do all roads lead to regret?

Hi all,

A couple of months ago, I read a pair of short articles about regret in the face of mortality. The first was written by Bronnie Ware, a longtime palliative care worker. The topic was the five most commonly expressed regrets she heard from her patients. I will link to the article below- see the endnotes- in the meantime, here is a quick summary of the five that she described:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

The second came from Paul Graham's online essay collection (which I referenced in a very recent post). It is a response to Ware's article in which he shares his response designed to lessen the possibility of having these regrets for himself.

As with Ware's piece, I will link to the article below- but here is a quick summary of his response. Graham inverted each regret into a command that he can read as a daily reminder of how to live in order to diminish the chances of him having these regrets himself at some time in the future:

Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy. 

Putting the two together...

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

-> Don't ignore your dreams

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

-> Don't work too much

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

-> Say what you think

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

-> Cultivate friendships

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

-> Be happy

I like a lot of what Paul Graham writes. Like him, I have a to-do list that I read each morning to remind myself of things I might otherwise forget. And on paper the concept of a life without regret sounded great. I mean, where do I sign up, right?

I did not go with him on this one initially, though. I'll admit it- no matter how well such an approach worked for someone else, I thought it would not work for me. Why?

One possible reason is that I just did not believe in the stated idea- that the types of mistakes that lead to these regrets later could be minimized or even avoided altogether with a change in approach right now.

In a way, I suppose I felt this way because there is nothing new on that list for me. (Be happy, duh.)

And yet, despite knowing these things, I've managed to repeat the behavior that leads to these same regrets. I'm at the point where I believe they are impossible to avoid.

Consider, for example, how I felt about many of these things at eighteen. I recall a vague feeling that I spent too much time 'studying' things like the periodic table. I know that I valued sound logic over messy expressions of emotion or feeling. I graduated with too many great friends to count- yet over those same years I had stopped speaking to many other equally great friends.

Knowing those things as I left home for four years of college undoubtedly shaped my decisions as an undergrad. I did not, for example, take summer jobs solely to accumulate spending money- I just focused on maintaining a bank balance that would afford me the ability to move anywhere in the country for a post-college job. And yet, thinking back, college was a lot of the same regardless of my heightened self-awareness.

I worked too hard. I recently re-read a paper I wrote as a senior that might as well have been written in Latin given how much I comprehended it now (or any language other than English, though I suppose it was written in English and I still didn't get it, so who knows).

I knew how macroeconomic models for things like the labor market worked and could explain the mechanics as intelligently as anyone. But if my GPA was based on understanding how the people living in the 'unemployed' part of the graph felt about their situation, I would have immediately flunked out.

The best advice I got while choosing a college was that, regardless of where I went, I should relax as I would probably make four or five really great lifelong friends (very reassuring advice at the time). And it proved undoubtedly true in these years since I graduated. But I guess I missed the follow up memo that I would lose touch with four or five equally great friends, too, over the course of those same years.

I'm not sure how much differently I could have behaved to change these things. I suppose I could have done better in reaching out and staying in touch with specific friends but I also did stay in touch with many other friends. It would be nice to have not worked so hard at times but employers do tend to react poorly when employees adopt an 'as I feel like it' policy to their work efforts. I can look back at many times where I do wish I expressed my emotions better but I know from experience that sometimes words detonate on impact, too.

Figuring out how to navigate this balance of considering both present and future in decision making is one of my biggest ongoing challenges. Graham's list is his own personal way of addressing the concept. I suppose it must work for him as he has so kindly shared it with his readers.

Like I said earlier, I agree with his general idea but feel it definitely will not work for me. Still, given the stakes, there is no sense in not trying. So, let's see where this goes.

But I quickly realized that I can't go forward and just apply his list as my own. There are probably lots of little reasons as to why this was.

Ultimately, I think just one big reason trumped all the others- I didn't know how to actually carry out his instructions:

Don't ignore your dreams...don't work too much...say what you think...cultivate friendships...be happy...

Yup, right now I have no idea how to properly do any of these. I can feel my way through on some of these, of course, and play a hunch or two on the others. But I have nothing concrete.

My response to his last comment led me to my own approach for an initial version of this list. If I use a list like the one Graham puts into his article, I am guilty of pretending to be someone else. This works, sometimes- imitation is a good way to practice something new- but in terms of happiness, it follows that your happiness is being defined on someone else's terms.

So, for me to be happy, a key point of reference is to limit pretending. This is about as final of a statement as I can imagine it being. And in this case, to say that I will read those commands each morning and act on them would be the comments of a pretender.

However, I do feel pretty good about using that idea as a rule of thumb against the fifth theme above. With a little more refinement, I might even be able to turn it into a 'to-do' item in the style Graham uses.

As I worked through the rest of the list, I found myself at various points in terms of progress. In some cases, I could identify a basic mechanism that I could lean on in pursuit of this idea about minimizing regrets. In other cases, I could barely restate the idea in my own words.

But there is not much I can do about any of that right now. All we can do is try to be our best self as often as possible. In the cases where the best is not good enough, we just have to resolve to try and do a little better next time. Hopefully, I find that over time I too can reach a point of clarity that comes through in Graham's essay on the topic of these regrets by focusing on doing a litter better each time I get the chance.

----------------------------------------------

Thanks as always for reading (hope no one regrets the time spent here today). I'll be back on Monday, hopefully. If it is not up by 6am, please accept my apologies, enjoy the holiday, and come back on Wednesday.

Only endnotes today. The first one is my list of five 'reference points' that I came up with to try and track my progress against these five themes from Ware's article. I ranked them in order of how far along I feel toward knowing how to best approach them. I also included Graham's idea alongside it for easy reference.

The next endnotes are links to Ware and Graham's original articles.

Thanks again.

Tim

Endnote #1- my initial crack at a list...

1. I feel pretty good about this one- I think I have it figured out:

*I wish that I had let myself be happier. (Be happy.)

-> Pretending to be someone else defines your happiness on someone else’s terms

2. This one needs a little refining but I think I am on the right track:

*I wish I didn’t work so hard. (Don't work too much.)

-> Cut out everything you can leave behind so you are not income dependent

3. Still a little hit or miss here- each friend is different, which is great but also makes 'staying in touch' a fluid concept:

*I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. (Cultivate friendships.)

-> Stay in touch with friends and reach back out to those who reach out to you

4. I suspect it is not a question of courage, more of 'know-how' that I've mostly ignored over the years:

*I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. (Say what you think.)

-> Learn to express your feelings

5. Not a clue here- best I can do is keep in mind a basic fact about most dreams:

*I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. (Don't ignore your dreams.)

-> The moment you lose your health, you lose the ability to follow your dreams

Endnote #2- the two articles I reference in the above...

 
The article from Bronnie Ware about the regets of the dying.

 
Paul Graham's short reflection on the Bronnie Ware article.

fantasy football for dummies...

Hey folks,

A little light reading for today. Part of the reason is because next week's post is going to be a 'heavier' topic. The other half of it is that if I do not post this now, I'll have to wait another twelve months to do so.

Now, regarding next week- there will be only one post. I may post on Tuesday or I may post on Wednesday. If the post is not up by noon Tuesday, come back Wednesday. Simple enough?

Make sure to skip Friday- there will be no post next Friday.

Thanks for reading, have a lovely weekend, and see you next Tuesday.

Or Wednesday.

Tim

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There are many pursuits that I actively participate in which I would enthusiastically describe as 'pointless'. But although late night Hubway joyrides, starting a second blog to specifically highlight all the skills that led directly to my sacking, analyzing the finer points of FIFA 15's manager mode game, or reading the entire Animorphs series (as an adult) are all fine candidates for the title of 'most pointless pursuit', there is truly only one actual contender for this vaunted crown.

Fantasy football.

It comes around right about now every summer. And since it so happens that joining a fantasy football league is one of the easiest things around to accidentally get sucked into, I figured why not share some of what I've learned over fifteen plus years to help any newcomers get started? Using the following should give you a better chance of shoving it in the face of a colleague, significant other, or Uber driver (well, maybe not that one) who convinced you to join a league under the assumption that you would finish last and simply contribute free money to the prize pot.

And if we have time at the end, I might even pontificate a little on some larger ideas that can be learned from this hobby (1).

So, without further ado, here are my general tips for someone stepping into the wonderful world of fantasy football for the first time.

First quarter- just so we are on the same page...

Like any pointless pursuit, fantasy football has its own lingo designed to make normal people feel superior or left out (depending on the circumstances, I guess). Here is a quick glossary of terms I'll use today:

Draft- this is when everyone takes turns to choose players for their team. Once the draft is over, you will have anywhere between ten and fifteen players to pick from each week.

Starting player- also starter. These are the players you choose to use each week whose performance will count toward your fantasy team's point tally for that week.

Backup player- also backup. These are the players who you do not choose to use each week. Their performance is irrelevant to your fantasy team's point tally for that week.

QB- quarterback. The guy who reaches under the center's butt and starts the play. Usually one starting player per team with one backup.

RB- running back. He is at the back of the team and often runs. Most fantasy leagues require two starters here.

WR- wide receiver. Catches passes from the QB. Usually need three starters.

TE- tight end. Like a WR but spends more time doing traditional football things like blocking. One starter needed.

Second quarter- get a cheat sheet that matches to your league scoring system

Cheat sheets, a cute little nickname for prepared rankings that you can download from any sports website, tend to get a bad rap among 'committed' fantasy football players (not meaning someone you might describe as 'crazy', though many fantasy football players indeed, let's say, raise eyebrows with some of their antics). This is mostly due to their generic predictions that reveal its users to be those fantasy owners who spend little to no time personally preparing to draft (meaning crunching their own numbers).

Guess what? You are new to this so you are better off not preparing. In fact, everyone is probably better off not preparing- if they knew so much, they would already work in the NFL- but that is a different rant.

The key is to make sure the cheat sheet you pick matches the scoring system of your league. These have all kinds of weird terms and lingo not worth including in the glossary- PPR, two QB, no defense, IDP, etc- just find out what your league is and track down the right cheat sheet. There is no need to understand the meaning behind the acronyms but it is important to match- otherwise, you might end up with a list that does not account for all the ways in which a player will score points for your team and the rankings will essentially be out of order as a result.

Third quarter- tailor the top of your cheat sheet to value consistency over upside

The way fantasy football leagues tend to work in terms of competition format is generally straightforward. First, you spend anywhere between ten and fourteen weeks going against one other person in your league. You pick players to fill in your lineup for each week's games and whoever scores higher between you and your opponent 'wins'.

The top four to six teams with the most wins qualify for the playoffs, generally running two to four weeks at the end of the year. Again, you compare your score against one other person and the higher score will move on. Win all your playoff games and you become the champion.

This leads to a general rule for August- a player who appears in all the games is preferred to someone who appears in fewer games. Another way to think of this- a player who scores twenty points in half the games and zero points in the other half is likely less valuable than someone who scores ten points in all games. This is mostly because the first player is only contributing to potential winning efforts in half the games while the second player is always contributing.

A cheat sheet is likely to treat these players close to equally. So, the key is to try and avoid injuries (impossible to predict) and inconsistency (which I will now try to predict). Here are my ways to detect inconsistency among early selections:

*QB- Avoid the old guys

Quarterbacks can outperform their preseason ranking by a couple of positions but will fall short by much more if their performance drops off. Historically, the players who drop off tend to be on the older side. Let's say 35 years or older is a no-no but feel free to go lower if you want to reduce risk.

Once you have your number, cross everyone off who fails the cutoff.

*RB- Look for fifteen touches per game

This is a little tougher to eyeball on a cheat sheet. Probably too advanced a strategy for a first-timer. The idea here is that players who get the ball more often tend to more often score points. Easy, right? Stick to the rankings you downloaded at this position for now.

*WR/TE- Only draft players with top QBs

Wide receivers and tight ends require the quarterback to throw the ball to them. If the quarterback is no good, it is less likely that the guy who is supposed to catch the ball will actually get a good throw to catch. Got it?

This means that the best quarterbacks tend to produce the best receivers. Not always, but in general, and that is good enough to go with for now.

A rule of thumb here is top fifteen QB. So, do some cross referencing on your cheat sheet and get rid of anyone who is on a team where the QB is not in that top fifteen. You'll cross off some good players but no worries- the guys left will be just as good and likely more dependable than those you got rid of.

*K/DEF- Skip entirely

 These positions do not require a selection until the last two rounds of the draft. They are simply too inconsistent year on year to make any decent projection now.

Fourth quarter- try to form a basic strategy that incorporates position scarcity

Again, since you picked a good cheat sheet, you will not have much left to do. The players you do not want are already crossed off the list so just focus on picking the top ranked guy left each time your turn comes up.

However, keep a couple of very basic strategy tips in mind. First, most basic leagues require only one backup (extra player for your bench) at QB and TE. You can usually calculate when to find a backup QB or TE by multiplying the number of teams by two- since each team will need two total players.

Then, take that number and cross off everyone ranked lower. If you have a top three ranked QB, a good rule of thumb might be to wait for one of the last three left on your list. Same for TE.

Leagues generally require no backups at K and DEF. Pick the starters at the end- your last two picks should be a K and a DEF. Just too hard to predict to justify picking any higher. No backups necessary unless required- in that case, your last four picks will be K and DEF (one starter and one backup at each).

This leaves RB and WR. A good rule of thumb is to tilt toward one or the other based on your early picks. If you picked higher ranked RBs, you might want to pick more backup WRs.

The reason I advocate piling on with these two positions in the backup spots are that these positions tend to produce the 'surprise' players. That is, backup players who ascend to starter level tend to be RBs and WRs. So, getting as many of them as possible improves your odds.

Overtime- final thoughts?

So, will following the above lead directly to a fantasy football victory?

Goodness, no. Like I said, it is a pointless pursuit and therefore not very responsive to applications of knowledge. The best you can do is try to understand the general trends and avoid making any of the avoidable blunders that commonly trip teams up.

One such blunder comes from trying to predict the performance of specific players. The person who predicts performance might strike gold every once in a while but also tends to be the one who is struck down by one bad luck event- an injury, a suspension, and so on. Better to understand what leads to success in general and try to get one of the players that fits the trend at the best possible price.

This is easier to do if the focus is on groups of players instead of specific individuals (2). Broadly speaking, you want to pick the last guy available in each group. This ensures you get the best price for a specific talent level.

Another blunder is failure to avoid historically inconsistent groups of players. This applies to older QBs, WRs with bad QBs, and RBs on bad teams. The latter is hard to do much with since team performance is just as tough to predict in the NFL as the performance for any individual. But the point about QBs and WRs is important and should be taken seriously. I think my outline above is about as good as any to get at this goal.

Ultimately, success in fantasy football is probably 95% luck and 5% skill. There are too many variables and unpredictable events to honestly say otherwise.

Still, this does not excuse you from maximizing that 5%. In the case of preparing for draft day, the best you can do is some version of the above- understand the history a little bit, try to intelligently cross out the riskier options, and go with a trusted set of rankings to help pick through the remaining details.

Good luck (3).

Footnotes / imagined complaints

1. Pontificate?

This is the only word that works. Anyone who talks about fantasy football as if they know what they are talking about is pompous at the minimum.

2. A little like investing...

The investment / fantasy football analogy is not a bad one. Like any investor, a fantasy football player accumulates a set of assets. The better the portfolio, the better the return.

An investor who places all of his investment into one fixed asset- like stock from a single company or a house- is exposed to all the ups and downs of such an investment. The stock might zoom or the company might go bust just like a football player might win MVP or tear an ACL in week 1.

3. Good luck? What about the rest of the year?

Oh yeah, good point. I would find someone trustworthy to get help from. If no live humans are around or willing, pick an article from the internet that covers 'add/drops' and try your best to replicate the advice. ESPN.com is good for this- comprehensive lists of the guys who are paid to do nothing but think about this stuff all year.

lost in translation tournament- postgame show

Morning,

Just a little under a month ago, I wrapped up the Lost In Translation tournament. I suggested at the end of that final post that I would return at some point with a 'postgame show' to make up for the anti-climactic ending. 

Well, here we are.

I suppose I learned a few things from that four month project. I'll cover those in no particular order below.

1. My conclusions about 'untranslated words'

Going into this tournament, I thought that untranslated words fell into one of two categories. The first category is for feelings or sensations that one culture brought out frequently enough to require naming.

'Mangata' is a good example. This word could only exist in a place where people lived close to both nature and to each other. These people would observe this phenomenon regularly and communicate among their neighbors about the idea often enough to require its naming. (I suppose it helps to live near a pole, as well, where daylight hours vary greatly with the seasons and a long period of waking winter hours are spent in the presence of darkness and moonlight. Hello, Sweden.)

The second kind of untranslatable word is one where the direct translation is not needed because the idea is expressed in a different phrase or expression.

'Vacilando' is the best example. In this country, people do not really travel 'just because' so there is no need to translate that word into English. We choose instead to use words like 'backpacking' or 'couch surfing' to convey similar concepts.

Thinking about these categories made me consider further an idea I wrote about in June. Back then, I stated that if I re-did the tournament, I would go back and include 'commuovere'. But if I include this word, which one comes out of the final sixteen? I would go with 'struisvogelpolitiek', 'trepverter', 'kabelsalat', or 'warmduscher', words that take something in our daily lives and cleverly rename them with a combination of analogy and humor.

These are similar to that second category I describe above. Although these specific words do not exist in our English language, English does utilize the concept, mostly in the form of expressions ('monkey see monkey do' or 'yes men' might not directly translate 'struisvogelpolitiek', but they capture the essence).

There is nothing wrong with the inclusion of these types of words but four of them seems a bit much as I look back now. It is also notable that the combined performance of those four words was one win and four defeats.

In the aftermath of the tournament, I see that there is a third category for untranslated words. It is the category of what lies hidden. These words describe the acts, emotions, and thoughts that otherwise would go unacknowledged. It is the infinite category of language. In this category lies the possibilities opened up by stepping outside the lines where we currently are and seeking the space beyond where we might find new belonging.

I don't think it is any coincidence that these words did the best in the tournament. I don't think it is any coincidence that someone who feels compelled to write several blog posts and tens of thousands of syllables about sixteen words from what is essentially a picture book would look at these words and feel both understanding and mystery, identify both kind and strangers.

2. Tournament finals are strange events

This thought occurred to me while I struggled to write the final post. What was the point? Almost everything to say about the words had already been said and each word was clearly worthy of winning the honor ('honor') about to bestowed ('bestowed') upon it.

It is a similar thought that comes to mind of late whenever I watch sports. I have found that I enjoy semi-finals of tournaments more than the final. I think this is because the reward for the semi-final is the chance to watch your team play another game. What is the reward to a spectator for watching a team win the final? None is the answer I drift closer toward every year.

On the topic of tournament finals- usually, the public comes into the final with an idea of who the winner should be. This is generally based on performance in the prior rounds (though armchair experts might also form their own conclusions based on deeper analysis of the teams involved). If the tournament was preceded by a regular season or a round-robin concept, all the better- that information can also be used to make an educated guess of who the winner should be.

The catch here is that most predictions about tournament finals are not based on a statistically large enough sample size to definitively conclude who the favorite is (1). This is why the great 'upsets' in sports history tend always to involve tournaments- I see it as less an upset and more an unwillingness to admit that our ability to predict is simply not very good.

Based on that criteria, I guess it makes Leicester City's Premier League championship last year the truest sports upset I am aware of.

3. I thought I did a decent job writing these posts, honestly, but this fellow did something similar a lot better than me...

A no-gimmicks version of this tournament is a book called Consolations by David Whyte. I've written about this book before- all Whyte does it take a list of common English words- shyness, friendship, confession, etc- and write about the various meanings, associations, and feelings these words invoke in us.

Anyone who enjoys the process of reflecting on the meaning of the words we rely on to communicate will undoubtedly enjoy Whyte's book. If you are unsure about reading, please see my own notes from this book which I have included in the endnotes to this post.

4. Never make promises

The single biggest lesson I learned from doing this bracket is to not make any promises if at all possible. To illustrate the point- how many times did I suggest I would post something 'on Tuesday' for it to show up a week later (or not at all)?

To create anything is challenging. For those with non-creative backgrounds such as mine, the temptation to self-impose deadlines, make elaborate plans, and bring order to the chaos of the creative act is significant. Unfortunately, such as approach is bound to cause trouble. You might end up forcing an idea into existence that is not quite ready, for example, or perhaps you just break a promise and tick someone off.

In the process of blogging, I've found that certain parts of the process lend themselves well to planning- proofreading, organizing ideas and sketches, posts about facts. The other stuff is harder to understand. And without understanding, any plan is nothing beyond wild speculation. The best that I can do for now is to protect the time I use to create these posts when the inspiration hits.

It really brings home a point I've read in a number of forms over the past couple of years- creative types tend to either require a set routine in which to work or simply must wait for inspiration to strike before working maniacally to bring the idea to life. I came into the process believing I was in the former group but the process of doing this blog in general and this tournament in particular has led me to reconsider.

So, while I figure out for sure where the source of my own inspiration is, no additional promises. The best I can do is to tell you when the next thing is coming- any other information about what I say is upcoming should be met with suspicion.

And, speaking of that...

Much thanks for reading today. Back again on Friday with an in-depth look at the Pokemon Go phenomenon.

Until then, take care.

Tim

Footnotes/imagined complaints

1. Large enough sample size?

You can study statistics for several years to learn about the appropriate sample size needed to draw certain types of conclusions. But if you prefer a rule of thumb that is about 95% as accurate at a tiny fraction of the cost ($60k a year at Colby!) try to have a sample size of about one hundred. I've found over the years that this is about good enough for most statistical estimations. Just make sure that the one hundred you are working from for a sample is not collected in a biased or slanted way.

Endnotes: my notes from Consolations

*Alone 

-With others, we live in our bodies as a statement; when alone, as a question

-To be silent with our aloneness is to stop telling stories to ourselves

-Admitting to feeling alone leads others to feel rejected, as if their presence or company is not good, interesting, or distracting enough

*Ambition 

-Ambition is tedious, it distracts us from knowing that we have all that we needed, all along

*Anger

-The violence of anger grows from powerlessness and vulnerability

*Beginning

-The courageous step is often easier and yet more radical than we think

-Sometimes, we make our stories longer or more complex than they need to be in order to obscure the attainability of the next beginning within impossibility

*Besieged

-Creating a place to receive the world, to allow others to knock, makes our place in the world a privilege and not a burden

*Confession

-The act of discarding an old identity, one which may have served to protect us from harm or distract us from answering the important questions.

-Deathbeds bring about so many confessions because the burden of potentially carrying on, alone, thanks to this discarding of identity is no longer

*Courage

-Belonging is heartbreaking at a fundamental human level

-Courage is how we respond to our love being tested by the demands of daily life

*Denial

-It allows us to breathe when we must steady ourselves to face what beckons us

-To avoid denial is to meet the powers that we are not yet ready to meet

*Disappointment

-What brings us to earth is what puts ground beneath our feet

-To embrace disappointment is a showing of courage

*Forgiveness

-Humans want forgiveness, in the end- those who do not wait to extend forgiveness begin the journey along the path to becoming large enough themselves to receive this gift at their end

*Friendship

-Encouraging the best in a friend means acknowledging the better parts of them in order to allow that to drive their growth and slowly reduce the influence of their lesser parts

*Haunted

-Making real what was previously untouchable is how we make ourselves real, begin the process of recovery, and make ourselves whole again

*Heartbreak

-This illustrates the sincerity of what we try to do in our lives

-Although we try to avoid heartbreak, it is also inherent to the journey of maturity and allows us to truly care deeply for what we encounter on the way

*Help

-Although we try to avoid asking for help, even the most independent of candidates requires a voter

*Honesty

-The fear of loss motivates our dishonesty- thus, we can reach honesty by facing our grief and our losses, by addressing our ongoing relationship to not wanting to hear the truth

-Honesty means acknowledging our fear of the truth and enables us to live without always knowing

*Loneliness

-Those who fully inhabit their loneliness find the voice that calls for the great someone or something that they want to call their own and can develop the courage to keep calling even when the horizon does not answer back

-Loneliness allows us to pay attention to others, to acknowledge their power to heal and to enliven

*Maturity

-Immaturity means false choices, those that live only in the past, present, or future, but never all three

-Maturity means not compromising, means refusal to isolate the past, the present, or the future, it means inhabiting all three at once with courage

*Pain

-Real pain forces us to ask for help, and to accept it.  Through this act, we acknowledge that we belong

-It is a test of friendship, of those we already have and of finding new ones from surprising sources

-Pain serves as a foundation for compassion and forces us to look for the debilitations that others are struggling to overcome

*Regret

-Regret makes us acknowledge how important even the most average acts can be

-It acknowledges the ways our future can be better than our past

-Cultures that emphasize or value youthfulness are not prepared to acknowledge deep regrets- for true regret is a hard-won feeling that marks a life fully and maturely lived

*Shyness

-One's shyness reveals what one thinks is possible and what one feels they deserve

*Unrequited

-Love is rarely returned in the way we give it- those who expect this reciprocation are building a prison in which they become inmate and warden

so yesterday, i ranted about how if you can read, you can code...

Hi all,

Yesterday, I posted on my Business Bro blog about assessing skill levels within a hiring process (well, sort of...I complained a bit, too). The launching point for the post was a line from a Haruki Murakami book called Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage- 'if you can read, you can cook' (1). And although I do like to pretend at times that the ability to cook at my level requires a nuanced set of particular skills, it is unfortunately the case that this line from Mr. Murakami's novel disproves such a notion. Most recipes work for anyone who can read.

Here are three simple recipes that I turn to from time to time. Each one is included in full within the end notes to this post.

The first one is in honor of my mother. This banana bread recipe was likely copied straight out of a cookbook is a treasured family tradition and I am sharing it today because I have nothing else to write about out of the great generosity of my heart. I hope each of you readers understands the great honor it is to have this recipe available whenever needed.

The second one is in honor of my favorite ramen place. Long time readers of the blog will recall that I once wrote a post about 'bang bangs' and that Sapporo Ramen played a big role in that post. A tiny detail that I neglected to include in that post- I know of at least one person who does not order ramen when he or she goes to this place!

Instead, this person orders frozen dumplings and a bowl of rice. For those confused as to why I get all worked up about this- I would compare not ordering ramen at Sapporo Ramen to someone going to your favorite pizza place and asking for a stack of pepperonis with a side of crust (2).

Anyway, the second recipe is for frozen gyoza dumplings. You will need to figure out the rice for yourself. It is not complex but I share because I think I've hit on a pretty good setup here.

The final recipe is in honor of anyone forced to drink rubbish beer. It is a cocktail that combines my favorite Japanese soft drink to make certain 'beer' (such a Keystone Light) drinkable. It does not have a proper name- I would simply recommend coming up with some combination of a reference to the beer and a reference to Japan.

Now, a last note before I allow you to proceed. If this is your first ever time reading a recipe- please remember the following- when you are finished cooking, turn off the oven/stove. This is an important step in cooking but also one considered 'basic knowledge'- thus ensuring its omission from any recipe. I've helpfully included it in my own recipes, of course, but you will not have that luxury once you venture into a proper cookbook. So, again, always remember to turn off anything that might burn down your house when you finish using it.

Good luck.

If you manage to get through the below without burning down the kitchen, I would love to see you back here next Tuesday for my clever application of the Pythagorean Theorem.

Until then, take care. Thanks for reading.

Tim

Footnotes/imagined complaints

1. Is this book worth reading? You've mentioned it on TWO BLOGS in TWO DAYS...

I would say this was an interesting and entertaining read, like I say about most of Murakami's works. But looking back, I understand why it is not considered among his very best novels. If you like the author, I think it is a good idea to give it a try (but if you like the author, you probably do not need me to tell you that).

2. Well, that analogy is not really all that good, but still...

On the topic of ramen and pizza, here are my power rankings for local ramen:

1. Sapporo (duh)
2. Pikaichi (within the Super 88 building- Allston/Brighton, don't know and don't care really which one it is)
3. Totto (Brighton- bonus point for serving alcohol)

The best ramen place I will never go to again:

4. Hokkaido (Harvard Square- it is too...bright? Clean? It feels like there should be a $15 cover charge to get into this place.)

There are a bunch of others in the middle.

My bottom three:

*3rd to last- standing in line at Sapporo and smelling the ramen (Jimmy Johns rule in play here)
*2nd to last- come over to my apartment and I'll make you a cup noodle or instant ramen (also a bonus point here as alcohol may be served)
*Dead last- Fake Sapporo Ramen (in Central Square at the H Mart 'food court')

OK, that last one is a bit harsh. But I want to make sure it is clear that the two ramen places which share the 'Sapporo' name do not resemble each other all that much.

Now, long time readers of the blog (I'm getting into that expression today) will recall that I claimed to know where the best pizza slice in Boston is. This is a claim which is likely objectively false. But I'll stand by Haymarket Pizza any day of the week.

For one, it is cash only (only a serious business operates cash only, as those who run Sapporo Ramen understand). And two, you can actually buy instant cup noodles there. Not kidding. I have no idea if they will prepare it for you or if you are only allowed to take it home with you. But it is there if you need it.

Endnotes...

Recipe #1- Banana Bread

Ingredients

*½  cup butter

*⅓  cup sugar

*2 eggs

*1½ cup flour

*1 tsp baking soda

*½ tsp salt

*2 heaping teaspoons of plain greek yogurt

*mix ins- raisins, whole blueberries, banana slices, etc

*3 bananas (honestly, any number is fine. More bananas = more banana taste in the final product)

Baking Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix bananas + yogurt + mix ins into a consistency that is equivalent to plain yogurt in a separate bowl

3. Mix all the other stuff separately and put into the baking pan

-> Tip: might wanna melt the butter a bit beforehand- others stuff mixes easily

4. Combine the two mixes in the baking pan and mix in evenly until the batter is basically consistent throughout

5. Into the oven the whole mess goes!

-> Check after 40 min- if a fork can go in and come out clean, it is ready

-> If not ready- just leave in for a couple of minutes at a time and do the fork thing again

6. Once it comes out- letting it sit and cool helps it keep its shape but honestly at this point if you want a mushy mess do whatever you want…

7. Don’t forget to turn off the oven!

Recipe #2- Frozen Gyozas

Ingredients
*1 bag of frozen gyozas
*1 teaspoon of oil to cook
*1 pot to boil water
*1 frying pan 1 chopstick

Cooking Steps
1. Boil water until bubbly, then add gyozas (make sure water level covers the gyozas).
2. Begin to heat the oil in the pan (use medium heat).
3. Poke gyozas with a chopstick to test if 'gummy'- that is, no longer completely frozen but not soft, either- generally takes three to four minutes.
4. Drain the water and transfer gyozas to pan. The oil might jump from the pan at this point- so be careful (or wear long sleeves).
5. Guest line from Usher: Let it burn, let it burn, gotta let it burn...(not too much, though! Smoke is no good here).
6. When it reaches the desired shade of burn- remove from the pan.
7. Turn off all the burners.
8. If this is the first time you are cooking, ever, go back to #7- TURN OFF ALL THE BURNERS.
9. Eat!

Recipe #3. COCKTAIL- Rocky Mountain Samurai?

Ingredients
1 Calpico water
1 beer (Coors Light)
1 cup
1 knife/chopstick to stir

'Cooking' instructions
1. Pour Calipco water into the cup until it is at least 1/5 full and no more than 1/3 full
2. Pour beer into the cup until it is full
3. Stir
4. Might as well go and check that ALL BURNERS ARE TURNED OFF. Who knows, maybe you bumped the stove with your rear while stirring and it turned on the back burner? Can't hurt, ya?
5. Drink!

As a side note here, the most appropriate beer to mix is perhaps Asahi Super Dry, a crisp dry lager that some compare to German beers. I only throw this out there because Calpico is produced by a subsidiary of the same company which produces Asahi beer.

In Japan, the Calpico water soft drink is known as Calpis. The name was changed for foreign markets due to non-obvious reasons. This, of course, bears mentioning as the obvious reason is the similarity of Calpis to 'cow piss' when read in English. I believe the company has now adopted the latter explanation as a 'reason' for making the change...