red light
last modified on jan 14, 2026
yeah, i’m aware that i have been revamping the whole website more than i have been writing content to upload. the whole thing wasn’t even done once but twice, and i still keep adding features to it. anyway, the site name has changed to vaeseth.me, and it is temporary; i will change the site name to vaeseth.github.io once this .me domain expires.
anyway, one more year has passed and a new year has come upon us. i will turn 20 this year. i don't know how much different it will be than the time when i turned 17 or 18 or 19. why i think this is because nothing really changed in all those years except my ways. it’s not that i feel more overwhelmed or underwhelmed. i have failed in doing some things so many times that now i don’t try to not fail, but i try to not fail as often as i usually do.
in the past few weeks, i was getting close to knowing what my fears are—everyone should do this much more often. i realized that the fear i have is that someday i will lose my way and be something different. i am not afraid of losing kindness, because i know that isn’t happening. what i mean by "lose my way" is that i will lose the focus of what i am shaping myself into. but why do i want to shape myself into something i am not? well, that itself is the answer. in addition to that, i think that i will like myself more if i become that, and i will be more kind.
this thing that i am trying to shape myself into is not the traits of a person i idolize. as a matter of fact, i don’t idolize anyone—partly because i don’t know anyone completely enough to feel the urge to become like them, and partly because i think everyone is unique to themselves. i think trying to be "normal" to ourselves is what should be unique to ourselves (i am not saying rob a store if it feels normal to you or kill someone, if somehow that makes any sense). anyway, i have planned out some things that i want to learn, both for my interest and so that i can make myself a living.
i have read two books in these past few months: "what i talk about when i talk about running" by haruki murakami and "vagabond" by takehiko inoue. both were quite reflective. the first was a memoir, and the first of its kind that i have read. i wouldn't lie if i said the urge to build a running habit crossed my mind while reading it. in it, he talks about... well, running. you have to read it in order to know what it is about because i am unable to explain it; there are many things, just enough to satisfy you.
"vagabond" is a really good one. i liked the story, the philosophy in it, and the idea of it. i will tell you what i made of the story and what i think it was about: every "way" has an error in it or two, and the point is to not try to run away from that error but to overcome it. the error in musashi’s way wasn’t the path he took—living by the sword—the error was the spiral of killing. whoever is at the top of the spiral is "invincible under the sun," and that is what the error is, because you or anyone else can’t be at the top of a spiral. there is no top; it is just killing and killing.
to escape it, you have to throw away the want and the need to be invincible. that’s why i think sekishusai said, “invincible… it is merely a word,” and tells musashi to see deep within and know how infinite he really is. and that’s why the real musashi said, “think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.” there are two quotes from these books that i tie together in an indirect way: “even if you stand naked in front of the mirror, the mirror can't show what is inside you,” and “do you see how infinite you are?”
that is all, my dear fellas…
“do it for the people that have died for your sake, an entire generation that has nothing to say…” — the strokes
