A surprise early post?
The last time I did one of these was 1 or 2 years ago. There are lots of things packed in here. From Nietzsche, Derrida, to the Canadian housing market, INFJ, INTJ, my job, all the way to a guy named Ovie, and also Renee and Eashel.💀 It’s quite long for a good reason. Though most of this were written few weeks ago.
Peace out!
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Star Friendship
“We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did—and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again—perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path—let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.— Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science
This is one of my favourite passages by Nietzsche where he writes about a friendship that drifts apart because people have different goals in life. As they experience different seas and weather, they grow apart where they may even turn into enemies. Yet they should always remember their sacred friendship and cherish what they’ve once shared. I think this is probably one of my favourite aphorisms by him.
Nietzsche is one of my favorite philosophers. I’m a fan of the way he writes. I studied a significant amount of his writings and wisdom back in the days. His works aren’t your typical hardcore dense philosophical texts about idealism, materialism or formal logic. They are about worldly matters and are relatable to everyone. He is one of the most influential philosophers of all time. I would consider him as a precursor and prerequisite to studying contemporary philosophy.
Nietzsche is one of the major influences of Sigmund Freud, particularly on his discovery of the unconscious mind in relation with the super-ego. It is tied to Nietzsche’s observations on how our conscious thoughts are driven by underlying forces humans are unaware of. He also famously saw humanity as a clash between subjective wills which guided Freudian positions on civilizations and their struggle between desire and law. The root of psychoanalysis had a lot of philosophical implications. Yet, only Freud and Lacan had significant influence in philosophy and humanities departments. He also kick started new fields such as attachment theory which is used today in clinical fields.
FYI. The word “gay” used to mean “happy”. Some translators translates the book title as “Happy Science” or “Joyful Science”.
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The Popularity of Freud and Lacan in Philosophy
I think it’s mostly because they are central figures in psychoanalysis, along with people like Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Ernest Jones, and Anna Freud (Sigmund Freud’s daughter). The latter four are more well known within clinical psychoanalysis than in philosophy and humanities departments. Outside of philosophy, psychoanalysis is most popular in European countries such as France and Belgium where it’s taught as part of psychology degrees at universities. I do think these people are more popular than figures like Carl Jung who is well known in other areas of psychology. Jung was a student of Freud who parted ways when they had opposing views on the unconscious.
Freud thinks the unconscious is driven by the pleasure principle (namely sex; just like animals would when given a chance to reproduce). Jung thinks it isn’t. Jung is also the main driver of MBTI typology though with deviations and significantly simplified. Many die hard MBTI folks studies Jungian theories of the mind. Functions like “Introverted Intuition” were talked about by Jung long before the existence of MBTI.
But I think the main reason Freud and Lacan are more popular is because they had extensive relationship with the humanities and philosophy. For example, and again, Freud was influenced by Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, and Arthur Schopenhauer. Whereas Lacan studied under Alexandre Kojeve who was a Hegelian.
Lacan was incredibly fluent in the arts who often drew examples from philosophy, art, culture, literature, linguistics, as his examples in his public lectures that he gave out annually. These lectures were filled with students from the humanities department. Some of them included well known philosophers like Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Lacan was also central to some of the big intellectual debates that took place in 20th century such as existentialism, phenomenology, and structuralism. The level of influence Lacan had in 20th century French philosophy is significant. It is parallel to people like Michel Foucault and Derrida.
Lacan thought that, in order to become a clinical psychoanalyst, one must become the master of the arts. As such, he also opened up the door for new possibilities in Freudo-Marxism; the latter which started movements found at the Frankfurt School in Germany. Lacan and Freud provided a new set of tools to analyze contemporary culture and other social phenomenon which eventually lead to the emergence of contemporaries like Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic, Joan Copjec, and a few others.
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LinkedIn Shit Posting
I didn’t know how many people shit post on there until my cousin showed me a guy writing a post titled something like, “My boss slept with my wife and this is what I learned!” lmfaaooooo.💀 I didn’t know LinkedIn became such a meme these days. Being “professional” is one thing, but it just seems performative, full of corporate narcissism and virtue signalling to me. But this is coming from someone who can’t stand the whole office/corporate culture. It’s way too fake for me.
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The Fastest Corner in the R
The fastest corner I’ve taken on Calgary roads is going Northbound Deerfoot Trail onto Beddington Trail. It’s a turn on a bridge with a nice bend to it. My car has a G force meter, and on a hot summer day when my tires are warm and there are zero traffic (usually late at night with some luck), I can pull around 1-1.1G on that corner. This means the car experiences a lateral force equivalent to its entire weight pushing it side ways as I make that turn. This is where good tires and grip really matters because that is over 3300 pounds of force loaded between the tires and road. The R tends to under steer in corners (car not turning as much as you want it to), but powers well out of exits due to its planted grip from its AWD.
If you were the passenger, you will feel your entire body weight pin you to the edge of your seat. Though I will often ask for consent because not many people are used to fast corners like this. It’s pretty fast. I won’t tell you how fast LOL, but the recommended speed for that turn is 50km/h. For comparison, most people experience 0.1-0.3 of G force when they turn normally. Even under sudden hard braking, the most you feel is 0.4-0.8G. A crash can easily net you 1G+.
There are a few fun roads around Calgary with nice turns. Some with nice views too! I’d say the best canyon run is Highwood Pass just off highway 1 where you start in the north and end up south of Calgary. It’s a 3-4 hour drive on the highest elevated road in Canada. This road has tons of twisty turns and dope mountain views—and a lot of bugs that you will slaughter on your car’s hood.🥹 It’s popular among car enthusiast and you’ll often see cool super cars there. The best time to go are early mornings on weekdays for less traffic. I haven’t driven the entire stretch for awhile. But I took that road last month for the Kananaskis BBQ.
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INFJ vs INTJ
Similar to ISTJ vs INTJ, their differences can be difficult to distinguish. I frequently test as both INFJ and INTJ with rare occasions of INTP. There had been people who told me I’m an INFJ and not INTJ. I think this is true as time went by. The only reason that kept me from thinking I’m an INFJ is due to how rare INFJ men are. They’re around 1 in 200.🤯 INFJ men are nearly twice as rare as INTJ men. Most INFJs are women.
I’ve met a few INFJ women during my grad school years. They’re some of the most kind hearted people I’ve known. They were also incredibly intelligent with the mind of a theorist. It’s not surprising since they are also Ni dominants. I was pretty cool friends with one of them and I’ve always felt like she understood my humor of constantly trolling her LOL. We were just friends. But instead of stop replying to her DMs when I ran out of things to say or don’t feel like responding, I always humorously ended the conversation by saying something stupid like, “Ok I have to go poo, see ya!”. 🤣🤣
I think one of the biggest difference between INFJ and INTJ is the use of their second function of Fe (INFJ) and Te (INTJ). You can clearly see INFJ valuing harmony among people (Fe) over thinking (Te; INTJ) when you communicate with them (INFJ uses Ti as their third function; not Te). I wouldn’t say INFJs are more “agreeable” people, but INTJs are definitely outwardly less agreeable when someone says something they disagree with. And if you continue to poke on the INTJ, they will debate you. Whereas INFJs will tend to back off so to not disrupt the harmony. Though they will also outwardly disagree if it’s something they feel strongly towards. I often behave like an INFJ in these scenarios than an INTJ.
INFJs are the true masters of reading people. There are no other types who are as psychic as the INFJ. They make exceptional counsellors, therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists of all sorts. INTJs can be good at it too, but they tend to approach things with more reason and logic. I feel like INFJs can do this as well once they develop their Ti. One big reason people said I’m an INFJ was because I’m required to write things out (i.e. on this blog) in order to process ideas and emotions about something or someone. This suggests that I am using a weaker thinking function which is likely Ti (Introverted thinking) that falls under my strongest functions of Ni and my secondary Fe. Ti is an internal systematic type of thinking instead of application and execution from Te. It does make sense the more you think about it. Someone also pointed out that it seems like it’s either I don’t fall, or I fall fast and hard in love LOL. It’s a very typical INFJ thing who can go from 0 to 100 very fast. The famous “INFJ door slam” is also a real thing as well for me. Just Google it.
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The Tradies Life
The other day, I met some random woman who was interested in joining the finishing trades. I almost never see women in the trades. I used to be friends with a drywall lady who I sometimes see late afternoons where we have fun chatting while working. But she was pretty much the only woman I knew from work. I don’t see her anymore.
Many trades are hard on your body. But both union and subcontract can make good money if you have good work ethic and get consistent work. The trades life is different from corporate 9-5 jobs. Sometimes you will not be very busy and get random week days off. Other times, you will be so busy that you make a few thousand dollars in a single week.
I’m in finishing carpentry and it’s one of the more graceful and “gentle” trades. It’s no where as hard as rough carpentry like house framing. In finishing, people in Calgary can expect to make anywhere between 30k-120k+. The official Alberta website says 70-75k annual as average which is accurate. I sometimes hear finishers complain about not making 100k. From personal experience, in a hot market, you can make over 120k. Even in a slow market, you can still hit 100k (pre-tax). Trust me, I know. Over the years, I’ve gone through the entire spectrum of making 30-120k+ annual.🤣 But I’m earning in the upper end now. Many trades can make six figures if they work hard enough. If you’re self-employed, you can also write off your “business expenses”.🤡
I work in new build residential homes in new communities that are not on Google maps or anyone has heard of. I also occasionally do service work and get $50/hr plus trip charge (which is another $50). Some services takes longer to drive there than doing the service itself. I actually enjoy doing service work more than new builds. But you need to have enough experience to know how to fix certain things. It’s pretty chill unless you get a Karen homeowner. While others are cool, like the one guy who showed me his FK8 Honda Civic Type R in his garage.🤣 FYI I don’t drive the R to work. I have a work van and I dress like a hobo. 🤡
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Canada Housing
The other day, my dad was telling me how buying a house today was not much different to when he bought his first apartment in Hong Kong back in the days. He said he made around $12,000 HKD and bought a $35,000 HKD apartment. He said it is similar to people today buying housing in Canada. 🤔🤔 I giggled and told him to imagine making twice his HKD wage back then in today’s economy, but multiply the price of the place you are buying by 200-400x. 🤣
It’s similar in Canada. Banks usually approve a max of 4-5x of your annual income for mortgage. So if you take the median wage in Canada which is $46,600, the biggest mortgage you can afford would be 150-250k. Unless you’re buying a condo, most single family housing in Calgary costs 400-500k+. A new built detached home will run you 600-700k (I work in a lot of them lol). A new front door garage single family home are 700-900k+ these days. Even if you made 100k annual, the max mortgage you can afford is around 350-450k which is not much. If you have rich parents, this is when you ask them to help out! 🤡 I think I will be purchasing an older renovated front garage house in the near future. Or maybe a detached home.
When you hear the news about unaffordable housing in Canada, this is what people are talking about. Unfortunately, it’s not just this. Wage growth hasn’t kept up with commodity prices at all. Fierce competition in the work force had always held down wages; and it’s not just competition between people, but people and machines. This is why everyone feels the pressure from not just expensive housing, but inflating food prices. It’s the peak symptom of late stage capitalism. All the politicians who says they can change this can’t do shit about it unless they change the fundamental ways the system works. Wanna bet?
Also…not everyone wants to buy condos unless they have to because condo prices are the first to fall during bad economic conditions. They are also subject to depreciation and inflating condo fees if not managed well. They’re harder to sell than single family homes for good reasons. I have no idea why they are pumping out so many condos in Calgary other than the fact that they’re more affordable. Condos are actually some of the worst housing you can buy in the market today. But everyone needs a place to live. So I understand.
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On Reading Jacques Derrida and Philosophy
Some of Derrida’s major works took me 3 years to read from front to back. It was not uncommon for me to spend a few hours just to read 2-3 pages at a time. Lacan gave me a similar experience. I’m aware many serious committed readers do this because it’s not easy. Everyone who learned or got introduced to Derrida’s or Lacan’s work on here should try to read their major works.
Learning philosophy is like eaves dropping on a conversation at another dinner table. Only that the people sitting at this table are all incredibly smart people debating fundamental problems of human experiences. You won’t understand what they’re saying at first, but it gets easier as you learn their ideas because nearly all their books are a response or influence to other philosophers sitting at the same table.
Hence, the best way to learn them is to just read their works. You gotta start somewhere. So I would jump into their big writings right away. Having studied 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th century European philosophy, I can tell you pretty much every major philosophical treatise from every century are hard to crack. You need serious brains, analytical, and critical thinking skills to understand them. But these are also things that you will acquire and improve on as you read them since there are lots of significant contexts that needs to be understood. People calls it the “intellectual culture” for a reason.
Yet such term also led to many criticisms of its oeuvre where people talks about intellectual elitism and snobbery. Some ties it to economics and capitalism on how only wealthy people can afford to study and produce philosophy while the working class has to study a “useful” degree. Some Marxists argues that philosophy functions as an ideological tool used by the wealthy elite that seeks to perpetuate capitalism. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, philosophy is a symptom of neurosis.
Philosophy is the pinnacle of critical thinking. Being a critical thinker is not what most people think. For it involves being critical of critical thinking, which is to be critical of thinking. This is part of what philosophy is: to think about thinking and the beginning of thinking. For some, it’s the firing of neurons in our brains which is known as materialism, like how scientists might have it. For others, it is consciousness which is found through idealism, the experience of phenomenon, and the unconscious. You are critically thinking to the point where even dominant disciplines like science and mathematics are seen as a philosophy. Hence you have things like the theory of mathematics such as set theory.
It’s not simply about what a scientist can observe in the microscope which may yield to X or Y knowledge. It’s about the conditions which allows them do to such things, such as the act of observation, language, production of knowledge, perception, experience, reason, phenomenon, intuition, intentionality, thought, idea, and many more things that we take for granted. For example, when we say “I have an idea!”, what exactly is an “idea”? In what form does this idea take place in your mind? How? Why? This is why the word “Idealism” carries the word “idea”. I can have an idea of a perfect machine in my mind. Yet when I try to materialize by building it, it is never quite like what I had in mind. Why?
This is where you need to have strong background in some of the founding thinkers of modern phil such as Descartes, Hume, Kant, Leibniz, Rousseau, Hobbes, Hegel, Husserl, and even people like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche—the latter who was significantly influenced by Eastern philosophies like Buddhism and Hinduism. Some of these philosophies led to famous debates like the one between John Searle and Jacques Derrida on speech act theory (is speaking a form of act?); Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky on human nature; all the way to debates on the experience of reality between Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr on physics and quantum physics.
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Ovie
Ovie is a man who I see regularly during my coffee sess that gives me interesting vibes. Sometimes when I speak to him, he seems to take extra interest in my life and well being. Honestly, I kind of like him LOL. But my spider senses are telling me that he can detect something is “off” with me which led to his extra care and attention (he works in the medical mental health field). If this is the case, he is actually not wrong. It’s intelligent and perceptive of him. It really means a lot that he cares about me. He even told me to not forget to eat.🥺 His tenderness and genuine care made me want to cry on the spot today lol. I really could’ve used a hug. I won’t be surprised if he found this site because I used to talk to him about philosophy and psychoanalysis LOL! I think he is very sweet.
I’m not doing okay right now by the way. I haven’t been doing very well in the last week or so in my emotional life. It’s funny because it’s probably one of the biggest lies men tells others when someone checks up on them: “I’m totally fine!”.🤣 It’s not surprising that men has a much higher suicide rate than women. Society and culture frowns on men being weak. But seriously though, I’m not okay right now, but I’ll be okay.
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What if Eashel never read my blog?
I always wondered about this.
I think it would be a gamble. On this site, I share my life experiences, intellectual knowledge, and truths. I also offer my vulnerability and write from my heart a lot. But I think Eashel’s biggest mistake was reading on here and jumping to conclusions instead of actually just talking to me in real life and getting to know me as a REAL human being. She should know I change my mind all the time with certain things I say on here lol. She should also know some of the things I wrote about her are actually quite “private” in my emotional life. It’s just that I have no one to say it to, so I say it on here. Being Bobby can be lonely sometimes. But I should stop doing it.
Till this day, I don’t even know how she found this site. I can only guess. Renee either told her about it or maybe she has level 9000 stalker skills.🤣 Or maybe she met Renee’s friend. But I’m flattered she found it. Then again, I don’t know if she still reads on here because she could just hate my guts or think nothing of me anymore. She has gotten very good at hiding it. But I’m not surprised since she has been learning from the master all this time.😏 Eashel knows much more about me than I know anything about her. That’s for sure.
I thought Eashel was gorgeous since the first day I saw her, but I didn’t feel any attraction towards her in the beginning. Honestly, pretty girls are everywhere lol. It definitely takes someone special to draw my attention. But I knew something was different about Eashel the moment we first met, which was when I waited outside the washroom while she was cleaning the toilet.💩 I think it was her sneaky side glance that gave everything away Lol. But I didn’t really fall for her until we started talking for a good 6 months or so. She has immaculate charm.
You know, I’ve always thought Renee wanted me to move on. It was why she never showed up despite knowing I was waiting for her. I waited for years—7 years, as a matter of fact. I remember I once promised her that I would love her forever. I don’t say these things often. So when I say it, they become very special moments. And even if my words couldn’t prove my love for her, time definitely did. Renee knew how much I loved her. Eashel probably knew as well, long before we spoke. So did a few others. But perhaps promises were broken. My love for Renee now belongs in the past. Perhaps fate had caught up to us and we turned into a star friendship. Perhaps my desires were Renee’s desires of her wanting me to move on, which was why Eashel appeared. If it’s true that this was Renee’s intentions, then it’s honestly pretty wholesome, and also bitter sweet. I’m just guessing right now of course. But even if this isn’t true, I’d prefer to think of it this way as a form of closure in positive light.
What of Eashel? Nowadays, I’m sometimes tempted to just say hi to her. But I don’t think she wants me to. I overheard her doing something with her “friend” who likes her (rock climbing? I couldn’t hear lol). So I’m just going to assume she likes him. It’s okay though. I already called it months ago. It was only a matter of time before something like this happens because we wasted way too much time earlier this year. She really should’ve just said “Hi”. I mean she still can if she wants lol. But just imagine if she actually did earlier, things would be very different today. But I’m not going to compete for her with other dudes. I want her to be her own woman where she makes her own choices. She has grown a lot since I first saw her 2-3 years ago. I’m proud of her. 🙂
But Eashel should know she literally pushed me into a corner with nothing for me to do. And for what reason? Because she is afraid to say hi? Because she is afraid to take a risk and a leap of faith? Or is it because she likes to jump to conclusions with information she didn’t have from reading on here? Sartre was right when he said that the more you think about it, the more you won’t do it. Eashel was the perfect example of this.
I’ve wanted to say this for over a year now. I haven’t because I was afraid to admit it. But it was also because I wanted to save it for when I got the chance to speak to Eashel again and when the time felt right. But since we ran out of time, I want Eashel to know that I love her very much—more than anyone in this universe.💘 I’ve always wanted her to live a happy and healthy life. Even if she ends up with someone else. She really is the flower and the flames.
But this is why I’m going to let her go. I can’t go on like this. I’m not going to pull a Renee 2.0. You know the famous saying that if you love someone, you let them go, and if they come back to you, then they’re yours to keep? This is exactly what I’m going to do. But I’m not going to wait around for Eashel like I did for Renee. What I did for Renee was a display of the type of love and loyalty I had for her, and for anyone who I’ve come to love in my life, including Eashel. But it was also unhealthy for my own being to put myself through it while Renee went to date red flags. This time, I will set the right boundaries with Eashel. While I got hurt really bad with Renee, where I told myself I’d never want to love anyone again, at the end, I still chose to give Eashel all my love. It’s because I would rather love someone with everything I’ve got and fail, than to not love at all. Isn’t this what it means to be human? Love without risk, is an impossibility. And I will always take this risk.
I would be lying if I said I’m not upset. I’m a little heart broken right now. Calling it “little” is an understatement. No one will understand. It feels like your heart keeps falling and falling without end while it sucks out all the air in your lungs. It hurts. But it’s okay, because I know tomorrow is another day and life goes on.
“Love is all. It gives all, and it takes all.”
—Soren Kierkegaard
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P.S. I won’t be posting anything in September. I need a break from people. Don’t worry, I’ll be okay. I’ll continue to do occasional weekly random updates on here. I just want to dedicate time to focus on other things and a big post that might appear in October or anytime before that. I’m excited about it!
Until then, Bobby is signing out.🫡