the five-minute break in Pomodoro is the same. Many people feel annoyed when they’re just getting into the flow and the twenty-five-minute reminder goes off. But these five minutes of rest won’t be wasted (as long as you don’t go on social media). When you get water or use the bathroom, your thoughts are actually still wandering, trying to catch those unclear little details in the air, leading you to the source of thinking. The results deduced by this subconscious divergent thinking often can’t be thought of when you’re concentrating on work.

After the five-minute break ends, you’ve stretched your body, gotten water, used the bathroom, and perhaps your brain has deduced new ideas, waiting for you to unfold them in the twenty-five-minute sprint.

Breaking Through Boundaries

For me, boundaries are a tool like rope, defining the scope of various things — between work and life, between people, etc. But when regular life internalizes everything, everything becomes taken for granted, and then it’s not easy to generate new ideas.

So appropriately breaking boundaries is also important.

As mentioned earlier, leaving some blank space is one way to break thought boundaries. Also, leaving time for non-daily activities is very helpful, such as traveling. Travel is a great opportunity to pull yourself into a completely different context. These fresh things can stimulate you and change your originally fixed ideas.

For example, before going to Japan, I had never bathed outdoors. But after doing it for the first time, I discovered that doing something originally very private in a natural environment is very relaxing. Bathing itself can relax the body and mind, but bathing in nature raises relaxation to another level. And this very imaginatively connected me to the Attention Restoration Theory I had read before, which describes why being in a natural environment helps restore depleted attention — connecting outdoor bathing with attention restoration theory.

At the same time, I empathized with why exhibitionists want to do that and thought about the difference between outdoor bathing and exhibitionism. I think outdoor bathing is when the inn provides a safe environment that lets us do it with peace of mind, while exhibitionists heighten their stimulation through unsafety, and stimulation isn’t what outdoor bathing pursues. Also, exhibitionists build their pleasure on others’ fear, but outdoor bathing doesn’t.

These interesting leaping thoughts are hard to break through in a regular daily routine, so getting thought stimulation from travel is also very important.

Talking with people is another way to break through boundaries. When others tell you information you don’t know, it can always open your eyes, but when you express your thoughts, it’s also a way to reorganize your own thinking. From the exchange of information between both parties and immediately reorganized thinking, new ideas can always be sparked.

This is also why casual chat is so important. Because casual chat itself has the quality of no clear purpose, which can instead better promote the exchange of various different ideas. This is also why the office pantry is important — because it’s a hub for casual chat. When communication has a premise, thinking may not be able to proceed so freely. For example, video conferences almost always have a specific purpose before they can unfold, so the value they provide is very different from casual chat.

There’s No Such Thing as Stable Boundaries

I’ve talked about many things related to boundaries above — threads I’ve gradually sorted out through various reading and conversations. I found that boundaries are everywhere in life, so being aware of the existence of boundaries has brought me many interesting ideas and changed my behavior through understanding the existence of boundaries.

Realizing that the rope metaphor in Death Stranding is a kind of boundary, the “The Line, the Borderline, and the Floating Boundary” exhibition previously shown at Chiayi Art Museum curated many artworks about boundaries, whether the transparent thoughts of the Trisolarans in The Three-Body Problem make it impossible for them to form different individuals through lying as a boundary, etc.

These thoughts both troubled and inspired me, so let me summarize here.

Finally, I want to say that there’s no such thing as stable boundaries. The distance between people changes, and the Tropic of Cancer isn’t forever on that line set by the monument. After understanding this principle, I realized that in the world, unless you reach the indivisible microscopic world, you can find what might be clear boundaries, but nothing else in the world has them. Even “seas dry up and rocks crumble” isn’t forever — it depends on how you observe the dimension of time.

Pomodoro doesn’t have to be twenty-five minutes. This boundary is just through limitation to make things measurable. The intimacy between people changes with events and deeper understanding. Everything is like the coastline — seemingly clear, but actually the coastline has its width, changing with waves and tides, just like human relationships advance and retreat like dancing a duet.

After recognizing this, when boundaries change, you won’t be at a loss, and you can accept that what never changes is that everything changes.

Leave Some Space for the Mind to Wander

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

We are far too stingy with letting ourselves zone out.

This world encourages busyness far too much. We shower, brush our teeth, put on headphones to listen to music after leaving home, scroll through Facebook and YouTube, arrive at the office to inventory yesterday’s unfinished work, reply to emails, attend meetings, juggle fragmented tasks—even when traveling, we plan every detail of our itinerary, leaving no blank spaces.

Of these activities, only showering prevents us from multitasking like an octopus, yet it’s during showers that I can sort through things—those work challenges I don’t yet know how to solve, the thoughtful convenience store clerk I met today. Sometimes my thoughts drift so far that I can combine completely unrelated things together.

For instance, why do we want to create information structures that require no trust in a society where we depend on trust everywhere? I think of the A.T. Field from Neon Genesis Evangelion—like manners or values, it’s the boundary between people, the dividing line that shapes the distinction between ourselves and others. The coastline that seems to clearly separate mountain and sea, when magnified, is just waves, white foam, and fine sand.

Instead of only filling ourselves up, why not find time to empty ourselves out? Shower, drink coffee alone, take a walk, zone out. Such divergent thinking comes with no expectations, but perhaps it will bring answers.

The Procrastination Signal Behind Focused Work: When Busyness Becomes Avoidance

Thu, 09 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

“Usually when I’m working most diligently and industriously, it’s actually when I’m procrastinating on something more important.” When my friend said this over dinner a few weeks ago, I deeply resonated with it. After all, I’m quite the procrastination expert myself. Then recently, when I revisited Paul Graham’s article “How to Do Great Work,” I found he addressed this same issue, making me realize this might be a common problem for many people. Here’s what he wrote:

You put off working on something because you feel like the timing isn’t right yet, day after day. When procrastination is measured in years, you actually have much less time to accomplish what you consider important.

The danger of this type of procrastination is that you choose to focus on another task to procrastinate on a more important one. And you appear to be working very diligently on that other task. This kind of procrastination is extremely difficult to detect—you might even feel like you’re living a fulfilling and busy life.

Recently, two incidents made me realize I was running a procrastination marathon—a race where I deliberately kept pushing the finish line further back.

Health Issues

The first thing happened two years ago. During a pre-surgery examination for a physical ailment, the medical staff told me my heart report showed some minor abnormalities. “It’s probably nothing serious, but we recommend you get further tests,” they said, and I immediately recorded it in my to-do list.

And there it sat in my to-do list. Even though I reviewed my to-dos every month, deciding what important work to tackle next month, the medical staff’s words “probably nothing serious” became the perfect procrastination excuse. This task survived more than twenty monthly work reviews (twelve times a year!) over two years until recently, when reading Paul Graham’s discussion of this kind of long-term procrastination finally made me seriously examine how to eliminate work I know I need to do but keep procrastinating on from my workflow.

But another symptom is even more terrifying and harder to detect.

Using One Job to Procrastinate Another

After leaving my previous job and taking a well-deserved long break, after much thought I decided I wanted to do an independent development project—to try how far I could go developing a paid software or service on my own. But whether it was choosing a topic or figuring out how to start, there was so much uncertainty. Since I’d never done this before, it wasn’t easy to begin.

While I was still struggling with how to start, a member of the Ethereum Foundation happened to ask if I’d be interested in taking on a project. This gave me a few months of work buffer, so I eventually started this project (details in this article).

A few months later, the project was complete. Through this work, I got to know friends at the Ministry of Digital Affairs, who asked if I’d like to be a temporary consultant for next year’s DID project. The work was interesting, so I accepted and spent about half a month as a temporary consultant. I also agreed to continue allocating some time each month for consulting work.

Until one day, chatting with a friend over coffee about what I’d been doing these past months and my future plans, I inadvertently said, “Actually, I shouldn’t have taken this job…” That’s when I suddenly realized I was using total focus and concentration on one job to procrastinate on another job I really should be investing my energy in.

Because I was so focused and worked so hard on this contract work, everyone thought the project results were great. Neither others nor myself could easily detect that I was procrastinating on something else.

What’s Really Going On?

Whether it’s procrastinating on health issues or using focused work to procrastinate on another more important job, both problems share a common mindset: uncertainty.

The uncertainty with health issues comes from worrying about knowing the results, yet choosing to remain in this uncertain state. Using contract work to procrastinate on independent development is because the latter, though more important, is full of uncertainty, while contract work, no matter how difficult, always has a clear completion goal—unlike developing your own project with so many uncertain things to think through.

These choices bring various degrees of problems. Health issues go without saying—the sooner you understand your body’s condition, the better. More importantly, regardless of the type of procrastination, these tasks linger in your mind, occasionally popping up to disrupt your mood and destroy the focused work state you’ve carefully cultivated.

These unresolved work items are all very important to you, but procrastinating is like pretending to live in peaceful times, acting as if you’re seriously living your life.

How to Fix It?

Honestly, this type of long-term procrastination is extremely difficult to detect and resolve. But even so, we can still use some methods to reduce the impact of procrastination.

First, if you’ve read this far, you’ve already solved the most serious problem—you now know that using focused work to procrastinate on another important thing does exist. Right now, you can reflect on whether you’re working with 120% focus but actually trying to procrastinate on another important job. If so, you should record it now for follow-up action. Being able to recognize this phenomenon already solves most of the problem.

When you realize you have work items you’re procrastinating on, I suggest creating a project for them and establishing a concrete completion goal. For how to plan a project, I recommend watching this video: How to regain control of your life today. Also, when listing important work, people often tend to list their responsibilities rather than projects with clear completion conditions. For how to solve this problem, I think The PARA Method is good reading material, and there’s also a Chinese version of the book.

Another practice I find very helpful is finding time each week to set a Theme for each day of the coming week. For example, on Sunday I’ll plan themes for each day of next week, which might look like this:

Monday: Software Development
Tuesday: Schedule health checkup, pay various bills
Wednesday: Day off, visit a new coffee shop
Thursday: Software Development
…

Setting a work theme doesn’t mean you only do that thing on that day—rather, that theme is the most important thing that needs to be completed that day. This arrangement gives me an opportunity each week to schedule some monthly important work into that week, and has definitely reduced the number of monthly important tasks I leave incomplete.

About the Things I Was Procrastinating On

After discovering those things I was procrastinating on, I’ve already completed the heart checkup—the doctor said I have no problems at all. As for the independent development software project, even though it’s full of unknowns, I’m slowly making progress on these things too. Advancing and completing these work items has genuinely given me peace of mind.

Thanks to the friends around me who often listen to me talk about all sorts of random things—this gave me the opportunity to discover these procrastination problems. I also hope sharing my own experience can help you re-examine whether you have this kind of long-term procrastination.

If you’ve also realized you have the same problem—don’t worry, you’re not alone. Observe and understand yourself well, and create your own solution.

What Three Sponges Taught Me About Relationships

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

“He can’t even tell apart three sponges!” she exclaimed, and everyone at the table burst into laughter.

We have three sponges by our kitchen sink, each with a specific purpose: one for non-greasy cups, one for greasy dishes, and one for cleaning the sink itself. In the beginning, all three were different styles, so I could easily remember which sponge served which function.

Until one day, one style ran out. Two different functions ended up sharing the same style of sponge, and from that point on, I constantly grabbed the greasy-dish sponge to wash my coffee cups.

No matter how much code I’ve written or how many talks I’ve given, I still can’t keep track of which sponge is which.

This kind of playful teasing happens all the time in our household, and I don’t really mind it. But even after more than ten years together, we still regularly upset each other, and there are many times we need to sit down and have a real conversation about how to interact more smoothly. The boundaries between people are fluid—sometimes we discover particularly vulnerable places in each other that need care, and sometimes we realize that old ways of relating no longer work and need to change. Relating to another person is like dancing together: you’re constantly moving forward and back, searching for the right distance.

I feel like the education I received was too focused on binary thinking—things were either right or wrong. In my teens and twenties, I believed everything had fixed rules, and my job was to convince others. Some expert said this was right, so if we just followed that process, we’d become the best people, build the best products, be the best software engineers.

That was a kind of growing pain. It taught me many things, but it also came with being too harsh on myself and others. I defined what a good software engineer should be, studied how to write automated tests that could validate every branch repeatedly, and at the same time questioned and tried to convince others what was right, criticized things I disapproved of, and blamed work styles that didn’t meet my standards.

Looking back, I’ve been navigating the workplace for quite a while now. Those best practices I once pursued don’t necessarily apply anymore. What I’ve learned from these years is the importance of context. Before something reaches its final result, what it went through matters too. Why did they take that shortcut? Why did they handle this in a more complex way?

Understanding context brings more empathy. When you understand how things evolved to their current state, they don’t seem so strange anymore, and you don’t insist so firmly that things must be done a certain way.

Human relationships are the same. Even with someone you’ve been with for over a decade, you can still cross boundaries. And those boundary lines, when you zoom out, aren’t perfectly uniform either. Every situation has its context, every negative thing can look better from another angle, and everyone’s boundaries are constantly shifting. The boundaries between you and one person look different from those between you and another.

Our physical world might have unified operating rules, but when you consider how complex the world is, and expand to human relationships and boundaries, there are countless variables—there’s no universal rule for how people should get along.

When that’s the case, just have a little more empathy.

Relating to others is like dancing together. When you lose the rhythm and step on their foot, stick out your tongue, blink apologetically, gently support them, and get back into step. That’s all it takes.

Legends, Remedies, and Practices for Maintaining Focus

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT

I used to think my focus was decent. After all, I’d completed many projects.

But recently, when I observed my behavior more carefully, I realized that my focus wasn’t particularly good. I had simply invested massive amounts of time, so even though I was distracted often, a significant portion of that time still converted into real productivity that allowed me to complete those projects.

For example, at work, I’d suddenly want to look up concert information for a singer, get distracted by other videos while watching technical YouTube videos, randomly remember I hadn’t paid my phone bill, or browse Facebook too long and end up working overtime. These things constantly appear in my daily life.

Recently, I’ve been drawn to the topic of focus again, and after reading and organizing a lot of information about concentration, I’ve realized how much I lack knowledge of neuroscience and psychology. Even though much of the information has references and sources, these methods for maintaining focus seem like ancient legends and folk remedies to me. As a Muggle, the best I can do—besides trying to understand these theoretical concepts as much as possible—is to personally test whether these spell-like methods actually work.

Below are several methods I’ve found for improving focus, along with my personal experiences practicing them.

Idle Rest During Focus Cycles

To maintain long-term focus, rest is crucial. Sometimes when doing something interesting, you get so absorbed that you over-focus, and when you’re exhausted, you need double the rest time to recover.

But how you rest is equally important. I’ve recently been maintaining a Pomodoro work rhythm of 25 minutes of work followed by 5 minutes of rest. So how do you rest during those 5 minutes? It’s better to choose rest activities that don’t overly shift your attention, such as stretching, eating something, or making coffee.

I recently read some interesting information. Several interconnected parts of the brain are called the Default Mode Network. When humans aren’t focused on a specific purposeful task, these parts of the brain become more active, and people enter default mode. In this mode, they begin to reflect, recall the past, organize and plan for the future. In this mode, information flows and connects freely, which also means the information from the work you were doing gets reorganized in a different way.

So when you’re taking an idle rest, your brain is still performing another form of organization and consolidation. Not only does your body get rest, but work-related information becomes clearer when you return to work. And since these activities don’t pull away your attention, it’s easy to return to a focused work state after resting.

However, during rest, try to avoid doing things that would pull away your attention, like going on Facebook or other social media. These social networks are essentially designed to capture your attention and give you emotionally charged information. Positive emotions from cats and dogs are fine, but sometimes negative emotions are mixed in—like sensationalist social news that can trigger anger, and then your focus is lost. Social media companies make money through advertising, and you lose your focus.

I’ve been practicing this principle recently and trying to avoid social media, and I’ve definitely felt my focus improve. I recommend you try it too.

Recalling Happy and Positive Times

In the article What I Do When I Can’t Focus - Darius Foroux, it mentions that recalling past successes can raise your serotonin levels, and one of serotonin’s important functions is delayed gratification—the ability to resist short-term tempting rewards to obtain longer-term future rewards. In other words, when focus is low, one reason might be lower serotonin levels, which makes you more inclined to seek short-term pleasures like drinking, shopping, or watching TV—activities that provide quick sensory stimulation.

The best way to raise serotonin levels is exercise. But besides exercise, recalling happy, positive times can also help.

This is an interesting claim. My practice method is this: I have an album of organized travel photos, and every morning I spend five minutes looking through it. Each time I see those photos, I remember the happy memories from those trips, and various recollections surface, making me feel quite happy.

As for whether it actually helps long-term focus, I find it hard to judge myself. But because looking at photos every morning makes me happy, I definitely feel my workday goes more smoothly and positively. If you’re curious, I recommend trying it and letting me know your thoughts 😎

The Sense of Companionship When Working Alone

This is a method suitable for remote work. When you’re working, you can try playing Apple’s Study With Me video or Lofi Girl’s lofi hip hop radio. When these videos are playing, you develop a mysterious sense of companionship that allows you to focus and work alongside them.

I haven’t seen any related theoretical research. After discussing with ChatGPT, I think there are two possibilities. The first is social belonging. After all, humans are social animals. When working alone, having a virtual character for companionship also gives you a sense of belonging and psychological support, which enhances focus and motivation.

And what’s better than a real person is that the person or virtual character in the video doesn’t judge you—this kind of work companion is hard to find in reality.

The other possibility is observational learning. It’s like when you study at a library—because everyone around you is studying, you gradually immerse yourself in that atmosphere and start focusing too. I think Apple’s video does this even better. Besides the music and visuals, the video includes keyboard typing sounds and pen cap opening sounds, so even without seeing the video, you know they’re working. And when you occasionally look up and see them, you of course see them working, which quickly draws you back into focus mode.

However, I haven’t actually seen others discuss why this format is effective. If you’ve seen any theoretical basis or interesting discussions, please let me know!

Manage Distractions Rather Than Reject Them

Internal distractions are what happen to me most often—suddenly wanting to look up concert information, randomly remembering I haven’t done laundry, wanting to Google something unrelated to current work, etc.

Previously, I had two ways of handling this: either interrupt my current work to deal with that random task, or try telling myself “Don’t think about that stuff!” and attempt to focus on my work—but this didn’t always work. Recently, in The Pomodoro Technique, I found a very simple little trick: write down those distractions and tell yourself you’ll handle them later. That’s it.

The key here is managing distractions, not rejecting them. These distractions pop up because uncompleted tasks easily slip into your short-term memory and actively grab your attention. This phenomenon is the Zeigarnik effect—compared to completed tasks, the brain is more inclined to remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks.

To remove these uncompleted tasks from short-term memory, you just need to write them down somewhere and tell yourself you’ll handle them when you have time later. Then they’ll temporarily be removed from your short-term memory. And when your focused work time ends, you can review these recorded distractions, satisfy your urge to search for information during break time, or simply schedule a new work item to handle later in the day.

When you choose to manage distractions rather than reject them, you can quickly recover your focus in this situation, and these distractions or desires aren’t ignored—they can still be satisfied later.

I find this practice extremely effective. Generally, the distractions I’ve recorded almost never pop up again to interrupt me during focused work, and when I satisfy my little pleasures during break time, it feels really good.

I mentioned earlier not to go on social media during breaks, but if I’ve written down a distraction like “want to browse Facebook,” I’ll still think about whether to during break time. If I really want to look, I’ll still remind myself not to look too long and quickly check what I want to see.

Side Note: Dealing With External Distractions

For external distractions, I first recommend turning off all notifications during focused work periods. My approach is to close all messaging apps on my computer, but keep notifications on my phone. Then enable the phone’s flip-down for Do Not Disturb mode, and when focusing on work, flip the phone face-down. When it’s break time, flip it back up to see what notifications there are. If something needs handling, open the messaging apps on the computer to deal with it.

If you work in an office, colleagues will often interrupt your work at any time. In this case, like with internal distraction management, you can ask what help they need, write it down, and tell them you’ll find them to discuss it after finishing your current task. This way, with only a brief interruption, you can still quickly return to a focused work rhythm.

And I suggest making the action of recording what your colleague needs visibly clear to them. This also makes them feel that you’re taking the matter to heart and recording it, rather than just casually agreeing. Of course, this only works if you follow through on your promise to handle it. This small action can reduce psychological burden for both parties—it’s a pretty good little trick.

Finding Your Rhythm of Progress

Attention dispersion caused by long-term work fatigue is difficult to recover from overnight. Usually by this point, people feel like their work never ends no matter how much they do. Every day when they open their inbox, they’re buried by the volume of work. In this situation, people enter a state of chronic attention dispersion, moving forward like zombies every day, and the next day feeling like they accomplished nothing at all.

At this point, the attention dispersion has reached “Pinocchio, just electrocute this one directly” levels, and you need a longer healing period to recover. At this time, recapturing the feeling that your work is progressing every day becomes very important. I’ll divide this into two steps.

Reduce the Work Visible to Your Eyes Each Day

First, accept that you simply can’t multitask that many things, and that humans just aren’t suited to multitasking. You can list the three most important things today and focus on completing just those. Put the rest of the work somewhere you can always find it.

When only three tasks are visible to your eyes, completing those three will give you satisfaction, and then you can pick additional work to do. Change your mindset from “I have 20 tasks today but can only complete five, I’m so useless” to “I completed the three most important things today and even did two more!” The work output is the same, but the mindset is completely different.

For details, see my previous article Less is more, Streamlining Daily To-Dos.

Cyclically Record and Review Work Items

The prerequisite for this is that you’ve already used reducing the work visible to your eyes each day to make your work generate a sense of achievement. When work ends or when you review again the next day, you can quickly record work progress. You can use just a few short sentences to summarize a day’s work.

At the same time, you can also create weekly or monthly work summaries as appropriate. For example, when making a weekly work summary, you can use the summary records from five workdays and again use just a few short sentences to summarize your week’s work.

Humans are forgetful creatures. Sometimes after a week passes, you’ll forget what you did last Monday. With this kind of work record, when you feel useless and like your work isn’t progressing, you can look back and remember that you actually handled many things—you just forgot.

For details on cyclical recording, you can also see my previous article How I Organize My To-Dos — Magic-Modified Bullet Journal Method.

I’ve been implementing the above steps for over a year or two. When I review these records monthly and yearly, I can feel my own progress in work and life. After establishing this kind of positive feedback loop, I’ve regained a sense of achievement in many things.

Conclusion

The above are the legends, folk remedies, and practices about focus I’ve recently learned. Actually, these aren’t legends and folk remedies—it’s just that from my perspective, I lack the professional knowledge to explore whether they align with theory and science, and can only search for information as much as possible to ensure they’re roughly correct.

Besides the companionship feeling which I don’t use daily, all the above techniques are methods I currently practice every day. Finding your rhythm of progress is a method I’ve always thought was great, and it’s allowed me to better control my life and work. And other daily-use techniques like distraction management and idle rest have indeed brought significant changes.

If you also have focus problems, of course you should first evaluate the severity. If medical assistance is needed, I recommend seeking clinical treatment. But if it’s at a general concern level, I recommend trying the above methods to see which ones help you.

At the same time, while reading these materials, I’ve discovered that focus is very closely related to neuroscience and psychology. If you’re interested, you can also research more from these angles. In any case, I hope the above sharing helps you. If you also know techniques for improving focus, feel free to use the reader feedback function below to share with me on Twitter!