2024 Wrapped

Habit Trends:

Healing is Active not Passive

Heading into my first medical leave, I anticipated that I would have tons of time to catch up on all of the things I’ve always wanted to do during retirement: I was gonna read, play video games, watch tv. I was gonna catch up with friends and have an all around good time.

This did not happen at all. After my hip surgery I was sleeping a LOT. (Opioid sleep is the best sleep!) Then after that, I was getting in and out of the ice machine, taking care of bathroom needs, making sure to eat right and at a reasonable time to take my meds, shuffling to doctor and PT appointments, performing my PT exercises, and more. This was all exhausting. Even the act of just shifting from one position to the next to avoid muscle atrophy was exhausting. So when I was awake and not busy, I was tired and in pain. So I did maybe 15% of what I had wanted to do.

The foot surgery was much more challenging. It was a less intensive procedure, which I had expected would take less of a toll on me, especially having done the hip procedure already. But it ended up significantly more challenging because: 1) the foot had way more nerves and I had way fewer opioids, so there was a lot more pain and weird sensation and 2) I was weaker after the hip surgery and thus slept more easily. The foot surgery kept me energized but unfocused, and I found that experience more challenging and frustrating than being just tired.

I learned from this that the healing process requires active effort and energy, not just waiting for time to pass. Applying this to my overall health, I’ve been able to find ways to sleep better and eat better. I’ve been able to eliminate my groin pain. And while I’ve lost some mobility, I’m rapidly gaining it back. Hopefully by next year I’ll be fully recovered and even fitter than before these surgeries.

Supplements

I’ve started experimenting with more supplements! Vitamin D3. Probiotics. Magnesium. I credit supplements with a lot of my improvements in terms of sleep and focus vs last year. I still haven’t fully figured it out, but I think that diet and supplementation has made a big difference in reducing my swinging moods vs last year. I sleep a lot longer and a lot deeper, but I’m tired a lot more frequently this year. Looking to experiment more with supplements and diet to see if there’s more optimization possible.

Streaks

It’s pretty obvious, but actions done consistently become habits. And habits carry momentum that turn actions from effortful into inevitable. Supplements are the most successful example of me building day to day streaks into habits. So I’ve been trying to apply that to the rest of my life, to mixed success. I have been journaling more this year, trying more self improvement activities, and managing my time at work a little bit better.

The downside is that if the streak is interrupted (travel, illness etc), then it’s hard to get back on the wagon. A habit that’s robust to the chaos of life is the next thing that I’m going to need to figure out. Exercising consistently is particularly difficult for me to figure out for some reason, especially in the winter.

A New Type of Therapy

I’ve moved away from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and into a Psychodynamic program. The essential difference is that instead of trying to build habits to change the way I think, I’m more focused on uncovering aspects of my unconscious self, so that I can understand myself better and act accordingly. It’s hella Sigmund Freud. I’m not one hundred percent sure that this is helpful, but it has felt good at least. The approach tends to be more effective for self-reflective people, and if you’re reading this I think you can kind of tell that I fit that bill.

Here are some of the ideas I’ve been grappling in therapy:

Those feelings are old feelings

A lot of things I experience in my life feel like reminiscences. As if in some past life I felt the exact same anxiety or fear for different reasons. Psychodynamic therapy has been asking me to tap into the primitive versions of the emotions I’m feeling, in order to make sense of the experiences. Old feelings are like ancient Eldritch horror stories: terror we’ve locked away with forgotten magic. They’ve found a way to creep into our world, affecting it in small and large ways. I need new magic to deal with these old feelings, as the barrier between worlds begins to fray. Haven’t figured out how to fix this, but I’ve felt a little bit better day to day in just trying.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

I’ve been trying my best to slow down in moments when I feel scared and anxious. In the past I’ve spent time trying to numb overactive emotions to make them manageable. This has been a largely ineffective strategy. Very CBT-ish, I’ve tried to slow down the experience of feeling emotion as opposed to numbing myself. I think I need more emotional support than the average human, so slowing my experience of emotion has been relatively effective at allowing me to be self-supportive. I’m not quite all the way there, but at least I’m trying.

What are you if not your anxiety?

As a person who spends most of the day anxious. Who interacts with humans in anxious ways. Who anxiously writes, reflects, thinks, meditates, ruminates and contemplates about anxiety…. I asked my therapist: “what am I beyond my anxiety? I don’t know what I’d be like without it”

In therapy, I’m usually asked to share my thoughts on how things are and my thoughts are placed at a premium. I was shocked at the opinionated statement from my therapist when I posed this question. When I asked this question she immediately asserted to me that anxiety is not the same as personality, and that the literature supports this. I don’t know what that means for me yet.

Some Thoughts Linger: Reflections 2024

Late Blooming

I’ve always felt a bit slow relative to my peers in terms of my maturation and decision making. It took me quite a bit longer than my peers to make friends in school. To start hanging out late. To enjoy alcohol. I purposefully delayed my graduation from college by a semester so that I could be in school longer. I didn’t really have much of a love life until after college. I was not able to let go of debate for a very long time, and when I did I spun into a crisis trying to figure out what I wanted. I started taking academics seriously only in grad school, a full 20 years after I had started schooling. And after grad school I took a circuitous route into tech, via yogurt and liquor companies.

In this time I’ve tried to project to other people that I’m more mature and ready than I really am.

I like creating a distinction between “interview Julian” and “working Julian”. In job interviews, I created a persona: someone with deep expertise, confidence, and creativity. Interview Julian is enthusiastic and passionate about solving problems and effective execution. Interview Julian has boundless energy, answers to any questions, and a lot of genuine care for those around him.

Meanwhile, working Julian is timid, afraid to take the lead, and constantly second guesses his own ideas. Working Julian also tends to procrastinate. He hides the fact that he didn’t really do work. He feels fatigue, a lack of focus, or a lack of experience. Working Julian is still trying to learn and be helpful, but he doesn’t bring the same force and velocity to each task that interview Julian portrays.

At some point in the last few years I’ve started to forget that interview Julian is a constructed identity. I’ve pretended that I’m this indefatigable, sharp-eyed, hunter: constantly accelerating to catch faster and faster prey. I started thinking that this is who I really should be. I’ve felt disappointed in myself because I’ve constantly failed to live up to the expectations I created for myself as interview Julian. I bought into the hype that I created about myself and I’ve been hitting the limits of how far hype can take me.

No matter how I portray myself though, I’m still a late bloomer: it takes me a little bit longer to figure out certain things, and much longer to have the confidence to utilize them effectively. I was able to break into tech because of my interview skills. Frankly, I was barely able to fake my way through technical screens. And I’ve talked my way into roles that working Julian was not ready to thrive in.

Recently, I’ve been rejected from several jobs I really wanted, even if I think I had performed relatively well. Simultaneously, my career at Meta has plateaued a little too early. I think the root cause of this is that while interview Julian gains more ammo and more audacity, working Julian keeps getting overwhelmed by the widening scope and responsibility that he has to deal with.

I bloom late because I freeze when I’m afraid. I want to feel strong and confident before I do things that stress and scare me. In fact, even if I’m ready in terms of preparation, I am often not ready in terms of emotional regulation. I usually try to set myself a baseline of safety before I try new things, and frequently that feeling of safety takes time to establish. But this is not just for new things, but also for things that are generally uncomfortable for me: talking to non-trusted people, asserting my opinion, submitting myself to the judgment of others.

I think I need to be more patient with things moving a little bit slower for me. It takes time for things to come out better in the end. My relationship with Ji is the best example here, where slowness ended up with a much better outcome than rushing. But when it comes to my career, I realize that while I have 10ish years of work experience, I’ve only really worked in tech for 3 years. And for one of those years I was at Amazon where I didn’t really learn much. Then came the layoffs and the merry go round of managers and new roles at Meta, plus medical leave.. I feel like I’ve only been well set up for success in tech for around 5 months out of my 10 year career.

I’ve also never really dedicated time trying to figure out how to be an effective employee. I’ve focused lots of time on getting good at job interviews and technical skills, but not trying to get good at my job or work relationships. (I’ve only just this year found out how to effectively have 1 on 1’s with a manager!). I’ve really tried to keep interview Julian and working Julian as separate entities: interview Julian is meant to grow and advance, while working Julian is meant to lay low and feel safe. I’ve been trying to exorcise working Julian, and only show interview Julian to others. This hasn’t really worked out.

I used to tell this true story about my baggage as a competitive debater: My debate coach did not allow me to compete in tournaments during my first year of debating. We had 8 slots for debaters, and he opted to send 6 people instead of letting me and some others compete because I was “not ready”. I used to frame this story as a tale of passion and resilience: even in the face of opposition, I could persevere and find success because I cared enough and I was tough enough. Earlier this year I thought that maybe I should reframe this story as a tale of patience: as long as I go at my own pace, I can achieve amazing things.

Through time and therapy, I’ve been realizing that neither framing works for that story. Both versions of myself are still me and neither is fake. The work is not to develop both of these versions of myself, but to bring them together into a more balanced self. I’m looking for the space within myself where I can be passionate and excited, but be patient with my own weaknesses. After all, passion and patience share the same latin root word: pati, which means to suffer/endure. And though interview Julian and working Julian act differently, they both come from the same root as well. Hopefully, that root can bloom more in the coming years, even if it takes some time.

A Year Of Fading Courage

This year I’ve felt myself withdrawing deeper into fear. I think that part of it was my career: I had a co-worker who was consistently outperforming me suddenly lose his job, because he performed poorly over a 4 month period. Part of it has been my health: I’ve spent more time in bed and immobile this year than any year since my infancy.

But I think that there’s something a little bit deeper going on. I’ve noticed fear in smaller and bigger ways: I’ve been too scared to take risks in investments that in the past I would not have hesitated on. I’ve felt anxious about booking tickets to concerts or shows that I was really excited about. I’ve struggled to put pen to paper (not new). I’ve been scared of traveling (new). I’ve been scared to open up to new people and make new friends. I’ve been fixating on fears about failure. I’ve been scared of whether or not I’ve done enough for Ji. Even when I’m playing video games I feel more hesitant and scared of taking risks.

A thousand years ago I was a nervous kid who couldn’t raise his hand even if he knew the answers to the teacher’s question. The same kid couldn’t call his classmate’s house to ask for homework he missed. He didn’t want to bother anyone when he was hungry so he just decided not to eat. That kid didn’t want to rock the boat. He was afraid of discomfort and awkwardness and pain. He was afraid of taking initiative for what he wanted. He was afraid of what others might think of him.

This kid writing this today has been so happy and comfortable these last few years that any kind of awkwardness and discomfort just doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble. What more is there to gain when I can just enjoy life how I’m doing it these days? My dad calls this a Fool’s Paradise. It’s a place where I choose comfort over courage. This is a place where I stagnate and the consequences of inaction accumulate until they become due with interest. But these consequences are at a distance far enough that they’re difficult to see from where I sit.

As I reflect on these fears that I’ve lived with I wonder: Where exactly do I need this courage really? What risks am I supposed to take? Do I need the courage to move forward on the path I set for myself? Or do I need the courage to stop and change directions? Is it courage to drop the extraneous to focus on the critical? Or should I try to take on new and more exciting burdens to grow myself horizontally?

Politics: A Change in Feeling

When Donald Trump won the 2016 election, I saw people weeping openly in the streets of NY and protests immediately followed. I had campaigned proudly for Bernie Sanders throughout the city during the primaries. People sometimes shouted and cheered when they saw me pass by, decked in Bernie gear. While we were disappointed in losing the primary, we still saw Hillary as an inevitable candidate. I remember thinking that we’d be ready to push hard against the Neoliberals and get a progressive agenda moving. Then all of the positive energy from those campaigns turned to fear when Trump had won. In school, there was a gathering of students and faculty in an auditorium, where people unpacked the results of the election together as a community.

This year I did not campaign for any candidate. I voted for Kamala Harris, but with no enthusiasm. I enjoyed all of the brat summer content and the memes of weird Republicans. But I told many of my friends that I believed Trump would win (though I secretly believed that I would be wrong, hoping for a reverse jinx). Trump won this year and I feel some apathy and not much fear. But deep inside I still feel some throbbing, as if from an old scar.

Politics has been exhausting for me this year. My candidates keep losing. My sense of morality keeps getting trampled on. I’ve almost completely stopped consuming content for Philippine politics, as it leaves me just sadder and feeling more powerless. I don’t have the heart in me to engage in the ways that I once did. I think I need to focus more on myself and my immediate environment instead. I want to end this paraphrasing Hanif Abdurraqib: “Joy is an act of rebellion. But only if it comes with actual acts of rebellion later on.”

Dreams of Different Sizes

One thing very inspiring for me this year was seeing people in my life take new leaps into the unknown. People in my life started singing or acting classes. Ji made leaps and bounds towards her law school dreams. Friends of mine stopped and re-focused on next steps by pausing their careers.

I live in the city of dream chasers. People come from all over the world with visions of a better future and the strength of will to try to shape reality into that vision. As time passes and reality has asserted itself, I’ve found that my own will has weakened, and the future I want has become harder to construct.

I think that the reason why this has been happening is that I have been chasing dreams of the wrong size for most of the last two years. Here’s what I mean:

Big Dreams are the things we want the deepest in our hearts that we’ve wanted for the longest time. It’s a set of desires not just of doing, but of becoming. These are the “when I grow up” types of wishes that we either abandon in adulthood, and usually never grow into. Things that we’ve always wanted to do and always want to do, but have not found a way to do.

Intermediate Dreams are the long term things that you want to bring to life. I kind of think of these as SMART goals that are difficult to get to. These are relatively easy to define and often are chosen because they help support the big dreams in some way. For me, these have been a lot of my career goals and things like becoming a homeowner, and lots of stuff involving money.

Small Dreams are accessible things that you look forward to having very soon. Things like a good meal, retail therapy, or a new episode of a tv show. I refer to the smallness in terms of effort, time, and difficulty. I’ve taken for granted little things like walking and being pain free. But also I’ve been forgoing others like watching movies or enjoying books.

I think this year I’ve been overly focused on Intermediate Dreams: I’ve been trying to do lots of ungratifying things because they’ll have a later, mid-sized payoff. The intermediate dreams have been a little too big for me to effectively tackle and have been too daunting to pursue without triggering huge bouts of anxiety. But also, intermediate dreams don’t really excite me. These are not the things that I really want out of life, at their best they’re just stepping stones to the big dreams.

So in 2025, I’m going to try to focus away from intermediate dreams and try to keep my eye on either the big dreams or the small dreams. I want to do things that make me happy in small ways: walk properly, cook better food, try new types of coffee, have good conversations, complete work tasks, watch tv, sleep well. I want to do things that I’ve always wanted to do: make something for the world, have good relationships, live long, become a good person, be proud of myself.

One other note on dreams: I recently read that dreams of any size are really subgoals for dreams that are too amorphous to define. A dream to have that feeling of satisfaction like your life has been worth living. Not sure what that might look like for you, but I’m going to figure out what it looks like for me.

2024 Consumption:

Music

I’ve been listening to more music this year than in the last few years! I decided to invest in my audio set up with fancy headphones and more vinyl records. And I’ve also taken the time to listen to more music than I have in a while. I’ve also purchased a piano and have been slowly trying to learn (though there hasn’t been much progress here)

Alive and Kicking by Simple Minds

I like singing it when my leg is in pain post surgery. Just love the way he says KICKING with those instruments popping up

The Strokes

I tried my best to like them in my harder rock phase during HS because Julian Casablancas had my name and a cool aura. But I pretty much never connected to them. But this year Spotify had played them a few times and I enjoyed some tracks so decided to listen to them closely. It turns out that in HS I had decided to start with the album “Room On Fire” which I don’t like that much. And I should have really listened primarily to “Is This It” which I now love.

Rich Girl by Daryl Hall and John Oates

This is a good song that I like ok, but it’s on this year’s list because Spotify won’t stop recommending this song to me for some reason. If I play hiphop, I eventually get it recommended. If I play Oasis same thing. If I play the dang Beach Boys I end up getting Rich Girl by Hall and Oates!!! It seems like this song is like the centroid of my music taste. Touching just enough genre, decade, and pace to remain a good recommendation to my idiosyncratic taste. That or Spotify recommendations just suck this year. Bring back Spotify Tastebreakers!!!

Drive Me Crazy by Lil Yachty

This song made me believe in Lil Yachty’s talent and helped bring me back to R&B. Watched Usher this year, but Lil Yachty made me wanna watch the concert.

Kendrick Lamar

K-Dot dropping three songs over a weekend to shit on Drake during the beef was the single most important cultural moment during my surgery recovery. I was stuck in bed and Kendrick content kept me entertained and sane (kinda) throughout the process. I have loved Kendrick for over a decade at this point, but this feels like the most powerful he’s ever been. GNX was a cherry on top and Reincarnated was the best song on that album. Am also proud to be part of the movement of men and women apologizing to Adonis because that man is his father.

Good Luck, Babe by Chappell Roan

My most played song of 2025. It feels like pop music has been turning itself closer to my preferred music taste in the last few years. Was not huge on Rihanna or Katy Perry or Maroon 5 when I was in college. I love Chappell Roan though! I love that she represents a really specific and undertold heartbreak in this world that’s fundamentally queer. Made me think more deeply about compulsive heterosexuality. I like her musicianship and this emphasis on boldness and fun, despite the seriousness of the subject matter. My favorite line in the song: “When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night, with your head in your hands you’re nothing more than his wife.”

Reading

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us - Hanif Abdurraqib

I think this dude and I were meant to be friends. He writes about Music, Race, and Basketball. But more importantly he writes about being a human. Would love to meet Hanif and share a drink with him one day. Hanif is already one of my favorite authors and I’m still gonna catch up with all of his writing.

Best Meals of the Year

Soft Shell Lobster

Soft shell lobster is cheaper and more flavorful, but with less meat. Making it with Dani and Andrew was a really great experience in Maine. Simple meals done well is consistently the best way to eat.

Dal Makhani in SF and at home

Black lentils are so flavorful it’s crazy! Looking forward to a 2025 with more types of plant based protein

Trying New Fruits with Ji

When’s the last time you tried new fruits? Favorite so far has been Kiwi-Eggs. We’ve tried golden Kiwi’s and Kiwi-Berries. We tried different types of plums, peaches and pears. Ji really started enjoying Figs and Pomegranates.

Not Many Movies, Plays or TV Shows

Watched a bunch of good stuff: Couples Therapy, Wicked, Jujutsu Kaizen, The Holdovers, Matlock, Hills of California. Probably the best experience I had was watching Once Upon A Mattress with Ji on a random Friday night. It was funny and full of heart with fun music and a wholesome vibe. But I think this year I have not been particularly impacted by stories for some reason. I’ve just kind of let the time pass and consumed amusing content, without sitting and absorbing it. Or maybe I haven’t explored enough things.

I have been inspired more this year by the storylines in competition. Have loved living in New York as the Nova Knicks have gotten together. Have also been moved by Gotham Chess’s Road to GM. (Levy is our neighbor and we see him with his dog and wife!) I’ve also started watching more WWE since Cody Rhodes finished his story. There’s something really exciting about WWE drama, most likely because of the realism of the storylines. Who hasn’t been terrorized by a 7 foot tall undead monster?

The Lore and What’s in Store: Horizons 2024

In the Rearview Mirror

2019 was my travel year. I spent almost a quarter of the year traveling, heading to Europe, around America, back and forth to the Philippines. The big highlight was my European summer where I attended a French Data Science conference + Greek Wedding + Midsommar in Sweden + Rome + Barcelona. I was extremely active trying to grab the reins of my life to recover from my break up the year before. I remember at the time that I wanted to be the most exciting extrovert version of myself. I met girls and went on dates. Hung out with a lot of strangers and had bad experiences (stood up on dates, sitting alone in a party of strangers) and great experiences (Paella with strangers from 6 countries in a Catalonian rooftop sunset, the sight of stars and the sound of seas when the electricity died in Greece). I felt very social and honestly a little bit exhausted with traveling. I remember there was this 6 week period at some point where I was never in the same time zone for more than 4 days.

I also was trying to really break into tech. I was trying to learn all the stats I could muster. And I was trying my best to become a competent enough programmer that I could pass technical bars in large tech companies. That work ended up paying off.

It didn’t feel like it at the time, but the most important thing was that Ji and I started talking more again in 2019. I remember chatting with her while wandering the Sagrada Familia alone. I remember hesitantly telling her that I was heading to Manila in December and that I wasn’t telling other people. I remember hoping that maybe something romantic could happen, but telling myself that probably nothing would. And I remember telling Gian and Agnes my story and then telling me “ibig sabihin lang niyan siya pa rin gusto mo” (“it just means you still have feelings for her”).

2019 was a great year. One of my best years.

The View Ahead

I’m feeling a little bit more modest in my ambitions right now. Hoping that I’ve gotten the rhythm of fatherhood at that point. But really I’m just hoping to not beat myself up about things everyday. I hope five years from now I’m fitter, happier, and more financially stable, which was what my hopes were from my Wrapped last year.

This time however, I think that I want to add a bit more: I wanna build a talent or a skill that I don’t have. I wanna be the type of person who carries on growing and having new adventures even into midlife and late life. So I’m hoping that the things I do in 2025 lead me to having something new to show for 2029. Maybe I’d have run a marathon or restored a classic car. Maybe I’m a dancer or a musician or a writer. Maybe I’ve started teaching in some capacity. But I think what I really want is that feeling that I’ve grown and been more than just stagnant. That I’m better than I was because of the things I experienced five years ago.

In short I want to write about 2029 the way I wrote about 2019. A great year. One of my best years.