Thaction / Seattle
Sup reader. Apologies for the delayed post. I’m writing this from the Comfort Inn in downtown Albuquerque—a city I never imagined I’d visit. These past few weeks have been packed with activity and the blog fell to the wayside :(. I’ll aim for a double post this week.
Btw I’m changing the format of the blog. Adding headers in each section so you can skip to whatever parts you’re interested in. Was reading someone else’s blog the other day and after being hit by a wall of text I realized that I gotta shape up on my end as well.
Idea of the week
I’ve been overthinking a lot in the past few days. Which got me to thinking more: how do you stop overthinking?
Thaction—Thoughts and action exist on opposite ends of a spectrum. If you find yourself doing one thing more than the other, lean the other way.
In other words: stop overthinking by taking more action, doing something.
I think my life as a software engineer has nudged me towards the thought end of the spectrum. It’s a very thought driven industry that attracts a lot of thought oriented people. Also a very comfortable industry which leads to less risk taking and more comfort zone.
I contrast my experience as an eng with my experience as an actor back in college. The other end of the spectrum. Skipping CS classes. Practicing scenes. Breaking up every beat into an action. Going up on a weekly basis to perform in front of an audience. Taking risks. Putting yourself out there.
That’s been missing in life these days.
Step 1: Do more stuff.
A few things I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t (out of fear, apathy, laziness, or overthought)
Singing lessons with a vocal coach
Cross country train trip
Surfing lessons
I’ve started singing lessons (have my second lesson coming up this Tuesday). I’ve also started my cross country train trip (which is why I’m writing from Albuquerque). Have not yet started surfing lessons but I’ll aim to do that when I get back in two weeks (my current thought here is that I might be too busy for surfing lessons? But I think that’s just an excuse to not do something out of my comfort zone).
I’m the type of person to come up with a lot of excuses not to do something but I want to shut that part of my brain off for a while and see what happens.
Step 2: Become a better person
Overthought/lack of action stems from laziness, apathy, or fear. Curb that by becoming stronger. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my most overthinking days occurred when I was feeling inadequate/out of shape/lonely and my least overthinking days occurred when I was in the best shape/most fulfilled I’d been in years.
To that end I’m revamping the habit tracker (awwww yeaaaaaah). I’ve found in the past that I ignore habit tracking during life event changes (e.g. moving, going on vacation, hosting a friend long term) but I’ll try not to do that this time and am diligently tracking my habits* on this cross country train trip.
As I near the end of this section I realize there are maybe 4 (broadly stereotyped) classes of people:
Bad at thinking, bad at taking action (the neckbeard)
Bad at thinking, good at taking action (the musclehead)
Good at thinking, bad at taking action (the nerd)
Good at thinking, good at taking action (the hero)
I’d say I’m the third type aiming towards the fourth type.
*My current set of habits
Sleep habit (goal 5/7 days but hopefully every day) // honestly the hardest one
Get to bed by 10:15 local time and wake up at 8:15
Close apple rings (goal 5/7 days a week)
700 calories move goal.
No Reddit (takes too much time)
To this end I’ve blocked reddit on my work/personal computers and my iPhone/iPad.
Track calories (goal 7/7 days)
I’m aiming for 500~600 calories for lunch/breakfast so I can eat whatever for dinner (totaling around 15/1600).
Vocal practice (goal 6/7 days)
20 minutes of vocal warmups + practice singing the assigned songs
Week in review: Seattle
Ahh Seattle, the classier, cleaner, safer version of SF! We went on a family vacation to Seattle since none of us had ever gone (instead of going to Cancun which would have been n i i i i i i i c e—but I’m still glad we went to Seattle).
The land of salmon and coffee! The land of Amazon and Microsoft! The land of mountains and hiking!
Stuff I enjoyed:
Space needle
do u like my space needle cosplay
a delicious strawberry shortcake at the bottom of the tower
Chiluly glass museum. Imagine a wonka factory where the candy is actually glass. The whimsy and delightful colors oh my. Would go again
Dough zone. Late night dim sum with the fam. Dan dan noodles, dumplings—great stuff. We also got Din Tai Fung with Andrew and his roommate but I think I overhyped myself on it.
Catching up with friends. Hung out with Andrew at Stars in the Sky. I thought the chicken was good but the fam raved about it. Afterwards Andrew and I also went to Gasworks Park (a cool industrial park by the water that reminded me of Dolores park) and saw some people fire dancing.
Also saw Jessie. Hung out at an overcrowded, overheated pike place market and saw the disgusting gum wall. Afterwards caught a ride to the Expedia office and checked out Kirkland. Felt like old times even though we hadn’t seen each other in 4+ years.
Stuff I didn’t enjoy
The heat. We went during a historic heat wave and it was humid AF.
Aquarium. You seen one aquarium, you’ve seen them all (same applies to zoos). Couple this with the heatwave and you’re in for a mediocre day.
my face when someone asks me whether I want to go to an aquarium
Was in a terrible sleep deprived mood when we went to Mt Rainier. The heat also got to me. Some cool waterfalls though.
Music update
As mentioned above I’m taking singing lessons. Pretty fun so far. Definitely provides ease of mind knowing I have an expert to guide me to where I want to go.
Michelle asked me during our session what I wanted out of singing lessons. I muttered back something lame like “I want to become a better singer” when in reality I meant “I want to get so good at singing my listener either cries, vomits or has an orgasm”
Review of the week
This week I finished the Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. I was sleep deprived for the majority of the time I read the book but I had a good amount of fun. Vietnamese refugee/double agent moves to France and works as a drug dealer to the upper echelon of french society. Comedy, some points on being Asian in a predominantly white society (how many books are there from that POV?).
Would recommend.
Last note: Yale school of drama just went tuition free. If I ever decide to leave my job I’ll apply here too.