architect of country and hearth

Me: "Why is there so much talk about the Founding Fathers? They created a great system but they've been dead for centuries."

Aff: "The first presidents willingly gave up power. They could've continued for additional terms, but they chose not to. You rarely see that."

Me: "George Washington was one of the 10 richest people in the US at the time. He probably wanted to go home to his mansion and live a cushy life redecorating it. Did you know that while fighting the Revolutionary War, his letters home had pages of instructions about remodeling parts of his home?"

Aff: "Sounds like someone who thought they would win the war."

Me: "Haha!"

Aff: "'If I'm killed in battle, disregard the previous.'"

a touching story and song

I'm so touched by this month's Atlantic article about a breakthrough in cystic fibrosis treatment. 

In the fall of 2019, Trikafta was approved by the FDA just 10 days before a large annual gathering of CF experts in Nashville. Doctors who attended told me the atmosphere was electric. Jenny happened to be there to speak on an unrelated panel, and she remembers seeing the geneticist Francis Collins walk onstage with a guitar. Collins is best known as the longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, where he oversaw the sequencing of the human genome in the ’90s (he has since retired from the NIH). But he had made his name in 1989 as one of the scientists who discovered the gene for cystic fibrosis. 

In those long years when progress was halting, Collins, who is also an amateur musician, wrote a song to inspire a gathering of CF researchers. He sang “Dare to Dream” again that day in Nashville, his baritone raspier with age. When he got to the verse that he had rewritten for this occasion—“That triple treatment has taken 30 years”—cheers broke out in the convention center. In the crowd were people who had waited their whole career, even their whole life, for this moment. We dare to dream, dare to dream. As they swayed to the music, perhaps no one quite understood the magnitude and velocity of the change to come.

It's adorable watching the NIH director singing the song he wrote. I went back and also watched the 2009 version he sang at the 20-year anniversary of isolating the gene, before they found this breakthrough treatment. 

He is very inspiring! Also he's good at enunciating clearly while singing.

books and treks and mortality

I've been confronting my mortality for the past couple years. It started when I saw that according to a census table, I was past the midway point of my life expectancy.

I responded by finding a more granular life-expectancy table. By painstakingly filling out that I've never smoked and I do exercise and numerous other habits, I received a reprieve. The new granular table said that I have one more year before the midpoint. A brief deferment!

Then I was listening to an audiobook which offhandedly mentioned that as we age, it gets harder to learn snowboarding, surfing, and similar sports. It's possible to maintain them if you learn them at a young age, but if you start trying to learn in your 50s or 60s, all the falling and crashing is harder on an older body. The book pointed out that there are people who run marathons in their 80s but it'll be their 14th marathon. No one runs their first marathon in their 80s.

Several times in the past couple years:

Me: I was just thinking about how I'm going to die someday, and -
Aff: [cheerfully] The solution is to stop thinking about it!

I developed an urge to read books about old age and the end of life. My favorite has been "Elderhood" by a doctor who specializes in geriatrics. She pointed out that Western society is filled with ageism, and it affects doctors. If a 20-year-old patient is severely depressed, people would say "But why? She has so much to live for!" and try hard to treat it. If a 87-year-old patient is severely depressed, people may say "That makes sense" and overlook physical reasons like low sodium levels. Scientific data even shows that older people tend to naturally be the happiest demographic on average, but those facts are still overshadowed by a cultural stereotype of old people as cranky and miserable.

I read about the physical process of dying, the last few weeks and days. Apparently people usually sleep more and more. Also, sometimes people prefer to die when they're alone, and they cling to life until all their relatives step out of the room to use the bathroom or eat food, and that's when they slip away. So the whole American fear of "dying alone" as the worst possible outcome is actually what many people choose! Next time someone tries to rebuke me by saying "If you keep this up, you'll die alone", I'm going to reply, "I hope so!"

Besides reading, my other impulse has been to do multi-day treks. Currently I'm enamored with the 3-4 day Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador. It's only 22 miles but involves a lot of uphill and downhill. You walk along a volcano, lake, and canyons. I'm hoping to do it within the next year.

I also want to do another Camino, but that takes more planning.

Me: "I can't wait to do another route of the Camino. Maybe the inland Portuguese route."
Friend: "Were you happy when you did the Camino last year?"
Me: "I was only happy 15 minutes per day. More often, I felt anxious. I was worried about rain, heat, going uphill."
Friend: "Why do you want to do it again, if you weren't all that happy last time?"
Me: "Oh! That is a good question. ... I just do."

Fortunately Aff agrees to go with me on treks. I've asked a few friends, and rarely have I received such immediate, emphatic "no"s.

Now that I've started the trekking habit in my midlife, hopefully I can continue trekking into my elderhood! 

Quilotoa crater lake

no Buddhist McMansions

I'm watching Tsinghua University lectures about Chinese architecture over the past 5000 years.

Me: [to Aff] "One of the professors always looks like he's secretly smiling. He looked really happy in one lecture, then he had a less flattering haircut and was less smiley in the second lecture. Now his hair is great again and he's even wearing a very Chinese style shirt."

Aff: "I hope he didn't go through a breakup during the time of the second lecture."

I'm 20% through the lectures. I learned that Chinese architecture was influenced by Confucian values of balance. 

Yin means shade, and yang means sun. The balance of yin-yang means you want a home that's not too big (too much shade) and not too high up (too much sun). The emperor had enormous public spaces, but his private living quarters were similar size to an average citizen.

the emperor's new dress

 I love this post by talented writer Sarah Miller:

I thought a lot about my lying review of that racist, boring, laughable, pseudo-intellectual movie ["The English Patient"]. I thought about how at the time, I was proud of myself for having the courage to make shit up because I was afraid to disagree with someone I wanted to impress, and also afraid of not making money. [...]

If you write thousands of sentences that have absolutely nothing to do with what you think or feel those sentences are still what you will become. You can turn yourself into another person. I turned myself into another person.

That person was very sure she understood the way the world worked. [...]

I used to think I thought the right way, like, who cares if everyone does bad things, because bad things are just what important people have to do. Who cares if Barack Obama bombs people and doesn’t even try to prosecute bankers, because that’s all just his job, and he loves gay people and yells at bigots and his wife is smart and has great arms. Who cares if Hillary Clinton is best friends with Henry Kissinger, because she is a woman and so am I, and she stands up to men, and isn’t that what feminism is all about, finally getting into the rooms, finally getting to be the one to kill the people who don’t matter? Since my life was a fantasy, I had no trouble inhabiting a larger one.

It often strikes me that it is considered immature to be unable to believe bullshit. [...]

Everyone had agreed to care about this thing, to call it good, to give it nine Academy Awards. But it was just a piece of shit sprinkled with glitter that everyone, including me, agreed to call gold.

Everyone talks about the country falling apart in November 2016, but maybe it fell apart in November 1996, when America went to see The English Patient. What if we had all turned to each other and said, “This garbage is our idea of rave-worthy cinema? Anyone else see a big problem here?”, and then there had been a massive riot?

I remember "The English Patient" when it came out in the 90s. Women raved because the male protagonist sewed the dress of the female protagonist. The dress was torn because he ripped it off her body in a fit of lust / passion. 

Tearing the woman's dress apart does not seem romantic. Why ruin the clothing? It would only take a few more seconds to remove it normally! Of course he should sew the dress he destroyed! Otherwise he gets to just mess it up and then get his rocks off and roll over and fall asleep, and she has to sew the dress back together? 

Sarah Miller is one of my favorite writers. She has many insights about the world, and turns them into clear concise stories.

home alone letter writer

Today I read this advice column letter in the New York Times:

I am 68 and live alone in a nice home in the suburbs. My only child, 40, is happily settled with his fiancée in another city. I always hoped they would come back here to raise a family, and I offered to give them my home if they did. They like the idea and plan to build a new house on the site. Over Christmas, I told them I was excited about their plan and added: “You could build a mother-in-law apartment for me or even a guesthouse.” It’s a large lot. My son burst out laughing and said, “Mom, you wouldn’t live with us.” They assumed I would move into a condo. I was shattered!

The columnist replied:

I don’t think a reasonable person would expect the gift of a home to include your continued residency in it — unless you mentioned that fact.

American society is so different from Chinese expectations! I can only imagine how Chinese netizens would react to a son who wants to take over his mom's house but laughs at the idea of letting her stay in a detached unit on the lot. 

The US has sky-high demands on parents taking care of kids, but nothing in the other direction. If a parent said they wanted to take over their teen's inherited trust fund and then kick the teen out to live on their own, people would be aghast! Yet they don't blink if someone is doing it to their mom instead of their kid. 

American parents invest so much time and money into their children, with little hope of caretaking in their older years. It's interesting.

strength

My mom and I have been strength training together for 6 months. I found a YouTube channel of a Japanese-American personal trainer with her 82yo mom. We are their perfect target demographic! 

Four times per week, we do an hour of these exercises. My mom is very graceful! She was a gymnast as a child, and it still shows in her fluid movements.

I see my mom getting stronger over the months, and her balance has improved. It is so satisfying to see. 

sweetbitter

I think it's safe to say I've broken free of my sugar addiction. It was difficult the first few days, and I felt urgent cravings that lasted for an hour or more. But now it's easy. I don't really think about sugary foods or this sugarfree experiment.

In the first week, I spent 10+ hours watching videos about the history of sugar. The British created colonies and enslaved Caribbean people on cruel sugarcane plantations. That has evolved today into the descendants working in indentured servitude on sugarcane farms, only earning enough money to eat one meal per day. They can only get medical care from the sugar company, which charges them hyperbolic fees. 

Up until recently, marketing led me to associate sugary desserts with celebration and self-pampering. You can't have a birthday party without a cake. Or a wedding without one. There's no funeral cake though. People celebrate team milestones with Krispy Kreme donuts or Sprinkles cupcakes, not with a veggie platter. The marketing for sugar is impressive.

I've eaten two sugary items in the past 1.5 months. The first was a slice of key lime pie with friends. Before eating it, I was worried that a single bite could send me on a sugar binge, like how a sip of alcohol will cause some ex-alcoholics on a bender until they hit rock bottom again. Luckily, that did not happen. 

The second sugary item was a crème brûlée at a restaurant. The first few bites were great. But after I finished eating it, my heart started beating so fast, and it was physically uncomfortable. I felt ill. Sugar is poison.

My plan is to keep eating like this henceforth. I haven't yet been confronted with difficult tests like a dessert buffet. Hopefully by the time those happen, my body will be even more recovered from my sugar addiction, and I will be able to stay on the wagon.

the big terrible thing

I read Matthew Perry's memoir a couple weeks ago. It's about his addiction to alcohol and opiates. He went to rehab 10+ times. His withdrawal symptoms were worst on days 3 and 4. 

Even after 14 surgeries from drug effects, he still broke his sobriety and sneaked opiates when cravings hit.

After reading the book, I realized I probably have a sugar addiction. If I don't eat sugar for a day, I experience intense cravings. For an hour, it is hard to focus on anything except eating a dessert. I thought it was emotional eating and a stress response and lack of willpower, but now I realize it is probably a physical addiction.

When cravings hit in the past, I thought they'd go on and on forever if I didn't give in. I always caved. Had I known they were temporary withdrawal symptoms that would gradually subside over a few weeks, perhaps I could've powered through!

From now until the end of the year, I decided to stop eating added sugar. 

I was skeptical when Matthew Perry said his memoir is meant to help people with addiction. I thought perhaps he wanted to recapture some fame. I shouldn't have doubted!

three new bucket-list items

I have three new goals on my bucket list.

1. Walk the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Central route.

2. Do the most popular Camino, the Frances route. Perhaps I'll bike the Meseta plains in the middle.

3. All of that will be build-up for someday walking the Camino del Norte. It's often called the most gorgeous of the Camino routes, but people also say it may be the most strenuous. Nearly constant uphill and downhill. The route sometimes consists of scrambling over rocks. One person said that out of 30 days hiking, it rained 26 of the days.

But look at this view!

I've always been below average at cardio, and the Camino del Norte will be a stretch. However, the first time I read about it, I knew I wanted to do it someday. Mark my words!

games with trees and water

I'm playing "A Short Hike", made by a solo developer. You play as a bird that's hiking and flying up a mountain. There's fall foliage, streams, and trees. It's cute.

I also enjoyed Eastshade, another game made by a solo developer. You wander around an island, solving mysteries and creating artistic paintings. 

I started playing Grand Theft Auto 4 and Spiderman last year. They're both impressive games, but I put them down partway through and haven't resumed. Instead I find myself preferring the cozy feeling of these one-person indie games.

birds

After reading "Better Living Through Birding", I've started identifying birds via the Merlin app! 

There's a concept of the "spark bird", the first bird that gets you excited about birding. The first bird I identified was the Great Egret, but I don't think it was my spark bird. 

The author Christian Cooper points out how birding leads to an increased desire to protect the birds' habitat. Birding creates quiet communion with the outdoors. It's similar to bicycling in terms of being a gateway to increased social awareness.

Me: "Wow, I would never have started birding without Christian Cooper."

Aff: "He's your spark birder."

I walked the walk

I did the Camino Portuguese last month, 180 miles. 

I met pilgrims from many countries. One Italian man, in his 60s, has walked several Caminos in the two years after retiring. Next he will do the Via Francigena trail (2000 kilometers) from Canterbury, England to Rome. 

In one coastal section in Spain, the trail was 80% Germans.

Me: [to one young German] "Why are there so many Germans in this section?"

Him: "Because Germans are everywhere. Everyone thinks we are working so hard, but instead we are just making vacation all over the place."

One American woman was on her fifth Camino. She's planning to move to Spain and open a Camino guesthouse. She's currently a doctor and is disillusioned at the profit-driven nature of US hospitals. 

At a break, two college-aged guys were laughing over viral meme videos. Later, I encountered them on the trail and met their group leader, who is the grandmother of one of them. She told us about thru-hiking the Appalachian trail for 3 months, camping with snorers. 

I hoped to feel "walker's high" from endorphins. That lasted 15 minutes per day. Instead, most of the time I felt anxious, sometimes over practicalities like avoiding rain and heat, and other times ruminating pointlessly over frustrations. Despite this, I felt very satisfied by the Camino. I had many novel experiences. It was memorable. 

I also developed an appreciation for exercise. Working out is not just an obligation performed due to societal pressure. It actually helps you propel your body up hills and along trails. 

MRI happiness

Today I took my mom to get a brain MRI. She's been walking slower, and a neurologist ordered a MRI to check out her brain. It could just be age-related (she's 73), but we're verifying to be sure.

I sat in the corner during the 35-minute process. No electronics are allowed, so I wasn't able to use a phone or kindle. I just sat there and thought.

Strangely, I felt really happy during the MRI process! It was probably the happiest I've felt this week. I listened to the MRI machine noises, and felt satisfied that I was taking good care of my mom. It was a relief to get this errand crossed off the list, and be able to look forward to answers from the neurologist.

I would not have expected "waiting for MRI" to be the highlight of my week, but strangely it was!

random internet photo of MRI

book about the two wolves inside us

I was touched by this book, by a mom who develops ALS at age 44. Upon her diagnosis, she knew that she had around 3 years to live, and would progressively lose the ability to walk, type, feed herself, and speak. 

She wrote about how some friends dropped her, because they were uncomfortable with her wheelchair and slurred speech. She was furious at their desertion. But she decided to intentionally focus her attention towards the friends who stepped up. 

Every day, friends stopped by with home-cooked food, to help her kids, or to read passages of her book. 

She typed the book using just her thumb on her iPhone. Later she could no longer move her thumb and she wrote an epilogue using nose-tracking software. 

There was a sweet quote from her husband of 20 years. He dressed her, fed her, and helped her go to the bathroom. He said, "You're not a burden. The least I can do for you is everything." 

a little wizard hacker

I really like this Wired article about Marcus Hutchins, who saved the world from the WannaCry virus by registering its sinkhole domain. 

He comes across as very moral! He made mistakes as a teenager when he tried too hard to impress his peers. They asked him to write sketchy code, and he did it. Then he paid for it with years of anxiety, and now he is wiser and thoughtful.

He is Ged from the Wizard of Earthsea.

Red Rocks

I'm climbing with Aff and his friends in Red Rocks. Climbing on slab sandstone is much better than I expected. 

I've attempted ten routes over three days, and I successfully reached the top of all ten! 

It is calming to be out in nature, looking at cliffs and cacti, with no cell phone reception, climbing rocks.

a funny sketch: Black Lady Courtroom

This is uplifting and hilarious.

zen interior design style

I'm very impressed by people who can do interior design. I've read many books and watched videos, and I'm still unable to do it.

I did figure out that my preferred style is the Zen style.

Camino plans: Porto to Santiago

I've been talking a lot about the Camino. Finally I decided to do it. 

I bought plane tickets to walk the Camino Portuguese this May. Hopefully there will be wildflowers. I'll be walking 173 miles from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Aff will walk the final 63 miles with me.

I hope it will be meditative, with trees and ocean and port wine and audiobooks.