A month in a week
People on their phones: 9/10
People reading a book: 1/100
People writing: 1/1000
That is the current state of affairs. Sure not all phone staring is created equal. One person might be reading the news, another learning a new language, I bet though that most of the time spent on phones is mindless entertainment.
That is what we’ve descended to, merely occupying time, as if life is something to be thrown away in the wind. Have we lost all sense of meaning and purpose?
The purposeful person can now easily out-compete the rest.
Nature has a way of reinforcing a winner takes all dynamic. The strongest, most impressive stag mates with all the does. The Amazon river has five times the flow of the next voluminous river. Equality it seems is a human ideal, and one that is hard to achieve.
We might have speculated that with the advent of the internet and the free availability of information a levelling would occur. Instead it seems that the difference between the have and the have nots has only widened, with hyper-learners and hyper-ditherers equally enabled.
I’ve met some people here in Bangkok who spend 12 hours, 6 days a week at home working. That is what you’re up against. It pays to remember that when you’re tempted to complain that someone or something is holding you back. No. People are just outworking you. Increasingly they work online. Nobody knows what they look like, their ethnicity, gender, height or whether they smell good.
There really are no excuses anymore.
Admittedly I don’t work that hard. But I also don’t complain about the results I get. If you want top 1% results, then you need to put in a top 1% effort.
As I write this I’m watching the Bangkok traffic at peak hour crawling along. In an effort to beat the traffic many use motorbike taxis. Without helmets they risk their lives as the motorbikes weave around cars and zip along the side of the road. Some women even sit sideways with their delicate legs hanging in the air. Other times you see three people on one bike. Drivers texting.
What a luxury it is not to be bound by the 9-5 routine. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though, it can be a lonely road at times and I miss having work colleagues. Still, I don’t see how I could ever go back. Because of the freedom I enjoy I’ve been able to move to somewhere like Bangkok, where one week seems to stretch out and feel more like a month. I feel that I’m packing a lot of life into each week here.
Having an unscheduled day adds to the effect. I more or less figure out what I’m going to do when I wake up. I guess some people would find that tough to deal with. Perhaps for them a set routine is a comfort they prefer. Case in point, I woke up this morning planning to write about Warsaw and ended up writing this.
I’m not sure where all these snapshots lead to. Unlike my work I don’t have a set plan or goal for writing. It’s a hobby. Some day I’d like to write something more substantial like a book.
It must be said that I often miss Japan. It’s like a mark that I just can’t scrub off. Not that I want to. I just find it curious. Lately I’ve been looking at Japanese companies for investment purposes. On the whole they are remarkably well run. Not especially innovative, more of the steady as she goes variety, but what they do, they do very well.
I travelled to Japan last year. It was great to be back and I considered living there again, but there was no easy route in terms of setting up a business and obtaining a visa. If you have to push too hard it really starts to beg the question, is it the right time? In the end I decided it wasn’t.
Whether it’s Thailand or Japan, the realities of living somewhere so culturally different are not lost on me. Making deep connections with people is challenging at the best of times, the challenges are compounded by differences. From what I’ve read the best longer term relationships are on average between people who are as similar as possible in terms of values, ethnicity and religion. Look at your closest friends, you might see that pattern playing out. With romantic relationships, our genes add in a curve ball. We are especially attracted to genetic variety, which strengthens the gene pool via improved immunity, athleticism and most observably, good looks in the offspring.
I suppose whoever you end up with, whether they are like you or quite different, you need to choose carefully. As they say, it’s the most important investment you’ll ever make.