Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

As the continuing Russo-Ukrainian War upends the lives of Ukrainian people, with the world following their plight on both traditional and social media, a much less noticed upending of ordinary lives is also happening in Russia. Western companies, from McDonald's and Microsoft to Accenture and Ikea, are rapidly shutting down their operations, depriving the country's residents of the products and services that they have grown used to since the same firms entered and expanded in the Russian market in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse.

I told myself that I can do this. Yet, the Word document remains blank. “I need a sentence, just a simple idea to get this thing off the ground.” The mind was reaching a state of frenzied desperation, even as the fingers remained motionless on the keyboard. They say they do not accept “garbage” for output. But have they never heard of the saying that one man’s trash is another’s treasure? Maybe what I think is the mundane would be interpreted as extraordinary when read elsewhere.

The elevator going up to the third floor of the nondescript office building in front of Chiba Station was old. The doors closed so slowly after the third-floor button is pressed that I had to wonder if the maintenance work, and indeed if the whole thing will just stop working in its equally slow accent to the third floor that at some point, users will be trapped for hours. The building itself looked to be falling on hard times too, with unidentifiable companies of unknown business scopes occupying its equally unidentifiable office spaces.

My girlfriend is a stunningly successful career woman. A self-trained computer game and blockchain programmer, she is fluent in multiple programming languages, successful as a cryptocurrency trader, and soon to be fairly well-off when the startup she works for and holds stock in it completes its IPO. Her wide networks in the programming world mean she frequently finds herself at the receiving end headhunting messages with highly competitive compensation packages. But with the high demand for her skills, she finds no trouble finding better work anyways even without the headhunters.

Japanese and Chinese social media are respectively inundated with reactions to the misfortunes of two different athletes competing in the ongoing Beijing Winter Olympics. On the Japanese side, the ski jumper Sara Takanashi was disqualified for using a jumpsuit that violated competition rules. She apologized profusely on social media after the disqualification for contributing to Team Japan failing to secure a medal in the team event. On the Chinese side, figure skater Zhu Yi fell during her routine, contributing to China not medalling in the team competition. Videos made rounds of her crying after the fall.

Recent increases in the number of new COVID infections make for some grim reading. The city of Tokyo saw an unprecedented 20,000 cases per day for two consecutive days, with no sign that the number of infections will decline. Japan as a whole recorded 3 million cumulative cases of infections, only two weeks after hitting 2 million. With much of the population not yet receiving the third shot of the vaccine, little is there to slow down Omicron and whatever other variants that COVID will evolve to next in its quest to continue dominating the daily lives of people around the world.

Plenty of articles these days mention the correlation between social media and mental downturns at a personal level. Anyone using any social media platform would be bombarded by texts, pictures, and videos of others enjoying both their professional and personal lives. On the professional side, social media is inundated with boasts about the latest promotions, product launches, and other notable career highlights. And in private lives, others seem to be all having beautiful kids, getting married to beautiful spouses, and visiting beautiful locations for carefree vacations. It is not easy not getting jealous.