The Frick Collection

昨天去了The Frick Collection，之前一直拖拉，结果错过荷兰特展（一周前结束的）。所幸没有白跑，看到这幅Thomas Moore的手臂细节时，感到了从所未有的震撼。

Creating shared experience

Perhaps the reason we go to good restaurants, do silly things in the snow storm, or trek for days and run hundreds of miles together, is that we can create shared experience which will eventually become memories we can cherish together for decades and beyond.

Turning daily routine into memories can be hard, expensive, and distracting. But it is the equivalent of sacrificing short term gain for longer term benefit.

Oh btw, I re-learned (probably will re-learn many times more) that positive reinforcement is the best way to cultivate a healthy relationship.

Good packs - Herschel Supply

I have a confession to make. I have deep fascination of backpacks - perhaps not unlike women's love for handbags. I only like a particular type of design of backpacks. It is hard for me to describe. It is not those for backpackers, not the vibrant colors ones made for mountaineers and outdoors-men. And it is not fashionable either. By not fashionable I mean that they might be in vogue as an essential part of street fashion, but one will never find them on the catwalk.

Most of the backpacks I like are rugged, unapologetically utilitarian, sometimes playful, and always well crafted to the small details. They are very, very durable, if not water proof. They fit well into an urban environment. I don't own many such backpacks. I have one Muji Daypack for business and one Mission Workshop "The Vandal". The best thing about such kind of packs is that they are quite affordable. Even though $100-$500 range isn't by any means cheap for a backpack, it is still reasonable, for a purchase that may last a decade. But it also slightly saddens me because it will take forever for me to break one down and get a new one. These bags can go through serious abuse and come out fine as new.

Mission Workshop, The Vandal (this beast can hold 65L and weighs 4.4 pounds by itself)

Muji, simple but functional. Inside has notebook and documents compartment and a detachable pouch.

I have never owned a Herschel Supply bag. They are quite common on the streets of New York. Very identifiable for their simple, and yet classic design. They have such playful tones in the color combination that I can not get over with.

So it is 2014

2014 will be the year of writing and reading, the return of my intellectual life - thinking, reflection, and perhaps some hint of planning. I have said before that making new year resolutions is slightly stupid activity, as it really makes to sense to manually insert a fake hard stop in one's life every 365 years. One's life should be marked by events and actions in a time-space continuum, not by holidays.

For quite some time, between my last serious reading of "Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance" and some finance book during my flight back two weeks ago, the "leisure thinking" stopped all together as the result of the lack of reading. Gone were the moments of enlightenment and small rush of happiness. Only recently I came to realize that reading, any form of reading, is really a conversation with my intellectual, critical mind. The forced feeding of information inevitably call for questions and answers, debates, or eventual enlightenment.

2014 should also be a year of doing, decisive, lean-start-up-style actions with rapid iterations. Too many good moments were lost between thinking and wasting my time online.

Looking back of my 2013, it is unfair to call it a year of stagnation. Professionally, it has been truly a year of stagnation - the blame is on myself completely. But it is a very different story in my boss' eyes. As a team we did great - significant improvement in firm-wide ranking and we left a good impression on others. But I know I have done too little, pushed myself too little, and wasted too much time on irrelevant things. So professionally I feel the obligation to call 2013 a wasted year.

Most of my personal growth in 2013 happened emotionally. There are plenty of times when I was forced to deal with challenges posed by my better half and the nit-picking self. I have learned a lot about tolerance and conflict resolution. I tend to be less angry and more comfortable with how things are.

1314

今天我在这里写下一些东西，纪念近四年的爱情终成正果。这里总结大于煽情，大部分的文字，大概只是作为日后回忆之用。

10月里的求婚现在看来已经遥不可及，我已经需要打开日历才能找到那个特殊的日子。求婚前一天我用半天时间勘察和选定了地点，也制定了备选方案。当天我显得胸有成竹，一切都按照计划行进，唯一的遗憾是被云层遮盖的太阳。

求婚的那片海滩人迹罕至，唯一的一家游客在为我跪地喝彩完以后离开了。现场除了摄影师，只有一头好奇的小海豹，和云层后面偶尔散发出月光的夕阳。我已经无法逐字回忆起跪下的那一刻说过的话，内容大致跟大海以及内心的平静有关。那十几秒里面，没有什么颤抖的语句或者奔涌的眼泪，想来也符合两个人从来温润绵长的关系。

后来的婚礼有两场，深圳温情而圆满，杭州尴尬而诡异。把后者从记忆里去掉不难，但那场婚宴会一直和别的记忆挂钩，是令人叹息的省略号。这两场婚宴，其实都是父亲们社会关系的阅兵仪式，观众和演员的职责他们自己都很清楚，现在最深刻的记忆，是深圳那场僵直的面部肌肉，和杭州那场头上汇聚的汗珠。

在仪式以前很久（将近一年），我就自以为过上了婚后的生活，两个人进出同一个称之为家的地方，做饭，做家务，互相嫌弃、和解、爱恋。两个人之间始终有一股坚固的纽带。事到如今，我们对彼此那些令人烦躁的缺点都了然于心。我们似乎也知道缺点难以改变，能改变的，只有忍耐力的上限。夫妻间的默契，大概就立足于对彼此缺陷的容忍，和双方对提高忍耐力的不懈努力。

最近的一年半里，我身上的焦虑慢慢消散，似乎因为找到合适伴侣这个事情，已经足以让我停下对人生的索取。她的一举一动都令我安心、她给人的安全感，和知道地球时刻在转动一样可靠。