Category: Uncategorized

Meditation is one of the practices that is most associated with being mindful. I find it kind of funny that the goal of meditation is to clear your mind, to be mind-empty. Dumb jokes aside, I think the idea behind mediation, at least from my understand is something that I need to continue to work towards. I need to work on evaluating my thoughts and feelings without judgement. I need to work on improving my focus, but at the same time not get caught up in random thoughts sometimes. Recently I’ve been just letting my mind get away from me every now and then, but I am glad I have people in my life who help keep me grounded.

Recently, I’ve been feeling like I’ve just got a bunch of emotions bottled up inside, but I don’t really have any outlets right now to let them out fully and comfortably. I mean I have this blog, but I can’t exactly be completely candid here. I have friends and family, but some of it isn’t stuff I wanna talk about with them. Given those, conditions I realize that it makes this post just seem like a cry for help or just kinda futile, but it helps a little.

Maybe I’ll take up boxing.

There’s nothing like a good burn. I was reading the YouTube comments on one of Conan O’Brien’s videos and there was a comment by a fake Jordan Schlansky (for the uninitiated) that said, “Rejection is such a small adjustment for Conan.” Even though its a fake comment and also obviously a joke, you gotta admit this is a pretty good insult. I love insults that feel so carefully worded or carefully crafted. There’s something about the irony of using mature language to make an immature comment that makes it all the more funny.

Optimization… it has such a positive connotation; it’s something we believe we should all strive for. When things are optimized everything is running smoothly and efficiently. Productivity is maximized, and so are the profits.

But optimization itself is a process and so it too can also be “optimized”. A lot of times when we think about optimization it involves ideal conditions and an ideal world. The reality is that the world we live in does not operate under ideal conditions.

I was listening to some public health experts talking about the ongoing vaccination rollout against COVID-19. Logic and perhaps morality suggests that there are certain populations (i.e. healthcare workers and the elderly) that should be getting the vaccine first in order to minimize deaths. One of the experts made a point that I thought was important, and that I hadn’t really considered up until then: the logistics required for getting these populations vaccinated comes at the cost of the rate of vaccination, which results in slower roll-out and ultimately to potentially more deaths and further spread of the virus.

It can be easy to get caught up in optimization, especially since it seems like a universally good thing, but just like with any optimization problem, maximums (or minimums) can be achieved in more than one way in more than one place, you just have to find the way that fits within the parameters of the situation.

There are times when I end up deciding not to publish a post or write a post because I feel like (or know) that I have written about a specific idea before. I don’t want to be too repetitive and everything I write is supposed to be novel compared to what I’ve written before. Now you may be thinking, Well Niko, I’ve read a decent number of your posts and you seem to touch on a lot of similar themes pretty consistently, and that is true, it doesn’t always stop me especially if I feel like I have something new to add or if I just forgot that I already wrote about it. But I think it’s interesting that this is a source of resistance for me. Each time I sit down to write, whether I like it or not, I am going to be in a different headspace, a different person from who I was the day before (even if only marginally).

Trying to understand another person’s motives is hard. It requires data. It requires taking details and facts about them and applying your perspective to that in order to anticipate what they might be thinking or feeling (empathy). The data is never complete though. We can never fully know what it’s like to be another person and so we can never truly understand where they are coming from or what their motives are, even if they tells us outright. All we can do is do is try and fill in the gaps, but there will always be something missing and that’s ok.

It’s easy to judge a person based on their past and to let their old decisions define them. I feel like politicians in particular are judged on this basis and are considered duplicitous or wishy-washy when their present actions don’t align with the policies they currently support. I am skeptical of the morality and motives of politicians as much as the next guy but, shouldn’t we encourage people changing their position when presented with valid information that changes their understanding? This is especially confusing when so-called advocates complain about politicians switching to their side. What more do you want? Yes of course it would have been nice for them to have switched a long time ago before causing X, but what is yelling at them going to do now. It just dissuades people from being willing to change. There has to be a way forward, and you can either be with it or against it.

Being yourself is an ideal that we are constantly told we should aspire for. It’s a common theme of movies and novels, but what does that really mean? Does that mean we should live life uneditedd and uninhibited? Does it mean I shouldn’t try to improve or change myself or that I shouldn’t care what other people think?

My “self” includes my desire to be perceived a certain way by others and it also includes the vision of myself that I would like to be, am not quite yet. So why should I deny that part of myself in favor of this arbitrary ideal of accepting my true self, because the concept of a true self is not as well defined as we are often made to think.

So I think I’m learning to not try so hard to “be myself” and instead to just “be.”

I find that making lists for the things I need to do in a day helps me be productive, at least when it comes to doing those specific tasks. In a way though I feel like it can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Sometimes after completing all the tasks on my list I feel a sense of accomplishment that makes me forget other things that I may need to do that I forgot to add to my list. Also if I end up missing a task, that sometimes demoralizes me and I think makes me subconsciously not want to write up my list for the next day (something about not wanting to confront my failures). These things can spiral and make me less productive than normal for days at a time. But these “negatives” are all stuff I can work on and are not inherent to the list-making/ bullet journaling system. So here’s just another case where I think consistency is key and practice is key to working out the kinks and getting better at whatever I do.

The way I see it anger is an immature emotion. Not in that it’s felt by immature people, but it’s a reactionary emotion and can be associated with other, more precise feelings. Anger is something I feel when I don’t think to much about whatever it is that’s bothering me. But when I pause to think about why I am angry, it’s usually because I am sad, disappointed, frustrated, or exhausted. The anger often comes from a feeling of injustice, like I was somehow wronged. This may well be the case, but how does my anger help. It doesn’t lead me to finding a solution. It doesn’t make me feel good. It doesn’t help me get over anything. That said I still have to acknowledge that it exists, just so I don’t forget how easy it is to be angry.