Human Instructors and Struggling Peers
Last Fall I stopped making posts because of a variety of factors.
This Fall, due to many of the same factors, I'm once again feeling the temptation to let the blog slide off the stove.
But it's not going to happen this time. Often when you find it most difficult to do something, that's when you most need to do it.
So here we go.
On Halloween weekend, Jack, Taylor, and Noah came to visit.
They got round trip tickets from Atlanta to NYC for $42. Thanks corona.
I can't put it into words exactly, but there's something different about high school friends as compared to college friends.
I think most people do the majority of their growing as a person in high school, and so the friends you make in high school get to witness that.
Consequently, they can understand how you work with less effort.
And maybe it's not about high school specifically, but about the friends you make when you're young.
Those relationships are valuable, and offer large returns if kept up properly.
My guess is that, overall, Halloween 2020 was the least exciting Halloween ever. But there was still cool stuff going on. Like the pirate ship bike, for example ⬇
Inspired by the pirate ship bike, we decided to bike from the UWS all the way to Brooklyn.
Jack, Taylor, and Noah used CitiBikes, which we discovered are not all created equally.
Some of them are electric powered, some of them are twice as heavy as the others, and some have deflated tires.
This caused each of us to have vastly differing top speeds.
We finished over the scenic Brooklyn bridge.
It's pretty cool that we can make stuff like this.
It's cool that we can put our resources towards something better in the future than we have now.
Instead of choosing expedient gratification, we have the choice to delay it for an improved future.
And you may think oh well if I delay the gratification, then the present will be miserable.
But that's only the case if you have just started delaying your gratification.
Otherwise, you will be constantly catching up to, and enjoying, your improved future while still trading expedience for delayed gratification.
Sounds like stocks...
It's fun to wander around and go wherever looks interesting.
At lunch we tried to estimate the number of pizza restaurants in New York. Turns out its pretty difficult to qualify a pizza place, but we think it's about 1,500.
Our ultimate destination in Brooklyn was the bouldering place under the Manhattan Bridge. The different courses are marked by color, each corresponding to a level of difficulty.
It's a lot harder than it looks.
We were sore on Sunday.
On Sunday it Rained.
Rainy days are perfect for museums, so we braved the one block commute to the Natural History Museum.
The Hayden planetarium, which is part of the Museum of Natural history, is directed by Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist), not by Mike Tyson (boxer).
Although I'm sure both would bring fascinating exhibits.
Chinatown
No trip to New York would be complete without a visit to Chinatown.
While walking around, Noah mentioned that he would pay $20 for a fake Rolex.
Immediately a secret shop door opened up and a guy ushered us in to look at his all his super real Rolexes.
It was like when you say something and a couple minutes later your phone is showing you ads related to it, except in real life.
Chinatown is actually kind of beautiful.
There are so many different patterns and colors here that don't exist in the rest of the city.
Lots of pigeons too.
We had a great weekend.
I love having visitors, please come visit me.
Oh and we went to Charlotte too.
I love how we pick up as if no time has passed since we lived within 100 ft of each other for 4 years.
This trip was short and sweet.
Can't wait until we all live in the same culdesac.
As we exist in increasingly digital and attention driven environments, it's important to emphasize our human connections whenever we get the chance.
Are you there? Yes, I hear you. You are not alone.