Life is alright. Work is a grind and it comes in waves. It’s actually not that busy when compared to last year because of the housing market slump and people losing their jobs.

This is a chunky post and a little longer than usual. 👋

Edit Sept 8, 2025: I have a family of 3 Labubus now (link). 🤡

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Afterthoughts on Marx (link)

I think the post turned out well. Rereading it made me smile where I’m like, “Dang, this is pretty good and kind of scary”. 😂 When we read about these big worldly issues, one important thing to keep in mind is that there are only so much one person can do. Dwelling on it won’t do any good mentally. And this is coming from someone who has gone to some dark places in life.🙏 We live in a world where circumstances arise and we have to survive, even if we might not always agree with how society works.

I knew some people might go into reading it with a distaste for Marx—especially the bourgeois 😏. Marx has no shortage of haters. His grave often gets vandalized in Germany. As such, I tried to show that there are still a lot of valuable insights from someone who they might not like. One thing I regret not writing about was how Marx predicted capitalism will carry economic crisis such as some of the ones we constantly see today. People might not like communism, but many can’t deny that Marx was spot on in his analysis of capitalism. He lived way ahead of his time. He even predicted things like Bitcoin would exist through “fictious capital”; though it is often associated with the stock market.

Meanwhile, the ending was meant to echo my writings on Lacan and the death drive. All the psychoanalytic allusions you see in it, like how ideology conceals over the population in a “dreamlike” state, were all intentional. There are also lots of other famous examples of Marxism like the Soviet Union, the Paris Commune, East and West Germany, North and South Korea, Vietnam, etc. I stuck with two for the sake of length and conceptual relevance.

A good chunk of the post was written 10 years ago. This was why the Wikipedia quote I used on fetish commodity no longer exists Lol. It’s rare for me to use Wikipedia as source. The Lego Movie example was written just shortly after I watched it back in 2014-2016. The example of the barista was inspired by Eashel.🥺The teacher’s union example was also from Eashel because she is a teacher. The home building examples I used was when I got bored at work and needed some intellectual stimulation. The rent and landlord was from some dude who spoke to me about renting out his properties. The example of workers in tech industry replacing their own job was from a friend who went to study computer science a decade ago at the University of Calgary. I still remember sitting with him in the cafeteria jokingly telling him that he is going to replace his own job. 10 years later, he actually lost his job to AI.

Initially, I also planned to use The Dark Knight Rises by Christopher Nolan as an example of a revolution. (SPOILERS) In it, Bane captures the wealthy people in Gotham and held them accountable for Gotham’s crimes. But Slavoj Zizek beat me to this example, so I ended up disbanding it.

One bad habit I have is long sentences. I think it comes from my many years of reading and studying philosophy. Jacques Derrida has a lot of it. But the worst offenders were Immanuel Kant and Soren Kierkegaard. I remember some of their sentences were literally a page long which is like 200-300+ words Lol. Every time I turn on grammar AI assist for my drafts, I just get a ton of underlines on my sentences going like “They’re too long”. Like leave me alone dude, I’m a pro at run-on sentences Lol. 🥹😂

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“I’m scared my kids will never be able to afford a house.”

I spoke to someone in one of my writing chill sess who said this to me. I was like, “They probably won’t be able to afford one unless you gift them 200k”. 😂😂 Calgary is nowhere as crazy as Vancouver and Toronto, but it might get there one day.

According to Statistic Canada, which is quite accurate, the median age for top 10% earners in Canada who makes just above 100k is 49 years old. And even that type of income is not enough to buy some of the benchmark houses these days. It depends where. You can still afford some homes with that income in Calgary, but you’re stretching it even for a 500k house with a 100k salary. It comes down to how much down payment. Meanwhile, the median income for 24-34 year olds is 48k.💀 Nevermind this guy’s 5 year old kids, young people are in trouble. Learning how to save is very important in our day and age. But I know it’s tough out there for many people.🙏 The job market is also terrible right now.

My current plan is to buy a house in a few years and rent it out like a real capitalist Lol. How soon will depend on some life factors in the near future. But I will continue to live with the fam for as long as I am single. I will still pay rent which covers a lot of monthly expenses around the house. Then I have car payments + insurance on top. But the R will be paid off next year.🫡 The rest goes into savings which are all invested in various stocks and index funds.

And if I find someone worthwhile to commit to, I will take the rental house back and live in it with future wifey.🥺 Though honestly, I’m probably forever alone and it might be better this way Lol. I just want peace and stability at this point; and not people who makes my life unnecessary harder. I think I expended all my love in my 20s giving it to people who crushed it lol. And there is no one to blame but myself. But who knows what will happen. Maybe love will find me again one day. The future is always to come!

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Multi generational families

You know what I find strange in Western culture? “Moving out when you’re 18 so you can learn to become an independent adult”. People lived together in tight knit communities with families for the majority of human history up until post-war 1940s. And there were no shortage of “mature adults” before this. Then suddenly you have to move out to live with roommates and have $50 left in your bank account at the end of each month to become an adult. 🤔 I actually knew so many people like this in my early 20s Lol.

It’s a Western thing where people think you somehow won’t live your life to your fullest unless you move away from your family. This might be a good example of hyper-individualism where personal needs triumphs over communal needs. Unless people grew up with toxic parents, living with people who raised and loves you most should be things that you cherish because it won’t last forever. In fact, you’re lucky if you have parents like this because many people don’t. Sure, there will be compromises where boundaries needs to be set, but that’s the same when you have roommates. It will also be the same if you live with your significant other. Truth is, you can learn to be independent and a responsible adult no matter where you live. 🤷‍♂️

Multi generation families had always been the norm in human history. It actually still is in many European and Eastern countries. Heck, a number of my friends makes six figures and still lives with the fam because the fam are the real homies.🤝

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Labubu

I bought 3 LOL. I made 2 PopMart accounts to get a higher chance to reserve one in the cart. My sister also teamed up with me and tried to reserve one on hers.😂 But I got two of my bubus from the same account on my laptop. Reserving one is really hard because the limited stock for each drop sells out in 20-30min. Once you reserve a box of your choice, you get 5 minutes to decide if you want to check out. You can shake the box where it will tell you which two colors are not in it. I would advise to collect 10 lucky points on the PopMart website just before the drop and buy a hint card which allows you to eliminate one extra possibility. But it’s basically gambling. My sister managed to reserve a few as well, but she didn’t get the color eliminations that I wanted, so she didn’t commit to buy.

On my first drop, I got Happiness from Big Into Energy set. Then I got Sea Salt Coconut on the second drop from the Macaron set. Then my friend’s fiance bought an entire box set which guarantees no replicates. She sold me Luck (violet) from BIE for original price. And I ended up trading my Sea Salt Coconut to my sister for a Sesame Bean (Grey). Then she sold it to one of my friend who wanted another one to pair with his Loyalty. I got some fits on Aliexpress for my bubu and my sister started copying them because I’m such a fashionista.😎 Yet here I am dressed like a hobo everyday at work.🤡

I think I might give Luck away because she is too pastel pink for me. The first person I thought of was Eashel because she likes pink.🥺 Maybe she would like to have her since she had a Sonny Angel on her phone. I actually didn’t know what they were when she showed me lol. She should’ve told me! Unfortunately, I’m in no social position to give her a free Labubu. But she probably thinks they’re ugly LOL. Though I definitely would if I still spoke to her and she wants one. Too bad I don’t think she wants to talk to me, so I don’t even try talking to her. 🥲

* * *

I went to a mall…

for the first time in maybe 3 years. 😂😅
I went to pick up something that I bought online. So I took the liberty to go solo shopping for a new pair of shoes. I want a pair white sneakers. Most of my shoes are black. I really like the Nike Air Jordan 1 lows, but they didn’t have the all white one at the local Nike store. I think they look dope (link). They are a staple to many fits. White shoes are high maintenance if you want to keep them clean. I used to have a pair of white Adidas Superstar when I was young. They got beat pretty bad because I never took care of them.😅

There was a store called Showcase that sold labubus for $140. It’s such a rip off LOL. Buying one from that place is more expensive than all 3 of my labubus combined.🥴 Maybe I should sell one of my bubus at scalper price to buy a pair of shoes. 🤔

Then I went to a store called Miniso where there was a couple and the cute girl kept looking at me from across the aisle as they walked past me a few times. After we traded glances for maybe the 10th time, she was like “Why is it getting so hot in here suddenly?” to her boyfriend. But it wasn’t even hot in the store LOL. I thought to myself, “Alright, time to leave before lil bro tries to fight me”.😂 Then on my way out, I saw a bunch of My Melody action figures and immediately thought of Eashel.🥺

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Family Dinner

I had this huge family get together and saw my cousins again. They’ve grown quite a bit. The oldest one of the bunch (24) is in the middle of his masters degree in electrical engineering at University of Waterloo and is currently on a break to work on his start up company. He told me he interned at AMD. So I said to him I have some AMD stocks. He was like, “If you lost money, it was probably my fault”. 😂 Then I told him I also have money in Nvidia. He asked if I bought it before it went up by 1200%. I was like, “I would be a millionaire now if I did.” 😂

Then the second oldest cousin is in his 3rd year of also studying electrical engineering. But I don’t think he likes it. I have no idea why he is still in it because it’s a waste of money. The youngest cousin was 8 years old the last time I saw her who liked playing Minecraft. Now she is 13 and no one recognized her Lol. We ended up playing Pokemon TCG Pocket together because I’m also 13. 🤡 But they told me I could still pass as a 26 year old.🥹

It was a nice get together. I didn’t have it with me, but I showed my cuz a photo of my labubu attached to my fanny pack and they were like “That’s pretty drip” (link). I was like, I’m too old to know what that means.😂 But repping a labubu as a guy definitely takes confidence.💯

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“Do you think women who likes to date older men have daddy issues?”

Not really.

But everyone has some degree of daddy and mommy issues. To have “daddy issue” is to imply the woman wants a boyfriend who takes the place of her father which is true to an extent in nearly every couple—only without them knowing. This is because love is transference. Yet this boyfriend is never her father. And in order for him to be with her boyfriend, something must be given up on. This idea metaphorically stems from a concept from Freud known as “penis envy” where he saw how women wants what they do not have (lack) that they perceive that the man has—namely the “penis”. This is why you sometimes hear dudes make bad Freud jokes going like, “Oh yeah, she wants my dick!”. But this is not how it works in a Lacanian context.

Many hysterics chooses their love partner based on the person who can unconsciously signify the lack for her in the Other. In psychoanalysis, a good portion of women are hysterics whose discourse literally revolves around “getting off” on knowledge (S2) through the man’s words (S1). This knowledge (S2) stems from a signifier that the man articulates which takes the place of the lack in the Other for the woman (i.e. the woman’s relation with her symbolic). Such signifier is known as the “master signifier” or “phallic signifier” (S1). And by “man” I mean “obsessive neurotics” where not all of them are obsessives in the same way that not all women are hysterics.

Unlike everyday language where signifiers points to different meanings which drives our conversations, the phallic/master signifier is a word that has no particular meaning other than itself. It points to something that is missing (unconscious) in the symbolic. The master signifier is the opening or entrance to the unconscious. It reveals to the split subject that they are nothing prior to this point of entry in symbolic language. While this does not imply there is nothing beyond language and consciousness, the split subject can only express themselves through these very words (“the impossible subject”). The master signifier resembles the “face” of the Real (object a) that is represented through the symbolic which stops speech/desire on its tracks, even for a brief moment.

An example of a master signifier might be the word “death” which for some people, points to nothing outside itself. Beyond the meaning of our literal “death”, there is actually nothing or no other meaning outside that we can comprehend within consciousness. Such word may even cause anxiety for being too close to object a. Contrary, if “death” signifies more meanings and words, where it makes you think of the people you love and care about, then “death” might not be a master signifier. The master/phallic signifier is the word that stops our speech and thoughts in its tracks. The experience of “love” functions through this very lack via the (mis)recognition of the master/phallic signifier. This signifier is the “other side” or the “face” of object a which appears in the symbolic consciousness. But it is not object a itself.

As we can see, the phallic signifier is not an organ. It is a word that points to nothing graspable beyond the symbolic. In the case of love, the woman doesn’t want the man’s “dick” as in the organ. She actually wants something that even the man does not have—it is a lack that she misrecognizes. This is where we have to understand the difference between the registers of the Imaginary-Symbolic lack versus the Real lack (object a).

What does the woman perceive in a man that he does not have? Whatever it might be, it is the lack she perceives in the Other (the man) that the woman unconsciously sees and tries to take the place of. She becomes “his woman” and “his desires” in the same way the child wants to become the mother’s love object. Yet on a conscious level, this symbolic lack she perceives is a misrecognition. It is not the Real lack as in the object a that she makes it out to be. It is a fantasy of what is lacking in the man ($<>a) which stems from the woman’s unconscious fantasy of her mOther’s desire that lies beyond her desire for the child. Thus, the woman might try to produce knowledge out of the man’s master signifiers with her Imaginary-Symbolic lack, and convince herself that X or Y is the “truth”, even when said knowledge is a misrecognition that misses the point.

The Real of lack (a) is something that her consciousness has no access to at all. She can only fantasize and imagine what it really is. For it is repressed and pushed out her symbolic mind (the symptom of denial). Yet by chance, the truth might slip into her consciousness from the Real and surface in her words that she is unconscious to. For she merely sees these slips as “mistakes” or “accidents” and convinces herself so. And when they get brought up, she might even say something like, “Stop trying to find meanings in things that has no meaning!” (denial). But the idea that these words carries no meaning to her suggests they also point to itself; for they are master signifiers that actually carries more meaning to her unconscious desires. Knowledge leads us away from truth by defending us from recognizing it. Whereas the truth shakes us up and disorganizes us. It makes us uncomfortable. Often times, hysterics will respond to the truth of these slips with disgust, “Eww that’s gross and creepy!”, and obsessives will avoid the discomfort altogether.

Nevertheless, what hysterics looks for in relationships is someone who can prop up this lack via the master signifier that the man gives her which allows her to have access of the Other’s knowledge, albeit it being deceptive. This is one reason why Lacan reverse’s Freud’s famous passage and points out that “there are no sexual relationship”. The fundamental ways on how man and woman operates at an unconscious psychic level are opposite to each other. They never meet in the middle.

As such, the woman doesn’t actually desire for the man, she unconsciously wants a man who can offer her the signifier of this lack. In fact, it doesn’t even have to be a biological man. If you look at the hysteric’s discourse (link), the woman (split subject/agent) addresses the man who speaks to her (S1). He might, for example, be talking to her and unconsciously expressing his desires for her because “all relationships are sexual relationships” (from Freud). As a result, she produces new knowledge from his words and desires (S2). The content of this knowledge that she produces from the man is a misrecognition or fantasy ($<>a) that is driven by a truth that lies unconscious to her, namely, the Real of lack (a). In this sense, to love really is to give what you do not have!

I’ve explained most of this in more pedagogical ways from some of my bigger writings. Just think of the ladies who reads this blog and tries to master and produce knowledge from the things I write about.😏

I will talk more about psychoanalytic discourses in the future.

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Car Stuff

I finally got the R back! They did a fantastic job on the body work. The car looks new again! I also got them to install a new windshield while they were at it. They told me the OEM windshield is actually cheaper than aftermarket which is so dumb and defeats the purpose of aftermarket glass Lol. The windshield was still $730 CAD, which is hardly cheap.

But the car had two problems. The auto glass guy butchered my headliners when they replaced my windshield. The cut they made at the top interior where the roof headliner meets the windshield can be seen from outside the car and it looked nasty. It was not acceptable—especially when it is only a year and a half year old car. The driver side mirror they replaced is also distorted and blurry.

I got a hold of the body shop that worked on my car and drove there to meet the owner who worked on it. Dude was super jacked with tattoos all over and could totally kick my ass lmao. But he was very nice and ended up replacing the mirror with a new OEM one. He also offered to replace the entire roof headliner for free after seeing that it was the windshield guy’s fault. But since he was a Golf enjoyer and was a genuine bro, I told him he doesn’t have to replace the whole thing because its really expensive. I asked if he could just make it look better. So he recommended me an old guy who is apparently a legend in the city that does upholstery for cars. Dude was actually a magician and made it look really nice. We had a chat after where he told me how I was being reasonable with the damage because replacing the entire headliner will cost at least $2500 in parts and labour.

Anyways. I got my new wheels installed.😍 I don’t have a photo of the entire car, but here is a before and after photos of the wheel with regular vs dressed up tires. The wheels are ceramic coated with Gyeon Rim. The tires are dressed with Gyeon Tire Q2. But one problem I run into now is brake dust. The performance brakes on this car makes my wheels really dusty lol.

I also drag raced some dude in a lifted black Dodge Ram 1500 Hemi. It wasn’t actually a race, we just happened to floor it at the same time after the lights turned green. But he knew I had him right off the line lol. And I didn’t even use launch control. That thing was all bark no bite. It was really loud, but that was it.😵‍💫

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“I used to know Renee in real life and wondered what your side of the story was.”

I figured this was an anonymous/fake email that I didn’t respond to. I actually deleted it LOL. This person must be dying to know. Unfortunately, I don’t owe anyone an answer. What if that’s Renee trolling me?

All I will say is I did everything I had to do back then. I can’t speak for who she is today, but Renee “was” someone who sabotaged all the chances we had the moment things didn’t go her way—and I am speaking about post-COVID. She was emotionally volatile and ran away from problems. And honestly, I never had the heart to say this because I don’t want to hurt her. What I did was me trying to save what little we had from what she tried to destroy. Many of the things I did was my last resort because she forced my hand on so many occasions. It was either I do something about it and try, or I just let her go. At times, it felt like she was even trying to bait me then blame it more on me. And you know what? I should’ve let her go earlier. But I really wanted to make it work. So I took all the risks and tried my best. Yet little did I know, and as stupid and idealistic as I was, my efforts were futile because it takes two people. Not one. There are so many things that I will never get any closure to simply because she doesn’t talk.

Meanwhile, Eashel likely heard some of Renee’s stories and freaked herself out. She should’ve known better. There are always two sides to these stories. But I know she is young and I don’t blame her. Aside from this and the boyfriend shenanigans, she actually did everything right. At least she talks Lol. The last thing I wanted was turn Eashel into Renee 2.0. It was too much unnecessary drama and stress for me.

Either way, I’m at peace about it and would prefer to let it go. People can have their opinions, even if they might be wrong. I got more important things to worry about than to correct strangers. But if you want to know the truth, the last place to find it is from gossiping.🤷‍♂️

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“What is Eashel’s MBTI?”

I typed Eashel as an ESFP. Though I sometimes suspect ENFP or ENFJ. She was very Se driven (Extroverted Sensing) when I spoke to her. She had a good sense of style who constantly took interest in new experiences and meeting new people. The fact that she is a teacher tells me she likely uses Fi (Introverted Feeling), since a good chunk of teaching is about helping students foster personal connection with knowledge. But what surprised me most was her choice in studying sociology because it is quite an Ni-Te and Ne-Ti discipline.

Eashel was probably the best thing that happened to me. She was like a kid whenever she spoke about something she was passionate and excited about Lol. It’s cute. I swear, she is the biggest distraction ever because she is always so pretty. I even notice random customers checking her out sometimes—like do they seriously want to die? 😂 The other day, she dropped a jug of drinks on the floor and started laughing really hard. Her laugh was so cute and contagious that even I was on the brink of laughing. And every time I’m talking to someone and she stands in my line of sight, I’m just like 😍😍😍 and lose my chain of thought and forget what I was doing LOL. But I’ve stopped overthinking it because it won’t change anything. At the end, I just want her to be happy. I hope her boyfriend treats her well.

You know, I probably would’ve done anything for her if she gave me a chance.😔 Unfortunately, timing is a real thing. I will likely never get to talk to her again unless a miracle happens. So if the day comes where I don’t get to see her again, I hope she will remember me, because I will always remember her! 💘