This issue is a record of and reflection on life from May to August 2023.
I’ve been busy on weekends lately, which caused me to miss a few updates. Thanks to those who nudged me to keep going:
💐 The Joy of the Present
The title of this post comes from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat: “Enjoy the pleasures of the present, for this moment is your life.”
PS. I’ve always thought of the essays in this monthly as “conversations with myself.” Only when I’m satisfied with how those conversations turn out do I tidy them up and publish them on the blog. So if this one ends up a bit rambling, please be patient — I’m not sure I can fully unpack this topic in a single piece. And if anything reads as preachy, please ignore it; if it is, it’s me preaching to myself.
The Meaning We Chase but Never Quite Catch
Has it been a long time since you last felt genuinely happy?
In today’s environment, the sense of meaning people pursue is often wrapped up in anxiety. We chase the meaning of life, search for our reason for existing, and eventually land on the same conclusion: “work harder” — and so we squeeze ourselves for output, for productivity, for a life packed full of accomplishment, defining our existence under the label of “striving and anxiety.”
It feels like rowing upstream through fate — stop pushing and you start drifting back. Under that kind of pressure, it’s hard to find peace, hard to fully let go and ask what joy even feels like. Some people go in the opposite direction and give up on meaning altogether, lying flat to escape the anxiety of striving. Others bob endlessly between grinding hard and doing nothing. (How to balance work and life is its own big topic, one tied to each person’s own rhythm — I’ll leave that for another time.)
Growing up, I often found that moments of happiness outside of studying and work came with a strange and inexplicable sense of guilt. Not by design, but because I’d been raised on stories that glorified suffering — “the bitterness you swallow today will sweeten tomorrow, but if you taste sweetness today, bitterness is just around the corner.”
Thinking about it now, I believe we only feel fear when we’re out of alignment with our own hearts. That misalignment is what gives rise to anxiety and guilt.
We’re afraid of not being able to face ourselves honestly.
We’re afraid of drifting through life without making a mark.
We’re afraid of chasing meaning and never quite grasping it.
A mentor once told me: “If your inner world is full, then even a life spent selling buns is a life well lived.”
I thought about it. He wasn’t encouraging withdrawal from the world, nor resignation in the face of circumstance. If you’ve given everything and found that fate truly cannot be fought, then accept it — “The truth is this sad: not everyone gets to make it big. Some of us are destined to search for meaning in the everyday details of ordinary life.”
Even so, don’t forget the courage it takes to embrace being ordinary.
If the world can’t be changed, if fate can’t be resisted, the one freedom left to us is how we choose to respond to our circumstances. As Frankl put it: “Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
That reminds me of a line from a behind-the-scenes interview for Soul that stayed with me: “Achievement isn’t defined by the outside world — it’s whether you’re living on your own terms.”
So the answer to this problem comes down to “the joy of the present,” with two specific approaches:
- Cherish each moment as it comes
- Develop an awareness of joy in everyday life
Cherishing Each Moment
We exist as a series of individual, fleeting moments. What makes us human is precisely that we exist. As Adler put it: “Life is a succession of instants. The most important thing is this moment, right now.”
The present moment is only the present — no past, no future. Regret about the past and worry about the future are the greatest enemies of our wellbeing, the chief destroyers of our happiness.
We often mourn the roads we didn’t take, wondering whether things would have turned out better if we’d chosen differently. But none of it is knowable. The Japanese drama Reset playfully shows that even the “optimal choices” in life, when you replay them over and over, don’t necessarily lead somewhere better than the original path. Sophia in Finding Heaven says: “Life is so short, we can’t possibly do everything we want to do. Whatever we do, there’s always something else worth trying, always another road worth walking. So in the end, all we can do — and must do — is make peace with the road we’ve chosen.”
There is no “what if” in reality. All we have is one present moment after another, and whatever choices we make in each of those moments, given what we know at the time, are the best possible ones.
Cherish the present. Cherish this very moment. Cherish everything around you. I genuinely hope everyone can learn to feel these moments — and not let them slip away unnoticed.
Developing an Awareness of Joy
First: it’s joy that forms the bedrock of our happiness, not anything else.
Under pressure, I tend to gravitate toward lighter, simpler outlets. Maybe the simpler and more unadorned things are, the more they purify the soul. I love reading the posts that show up in the “Daily Douban” feeds — in all those wonderfully odd Douban groups, there’s always someone sharing what made them happy today:
- “A lot of the time, I feel like I subconsciously think happiness isn’t a serious thing the way work or studying is. So I schedule work and study time, but not time for joy. But sometimes I do spontaneous joyful things — learning a song I love, practicing guitar, watching a movie, journaling, looking up recipes, making milk tea, lying by the windowsill staring into space (watching clouds, watching the elderly and kids downstairs), reading a book related to something I’m wrestling with.” — Luo Tiantian
- “I love watching the sky — watching clouds roll in and out, watching sunsets change color. It’s so relaxing. The sky in Dali lately has been full of rainbow clouds; I waited an entire evening the other day and finally saw just a little bit, which made me so happy. I also love reading with sunlight coming through the curtains, casting light and shadow on the pages — dappled, but quietly joyful. Tidying up a room, sorting things into categories, getting rid of what’s not needed — that’s healing too.” — Romantic Child
Being able to notice joy in everyday life is an enviable gift, but it’s also a genuinely rare one. In a previous essay, On the Value of Existence and the Experience of Life, I wrote that “sensitivity defines the boundaries of how we perceive the world.” Demian continually emphasizes the importance of perception: “As long as he has no awareness of it, he is only a tree, a stone — at most an animal. But when that first glimmer of awareness lights up, he becomes a person.”
So how do we cultivate this capacity to notice joy? I’ve identified four approaches:
- Slow down
- Cultivate focus
- Extend your time horizon
- Stay kind
1. Slow Down
Pull your attention back from the endlessly churning outside world. Don’t let the information flood drag you under. Pay more attention to your inner life, to how each day actually feels. Keeping a journal is a great way to do this — “recording happy experiences and revisiting those feelings makes us happier. Writing about hard things, venting them out, helps release negative emotions and supports emotional recovery.” I wrote about the value of journaling in WJ.19: The Meaning of a Diary, so I won’t repeat it here.
Our lives only truly exist when we slow down enough to pay attention to them. We pursue efficiency so we can slow down and experience life — not so that we lose life in the process.
Nothing is more important than sleeping well, being happy, and staying healthy.
2. Cultivate Focus
How to Deal with What’s Hard Inside says: “When we truly deploy all our mental and physical resources — with genuine curiosity about ‘what’s actually happening here’ — to fully perceive an apple, a tree, a person, an event, or the sensations of our own muscles, temperature, heartbeat, or breathing, we instantly enter a state of ‘selflessness,’ and through it, we experience calm, peace, and an unconscious joy.”
When we pour ourselves completely into whatever we’re doing — immersing ourselves in the feedback and sensation it gives us, living each moment in full — the mind in that flow state becomes perfectly still. No worries, no anxieties. It’s an incredibly comfortable state, a feeling of merging with the world, as though time has stopped and the soul is filled with satisfaction. A true sense of being alive.
3. Extend Your Time Horizon
Our lives belong to us. Every minute, every second we live is our actual life. If we can’t live it in a way we love, aren’t we just wasting it?
Zoom out, and life is vast. Most of us may be ordinary, but none of us are mediocre. We all share the same origin, the same beginning. We come from the same depths — and yet each of us is rushing toward our own destination, trying to leap out of that abyss. We can understand each other, but only each of us can truly understand ourselves.
Everyone is different. Every life is a journey toward the self — an attempt at a particular path, a quiet call along a particular trail. No one can ever exist as their fully realized, absolute self; every person is striving to find and become that self. Some arrive slowly, others more quickly, but each does it in their own way. Choose to spend your life the way you love, seek out as many experiences as possible, and each present moment will carry its own joy.
Not everything is such a big deal that it requires this level of constant vigilance and anxiety. Life is supposed to have some unexpected good things in it, things that drift our way by chance.
See through the world’s pretensions, and the world will be yours.
4. Stay Kind
I touched on this in On the Value of Existence and the Experience of Life from the angle of building connection, so I won’t repeat that here.
What I want to add is something from Siddhartha: the Buddha Gautama, who understood perfectly the impermanence and illusion of human nature, still deeply loved the world and devoted his entire life to helping and guiding others. “In the heart of this great teacher, love for things outweighed love for words. His actions and his life outweighed his teachings. His bearing meant more than his speech. His greatness lay not in his doctrine or his thoughts, but in his life itself.”
Having recognized Gautama’s great wisdom, Siddhartha says: “For me, love is the supreme thing. Observing the world, explaining it, or despising it may be what thinkers do. My only concern is to love this world. Not to despise it, not to hate it and myself, but to regard all things with love, wonder, and awe.”
I think that if one can reach that state — holding love for the world, carrying kindness toward all things — then every moment of life will be the purest joy.
🌺 Snippets from Life
The past two months have been eventful — the rockiest stretch since I started working. I’ll spare the details, but I went through a period of anxiety and unhappiness before finding my way back (which is why I chose this topic for the issue). Here are a few moments from along the way.
🐑 June 1st — COVID
I finally caught it. The first infection hit hard; I could barely move and had to stay flat in bed, which is why the May issue didn’t happen. On the second day, mid-fever, I noticed my hands and feet going numb, until I could only hold one strange posture and couldn’t move at all. Thank goodness Belle was there — she took me to the hospital. The diagnosis was respiratory alkalosis from hyperventilating, causing tetany in my extremities. Controlling my breathing fixed it. Nothing serious in the end, but the experience had me thinking — I should hold onto every moment, make good use of this precious and finite life.
🎂 June 30th — Birthday
I didn’t post anything for my birthday this year. Honestly, I’ve been dreading it — 28 feels like the age where you start feeling anxious about getting older.
🤒 July — Gastroenteritis + Tonsillitis
Something I ate went wrong, and both hit at once, spiking me to 40°C. The doctor gave me a whole array of medications (to be taken and stored in a specific order). They worked fast — two days and I was back on my feet.
🏸 Badminton
After recovering, I got back to playing. I choose two out of Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday each week — roughly two sessions a week.
👨🏻💻 Work — Transitioning to iOS Development
A lot has shifted at work lately. I’ve met some genuinely impressive people, and a few who seem to believe in me in a big way. I can feel the weight of their expectations, and I’m honestly afraid of letting them down. All I can do is try my best — focus on the present, do what’s in front of me well. Content-wise, I’ve also moved from web to iOS development, getting into the technical work I actually love. I’ve always wanted to work on client-side development and I finally have that chance. Hoping things keep getting better.
🏠 Moving
Left behind what I’d call a perfect apartment — here’s one last photo in its memory:
(But the new place is 120 out of 100!)
👩🏻🦯 W3C
Joined the W3C Accessibility Working Group. Attended my first working group meeting and saw how the community operates — got to meet a whole lineup of impressive people from around the world. If I can eventually contribute something meaningful to the accessibility space, I’ll feel like I’ve realized one of my career dreams.
🏆 Company Training
Participated in a company-level training program over these two months. Met some great people through it — hoping we can stay in touch long after.
🍵 Campus Recruiting Talk
Had the honor of participating in a campus recruiting panel. Met some impressive people around my own age.
🎬 Books, Films, and More
Here’s what I’ve been reading, watching, and playing over the past two-plus months:
- Finished: Philosophy | Demian | ★★★★☆
- Currently reading: Economics | Principles of Economics: Microeconomics | ★★★★☆
- Finished: Drama series | The Fiends | ★★★★☆
- Finished: Drama series | D.P. | ★★★★★
- Finished: Drama series | The Long Season | ★★★★★
- Finished: Drama series | The Bad Kids | ★★★★☆
- Finished: Drama series | All Is Well | ★★★☆☆
- Finished: Drama series | Day and Night | ★★★★☆
- Finished: Film | Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse | ★★★★★
- Finished: Film | Missing | ★★★★★
- Finished: Film | Thor: Love and Thunder | ★★☆☆☆
- Finished: Film | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | ★★★★★
- Finished: Film | Lost in the Stars | ★★★★☆
- Finished: Film | The Shadowless Tower | ★★★☆☆
- Finished: Film | Lost on You | ★★★☆☆
- Rewatched: Film | Shutter Island | ★★★★★
- Rewatched: Film | Interstellar | ★★★★★
- Rewatched: Film | Inception | ★★★★★
- Rewatched: Film | Tenet | ★★★★★
- Played: Steam | Thronefall | ★★★★★
- Played: Steam | The Shape of Time | ★★★★★
- Currently playing: Switch | The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom | ★★★★★
- Currently playing: Steam | Dave the Diver | ★★★★☆
A special recommendation for the indie game The Shape of Time by NExTStudios and oooooohmygosh:
The Shape of Time is composed of 15 scenes, drawing on the ideas of many philosophers about time. To borrow from the official description: “Philosophy is usually expressed in words, and time in the numbers of a digital clock — both are hard to make concrete. Unbound by language, The Shape of Time uses motion, feedback, and sound and visuals to bring time and philosophy into richer, more tangible form. Playing it, you seem to see, hear, and touch the shape of time — and find yourself thinking about life and philosophy, especially in the quiet of late night.”
Thought is a finite fragment. Time is a continuous feeling. Rather than struggling and searching, perhaps it’s better to simply meet it — and maybe in doing so, trace a more beautiful arc of life.
