It is 8:37 AM on Sunday April 2nd, 2023. We’ve finally had a few days of very pleasant weather, so much so that one evening was nice enough to have wine on the patio porch swing. I asked my son to come join me for a swing (not the wine) and a chat to which he reluctantly agreed. More on that later.
I’m in my upper floor reading nook at my standing desk which I’ve just reorganized. I swapped Macs with my son so his computer had a monitor port and now have an old MacAir. At the same time I came into possession of a Dell dock and realized it but it and the MacAir use USB C! Due to someone moving back to Japan I also gained a free monitor. I attached the dock to the underside of my height adjustable desk as well as all the cords in a way that I now only have the dock power cord connected to the wall. My desk also has wheels so I can move it between windows or the wall in between depending on where the sun is shining.
This has all created a great workstation. This room faces east so I can see the sunrise and the light shines in to this small nook giving it a warm, cozy ambiance which I find preferable to the living room with artificial morning light. It is a room and a workstation I want to spend time in and thus has encouraged me to start writing in my blog again. Even as I type this the light is poking through the clouds illuminating just my hands, a cool breeze is coming through the window and listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto gives this Sunday morning a magical feeling.
I learned that Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away yesterday which is sad. I came across his work by accident when the music “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” came on YouTube music and I found it to be one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard. It has an enchanting Japanese melody to it similar to what you’d find in a Miyazaki Hayao movie and so connects me with a very special time in my life.
I’m at the age now where more famous people I’m familiar with are passing away or have been gone for a few years. My family and I just watched the 1980’s movie Shogun and I had to look up the cast wondering who was still around. I was particularly interested in the beautiful and graceful character Mariko, played by Yôko Shimada.
Reading Wikipedia I was sad to learn she passed away last year after a sad downfall in the decades after this movie was made. I looked up a few other of the actors and so many of them are gone.
I enjoy what I call “personal archeology” in finding relics of my past in my treasure chest or simply remembering certain things. I’ll then do a bit of research, watch documentaries and learn so much about those things that I never knew before. In these difficult times I find I’m very glad to have had a childhood in the ’80s and ’90s. It looks like even the younger generation has a bit of envy as we see music, styles and other aspects come back into fashion. On Reddit I see a lot of comments reminiscing with one particular post about having been stuck in the house in the ’80s must have been terrible without internet. The best response was we were never stuck in the house, quite the opposite! There was even a commercial that came on saying “It’s 10:00 PM, do you know where your children are?” We had a freedom where we could just stay outside somewhere in the neighborhood all day and just had to be home in time for dinner. Today’s kids don’t have that here in heavily populated big cities. The outdoors have been replaced with sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen and thanks to COVID social interaction also takes place through the internet.
I spoke about this as well as many other things with my son on the porch Friday. Their world is so strange now with the culture wars, gender identities and so on. I believe the most important advise I gave him was about confidence. There is one girl in his class that has a rough life as her mother is a recovering drug addict. This little girl now identifies as a “they,” and apparently there is a trend where girls will “date” other girls for a few weeks and then break up. I told my son we had a word for that and it was simply called “being friends.” This little girl has said a few terrible things to my son he opened up about such as calling him a “fat fuck,” or saying he “had a small dick.”
My advise was that many people say stupid things all the time. Would a smart person give any credence to the ramblings of the village idiots? No we would not. The secret here is to gain a high level of confidence in whatever way works best. Those who are hurt by the idiotic things said by stupid people are like a character in a game with very low HP. Those people are killed even by a 1 HP adversary whereas upon attack they immediately die. However, the best and most powerful players could just stand there all day long being attacked by a mob of these weak players and not suffer damage at all. One swipe of the powerful players sword could take out the entire mob. As a gamer, he understood this. He is a 4.0, a black belt, is physically and mentally more powerful than many of his classmates combined and so he must use this to build up his confidence. There are many stupid people in the world and paying any attention to the constant stream of nonsense they spew would be exhausting.
As for this little girl in particular I told him to look upon her with compassion. She has and will continue to have a tough life. Her future is already a bleak one whereas his future will be phenomenal and cause great envy. So, just build up that confidence to a point where attacks simply bounce off and you’re in a position where you’re able to offer these people compassion. It is almost like being a Paladin in the gaming world. Your armor is impenetrable on its own but also infused with a magic that shines forth brilliantly in a way everyone will recognize.
Gaining confidence is something he must do internally. It is not something that can be given to him through motivational speakers, armor is not created through anti-bullying signs, nor teachers admonitions. You take the things you are good at and nurture that confidence. Being physically powerful also helps as well and I reminded him he is a black belt who just got first place in a fighting tournament. Nonsense spewn by unfortunate little girls is sad and so we use compassion which is only possible if we are very strong mentally and physically.
Well, today we are going to an Oakland A’s baseball game. This is perhaps the seventh baseball game we’ve been to in our 17 years in the Bay Area. Half of those are due to something Japanese such as Japanese heritage night or a Japanese player. Today we will see Otani for the second time with the added bonus of a Japanese pitcher (Shintaro Fujinami) for the A’s. Unfortunately I believe his debut was yesterday so probably won’t pitch today – I don’t know a lot about baseball rotations.
As for me, I was a Mets fan in the 80s. It seemed to be a requirement to have a favorite sports team in grade school but you couldn’t pick the same team as someone else unless there was a solid connection to that team. As I was raised in Columbus where we had no professional baseball team we had to choose. The Oakland A’s were taken by my classmate Tony. I simply looked at a chart of the teams and liked the colors of the NY Mets so chose them. I quit caring about baseball when they went on strike and my two favorite players – Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden turned out to not be very good role models.
Now, I have a SF Giants hat and jersey as well as an Oakland A’s hat. I bought the Oakland A’s hat in the stadium when I learned sitting in the sun without a hat was not a good idea. We were there last year, again for Otani. I may buy an Oakland A’s shirt or jersey if they have one supporting Fujinami and it is in Japanese. I think that would be a good reason and also give me something to wear the next time the wife wants to go see Otani or any other famous baseball players. As for me, I’m just looking forward to the food, spending time with friends and having a nice experience. I may even buy a beer but that is hard to do when they go for $15. Prices are horrendous in the ballpark.
