I'll write a few lines per topic about things I've been thinking lately. Odds and ends.
・Lately making sandwiches has been fun. When someone asks what your hobby is, "cooking" is a bit bland — but "making sandwiches" might open the conversation a little.
・Something I noticed in sparring at kickboxing gym: even amateurs can somehow attack, but they can't defend. More precisely, they can't attack while keeping defense in mind. That might be a fairly general principle.
・In ongoing communities you belong to, labeling is effective for adjusting other people's expectations. You calibrate yourself in the balance of "that person can probably do this" vs "that person probably can't." Especially labeling to lower expectations — I had never been conscious of that. I only paid attention to raising them.
Lately I felt the need to lower expectations, tried it, and felt freer than I expected — so I should do it actively.
・After moving to a company with no fixed start/end times (full flex), I learned I can't get up early. Sleeping from late afternoon into the night, working late at night, then sleeping again is fairly comfortable. And I finally don't need to be in the city center, so I'm thinking where to move. I'm a paper person, so ideally near a station, easy shopping, lots of cafes, cheap rent. Osaka would be best eventually, but life seems long, so I want to live somewhere unfamiliar. I'm done with Kanto for now — Hakata sounds nice. Once I've gotten vaccinated and things settle a bit, overseas would be fine too.
・Only an impression from nearby communities, but people from Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.) are often diligent, capable, and kind. Very easy to work with. Almost enough that, absent a special reason, I wonder whether you need to hire Japanese people at the same cost. Maybe obvious. Flipped: the yen is amazing. I'm soaking up that benefit. Nothing but respect for the people who built Japan. Thank you.
・I rarely used to reread novels I'd already read, but for about a year I've started to. Rereading, the emotional buzz fades. Through the story you get a sense of talking with yourself. That's probably exactly the benefit of meditation — but I keep meaning to meditate and still can't get into it.
・My English is still terrible, but as needed I memorize words, phrases, and example sentences with a vocab app. I do it hoping for a tiny bit of progress every day — and the act of memorizing itself is fun. Pulling memory out is less painful than you'd think. I'll treasure the sense that memorizing is enjoyable.
・Finding interesting new blogs is surprisingly hard. Weak search skills play a part, but I'm wondering if there's a smarter way. Mutual links like early internet boards maybe covered that gap.
Then again, there's little upside to publishing a blog, so people who think interesting things and also write blogs are probably rare.
・On the benefits of pair learning. A colleague who joined around the same time and I do weekly update meetings. The work differs, but progress is similar, so we clear each other's questions. We teach each other, and what neither knows we think through together — so it feels more like learning than asking a manager.
Joi Ito said in a TED talk something like "education is what others do for you; learning is what you do for yourself" — borrowing that frame, this feels like the best of both. When I quoted that phrase to another colleague, they reacted strongly with "I agree with you!" Quoting it so smugly was embarrassing.
・I notice again how important doing new things is for me. Especially meeting new people, talking with them, and learning something new — that flow makes me happy. Slight digression: I once wrote that the ability to place orders / commission work is very important — combined with this, it feels like you could raise your own ability a lot. (I'm contrary, so "involvement power" is probably close in nuance, but I hate the word and don't want to use it.)
・Lately I made a fairly big personal mistake. Afterward I had a meeting with a colleague on something else, shared the miss, and got asked, "When you mess up and feel down, how do you usually manage your feelings?" On the spot I said something like, "It's a shock, but in a long life it's only a tiny thing, so I switch by thinking it won't have a big impact on my life." I said it as advice, but it encouraged me a bit too. (Looking back it sounds a little defiant...)
・I finally went to a shop I'd been curious about. Stylish, popular, busy — and still every staff member treated each customer with great care. I was moved. I feel like I've written this kind of thing on the blog before, but experiences like this make you happy from the bottom of your heart. High-level customer service raises trust in one go. Hats off to whoever wrote their service manual and the managers training staff every day.
・It's a remote company, so unless you're on the same project there's no communication. Even when there is, the topic range is limited. There are volunteer internal communication events for remote folks, but attendance is always low, and the same limited set of people. Lately I gathered courage and joined a few. As I wrote earlier, they're valuable as new experiences and let you learn all kinds of personalities. When someone new joins, existing members are really glad. English still gets generous treatment (also valuable as English training), but being seen as "someone who actively tries to communicate" matters a lot. And people who show up to these events every time are truly rare talent.
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