229 - a few lonely thoughts 🙆
Hey there, !
1.
What was school like for you?
For me, it was hard being the only Asian kid in a private school full of non-Asian people, and being constantly reminded just by being around them that you're not really one of them.
I mean, coupled with the fact that these were rich families, awash with money, privilege and status...well, it creates a little bit of entitlement that I think is unconsciously adopted by the kids.
Geographically, as well, it was a weird thing to hear about the special suburbs of Toorak, and Brighton, and Prahran - where everyone else lived except for me. I lived in Doncaster, "far" east side, hanging out only on special occasions where I was invited for playdates. I'm eternally grateful for all the schlepping around my parents did to make sure I was able to hang out with my friends.
It was hard to be...well, lonely. I didn't like the same things others did. I couldn't talk about the same things that others did. I went to Chinese school, and watched chinese dramas at home. I didn't give a shit about footy and it took me ages to even care about cricket. I was also a console behind everyone else, which doesn't seem like much now, but it was a big deal when people at school would be discussing the latest XBox games, and I was playing some cracked PS1 games (which were still, admittedly, super fun).
I was just good at being smart and studying hard and being nerdy.
No-one really liked that guy in primary school.
2.
I wonder what society think of people who are alone. There's a 'loneliness epidemic' in the world, where we've become more isolated, individualistic, and more inward-looking than outward-facing with our lives.
There have been many causes cited:
- social media is a big one
- suburbia taking away any third spaces that can be free to hang out at
- suburbia making it harder to be near friends or family within walking distance
- rise of mental health (an interesting view from Esther Perel - we look inward more than outward which can be useful for many people, but there are tradeoffs)
- waves hands the general shittiness of life
Regardless of what it is, there's something new and different about this wave of loneliness which gives rise to a whole host of really different and interesting behaviours. You have:
- incels who bemoan the fact that there aren't any girls out there for them, and it's easier to give up and hate women instead
- dating culture being incredibly difficult to get anything real, that people prefer to opt out and try to focus on themselves
- needing to fill our minds and time with something, all the time, retreating to our online, digital worlds rather than being forced out into the world
- people spontaneously creating communities out of thin air to combat their loneliness which is always hard, but worth it
- companies creating offerings to combat, specifically, loneliness - like the 'slow lane' at supermarkets
3.
I remember how it feels to be alone when you're surrounded by others - have you ever had that?
You're in a crowd, and you're hanging out, and then you realise it's been an hour and no-one's asked you a question:
You've got people all around you, but you're invisible. Does anyone care? Is it because of you? Why do you hang around with these people who don't love and cherish you?
Or...maybe you've gone out to a new meetup to try and make friends, but no-one knows you, and you don't want to mess anything up, and so you just sit there alone, waiting for someone to talk to you.
Or maybe...maybe you go to school, and you look around one day and realise that everyone in the class has their group of friends, and you don't fit in any of them. Everyone's nice, but no-one around you actually likes you - they probably tolerate you, and they'd probably not care if you were there or not. Maybe it's in your head, but maybe not - you've lived the experience of literally not having found your tribe, and just floating between groups without fitting in, really. It's hard to be a kid, hey?
4.
Mum runs the Chinese Senior Citizens Club of Manningham - she's the president, and I'm incredibly proud of how long she's been supporting the club. She was the secretary as soon as she joined (she's talented af), she runs the social media (Facebook, Wechat, WhatsApp), she wrote a website for the club, she did all of this and now she's running the whole thing. It extended from one day of activities a week, to now having activities every damn day of the week (think, table tennis, badminton, Chinese medicine, bridge, karaoke, dancing, singing, tai chi, exercise classes, calligraphy - it's all there!).
Imagine the organisation needed! Imagine the logistics!
Imagine all the seniors who get something to do every day.
She tells me, often, that people love having something to do. They want to spend time in communities and especially those where they fit in. Many a time, people from outside of Manningham want to join, or the kids of the parents take time out of their schedule to try and sign them up at the club...and alas it's not always allowed (some rules about how they get grants or something). She's sometimes astonished that people want it so much that they'll try to lie and say that they do live close by so they can join in the club. It's fascinating.
Loneliness is something that the club aims to alleviate - lots of elders sitting at home 'rotting' (as the gen z's say), and not easily being able to go out and socialise. I see all these wonderful
It's such a lovely place to be.
5.
I live alone at the moment, and I fucking love it.
I am so privileged that I get to do what I do for work, make a good wage, be able to have a house that I live in, do the things I want to do, have a whole closet for my boardgames, look after my plants, go out and eat nice food when I want to, have great friends, be relatively healthy, and write an email newsletter that has been going for 4.5 years.
I came back from all my travel last year and I just...loved being at home alone. Not that I didn't appreciate the time with my friends, but ho-lyyyy it was so nice to be un-perceived and do whatever I want without being worried about judgement or having to be 'on' in any way.
If only primary school Vince could see me now :D
(He'd probably be like "You're not married yet?")
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Riceboy Sleeps - your boy loves an immigrant story - this one being Korean-American, single mother, struggling with adjusting to a new environment, trauma in the past; everything a classic ingredient for a third culture story. It's a simple story, some really beautiful cinematography and writing - a GREAT performance from the mother (Choi Seung-yoon) and a really touching story that transcends just the Korean nature of the film. It's what Minari coulda been I think - a story more simply, and more vividly told. Highly recommended if you can find it - I think it's still showing in Cinema Nova in Melbs - don't know when it'll come to streaming!
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Ho Jiak - Sydney-side recommendation as I was up there for work last week - finally got to try some real nice Malaysian food from Ho Jiak. Got the signature Char Kway Teow and it was ripping with wok hei and flavour; absolutely loved it! Wish I could have tried some of their more exotic feeds (like Vegemite Short Rib?!) but alas did not have enough time or money to do so :D Recommended for Sydney restaurants!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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How do you predict the future? Ask Samotsvety - essentially, the best group of superforecasters in the world. They talk about base rates and probabilities, which is probably the more nerdy part of it, but for some reason they've consistently been good at predicting the future. I wonder how - perhaps it's a muscle to be trained over time?
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A bad day at the office - some people used to have some wack jobs.
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Inside Smashmallow, Silicon Valley's Failed Marshmallow Startup - a fascinating breakdown of a startup failure. Turns out that doing premium things, at scale, is really hard.