I am playing a funeral today. I notice people investing lots of time and energy into making the service perfect. Attempts to keep things “cool” are obvious. I hear people give moving speeches about the deceased’s life and how they interacted with others. I see people showing up in black and dark colors — in grief. I think: Will the deceased ever know this happened? I wonder: Who are funerals for? I acknowledge that different groups of people have different views on death and rituals relating to death. It is not my intention to disparage those views. Rather, I intend to question my own views. I hypothesize: Perhaps funerals are not to celebrate the memory of the person who left. Perhaps funerals are ways to create a memory of what it was like to accept and move forward. It could be said, “well funerals are for honoring the dead?” For my own belief system, I wonder if the best way to honor the dead is to honor the living while they are with you. For every moment you’re in the company of someone else, make that moment count. Let that person, or those people, know how much that moment meant to you.It could be said, “funerals are a way to grieve.” I see that. I then wonder, does the flower and the stressed planning improve the effectiveness of my grieving process? Certainly saying “goodbye” to someone is tough. It’s sad to lose someone. While I hold that belief, I hold a parallel belief that every time I say goodbye to someone, I am saying “goodbye.” Until we meet again.

I’m playing a gig today. On the gig, I will play all kinds of music. I can play music the way it’s recorded. I can also add my own voice. Most musicians prefer a blend of the two — depends on the gig. For the gig I will play, I get to add my own flare. My musical voice is distinct. It’s a product of all that I listen to, have played, and have learned in my life. It’s slightly unrefined, soulful, happy, different, and full. Those are words others use to describe the sound. When I play and infuse my self into the music, I transmit who I am to the listener and to the other musicians. They experience what words can’t describe. I am translating myself so that others can understand me. Musicians that play with me often know how to understand my musical language. They know how to finish my sentences. Through my work as a translator, I have helped those musicians become fluent in “me”.Translation and transmission of self are daily acts.

A translator bridging the understanding gap of culture and language helped explorers, teachers, leaders, sales people, families and all types of human occupations for a very long time. A translator’s output is a function of their ability to comprehend context, language, tone, cultural norms, and attributes of two different culture (read: groups) and bridge the gap. I translate. I attempt to communicate my ideas to you in ways you might comprehend. Some translations are insightful, others jibberish. I translate for my team. I take business concepts and enable my team to understand and use these concepts in a way they understand. I translate myself to different groups of people. At a church, I attempt to translate my ideas in a way that’s respectful of the norms and traditions of church goers. In a business setting, I attempt to translate myself in a way that business executives accept. In my family, I attempt to do the same.You are no different than me. Our work every day is a work of translation. Perhaps the way we navigate the complexities of social interactions is to learn all we can through immersion and active engagement with different cultures of people so that we can translate and authentically transmit ourselves to them. That ancient skill whose value grows and compounds century-on-century.

I feel life with intensity. And I see how others might have their own feelings about life. It’s easy for me to be empathetic. At the same time, it’s more often than not, easy for me to see life as it is. Example: given news that is sad, I don’t often express sadness in my tone or physical behavior. Instead, I express it with words. Perhaps, “oh wow, that’s sad. I imagine it’s tough for…. to deal with that.”Example: at a funeral people discuss the life of someone who lived. The stories people tell are moving. For me, I’m able to find humor or happiness. My reaction is the inverse of what’s expected.Example: if others are stressed with life, my reaction is to accept that others have stress and they’ll work through it because they’re strong enough to do it. That’s not always the reaction people want me to have. My reaction comes off cold. Yet I am not cold. I feel very deeply. Perhaps I’m getting better at seeing an emotion as a temporary chemically-driven experience. And perhaps I’m getting better at seeing the moment simply as the moment. And perhaps that ability to be content with myself in this world as it is comes at a cost — I don’t always follow the social contract you and I implicitly sign. Reflecting now… I believe contentment is worth the cost. The alternative, to conform more to social expectations doesn’t yield valuable outputs for me. I’m often the “weird”, “difficult”, or “interesting” one in a group. Conforming to norms and obligations requires me to give up what I’ve worked to build up in my self — a sense of contentment with who I am. The challenge is finding ways to navigate. Thus I arrive at my conclusion — perhaps part of the war that is life is determining who you are, how you move through it, while navigating the outward complexities of our shared existence.

Is bad service at a restaurant a sign of a better world? An article written by Mike Makowsky’s suggests that service becoming sub par at restaurants because labor is short is a byproduct of people moving into better jobs. Makowsky asks us to consider that service may not be as important as quality of food or the people you’re with — I can see his point. I see an implication for a view I wrote about days ago — hard to deliver against happiness. I argued that happiness may be a byproduct of a job well done versus the goal. And in a restaurant, “service” may be an adjacent idea to “happiness.” Service at a restaurant is about the “experience” of being served. The white gloves. The descriptions of food and wine. The experience of being greeted and shown to your table. Delivering “happiness” is no different — it’s an experience just the same. Ultimately, neither matter much if the ultimate goal — food or the material service being rendered — does not produce value. Food for thought.

Teaching is more fun when the students teach themselves and a guide fills in the gaps. The students ask more questions, the guide encourages more investigation and exploration. Ideas are considered, proofs made… learning.

Studying history can open your eyes to concepts you could never imagined. For example: in the Philippines, corn, root vegetables, and fish were primarily the foods consumed prior to the arrival of the Spanish. Also interesting, the civilizations in Mesoamerica consumed similar food stuffs — corn, root crops, and fish. Both Pre-Spanish civilizations are believed to have crossed land from Asia bridges after the last ice age to reach what we call the Philippines and the Americas. It’s possible to draw a line and imagine some connection. But it’s more exciting to ask the question: what else might we learn if we dug into our past? And what lessons might we learn?

I discovered, thanks to Wikipedia, that the word factum (where fact comes from) originally meant “a thing done or performed.” That meaning is no longer used today.I also learned that facts in math, science, philosophy, law, and rhetoric all take on different meanings given different applications. For example “facts” in jurisprudence have different meanings and standards compared to “facts” in science which are often the result of objective and verifiable observations. And political rhetoric is its own beast. Methods for checking facts vary. In court that’s a jury, in some places it could be experimentation, using reason/logic, or even the fact that an authority argues the fact to be true. I argue that a fact is nothing more than: a thing done that, for it to have full short or long run utility, must be subject to and survive cross examination. I believe that bridges hard and social science, politics, arts, and even our judgments of every day life.Feel free to be the finder of fact in that regard.

Ligaya Mishan’s piece The Life-Affirming Properties of Sichuan Pepper (NYT) , offers us hope for the TLDR world.The Sichuan pepper and that famous ma la experience is becoming popular in the USA. I love the experience of ma and I enjoy the spice. Is this globalization? Are we becoming more open? Perhaps the demand rise could be explained in an idea that people are becoming more culinarily curious about their world! I believe that the best way to experience a people is through their food preparation traditions. The ma la experience is one of those experiences that’s worth the cost. And what’s more, the experience is immersive. Perhaps my ideas of a TLDR world are numbing on the plate?

In a world where people want to know the big idea and call it quits what is the opportunity cost calculation to prefer the TLDR? It’s no different than seeing the forest for the trees. Why settle for the gist of an idea when you could appreciate the depth and breadth of someone’s carefully crafted work?I think we go back to that idea of seduction. Some desire the game, the tease, the dance with an idea but they don’t derive utility form that idea once it’s had. That’s a mistake because they give up the opportunity for long-run returns to engagement. I may be criticized for being overly analytical or “makulit” (google it) about wanting to engage in an idea. I won’t apologize for it. While others find value in chasing the next most seductive idea, I find value fully committing myself to a relationship with an idea. Thanks for not being lazy.