Monday, 1 January 2024

Despite half-hearted attempts to make 2023’s New Year’s Eve more exciting, it was, like the previous year, an anti-climax.

We headed down to the Love River, Kaohsiung’s main waterway that ends in the Taiwan Strait. At the highly modern music centre at the yacht club, a few lost souls sat and stood around staring at their phones. Unlike last year, there was no giant screen to inform one how many seconds you have left to make wild promises, and to try to come up with excuses why your promises 365 days ago didn’t quite work out.

Twenty minutes before the end. I slowly sip my hot tea and nibble on a Portuguese egg tart.

Fifteen minutes left. Time to take a quick look at what’s happening on X/Twitter.

Nine minutes. Another tart. Get up and stretch my legs. Recite again what I formulated for 2024.

Three minutes. Take some photos.

“How will I know when the countdown starts?” Quick Google search.

Panic kicks in: 32 seconds before the end of the year. Twelve seconds. “Should I count down on my own?” Four seconds … Screenshot …

Threetwoonezero …

“Wait! I wasn’t ready! No one counted down! Where’re the fireworks?!”

And just like that, one year has passed and another has begun.

Hug a little. Send some messages. Pour the last tea down my throat. Crumble the last egg tart crumbs into the wrapper, and shove it in my pocket.

Back to the scooter. Back to work.

A glorious, unforgettable year waits for no one.

Sunday 31 December 2023

I didn’t write much this year – published less than 2,000 words compared to over 22,000 last year.

One reason: I felt I had said what I wanted to say.

In 2023 I expressed some thoughts about life and death. Despite the fact that the war in Ukraine is still raging, I didn’t add much to what I said last year. There was also not much I could add about my opinion on the China-Taiwan issue. Like most people, I was shocked by what happened in Israel on October 7th and have since followed with horror on social media what is happening in Gaza.

Other news came and went.

Like every year, people predict the end of the world in the new year.

Like every year, they will probably be wrong.

At the other end of the spectrum, some people predict a good year – for some people.

I am agnostic myself. And full of hope.

Perhaps it will turn out to be a good time to bring things together.

Expect the worst, but hope for the best

MONDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2023

What do you do if you think there is a strong possibility that the rotten fruit will hit the fan in the next twenty years?

Develop sustainable systems to keep yourself as fit and healthy as possible.

Learn to grow your own food.

Learn new skills and sharpen existing skills. Learn the basic vocabulary and sentence structures of additional languages. Learn skills that will be of value to other people regardless of whether the “fruit” hits the fan, but especially if it does.

If you’re going to rely on assets in the cloud or on paper, invest in good health insurance.

Invest in small items that will have exchange value, such as gold and silver coins and other clusters of gold and silver.

Develop new relationships and keep existing relationships healthy. You have to put your trust in something.

WEDNESDAY 25 OCTOBER 2023

Best to hope the fruit doesn’t hit the fan. Nothing will be easy. Even if you have hundreds of pieces of gold and silver and other jewels to exchange for food and medical care and so on – how long will it take before someone realises that you show up every few weeks with a valuable item, and follows you back home? You have weapons to keep intruders out? How long before people who don’t have guns, and who know what they can get if they can put a gun to someone’s head, rob you of yours? How long before people raid your vegetable garden?

Of course, you need to prepare for more than one future scenario. But don’t think the zombie apocalypse will be a walk in the park because you have a hundred gold coins in your safe, a vegetable garden in your living room, and an AK-47 next to your bed.

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Why the truth doesn’t have to be a black pill

FRIDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2023

Once again, what is life about? It’s a struggle for survival, and for some degree of happiness to make the struggle worth it. And at the end, you hope you don’t die a painful death. And when you are dead, a few people will miss you for a period of time, but the rest of the world will continue as if you were never alive.

These are cold, hard facts.

But one is tempted to wonder if the pill is not a little too black to swallow.

The key is in the degree of luck.

There are also different degrees of survival. If you are optimistic and you believe in the wide range of possibilities available to lead a good life, your survival can be relatively comfortable – from the food you feast on three to five times a day, to the drinks you pour down your throat, to the bedding you sleep under, and the amount of time you spend exploring the world and with your loved ones and friends.

The quality of your survival also contributes to your sense of happiness.

And if you assist other people in their struggle for survival and their efforts to make life worth living, it increases your own awareness of a life worth living.

However, the ending is usually not your choice.

Which makes it that much more important to be happy before the end comes – slow and gruelling, or mercifully quick.

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Life and death – a series of thoughts

SUNDAY, 30 APRIL 2023

Two things that are both true:

One does not die so easily.

But just like that, and your life is over.

* * *

You live like you’re not going to die today. And yet you may just die today!

Or you should live as if you were indeed going to die today!

But if you do … you won’t have money to buy food tomorrow.

* * *

Life is nasty. Life is beautiful.

Life is cruel … and full of mercy.

Life is predictable. And the next day you’re gone.

* * *

We who are left behind must go on. Until it’s our turn.

* * *

The living discriminates against the dead.

The departed knows what the living does not.

* * *

Life is lent to us.

And what is loaned is eventually reclaimed.

(Dedicated to a friend)

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