February 2025

“Another year over

And a new one just begun

What have you done…”

It is not Christmas, but somehow, the lyrics of the Happy Xmas song echoed in my mind as I started this page. After all, a new Lunar Year is now before me, so…

What shall I aim to achieve this year?

A few things pop up in my mind: making this blog perform better in terms of traffic & the number of subscribers, ensuring that the revenue it generates can start helping me stabilize and sustain my living, getting the N1 certificate, refining my Japanese communication skills holistically, figuring out the best way to pursue a degree in psychology (and later philosophy – among many other things), deepening my spiritual side, thinking seriously about my life philosophies, supporting my parents, etc. Well, I suppose these should be enough for now (haha).

Anw, to start the daily journaling…

February 3

Today is the first day that people get back to work after a week of holiday (the Lunar New Year holiday). Yesterday, I traveled from my hometown to Saigon.

I noticed that as of today, the street of Saigon seemed to be not very crowded. I suppose that many people have not returned to school/ work yet (speaking of which, I remember that the university students have not got back, so it makes sense).

I have quitted the part-time English teaching job. This whole month, I’m going to dedicate myself wholeheartedly to this blog – specifically, to the creation of 2025 1st-quarter edition. I suppose I should aim to get it done before getting back to my Japanese study (otherwise, it will be very hard for me to stay focused). After that, around the beginning of March, I am going to resume it (and to find some way to practice it).

Today, everything was a little bit slow. I guess that I need a little time to start rolling again. Hope that it will quickly result in a snowball effect.

Recently, my social media feeds seem to be filled with a lot of political posts. It has been a long time since the last time I was so haunted by doubt – doubt about human nature, about reality.

I wonder: How can we know which information we are absorbing on a daily basis is factually correct?

To me, it seems that cognitive bias is a real thing. We have so much information and so little time to verify them (not to mention, the difficulty of verifying such information), so most of us naturally resort to what we are familiar with. To make sense of the world. To avoid succumbing to some kind of existential crises.

And we over-generalize everything. We say that “everyone needs to do ABC”, “ABC is totally wrong” – things like that. And we label those who stand on the other side as nemeses. And we dismiss anything that contradicts our beliefs. And we shout and verbally attack people who disagree with us.

I wonder: Is this the way to get out of this mess? Where is the compassion that we are supposed to show to others – including those who oppose or abuse us?

…

Anw, I still have a little time left today before bedtime. Maybe let’s try to finish some content migration tasks before resting. Tomorrow is gonna be busy, as I aim to start working on the upcoming edition.

Well then, let’s do it!

Oyasuminasai!

(09:00 PM GMT+7 – February 3, 2025)