The priority of this block of days is rest. My legs luckily don't really hurt from the 180 practice anymore, but I think they're at a critical point - the right or wrong choice could set the tone for the next couple weeks of skiing. To really promote recovery, I've been adopting earlier meals, earlier bedtimes, magnesium supplementation (via Magnesium Glycinate), slight melatonin usage to promote sleep onset, and sleeping in.

Religion

One of the things I wanted to explore more during this era was religion, and primarily, community through religion. I actually went to the Korean Catholic church in Manhattan Ktown a couple times before I left the city, and I was surprised by the amount of people that were there, especially young adults. Religion is something that's meant different things to me at different points in my life, but I've always found mass to be amazing for my mental health, and see the community thing as another plus.

I found a Korean Catholic community in Salt Lake from Googling around, and today was the third week I went. It's a very informal affair - the priest presiding over the mass isn't even Korean, and he recites the majority of the mass in English (to his credit, he does a lot of it in Korean, which is pretty impressive). It's actually quite a similar setup to what we had in Temecula, where we would run a Korean mass every Sunday at a non-Korean church. They usually have lunch and time to hang out to meet the community, so I stuck around this week as well, also helping out with some of the chores (e.g., dishwashing).

Manhood

I heard something on Friday from a video with Scott Galloway that's been floating around my head throughout the weekend about what it means to "be a man". In his words:

Being a man sometimes means taking some blows and realizing if someone occasionally gets the better of you, you're OK.

This really hit home for me. Scott gives traffic incidents as an example. When someone cuts you off in traffic or honks at you, a real man doesn't honk back, doesn't escalate the situation, doesn't feel the need to "restore balance" and make the perpetrator suffer. A real man lets it go, because he's going to be OK. The "because he's going to be OK" helped the whole thing click for me.

It's pretty obvious that escalating a situation is just suboptimal in terms of outcome, but I've always had trouble actually internalizing that. I think this idea of "you're going to be OK" is a bit of a reframe. To me, it means that you're in such a good situation yourself, you have excess to lend to others. Chris Williamson loves the analogy of an overflowing cup, and I think it's a similar thing here - a real man has an overflowing cup of peace, enough to where they can allocate it to placating someone else's aggression, stupidity, or misfortune.

Scott has a book coming out on this, and I'll be ready to read it once it's published, because I really like the idea of it. I think it's great wisdom that a lot of guys my age can really benefit from.

Railed by GPT

Had the typical drive up LCC, gym sesh, hot tub, and sauna session after mass. Got lucky with a gorgeous sunset today that I enjoyed from the sauna, which is sick because it has windows to the outside world. I think basically every sauna I've ever used has been recessed in buildings; that is, none of them have had any natural light / access to the outside world. The one at the Cliff not only has great windows, but the windows also have an amazing view.

The iPhone camera just doesn't have enough dynamic range, even with flash, to capture both the inside of the sauna and the sunset, so I've split them up here.

I was feeling inspired, so I wrote out a quick poem, which I then asked ChatGPT to give me honest feedback for

I do think ChatGPT is pretty good as a coach, as long as you prompt it well and ensure it's not just kissing your ass. Clearly, my career as a poet will not be taking off anytime soon.

Titular shitty Pad Thai

I bought a couple premade Pad Thai sauces at the Asian grocery store to test out. I tried making one on Friday that was shit, but today's was somehow shittier.

I think the sauce is one culprit, the lack of bean sprouts and fresh aromatics is another one, and I do wish I had a proper wok. The biggest issue though is that I don't really know how to work well with rice noodles (or honestly noodle stir-fries) yet. Good practice, and hopefully I'll be better at it soon.