After finishing two intense, interleaving work projects over the last month, I decided to take a week or so away from doing work tasks, if I can help it.
For three days in a row, I watched a Star Wars movie at a cinema. The Phantom Menace, Return of the Jedi, and The Last Jedi. I cannot express how good it feels to watch movies like that in a theater. I’ve become so accustomed to seeing movies at home, and with so much great TV these days, the cinema almost eluded me.
The Japanese theater experience is so different from what I’m familiar with in the States. It’s really quiet. There’s an immense feeling of responsibility to keep it that way, too. And almost everyone stays in their seats during the entire end credits, without a sound. Not for the hopes of a bonus scene, but because the film isn’t finished yet and it would be rude to obscure someone else’s view while you exit.
Episode I is awesome, and despite how so much is ruined by the Internet, I find that this film is just super enjoyable start-to-finish. I feel bad for all the people who can’t seem to enjoy it. Episode VI is so ideal, with just every shot being iconic in its own way. And Episode VIII, I literally cannot get enough of it. I really do think this is the most Star Wars that a Star Wars movie can be. It has a perfect balance of every essential Star Wars element.
It may surprise you, but I haven’t been to Disneyland in months. So after Episode I, I bought an evening ticket and did some of the best things. I love that place. I love how it takes care of everything.
And then I spent a day with my friend Airi from Osaka at Star Wars Celebration Japan. Being in my metaphorical backyard, I figured it would be worth going with her, since she’s such a recent Star Wars fan. Truth be told, I haven’t been to the event for 20 years. Twenty. I was a teenager then. Some things have changed, but so much has not.
And at Celebraiton, I was able to see a couple friends, some new, some old. I’m really grateful to live somewhere that is an international travel destination, because I end up seeing a variety of people from across my life with a decent frequency.

Throughout the day, if I’m out, I send myself an iMessage to remind me of something I want to post about. Here are some of those things:
On Wednesday, I saw a man standing outside a restaurant, with a phone in one hand, and a laptop held precariously in the other, balancing a second smartphone on its keyboard. I never, ever want to have my life resemble this. It’s well known just how hard Japanese people typically work, and though I have adapted to many things over the last two years, this is something I cannot do.
That dovetails into something more broad, a subject I have talked about before online—when someone says, “you have too much time on your hands.” This has been a regular fixture of my life. People have told me this for as long as I’ve been autonomous. And I had a kind of revelatory moment as to why it really feels odd to me. Most humans on this planet have their days segmented into three sections: work, recreation, and sleep, occupying roughly 8 hours each. Breaking it down, that statement says, “you have too much recreational time.” It makes me wonder what time they value most. Maybe it’s sleep. I doubt it’s work. I love my work, and it often meshes with recreation, but taking this week off makes me realize just how much recreational time I have structured into my life. If I can help it, more than 8 hours a day are recreational. I think that’s not something to scoff at. That’s something I aspire to.
After watching The Last Jedi, I was thinking about its followup, The Rise of Skywalker. There’s something General Hux says, “I don’t care if you win. I need Kylo Ren to lose.” It reminds me a lot of something Steve Jobs once said, “We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose.” Perhaps too many people have this mindset, that what they care about is seeing someone fail more than they care about someone—even themselves—winning. I think Steve may have been in a slightly difficult spot in the moment he said that, with Microsoft coming in to help save Apple. But I think it was smart to say. Taking time away makes me realize how much I really want everyone to do well. I don’t want anyone to fail. Where I can help, I want to help. But in the future, I want to spend even less energy rooting for anyone to lose, unless they are a danger to others, of course.
That works into this next sentiment which is that I would love to see less negativity in general. I don’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t be critical about very important things. I don’t mean we should be happy and chipper all the time. I mean we should really evaluate the role of criticism in our lives. Why is there such a strong impulse to share that we dislike whatever everyone else is enjoying? How many podcasts do we need of people sharing popular, banal opinions? If it is just cathartic, maybe a text message to yourself to express those thoughts is better for everyone. It’s clear to me that every day that I spend little to no time in online social venues, I am significantly happier.
I’m kinda tired of AI everywhere. Unfortunately it has permeated many facets of life. It isn’t just a feature online, it is a fixture of life. I keep seeing ads for golf balls “designed by AI” or something tailor-made, but by “AI.” Does this work? Is anyone drawn to AI advertising? I can’t imagine. And how much of “AI” features or products are even AI? How are we going to define this going forward? How does AI meaningfully differ from some existing facets of computing? Obviously generative stuff is different, and LLMs are different. But is every algorithmic thing just “AI” now? That feels pretty stupid. The coolest thing about being on a planet with other humans is seeing what those other humans can do. Offloading any task that can be perfected by a human feels like it aims to destroy everything that makes us human.
Today, I thought it’d be nice to take a train a bit further from where I usually go. And while on this train to exit the Tokyo metropolis, I was having the dumbest conversation with my friend:

Louie
Do Italians drink Mole Cola, or is that the secondary cola brand that no one cares about?
Alessio
How did you know this??
Louie
What kind of half-Italian would I be, Alessio?

I love to sit at my desk and chat with people, but having an Internet-connected phone in my pocket, making myself effectively permanently on call and reachable can definitely feel stupid sometimes. I don’t pine for the days of yore, but this functionality has provided us with additional capability to be disappointed in each other. That all being said, zipping on a train while having this little silly conversation does genuinely enrich my life. I like my solo time out in the world, but despite Tokyo being the largest “city” in the world, it can feel a little lonely. Most hours of the day, there’s maybe someone that will respond, and that makes any lonely moment immediately not.
I don’t know if there’s any particular thread running through all of this, but if there is, maybe it’s something Cabel said. Appreciate everything endlessly. He is so right, not just about this, but a great many things. I’m so happy to have a friend like Cabel. To have someone in my life who sees things the unique way he does. Going about my life and appreciating everything I can is a truly great way to live.

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