Starting something new on the last day of the year kind of eases the fear of not finishing it. Because it doesn’t matter even if you don’t finish. You can always make New Year’s resolutions tomorrow. If I started this tomorrow, then there would be a lot of pressure, just because it would be the first thing I do in the new year. I would want to make it nicer and better. That pressure doesn’t really help when starting to write anything. But if you start it on the last day of the year? Who cares? If you don’t like it, you can forget about it tomorrow. Let bygones be bygones.
So this is all Ryan’s fault. I met Ryan at the residence gym in my apartment. A Hawaiian-tanned, fit guy approached me and initiated small talk in Korean. Which was pretty surprising to me because (A) I was in Vietnam and most people speak Vietnamese here, and (B) I did not expect anyone to notice me as Korean. I kinda low-key wished nobody would. There is a sense of liberty when nobody recognizes any of your traits. But he did somehow, and he has been one of the few Korean friends I’ve made here in Vietnam.
Ryan, a Google SEO analyst/developer, is an older guy—about 10 years older than me. He does not look anything like he’s in his 50s, though. Maybe it’s an Asian charm. But there is something more in him than just looking young. Mostly the way he thinks and the way he speaks. He reminds me of the Korean actor Park Shin-yang in The Big Swindle, which I believe is his best gig and his best character. That character is fun, comical, exaggerated, and yet has sharp eyes behind his grin. Ryan is just like that.
Having a developer friend is a good thing. It means that on a random day, he buys a domain called “myessayspace.com“, sets it up on WordPress, and might give it to you, saying it’s your birthday gift (it was not my birthday). He suggested we meet the following Saturday to educate me on everything I need to know about WP.
Anyways, I will turn 40 tomorrow. There must be lots of pros and cons (maybe a little more cons than pros) about getting older. One good thing is that you care less about things that you screw up. It’s never like either make this work or die. It’s more like, meh, whatever. If this won’t work, then so be it. I have other things to do (which I’ll probably suck at anyway). But why would you keep doing things that you kinda already know you would suck at? You are old enough to know even your most finely-planned projects can be fucked just as easily as the bad ones.
This light-burdened mindset can actually be your friend when starting anything. Of course, starting something and continuing it are totally different things. But at least it gets you to kick-start things. Having experienced a lot of failures when you were younger, you don’t worry too much. What do you have to lose anyways? Even this posting, I kind of knew I couldn’t finish this writing 50 minutes ago. But look at this—I have some words written. Why? Because I started it anyway. Knowing that I might not be able to finish it, doubting my perseverance, I did it anyway. Is it good writing? Hell no. But do I now have something that didn’t exist 50 minutes ago? Yes. Is that enough? Let’s see.
Let me get lost in my own bullshit.