I started this year in the future. No I didn’t develop some super power, nor did I do a Michael J. Fox and fly in a specially built supersonic transporter vehicle back to the future. All I did was buy a ticket and fly on a regular plane to China! Eh?!? You see, when I told a friend I was in China for the new year holidays he replied, “you are in the most futuristic country.” He isn’t the only person to have described China to me as the future. So what did I find in the future?

The good news is that I can still speak the language of the future! The bad news is that reading it is still a struggle. Not surprising as my Du Chinese app tells me that I can recognize just 1301 characters. As I mentioned before, my goal was to be able to read 1500 characters before my trip to China. But let’s not focus on the bad so back to the good news.

I walked into the arrivals lounge at Kunming airport when a man approached me to ask if I wanted a taxi. I sternly replied: ”不用了“. Just like that I was 金笛 (Jin Di, my Chinese name) again. She knows better than to get into a 黑车 (illegal taxi) at the airport. Instead she approached an airport security guard and asked where the official taxi rank was. She got into the taxi and instructed the driver to take her to her hotel. After she checked into the hotel, went and found a place to eat. At the restaurant, she didn’t hesitate to complain to the manager about other customers smoking at the table next to her. I watched her, surprised by how easily the words in Mandarin came to her as I hadn’t been to China for almost ten years. Yet I felt very comfortable and even confident in being my Jin Di self again.

I’ve been pretty miserable this year. At the same time I have also experienced an enormous amount of joy. As a rule and practice, I make it a point to find joy every day. I find it really helps to keep me hopeful. But, why have I been so miserable?

I’m absolutely horrified that I live at a time where so many children and other innocent people are killed daily in Gaza for over a year while Western governments that for my entire life have proclaimed to be beacons of diplomacy and protectors of human rights have not only not intervened to stop it, but have been complicit. Then there is the Russia/Ukraine war that has been going on for almost 3 years with an estimate of a million killed. A war that could have ended a month after it started thanks to diplomacy but Western governments prevented it. This year marked half a century since I’ve been alive so this isn’t unfortunately the first genocide I’ve witnessed. There were the genocides in Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina. There also have been a few wars too, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Syria etc… Nor am I unfamiliar with Western governments’ foreign policy record of initiating, financing and participating in wars and destruction of countries in the global south. Knowing this doesn’t make me feel better, in fact, it has made me feel worse. Don’t we know better? I’ve been wondering why we still have wars and genocides?

As I’ve shared before, I’m fond of watching shows from all over the world. I love that I can travel and experience different cultures through them. I’ve observed that stories that are being told are pretty much the same regardless of whether they are from Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, or Norway or Nigeria. For example, boy meets girl, they fall in love but can’t be together because of family opposition due to wrong social class, color etc… Another popular story theme is the super rich fighting over the family business empire and wealth. There is the battle between good and evil which could be in the guise of the police, the good, hunting down evil drug dealers and/or murderers, or the government, the good, defending against terrorists from “other” countries. I tend to avoid the latter type of shows because they tend to be high on violence and BS. It got me wondering, why do we like to tell and consume the same stories over and over again? And how do the creators of the shows manage to keep audiences engaged in the same stories?

It was very disconcerting to hear Dr. Mary Claire Haver explain on the Huberman Lab podcast that when she started to experience perimenopause she was shocked by the void of information. I thought if Dr. Haver, a highly experienced Obstetrics and Gynecology specialist knew very little about perimenopause, imagine a lay person like me. Since myself and some friends have been experiencing perimenopause and menopause we too have been bewildered by the low level of knowledge and services available from the medical profession. I had no idea what was going on with my body. I didn’t initially experience hot-flashes, the only symptom I had heard women suffer from during this period. Instead I had extremely painful dry skin and insomnia which was really strange because I’ve always been diligent about moisturising my skin, and one of my best talents is being able to sleep anywhere, at any time and on demand. I’ve been wondering how such a significant period of a woman’s life could be forgotten by the medical profession. Is not like it lasts just a couple of years. Perimenopause alone will last anywhere from 7-10 years. And menopause can “go on forever” as a friend in her seventies once commented that she experienced “hot-flashes” until she was 70. Typically menopause symptoms last up to 10 years but could last for the rest of women’s life.

“In reality, Charlie was the “architect” of the present Berkshire, and I acted as the “general contractor” to carry out the day-by-day construction of his vision.
In the physical world, great buildings are linked to their architect while those who had poured the concrete or installed the windows are soon forgotten. Berkshire has become a great company. Though I have long been in charge of the construction crew; Charlie should forever be credited with being the architect.
Charlie never sought to take credit for his role as creator but instead let me take the bows and receive the accolades.” (Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter May 2024 (pg2))

That was Warren Buffet remembering his long-term business partner Charlie Munger in the opening pages of the renowned Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letter to its investors. Those words stood out to me because for the past year I’ve been thinking a lot about building construction. I have had the opportunity to observe closely a large scale high rise building development and my own extensive building renovation (hence why I haven’t written much lately). I’ve been wondering why constructors receive little credit for or are forgotten creators of buildings?

I’m fond of the month of March for several reasons. First, it is when the short dreary grey wet days of winter start to convert into longer and brilliant ones. It is always delightful to spot the first tiny leaves sprouting from buds on trees that have been dormant throughout winter. Secondly, my mother and some of my other favourite people were born in March. Another reason why I like it is because it is the month when I started my company Nurture. This March marks its 15th year anniversary. This is very much a gratifying surprise because I never thought I’d be at it for this long and still really enjoy what I do. This is by far the longest I’ve worked at any job, never thought it was possible. I wondered how I’ve managed it? I concluded that it is because I find my work meaningful. I then questioned if this means that I hadn’t found the various jobs I had had prior to this role meaningful? My initial reaction to this question was panic, that it meant that I had spent almost two decades of my life not doing meaningful work. To better answer this question, I reflected on all the jobs I’ve had since I first got my first one at age 14.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about talent. Is it a prerequisite for success? If so, how much talent do you need? Why have I been thinking about this?

This New Year’s day a friend shared with me this website: https://davidgoggins.com/book/. I looked at it but it wasn’t clear to me what she wanted me to see. I asked her why she was sharing. She replied: “Well, I think it would do a lot to many people who are serious about reaching their own goals to listen/read to or read about him.” I thought that was a weighty endorsement. I took another look. I realized that I had heard about the author David Goggins’ first book before but didn’t take any real interest in it because of his military/naval background. And there is a picture of him wearing a naval uniform on the cover of the book. Yeah I know, never judge a book by its cover. I counseled myself to set my prejudice aside and not let it get in the way of learning something new. Besides, didn’t I believe I can learn from anyone, and at times especially from those whose worldview and values are opposed to mine? That day my only plan was to walk aimlessly around Tbilisi, Georgia where I was holidaying. I thought Goggins’ latest book “Never Finished” could be a good background noise while I explored the city (the cover picture with him in running gear was more to my taste). It helped carry me up the steep and infinite number of stairs to the imposing loveliness that was the statue of the Mother of Georgia.

“The western medicine in which I’m trained separates the mind from the body and the individual from the environment. Scientifically speaking not to mention from the point of view of traditional wisdom, mind and body are not separable and the individual manifests something of the culture in which they live. What we consider normal in this society is often very toxic and unhealthy. To give you a quick physical example the more racism a black woman experiences the greater her risk of asthma. So the inflammation of her air tubes is not simply a biological pathology in an isolated organ in this individual, it manifests a social malaise…”

This was Dr. Gabor Maté talking to Glenn Greenwald about his latest book The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing In A Toxic Culture. I wondered how it is possible to separate the body from the mind. After all, it is the mind that runs the body. Also, how can you separate the body from the environment that feeds and grooms it? I also questioned if it is true that Western medicine does separate the mind from the body. I did a mental survey of the medical interventions I have had over the decade or so. I realized that the only doctors (apart from a psychiatrist who was only interested in my mind) that inquired about my emotional status and life had been those trained in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). And they have been the ones who produced the most effective treatments.

I’m very conscious that I know little about the body that I have inhabited for almost five decades. I find it bewildering and frustrating that I can’t will my body to do what I want in spite of my best efforts. So I often seek out information that will help me get better acquainted with it. Honestly, the more I read about the body, the more I realized how much more I don’t know. The first–Seven and Half Lessons About the Brain–of the three recent books I read on the topic gave a somewhat comforting reason why this is the case.

It turns out that the brain, whose job I thought it was to think, isn’t actually designed for it. The brain’s “most important job is not thinking. It’s running a little worm body that has become very, very complicated.”(Feldman Barrett, Lisa. Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain (pp. 10)). First thought, reaction was how was I processing what I was reading if not with my brain?

I wrote about my failed attempts of learning to read Chinese characters beyond a smattering, and how it is still a goal of mine to get to a level where I wouldn’t have to ask others to read me menus and food labels at the supermarket. Last year, I had also mentioned how I had found at last an app called Du Chinese that seemed like it could help me attain my goal of being able to read Chinese. Even though traveling had interrupted my regular routines, thanks to this app, I had managed to keep up learning Chinese characters. I found myself seeking out Du Chinese while waiting to board a plane or when jet-lag had robbed me of sleep. According to the app’s dashboard based on my reading of 229 lessons, I now know 1065 characters. If you take into account I started using this app over a year ago, that’s roughly an average of 2-3 characters I’ve learnt per day. Talk about slow learning! But I consider it an achievement even if it might not sound like much because I have managed to stick to it.