First impressions of Paris

There are boulangeries (bakeries), fromageries (cheese shops), charcuteries (delis), and boucheries (butchers) peppered throughout the streets. Wine is cheap and easily available in places like grocery stores, wine shops, and convenience stores (quite the opposite of being limited to the LCBO in Ontario).

Many cashiers at the grocery stores are seated while working, the first time I have seen this. Also a first sighting - a man carrying a Longchamp bag.

I'm staying at a place on Rue de Charonne, but when I first arrived, I ended up getting lost on Boulevard de Charonne before someone informed me that they are not the same streets. Turns out Rues and Boulevards of the same name will often intersect, a small but significant detail that I hope I'm not the only person who has overlooked.

Baguettes are indeed popular. Around the dinner hour, it is common to see people with a baguette or two (occasionally three) tucked under their arm. It's been the equivalent of seeing Torontonians with a Starbucks coffee in hand. 

I have been greeted in the French style twice so far. I'm still unsure, but I think you go for the left cheek first, then the right. 

Dogs and cafés found throughout the streets and boulevards.

Voltaire metro station.

A man with his pet parrot in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement. 

View from a bridge in the park.

Place de la Bastille.

Street view on the walk over to the Bastille.

Place des Vosges on an autumn Sunday afternoon.

Berthillon ice cream at Île Saint-Louis, one of the islands in the Seine river.

On Loneliness

It is often the case that what is hardest to examine is precisely what is most meaningful to delve into. These are things that get to the core of who we are - our basest fears and hopes that form the common threads of what it means to be human. Loneliness is one of these things. Loneliness is so prevalent that it's begging to be written about, and yet so elusive it's hard to pinpoint into exactitude.

Over the years I've had many unexpected conversations - with close friends, acquaintances, and strangers - that directly mention loneliness or very clearly skirt around it; it is difficult to imagine that loneliness is isolated to just the people I talked to. It leads me to believe that loneliness is more widespread than we imagine, and touches more of us we than we let on, but remains something we keep quiet about. 

Loneliness is different from depression, perhaps a distant cousin. Depression is easier to talk about; it's classified as a medical issue, with answers in biochemistry and physiology, and with treatment to be found in pharmaceuticals. It's not within our control. Loneliness is different. It's almost simply a state of being. Admitting to being lonely is like admitting a weakness, that there is something wrong with us. But it's not a weakness and it shouldn't be seen as less than normal. 

The story of human history is a social one; historically people have spent their lives in closeness with each other. It is only recently that we find ourselves in a society set up in a way that breaks apart natural human bonds. Today many people live alone. Many people take jobs in places where they do not have deep ties. We tend to remain single for longer.

There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. One can be on a solitary walk and not feel lonely; one can be surrounded by masses of people and feel very lonely. In Emily White's book Lonely (quite the fitting title), I came across this idea that there are two broad types of human connection, and the lack of either or both, can lead to loneliness.

One is social connection. This is what we get from being part of a larger group or community, and is made up of relationships with friends, relatives, colleagues, and familiar neighbourhood faces like those of Starbucks barista. It's the breadth of our relationship network, where we are connected to many people. 

The other is emotional connection. This is the attachment we feel for those we are most intimate with. It is when we share our deepest emotions. Emotional loneliness occurs when we internalize and trap our emotions, and do not share with others. A classic image of emotional loneliness depicts the person who is constantly surrounded by friends, is busy with activities, and who projects an appearance of happiness. But stripped away of these external layers, underneath it all is actually a figure of loneliness. Someone can have a wide breadth of relationships - an abundance of social connections - but it is entirely possible that these relationships lack the emotional depth essential for intimacy. 

It is this lack of emotional connection that appears to be the bigger culprit of unspoken loneliness. Hidden away, it is behind a mask. People can be around others at work and at social events, but this screen of social being can be a facade, covering up loneliness that is inaccessible and unseen by others. In relating to the concrete world with our five senses, we are good at solving tangible problems. Human matters, however, are more mysterious. The evasive elements that we don't see and don't understand, we often diminish in importance and pay less attention to. 

It's been said that life simply comes down to two things - work and love. My sense is that many of us have given too much to work and not enough to love. 

Work demands are clear and obvious. Relationships are quieter, less demanding, and they are often the first things we let go of when we are pressed for time and attention. The weakening of relationships is an imperceptible erosion. It's not until we find ourselves in that moment where we want nothing more than to reach out, and not knowing who to call, that we realize what state our relationships are actually in. 

We find ourselves lacking the connection that intimacy brings, the element we rely on to see us through emotionally difficult times. Intimacy is not something to be bought with money, fixed with medicine, or obtained by speeding up its unfolding. Deep intimacy is cultivated over periods of time or in moments of timing. It is grounded in trust, trust that the other person cares enough to be there, in unbroken attention. It shows itself in the time we give and the receptiveness we offer.

There's an expectant moment during conversations where a quiet atmosphere settles, creating a space that invites the simple and sincere ask 'How are you doing, really?' And then to take a look into the eyes, a long look, followed by an open listen. Within this space, perhaps we can find the answers that our fundamental human needs are seeking. 

Paul Graham essays

In addition to co-founding Y-Combinator, Paul Graham also writes excellent essays on a variety of topics such as start-ups, writing, and life. I've gone through the archive a few times and there are several that I have read, reread, and sent to numerous friends.

Here are some of my top choices.

How to Do What You Love - I've probably sent this one essay to at least a dozen people. 

Stuff

Companies that sell stuff have spent huge sums training us to think stuff is still valuable. But it would be closer to the truth to treat stuff as worthless. In fact, worse than worthless, because once you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around. I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's.

Cities and Ambition

Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message: you could do more; you should try harder.

The surprising thing is how different these messages can be. New York tells you, above all: you should make more money. There are other messages too, of course. You should be hipper. You should be better looking. But the clearest message is that you should be richer.

What I like about Boston (or rather Cambridge) is that the message there is: you should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you've been meaning to.

When you ask what message a city sends, you sometimes get surprising answers. As much as they respect brains in Silicon Valley, the message the Valley sends is: you should be more powerful.

That's not quite the same message New York sends. Power matters in New York too of course, but New York is pretty impressed by a billion dollars even if you merely inherited it. In Silicon Valley no one would care except a few real estate agents. What matters in Silicon Valley is how much effect you have on the world. The reason people there care about Larry and Sergey is not their wealth but the fact that they control Google, which affects practically everyone.

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

There are two types of schedule, which I'll call the manager's schedule and the maker's schedule. The manager's schedule is for bosses. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you're doing every hour.

When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done.

Most powerful people are on the manager's schedule. It's the schedule of command. But there's another way of using time that's common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can't write or program well in units of an hour. That's barely enough time to get started.

The Age of the Essay

If there's one piece of advice I would give about writing essays, it would be: don't do as you're told. Don't believe what you're supposed to. Don't write the essay readers expect; one learns nothing from what one expects. And don't write the way they taught you to in school.

Being interesting or being interested

I finished reading through many snippets of advice in Katie Couric's book, The Best Advice I Ever Got.

This was an interesting story of mentorship. Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of Acumen Fund, met John Gardner while she was at Stanford. His illustrious career included positions as President Johnson's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the founder of Common Cause, and the president of the Carnegie Foundation.

She learnt a key life lesson from him. She writes:

I was offered a "once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity," complete with an exalted title salary, and access to powerful people in the political realm.

When I asked John for his advice, he listened carefully and then looked me straight in the eye.

"I can see why you're tempted," he said, "and this job will certainly make you more interesting to others. But that's the wrong reason to accept a position. Instead, you should focus on being interested rather than interesting. Now, tell me how this job will truly give you a chance to serve others rather than a chance to serve your own career."

I didn't take the job.

And I've never forgotten John's sage advice to focus on being interested rather than interesting. Fifteen years later, I understand his wisdom: a focus on being interested in others is the very foundation for a life of meaning and purpose.

As with other elusive intangibles such as happiness and love, explicitly chasing these things is often futile. They come when we're least expecting them, at the moments when we are fully engaged with life beyond our own selves.

Perceptions on cynicism

I've noticed a minor but intriguing difference between books about French culture and those about North American habits. When describing topics on human development, where the North American books emphasize self-improvement, French books tend to use cultivation. Both approaches aim to convey the same general process - that a person has changed from one state to another - but these terms signify different meanings and show differences in perception.

Cultivation connotes growth; to patiently let something flower; the current state is enough and is simply part of the growth process.

Self-improvement implies that something is broken and needs to be fixed; the current state is not enough.

The mind can be frighteningly powerful in weaving narratives and creating perceptions.

*****

I've recently had a few difficult conversations that indirectly touched on these themes of mental narratives and perceptions.

Many things happen to us that are not within our control. Unfairness at work, broken relationships, the general passage of things that compose our lives. From these, we experience the full extent of negative emotions - ones that should not be suppressed or dismissed - but nevertheless are difficult to face.

We expect children to be naïve and idealistic. We expect adults to shed their idealism and become more cynical. 

But is it possible to see this transition differently, the life aging process? Is it about our perception - cultivation or self-improvement?

When we don't have much else, we have the choice of what we do in response to things that happens to us; we can choose how to interpret these events, what meaning we give to them, and how they will shape who we become.

When we are brought in front of the mirror, will we see cynicism, jadedness, bitterness, or is it possible to see the reflections of maturity, acceptance, complexity?

David Foster Wallace's commencement address This is Water is a beautifully raw examination on the difficulty of choosing our perceptions and reactions to the daily things that happen to us.

This isn't easy, but this isn't impossible.

To derive meaning from our experiences - cynicism or life learning? It can be either, that's our choice.

Bertrand Russell on deprivation

The domain of philosophy can be daunting to those new to the field. So many names, so many ideas, so many self-referential definitions. While I am not ready for the more verbose and complicated philosophers, I am finding a kind teacher in Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). He's one of the more (relatively) modern philosophers and wrote on topics that most people can relate to, in a style that is easy to comprehend and interesting to follow.

I first encountered Bertrand Russell's work when I read his essay, In Praise of Idleness, an excellent read and one that I highly recommend. 

Wanting to learn more about his work, I found a copy of The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, a 700+ page volume of some of his best essays.

From his piece, The Place of Sex Among Human Values, is an intriguing passage to ponder:

"A man who is healthy in mind and body will not have his interests thus concentrated upon himself. He will look out upon the world and find in it objects that seem to him worthy of his attention.

Absorption in self is not, as some have supposed, the natural condition of unregenerate man. It is a disease brought on, almost always, by some thwarting of natural impulses.

The voluptuary who gloats over thoughts of sexual gratification is in general the result of some kind of deprivation, just as the man who hoards food is usually a man who has lived through a famine or a period of destitution.

Healthy, outward-looking men and women are not to be produced by the thwarting of natural impulse, but by the equal and balanced development of all the impulses essential to a happy life."

When we are deprived of something, we turn inward and become obsessed with it.

The mind can be a strange, wondrous, fearful thing. It has the ability to obsess and to construct entire worlds. Tell it not to think about cookies and it will pretty much only think about cookies.

It's common to hear of diets that completely cut out certain foods. It's also common to hear that a single lapse leads to bingeing on the forbidden food; if you've slipped up and had that one cookie, might as well have five.

Sometimes at night I'll develop a craving for pasta. Ignoring this craving, I'll unhappily resign myself to eating cherries instead. This usually does not help. Feeling unsatisfied, I'll remain obsessed about pasta until I give up and end up making an alarming amount of it, and then feeling guilty, I'll eat all of it too quickly, as though somehow eating it faster will make it vanish better. Eating too much pasta too quickly sometimes makes me feel ill. If I had allowed myself some small amount of what I craved, I might have taken my time with it and only eaten to the point of satisfaction, not to the point of discomfort. Rather than denying life's pleasures, perhaps we are better off fully enjoying them in moderate doses. Wine, cheese, chocolate, bread - consume them all, just not too much.

As Bertrand Russell said, when we are deprived of basic human pleasures, we turn inwards, fixate on our own wants, and become selfish. When our own needs are met, we can instead turn outwards, and focus on things worthier of our attention.

Ingrained knowledge and its precise communication

Richard Feynman is a name I only first came across this past year, but since then I've seen it crop up a lot. He was a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics and for us commoners, probably best known for his work on the atomic bomb during World War II. I picked up a copy of his auto-biographical stories found in Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!, described as 'adventures of a curious character.'

There's a part where he goes to Brazil to teach physics at a university and discovered that although the students can recite physics definitions and statements, they can't actually apply the information. I remember taking university calculus courses that had similar exams each year. So in the practice exams, 3x would show up in an equation and on the actual exam it would be 4x. I could apply the formula, but I couldn't explain what the coefficients or variables meant. I gamed the exams enough to obtain a decent grade in the course, but to this day, I still don't actually understand what calculus is or how it works.

This got me thinking about how difficult it actually is to learn something new, beyond the superficial level of recalling facts and information, to the level of ingrained knowledge, as if by instinct, the way we can ride a bicycle.

It's the difference between superficial information and actual knowledge. I recognize this in writing, I will reach for common phrases, clichés, and jargon words when I lack understanding.

We borrow pre-made phrases because they're easy, and they likely did originate from something useful. But overuse dulls their meaning over time. The challenge with using pre-made fabrications is that they blur and muddy the meaning of what we are really saying.

I think of George Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language, and his book 1984. There's a part in 1984 where a government official is working on reducing the dictionary in order to reduce citizens' thinking. Language is important because the words are the basis of our thoughts. When we use pre-made fabrications, we're not only limiting our words, we're limiting our thoughts.

Communicating requires first a thorough understanding of what is being said, and second, a way of saying it precisely. The aim is for another person to receive the message as closely as possible to the original, with minimal distortion. It's like that game of broken telephone. The starting message that gets whispered to each person often ends up distorted by the time it reaches the last person. A cliché usually distorts, its very nature is to act as a shortcut. The recipient, after hearing a cliché, will understand generally what you want to say, but he or she might not understand precisely. And perhaps none of us can get to exactly, but there's a good amount of space between an identical replica and the bland generic.

The more nuanced and complex the message, the more important it is to be selective in the words used to attain precision.

The opposite of schadenfreude

I have scarily smart and accomplished friends. Earlier today, a close friend called with the news that he's switching jobs to join his friend's wildly popular start-up. I was absolutely thrilled for him and even after we hung up, I was so excited and energetic that I completely lost all focus and discipline to finish a different piece I was in the middle of writing.

From Wikipedia: Schadenfreude - the pleasure derived from someone's misfortune.

There's no specific term for the opposite, but I had a pleasant realization - it's been a while since I've experienced jealousy or schadenfreude. It's incredibly freeing to shed these emotions; they are among the darkest of human emotions.

Typically, we interpret events and information in relation to ourselves. If we are insecure or discontent with our own lives, the good news of others can be upsetting. We turn inwards and focus on what this news means for us, what it says about our lives in comparison. But when we come from a secure place, we are able to focus outwards, on others, without letting our ego taint the situation.

It sounds simple to write out - being satisfied with ourselves, but personally, I've found it a bit tricky to put into practice. Millions of words have been inked about the psychological unease of Facebook comparisons and I do indeed notice that my newsfeed is filled with stories of exotic vacations, new jobs, new relationships - hundreds of people sharing the best moments of their lives in work and love. How can one not feel some slight pang on a variation of 'I wish my life...'?

It's not always possible, but I have been trying to derive the utmost out of each moment. Slicing a peach into cubes, walking for most of an evening, playing music on repeat for hours to produce a few hundred words, in these moments and more, I am learning to cultivate a sense of contentment that these are the exact things I'm meant to be doing, at this very time. I think from this, it has been easier to set jealousies aside and instead, offer sincere goodwill towards others in their moments of happiness.

A little Canadian birthday love

Sometimes you develop a clearer idea of a place when you move away from it. As Descartes said 'it is good to know something of the customs of different people in order to judge more soundly of our own.' It's hard to pin down what makes a country its own, it comes to me more in fragments and in subtlety.

During an exchange semester in Hong Kong, the American students spent enough time with the Canadian students that they adopted the habit of tacking on an 'eh' at the end of their phrases.

There's a certain clarity that is particular to my remembrances of Canada - it's in the sky, in the water, in the air, and it is a sharp contrast to the heavy smog of Beijing, the noises and smells of Hong Kong, the humidity of a Washington summer.

In Tobermory, the waters are cold and pristine. And at night, after the earth rotates away from the sun, the stars appear against a dark sky that is untouched by man-made light. It is almost claustrophobic to look up and feel as though you are enveloped within and falling into handfuls and handfuls of gold specks.

The cool autumn air breaking the heat of summer signified both an ending and a beginning. The sidewalks are covered in layers of crisp fallen russet maple leaves, this mix of leaves not to be found elsewhere. The decay of leaves accompanied the start of a new year - the return to school, with classes and reunions with friends.

These past two springs I found out that it is the Little Leaf Linden tree that perfumes Charles Street and Queen's Park, and the Japanese lilac outside my bedroom window that perfumes the front of the house.

A bitter winter irks many of us. The endless snow and grey slush and the nostril-freezing air and the wind chills that drop the temperature an additional ten degrees make many of us yearn for the warm days of May.

But without the winter, the four distinct seasons of Canada are incomplete. There's a sense of fullness to be found in cold winters and hot summers. And it's this keen sensitivity to the gradual changes that makes one acutely aware of the brevity and continuity of seasons passing one into the next, year after year, that evoke a sense of parallelism that time, like life, is passing on.

*****

In Toronto there are moments - watching and inhaling as the marijuana parade marches down Bloor, eating lunch with friends at a patio on the corner of Church and Maitland, walking to Sunday morning yoga in bare shoulders and bare legs - moments which I look back on and think of with gratitude.

I found a 2004 National Geographic map of the world and taped it up on the wall. In satellite images, we are composed almost entirely of a thin band of light hugging the United States' northern border, stretching from the North Pacific to the North Atlantic. It is an expansive land of beauty and freedom, and looking at the map of all the countries in the world, a moment pauses, in which I think that many countries do not have this beauty and freedom.

The gratitude I realize now comes from holding the knowledge that I can be here and the knowledge of how much fragile freedom is gifted to me - to go somewhere, say something, dress in a way, to be of a religion, a race, a sexual orientation. The freedom to be.

The dark blue passport is a token of home, and wherever else I am in the world, it is always with a small bit of quiet love that I am able to say I'm Canadian. It's a pure, simple, uncomplicated type of love. We don't have a complicated history; it's a country that aims in its struggles to do the right thing. It's a country that provides the foundation of security for its people to take risks, to be free, to go and to come back.

Divergences in this phase of life

I've noticed this is an age that marks a subtle but significant phase in our lives and in the lives of our similar-aged friends.

Throughout high school and university, we mostly moved in the same direction and reached the same milestones. We knew what others were also going through.

A few years out of school and it feels like this is the time when many of us are starting to make critical choices for ourselves, choices of the type that can lead us down different paths from those around us.

Some are starting over and going into the arts, others are getting their MBA. Some are receiving promotions and rapidly moving up in their organization, others are founding start-ups. Some are getting engaged and married, others are ending long term relationships. Some have purchased a place of their own, others have taken off for new cities and continents. Some seem to know exactly where they are going, others are lost.

As differences pile up, it can feel that those who understand us are of a diminishing number.

When two ships set sail from the same point, if their journeys differ by even a couple of degrees at the start, the further they go, the greater the distance that separates them.

Finding connection with those whose lives look different from our own requires that we go beyond the surface level differences of what we do and where we live and what we eat and what we do for entertainment. To find and regain connection, we have to, in spite of these differences, delve deeper until we meet on common human ground - to openly reveal what we fear, what we want, what we love - to show, that in truth, this is me.