Rules of the questions page:
I can only list questions that I have no real clue how to answer.
Once I list a question, I'm obligated to search for an answer, which I'll post here if I find it. There isn't any concrete deadline though.
If someone emails me with a well-meaning attempt at an answer to one of my questions, I will post it here, even if I think they're wrong.
My email address is saddleblasters [at] gmail [etc], and I am in lost in a profound confusion, to the point that just being able to verbalize any question at all is an immensely difficult task. I have my doubts that anyone can help me, but I check my email on a daily basis.
Question #1: What is the Shanghai equivalent of going to Target at 11pm and walking around for an hour with purchasing anything, back when I lived in Baltimore and had no job?
Conversation with Moth about Question #1
Moth: Outdoor night market? Idk, is there an all-night ikea in Shanghai?
Mitch Hedburg joke about walking past the Target: "I'm practicing."
Saddle: I'm not sure if Shanghai has outdoor night markets in the way you're imagining (at least not anymore). There are some touristy areas like Tianzifang that might be described that way, and there are temporary market things that show up in a few areas where people sell clothes or art pieces or whatever else. Neither of these seem very Target-like to me. Ikea closes at 9pm so I could go there for about an hour after work, but the one in the city center closed a few years ago. The closest one is near Yishan Rd station, which also has some other mallish buildings that seem promising. I often pass by them while running and think about going in, since they possess that sense of rundown grandeur that I like. Running all the time, seeking areas where I can be in motion with minimal obstruction, has given me lots of places like that that seem to possess a certain allure from the outside, but since they exist in running land and not walking land (that is, I've never naturally been just walking in those areas) I've never gone in.
As an unimportant aside, I didn't actually know who Mitch Hedberg was. Sometimes I feel like my lack of interest in stand up comedy is a serious handicap when it comes to "understanding the culture", since it cuts me off from a massive repository of pithy jokes, statements, and observations about the world we live in -- but there's something about the format that makes it difficult for me to sit down and watch/listen. When stand up comedy finds its way to me, it's as disembodied quotes, yet everyone else seems to put great weight on the personalities/moral characters of the people making these quotes. This gives me a lot of anxiety about thinking about these quotes too deeply -- it feels like playing with fire. My own personality is hard enough to fathom, without having to make sense of the personalities of public figures I know nothing about.
Question #2 (a restatement of Question #1): What should I be doing with my workday evenings? (I'm not really sure how I currently spend them -- they seem to just fade away without my realizing it.)
Conversation with Moth about Question #2
Moth: Cuddling with bae ;). Sacrificing the rest of your hours so you remember why they're valuable. Doing things you find odd or uncomfortable. Enjoyably wasting time. Go to work, drink a beer, and watch TV is the American Dream, just relax. On the brink of disaster.
Saddle: Part of the issue is I don't know how to waste time enjoyably, only unenjoyably. What's the last thing you've done that was an enjoyable waste of time?
Question #3: How does one have an interesting conversation? What is there to talk about? What does it mean for something to be interesting? (Three versions of the same question.)
Conversation with Moth about Question #3
Moth: You need at least two agreeable people talking about a subject that holds depth for both parties. The conversation can be especially interesting to see where their opinions and experiences diverge. The excuse for a conversation should be an event, hanging out, or walking along streets. Sounds exhausting, doesn't it?
There's literally everything to talk about. Poets will talk about toenails if you let them. Start a conversation. Be brave, to venture a guess.
What is "interesting" is something I want to know more about or think about.
Is the real question about how to have a meaningful conversation with a friend or how to start one with a stranger?
Saddle: The context of this question is that I've been reading Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades recently, which is basically just the narrator getting into conversations with people and hearing their curious anecdotes. I've been thinking about what qualifies as a "good conversation" I've had in the past. Obviously there is a whole class of conversations that are good because they involve getting to know someone better or growing closer to them. Those weren't really what I was thinking about when I asked this. What I had in mind more was hypothetical scenarios where I find myself with someone I find interesting after we've already gotten to know each other -- I feel like I'm almost always at the mercy of the other person being a good conversationalist in these situations. The only way I hear about interesting stories and anecdotes is if they're overflowing with the need to tell me -- but that seems to put the majority of what's actually interesting out of reach. But when I start thinking in these terms, I wonder what it means for something to be interesting in the first place, thus these questions. Maybe these are just the circles one goes in when thinking too abstractly.
As for your response, I agree about opinions and experiences diverging being the most interesting thing. Something that gets in my way a lot is this anxious need to find commonality when I'm talking to people I don't know well. It's mostly not necessary, and goes away the more at ease I am.
Question #4: Is there someone or something I'm forgetting? Have I been on an extended hiatus from something without realizing it? What does it feel like to come out of hiatus?
Conversation with Moth about Question #4
Moth: Reflect more on what is causing you pain. Nauseating trauma of unbelonging and confusion, inability to speak. If you're like I think, like me, then it's a pretty common condition. Ask for advice, talk to a priest or a monk, they're used to confessing and helping. I don't guarantee it'll be good, but when the pupil is ready the teacher appears or something.
Saddle: This question isn't really coming out of a place of pain (none of these are, I think). I've just been having the nagging sensation I've forgotten my 本意, my original intention. I unfortunately don't know any priests or monks, and I'm not sure if confession is what I need right now. In fact, I think part of where my confusion comes from, and perhaps part of why you're answering the way you are, is that I've gotten so used to confessing things, that it's become muscle memory, to the point that I have trouble thinking about my life in other terms. This relates to Question #3 above as well, since my overly-confessional tendencies might limit the kinds of conversations I have.
I suppose the hunch I have lying behind these two questions is that my forgotten 本意 is hidden inside other people, but I can't find it by searching them. I have to take another approach. But this might just be a vaguely religious fairytale I've conjured. I'm not sure what basis it has in reality.
Question #5: Has anyone walking past me on the street ever had the same vaguely pleasant sensation I have when I see a girl with interesting hair or makeup or clothing walk by?
Conversation with Moth about Question #5
Moth: Uh, I haven't walked past you on the street, but yes. You pass a lot of people with a lot of feelings, whole worlds going on you never see. I like to compliment girl strangers I'll never see again. Yes to the feeling, I look quickly at people and away. Always hoping something will happen, and it doesn't. But I'd be worried if I was dating someone and looking at others. Would need to reconsider bonds.
Saddle: I don't have much to respond to this, but I liked this sentence you wrote, so I'll repeat it: "You pass a lot of people with a lot of feelings, whole worlds going on you never see."
Question #6: Why was I so entranced with the idea of working in an office in a big East-Asian metropolis that I went ahead and did it? Why do I continue to fantasize of offices -- of any office but my own? Why do all other offices feel real, and mine like an accidental miscreation of an office?
Question #7: How does one savor/appreciate a typhoon? Is it better to go outside and get rained on all day long, or to sit at home and listen to the rain and wind? Is there a third option?
Question #8: Is there anyone on the internet that I should actually be reading? What is the forefront of internet writing these days? Can I access it without opening a Substack URL?
Question #9: Should I be recording my dreams daily, and if so, how should I go about it? I often wake up from one dream at 3 or 4 am. Instead of going back to sleep immediately, should I take out a notebook and write down what I just witnessed in the realm of the subconsciousness? But how do I deal with writing in the darkness? I don't want to wake up the person slumbering next to me.
Question #10: Related to Question #3, is there a conversation I've never even thought to broach before, that would in a single instant open my mind to endless new possibilites? If so, what is it?