6. Listen to The Silence
March 15th 2020, Sunday
Dear Blog,
Yesterday was probably the first day that I felt I could breathe in a quite while. I finished a couple of group projects due on Friday, and school got officially suspended. I spent the morning writing and learning before feeling hungry. Then I decided to go shopping for groceries and had KFC at a nearby shopping mall. I had a craving for fried chicken since during school days I don’t eat fried food at all. Given the circumstances it was about the riskiest thing I could do, eating out in a restaurant in public, but there were hardly any people. I waited 15 minutes for a simple order, which made the fried chicken taste even better. I think for me it would probably be the last time dining in at a restaurant in the foreseeable future.
I have been watching data visualization classes on LinkedIn Learning (formally know as Lynda.com before it was acquired by LinkedIn in 2015. Then Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016. I had a memory of this because when I was in college we actually used Lynda.com for almost all the editing software tutorials. How the time has changed). There were a few classes on storytelling with data, and I was immediately hooked as if something really clicked in my brain. For the past few weeks, I have been debating whether I should learn the programming language for data science like SQL, R or Python. I should probably learn all of them because you need as much skill as you can these days. But I couldn’t get started because it felt like a panic response out of the anxiety that I couldn’t find an internship in Germany for the past few months and I think having a hard skill is probably the only way moving forward. On top of which is the fact that Germany likes to see a consistent track record, which makes the transition much harder to implement. For someone like me who studied film and is now trying to do something else to earn a living, I’d imagine that it would give whoever is reading my resume a pause. What is this guy’s deal?
I need to find my story. Things start to make more sense now. Telling stories with data sounds really meaningful. I could definitely do that. The previous story I have been telling myself was that I only need a job in Germany as a day job, it doesn’t matter which, then I can do my own things in my spare time. With that framework, of course you don’t want to learn things. But if you find telling stories with data meaningful, it will make you curious, and curiosity is the best way to move forward.
If you feel stuck, consider changing your story.
I talked with an old friend last night for an hour and a half. She asked if I have been writing every day because I was living alone and needed someone to talk to. I didn’t think so. But after talking to her, to be perfectly honest, the urge to write today’s blog definitely went down after I woke up this morning. The previous 5 blogs felt like a blast. Thoughts and ideas flowed through me without resistance, mostly because I haven’t mentioned them to anyone. But now I feel a bit stuck. I could feel the insignificance of my thoughts and the ineptitude of my ability to convey them in a meaningful way. There is still something to be learned here.
The more a person analyzes his inner self, the more insignificant he seems to himself. This is the first lesson of wisdom. Let us be humble, and we will become wise. Let us know our weakness, and it will give us power.
— William Ellery Channing
In this special time when we are all forced to stay at home to protect ourselves and others from the spreading of coronavirus, maybe it’s a great opportunity to practice silence, to learn to listen.
I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.
— Albert Einstein
