Here is What Writing Means to Me.
What I'm Up To (THEATER), What's Occupying My Mind (RUNNING, and What I Reflected On (WHY I WRITE) - all part of Allen's Friday Flights
Welcome to the First Friday Flight of 2023!
I’m here. You’re here. Why are you in my room?
Welcome to my Friday Flights. These are a flight of personal updates from me and it’ll be centered around what I’m up to, what is occupying my mind, and what I reflected on. Makes sense why I’d have a different selection of topics since I often choose samplers and flights when I go out to eat and drink.
Past Publications
What I’m Up To
TL;DR: I watched a lot of theater this week - 2 movies and 1 play.
The Things
I am optimizing for writing online, and to help improve my writing systems, I have enrolled with Ship 30 for 30! This Saturday begins the entourage of posting on my social media daily. The fruit of such efforts will be realized quickly on my newly formed Twitter, and my existing LinkedIn.
I won the LuckySeat lucky and scored two tickets the Broadway Play “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, written by one of my favorite writers, Aaron Sorkin. Published in 2018, this adaption honors both Harper Lee’s 1960 To Kill a Mocking Bird, and the 1962 Robert Mulligan’s Movie adaption, but offers a uniquely different perspective; one that feels like a recall of something familiar, yet far. Check it out at a play theater near you; they are on tour across the United States and in London.
I watched The Whale because Brendan Fraser appears in his first film in forever; it is one of the most beautiful portrayals of humanity I’ve ever bear witnessed to. It’s also an intimate look into extreme obesity, set forth from depression. “How can the world do you so wrong, yet you see the best in it?”
I also watched A Man Called Otto, and the core protagonist is that of a seemingly bitter cold old man, trying to not live in a world where his wife recently passed.
I fantasized about picking up Duo Lingo and maybe learning Portuguese or French. Does that count?
I made pho from scratch. I used an instant pot because I’m lazy. I also made French Onion Soup. Not lazy.
I developed a killer lazy Le Creuset Cast Iron (Thanks Edwin/Armando/Shacia) from frozen vegetable searing technique with virtually no cleaning whatsoever.
I Marie Kondo my home office - I’m selling my old Ultrawide Monitor. It’s seen some war (2017). $150. For another $50, I’ll add a dual monitor stand. I’m also selling a monitor I got in 2021 - Dell S2721D - $150 as well. All local meet ups only.
You know while I have you here, I’m also selling an old CPU - Ryzen 2600x. I’m also selling a cable modem so you don’t have to pay monthly rental fees to Charter/COX. I can mail these.
Oh and Happy New Year! But the Asian Americans are caught in between the “do I just keep saying this to other Asians until February?”
What’s On My Mind
TL;DR: I set a goal to run 1,000 miles in 2022, and I made it on the last day.
I DID IT.
I ran 1000 miles in 2022. And because I’m extremely lucky, it was raining and pouring the last week of 2022, which means I’m wearing the same exact outfit as how I started 2022…which was also raining and pouring.
In 2021, I changed my relationship to running from one related to calorie and guilt-based emotions, to one of mental wellness and anxiety-based emotions.
In 2022, I added to that relationship an optimization based goal, which quite simply was “1000 miles in 1 year”, which culminated into run a 5k (3.2 miles) every day.
In 2023, I have set the goal for now to only run 2 miles a day, while searching for new habits to help my mental operation system. So far, I am aiming to capitalize on my great thinking energy that I gain from running by focusing it on a solid sacred hour of atomic-based writing.
However I will entertain stuff like Run Disney, Ragnorok, or Marathons in your city because flying, and then running, and then devouring your food, sounds like the beginning of an unhealthy gluttony fueled relationship that I am up for.
What I Reflected On
TL;DR: Writing and publishing is my second brain.
What does content creation writing mean to me?
It’s January 2023, and I am initiating the third evolution of this Newsletter.
I don’t really know that’s next; I don’t have a define publishing calendar of what content I want to write, what its going to be, when it goes out- at least not yet.
What I can tell you is what this newsletter means to me, through what it does for me.
What newsletter this has been doing for me:
Sharing: Turns out, my “love language” to others is sharing.
Sharing of food, experiences, and above all, knowledge.
I love sharing knowledge. I love learning new things.
I love tossing it at people for some reason.
This newsletter allows me to selfishly carry that out.
Remembering: It helps me remember my thoughts in a way that is sharable to others.
Someone once mentioned (TPAN): “Thinking without writing, is thinking that you thought.”
I’m going to admit something to you.
I constantly look back at what I have published and yet to publish.
I do it to feel proud of my own thoughts. Finally “getting one” out there.
I do it to get a leg up on the next piece to talk about it.
I do it to get work.
None of it is possible unless I have it written out. I just so happen to have pressured myself into publishing publicly so that it would force me to have written my thoughts to begin with.
Congratulations, did you know that by subscribing to my newsletter, you are also my accountability buddy?
Professional Curiosity: This newsletter allows me to have an outlet to be Professionally Curious about all the things that drive and fuel my, and your curiosity.
My apathy is appearing in Crypto. I can’t tap a well and expect it to keep going in perpetuity, and that’s okay. My curiosity has risen across other topic spaces that I can’t help but direct my professional curiosity at them:
Personal and Small Business Finance including but not limited to retirement accounts, alternative investments, terrible options trading, family wealth vehicles, and my new favorite: how commercial property gets valued
Businesses and Technology that solved human-centered problems and thereby changing our relationships to the problems we once had, and to each other. An example would be life before Venmo and Zelle.
Random Research Rants which is essentially me not being able to stop myself and going down a wikipedia deep-end on some topic, thing, or even item that finally crossed the fence of not-interesting to suddenly enticing to know.
And you know what? I’m going to lean into the namesake of this newsletter. After 1 year of writing online, here’s what writing means to mean:
Curiosity = How I beat apathy
Curiosity + the need to share = is how I beat apathy.
Curiosity + the need to share + remembering = is how I will beat apathy.
Note: Also it turns out a growth mindset, or a mindset of curiosity, forces your brain to constantly form new neurons - neural pathways - which is a strong way to prevent Alzheimer.
***NEW***
My Twitter/LinkedIn Posts of the Week
I’m trying to shit post more and not be a LinkedIn Lunatic.