Why digital cleanup is no fun

I like order, structure, organization. Giving things a place brings me joy. Sparks joy I guess in organizer-guru-speak. And sure, whenever I moved there were always moments of anguish and hopelessness whenever I needed to pack stuff and take it all out. The moment you have lost all of your energy and the physical stuff is all around you on the ground. Been there, done that.

However, for the organized person I am, my own digital archive is not that well-structured at all. At work, I thrive when deciding on a file naming system or cleaning up folders and putting them together. When I look at my own collection of videos, photos and (important?) documents I want to cry.

It is of course a grand paradox that because we now have seemingly infinite space to store stuff, this makes us more careless about how much stuff we create. And of course visuals take up a large part of this ‘overcreation’. Everyone probably has at least one thing that they constantly record, and mine is mostly sports.

I think many sports are some combination of techniques and visuals. And it is great that we have so much visuals to learn from and improve with, but it can also be impeding. I record myself dutifully every session, but I do not tend to look back at it too much. I know I will be focusing on a bent leg or flexed foot. Did that flow got interrupted because of the buffering or is it my movement? It simply does not spark joy for the most part.

Moreover, there is not only the stuff I film myself, I have external platforms that I check or neglect to check. There is a constant feeling of having too much and not making use of its potential. It is the opposite end of the subscription scheme. There is too much stuff we do not own, and too much of the stuff that we do own. Balance is lost.

Instead of limiting ourselves to saving the things we find very important, we are being ruled by the amount of digital space available. Enticed to pay for increased space, which just means a brief respite to look away ant not at all of the stuff that we record. I am only limited by my unwillingness to pay for things, which results in brief outbursts of downloading, deleting and quickly putting things together in one folder so everything else seems to be in order. Eventually I will look at it. Probably not.

A Taste of News: Rocking that wall

As many in my direct circle know, I read quite some news. I try to mention at least once per day that I read something in the news, casually, in a conversation. And since commentary and reviewing is something else I like to do, I thought of starting a series where I write my thoughts about an article I read. A lot of them will be related to China, since that is one of the topics I follow most closely.

Rock Climbing Gains Traction as After-Work ‘Meditation on a Wall’
Sixth Tone

I like mountains. Living in the Netherlands, I feel the lack of mountains has increased my need for height. At the same time, it sometimes seems that bouldering and climbing both exploded in popularity the last few years.

When I was still swiping on the dating app, the algorithm seemed to discover fairly quickly that it should show me some sporty guys. As a result, almost every other guy was either an avid skiing fan or a bouldering champion. In real life, the balance seems to be quite different, although my current partner also boulders.

For the Chinese, it is almost surprising that the sport is only now catching on. Bouldering and climbing seem quite adjacent to martial arts disciplines. It reminds me of Shaolin monks who could probably (not really) scale boulders and mountains without any problems. Unsurprisingly, the article mentions that practitioners do find the sport quite meditative.

Another thing that surprises me in the popularity of bouldering is that it is not very competitive. Although this is a broad generalization, my memories of doing sports in China is that you are pushed to do something to become good at it and so that you can then win. I guess the lack of competition makes it a good antidote for the rat race that is modern society.

Moreover, the article mentions that climbing is also becoming more popular. With all the empty flats and skyscrapers, I guess there should be a good opportunity to turn those locations into climbing gyms. It is at least slightly safer than turning them into bungee jumping attractions.

The friend circle: Olympics & book

In WeChat there is this nifty feature called ‘friend circle’, which is basically akin to a Facebook timeline. Since I am not in China anymore, I do not actively follow most of what is happening in the friend circle anymore. To motivate myself to check it out a bit more often, I will list some random things I saw while scrolling down. It is also a nice way to keep a bit of a pulse on what is happening in China, of course subjectively.

Olympics

I am very uninterested in watching most sports. I am very interested in doing some sports, but the Olympics that are currently happening, do not really interest me at all. However, I saw quite some posts in my friend circle about this Japanese gymnast. Apparently he made a grave error, but still got high points regardless. And people are now critiquing the judge, the gymnast and the Olympics as unfair, partial and shameless. To be honest, I really cannot understand all the fuss being made about these things. And it is very easy to just write on Twitter “THE JUDGES NEED TO GET THEIR EYES CHECKED” if you can do that from the comfort of your home, while probably sitting down. Things the sporters are not doing.

The most interesting things about sports, is the similar reactions you see by almost everyone. The comments, about the judge’s eyes, or the sporter being a failure, or the sarcasm that he got his points is uniform. Sports really unite. But in a most ugly way.

Book

A book that one of my contacts bought, popped up that seemed interesting. The title is Seeking A Little Upward Mobility Amidst A Frenetic Life. In English, the title sounds like every other self-help book which is probably correct since the blurb says: “[This] is a spiritual book by a famous author. Listen to famous authors talk about how they read, how to keep their inner peace. How to learn to be silent, and how to cherish time. Life is too chaotic, but that doesn’t stop us from getting ahead.”

I have a sort of innate dislike of self-help books. On the other hand, I always try to motivate myself to read more. Especially in Chinese. I can read Chinese quite well, but it goes very slow. Kind of like French, where I can understand pretty much everything but prefer to look up at least 1 word per page just to make sure. And that transition to the dictionary does not go very smooth unfortunately. The story does not continue there. So a Chinese book always serves as a welcome reminder, that I would like to not spend a whopping 7 years on finishing another Chinese book, but that if I would still do should better start now.

Weathering through the days

To be honest, I think caring about the weather is just another sign of adulthood. When you’re a kid you go out if it rains cats and dogs, get totally dirty and still convince your parents to just let you shower next week. Now I still do not shower that regularly, but before I go out nowadays, I rigorously refresh a weather app or website.

Now, this change started to come in China, because besides regular weather forecasts, there was also the smog alerts. If you knew next week was going to be shrouded in grey mists, it would make you much more motivated to go outside while it was still acceptable. Afterwards, the pandemic broke out and the only thing we can do is go out. So besides being much more glued to our screens already, we have another thing we can check through them.

And to be honest, sometimes it is kind of fun. Since sports is only possible outside now since I need a certain height, I try to maximize the time that I can be outside. It may be dry at 15.00 on Sunday. But then again there may be wind, rain, snow who knows.

Which is by the way a crazy phenomenon which I also experienced in China in August. I think rain and hail at very unexpected moments, in great quantities, is one of the most shocking things to experience. It is cold, but not as cold as it normally is when these things happen, but more importantly it is very useless. Everything disappears in a matter of minutes or hours, it is all so futile. Like your life flashes by in a few seconds.

And the problem, especially in the Netherlands, is that forecasts are notoriously unreliable. You can only feel cheated. It follows almost the same age-old adagio of bring your umbrella so you can make sure it does not rain. Put on your rain boots so you surely do not need them. On the other hand, we do have beautiful skies here. The best solution may be to just stare at them a bit more often to just see what is actually happening up there.

A picture says more than 1.000 words

It is no secret that most Asians like to take photos. Like a lot. Like an awful lot. Of everything.

Personally, it’s not that I dislike taking pictures, but mainly a case of laziness. I mostly find things either not important enough to take photos of, or I would rather experience the thing with my own eyes. Very millennial-appropriate in a certain sense I guess.

Not so in China. Since I do a sport that is very visually attractive (aerial silks), many people’s first reason to do one of the moves is to take a picture. That is fine, honestly, if it gets you motivated to do it that is good. However, sometimes these people also try out more difficult tricks and poses just because they look good. Obviously not fine.

Equally annoying are people who never come to class, but take tons of photos the one time they come. A friend who dances at a studio sometimes complains of the girls who cannot dance very well, but are always in front taking photos of them ‘in action’, even blocking others.

Truth be told, this behavior is probably not unique to China. At the same time, just like watching videos on your phone without earphones, it seems a lot more common in China.

Chinese people are also pretty competitive, what does it mean to do sports but nobody knows or sees it? Plus, if you have got the right clothing and your body looks nice in the big mirror, that is an opportunity to good to it pass by.

So if you are fit and active, there is only one way to show it. Just as well, if you are out of breath because of the sports anyway.