Life has been alright. Work has been really busy for the last couple weeks. But it has been coming at me in waves. Next week is pretty quiet for me, though not completely dead. I will get to enjoy some casual time off.

This is a long post. Don’t be alarmed if I don’t post anything for awhile after this one.

Edited, April 8 2025: I dropped my car off to get repaired. They rented me a 2023 Nissan Versa SR and I almost forgot what driving a slow car feels like. 😂 Even my first car 1997 Toyota Camry was faster. But it’s whatever because it gets the job done. Now my phone app for my 8R keeps pinging me saying that my car doors are opened Lol.

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The coolest thing about psychoanalysis

The coolest part is how counter intuitive it is because the unconscious is never where we consciously think it is. It comes down to the idea that the person speaking doesn’t know what they’re saying. And what they intend to say is not what they are actually saying.

Moreover, big concepts like “our desire is the Other’s desire” applies to so many things that traverses into other contexts. The Other can be how society defines how certain groups of people should live their lives all the way to fulfilling the never ending desire of their bosses at work. It can be social media, your friends, your wife/husband, advertisement, a conversation with a random stranger. The Other can also be God. It can be science.

I always try to show you the entire scope of the picture through different lenses. From psychoanalysis in an original micro clinical perspective on individuals, all the way to psychoanalysis as a tool to analyze cultures and societies on a macro level. It is like zooming in and out with a magnify glass. It can be hard to think about it at first, but it really is all about understanding psychoanalytic concepts and using them as a tool like how one might use a screwdriver or a hammer in different ways.

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Regarding my last post on attractive qualities in people…

I intentionally listed qualities that pertains to their character than anything that has to do with the accumulation of capital wealth and materialism. What? You were thinking I will be like, “She needs to make six figures, have a nice butt, and owns a gigantic mansion”? 😂 Some people’s standards are actually so over the top, unrealistic, and shallow.

It’s easy to judge people. But there are qualities in a person’s character that makes and breaks them (now I just sound like a supervillain 😂). And it is these qualities, in my opinion, that matters most because it is what makes them who they are. In other words, it’s more about who we are underneath the mask of the Other that we wear everyday of our lives, than who we pretend to be while wearing that mask. Only that most of us don’t realize we have been pretending and wearing a mask all along!

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Car’s Hail Damage

I finally booked a time to get it fixed on April 7th. They said it will take around 16 days. I will be renting out a car for the time which is also covered by insurance. They have to PDR the entire car and will need to refinish some of the panels. This might mean I will have to ceramic coat those panels again which means I will have to buy a new bottle of coating. But the thing is once you open these bottles, the air activates them which gives them a limited shelf life. So if I open a new bottle, I might as well coat the entire car again. It’s quite a bit of work.

Either way, it’s perfect timing before I get to throw on new wheels for spring/summer in May (they are the Fifteen52 Sector RSR). I recently bought Gyeon Rim EVO which is ceramic coating for the wheels. I will be coating them soon. I think I might need to get lug nut covers. In the mean time, I might pull the trigger on the Invidia R400 catback exhaust.🤔 I’m not sure.

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Lol

I was outside cleaning the interior of my car the other day and my neighbor across the street walked over and was like, “You are very handsome and I like your glasses”. Then she tried to set me up with some girl she knows.😂 It was so random and hilarious. She said she was surprised I was single.🥹

It’s kind of sad for me to say. But in my past relationships, I think I had always been the one who loved the other person much more than they loved me. Though I guess it might not always be a fair assessment in some cases. But I find a lot of people nowadays can’t commit to anything and likes to change their mind in an instant. Whereas me? I love people like how I like my teas.

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Elon Musk

He used to be a pretty cool guy back in the days who wanted to save the planet and make it a greener place. But the richer he got, the more unhinged he became.😂 Now a lot of people hates him Lol.

Now he is pretty much trying to turn the US government into something like a private business by trying to make it run more “efficiently”. It’s not surprising really. One of capitalism’s law is efficiency: to produce as much as you can with as little resources and labour as possible. We see this in AI, automation, computers, robotics, etc. Basically technology replacing human labour. It wasn’t just Marx, but he saw this 200 years ago.

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Marxism

80% of the world population gets this confused. While related, there is a difference between communism and Marxism or Marxist philosophy. Communism is a proposed solution to the problems of capitalism that Marxist philosophical methods reveals (i.e. class conflict, labour exploitation, alienation, wealth and income inequality, the problem of ideology). Marxist philosophy is a school of thought that is often known as “dialectal materialism” which was heavily influenced by G.W.F. Hegel’s dialectical idealism. Both of these thinking styles, while considered opposites, were highly influential that crosses over to many other disciplines and philosophical schools. Personally, I think Marxism is very interesting, profound, and radical.

Once you learn Marxism, you may soon realize that what today’s political parties refers as “left”, or what some governments around the world refers themselves as “communists” are neither leftists or communists (it’s contestable for sure). Ideas like Marxism, socialism, and communism has become an ideology produced to be sold to the masses as if it was the thing itself. A simulation of change without any changes? Perhaps.

I have a big post coming about Marx. Stay tuned.

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“You don’t look 34.”

I actually got ID’d last year when I went out to buy some liquor for a family get together. The woman asked for my ID. Then when I showed her and told her I am (was) 33, she was like, “Wow, I can’t tell”. Then I said to her, “I’m really flattered that you asked for my ID”. 🤣 I think it might be because I still dress young.

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“Who will you vote for in the next federal election in Canada?”

Your mom.
Y’all seriously think reducing taxes solves all the problems societies and other countries has created in Canada? It’s better than nothing for sure. But it doesn’t solve anything. Just some food for thought: they say money can buy happiness and solve problems. But a lot of these problems only exists because the concept of money produced these problems in the first place Lol.

P.S. I don’t vote.🤷‍♂️

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“Thanks for sharing your stories. They reminded me of when I accidentally fell for another woman while being in a relationship. I ended up breaking up with my girlfriend for her and got judged by everyone.”

First thing is first. There are no accidents.😏 Second, this is the first time someone said something like this to me on here Lol. I got permission to share some of it (the above). Don’t worry, I clean my emails once a month.

Developing feelings for others while people are in a relationship is more common than what most thinks. You don’t get to control who you have feelings for or like. But you can control what you do with those feelings. And there are really only two ways you can go about it. Either you admit to it and work through those feelings and emotions and let it die, or you break up and go for the other person. I know there are people who considers developing feelings for someone else as “emotional cheating” which I don’t think is always valid, especially if you are honest about it with your partner (it’s very situational). We are humans after all.

Many people denies these feelings or ignores them when they happen. I think it’s a really unhealthy way to deal with it (which is to not deal with it altogether). Love is transference. There is always an underlying/unconscious reason why you end up developing feelings for someone else (again, there are no accidents). Perhaps one might not be happy, or they had already been checked out of their current relationship without knowing, or something is missing/wrong in their relationship that needs to get fixed; or maybe their relationship might not even be that serious. There are many possibilities and it’s situational.

But it comes down to how introspective people are at finding out, along with how they fix the issue. Sad to say, most people learns it the hard way because cultural and social traditions has frowned on people for developing feelings for others while being in relationships. It convinced people that it’s always best to ignore these feelings or set boundaries (produce repression and denial; unexpressed emotions never die, they are buried alive) than to work through them in a therapeutic and psychoanalytic way (it is the Other at work who says no!). But I would say that if you figured it out and you kept it clean and you love each other, then who cares what other people thinks. Don’t live for other (Other) people’s opinions. Fuck em’.🤷‍♂️ It’s not like you’re married, and it’s called dating for a reason. But don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely not a wholesome thing to dump your girlfriend for someone else. But it is still better than dragging things on and wasting time.

I once knew a girl long time ago in school who got into a similar situation and also ended up breaking up with her boyfriend for someone else. It was a fascinating story. Maybe I will talk about it next time (I don’t know her anymore). But I won’t judge others on these things because they are situational and subjective. The reason I say this is because it actually happened to my sister—only that she was married which made things even more complicated. Though her situation is no where the same. It was much more extreme and involved domestic violence. This is all I will say about it.

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Young vs Older Bobby

I used to be more outgoing when I was in my early 20s (20-23). But I was never much of a party person. As I got older, I got a lot more contemplative as I pursued more school and my graduate degree. With age, drunk people were no longer fun to be around (they never really were in the first place—it depends lol). Same with some people in general. And when I got to my high 20s, money started to matter way more and life got busier with more responsibilities where I have to start saving for this and that. You kind of just grow up I guess.

Though I can still fit in with people who are in their mid 20s (around 24-26). But it depends on their maturity level and their vibes. I usually still like a lot of things they like in terms of music, food, fashion, etc. Though I tend to be more on the quiet side and always seem to attract outgoing people who yaps a lot (I’m the perfect target LOL). I’m also at the age where I fit in with people in their 40s with more “grown up” conversations, and of course, with people who are my intellectual equal and superiors. But I noticed there tends to be a big maturity difference in people between 18, 20, 24, 28, 35, 40, and 50. Though it’s not set in stone and varies between individuals. People usually don’t believe it until they hit a certain age and looks at all the stupid things they did back then. Don’t be hard on yourself. It happens to all of us.😂

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Favorite driving mode in the Golf R

Nurburgring mode.

It’s an overkill and pointless to use it for your commutes because this mode is meant for race tracks (the Nurburgring in Germany). It also destroys your fuel economy, but man is it fun. The higher idle RPM makes the throttle ultra responsive due to being within turbo boost range. The idle also sounds cool when the car is just sitting at the lights or in parking lots. It’s like the sound of a cold start with the extra growl.

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“How do I spot a male INTJ and INFJ? I want to date one.”

INTJs tends to have an uninviting vibe to them with a poker face and a no nonsense attitude. The older ones are more mellowed down but still has a similar vibe. They are also quiet until you really get to know them where they might talk a lot. And once you do, you will realize they are incredibly smart and sarcastic.

The INFJ tends to take a lot of interest in people. Similar to INTJ, INFJs are also very smart who can appear uninviting. But once you talk to them, they are warm and welcoming and might strike people as extroverts (this is more true for female than male INFJ due to social and cultural conditioning). In reality, INFJs are introverted social chameleons (Fe) who needs a lot of alone time to recharge their batteries. They are exceptionally good at reading people. In a group setting, look for the quiet person observing the room trying to see everything that no one else can see. Male INFJs are very rare and are around 1 in 200 men. But not everyone will like the first INFJ they encounter, so your odds of being with one are more like 1 in 10,000.😂

In public, both types will appear to be living in their own world away from the crowd and all the noise. Yet once something or someone catches their attention, they will have razor sharp focus on them. Both have intense eyes and will often choose to sit in corner seats in rooms. They are smart, often with unconventional wisdom and unique perspectives. While they might be the quiet types and might have trouble articulating their complex thoughts into words, when they find the right words and speak, everyone will often shut up and listen because they usually have great insights.

Both INxJ don’t always talk about themselves and will try to fly under the radar. So if you ever meet someone where the more you talk to them, the more you feel like you don’t know anything about them, then you likely ran into an INxJ. To know them, you have to take the initiative and pester them with personal questions. And if the more you get to know them, the more enigmatic, paradoxical, abstract, insightful and soulful they become, then you have met an INxJ for sure.

Let me tell you. If you haven’t lurked around the MBTI community before, there are people out there who goes out to hunt down INTJ and INFJ as romantic partners. I think it’s hilarious.

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Hysteria: “The Other says no!”

Our desire is the Other’s desire. If you study psychoanalytic cases of hysteria, you will sometimes come across a few where a heterosexual married women stops attending clinical sessions because her husband doesn’t want her to, even when that is exactly what she needs. This woman’s desire is her husband’s desire. In some cases, it can be her parent’s desire, God’s desires, or her friend’s desires.

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“At what point does the subject become a split subject?”

When desire substitutes for demand. Look into an essay called “The Signification of the Phallus” from Ecrits. 👍

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Chance and Destiny: “The letter always arrives at its destination“

I mentioned this famous line last time when I spoke about Eashel. In fact, I also spoke about chance and destiny when I wrote about Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar. But I don’t recall talking about this passage anywhere else other than on Derrida and how the letter “never” arrives at its destination. But this line is actually from Lacan who quoted it from a novel if I remember correctly. It is a passage that emphasize on chance, destiny, and fate.

Recall when I pointed out how desire is fantasy and always leads us away from truth where it is a misrecognition that distances itself from object a. But since our desire is also the Other’s desire, it convinces us that the mistakes we speak and do are mistakes. Yet, little do we know that this mistake, or this letter or signifier that appears and slips out from consciousness is the successful failure that traverses the split subject.

The letter is a blind spot to consciousness that the Imaginary had misrecognized as one speaks. This is the paradox of subjectivity. And through the spark of the love event, leads us to the realization that these mistakes are Real and true. It suspends our belief that they were produced through pure contingency—which at heart, really were contingent. Yet somehow, all the stars align and our mistakes or signifiers (words) anchors onto new meanings which produces a truth. By chance, the letter arrives at its destination where the Real appears in consciousness which produces a shift in discourse.

But the Real can be scary and frightening, for it reveals the hidden side of life (i.e. death; it is somewhat equivalent to Derrida’s “trace”). As Slavoj Zizek might say, it is metaphorical to the random scenes in a horror movie where the monster jumps out and scares you, where the symbolic and imaginary temporarily surrenders itself (hence I said last time if I told Eashel the truth, she will freak out). This horror, the recognition, or encounter of the letter is the rupture of the Real that shakes you out of your comfort zone that may even give you anxiety. This is indeed, the metaphor of love—the flower or symbolic language that bursts into flames, revealing the Real. Through this event, one suddenly recognizes what was first perceived as an accident was no accident. All our logic, languages, excuses, and knowledge (the “logos”) that we use to explain and convince ourselves that it was a mistake ends up failing us. Desire temporarily fails as one touches the Real. Just like the encounter of love, this horror of the Real might make us run the other way!

Last time, when I said new knowledge and truth can only be produced when we start seeing what was not there, it really is the question of “seeing”—but not necessarily in physical ocular sense. That is, such truth had always already been animated into “ek-sistence” through our words (existence; it’s a reference to Heidegger), only that the split subject never came to consciously recognize it as such because they see it as a mistake. Consciousness is like a spotlight that shines onto a dark stage. The darkness (unconscious) is always already there lurking at the back of our minds as we focus on what had been lit up by the light which is controlled by the Other. We never paid attention to said darkness because our desires had led us astray!

The letter reveals a Real truth that had always been there within the symbolic without the split subject’s conscious awareness. Once we recognize it, what first appeared as accidents, coincidences, or mistakes that were driven by pure chance now appears as destiny. It’s almost like we are seduced by this truth, as Baudrillard might say. And what was conceived as a random or accidental encounter of someone turns out to be much more special—almost like it was fate that we met them. Everything that were not meant to happen were meant to happen the way it did. New meanings suddenly falls in place which anchors itself in new ways despite being subject to pure chance that lies radically elsewhere beyond language and neurosis.

Perhaps we now have a deeper understanding of when I spoke of how there is pure contingency where love is articulated in our everyday lives that completely lies unconscious to us. The rupturing of this contingent movement, the letter which always arrives at its destination, is an event. It is the conscious arrival of love and death pertinent to the unconscious.

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Huhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I was just thinking about it the other day. I remember a little more than I would like about Eashel. I want to forget all of it, honestly. But I can recall everything she told me, from how her hair curls from a single snowflake, all the way to how she likes to collect perfumes, how many siblings she has, where she is from, etc. From how she spoke to me, I can tell what she values and what is important to her. I also follow up on things that she tells me because I care, like asking her how her wisdom tooth is doing since she had them removed. Sometimes I even write it all down so I don’t forget. It’s my way of showing that I care. But I don’t think she noticed.

I went to buy groceries the other day from a few places and saw some treats that reminded me of her. I ended up buying her some. I was going to go back to give it to her in person, but I figured she is always busy (I was there in the morning and knew she was there). So I just left it on her car because she told me what she drives and it’s hard to miss because her seats are pink lol (we usually park beside each other). But she didn’t appreciate that I gave her more treats or placed it on her car (???…Or both???). It’s okay. I did it because I know she has a sweet tooth like me and I wanted to share and give her some cool candy. I think she took it the wrong way. I think she thinks I’m going to ask her out again or something. Yeah that’s not going to happen, especially not after what happened the first time LOL. The ball is on her court and I won’t ask again.

How certain was I on my interpretation of Eashel from last post? 95% certainty. She still sometimes stares at me with big sparkly/oogly eyes while I am focused on my work. When I catch her, she pretends she is looking at something else and sometimes caresses her necklace jewellery when I’m nearby (it’s unconscious flirting behavior). But it doesn’t matter. I actually sometimes want to smile and wave at her, but she looks away too fast. She is very sneaky (of course her excuse would be “I was zoned out!”; not few times in a row you’re not lol).

Long ago, I made a similar position on Renee and how she liked me. In fact, Renee also had a boyfriend back then. She aggressively denied it when I told her (the Other says no!). But I made some mistakes, so it’s not completely her fault. At the time, some people thought I was crazy and I was “imagining things” that Renee liked me. But guess who was right? 🤷‍♂️ Truth is, people are exceptionally good at lying to themselves to the point that they don’t even know they’re lying (it’s a symbolic mask dominated by the Other’s discourse). As Freud would say, learning to be honest with ourselves can be a very good exercise. It’s the whole point of psychoanalysis.

I once said I won’t speculate why Eashel did some of the things she did. But since it doesn’t matter anymore, I’m going to speculate because I can. Just last week, I realized Eashel might be reading my blog LOL (yikes). She will freak out reading this, but she shouldn’t take it personally. It’s totally okay. It’s also not intended to be an accusation. All of it are based on speculation, common sense, and reason. I always told myself that she doesn’t read it because I never had sufficient knowledge or proof to make this claim—and because I don’t want to speculate. But the suspicion came up long ago before we started talking. I just tried to not overthink it.

Before we even spoke, the way I caught her looking at me while she was working seemed like she knew much more about me than what meets the eye, especially from when we first met and became acquainted (does Ms. Eashel even remember our first verbal encounter? Lol). The only explanation is that she reads my blog. And a possible reason on how she found it was because Renee told her.💀 I won’t go into details why because it’s another branch of speculation (it’s too long).

But I’ve always had this suspicion in the back of my mind when I started talking to Eashel—or rather, when she initiated and started talking to me. The idea that she reads this blog explains her unexplainable behaviors such as her randomly talking to me right after I said I will never get a chance to talk to her from a few posts back. Why she did it while knowing that I liked her and she had a boyfriend is beyond me. It also begs for the question as to why she didn’t even mention her boyfriend until the very last minute when I asked for her number. Heck, why even initiate and talk to me?

It’s kind of a red flag to be honest. But she is young and a bit inexperienced which is why I’ve been lenient (people make mistakes; but are they really mistakes? They are as obvious to me as it was with Renee; I explained this in #25). But her excuse for talking to me was probably, “It was my job to be nice to him”. Yet, she had zero professional reasons to talk to me back then—it wasn’t like she was serving me at the till when she first initiated Lol. She was busy making drinks at the bar while trying to initiate and strike a conversation with me.

This suspicion of her reading my blog became more of a fact recently when someone else who works there accidentally gave me the missing pieces of information (also a friend of Renee). At that point, it was obvious. But it’s not a big deal that she reads this site. If she does, she has likely been reading it for the past year or so. And if Eashel is in contact with Renee (very likely), that means her views of me might be influenced by Renee’s projections of me. They’re biases from Renee’s past experiences (i.e. Eashel got one sided stories and not complete truths).

With this said, I know the manager, Renee, and a few others also reads this site. But I already knew the manager was Renee’s spy a few years ago (please take this lightheartedly LOL). All those times when Renee showed up were no accidents—including her recent appearances. If it was her first time showing up, sure, it was a coincidence. But after the third, fourth or fifth time? Not a chance once you consider some of the things she showed up just to do in front of me (i.e. to give me the middle finger). How did Renee consistently knew when I was there? Someone told her. It’s common sense lol.

But why is the manager the one who told her, and not Joe or Becky? The manager is friends with another friend of Renee who used to work there and he was her old spy. I know because I notice random people in the room when I get bored/tired from working; and simply from me being there longer than everyone who works there. I also bet $100 that the manager and Renee’s friend are dating because they seemed to have a thing for each other back then just before he quit. It was likely unconscious to both of them at the time, but I could tell. It was the start to something beautiful between them.🙂 I might be wrong though. But just so you know, I’m a bit of a prophet when it comes to these things…….So I’m probably right. 😂

Not to mention the manager was certainly not surprised when I casually told her that my dad was in the hospital last year. Her reaction gave it away. And I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t surprised. I just wanted to tell her because she happened to help me at the till and I was stressed. But I never cared that she reads my blog because it’s not a big deal—just like Eashel or Renee reading it. She is a good person. She also had a crush on me long ago before she became the manager, and before her and Renee’s friend had the spark.

You know back then, I would always go to this coffee shop partly because I knew at one point, Renee might come talk to me. I knew her spies would tell her that I’m there. I never mentioned it on here because I know Renee reads my writings and will freak out if I wrote about it. She probably still reads this site (Hi Renee 😏😂; shes probably like, “CREEP!” 😂😂). Just imagine Renee or anyone finally owning up to it and coming up to me and tells me they came across some of my writings and took interest in X or Y. It would’ve been a wonderful way to start a conversation. It’s much better than to pretend you’re not a snoopy on here. And I’m hesitant to use the term “stalker” 😂 (but I seriously wonder who is more creepy at this point? Lol). If I didn’t want people to read what I write, I won’t publish it in the first place. And I’m not saying any of this out of spite or anything. I find it kind of silly.

But now that Renee is likely a lost cause, and Eashel ignores me (which I understand), there aren’t many reasons for me to be there anymore. Although I enjoy the company of some of the regulars I met, everything I do there can be done at home or elsewhere. I’ve been there for way too long. Honestly, I’m a little upset with everything that happened with Eashel lately. I think I’m just mentally and physically checked out lol. Maybe I should just disappear forever. I doubt anyone will miss me anyway.

Last time, I said it’s all about seeing what is not there. But it is also about making sense. Sometimes, I wish I saw less. But that would just make me ignorant—and we already have too much of it in our world.