Welcome to the celebratory, tenth issue of being vulnerable! It is funny because I start writing it before the ninth one. And I decided to do something experimental: have it as a journal. Let’s see how it goes :)
I just got distracted by a telegram message but I’ll aspire to focus during these writing episodes
My friend Yulia surprisingly likes the newsletter and even more its name and the thinking behind it: a place for being vulnerable. And she would like it to be not only a place for me, but for all of us to be vulnerable. Some of you were responding to my issues and sharing your own reflections and experiences, and I am so grateful for that. Right now, I am thinking of a way to allow you to be vulnerable between each other too, a next stage in the following scheme
How to achieve it? We’ll see. But for now I want to reflect on what this newsletter has been to me so far:
End: 5:16pm
Why the hell did I decide to wake up that early? For fun, I guess. It’s not something new: when I was 12, I got involved in an online role play community based on Harry Potter. I would be a student at Hogwarts (at Gryffindor, I think! although I like Ravenclaw more), having my group, different classes in Astrology, Potion-making, Wizzardry. And in those days I would wake up at 5 am, lock myself in the bathroom, and just do those magic homeworks or just watch youtube (I didn’t have a personal room so that’s why bathroom was the best soltion). And I would be pretty sleepy in school then, but somehow would continue doing this thing.
It was so interesting: I was spending time there with people from all over the Russian-speaking world: Ukraine, Donetsk (and it was 2017 or something), Tatarstan (central Russia), Vladivostok (Easternmost big city in Russia). I had a wife there!!! And she was from Astrakhan in Southern Russia. I guess this community taught me a lot about the dialogue between country and planted the seeds of the fact that I don’t have strong opposition to Russians as a Ukrainian, together with online gaming I did and Youtube content I consumed. Back in 2010s, Russian-speaking internet was truly a common space (or at least I perceived it that way).
Gosh, what a nerd.
End: 6:24am
Start 7:11AM
I just finished reading Paul Graham’s essay “On the Origins Of Wokeness”, and I plan to post it in Lothlorien’s chat, asking people’s opinion on it. Loth is a very lefty and woke place, and this essay may attract a lot of opposition — but many people here are smart, so I want to hear their opinion.
Post Trump election, I started thinking more about the political aspect of our society (note, not politics itself), and genuinely trying to understand pains, motivation, and reasoning of people on both sides: coming to republican’s meetings, talking to people at loth and learning to express opposing points of view. I think, my master’s journey to China would also be about that: see how those people think and understand themselves in the world around them.
End: 7:16am