Waiting for the Fog to Clear

Winter mornings always come wrapped in fog. The endless milky white before your eyes signals the start of a new day. Blinking repeatedly at the disheveled, bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror, confirming you haven't contracted blindness. The fog washes out the scenery that ought to be there — and while there's a certain beauty in distant mountains seen through haze, that's really just novelty talking. When it comes time to choose a place to settle, you'd unsurprisingly pick the clear, bright, ordinary scene from memory. But if you were born in the early morning and grew up before the fog had a chance to clear — would images of sunny days still appear in your mind?

Please ignore the paragraph above. I'm not a morning person at all — early mornings aren't part of my usual operating hours, and the only fog I'd catch would be late at night. Watching friends post their 2023 year-in-review summaries, I felt the competitive urge but still couldn't defeat my chronic procrastination. It's already mid-January 2024, but Lunar New Year hasn't arrived yet, and most people probably haven't received their year-end bonuses either — so churning out a year-end review now doesn't seem too late. Clearly, my ability to rationalize hasn't declined; if anything, it's improved.

Before writing, I need a title. The topic "2023 Year-End Review" is ready-made, but using it directly feels too blunt — not quite my aesthetic. Raised in Eastern cultural tradition, I prefer things that are slightly abstract, carrying a touch of ambiguity. So I knocked on my forehead chanting "Think, Think, Think" — perhaps I knocked the brains into mush, because I couldn't think clearly anymore. Anyway, an image of fog materialized in what's left of my mind.

With 2023 being the year AI exploded, my brain seems to have picked up a few tricks from large language models. After typing the title on my phone, random characters started popping out — hence that opening paragraph. But it's not entirely random; it fits the theme. Everything I did in 2023 can be summed up as trying to walk out of life's fog. The person born at dawn is me — grown up before having time to react. My view has always been distant mountains in haze. I've never clearly seen what the mountains in the distance really look like, but I know I'm only seeing their blurry silhouette. I want to get closer. I want to understand them better.

The biggest change in 2023 was moving to a new place. If it were just relocating to another city for work, that wouldn't be much — the scenery would stay the same, and the way I interact with people wouldn't change. But I moved to a digital nomad community, whose slogan is "Interesting people of the world, unite!" Setting aside whether this slogan is legally compliant, or whether it implies that people who don't come here aren't interesting — let's be romantic about it: at least most people who show up are interesting.

Just as I resist any other labels, I'm not keen on calling myself a digital nomad. But I surrendered to their cheap accommodation, their promise of interesting people, the fantasy of seamlessly switching between work and play, and the hope of having some human warmth around me. So I came.

I only planned to visit briefly, but ended up staying for half a year. At first, I was as wide-eyed as a country mouse in a grand mansion, wanting to join every activity. Eventually, I became a seasoned regular commuting between two spots. I even worked as a community customer service rep for a quarter. If I had to name something I gained that could be put into words — perhaps it's many lovely friends. Having many friends is great, but a person can't be made of friends alone. Sometimes you need to focus on yourself.

Before the customer service gig, I was in the honeymoon phase of arriving somewhere new — chatting, walking, attending events every day. It was all emotional experience, hard to articulate what changed. The biggest change was the lifestyle shift itself.

During the three months of customer service, I encountered all kinds of people — difficult ones, completely unreasonable ones, and some whose communication style defied comprehension. That was precisely why I wanted to try it: to see more kinds of people, to reshape or expand my worldview, and to overcome my social anxiety. Over those three months, these things did improve slightly — not much, but a good starting point. Who expects massive transformation in three months?

After leaving the customer service job, I had a bit more free time. People are like that — the moment you're idle, your mind starts wandering. So I began pondering life's ultimate questions: Who am I? Where am I from? What am I doing? Where am I going? Though none of these questions have answers, some reflection on self and past experiences during that idle time seemed to shift my self-perception. I won't elaborate on the process — the result is that I became more outwardly confident and less inwardly arrogant. Many ideas became firmer. The morning fog lifted, just a bit. The world became a little clearer.

That's enough about the digital nomad community. Many details might get their own post someday.

In 2023, I also picked up some new skills: basic land-surfing, a general idea of how guitar works, and getting my driver's license.

As someone who'd only seen the ocean once, surfing wasn't an option. But land-surfing, which simulates surfing, was pretty fun — feeling your body gradually learn to find balance amid the swaying. Learning a purely physical skill, where you see clear improvement in the short term, really drives home Naval's frequently cited idea that humans are basically bundles of habits.

For someone accustomed to purely theoretical skills like computer programming, I started realizing I'd been overvaluing theory and neglecting practice. Repetitive practice always felt too tedious — there's that habit again. Every time I tried learning music, the thought "I understand the theory, so why can't I play?" would land me in the cold palace of "I'm just not cut out for this."

Near the end of the year, some friends spontaneously formed a band and performed for everyone. None of them were professionals, but the atmosphere was genuinely moving. So I got the itch to try learning music again. Music has always moved me deeply — I often stare at the player interface while listening instead of treating it as background noise, and I frequently replay music videos. Hopefully this attempt makes some progress.

While the music journey hasn't gone far yet, on actual physical roads, 2023 brought change — I finally got my driver's license. I'd always thought driving was too much hassle: finding parking everywhere, having to retrace your route after outings, and most importantly, not being able to afford a car. But last year, some friends in Chengdu would sometimes rent cars for trips, and I realized occasional car rentals were actually quite nice. So I went and got my license — though nearly a year later, I still haven't driven.

Now for things I'd already been doing. Reading and studying English are probably the only two things I've been consistently doing. Progress has been glacially slow, but at least this restless, easily-distracted person has stuck with them.

English has been my eternal pain. I've tried every method with little success, but I keep at it. Currently, I've settled on two approaches: reading books and watching shows. Books for new vocabulary, shows for ear training and listening.

English books I finished in 2023: Make Something Wonderful, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. There were some scattered unfinished ones I can't quite remember. As for shows — nothing left a strong impression; I just watched whatever.

I also met many friends with excellent English, and others who, like me, were learning through reading English books. The former serve as aspirational targets; the latter are accountability partners. That's the beauty of getting out there — you meet people you'd never encounter in your usual circles. Seeing different kinds of people helps you figure out what you want and how to get there.

Besides English books, I spent about half my time reading Chinese books for different purposes. Though I've maintained the reading habit, many books I really did abandon halfway through. Chinese books I finished in 2023: The Bucket List, Submarines at Night, Kon-Tiki, Tokyo Eight Square Meters, The Metamorphosis, The Black Sheep in the White Flock, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, and Irrational Man. Still mostly novels. Each could be discussed at length, but laziness prevented that, so I won't elaborate here.

I didn't read at all for several months after first moving, but I roughly met my year-start goal (at least 12 books, minimum 3 in English). This year, I'm not setting any plans — just going with the flow.

Now let's review my output.

Starting with my day job — what did I make as a programmer? Of the three apps I planned to launch at the start of the year, two made it to the App Store: "AssisChat" and "Lofyee." But they merely launched — for various reasons, neither received further updates.

In "AssisChat," I added an in-app purchase that doesn't actually unlock any additional features. Yet some people still bought it — not many, but this remains one of the most heartwarming things of the year. There are still people in this world willing to purely support others, even though I ultimately let them down by not continuing to update...

Beyond apps, I built a website collecting quirky products called QuWu (https://quwu.io) for technical exploration; a digital nomad info-aggregation site YouMin CO (https://youmin.co) based on my own needs; and completely rebuilt my personal website (https://nooc.me).

In summary: still don't know what I want to do. But I arguably met my year-start goal of launching three apps — after all, I only said "launch," not "maintain"...

Among my year-start goals, I also committed to writing one non-technical piece per month and four technical articles per year. Here, I really can't make excuses. While my public account has exactly 12 entries, the last one was from September 2023, and technical articles — zero.

A large part of the reason is the gap between my ability and my taste. It's not that I didn't try writing — but after drafting something, I'd decide it was worse than writing nothing at all. I kept struggling in this cycle of self-contradiction. And of course, an even larger reason: I'm lazy.

But it is what it is. Life is just a stroll through the world — there shouldn't be too many goals.

Though my title says "Waiting for the Fog to Clear," maybe sometimes you need to try walking out of the fog yourself, rather than waiting for it to dissipate on its own.

2023 was about waiting for the fog to clear. I hope 2024 brings more action to walk out of the haze — even if it's just one step further from the center.

Waiting for the Fog to Clear | My 2023