Records About Life#
It's Raining All Over the World - The Usefulness of Sharing Confusion#
These days, I listened to a conversation titled "Zhang Lixian × Zhou Yijun: It's Raining All Over the World" at the Duku Reader Annual Meeting on the Duku APP. Well, I originally thought I was alone in the drizzle, but it turns out that perhaps the whole world is in the rain. We all face specific environments and situations, and we all have our own helplessness.
In the conversation, there was mention of "sharing confusion," which refers to sharing the things that have confused us for a long time, such as "why children don't eat," "why children don't study well," and "how to handle cooperation with subordinates."
Sharing happiness may double it, and sharing confusion may make it feel less severe. Since there are so many people who are better than me and have so many confusions, and even say they don't want to talk, then my confusion is really nothing, and it will all pass.
Since I started writing my weekly journal on xlog, I often face self-doubt - is writing this low-nutrition weekly journal a futile act? Is it even harmful to others? What should be the purpose of my weekly journal? And what kind of lesson should I convey in it?
Over time, I have gradually let go of these doubts. I found a possible answer from "Roasted Meat's Weekly Journal" - "simply recording one's life is enough to attract people." Every time I read his words, I feel like an old friend sitting in front of me, softly telling me about his fresh experiences. Especially when we have common interests and shared problems, a sense of familiarity arises.
Unlike a tool-oriented blog, writing a weekly journal is not just about recording life, but also expressing doubts and contemplation from the heart. This itself has the power to make people empathize and make confusion less lonely.
As for the struggle against rainy days, I figured it out last week - "find something to do." Since it's raining all over the world, I might as well face it and work hard. Panic and anxiety cannot solve the immediate problems, but immersing oneself in practical actions often brings unexpected clarity and calmness. Just like what I did last week and this week.
26th Birthday - A Year of Terribleness but Starting to Think#
🍰 I'm 26 years old.
It's true, ever since I turned 18, every birthday has just been adding one more year, without any elements worth celebrating. Before turning 18, each year added some rights, but after turning 18, each year added obligations. So the only birthday worth celebrating is before turning 18 - from "No Game No Life 12" (not the original text).
In the past few years, my birthdays were always celebrated with excitement by my colleagues at work. But this year, I chose to "skip class" and went back home. This time, my family celebrated my birthday, and looking back, it's been about ten years since I had a birthday cake at home.
This year, to be honest, has been a very difficult year for me. I feel like I've reached a certain low point in my life. Just like mentioned earlier, it feels like the whole world is in the rain, and it seems like the clouds of misfortune are hanging over my head.
(I also had a birthday party in Animal Crossing)
But even so, I did something right. This is a screenshot of my 120 days on xlog, coincidentally with 120 followers. "Start writing something" is the only thing I did right in the past half year. Sometimes, the turning point in life can come so easily. I had heard about xlog when it was first launched, but I thought it was troublesome and didn't pay much attention to it. Until one day, I really stepped into this cyber bar and tried ordering a cocktail (writing an article). The gears in my life that had been stagnant for a long time finally started turning again.
French Fries on the Hour - "Honkai Impact 3rd: Star Rail"#
As a long-time fan of miHoYo, I finally fell into the pit. (It's ironic because last week I said I would resist playing). This weekend, I defeated Kiana Kaslana and finally completed the initial storyline of version 1.0. It was my first time experiencing such a futuristic mobile game.
The biggest surprise is how immersive the Chinese voice acting is in the game. The dialogues didn't feel awkward at all.
In this virtual world, each character has their own unique background story, making me involuntarily want to know more. Different characters have different branching storylines to develop their personalities. The story of the space station is quite interesting, and each small story allows me to understand the background of one or two characters. Alan's "From Me," "From the Mirror," and "From the Heart" training, as well as the misunderstanding with his female boss, made me laugh. 🫠 "Mr. Danheng, I salute you as a man," is indeed hilarious when March 7, as an alternate timeline version of Kiana, appears. Clara's background is still a mystery, and I don't know if there will be more of Clara's storyline in the future. And Bronya and Seele are together (pseudo 🤣).
Playing this game pushed my tablet to its limit. I have an M1 tablet, and usually, 90% of the time I use it to read manga through mox.moe + Kindle, and it couldn't even handle the effects of iQiyi. Now it finally has a purpose.
PS. It was because of the line "Tech geeks save the world" in Honkai Impact that I chose to major in software engineering. But after playing "NieR: Automata," I realized "games can be so good," and I retired from the mobile game world.
(I can't replay the completed storyline, so I only took a few not-so-good screenshots)
Emoji Packs and Introduction to Photo Editing#
Because I set up a Telegram bot last week, I became interested in exploring awesome-telegram this week. I discovered a few official bots that I had long ignored and learned how to create Telegram emoji packs. It's quite simple - "crop => generate a 512 * 512 PNG image with fixed pixels" (I originally wanted to do high-resolution reconstruction of the images, but 512 * 512 is sufficient in most cases).
Taking this opportunity, I wanted to learn about photo editing tools, so I asked Yu Jun. Although my needs are only for creating emoji packs, it's good to be prepared with the right tools~ His list is really amazing, and I find it more and more useful. In the past, when I wanted to use a certain type of software, I would search on Google, Zhihu, or Bilibili, and it would be overwhelming, not knowing if it was a promotional article or a genuine comparison and evaluation article. (So I decided to get Affinity Photo during Black Friday)
(After looking through the screenshot list on my iPad, I made some selections)
Well, I made the first version of the meme emoji pack, but even after making it, there's no one to chat with (I'm a fool with not many friends). I once tried to invite many people to join Telegram, but as time passed, they gradually became "Deleted Account," so I gradually gave up on inviting friends and classmates from real life.
Maybe it's because I have fantasies about distant things. I'm the kind of person who doesn't like what's around me but likes what's far away. That's why I like other worlds so much, like a pure cyber electronic person.
(I scrolled through the screenshot list on my iPad and made some selections)
Technical Matters#
- Cloudflare: I thought Cloudflare's billing based on usage was a good thing, but it turns out it's just a way to attract people into the pit. In reality, it's still not cheap.
- MongoDB: Well, I figured out how to deploy a MongoDB cluster and how to make it more secure. I'll organize it and share it as a TIL in a few days.
Input#
I was busy all week and didn't have much input. Maybe I can read some articles tomorrow. Clean up my inoreader list.
"Another" - A Post-Reading Review Written After Ten Years#
Nowadays, even for works I really like, I forget about them after a while. But this one is completely different. I read it more than ten years ago when I was still in high school.
Even though I liked it a lot in recent years, I forget about it after a while. This work is the complete opposite. I didn't like it that much back then, but maybe because it had a lot of suspense and horror elements, it shocked me as a child and left a deep impression.
What scared me the most was the death scene of the umbrella piercing the throat, and the unforgettable scene of the real-life students being electrocuted. The imagination of the two ignored people dancing together in class is perhaps the only part that made me smile. The whole story feels very oppressive.
Afterword#
This time when I look at my parents, it's like how my parents used to look at me. It's a feeling similar to "hating iron for not becoming steel." It's actually quite uncomfortable to see them stuck in such a narrow understanding of the world.