Confessions of a researchaholic

I joined as a first-time “reader” for a human library event, and talked with two “books”.

The first one, titled “choosing failure and challenging success (mental health ADHD/ANX)”, was a young girl (at least relative to me) who looked and acted entirely normal during our conversation. She said that she has family-inherited ADHD and has always felt anxious about everything in her life, even just walking outside. It took her 10 years to get her college degree because she had to drop out for mental health issues.
To overcome her fears, she took on adventures such as scuba diving and jumping off waterfalls during rafting.
I picked this “book” partially because I am interested in psychology in general, and partially because I also had some difficulty focusing outside my own mind (one main reason why I ended up self-studying most of my course materials and skipping since I was about 10 years old).
The only telltale sign that she showed was the need to pick up a toy object to play around to keep her focus. (She kept another one on the table for me to play with, which happens to be a piece of clay, which I played with obsession in kindergarten.)
We discussed how the (American) society focuses more on being normal and demonstrating performance than the need for people to take care of their health, both mental and physical.

The second one, titled “suicide survivor”, was a 59-years-old man.
He grew up in an alcoholic family, started drinking at age 12 for socializing and dealing/escaping with family issues, tried to prove himself by taking on demanding (and thus stressful) tasks, got married and had children, divorced and lived with his girlfriend, broke up with the girl friend and lost both the house and his job (the girlfriend owned the former and also worked in the latter), and decided to kill himself after a week of drinking and drugging.
He first tried to drown himself by laying down into a river only to wake up a few hours later found himself floating and (thus) alive, overdosed on some drugs which still didn’t kill him, and cut his wrist (he showed me the scars and described in detail how to properly cut to really kill) only to wake up a few hours later soaked in a pool of blood.
He finally called a hospital and spent a few weeks (or months) in intensive care for recovery.

He has now learned the existence of God through his AA (alcoholic anonymous) gatherings and worked in suicide prevention.
He asked whether I ever thought about killing myself; I did not tell him that I am the type who would just kill all my opponents if the needs arise, but replied with other related thoughts.
One is the optimal age to die. Modern medicine is better at preserving life expectancy than maintaining life quality. Instead of waiting till the very end when one has lost both mind and body, an earlier death might be more optimal.
His replied is interesting, in that one could not judge the future self. For example, even though he has all these physical pains at age 60 that he would find intolerable at age 30, he felt he is awesome right now. So maybe a complete senile person might enjoy the existence that a younger version could not comprehend and thus unable to judge.

I was in a shared Uber ride today, waiting for a couple heading for the SJC airport.
After the driver and I arrived and waited for a couple of minutes, the husband showed up waving at us, while tying his dog to a fence. The wife showed up after another couple of minutes, taking the dog to the car, while the husband went back to retrieve luggage, for a further couple of minutes. When both finally settled in the car, the wife said she could not find her wallet, and took another couple of minutes searching around.
After we were officially ready to take off, the husband said to the driver: do you know how to go to the airport? Turn right here, without even realizing that they might not have the first stop.

Meanwhile, the driver told me (in a language that the couple would not understand) that he could not understand why anyone heading to the airport would want to take a carpool, and (fortunately) ignored the husband and followed the Waze instruction to drop me off.

One best part about Uber/Lyft rides, especially carpools, is the chance to see different kinds of people that do not tend to show up in my usual social circles.

The best way (for me) to relax is to tackle the source of the stress/pressure head on.

A master of a traditional art form recently told me that nowadays it is becoming harder to find apprentices with required patience and will power to really learn the craft, probably due to the modern lifestyle accelerated by modern technology, such as social media and mobile devices.
He was considering modifying the curriculum to fit this modern world.

I have the opposite opinion. I will keep the bar as high as possible so that only the most motivated and talented will come to me.
千軍易得一將難求

For OKR 2018, I rated myself 40 percent:

• Published 4 top papers (with 3 student first authors).
• Have helped shipping Fresco, a flagship Adobe digital painting product.
• Have continued regular sketching exercise.
• I read the book of change as part of my drawing exercises, but have yet to resume the Baroque cycles.

The default period is from July 2019 to June 2020 unless stated otherwise.

Publish top papers

Publish at least 4 papers in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues: ToG (including SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia), CHI/UIST, NIPS/ICML, CVPR/ICCV.

Build top products

Ship at least one product as a manager/developer and file at least two patents.

Develop top talents

Help at least 4 students publish in top graphics/HCI/vision/ML venues individually.

Be a better manager by helping the team not only ship at least one product (above) but also publish at least 4 papers in top venues with at least 4 student first authors (without double counting with my own above).

Have fun, be awesome

Practice sketching to a professional level, and expand into animation.

Continue learning a Middle Eastern language to elementary school level, complementing the one Asian and one European language I already know.

Practice meditation to the level that I can enter the God mode immediately, anywhere and anytime.

Finish the book of change, to renew my (now rusty) Chinese and crack the only Chinese classics that my grandfather did not during his life time.

Finish the baroque cycle, which I lost focus in the middle of the first volume (quicksilver).

Restore a common biometric, which suddenly deteriorated, to the previous excellent level, and continue improving the art I have started learning for about 3 years to the stage of practical applications.

I captured this great view from SF-MOMA, in which the wall says:

So you’ve gotten very close, you’ve shared a complete experience.
And the idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting anyway.
Never getting in is the most exciting, but after that, waiting to get in is the most exciting.

Don’t we all tend to be obsessed with what we cannot get in life: the dream job, the dream lover, the dream trip, which pop into reality when we finally have a chance to get in.