I met up with one of my mutuals in UC Berkeley on a walk and talk. We happened to walk all the way up to the Memorial Stadium starting from Binge Coffee and through the campus. It was obviously closed, but we slithered through the the gates that were slightly open. What a beautiful view our entrance gave us. A perfect noon sunlight, 63,000 empty blue and yellow seats glistening and some shaded, a trio of jocks were practicing out in the middle of the field, yelling. While lunging across the sections, we decided to sit down in the shade below the press box, sipping on our decent vietnamese coffee.

“What are good days and bad days?” I never really thought about that. I loved their point of view, but I fear I can’t capture it perfectly in this blog, you’d have to talk to them. You are very lucky if you actually do.

Paraphrasing with obviously less detail, good days to them were days where reality was tolerable. They believed that people on average had more good days than bad ones.

God, I loved that day. But to be honest, “reality” in itself sounded very vague to me. Maybe I didn’t really understand what it meant to me?

Answer #

Looking back at it, I happened to take their worldview to heart and make it my own.

To me, what is a good day and a bad day?

Recently, I woke up thinking about what is to come. What will this day bring me? It brought up some form of anxiousness that wasn’t anxiousness. It was uncertainty. I had nothing going on that day to be honest, just the same old shit, a job and the real work afterwards. The true feeling of uncertainty was brought up by the concept of accepting reality.

When this feeling comes up, a mental piece of paper with a couple tick boxes and a signature line appears. Will I be okay and able to do things that will have no impact? Will I be okay and able to manipulate anything when I’m prompted to, and will I be okay with the output no matter what it is? Will I be okay with existing, showing my self whether it’s true or not, to myself and others, and therefore live?

If I’m able to check all of these boxes and sign it, It’s already a good day. Most of the time I’m able to sign this paper 99% of the time. There’s something about making it explicit. It implies an understanding of the world and self which makes it feel easily agreeable. In this context, signable. I’m essentially accepting reality to make my own reality. If I check the boxes, then I am putting those feelings into existence. If I sign the paper, then I am ultimately okay with manipulating anything, specifically my worldview and self.

A recent good day I had was very casual. I went to this Vietnamese restaurant that I visit once in a while, specifically for their Vietnamese coffee. Looking at their menu, I was curious about their banh mi’s and wanted to know if they were any good. After ordering, I sat down and read some blogs. Gazing outside the restaurant, I thought, “I wonder what it feels like to be Lindy¹” while remembering my European mutuals posting their coffee and croissant at an outdoor cafe on a beautiful lazy noon. I decided to try it out, a fraction of being Lindy. I sat down, sipped on my coffee, and read for a whole hour. It came to a point where the clerk walked up to me and asked me if everything was okay. I guess no one really does this at their restaurant, but I just had to do it to know. I did things that had no impact, I was able to manipulate my own worldview and love it, and I most importantly lived.

It’s honestly been a while since I haven’t accepted reality. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been super depressed lately or actually been through any hardships. Maybe this is all just bias of having an average life.

Anyways. all of this is pseudo-chungus-slop, but it honestly helps me feel at ease to have my own system of evaluating and living life. This is probably common sense? Not sure, haven’t observed enough or met that much different people.