Misaeng / Birthday Eve — Lostinthewoodz

Not much happened this week. Last week I started watching Misaeng and that carried into this week.

Pretty great show overall. I think I got in 3-5 episodes per day (making good use of Netflix’s new 1.5x speed feature). I can’t remember the last time I was so invested in any characters on TV.

I laughed, I cried. And at the end of the show I was genuinely (somewhat) saddened that the show was over. For the unfamiliar the show follows a guy working in a korean trading company. This is the first office job he’s ever held and he has to navigate work life, office politics and the pressure cooker of Korean society.

Watching this reminded me of the existential dread I used to have during my college/internship days. My very first office job (2014) was doing data entry at a boutique travel agency that catered to higher end clients (we were proud to claim Kate Upton as one of our clients). Hours spent at that desk manually entering excel line by excel line and filling invoices wondering if this was what my life had to offer.

I was really angsty back then haha. Here’s an excerpt from my journal after my first day of work:

At the beginning of the day, I had parked in a 2 hour parking zone because I didn’t have a parking pass. At a certain point, I started looking forward to the times when I would have to walk out into the blazing sun just to climb into a furnace of car and repark to a different location. These 2 hour intervals were oases of opportunity where I could temporarily escape from the 8 hours of zombifying myself in front of a screen as I trudged through stacks of tedious data.

Ahh the good old days. Luckily during that first office job I eventually finagled my way into building the company website instead of data entry and subsequent internships/jobs have been software focused. But those feelings persisted.

The WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE feelings were very strong from 2014-2018. After getting my ass kicked by my job in 2019 I didn’t have the luxury to keep second guessing myself (or maybe I just stopped caring as much). As of 2020 I only ever get very light pangs of existential dread.

I think it’s important to feel those feelings as much as you need to. They definitely drive you to live differently. I’d rather feel those feelings now rather than a few decades down the road.

On a different note—I’m writing this on the eve of my birthday! I am turning 26.

As birthdays go I think this one will be a little sadder. With coronavirus still going on there isn’t much to do. But all in all I’m glad I’ve made it another year.

Personality wise—I don’t think I’m the type to naturally enjoy celebrating my birthday. I also think it’s important to force yourself every year regardless. Force yourself through the attention. Force yourself through the awkward sitting in silence while people sing to you. Force yourself through the “how do you feel now that you’re ___ years old?” even if you don’t feel any different.

Those are the days I end up remembering.

Well thanks for reading this far. You’ll notice I don’t have any music related notes and that’s because I spent too much time watching tv vs making progress on the song. Tune in next week though—I’m going back on the music grind.