5 Things That Keep My Mind Busy in Latter 2020
New sedentary occupations when going out fails
Believe it or not, 75% of 2020 has passed. 😱 By this time tomorrow, we will step into the last quarter, welcoming autumn almost a month earlier than was the norm in the past (I am writing in Hong Kong). While productivity work-wise has significantly dropped compared to the same time last year, the introspective work of coping with existential angst takes no less effort.
For me, much of professional life in fact passed without major inconvenience or disruption. We went to the office 90% of the time, since there are no more than 10 of us at any given time and physical contact is limited. Only occasionally did 1–2 of us initiate to work from home.
Outside work, however, owing to social distancing rules, private life has taken such a drastic turn I can hardly operate like my confident self. As someone who grows up without home cooking, not being able to dine in at night is a big headache. The sweltering summer deters most of outdoor fun, and the closure of entertainment businesses (particularly retail and cinemas) pushes me to seek peace of mind in the unlikeliest of places: at home. There I develop new intellectual interests and reignite old goals, nestling in the comforts of the lounge chair.
Here is a list of substantial minutiae my restless mind finds home in the newfound boredom of staying in:
Netflix
The closest thing to living an examined life in the new normal is to binge Netflix with an intellectual curiosity. The natural picks include the dystopian scientific realism of Black Mirror, the emotionally mixed newness of Marriage Story, the design documentaries of Abstract, and the data-driven everyday of The Social Dilemma. There are also the whimsical The End of the F***ing World and I’m Not Okay With This, as well as the mind-bending Dark.
Suits tears open the intricacies of human nature at work (literally): loyalty and trust.
A decade since screen debut, I started Suits just now and raced myself through its 9 seasons. I find it an especially captivating show. Unlike most courtroom dramas that focus on the business and (in)justice of law and the promiscuity of lawyers and the like, Suits tears open the intricacies of human nature at work (literally): loyalty and trust. Loyalty to the mentors who nurture us and whom we respect, against loyalty to the significant others we share our lives with. Trust reasonably in the capabilities of the professional, against trust emotionally in the vulnerabilities of the human heart.
Spirits
One day, I read that a grocer’s near my office was giving a discount on the Japanese Roku craft gin. Initially I really just paid for the glass bottling, but soon from the label I learnt that its rich flavours are emblematic of Japan. The name Roku, meaning the number 6 in Japanese, underlines the 6 types of herbs infused in the gin (see more). It is zesty on the nose and palette with a blast of yuzu that elevates the liquor. One can simply enjoy it with tonic on ice, or even straight. Dipping a shred of ginger also adds to the tasteful layers.
Then I came across a monochrome and sleek vodka bottle in a supermarket with the big word AMSTERDAM on it. It is part of the Our / Vodka series released in 2014 where local breweries in different cities are lined up to produce the same brand of vodka with local ingredients. Some other cities in the series are Berlin, London, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Detroit. The Berlin spirit is smooth and subtle; I have yet to try the Amsterdam one, though.
Books
When the pixelated screen and the blue light it emits get dizzying, I distract myself in an analogue way: reading. Sapiens had been sitting on my chair for as long as I could remember, and in less than 2 weeks, I was finally able to mark it as read on my Goodreads shelf.
I know I’m late, but would you join in ticking some books off the list by 2020?
- Contemporary Art: A Very Short Introduction
- Modern Architecture: A Very Short Introduction
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
- The Aesthetics of Museum (博物館的美學經濟)
Feedly
As a deterrent to Facebook, I re-installed Feedly, a journalism and RSS reader (it has also recently developed a premium AI reader, but the free version serves my purposes just fine), and curated 3 news channels on business, entrepreneurship and regulatory. I have meant to do this since I lost an assistant who helped me crawl through business and legal news to generate the weekly Monday Briefing on my company’s LinkedIn.
The reader is not perfect. There are websites it cannot read and turn into feeds, but the ones it can have more than enough content to digest. Even though I won’t have time to click into and read every article in full, it feels better not relying on Facebook as a source of serious news.
Mental
With all kinds of imaginable activities going virtual, I also notice the growth of telecounselling through HealthTech apps for people to identify and consult mental health therapists entirely online. From my informal study, there are currently 2 approaches in the market:
- Directory listing and online booking
- Gamified therapy including pre-paid credits, journaling and built-in teleconferencing
Most providers belong to type 1, which only indicates psychotherapy joining the larger movement of the platform economy (which I don’t favour, more on this in the next article). Type 2 is creative and innovative, but from what I see, profiles are wanting in diversity.
For sensitive and intimate services like counselling, what really makes a difference, I think, is the attentive care and excellent communications demonstrated albeit solely virtually:
- How do people contact you? How much information do they need to disclose?
- How long do they need to wait for your reply?
- Who is the undersigned? Whose voice are you?
- How do you sound like? Do you go by matter-of-fact and explanatory, or casual and personal?
- How do you balance your professional judgement of the reader’s needs, and the reader's autonomy to decide on the process, and not sound like pressurising him/her to sign up and pay? How do you follow through to conversion?
I believe I’m not the only one groping around to salvage what is already residual of 2020. By the end of the year, we may as well cut the roller-coaster ride cliché and wonder what actually went wrong at all. Maybe some virus that reconfigured the world. Maybe all of us in our complacency.
