I got vaccinated (Ricky Weekly #59)
This is where I share 3 things every week with my friends and anyone else interested.
—
A picture from my life:
I spent last weekend with my twin nephews who drove up from LA to visit schools. We went to Sac State and SF State. The way they talked about it struck me as kind of crazy. We were talking about how the buildings looked and how easy it’d be to get around. Things that probably don’t matter that much. They get so little information on these visits, and the research online is mostly what the schools want you to think are important because it benefits them.
A thing on my mind:
Jessica drove me to the Coliseum to get the J&J vaccine a few days before they took them off the shelves. I was gonna go by myself, but Jess insisted on driving me because it’s a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event. It’s kind of an amazing PR win that Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are considered more premium even though they are less convenient and based on a brand new technology that has never been deployed at this massive scale. Usually people are afraid of new tech, especially if it’s being injected into your body, but man, what a win.
On our way to get the vaccine, with full sanity and free of drugs, I realized that my personal preferences are not really my preferences. I don’t like visiting nature because I’m allergic to all kinds of trees and grass. I don’t like sweet desserts because for I had bad cavities for a while growing up. I love driving because that’s the only way to guarantee I won’t get carsick. I prefer friends who are sensitive and compassionate like Jess because I’m also on the more sensitive side. This felt like a drug-induced discovery but I swear I was sober.
A friend sent me a podcast with Peter Thiel talking about why many founders have signs of Asbergers, which piqued my interest because that felt true to me anecdotally. Thiel’s explanation is that our society forces you to conform to mediocrity, so it’s a lot of friction to be different unless you have the ability to tune out socially. Thiel goes on to indict the society, but it probably makes sense for society to stay a relatively stabilizing force as long as on an individual level we can be more open-minded and make it easier for people to find their peers like in Silicon Valley.
Someone asked me the other day how I make friends so easily, so I thought about it. The reason is probably just that I’m genuinely interested and curious about people, and they can probably sense that when I talk to them? On that note, I’ve had this idea of wanting to highlight and share my friends more. Humans of New York style, but with my own spin. Brandon at HoNY spends a lot of time taking pictures and talking to his subjects before picking out a quote that perfectly matches the mood of the photo. I can’t do that, but maybe I can try to capture what makes a friend fascinating to me. Would anyone want to catch up with me to let me highlight you in this newsletter? Would anyone want to read it?
A piece of content I recommend:
Justin Bieber: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert - NPR Music on YouTube
I’ve been digging JB’s new album, but this performance was something else. The slow version of Peaches and the live version of Hold On had me shook. Fun fact: the Hold On music video features Christine Ko, a Taiwanese-American actress who also stars in another show I recommended called Dave many newsletters ago. Christine Ko is the daughter of Frankie Kao, a famous pop star in Taiwan from my parents’ generation. Christine didn’t get to see her dad for 13 years while growing up, and now she’s a star just like her dad.
🤗
—
As always, you can find out what I’m thinking in more real-time on Twitter and my essays are on my website. My primary focus (and where I focus) is on Flow Club.