I got this writing prompt from GPT:

In a parallel universe, humans have mastered the technology to transfer consciousness between bodies. This innovation was meant to extend human life, eliminate disease, and even allow people to experience different physical forms. Wealthy individuals can afford to switch bodies regularly, while less fortunate people can only afford older or less desirable bodies.

However, this practice raises a myriad of ethical and philosophical questions. Are you still "you" if you change bodies? Does the value of life change if we can live indefinitely?

Your main character is a philosopher in this society who has decided never to transfer their consciousness, believing that our bodies are inherently tied to our identities. This makes them a societal outsider. One day, they are offered an opportunity to change their stance and switch bodies for the first time for a greater cause.

Explore the internal and external conflict your character faces, as well as the societal repercussions of this technology. Can your character preserve their philosophy and identity, or will they have to redefine what these concepts mean to them?

I think it interpreted my request as looking for a creative fiction writing prompt, and it's not something I can do in the 10 minutes I have today anyway.

But I do want to recognize that the answer to this question is more nuanced now than it would be in the past. Although I didn't really identify with the social group, even 3-5 years ago, I would have scoffed at this from a sort of transhumanist perspective. The scoffing would look at this and go: yeah, of course if you can transfer the consciousness, i.e. the information from the original body, then that should be enough to preserve "you", and there really isn't a philosophical problem here.

Now, though, I think I take consciousness a lot more seriously, rather than it being a placeholder for "the soul". My answer would focus a lot more on what the heck it actually means to "transfer consciousness". What kind of information is being transferred? Is it implied in the prompt that people understand what consciousness is, or is it that through technology, they apparently give arise to consciousness in artificially generated beings, whether mechanical or biological?

In this parallel universe, is consciousness perhaps a very different phenomenon from what we (don't) understand it to be in our universe, i.e. is it much more simplistic and soul-like?

The funny part is that I find the philosophical questions are front-loaded in the interpretation of the prompt, and part of that is because the reality we live in is more counterintuitive, and weird in a way, than this particular fictional speculative reality. Hmmmm.

People were asking me what my theme for 2023 is. I think it's going to end up having multiple themes that apply to different aspects or dimensions of my life. At the moment, I'm kinda thinking I'll have a whole suite of themes, similar to how Boy Scouts has the Scout Motto, Scout Slogan, Scout Law, Scout Oath. I don't think I'll go so far as to have a 2023 Oath or anything... but who knows.

I was never clear on why one was called the Scout Motto and the other the Scout Slogan. If I think about it now, maybe the Motto is for oneself, and the Slogan is for the whole community (and other people who encounter the community).

In that case, my motto for 2023 is festina lente. In Latin, that's literally: "Hurry slowly!" It's a pretty common phrase, but I think it's really important for me as I try to do a lot in my daily life. Sometimes I am very clearly trying to do way too much. The general meaning, at least how I've learned it, is about balancing ambition, maybe aggression (in terms of fast progress) with things like care, deliberateness, and patience. Let me see if I can find an explanation online... and yes, the saying has its own damn Wikipedia article:

Festina lente or speûde bradéōs (σπεῦδε βραδέως, pronounced [spêu̯.de bra.dé.ɔːs]) is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" (sometimes rendered in English as "more haste, less speed").

[...]

The original form of the saying, σπεῦδε βραδέως speũde bradéōs, is Classical Greek, of which festina lente is the Latin translation. The words σπεῦδε and festina are second-person-singular present active imperatives, meaning "make haste", while βραδέως and lente are adverbs, meaning "slowly".

[...]

The meaning of the phrase is that activities should be performed with a proper balance of urgency and diligence. If tasks are rushed too quickly then mistakes are made and good long-term results are not achieved. Work is best done in a state of flow in which one is fully engaged by the task and there is no sense of time passing.

That's actually better than I thought: I assumed I'd need to customize the saying to apply more readily to my life.

It applies at multiple time scales for me. At the daily level, it's felt recently like I have a ton to do, I'm not really doing enough. But over the course of multiple days, if I make progress on various things, it really does add up. So I don't need to be in so much of a hurry to make milestone-like progress on individual days, or get to some arbitrary chunk of time (like the 99 minutes I was requiring for things) across multiple goals.

The moment to moment level is pretty close to the interpretation the Wikipedia gives. At work recently, I often feel a pressure to get things done really quickly and efficiently so I can "clear" and make things easier for the next shift. But lately it's becoming clear to me that sometimes trying to move too quickly leads to some pretty careless mistakes, and deprives me of the opportunity to approach problems thoughtfully when I'm rushing.

But back to the larger picture, maybe at the level of months and years: I do often fret that the things I'm doing don't seem to be showing very immediate rewards. A lot of the things I'm investing my time and effort into probably aren't going to yield tangible rewards until several years from now. And sometimes I can feel an impatience with how things are right now. (My coach Duff put it well: I'm working on things that have a lag in their results.) While waiting for the eventual results, it's not really going to help to rush to fit in more and more to get to the rewards faster. The most important goals I'm undertaking are indeed best approached in as consistent and sustainable manner as my life allows.

I think festina lente implies a stripey stack of timescales. Let's say yellow is festina (hurry) and blue is the lente (slowly). If I'm doing stuff lente at the immediate timescale, the carefulness will reduce errors and allow progress to move steadily, and in fact rather quickly on the larger timescale of multiple days. At the level above that, though, I still want to be patient and understand that the rewards will take time to come, as my efforts are cultivating the place for them to grow.

The colors of the stripes can also be inverted: hustling through challenging day after day can make the week easier and more laid back overall, because I remained engaged; the reliable rhythm of a week leads to surprising gains on the level of months or seasons. At the year level, it might feel like things remained pretty stable: my life arrangements have remained largely the same. But on the scale of multiple years, it is clear that I have changed and matured a lot, and am that larger in terms of experience.

festina lente encapsulates a kind of yin-yang dynamic, if I can notice and apply it to situations where I might otherwise be getting stuck due to being too much in one mode.

So, there we go! That's my motto for 2023, meaning it's something I'm going to apply to myself.

I do wonder what I want to choose as the slogan, though! I think that coming up with one is best approached with festina lente, because I want it to be something that applies both to me and is meaningful (or at least that kind of self-evident you take for granted but rarely implement) to others.

Morning pages is a simple exercise: write two pages about whatever is on your mind without editing. In this format, I'll just write until I fill the text box (scroll the top text out of view) twice.

I'll post whatever I end up writing, including typos.

Woke up this morning feeling sluggish and congested. It's probably the donuts and the non-butter spread from yesterday. I think it did a number on my mood as well, because I'm thinking about a bunch of stuff. Not fun stuff. Thinking about the future, about doors having closed, and all that.

When I got up, or shortly after I got up (first I watched some YouTube videos) out of bed, Bryce went on a video call with one of his friends. If I'm not in a good mood, hearing him talk about his life with his friends is kind of demoralizing. I'm not directly envious of him, but I feel more aware of the lack of things in my life.

I don't think I have a big, strongly connected network of friends like he does, or how other people do. Partly, it's just because of my personality. I am picky about with whom I choose to associate. But it's also that it's hard for me to connect to people, or more precisely, feel connected to people. I can socialize just fine, but the connection feels shallow, because there's all this stuff I'm carrying around behind (?) me that I can't really share or be open about.

At this point I hear the, "Why do you have to?" sort of objections, something maybe someone would say if I were talking to them.

II.

Whatever, I'm not going to explain that part. I'll just end by saying that I do like feeling connected and I don't like feeling alone in my issues. I still don't feel like I can talk out everything I'm experiencing with anyone and be heard, at least with the friends I talk to on a more regular basis. Or the people I talk to on a regular basis.

I'm tempted right now to write to explain stuff to people who don't know much about how my life is right now, how my social life is organized. I'll avoid that, but I do feel anxiety about assumptions. I feel pretty isolated a lot of the time, even though I interact with people.

That's not so true recently, maybe because I'm getting more into classes. But outside of classes, when I'm out and around town, or even worse, when I'm alone in the house, I do feel isolated.

A recurring theme is I don't feel like people understand what I'm going through, which makes it sound like there's a secondary problem, which there are, or underlying issues, which there are, but it's sort of circular. I'm older than all my cousins, as well as my brothers. I can't really talk to them without changing the dynamic.

And then I'm cheery with friends. I'm just so optimistic about what actions I can take, trying not to look like I'm moping. I don't want to mope.

What I said before was correct: I'd want people not to give up if they were in my position. Not give up even on a day by day basis. But having some kind of hopeful orientation, the "maybe, you never know" attitudes that people always say—very, very vexing. Sometimes painful. I've had so many disappointments in that category that it's really hard to say that. I don't think it works, because I don't believe it. If there's a "maybe, you never know" kind of thing out there, I assume that unless I work very hard and maintain it as a goal, it won't happen.

And if I or another person is saying, "maybe, you never know", then it means that neither they nor I know about a path to get there.

There were a lot of things like that when I got to Japan. People were telling me that they were so excited for me. But now it's over. I am disappointed in a lot of things I wasn't able to do. I have experienced things that have been meaningful, that I wouldn't have been able to experience otherwise.

I don't want to hinge it on social approval, but it feels like a lie to say that I'm satisfied. It's frustrating. It's easier for me to feel heartbroken, feel disappointed, and then do things to deal with that. And I can appreciate the other things that have happened regardless.

I feel like it's analogous to having tried to run a business. I worked seven years for this, and then had one and a half years. I could have done better. I could have been more prepared. That's the lesson I guess. But in the end, I didn't accomplish what I hoped to accomplish.

Let's just let that stand. Let's not try to brush the stuff under the rug. To do that feels insulting to the whole experience, and to reality.

I didn't even end up writing about what I feel bad about today. Mostly, I've been feeling sad about the future. And about getting older and being a balding fat guy with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Really, I don't think about the debt sometimes—mostly, I feel like a small, balding fat guy with no money and poor social standing.

I can deal with that, maybe. Because I can change. But I can't change the idea that time is going forward. I can't have in the future what I didn't have in the past, because we can't change the past.

I don't want to give up on this. I'm not giving up on this. But that's what's on my mind.

It was around half past 5AM here when I started writing this. I felt better then than I did the other day, but now the sleep deficit is hitting me.

I spent a lot of yesterday feeling anxious and confused. I didn't get out of bed for a long time. I kept going back into bed. I observed I was covering my head a lot, even though it wasn't that cold. This told me that I felt like I was hiding from something. I didn't get any work done.

I feel that things are clearer for me right now, though the situation is harsher than I want to admit. Overall, things will take a lot of hard work and patience. I will get older. I will miss out on things that other people have that I might also want, because my life situation is different. This is true for everyone, but it's hard to find acceptance there when I'm also dealing with vague societal pressure to have a certain kind of success.

I have a bad relationship with hope, and I think I might want to change what it means to me. For me, hope is something like being optimistic about something happening, or optimistic about being able to affect whether something will happen.

I don't think that's quite the same kind of hope I hear about when I hear other, interesting people talk about hope. My version is a lot about expectation and control.

I don't have a good answer yet about what a better version would look like. I know that, "Who knows—maybe X will happen!" or "Don't worry—things will work out with Y in the end!" just don't work well. I tend to see a lot of disappointments in my life—things that so many people said would work out automatically, but didn't.

Sometimes people ask why things are as they are. How do I answer that? Even I find my life really strange. But I find everyone else's normal lives even stranger, full of things I've never experienced. I live in a place different from your baseline world, which you take for granted, which I argue you hardly understand yourself.

Anyway, going back to the idea about hard work and patience: I still feel like I'm only beginning to understand how that works in the real world and across the timescale of weeks, months, and years.

The real challenge comes in accepting what hasn't happened in my life, what doesn't happen, and not being afraid that certain things won't happen.

I often feel bad about how things went in my late teens and twenties. I racked up debt, didn't make money, didn't progress in my career, and didn't experience romance. I didn't study abroad, didn't graduate from college, got fat, and for the most part didn't have an offline social life. I still find explaining these things to people, when the subject comes up, to be both difficult and embarrassing. After all, all this came from lack of skills and mistakes.

When I experienced life change and I went for Japan, the disappointments of the past set up me up for new disappointments. I projected so many high hopes on all the things I could do, partly seeking to making up for the lack of things in my 20s and early 30s.

But I had no social connections to start, my communication skills were extremely limited, and I was always running out of money. I felt self conscious on a daily basis for not living up to the hype of such an unconventional move. I felt embarrassed that after such a long interval spent on language learning, I could only do so much. I knew that some people probably expected me to be living out my previous dream, which in some ways was true. But those expectations fed anxiety, and I'm still looking to make progress dealing with them.

In the fall, I threw what felt like all my conscious attention into my classes, but still really struggled. I didn't feel like anyone understood what the hell I was doing. Online university classes, or even an older adult returning to get an undergraduate education is Japanese people find odd. And I didn't interact much with my classmates, so it felt like I was suffering all that stress alone.

Now, I have switched to looking at the future, beyond our departure from Japan, and I do find I feel better. But taking in the reality—that it will take me several years more to make the kind of significant life improvements—leaves me with a sinking feeling.

I know I am very fortunate to be able to fix many of my mistakes, because it could be much worse. But it's hard not to think about my reference class of peers, people with something to show, in a social validated sense. In a few years I will in some sense be where they were when they were 25, but I will be 37. My hair is falling out right now.

I know, there are infinite ways to look at and reframe the situation. But emotionally, I keep falling into this trough that lines up with a lack of social validation for where I am and what I'm doing. I become bitter and loath to celebrate others' successes, because it highlights what I didn't/don't/won't have. Not having stuff makes it harder to connect to people, both because it's harder to relate, and because with fewer resources, it's relatively more expensive to get to where the people are at.

I'm stuck in the world of paradox. I can get better, I can make progress, and race ahead, but it seems that by the time I catch up, the tortoise will have already left me in the dust. Nothing to show.

I have one hint right now: that I must build intrinsic motivation working on the things that are important to me. Move a lot of the identity out of having and into doing. Not sure yet how to do that except by working harder, getting more immersed and involved—easier said than done, overall.

Last time's outburst was a mixture of thoughts and me trying to provide background for those thoughts. I thought I would develop things further, but as things often are for me, it's hard where the exposition and the development begin and end.

I binge-read Mark Manson's _The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck_ last Thursday and Friday. It's not a self-instruction on narcissism or overconfidence. A more accurate, but less exciting, and even less informative title might have been, "How not to live a meaningful life, maybe what to do instead, and other musings on personal values in models in modern society".

I've read most of the essays on his site that inspired and contributed to the book, but it was a decent read. It still left me short of clear solutions to things, which of course is why I am still thinking and writing about all this.

What it did remind me about, and help me clarify: the centrality of personal values. I think this is one of the biggest sources of internal emotional turmoil in my life.

A major message in _Subtle Art_ was that you need to be careful how you frame your life actions and experiences, especially your efforts, struggles, and suffering, if you want your life to feel consistently meaningful. Most of us know about the common traps: assuming obtaining material goods or comfort will make you happy and fulfilled. (That second part, fulfilled, is more important to me, because I feel, like Manson, that happiness is a transient thing, and focusing on it tempts us to focus on what the world gives to us, rather than our own actions.)

Another trap, that I'm glad to be seeing elsewhere, is the trap of needing to be extraordinary in order to feel worthy as a person. That's something that took me a long time to accept as a criticism that applies to my own life. I thought: it doesn't apply to me because all I'm trying to do is to demonstrate that it was all worth it, despite all my mistakes. I can accept that any kind of need to prove something is basically equivalent to needing to be extraordinary. But the emotions that drive that mindset are still things I'm struggling with for now.

These two extremes aside, the part of the book that I found the most interesting, even though I'm sure I'd read part of it in a blog post before, was the idea of choosing your _suffering_ rather than chasing your ideal lifestyle. I'm not going to peek to see exactly what words he used. We are all going to suffer, we are all going to have struggles in our lives. The question is: what do you want your struggle to be about?

It's not: what outcome is worth the discomfort. I think that's the part that still is throwing me off, because I feel that in order for something to be worthwhile, it should have a good payoff.

But otherwise, what? Otherwise it's a bad idea. Otherwise it's a waste. But that isn't really my assessment. That's other people's values barging in. That's society's status assessment on the worth of your undertaking.

But, I mean, that already exists in two rough forms. One is the market. The other is popular fame. And both ways that society tends to evaluate people's undertakings pretty much suck, in what they overlook, what they fail to acknowledge, and in the kind of dumb stuff that they reward.

Anyway, I like the idea about chasing your particular struggle. This encourages either a process or value orientation over a goal orientation.

Some background on that: Ribbonfarm's Venkatesh Rao lays out a model that classifies people into three basic life orientations: values-oriented, goals-oriented, and process-oriented. It's in a blog post written by him that I liked: How to Fall Off the Wagon. It tries to elaborate on patterns and archetypes. I don't think it's all that correct of a model, but it did get me thinking about things.

As the post explains, all of us will think in terms of goals, processes, and values in different places. But his theory is that each of us, at any particular place in our life, tends to have one overall orientation at a time.

I have tended to be very goal-oriented for a long time. This remained the same even after reading that article and reflecting on the weaknesses of chasing after goals. Even before that, I understood that goals can get hijacked easily, especially by some sense of what other people think you _should_ be working towards.

That's the part that's historically caused problems for me. Since I was young, I've been in search for my own path for generating meaning. But instead of earnestly focusing on that, I tried to tackle a broad set of the wrong things. I hadn't acknowledged my own limitations, partly because I still hadn't had a chance to discover them.

Right now there's still a conflict between the goals that someone in my position _should_ have, versus the things I actually want.

I know at the beginning of this post I said the conflict was over values. That is still more true, because these goals I feel pressured to embrace ultimately come from external values.

Some of that just translates to, "What would reasonable people think of what I am doing?"

Or even, "What would reasonable people _see_ me as doing?"

That last part gets to me, especially with its tie-in to impostor syndrome: if other people saw what was really going on behind the scenes, they'd be appalled and lose all respect for me.

What a trainwreck! What a mess! Forget everything else—get your shit together! And so on.

That still vexes me a lot, but I think looking at things from the perspective of chasing meaning through _process_ equips me with the beginnings of an answer.

A few years back, there was a period where it felt like most interactions I had with all but a few friends and acquaintances was a back and forth on the question, "What the hell are you doing with your life?"

That hasn't been the case recently. I think partly, I've lost touch with people, and partly, it looks like I have a clearer idea about what I am doing. I am actually trying to get shit together. And you know, maybe that would still be the case even under the surface.

I anticipate the conflict when I imagine being open about feeling lost, or frustrated, lonely, depressed, or ashamed. I have the fear and expectation that when you do that, it is, to the rest of the world, an admission that there is something wrong with you, and an invitation of loss of confidence in your own ability to make decisions.

I do have some real life experience when that has happened sometimes—ranging from overzealous advice, to misguided attempts by family members to wrest control away from me when I got in trouble.

But that's usually wrong, too. Because for a while now, when I talk about my problems, unless I specifically ask people, "Do you have any suggestions?" often, the first responses I get from my friends... are questions.

"What do you think you are going to do?"

"What are your options?"

It comes back to me. While that can also be frustrating at times, it also means the people around me do see me as capable of making my own decisions, and sorting out my own priorities. We might just have a misunderstanding about what priorities we have in common, or not.

Even when I get blasted by a billion questions by relatives, I think it also shows their expectation that I've thought things out.

And usually, I really have tried to think things out, even if I haven't come to a suitable conclusion.

Another important point of the book went like this: in today's America, there is a popular notion that if you're struggling, if you're suffering, if you're having a negative experience, unless you can squarely blame that on someone else, there's something _wrong with you_. If you can't somehow publicly prove that you're constantly happy and your life isn't _the best_, it is lame and stupid.

Along with that is widespread lack of acknowledgement that maybe challenges, setbacks, and failures are part of doing something worthwhile.

And there is an even greater blindness that most worthwhile things _aren't_ extraordinary.

I'm ending up injecting a lot of extra background into this. I was trying to get to a certain point about process and choosing the right struggle.

A lot of the actions I will be taking will have uncertain payoffs. It's going to be a lot of improvisation, maybe for a very long time.

That might not be a bad thing. Somehow, I still haven't accepted, emotionally, that I'm good at this. But it's the only way I've found myself out of pinches, since I'm not great at making steady, predictable, sustainable progress. In fact, it's usually when I try to concoct some kind of sure way forward that I get stuck in something unsustainable.

But somehow, the uncertainty still bothers me. It gets in the way of negotiating plans with other people. The worries gnaw on my brain during spare moments. It's still scary.

Meanwhile, many actions with more certain payoffs don't contribute all that much to the future. They are sometimes completely against what I'm trying to do, but more often, they're just immediate gratification—or release from fear. It's often easy to get distracted, procrastinate, goof off, overeat, and binge watch irrelevant videos, especially if it blocks out anxieties and their physical symptoms.

Amid all this fear and worry and desire to escape from the present comes the voice that says, "Why do you have to make things this hard? Can't you find happiness doing things the normal way?"

The answer has been no, but I haven't really been able to explain. And that becomes another anxiety on top of the already-existing fear. If it drags on for a day, unless I find a way to clarify my thoughts, it's enough to take me into depression for the rest of the week.

Before, the best answer I had was that my goals are not generic like everyone else's. It's the difference between wanting to get good at a particular game you are interested in, versus just finding a game where you can win a lot, and have fun calling yourself a winner. It's the difference between a unique experience versus a commodity. Or creating art versus creating entertainment.

I think this does still hold true, because the distinction between universals and particulars can arise if you model things as networks. Nodes are not unique by themselves, but can take on very unique properties based on their roles in their graphs/networks—how they are connected to other things.

But that gets too abstract, and it was still incomplete as a reply. I mean, sometimes you can't get what you want. If you can't get something you want, are you just going to refuse to settle for anything else forever? What if you want something that is impossible or unlikely—like being an NBA star at 4'11"? Shouldn't you focus on something else more worthwhile?

That's the weakness, because that whole discussion takes place in a goals frame of reference.

But that perspective has an even bigger weakness. Because, if you are looking at goals as endpoints, most of your life will be spent working to get to that some time.

The question, "What if it's not worth it?" is valid.

But if you take a process orientation, and ask: what is the path worth walking, even if it falls short of complete success in the end? What is the fight worth fighting on a daily basis, even if causes you to bleed?

I think many folks have strong opinions on this. But if they try to push their views on you without respecting your experience, if they try to call you _bad_ for wanting to devote your day-to-day experience to something different, it is easier to see through their bullshit. And I think it is easier for me to see through my own fears.

This weekend marks one month living in Japan.

A month ago I was in the midst of cycling through packing, weighing, and repacking my luggage cases. About thirty minutes later, I would move on to a last minute sort on a pile of documents.

But the story of how I got here is one I'll save for another time.

Most of the past month or so has had to do with getting used to being alone. And occasionally lost. Bryce left for duty early the next morning after I arrived. I followed him on the ten minute walk to the train station, went up and down the main street in our small suburb, and then took about three hours to find my way back to the house. And then I was completely alone, surrounded by strangers, for another three and a half weeks.

I'm in this big house out in the suburbs of Yokosuka. It's big, I think, by Japanese standards and also big for one person's use. There are three rooms and one toilet that I barely use. I've mostly loitered in the kitchen and what I'll call the living room, binge-watching Netflix offerings only available in Japan.

I've switched back and forth between trying to act like a local and trying to be an enlightened expat. Both didn't work out. I posted photos on Instagram, but found that more social media intensified the loneliness. I found no problems with getting people to speak Japanese to me, but I struggled to understand everyday conversations. (Though now I have to acknowledge that most cashiers speak really, really fast.) When a police officer singled me out in Yokohama Station for routine questioning, I let that cast a shadow over my jaunt to Chinatown. Trips to the grocery store took hours.

Two typhoons passed through Tokyo Bay, which gave me an excuse to stay shut in. My friends on our Slack cheered me on to go talk and meet new people, but I processed that as pressure that made things worse. I felt ashamed about not making the most of things, not visibly enjoying myself, and struggling to manage my time at a basic level. I worried about not keeping the outside of the house clean enough. My sleep schedule, which had quickly adapted during the first week, flipped. I was going to sleep and waking up the same time as Germany.

A fourth of my initial ninety days had elapsed. When I leave, what will I have to show for this? That I learned how to use the fish-broiler that is standard in Japanese kitchens? That appreciate that you can take your trash out to the dumpster any day of the week in the US? I felt fine in the house, but outside, my jaw was permanently clenched from worry about standing out too much, about not having a place anywhere in this society, about not knowing what I was doing with my life.

I turned to media as a distraction. I played more games than I had in the past two years. I watched Japanese crime and medical mystery episodes by the half dozen. In the back of my mind I worried that December would roll in, and I'd have spent almost all my time on TV and games.

But something came out of this spiral. While solving puzzles in The Witness and watching mysteries unravel in Subete ga F ni naru, I remembered something important. The state of not knowing, and sometimes being lost is the main point. I never meant to come here just to consume sights, sounds, and experiences to populate my mental and social media scrapbooks. And I didn't quite come here expecting to erect something grand—neither multum ille et terris iactatus et alto, nor the American Commodore Perry with his black iron-clad gun ships.

I brought two suitcases and a heavy backpack with me across the Arctic Ocean and over Siberia, then from Narita down the JR East Soubu-Yokosuka line, a fraction of my belongings. Yet I also brought all of myself and that baggage.

The critical part of me acknowledged that Monday night there was not much shame in that. Even if no one really understood. Hasn't it been this way all along? Finding a meaningful way to communicate experience has always been the central individual struggle of my life. But that's why it is so painful, especially when I am alone, with no one else to see what I see, with whom to share a meal. And that's tough, but it's okay. It's not shameful, even if it sometimes feels that way.

And the most important is the unfolding mystery. Japan is new to me, but people have lived here for several thousand years—it's all been charted. That leaves my own life as the territory to explore. What are you doing here? Not a confrontational demand, not an exhortation. Just a question.

With that small thread of cognizance, I went to sleep Monday night. And the following day, I went to see my friend on my first and his last day in Tokyo.

I've been loading the trucks for nearly a month now. My first week was tough, physically and psychologically. But things got better, especially as I got to know the other truck loaders in our area. We would talk, joke, curse, and commiserate about having to heave thirty pound boxes over our heads, with fifty pound boxes falling off the sides of the belt, burying us. I don't think I am giving a good picture of what this is like --some day I will put more effort into describing the scene and the experience. The other folks know how hard it is, dealing with nothing but giant boxes, some of which are bursting open. They know how bad it is when the management sends someone to help, but the newcomer can't build decent walls, and it ends up being a mess. So when any of us finish up in the truck we're covering, we go over and help. In any case, it felt good to be part of the team, and it still does. There's a strong sense of camaraderie among us physical workers.

But my mood had been shifting again last week. It started when the tendon attached to my left bicep began to hurt. Then, my wrists began to hurt. Then my feet really began to ache. I didn't feel like I was recovering -- by Thursday, the end of the week, I'd feel kind of spent at the opening of the shift. Throughout my time working here, on Friday, my first day off, I'd go through the day fending off tiredness, and dealing with various aches and pains. But after I hurt my arm a bit, Tuesday felt like Thursday, and Wednesday -- a work day -- felt like Friday. One arm not working all that well had an impact on how well I could move the rest of my body, and somehow my general stamina. Acetaminophen, Menthol Salicylate cream, constant Gatorade mediated rehydration, and nine to ten hours of sleep could only do too much. I went to Walmart and spend around sixty dollars: neoprene wrist supports, elbow sleeve, shoe inserts.

Last week, one of the guys--let's call him Dennis--quit at the end of a shift. He had really been struggling physically, and asked me how the hell I was still okay. He had broken his toe on his second day of work, when a certain, very reckless worker pushed the roller wheels over his foot. He hadn't invested in steel-toed boots, a requirement for the job. So he just put up with the pain and didn't tell the management, because he was afraid that he would get fired for not wearing the appropriate clothing. Fortunately, he has a day job working in a physical therapy clinic, so he knew what to do with his toe. He was still in pain. The toughest part was that while the lot of us earn a humble $10.50 an hour, he got to do the same hard physical labor for $4. The rest went to child support.

In the back of the truck, he looked at me from across the rollers and said, "I'm raising a son. I'd rather get fired than quit."

But the next day, Dennis was gone. He quit at the end of that shift.

People in this world put up with a lot of pain to get things done in their lives. Many of the people I work with here come to do this low-wage hard labor after working their day jobs. Just to get a little more money for their families. Just to have a bit more money to help out their kids, like one of the guys who was recently able to find a good school for his autistic son.

Since Dennis left, the mood has been more glum when we talk during the ten minute break, or as we're wrapping up the shift. It's not the only thing. We know other people are leaving. There's talk that corporate is circling around, looking to fire the least efficient people in each area.

A veteran hourly worker, who has been at the company for 24 years, told me quietly, "They're trying to flow through the same amount of stuff as the end of Christmas, with half the number of people. They're trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of us."

It's pretty typical corporate capitalism. He told me before that the warehouse workers at Amazon have it worse, being under more scrutiny, with no union protection.

And here, I have respect for most of our immediate supervisors. They started out where we are. They know what it's like to load a nightmare-heavy load. When it gets heavy, they try to help as much as possible. They come and load with us. They climb up and help sort packages.

So, it's disheartening to hear them getting chewed out by the district manager or some safety supervisor for the truck load quality being inefficient, or for there being too many packages that have fallen off the chute. We are all hauling ass, and we are all tired and at our wits' ends with these crazy loads. We are getting crushed. When I'm tired, I have trouble thinking clearly, and more trouble getting packages overhead.

I have this subjective metric: what I call my Not gonna deal with this shit no more meter. When the meter hitting 100% means I am completely fed up. It means I'm ready to walk the hell out, at least for the day. And maybe for good.

Usually, once I feel the end of the sort is really in sight, my meter mellows out. When we make it to end of the night, I might be bitching and cursing, I feel a sense of relief the day is over. Marlon and instinctively talk about the events of the day, an I think that helps a lot.

Yesterday, while loading a mixture of 45lb boxes of industrial parts and boxes of flowers, topped out at 85%. We started work half an hour earlier, and got out half an hour to midnight -- seven hours for what is typically a 4.5 hour shift. At the end, I chatted with the guys, and then with Marlon on the way home, and laughed it off.

Today, even though it was a shorter shift, the meter peaked at 95%. A box tipped over and hit me in the throat. A supervisor (not one I usually work with) came in and helped me load, but the wall he built was unstable and had a huge gap on the top. The aisles were filled with packages, many have, some torn open. I was getting ready to just give up on the truck and walk out. In a few minutes, I mellowed out a bit, and decided that at the end of the night, I'd pull my supervisor aside and give him notice that I'd be quitting in three weeks at the latest.

But the night wrapped up. The belt finally stopped, and we managed to fit the remaining stuff into the almost-full truck. There was chatter and joking and complaining. Lou, our best loader by far, talked about his wife's health issues, which is why he's been out for the last few days. I couldn't bring myself to announce my departure. I didn't want to hurt people's spirits just as we were all sharing some relief of climbing out of that hell.

But I am ready to move on. I postponed making my move for a while. Through December and January, I felt too tired to work on opening up other opportunities. This small job takes a lot of energy. I sleep nine, ten hours, and don't feel like I'm recovering completely day-to-day. But I don't have any other sources of immediate income, nothing saved up. Recently, my wages have been getting garnished to pay debts -- though nothing as bad as what Dennis was paying in child support.

But Marlon and I keep telling ourselves, if we can stand this crazy-ass work, we can overcome almost anything. If I can make it through a shift after shift feeling like I'm just one more 45lb box of t-shirts away from walking out on the spot, I can get my stuff in order in my spare time. I can overcome the physical and logistical and social and financial hurdles.

I don't want to dampen their spirits. But if I don't apply this same hard work to improving my situation, I feel like I'd be letting down my comrades even more.

Edited from a story I posted in the #hellotoday channel of our Slack, 2016-12-25

My parents wanted to go to NYC to see some of the displays and the Rockafeller Center tree. Marlon straight up refused to go.

I really did not want to go but I thought it would not be so bad.

It started off okay, with us parking in JC to take the PATH in at Grove Street. But I struggled to find a place with a public restroom, so I ended up using a Johnny on the Spot after asking a security guard at a construction site. I realized I'd forgotten my iPhone charging cable, despite bringing my external battery. My phone was already dead

Then I helped a pair of Chinese women (limited English) who wanted to refill their Metrocard but only had cash, no credit/debit cards. One of them gave me cash, and I put it on my debit card.

It was interesting to be on the PATH again. 33rd to Herald Square. Then it began to go downhill for me. I really wanted the rest of the family to enjoy, but I was personally getting progressively more irritated at the crowds that were there to see all the touristy stuff I semi-resented ever since I lived in city, which I still live otherwise. Huge lines for bathrooms. Overpriced holiday food stalls in parks. People stopping in the middle of crowded sidewalks to take pictures, pictures, pictures. Social media culture has magnified and made this shit worse

The last straw was when we got to Fifth and about 49th. There was a massive crush of people stopping on the freaking corner to watch and capture the Sam's Fifth Avenue store light show. I got separated from everyone. The packed crowd jostling against each other extended for about a block and people were still stopping to take goddamn pictures. I was full on enraged at all this, and it took me about 15 minutes to get half a freaking block, shuffling and pressed up against people, getting shoved from behind and causing me to shove the people in front of me.

Unable to contact the rest of the family otherwise, I went to a Duane Reade/Walgreens and bought an overpriced Lightning cable. I knew full well that it would be relatively useless to me after this night, since most 3rd party cables do not it fit through my life proof case. I had to remove the case.

I decided I was not going to jostle back through the stagnant crowd again just to meet up with them so we could jostle through more crowds to see freaking tourist things I don't give a shit about seeing in person.

As soon as my phone turned on, I sent a series of texts to everyone:

You can go wherever. Don't wait for me. I bought a charging cable from Duane Reade so I will be getting your messages.

At some point I will meet you somewhere that is NOT CROWDED. Just tell me where. I am not going into Rockafeller or back on Fifth

And to the expected "where are you" and "we will wait for you"

Don't call to clarify with me. It will just be a pain in the butt. Just go on wherever you want to go to. I will hang out away from the crowds. I really don't care about any of the displays or touristy things anyway. There is nothing here I want to see and the crowd in Rockafeller is a nightmare

Just message me if you need tips getting around

I began to walk west, which was the opposite direction of the big crowds, but soon I hit the pedestrian traffic around Times Square, which is another place I find irritating. I was thinking of just stopping in a McDonalds, but I decided to keep going. I considered seeing if my friends Lawrence and Connie in Hells Kitchen were at home, but I felt a bit hungry and decided to stop a cheap restaurant I vaguely recommended ordering from.

I am just walking around on 9th by myself. I can meet you if you go sit down somewhere or once you're done seeing Rockafeller / Times Square area

Peace and quiet -- at least for the city. I was able to stop being angry. I didn't find that restaurant I was thinking of, but I spotted a tiny, authentic looking noodle place (named Hand Pulled Noodles II)

The only table was almost right up against the door. I didn't mind at all. When have I minded something like that? They gave me a pot of jasmine green tea and I ordered a beef stew noodle bowl. After all that, it was just the best.

I told him I'd meet them there, and then ate my soup eagerly and noisily, like you're supposed to. I finished up the remaining soup by drinking from the bowl directly. I used the bathroom and told them to keep the 20 (which was the same bill Chinese lady had given me). The cashier looked at me, stunned, but I told her, hey it's Christmas. I didn't mention that this was the redeeming part of the whole trip

Zipped up my jacket, retied my shoes, put on some headphones, and headed over to 33rd and Broadway at a nice, brisk city pace.

Met up with the family at the base of the 34th street entrance to the PATH station.

I wasn't sure if my parents were angry at me for refusing to meet them in the crowded center. But later I figured they were just tired, but satisfied with what they did

Got back to the car on Warren and Columbus Ave. Put on Sakanaction as we got onto the Turnpike. As we glides down the highway, I found the array lights of the industrial centers and the airport stretching into the distance more beautiful than anything the packed crowds had stopped to ogle.

I thought about what I frequently think about -- anxieties about people expecting me to want the same things in life that they do. A sort of disbelief that anyone would be indifferent to things like having a nice house, a good career (or creator of the next Big Thing), a prestigious title (Vice President of something or another), a huge salary, and an impressive office. There are crowds packed, jostling against each other to get to those things.

I realized that today had been a microcosm of my life, and what I value from it.

The peace I found when I got away to enjoy a bit of soup and some tea at a tiny table by myself, seeing beauty in the sight of lights coming from myriad warehouses and industrial installations, the sense of liveliness of walking through the city on my own terms -- these are small examples of the quality things I am looking for on the big scale.

Today was a light day at the package sorting hub. We finished extremely early. While that means fewer hours, I found it convenient, since I will need to be up very early tomorrow morning to head to NYC.

The light load was also fortunate, since my counterpart--I'll call him Cowen--was not in. He stands on the other side of the belt and also assists in intercepting certain packages. Without him there, the light load was moderately difficult.

Being alone at my station meant that I had the whole time to think to myself. Or, depending on how you look at it, I had to think to myself the whole time.

Every once in a while, my mood dips. Some days I don't get enough sleep (around nine hours for me) and that can lead to anxiety and depression. Other times I experience an event that brings up bad emotions. Shame often predominates my depressive moods. At least, that's what I call it--it's the opposite of feeling proud.

I'm only bringing this up because the second thought I had that day came up when I was trying to keep myself from slipping into a bad mood earlier that day. The thought was:

Sometimes, to get out of a bad situation, you have to cross something out.

I feel like that makes sense in a practical way. If you're stuck or trapped in a bad place, position, or state, you might be able to get free by removing something. Remove some of the walls or surfaces keeping you pinned down.

I'm still trying to figure things out. I've accepted that if I'm actually going to go after things I want in life, figuring it out is going to be mostly up to me. There isn't really a template to follow. And while I can chat with some friends, I get the sense that most of the people around me are following very different scripts. And I'm writing my own. To some extent, I have to remind myself that some of the people I know actually take some cues from what I am doing, even though I'm still really, really making things up.

Since I don't have ready made scripts, I use a lot of models in thinking about things. They aren't perfect, and some of them are at most loose metaphors but they help me a lot.

One model I've been thinking through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I'm pretty sure I'm still stuck towards the bottom of esteem layer. I haven't progressed very much in society's terms--I don't earn a lot of money, I don't have a very prestigious career, and I haven't checked off common life milestones, like having children, getting married, or even a long-term significant other. On the more superficial side, I don't even have many experiences that can generate nice pictures to post on Facebook or Instagram. I don't have a college degree, and by all reasonable expectations, I'm probably going to be struggling with that for a while now. A lot of the time, especially because I'm close to my brothers, I feel all right.

But it gets to me. Last night, I was seeing everyone's baby and engagement and wedding photos.

If only I could cross out a large part of that pesky esteem layer! If only I could say, okay, not going to feel shame. If only I could save all the mental energy preparing to explain my life factors in terms other people can understand, only to have them give pretty pointless advice.

But I do kind of do that, or attempt to do that. From my own experience, my own hierarchy has a truncated esteem layer, or at least a very leaky border between self-actualization and esteem. Whenever things feel safe enough, I begin trying to tackle esteem and self-actualization sort of all at once.

What if I just reject the common social scripts that don't seem like they're going to work for me? A different model helped me see that quitting, exiting, or throwing out arrangements that aren't working for me has been a thing I tend to do naturally.

But you don't quit without side effects. I sure didn't. For social/life scripts, the side effect usually is that you have to write your own stuff. And then a bigger side effect is that people don't understand what's going on with you, while your script is still a work in progress. They'll try to pattern-match you to many tropes that just ain't relevant. And then, there's always the possibility that quitting carried a larger price overall than you first thought.

I'm dreading some encounters with relatives this winter. Even though I've felt that I'm learning very quickly how I want to live my life, and how I don't want to live my life, I know it will seem to them that I'm falling into a particularly bad script. And they will have suggestions about what I should be doing instead.

But for right now, I find myself in an interesting stage. I started training at the package hub just an hour after I completely failed an interview. It was sort of a desperate move at the time. I'd been looking for a job all fall, and I'd expected to keep searching in software development. Back in June, I wouldn't have expected I'd be working on a conveyor belt.

I feel strangely at ease, though. I earn enough to just barely pay bills, so I really don't want to stay forever. But most days, I feel really relieved at not feeling that I could be doing something else. While I'm at the hub, I'm doing my best almost all the time. No one there expects that I should be doing more. The packages keep coming down the belt, and I have to do my best to keep up and pick them off. But that's about it. Really, the hardest times of the week to deal with are my days off.

I know it's very temporary, and very limited, but this arrangement has provided a weird sort of haven from most worries. Maybe I'm not out of the rut yet, but at least there's some shelter for the rain.

Here is a review of We Shall Remain Episode 1: "After the Mayflower". I wrote it as part of the Native Americans of North America class I am currently taking.

As of this post, the episode is available on YouTube. I highly recommend it!

We Shall Remain Ep. 1: "After the Mayflower"

We Shall Remain is a historical documentary television series about American Indians. It begins first contact with Europeans, until today. It was produced as part of the long running and critically-acclaimed PBS historical series American Experience. The purpose of the series, in the producers' words, is to show "how Native peoples valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture".

The first episode, "After the Mayflower" tells the story of the Wampanoag, an Algonquian-speaking people. The Wampanoag were at the forefront of the difficult relationship between the English and the American Indian peoples: the United States holiday of Thanksgiving has written their alliance with the Pilgrims at Plymouth.

The series tells the story from the perspective of two generations of Wampanaug leadership, and how it would coem to shape the future of American history. It begins with sachem Massanoit, who chose to enter into an alliance with the small group of English separatists who landed in what would become Plymouth Bay Colony, allowing them to survive. It ends with Massanoit's son Metacom, known as Philip. Philip became sachem after this father's death. He would become famous for leading a confederacy of tribes against the English in what would later be called King Philip's War.

The episode examines the motivations for these key figures, as well for Wampanaug in general. It depicts them as decision makers trying to help their people survive amidst deadly disease, invasions, economic upheaval, and political betrayal.

Although the stated intent of the series is to help people to see the struggle of the native people of the Americas, the episode accomplishes more than that. It helps the viewer understand early American history from the perspective of the native people. It helps people understand a much talked-about, but often not very deeply understood period.

The episode assumes a vague familiarity with the history of the English colonization of North America and very basic geography. The main subject of the episode takes place in present-day Massachussetts. The episode makes use of maps to illustrate events and key movements of people. Some general background information might help the viewer better appreciate the series, it is not critical for understand what is going on. Most Americans who hav had some history even at the elementary school level will be able to benefit from the episode.

Because it tells the story of English colonization from the Wampanoag perspective, "After the Mayflower" immediately invites the viewer to empathize with the concerns of the tribe and its leaders. It immediately removes misunderstanding that North America was mostly empty before the Europeans. The story begins with the Wampanaug sachem Massanoit trying to find a way forward after sickness killed nine out of every ten of his people. The Pilgrims appear as outsiders. The Wampanaug are cautious, because of the reputation of Europeans as brutal and ruthless. But the Pilgrims who take up residence in the abandoned village of Patuxet include women and children, many of whom die before the end of the first winter. Still, some in the Wampanaug tribal council think they should wipe out the newcomers before they have a chance to do more harm. But seeing the women and children there, Massanoit decides to let newcomers live. As they make contact, he sees an alliance as a way to protect against the threat of rival tribes.

The common narrative of the Thanksgiving holiday centers around the Pilgrims. This religious sect saw Massanoit and the Wampanaug as having been sent by God to further their (the Pilgrims') mission. "After the Mayflower" depicts Massanoit not as a tool, but as leader facing difficult choices and an uncertain future. It begins with the Wampanaug more powerful than the English settlers, who were at the mercy of the environment and people of this foreign land. By doing this, the episode overturns the usual narrative and invites the viewer to see history through the eyes of the people who lived it--without any set path.

The episode looks at several aspects of the Wampanaug culture, and that American Indians in general, affected the relationship with the English. It discusses how the English misunderstood wampum, which were beads made from clam and other shells. The Wampanaug and all tribes of the Eastern Woodlands region respected it and used it as a ceremonial amulet. The English, meanwhile, assumed wampum was merely a type of currency. Without any respect for its cultural significance, they bypassed the usual relationships between coastal and inland tribes, and manufactured wampum to trade for resources like animal furs. This was one factor that led to decisions by Massanoit and other leaders to sell off their land.

Perhaps most of all, the episode teaches us the Indian way of thinking about relationships, and how its mismatch with the English way of doing things shaped relations and conflict between the two groups. When Massanoit entered into the treaty with the settlers at Plymouth, he not only saw it as a pact between equals, but a joining of their peoples. This was the Indian understanding: an alliance meant that their peoples would become as one, and help each other. Massanoit himself was not an ruler, like a Royal Governor or King James, but a leader whose people had picked through consensus, and whom the whole tribe respected. In contrast, the English, particularly the religious sect of the Pilgrims, were wary of living in too much close contact with the Wampanaug or any other Indians. As more English arrived, this concept of the Indians of outsiders that they needed to change and control grew among them.

Although the history of the United States usually follows the English perspective, I expect many viewers to see the English ways of the period as comparatively barbaric: from their penchant for hierarchy and dominance, desire to control outsiders, to their use of punishments like dismemberment, and their use of human heads as war trophies. I think modern viewers will relate more to the consensus-finding, compromise-seeking approaches of Massanoit, who better represents the ideals of leadership in modern democracy and a respect for a common humanity. Even his son, Philip, who took up arms against the English, only did so as a last resort, in response to injustice, broken promises, and political maneuvering to completely destroy the Wampanaug and related peoples.

The personal focus on Massanoit, Philip, and other key figures from the period make this film unique. While the two Wampanaug leaders play the biggest roles in this ultimately sad story, the episode makes a point to show their relationships with the English. Massanoit became close friends with the second-in-command at Plymouth, Edward Winslow. Winslow took it upon himself to be the ambassador to the Wampanaug. When Massanoit seemed to be deathly ill, Winslow came to be there with the sachem. The episode depicts a scene where Winslow embraces a severely ill Massanoit, and helps him to drink and eat. After he recovers, the show has Massanoit say to Winslow, "I will never forget your kindness."

The show takes care to illustrate all the figures in its story as complex people, with their own desires, hopes, and apprehensions. It avoids simplistically characterizing entire groups as simply good or bad--at the very least, it invites the viewer to think about the political, social, and personal motivations that shaped their actions.

The show uses a mixture of narration, historical pictures, commentary by historians, experts, and current day tribal people to present its information. But maybe the most important aspect of the show was using actors to depict the historical figures. This helps to engage the viewer with the historical story and the experiences of the people they are learning about.

This focus on the experience of the Wampanaug has the potential to change viewers' way of looking at history beyond this period. People watching the show get to see just how much promise the alliance between the Wampanaug and the Pilgrims at Plymouth seemed to hold for relationships between the Indians the English in general. The close friendship and respect between Edward Winslow and Massanoit underscores this. Knowing only about their strong bond, that the sons of these two would become fierce enemies seems shocking and surprising. But history, as people around the world live it, really often is that shocking. Even if we look back and analyze the factors, the people who lived through those events had no real way of knowing just how the story would turn out.

The story of Thanksgiving is important to the American national narrative. It depicts the American ideal of mutual help and cooperation of free peoples of different backgrounds. Although much of Thanksgiving is myth, "After the Mayflower" shows us that much of it was true. For a period, the Wampanaug and the religious Pilgrims at Plymouth cooperated and lived together, some forming close friendships. The Wampanaug, in particular, taught the Pilgrims all about how to survive in their land. Under Massanoit's leadership, they included the the English newcomers as part of a united people. But here is where the clear myth of Thanksgiving ends. Most Americans recognize the name of the Mayflower, the ship that brought the group of English religious separatists across the Atlantic Ocean.

Not so many are aware of how closely this event was tied to another event in early American history--the uprising known as King Philip's War. Metacom, or Philip, was the son of the same sachem Massanoit who entered into a treaty with the survivors of the Mayflower. The show shows us the "second" Thanksgiving the settlers at Plymouth celebrated: Philip's defeat, death, and dismemberment at the hands of English forces. The English at Plymouth displayed Philip's severed head on a pole for two decades.

"After the Mayflower" gives us a look into how Massanoit, Philip, and others must have really experienced this important episode in out history. It is a valuable educational tool that invites us into the perspective of native peoples trying to their best in a world of calamity from disease and invasion. The use of actors portraying the key figures adds a special immersive element to the story. This show reminds us how these experiences of native people are a part of our national historical heritage.