Sacrifice (犠牲- ぎせい)

Today is friends' day, a brilliant artificial construct by Facebook to celebrate everyone's friends.....and also for facebook to create videos for everyone on their social network. They're not bad videos......using the pictures that people take of themselves, find pics of friends, etc. I do celebrate having friends and being liked by others/ liking others who share the same interest or values, but it's often glossed over the cost of having friends...the sacrifice.

In life, sacrifices need to be made, inherently. Almost every decision one makes is sacrificing something else...the choice to eat pizza one day sacrifices the ability to eat noodles for that same meal. The decision to write in this blog right now sacrifices my ability to do something else in this span of time. Obviously some decisions are bigger than others, and most sacrifices aren't that costly.


In dodgeball, one often has to sacrifice themselves to help the team: you put yourself in the line of fire to protect a more important teammate, or you take the shot at the opposing team's best player while putting yourself in the line of fire. Often though, people don't want to take the sacrifice: they'll do little things to help themselves like hold a ball to block, dodging out the way but blocking the line of vision for people behind them, thus making them get hit; not going for catches in order to keep oneself alive. These are not good statistical decisions; the better strategy in dodgeball is to take the sacrifice, to help the team at the expense of oneself, because the team is more important. The lesson is: sometimes sacrifices do need to be made.

As I grow older, I find myself subconsciously making decisions just because I know the consequences now, and force myself to make consequences; instead of reading over a fantasy baseball article for the whole morning, I force myself to concentrate more on the task at hand. Instead of kicking back and playing a video game for 3 hours, I watch a Japanese movie to further strengthen my language skills while still getting some gratification from the plot of that movie, just not as much as a video game. These are the sacrifices that need to be made to be successful in life, and then sometimes the reverse sacrifice is made: I need to sacrifice some income/ work in order to let loose, capitalize on life, grasp what's in front of me before I lose it.

I think the ultimate sacrifice, which I haven't gotten to yet: settling down and raising and family/ having kids. People in older generations (like in China, where my parents had me) kind of did this naturally, just without thinking, because it was just something to do: you grow up, you have kids. But in the society I live in today and in America, it's not so simple: settling down means leaving behind an incredibly cushy singles life, of doing anything I want whenever I want, of having cars drive me to wherever, to scheduling things last minute and being spontaneous. Having a family as ominous as it sounds (ultimate sacrifice sounds like giving one's life) IS actually giving up a way of life and moving on to a new form of life, a combined life with one's partner and one's family. Eventually I will have to make that sacrifice, but when will it come? I'm starting to get an idea now. Maybe I should have played more video games before that time comes.

Regardless of the way in which people sacrifice, it's important to realize both the cost one is giving up but the benefit of one's pleasure. After all, they wouldn't call it "sacrifice" if there was no worthy cause as a result of the sacrifice, they'd just call it, "wasting one's money/time." So sacrifice! Embrace it, live it, own it.

Just not in fantasy baseball, where the lesson is NEVER to lay down sacrifice bunts and freely give up an out and take oneself out a big inning. And ESPECIALLY not one of the players we own, almost the worst thing fantasy owners can hope for.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Disabilities (不自由)

Today while wandering the grounds of the Happiest Place on Earth, my gf and I encountered something that was decidedly unhappy: disability. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for people with disabilities: I worked at camps with disabilities, I've talked to people with disabilities, I've volunteered and try to meet as many as I can. Spinal bifida is the one that I've dealt with the most: it's one of the most apparent diseases in its devastating effect of rendering people to wheelchairs or not being able to stand up straight. Of course there's all kinds of other disabilities, but some make me cringe more than others, seeing what others have to suffer through while I enjoy walking normally, breathing normally, and basically everything normally while bragging about playing dodgeball multiple times a week and participating in marathons. I've never grow up with any relatives with disabilities, never had any myself, never even broken a bone or had to rest from an injury or anything, so I'm really susceptible to guilt of being more privileged but not even appreciating it. (There's a Chinese idiom called "living in good fortune but not knowing it.") I definitely feel that way everytime I bump into anyone with disabilities.

But alas, guilt is not enough. I always wonder what I can do to help people with disabilities. Do our tax dollars go towards helping the disabled and is it enough? Do donations go towards that and is it enough? Am I giving enough? What else can I do? Talk to people with disabilities? It seems like a delicate balance to offer support and condolence without seeming apologetic or worse, superior to them, condescending. I always wonder how I'd feel if I lived in a society where others were fine and healthy but I carried a life-long disability. Would I be strong enough like many of the disabled and rise above, and join things like the Paralympics and run marathons anyway? I don't think I'd be strong enough, and I'm pretty sure I'd be jealous of people who were "better" than me all the time and feeling sorry for myself. I resolve to find more opportunities and more ways this year and beyond to help those with disabilities, and not just with dollars, although that does seem like something everyone would need to help.



Btw, going to Disneyland isn't all that it's cracked up to be for me anymore: gone are the days of novelty and wide-eyedness as a kid, the nostalgic feeling of turkey legs and watching water performances and fireworks thinking this was the coolest place on earth with all the cool funky cartoon characters I wanted to be with. Now I see Disneyland for what it is: a highly commercialized endeavor that forces parents to spend their money in an effort to make their kids happy. I joked to my gf that it is the "Happiest Place on earth".....for the people who run the place, the corporate machine. Even the people who work there don't necessarily think it's the happiest place on earth, according to things I've heard inside the organization. In a world that's full of evil, problems, maladies, and tough decisions, Disneyland flies in the face of that reality and sort of makes us pretend it's not there, sweeping worldly problems under the rug for a hefty $99 price tag for adults (doesn't matter if you come at 8AM or 8PM, it's the same price for one day). If one is to grow up and do something serious to help the world (such as deal with disabilities or help society cope with people with disabilities), Disneyland is the opposite of the solution. Or maybe I'm just upset I paid $18 for parking at 7PM just to find out the fireworks show was cancelled.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

60 years old (還暦/かんれき)

My father turned 60 years old today. There's a lot of things about being 60.....I hope I reach 60 one day, as that will allow me to live essentially another life in addition to the one I've been lucky enough to have now.....

At 60, you can start collecting retirements funds (from your 401k), which is nice. 66 is the social security retirement age, which is still a bit away.

At 60 I hope to still be in somewhat of athletic shape. Just played a round of tennis with my dad and he's still pretty limber. People still run marathons at age 60! (92 year old women last year)  People climb Mount Everest at age 60! (80 year old man did it) I hope to be able to play tennis when I'm 60. Maybe take up golf?

At 60 I hope to be still be intellectually advanced...I know I won't be growing any more brain cells, but maybe be able to pick up another language or something? Not out of the question. I hope to have the same intellectual curiosity as I do now. I hope to still have the urge to travel and the energyt to travel.

At 60, I hope to have kids. Maybe even grandkids? But my dad is now 60 and doesn't have grandkids yet....thanks to me.

At 60, there's still plenty to do! Bernie Sanders is 75 years old and running for president (and doing pretty well!) The big night for him comes in 2 nights with the Iowa Democratic causes, which is currently a dead heat between him and Hilary Clinton (no spring chicken at 68 years old), who's still the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination but has really surprisingly lost some ground to Sanders, who's more charismatic, seems to have better ideas (not to mention ideals. Free college for everyone!) and almost more importantly, doesn't have the whole leaking confidential emails while working in the State Department thing hanging over him.

Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, and Whoopi Goldberg are 60 years old. Seems like the stars of the 90's are finally going to start disappearing from the limelight.

Happy birthday, dad! May you continue a long and prosperous life!

Indecision (迷う)

My gf (not "gluten-free") and recently started watching a Japanese drama series called "Kodoku no Gurume," or "the Lonely Foodie" which is about a Japanese businessman wandering around different parts of Japan sampling different Japanese foods, everything from oyakodon to ramen to yakitori, it's really a pretty good show exploring different small restaurants in Japan (of which there are A LOT, I can personally attest). One of the things the Kodoku Gurume does is get conflicted about what to order, or Mayou ((迷う). I can sympathize.


For me, getting food isn't that big of a decision. If I see 2 things I like about equally, I just pick one assuming I'll always have a chance in some future meal to have the other (instead of just getting both items, like the Kodoku Gurume does). I'm also not that opportunity cost-obsessed about food as other things, like I will very rarely go, "Drats, I wish I had tried that other thing on the menu!" I'm usually too full and happy to over my hangriness to care much, and well on to desert at that point.

But life decisions, those are really big for me. I often spend, days, weeks thinking about a tough decision and agonizing over various aspects (the benefits, the drawbacks, etc., etc.) because I'm (usually) so invested in the outcome. I just spent weeks before the Sin City Dodgeball tournament agonizing over who to invite as our 8th and final player, consulted other teammates to get their opinion, watched various video of the different players to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Some decisions carry a more justifiably lengthy decision process, like which college to go to, what law school to go to, which job to take, etc., but often I find myself getting conflicted about how to spend the weekend. I have a problem of wanting to be at too many different places at one time and overbooking myself, and typically those conflict issues pop up on the weekend. I try and try and try to come up with ways to make both parties rather than just one party, sometimes with disastrous results of upsetting both hosts, cutting the fun time short, etc. I'll often have made up my mind to go to one event (sometimes it could be a vacation that I'd booked weeks in advance) but then at the last second something spurs me to take the second choice, which isn't very thought out and kind of spur-of-the-moment. To sum up, I have a bad case of FOMO (Fear of Missing out), because unlike food, I feel I have only a finite amount of time to experience things, so I don't want to miss out on certain activities.

Lastly (many of my readers can tune out now), I have a really tough time with fantasy baseball decisions sometimes. I had a really bad season last year full of decisions that I thought about for a long time but then turned out terribly (the worst kind). Picking Dustin Pedroia over Dee Gordon (bad), trading Clayton Kershaw for Carloz Gomez (really bad), trading Manny Machado for Brandon Crawford (REALLY bad). It seems that taking longer to analyze fantasy baseball decisions doesn't really help, at least last year, so maybe I should just save myself the agony and make split-second decisions? I wonder. One big decision I'm facing is whether to keep David Ortiz this season. It's Big Papi's last year, but he's 40 years old and one wonders if he will go out with a bang or just with a whimper.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

Art 芸術 (げいじゅつ)

I've never been great at art. I've never really appreciated art as much as some people do. Sure, I go to art museums sometimes and visit Getty Center (there's a Van Gogh in there!) but I mostly just look at the painting for.....I'd say about 10 seconds before moving on. I like the ones with lots of colors and showing some sort of magnificent imagery, a glorious sunset deep in the mountains or an array of flowers blooming in a luxurious garden. I myself don't have many drawings other than the ones completed in 8th grade art class.

My girlfriend and I (Yay!) went to a paint class for one of our first dates and both drew a pumpkin pie. It seemed pretty simple, but it actually took 3 hours, and quite a bit of effort on my part. The oil blending to get the color just right, the fine strokes to make sure not to go over the lines, the blending of the paints on the drawing to make the different shades of orange (never knew how many color arrays there were between brown and orange!), there was a lot of nuance to drawing a simple pumpkin pie on a white plate. My gf had it down and got praised by the instructor. A couple of the other participants even commented that hers was "good enough to eat." I did not got that same praise. I think the main point that I got from the paint class, though, was the amount of sophistication it takes to get a painting exactly the way one wants it, and it takes a certain skill to recognize the fine nuances. So congrats to those master painters like Picasso, Monet, and Van Gogh. I still don't understand some modern and contemporary pieces, though, like sticks sticking out from the wall or a dot on a white piece of paper. That must be something deeper than my feeble brain can understand, at least.

I've often theorized on why I don't like art that much; one optimistic one I've had recently is that I appreciate other forms of art other than the visible ones like architecture or oil paintings; I like the way life and sports work, like dodgeball. I think dodgeball is the easier analogy because commentators and journalists often remark how certain players are masters of their crafts, or certain games are "masterpieces" that fully exemplify the way the game is played. Dodgeball is certainly like that for me, where I appreciate the timing of the game, how balls move and players' movements mirror each others, the symmetry of the two opposing sides facing each other over a straight middle line. Some players move as smoothly as I imagine a brush on an oil painting does, throwing with seeming effortless abandon and timing their movements precisely so as to avoid incoming balls. (I'm not one of those people, my dodgeball game's art form could best be described as a blunt object, maybe like a self-portrait of myself, nothing subtle about it at all).

I also appreciate the way the world works sometimes. I sometimes ponder how life works in mysterious ways, where something that happens in one corner of the world can affect the lives of others thousands of miles away. Or just in one's own life, how a single mistake in the past can prevent someone from making a much more momentous mistake later, or how helping someone at one time can lead to someone else helping oneself later. The world we live in itself is one big art form, where we have brains to conduct our bodies which in turn have hands and feet and other parts to allow us to be innovate and act on our ideas, and exchange conversations that are full of wit, humor, emotion, sometimes anger. Mostly I think the interaction itself is the art, and I should sit back and appreciate it just like a work of art. Maybe for more than 10 seconds next time.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

ビデオゲーム (Video Games)

Some recent things I have picked up on between dodgeball, dating, and Japanese (Yes, I still have a life sometimes!)

1.) Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's in that apples and oranges category of not comparable to other great movies, but the action in there is splendid, starts quickly from the first scenes and almost non-stop action. A diamond in the rough (really, desert) of movies that was washed over by Star Wars, Jurassic World, Inside Out, and yes, even Pitch Perfect 2 that opened on the same weekend.

2.) "Kanye" by the Chainsmokers is a great song and great for watching sports highlight videos, definitely something I did on my weekend in Las Vegas for the Sin City Shootout dodgeball tournament.

3.) Baseball season is only 2.3 short months away! Get ready, there isn't really anything quite like fantasy baseball. A good book to get one ready for that is "Big Data Baseball" detailing the story of the 2013 Pittsburgh Pirates season. All about using data to find advantages and finding value in overlooked areas. Might be better than "Moneyball," the book it was probably modeled after.

I've never really talked about video games on this blog, as one might expect from an Asian, twenty-something, male guy growing up in America. Sure I had Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Golden Eye, Star Fox (I was a Nintendo guy growing up) when I was a kid and had a lot of fun with friends playing video games, but I really phased out of that when I reached high school, couldn't find much time for video games and really actually liked books more. It's weird, even back then I kind of didn't feel great about myself after two hours of video games, like I could have done something better with my time, or a combo of being sort of bored by the time it was over or frustrated because I wasn't very good at video games.

I just came up with the analogy recently that learning Japanese is my video game.....the sense of accomplishment that I get when I pass to the next "level" of Japanese, learn a new skill, beat a boss I've taken forever to get past (potential verb forms and "you ni" and "tame ni" were very difficult concepts for me to grasp for some reason). Whatever thrills and fulfillment people get from video games, I think I get those from Japanese, but really....it's life. I judge myself based on setting my own goals and reaching those goals in life, I feel good about myself for getting to certain real life achievements, not some artificial device attained by the right amount of timing and hand-eye coordination. Don't get me wrong, I don't disparage people who play video games, but I've found a way to replace them from my life. Now if I could only find something to replace my love of peanut butter (not healthy) or being late to places (urg!)

The one thing I'll say about video games, they allowed me to escape to a different world, get away from reality once in a while, which is something everyone needs. However, I do think being in a different reality for too long is detrimental, and then which one starts thing about that video game too much during real life to the extent of it being a distraction, that can really do some damage. Don't play video games in the morning when one has a fresh mind, I always say......do it at the end of the day as a cooldown to ease the mind and tone it down for the next day. I need to tell myself this for fantasy sports.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan

食堂(Cafeteria)

I like eating in the cafeteria. When I was a kid, eating in the cafeteria was a big deal. It was part of one's social identity and defined who one was, and it was borderline criminal to try to go to "the cool table" or where one wasn't welcome. If it wasn't clear during the course of the day and in the hallways at school whether one was uncool, it became abundantly clear during lunchtime where one stood in the social pecking order. I was one of the losers; I sat at the loser table. It consisted mainly of my fellow chess team members (yes, I was on the chess team) and honors class people; each of us wished we were cooler to be able to sit next to the popular kids but were never extended an invitation to the big table.

In the adult workplace, or at least every workplace I've ever been to, the cafeteria (usually a breakroom or nearby restaurants where people hung out) is not that rigid of a social construct that people can't join someone for lunch, but there are still cliques and defined groups of people eating lunch, and the barriers are less obvious and less strict but still existent. At my current workplace there is a group of native Japanese speakers who eat lunch together every day; they speak in native Japanese to the extent incomprehensible to me, thus forming an invisible barrier again. I actually enjoy everyone at work and don't think anyone's trying to obviously exclude or be exclusive, but it's just a reminder that human beings are by nature social animals who want to form groups and become a unit with others, and like me feel somewhat jaded when excluded from a group that they want so desperately to become.

The Shokudo has been a big part of my social life at post-law school employment centers. Going out to eat, talking to others while having to listen (food is a great listening device to stop your own talking and give someone else their attention) to break up the day and get the latest information on things, live in someone else's world for just a little bit. I've had birthday parties in the cafeteria (birthday cake like in the scene of the office), watched the World Cup in the breakroom (great bonding experience at my job in 2014) and witnessed horror (mass shooting live coverage in France, as well as other places), placed Chinese chess with colleagues, held informal meetings, basically the town hall of the workplace. I don't even have to be eating to go to the cafeteria, I just wander there sometimes to see if a member of the work family is there and to shoot the breeze (see previous entry) (Japanese:  暇潰し) for a while. Don't estimate the Shokudo: it has great value other than just getting one's daily lunch fix. 

Fantasize on, 

Robert Yan