Category: Blog Posts
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24/365: On nascent, weakly formed good habits
The entire weekend just flew by, partially due to the flurry of adulting activities brought upon by having collected the keys to my new apartment. I’m really looking forward to be able to move out and stay in my own space once again. To fully be able to control and dictate how the space is…
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22/365: Absent parenting
Parents who refuse to adopt the responsibility for disciplining their children think they can just opt out of the conflict necessary for proper child-rearing. They avoid being the bad guy (in the short term). But they do not at all rescue or protect their children from fear and pain. Quite the contrary: the judgemental and…
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21/365: Where you aim at determines what you see
Before, what was right, desirable, and worthy of pursuit was something narrow and concrete. But you became stuck there, tightly jammed and unhappy. So you let go. You make the necessary sacrifice, and allow a whole new world of possibility, hidden from you because of your previous ambition, to reveal itself. And there’s a lot…
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20/365: Stop being a social princess
I don’t like CNY weekends. I would normally plan ahead and jet off somewhere in order to fully utilise these holidays, but I have to ration out my leave this year since the revenge travel bug made me firm up two big trips in the upcoming months already. I don’t like CNY weekends because there…
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19/365: Adult friendships
Friendship is a reciprocal arrangement. You are not morally obliged to support someone who is making the world a worse place. Quite the opposite. You should choose people who want things to be better, not worse. it’s a good thing, not a selfish thing, to choose people who are good for you. It’s appropriate and…
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18/365: Be your own coach
To treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping is to consider what would be truly good for you. This is not “what you want”. It is also not “what would make you happy.” … You need to consider the future and think, “What might my life look like if I…
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17/365: Dominance hierarchy
[Dominance hierarchy] is a near-eternal aspect of the environment. We have lived in a dominance hierarchy for a long, long time. We were struggling for position before we had skin, or hands, or lungs, or bones. There is little more natural than culture. Dominance hierarchies are older than trees. … There is an unspeakably primordial…
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16/365: Intentional friendships
I disagree that you don’t make new friends after 60. What you have to do is you have to be intentional. You have to pursue people that you want to be friends with. And you have to say “I’m intentionally wanting to be your friend.” And it works. People hear that and then stick around,…
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15/365: I thought it was a Sagittarius thing
One “problem” is that we are designed to desire novelty. There comes a time when it feels like you have heard every one of your mate’s stories at least once and can anticipate what he or she will say next. The amorous boost provided by novelty is called the “Coolidge effect”. … Humans don’t have…
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14/365: Play personalities
As we grow older, we start to have strong preferences for certain types of play over others. Some things float your boat, others don’t. … No one is a perfect example of a single play personality type; most of us are a mix of these categories. At different times and in different situations, people might…
Frank Chen 