2022: last minute retrospect

A few notes on working remotely

I spent the entirety of 2022 working from home, but still can’t say I’m getting any good at it. In fact, I’ve suffered from several times of mild burnout, which is unusual for my age and for the work I’m doing. Throughout the year, I’ve tried improving the situation by rearranging my daily schedule, worklog system, etc. But now, at the end of this year, I find myself back at the beginning with the simplest arrangement ever (in a good way).

So yes, simplicity wins again. But it is actually not that obvious. I believe there’re at least two basic constraints for designing a human-oriented system (or me-oriented at least): (1) The human hates and is bad at making decisions (2) Time estimation is usually wrong. A system that asks you to “finish reading a week’s bookmarks on Sunday”, or “find the most relative topic to file this new idea”, will quickly become an impediment rather than a friend. I found most rules I invented didn’t pass this little sanity check, that’s when I started cutting down the complexity aggressively.

Another important lesson I learned is to take good care of your physical presence, as contrary to the abstract/conceptual one. By “physical presence” I don’t mean just interhuman relationships, but more about the use of one’s physical body, and its interaction with physical environment – what you see, how you work with your hands, how you travel around the city. Only after experiencing the complete loss of them, I start to appreciate their role in my life. I wrote, on Cronenberg’s latest film “Crimes of the Future”, “even in the future, a reality is unthinkable without the presence of our body, its flesh and blood”. Maybe there’s more truth to it than simply an artistic statement.

寺山修司 (Shūji Terayama) 在《幸福论》里：

不知为什么，我忽然很想体会那种用尽全力翻开书页与“意义的世界”一决死战的疲惫——类似于劳动之后的快感，那才是我想要的。

“Staying focused”, I was doing it wrong

My biggest perspective shift happens late this year: instead of seeing only the “positive space” - the part where I work efficiently towards a clear purpose, I begin to see more of the “negative space” - the energy wasted.

Yoshinobu Ashihara (芦原义信)’s “Exterior Design in Architecture (外部空间设计)” is a great book that deeply influenced me as a kid. It is centered around “N space”, “P space” and the interactions between the two.

These two should not be simplified as “work” and “distraction”. Positive and negative space are complementary to one another, but there’re grey areas between work and distraction. Some work that is potentially useful later is not meaningful now (internet rabbit holes). Some work that is considered part of the job doesn’t actually yield meaningful results (arguing against changes outside one’s jurisdiction). Once you apply the “either-or” point of view, they become harder to hide.

It all comes down to drawing a line. Different people have different ideas of “positivity”. I am using two filters right now:

• Is it part of the one on-going project? Yes, only one is allowed.
• Do I have direct influence over the results? I want to emotionally detach myself from things that I don’t have the say on, that I cannot optimize using simple feedback loops.

Filtering out negativity automatically promotes positivity. And consistently applying the filters makes my work much more focused. There’s of course the danger of over-simplifying the “nature” of things. We’ll see how it plays on in the long term.

Favorite Quotes

• We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings, resistance and change often begin in art. - Ursula K. Le Guin at 2014 National Book Awards
• There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy. - Maarva in “Andor”
• I don’t think you get to pick your dreams, they pick us. - Nils van der Poel, interview with Swedish Radio
• If you decide to make an abstract film, don’t try to define it. Make an honest film and let the audience interpret it for themselves. - David Lynch

Favorite ~Films~ Shows

196 films/shows this year. Most are mediocre at best.

Looking back, I only want to mention one particular genre: nordic noir, which refers to crime fiction set in Nordic contries. This year I watched Forbrydelsen / The Killing (2007-2012) and Bron / The Bridge (2011-2018), both have amazing storylines and refreshing women protagonists, especially considering their production age.

In addition, some other niche TV shows that I enjoyed: Midnight Mass (2021), Mr Inbetween (2018-2021), Happy Valley (2014-?), Lonesome Dove (1989).

Favorite Books

23 books. I read a lot about the methodology of fiction writing. Maybe sometimes next year I’ll flush them out in a separate post. I don’t feel qualified to talk about them yet.

Favorite Music

192 albums. I spent not nearly as much time as I did last year researching genres and artists. My main source of input becomes bandcamp, and a little companion site called bandhiking. This “roaming” mode of listening certainly has a lower signal-to-noise ratio. It makes me rethink about my standard of good music, and the minimal amount of commitment to give to an unfamiliar genre/concept.

Anyway, here are my favorite new releases. All are joyously danceable. Or in bandcamp’s words, “Bodies in Motion”.

• Topical Dancer by Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul #Electronic #Soul
• Smiling With No Teeth (2021) by Genesis Owusu #HipHop #Soul
• The Runner by Boy Harsher #Electronic - The OST for their self-directed horror film, which I haven’t see. The album itself is much better than their previous work.
• On Repeat by Moniquea #Funk

A couple of old albums also on the radar:

• We Are DMX (1999) by DMX Krew #Electronic
• London (1997) by D’Influence #R&B

Things I Tried

• Game Design: Worked on the planning of a horror/adventure game. Didn’t come up with a decent storyline. So I redirected myself to fiction writing.
• 3D Art: Used Unreal to prototype the game plan. It’s very powerful and yet very unfriendly for deep customizations. Admittedly I didn’t try that hard to get it working in my favor. Here I quote John Carmack: “It’s easy to have a grand vision of the ‘Big Payoff’ at the end while leaving everything between here and there as a fuzzy blur. But details matter, and if you can’t see clearly what steps two and three are, it doesn’t really matter what your vision for step 20 is. I embrace the mundane work and find insights while exploring it.” Apparently this time I’m missing both.
• Drumming: Bought an electronic drum set. It was horrible to play and I immediately returned it.
• Collecting: Collected 10+ sets of Lego, 50+ vinyl records, 100+ blu-rays. My interest for this hobby is, once again, declining fast. Maybe this time I can finally demystify the idea of “ownership” and migrate to a healthier purchasing style.
• Fiction Writing: The primary focus of the year. But I didn’t get the progress I wanted.

Plans

Not much thought really. I’d like to improvise a little this year, considering how the 2022 plan miserably missed the point.