there is something somber about watching my friend walking away, again, to a bus station, 2 years and 5 months later.
yes we can always communicate if we choose to do so. and like my father said our bond right now is providing emotional value for me but nothing professional. i find that to be the case of most of the friends i have, maybe except for dan.
he and i saw each other in penn station during my first city trip of my christmas break. and we talked about many things, surprisingly much more than what we talked about last summer. i was still lamenting and experiencing the fallout of what was my utter chaos of a high school senior year. and in retrospect my chinese friends, especially steven and stone, have most likely sensed my fixation of my past turmoils and my aspirations not as something organic but reactionary of past turmoils as well as my extreme level of inferiority complex. i progressively shared my own personal history like a piece of glass, but i think they can tell it was a shattered glass.
fast forward to now, somehow much more has happened (even outside of my current professional pursuit) and could be discussed today. maybe i was in a better state of mind because parts of my anxiety had came to a net-positive diminuendo. maybe i was just excited to see him. maybe it's really that many things have happened.
i don't really want to talk about ai. people are very sensitive on this topic, and im sure to an artist that sensitivity would be on another notch. i don't really think talking about biology or longevity would interest him, just like i wont be interested in learning how to use some quirky algorithms to magically edit a picture, as taught by one of his professors. i don't think politics, outside of some national level absurdity (i'm referring to the US ofc) would be that relevant. not books either, as he rarely reads and i'm only starting to develop some diligence on that. not too much on art from him, because maybe he thinks i wont be interested, and maybe i just forgot to sway our conversation to that. a tinsy tiny amount of music.
ofc we were happy over the break. that we can talk about things on common ground, like blockbuster franchises, film, video games, and just some memes. i think that is typical. we did play a lot (A LOT) of minecraft dungeons together. it's a game built for local co-ops and not to be played alone. and now after he departed i don't think i would pick up that game. and it is somber to think that, although we still have common ground, his and my professions have drifted so much apart. and thinking aback, the reason why i would spend a lot of time with others back in high school is the fact that we were tied somewhat professionally. and without that i can't really click with someone.
someone in college talks to me about classes. someone back in high school talks to me about college admissions, school news, and gossip. someone professionally talks to me for... work. outside of any of these circumstances relationships tend to fade, fast if not slow, slow if not fast. maybe dan is the only big exception here, but i find all my other friends on that same level, where, we could only talk so much about something that doesn't result in one of the two being bored out and wanted to pivot topics.
am i being more careless? are they disinterested? or is everyone just drifting apart because our circumstances and passions are vastly different, and that gap is increasingly year by year? maybe all, maybe neither. i don't want to tire myself to find things to talk about. robust friendships last long because they can talk more about just life. passions. worldviews. almost all of them need to align adjacently.
"he fills that emotional side of you, not so much professionally. but i hope so in the future" is what my dad said.
how would they collide if we operate on different domains? what is even happening in the future? im not talking about decades. just a year. singular. what will happen?
as i walked him to his bus station, we looked at the stars and he said "i don't know when im going to see you next."
yes. when are we going to pick up on the games? when are we going to watch the movies together? But on the macro scale, where would we be in a few months, a year, a few years, a decade, decades? what is literally going to happen? where am i even going to be at? what would i be doing in a year?
"i have no idea what is going to happen." i said. that is when i thought about my strong desire for relocating to pursuit my startup goals. but he shrunk it down to college courses: "same. i am going to see new professors and peers."
ah yes, because he wanted to take different classes. and i responded in the context of classes as well. "im going to have to meet new people as well. new semester new classes."
and he looked at me, and said that i need to have "a broader perspective." he meant my family. and without me giving any response, he and i parted ways. and just like 2 years ago, we parted ways again.
my christmas break bedtime was highly inconsistent. i met many people and mostly forgot what i was eating without going down my memory lane and once i remember, they are all really really inconsistent food choices. my desktop setup was also a mess. my hair was a mess. my hygiene was a mess. my reading schedule barely exists. my room is full of messy cables. i dont have the charger for my toothbrush, and my current toothbrush head is as messy as my hair. i have occasional anxiety (high alert!) for professional comms because z demands an update real soon! also i haven't paid for my second college semester yet. tldr - we are off a rough start.
where would i find clarity? through actions. i suppose. not rumination. just straight actions. i have my canvas/whiteboard thingy in obsidian. i can stare at it and find some clarity and calmness. i have my music. i have bevel and my watch that tells me if im fucking up my body or respecting every living cellular soldier that i lead. i need to become the leader of my own body and mind. i need to have a sense of urgency that i need to get my life back tonight, yes tonight, and start waking up early so i don't confuse myself with mornings and afternoons, so that i know where and when it is, and what im ought to do.
i don't like slop anymore. maybe that is a good thing. i need to remind myself that a lot of things im consuming online is pure slop and they do nothing but kills my brain. i need to pick up on slower paced things.
as a matter of fact tmr i will get clarity on a few things - whether the hca thing is a viable solution or not based on imaging quality and also the possibility of daily booking. if both can be secured (or the opposite, in which a backup plan needs to be made... hm i think it's already made, it's just a very bad one but it's the best everyone has got) im positive on the outcome with z. and then i can think budget. which can be hindered or supported with z's decision on me. and in parallel, unescorted access. training. and learning mlops + data science fr.
im somewhat anxious about what will happen professionally with bmm and me. my analysis is that my mental energy spent on this data collection and modeling has been much more than her. logistically that's easy to explain; but that levels of stakes and the ambiguity of sincerity and effort in textual exchange cannot be further distilled. it's a heterogenous mixture of absolutely everything - diseases, vibes, rapport, chemistry, ai filtering. i still worry/brood a lot. and there's no end in sight. sadly. very sadly. but if she doesn't display that on her face then i will relax temporarily, then focus on optimizing my way of thinking + communicating, and then act, and only act, for roman stoicism teaches that your own actions is the only thing you can control and aim to improve, and your actions can only affect yourself and not others, while the actions of others must have no effect on you.
in short, cherish where this is taking me. cherish what this journey can offer. put some effort, but also let loose a bit so i don't scare ppl away. take a deep breath. read, learn, work, improve your body health, sleep and relax a bit, and keep going. there's really nothing more to it. there's really nothing more that i can control.