To compensate for my lack of ambition

I am inventing, or I am claiming myself as the discoverer of the Lack of Ambition Syndrome. 

  

Still imagining how I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes

Dubliners again. Paper book with the audio companion, the stories come alive with the accents, spirited voices of readers, auditory pleasures that make it more immersive. It's harder to get lost in thought. The equivalent of turning on subtitles when you're watching a movie. 

There's an almost embarrassing element to re-reading stories, especially with the classics. One, you can't remember everything. Two, you just now figure out those epiphanies that you can't believe you missed before, how good the book is at all. And you still won't catch all of them. Three, your own insights will make you laugh at insights you previously held, and your life as a whole. Partly embarrassed by your own epiphany, partly just glad. 

I would have turned out as Duffy in A Painful Case. 

His evenings were spent either before his landlady’s piano or roaming about the outskirts of the city. His liking for Mozart’s music brought him sometimes to an opera or a concert: these were the only dissipations of his life.

He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without any communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died. He performed these two social duties for old dignity’s sake but conceded nothing further to the conventions which regulate the civic life. He allowed himself to think that in certain circumstances he would rob his bank but, as these circumstances never arose, his life rolled out evenly—an adventureless tale.

His room still bore witness of the orderliness of his mind. Some new pieces of music encumbered the music-stand in the lower room and on his shelves stood two volumes by Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra and The Gay Science. He wrote seldom in the sheaf of papers which lay in his desk.

But in my life, love was possible. I live with this great fortune. 

He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.

Re-reading. Bouts of joy and perfectly silent loneliness all over again, with some embarrassment, but with a much better heuristic. It's all good. Nobody will even figure out the name of Mangan's sister.

Marcus Aurelius must be cringing on his grave

We expose ourselves to the dangers of algorithms. Our attention spans are being trimmed down to reels. We are inevitably exposed to influencers who for the sake of producing content, compromise expertise. Marcus Aurelius says that your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in your thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions (Meditations, 5.16 quoted in the Daily Stoic, p. 103). Especially if we hold these thoughts uncritically.

Liberica coffee today. Freshly roasted, dark roasted (maybe burning some of the flavor) but brings out more bitterness and lessens the acidity. It keeps its fruity identity. We trace its origins only a hundred or so kilometers from the earth where we come from. We can be so lucky.

Now it’s time to play with V. Jenga and then the dolls. She'll be Rainbow and I'll be Curly. We'll make them read Dr. Seuss. 

When you don't get to run or ride, get anxious or upset about wasting time, you must learn to forgive yourself. Your body needed that rest as much as you needed to get moving. Your mind can wait to zone itself out. Don't worry about the lost time now, just get ready to get back on track. 

Streaming Today

Until I looked closely, I would’ve dismissed it as an unproductive morning, and I would’ve felt drained and clunky as I had the past couple of days. There’s been a big cloud over my head. But my father’s home now. I didn’t get up early enough for a run or ride. But I made coffee for us. A page or two of The Daily Stoic. Much better, a chapter of Skin in the Game. Only the Rich are Poisoned: The Preferences of Others. Work this morning was just backlogs on document work and an email or two. I did it in our family room with V. while’s she’s watching a day in the life of two young youtubers, Sekora and Safari. I slack a little bit, scrolling through Strava, Messenger, Linkedin and watch a bike blogger take us through a route South Korea. I discovered how to import annotations from my 8-year-old ebook reader. Breakfast in front of the screen with the daily report, attendance sheets and lesson summaries while Spotify-ing. I take a break and play with V.; we design my room in our Toca World beach house. In the beach front, D. and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary with the people closest to our hearts. Kuya I.’s character was wearing gangster shades. V. and I pretend play, she’s a student, and I’m the teacher. Today’s lesson is "There’s a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr. Seuss.  I head to the grocery store for supplies and buy lunch, seafood rice in a box. Wash the dishes. Switched the bike rear wheels and mounted the Allez on the trainer.  Zwifted on Makuri Islands, 30.13km in 59m 51s with 3 10-minute sweet spot ramps. V. pops up in the “man cave” (which is really the laundry area) and we dance to the Zwift theme. Bananas and a corned beef sandwich.  Shower, while setting the coffee machine up for today’s second cup. Fill the air cooler with water. Teach three students. Finish document work. I didn’t have to sweat blood for money today. Wash the dishes left in the sink. For a late dinner, I. requests three hotdogs. I cook the hotdogs for him. He's turning into a teenager and I often wish there's more I can do.  I open a can of spicy tuna and crackers for me. I chose between Netflix and HBO Go.  Netflix prevails. Wash a few more dishes. I drink zero alcohol, low sugar “beer” that tastes like carbonated water with hops, fruit and cereal, and paired a very vivid imagination you can think of it as craft beer. A small bag of corn chips. Two, because the bag was so small. At the end of the day, I decided that it was pointless to ask myself if I would have been happy to die today. Today was just dying to be told.

Intellectual Yet Idiot

 Still, an idiot.

Elsewhere

Malay, Aklan
Fourth Day in Boracay Island

Traveling here for the fourth time, the first impression is an expected surrender. The capitalists have won. With more paved roads, more highly-organized logistics, a chain of hotels and restaurants, this beach paradise is a trophy for the empire, their dream came true. Who are we to clamor for "character?" The tragedy is that, after four trips here, collecting some life-shaping milestones, your once-cherished memories become forgettable and commonplace. 

Traveling here is supposed to be for everyone. And yes, everyone ought to squish their toes in the still incredible softness of this sand, the saltiness of teal turning into clear water lingering on our lips, magnificent sunsets, of taking a pause from the grinding humdrum of everyday life. Traveling, as we always say, will tell us not only about a place, but will let us learn more about ourselves. Even to remind us of the most basic things, and then eventually transforms us.   

V. takes a plane ride for the first time, she has felt and conquered a fear. She's earned a fascination that some would take for granted. She's reaped the joys of basking in the hot sun, burning her skin in five days of swimming everyday in the one of the world's best beaches. All with the convenience of sleeping on hotel sheets with air conditioning, hot water, housekeeping and room service. Not to mention that we did this very shortly after a global pandemic was just about getting over.  

We came in the rainy season, and the thunderstorms were inevitable. And as the 12-year-old I. whined, I had the perfect opportunity to tell him that he will be a man one day, while we were running to shelter from heavy rain. And while he had a terrific time, traveling shouldn't be without hiccup. 

We came with friends, and our friends' children. And we were so curious about each other's lives, and this time I think there were more stories than drinks, fancy cocktails, restaurants, margherita pizzas and fruit shakes. And we not only hope, but know for certain, we'll be around to tell stories - reminding ourselves of the best and maybe sometimes the worst of each other. We are not just looking around some of the so-called fancy restaurants now. We're in them. And we're not congratulating ourselves, we're laughing at ourselves. There's true wisdom. I am thankful for friends. We understand as much that I don't have to tell them that. 

I came with D. She is the constant that keeps the world moving, the impetus for travel. If not for her, I would have lived in a cave. We left the children momentarily in the hotel room with their devices, we got ourselves coffee in one of the enduring and endearing cafes. We also had lunch in a local, charming restaurant and their kebabs were excellent. Perhaps this is a phase on this island's story, and someday the local people have gathered enough they will claim their own and not just work as servers, but as owners themselves. On the way back to the hotel, we take a short walk by the stalls and walk the stretch of beach front while the sun is out. A breeze sways the trees and the waves roll like a chillout CD track. If we really look in the right direction, the capitalists will be elsewhere. 

And here I am, in my own perception, pacing myself better. I'm drinking as much as I want without being useless and hungover. Running fast, or running slow, I figured out how to enjoy the landing of my feet on this white, powdery sand.    

We all know for sure we'd do it all over again.