Weekly Review #20 - The Loss of Desire to Consume

Preface

This piece is a record and reflection of my life from November 18 to November 27, 2022.

The weekend has arrived, and for once, I had no concentrated development work. I slept soundly, caught up on some missed episodes in the afternoon, and finally began writing my weekly review. It seems I’ve been delaying it for a few days each week, sneakily erasing a week’s worth of reviews. We’re back to Sunday, and a new cycle begins.

This week has been a devilish schedule. I normally sleep at three or four in the morning and wake up at eight or nine. On two or three days, I didn’t sleep until after six in the morning, followed by a full day’s work. This cycle repeated itself. However, with my cat’s companionship, it wasn’t too unbearable. Being at home continuously even fostered a sense of mutual dependence.

Perhaps due to my workaholic and laid-back lifestyle, and coincidentally helping the cool senior I mentioned before to list one of her artworks as an NFT, I took my cat to her place to experience a “WeWork + cat cafe” setup. I also enjoyed two meals there. It was one of the few leisurely moments this week, and once again, I marveled at the vast difference between our lifestyles and quality of life. But each has its own joys.

As for the cat, it’s truly ungrateful. It wasn’t shy at all, easily won over by good food and fun things. It curiously explored everywhere and was reluctant to leave. All my efforts wasted. I’ll definitely strive to improve our living environment in the future (the realization of a humble cat servant).

The Loss of Desire to Consume

I used to be someone with a strong desire to consume, more like a repressed retaliatory consumption. Due to family education methods, I never had regular pocket money as a student, nor rewards for good grades (of course, there were no criticisms or punishments for poor performance either, which was fair). Instead, if I needed something, I would tell my parents, and they would buy it directly. It might have been a good model, but it was difficult to propose extra or unnecessary consumption to family members.

I still vividly remember (or perhaps I’m still hung up on) a gift I waited half a year for in primary school. I had always thought it would be a GBA SP (the flip-top, backlit GBA handheld, as I always wanted to play Pokemon), but when I received it, it was a remote-controlled helicopter. I was very disappointed at the time. Thinking about it now, it wasn’t bad; it gave me some foundation when I later learned about drones.

However, because I couldn’t immediately get what I wanted at the time, there was always a suppression of the desire to consume. When I became financially independent in my junior year, I could freely dispose of my own earnings, so I successively bought many things, especially various electronic/digital products. Some weren’t really necessities or things I truly wanted; I just enjoyed the feeling of being able to own them freely. I even developed a habit of collecting various packaging boxes (which are still neatly stacked on top of my bookshelf).

After starting work, this tendency intensified. After all, I’m in a profession that deals with software and hardware daily. Combined with my love for tinkering with various tools and applications, once I had a certain financial capacity, I started supporting genuine versions. I’ve always had significant expenses on electronic devices and software, and I even maintain a relatively popular project called “Personal Toolbox - pseudoyu/yu-tools”, which is continuously updated. At the same time, I often buy interesting Switch games, although many haven’t even been opened yet, and I’ve lost much of the mindset to slowly savor them.

I seem to be someone who doesn’t hesitate to spend on hobbies and things I like. Compared to these, my daily diet and living arrangements are rather perfunctory. But I feel that in the past six months, my desire to consume has been gradually diminishing. I no longer seem to have that enthusiasm to eagerly await hardware product releases for days, watching reviews and waiting for delivery. Although I often complain that my 16-inch Intel laptop was betrayed by Apple, I don’t care so much about the so-called M series and the numbers behind it anymore. It’s more like a habit to look at the released parameters and benchmarks, see what improvements have been made, and then say to myself, “Oh, okay, maybe next generation.”

I participated in the Double Eleven shopping festival recently. Since I had just brought the cat home, I bought many related supplies and received packages for several consecutive days. However, when everything was settled and I thought about buying something for myself, I seemed to fall into a kind of blank state. It felt like I didn’t lack anything and didn’t want anything, so I gave up in the end. Recently, it’s also been Black Friday. Like previous years, I opened some tweets and articles to see what software and digital products were on sale. After looking for quite a while, I only ended up buying two courses related to my recent work and a personal subscription to the note-taking software Craft. Most subscriptions are about to expire, but I don’t feel much about it. Maybe I’ll buy a physical examination package on Double Twelve.

It’s hard to say whether the decrease in material desire is a good thing or a bad thing. Perhaps it’s because I no longer need too many tangible, touchable things to fill my inner needs, and I’m slowly turning to some parts that can be internalized. Maybe it’s because I’ve entrusted many of my needs to my cat and some dependent relationships, and I don’t have as much energy as before to focus on some momentary satisfactions. Or perhaps in the increasingly saturated work and daily life, I’ve gradually lost some curiosity and motivation to explore.

Daily Life with “Nie Nie”

This week was so busy that I didn’t read any books, and only caught up on one drama over the weekend. I didn’t manage anything else, but I did make time to take Nie Nie for a check-up. There are still some concerning minor issues, and we’re continuing with medication treatment. I hope it can always be healthy. I get incredibly worried even about the slightest problems.

Because I’ve been working from home, I’ve had much more time to spend together. There have been many great moments worth recording. I feel like posting several daily updates, like someone obsessed with showing off their child. So I plan to open a small section in the weekly review to record these moments daily. Later, I also want to make something like photo albums to document these precious times.

Other

This section will record my input and output, as well as other things I find interesting.

Input

TV Series

• First Love: The taxi driver setting reminds me of previously watched “I Remember a Little”, “Drive My Car”, and an anime “The Magical Taxi”. I think this is truly a profession that can see all aspects of human life. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while. The development around music, the presentation style of interweaving memories and the present, and Hikari Mitsushima are all attractive points. There were several scene transitions that amazed me. However, in terms of plot, it’s hard to say it stands out. But now I’m increasingly unable to bear cruelty, so I think this sweet story is quite good. After all, looking at “The Quiet Snow” playing next door, I feel sorry for the second male and female leads every day. As I get older, I guess I’m more suited to sweet love stories. Overall, it’s quite worth watching.
• The Quiet Snow: Currently watching. It’s really heartbreaking. I’ve always been able to empathize more with the second male lead, but he’s getting hurt.
• Peripheral: Currently watching.