Little Lines of Wisdom
Plus, the power of friendship and 'Beef' creator Lee Sung Jin on depression.
I’ve been going through it lately, so I don’t feel sturdy enough to write anything wise or interesting. Instead, I’ll share some ideas I heard this week that I can’t stop thinking about.
Sometimes rock bottom is your trampoline.
Perfectionism is a trauma survival response.
If you’re stretching yourself like a rubber band, further and further away from who you are, that rubber band will inevitably snap.
We tend to think we heal with the mind. But the mind keeps us stuck in loops. We heal through the body. That’s why when we show up for it over and over again we don’t just heal the body, we heal ourselves.
What about getting your own place?
I would definitely relapse then, there would be no one to perform sanity for.
On how little steps of progress lead to bigger change:
A line is a series of dots.
Keep doing the next best thing.
Best,
Anna
Reading 📖
Earlier this year, I went to an event at Yu & Me books where writer Delia Cai was offering book recommendations. I told her I was looking for satirical wellness and she suggested What A Time To Be Alive by Jade Chang. Sometimes I feel like books come to me because I was surprised how much I related to the story’s themes of grief, Asian identity, and parental abandonment, when the book was a recommendation from someone who doesn’t know me.
The 31-year-old protagonist Lola Treasure Gold is aimless in Los Angeles, until her best friend Alex dies while filming a skateboarding stunt. A viral video she posts about her grief catapults her into online stardom, accidentally making her a self-help guru. Raised by a white woman because her mom was deported back to China when she was eight, she isn’t in touch with her Chinese identity. But she capitalizes on it to eschew wellness advice based on “secret Eastern knowledge,” which her audience devours.
I was less interested in her navigating the wellness influencer world, and more on her processing of grief. The loss of her best friend unlocks feelings of grief towards her mother. So she begins investigating to see if she can find her. It’s also a beautiful exploration of millennial friendship and a testament to the power of chosen family.
Articles
🍽️ Would you cancel a friend for going on a GLP-1?
🥡 I’ve long believed meal delivery apps are harmful for everyone involved, so I’ve been waiting for this kind of reporting from Priya Krishna by the NYT.
“Ms. Kim, now 60, adores her automated life. ‘I get Amazon delivery, I get food delivery, I get grocery delivery, I get pet food delivery,’ she said. When she does leave the house, ‘I drive a Tesla and I use self-driving mode. If I could get a robot housekeeper, that would be perfect.’”
📱 How WhatsApp took over the global conversation.
🇨🇦 A Montreal travel guide that convinced me pilots should write them more often.
📖 Loved this fiction excerpt from Camilla Bordas’ new collection.
Watching 📺
I’ve been thinking about female friendship lately, so I keep returning to a film I watched on my flight back from Korea—Soulmate (TUBI, Plex, available to rent on Amazon Prime and Apple TV).
Similar to What A Time To Be Alive, the indie film explores the complexity and intimacy of female friendship, through the relationship between Hae-eun and Mi-so, who met at the age of eleven on Jeju island. Mi-so is bold and rebellious, determined to not follow a conventional path; Ha-eun is reserved and feels pressured to follow her father’s dream of her becoming a teacher, even though she wants to pursue art.
The film’s structure reads like a romance, but between two best friends. Warm and melancholic, the film could be sustained on atmosphere alone, but there are still surprising plot twists. Can the connection forged in the innocent years of childhood be enough to sustain the challenges of adulthood? The film explores the realities of what it really takes to be there for a friend, and the rewards that come when you decide to stick around.
Listening 🎧
Some of the lines of wisdom in this week’s newsletter came from this interview with Beef creator Lee Sung Jin. They touch on everything from scammers, to the writer’s rooms of NBC, to the distinctions between Korean and American elites. I found the parts about writing, depression, and perfectionism (which they refer to as an illness), the most moving.
The rock bottom is a bottom, there is a floor, you’re not continually falling. It gives you a chance to re-evaluate everything.
This generation has nailed the “be yourself” thing. But coinciding with that should be put in the 10,000 hours to get exceptionally good at your craft. Do that, while being yourself, and you can be great at anything you put your mind to.
I still haven’t watched the new season of Beef but this monologue has bumped it up to the top of my list.
Whatever your achilles heel is, I know you think you’ve got time to work on it, and you do, you have a lot of time, but little by little, life’s just gonna chip away at it.
You’ll think, ‘ok well my shit’s not so bad—a fleeting thought, a little temptation. But once I get the job, I’ll deal with my shit.’ But then you gotta get the promotion, and then you gotta get the house, and then every interaction becomes about me, me, me. You start thinking that way because it’s the only way to keep your head above water.
Then when you finally catch a breath, and go to stand on your own two feet, that achilles heel is just gonna give out. And you’re gonna fall, and you’re gonna grasp at everyone around you. But it’s too late. You’re going down. And that fleeting thought is who you are now. And you’re never gonna change.
Snacking 🍌
The best thing I ate this week was at a cafe I’ve been wanting to go to since high school, Riverdale Perk. So many of the sandwiches sounded good but I went with the smoked salmon on ciabatta with cream cheese. It was delightfully refreshing on the sunny patio. I will be back for the turkey tahini ranch.
