When I decided to rent a room for much below its market price, I knew there would be a catch. Maybe the fried chicken restaurant in the next building would spread smells. Maybe the place would be riddled with cockroaches, or a teenager on the top floor would be a drummer in a punk rock band. But the deal was really good, so I moved in. The weeks went on and there was no sign of problem, so I stopped worrying. But there was a problem...
It was already years after moving in. During breakfast I noticed that the linear algebra book I had left open on my desk was not in the same page I was reading before going to bed. I didn't bother much about it--maybe it was just my tired head--but the same thing happened the next morning. I checked the book. It would lay flat in pretty much any page I opened it without moving. It wouldn't just flip pages by itself.
Next evening I decided to keep an eye on the book. For as long as I looked at it, nothing would happen so I gave up and went to bed. I hadn't even closed my eyes and I could swear I heard the faint sound of a page flipping. A sudden fear ran through my back, that maybe someone was hiding in my place. I set my thoughts straight--there could be no one there, really, there was only one door and I was the only one who knew the password. Anyway I went to the living room, turned on the lights and saw my book exactly one page ahead of where it was before. I kept watching it for more than ten minutes, but nothing happened, so I went back to bed. As soon as I lay down, the sound of a page flipping clearly happened again. Trying hard too keep silent, I crawled near the door and looked through the keyhole. I could now see it! The pages were flipping, one after the other, all by themselves!
I never had any interest in supernatural phenomena, nor did I believe in any story like that. So I tried to find a reasonable explanation for what I saw. Maybe a faint air current, too faint to be noticed but strong enough to flip a page? How could I check that? Maybe a bit of smoke could show it!
Next day I bought a bunch of incense sticks and lit them around my desk, with the linear algebra book opened in the center. The smoke was disturbed whenever I waived my hands or moved around, but otherwise it rose straight up and each smoke column remained still. I went back to the bedroom, closed the door and kept watching through the keyhole. The smoke wouldn't move, nor did the pages. I kept watching it for a long time, maybe almost an hour, until I fell asleep with my head against the door. Not sure if I was sleeping or awaken, I heard the voice of a child whispering in my ear: "Try it with a less boring book!"
A gasp of horror tried to get out of my throat but my mouth could make no sound, as if in a nightmare. I thought I might as well be in one. I stayed there lying on the floor, paralyzed, panting in fear, my heart beating hard, and that whisper echoing in my ears. I woke up the next morning exactly on the same spot, already late for work.
That day I couldn't focus on anything, only thinking about that whisper. My mind raced, alternating between "it was only a nightmare", "someone invaded my house and installed a speaker somewhere" and "my home is haunted". "No no, ghosts do not exist" thought I, feeling better, at least for a moment. "But the rent is so cheap... come to think of it the landlord always avoids me, even when the pay is late...". And my heart would again feel like a ball of pulsating horror. At the end of my shift I was exhausted, even if I hadn't done any work at all. I worried so much that I decided to give up worrying, and just obey the whisper.
Reading is my favorite activity. I own a significant collection of books, many of which remain scattered around the house for weeks at a time. At that night I went through my collection looking for a book that could appease the source of that whisper. "It was the voice of a child", I thought to myself. "So maybe a children's book would be interesting?" Luckily I had an illustrated book of Korean fairy tales, from my many attempts at learning this language. With my heart pounding I opened it on my desk, set the incense sticks alight around the book in a circle and turned off the lights. Slowly my eyes started getting used to the dark. First I could notice the red spots of the incense glowing. Then the thin lines of smoke. Then I clearly saw a page flipping, right in front of me, blowing the smoke all around. And now I could clearly see in that smoke the shape of a child's hand, index finger following the lines of text on the book.
โ This book is much better! Thank you!
I heard clearly. I strained my eyes as hard as I could, and gradually the image of a 5 year old girl appeared faintly in the smoke. She wore a Hanbok and an elaborate pin on her hair. She was looking at me, blinking on purpose, pretending she was a kid that had done something wrong. I froze in shock.
โ ๋ฐฑ์ค์ญ์ผ์ด ๋ฐ์์ ์ ๋๋ค. ๋ฐ๊ฐ์ต๋๋ค~
Said her with a deep bow. I don't remember anything after that. I woke up on my living room's floor with a bruise on my hip. I must have fainted and fallen.
The next day at work was even less productive. All I could think about was that child, or, the spirit of it, whatever it was. "Yesuk", I kept thinking. 151 years old. Did I hear it right? What could she do to me? Since when had she come? My boss noticed my anxious and unproductive state and came nagging me back to focus, but it didn't work. I spent the day just searching online about ghosts, even in Korean, but could find no particular clue about a child called Yesuk, nor anything at all about haunted houses. The situation felt ridiculous. This was not like any other tribulation I have ever had before. If I got sick I just went to the doctor, or if my boiler broke I just called a technician. But who was going to help me now? I tried calling the landlord, but he never picked the phone. "Smart ass" I thought.
I didn't have courage to go back home, so I rented a room at a motel near the office. Anyhow, falling asleep was impossible, even after checking the room several times and making sure that was no book left open anywhere. Any faint sound and my heart would race. I would wake up and spend hours on my phone searching for a solution, any sign of hope. It was the only thing that gave me relief, distraction from the image of Yesuk stuck in my mind's eye, even if the whole search was still about her. But as soon as I put my phone away, that obsessive fear would take over me, rushing back and fourth between my head and my chest. I didn't want to live another night like that, and the only way to solve the situation was confronting it.
It was an eerie Friday night, quiet and moonless. With a box of cigars under one arm and a box of candles under the other I walked back home. Shivering, I typed the door password. It opened with the usual beep. The automatic light turned on, startling me. Step-by-step I went inside, turned on the lights, checked all rooms. Nothing out of place, just a bit dusty. I felt silly being so afraid, and that gave me a rush of bold courage.
I picked several books and laid them open on the floor in the middle of my living room. I put several candles around the books, forming a large circle, then lit them and turned off the lights. My heart was beating fast. I was full of adrenaline, and this time I was not in "flight mode". I lit a cigar in one of the candles and started puffing clouds of smoke over the books. She was already there, standing in front of the books, looking at me, blinking on purpose.
โ I am sorry for haunting you...
Said her, almost giggling.
โ What... what are you?
โ I am Yesuk, a person!
Answered her, a bit irritated.
โ Or... at least the part of her that deals with air...
She added, with resignation.
โ Why did you come here? Why me?
โ I was born here. You? Because you leave books open around the house and I can be less bored!
โ That means... you have seen everything I did here? Were you always peeking on me? What did you see?
โ Nothing!
Said her laughing, while her shape transformed into the image of my estranged ex doing a sexy pose.
โ Stop it! That's not appropriate! You are a just child!
I said angrily.
โ I am 151 years old!
โ So what's with the Hanbok girl? Is that supposed to be you?
โ That's the last image I have of myself...
She said, turning to a more somber tone. I became conscious of my impoliteness and toned down. I puffed a bit more on the cigar.
โ So, you were born here a long time ago... When did you learn English?
โ Oh, I learned that from you! And from these!
Said her, while pointing to the several Korean Language text books on my shelf.
โ Unfortunately you don't read them anymore...
โ I... I kind of gave up... Apparently you have done a much better use of them than me...
Then I picked them from the shelf and lined them open on the floor, more than ten volumes. Her eyes grew bigger with every volume I laid down. She ran in circles around me, waiving her arms.
โ Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
โ You're... welcome...
Answered I, immediately regretting it. After all, she lived there far longer than I didโit was silly of me saying "you're welcome". I lost sight of her, so I puffed smoke another time, towards the books. There she was, kneeling on the floor, face buried in my copy of TOPIK II Grammar. "Oh right! That one has everything in both languages!"
I have never had any religious belief, or any spirituality at all. I was born in a secular family, and anything supernatural was treated with mockery. This made it easier for me to accept that I was cohabitating with a ghost. As the days passed I started looking forwards going back home and offering books for Yesuk. I cleared up the room I used for storage, and set there a long desk with many book holders, where I would leave open as many books as it would fit.
Yesuk was usually sweet, sometimes nasty, and always sensitive. When dealing with her, I always needed to put conscious effort to remember that she was very old despite her appearance, and that something terrible had happen to her when she was a child, something she would always refuse to talk about. Oh, I also had to keep in mind that there was one thing she hated being called...
One day I finally felt comfortable enough inviting friends over. I asked Yesuk to stay quiet in her room. She didn't like it.
โ Why? Are you ashamed of me?
โ No, no! It's not that! It's that I don't know if my friends won't be scared of a ghost!
At hearing that, her face turned to an exaggerated, distorted expression of anger. Her arms and legs grew long and thin, her fingers and nails too. Eight eyes grew from her forehead, like those of a spider. Her lips turned into sharp knives, smiling creepily. Every flock of her hair ended in a noose where a living miniature of myself hung by the neck, suffocating, dying and shaking their legs.
A whole choir of voices shouted deeply, echoing in my room:
โ I am gonna show you what a ghost really looks like!
I felt cold like I was on a mountain in winter. I shivered, hunkered in a corner, frightened. That monster approached me slowly, and then disappeared with a long evil laugh. The room stayed cold for hours until it warmed up again. I was still in the corner, trembling.
After that, it took me several days to gather enough courage to leave a book open around. When I finally did, Yesuk wouldn't appear. I decided to apologize, loudly, but she didn't answer. I started fearing she wouldn't come again. I went to a book shop and bought as many books as I could stuff in my backpack. I spent the whole day choosing only the books I knew she would like, mostly modern history and cat fancy magazines. I left them open in her room and said to the void:
โ Yesuk, you are a sweet little 151 years old kid! I miss you!
She still didn't come. I sighed, and went having dinner. And then I heard it: a page flipping. I went back there with a stick of incense lit. She was there, reading. She didn't talked to me though. "At least she isn't gone" I thought, relieved. As I came out of the room I took another look, and she was staring at me. She briefly made the spider eyes appear on her forehead again, sticking her tongue out. Naughty!
After that, things seemed to be normal again between us, and we resumed our nightly reading sessions. Still it was always hard to know where she was in the house. It annoyed me because I could feel the air moving as she tried to go around unnoticed, and could not see what she was up to. During the day I could not see her at allโthere was just too much lightโand even during the night I always needed some sort of smoke and a very faint light. Cigars were best, with their dense smoke, but I was not a smoker, and didn't like the smell either. I tried making lines of powdered chalk all along the house, and for a while I could see where she was since she would always disturb it. But she figured it out and one day when I was at work she managed to blow it all into the sink. But I still had one idea left.
A few times when our conversation touched the few memories she had of her living life, she would tell me that she was once abandoned in a forest and her only companion was her cat. A few other times, when she thought I wasn't seeing her, I saw her playing with the ghostly image of a cat, probably created by herself. I wondered what would happen if I brought a real one home. Would they even be able to see each other? It was also something I had been thinking about doing before I got all caught up with Yesuk. So I called the local shelter and promptly they gave me the contact of someone who was fostering a litter of kittens, looking for adoptees.
On the way home the gray little thing was cuddling on my arms, trying its nails on the sleeve of my sweater, so small that I didn't even bother checking if cats were allowed in the bus. When I arrived home I didn't know exactly what to do, so I put it on the floor, in the middle of the living room, almost ceremoniously.
โ A kitten!!! Are you keeping it???
Shouted Yesuk, invisible, abandoning all her qualms about interacting with me during the day. Even though she was invisible to me, the same did not seem to apply to the poor little kitten. It shot in a panic straight under the fridge, like a furry cannonball, and there it stayed for the rest of the day.
It took some days until the kitten got used to my home and to Yesuk. She put a lot of effort in making our new member feel welcomed. Soon enough they were inseparable. She named it Chorong, which she says means "lantern". It seemed like Yesuk was much more visible to Chorong's eyes than mine, the kitten always knew where she was. They played together day and night, her pampering and scolding it around in a style of Korean that I did not recognize, probably something from her times.
After adopting the cat we both got closer. She wouldn't disappear days on end only to startle me talking invisibly. We spent almost every night talking about what she had read during the day, and she started developing a more modern style of speech and thinking. Still, I could not get her to become interested in the internet, or anything with a screen. I tried teaching her how to use my computer, and even set up the voice command features in the hopes she would use it, but she just listened patiently to my explanations and never returned to the subject again. Incredibly, life with a ghost could be normal, mundane.
Whenever we get used to a new reality, it feels like everything is right and life will go on forever like that. And so, no matter how bad or strange the situation, it seems that after an initial period of griefโor terrorโwe seem to get used to our new condition to the point of enjoying it, and even fearing losing it. And so this new bubble of normality grows and grows until it inevitably pops. It can pop with the sound of a page flipping, or, more commonly, a phone call.
โ Hello! This is, uh, the owner of your building.
โ Oh, Mr. Kim! Long time I haven't heard of you!
โ Oh, uh, yes! I was traveling, sorry! I called you to ask you one thing. We are making repairs on the roof, and the builder will need to use your window for access. Can we enter your room this afternoon to do that?
I hesitated, but after thinking, I decided it would be too suspicious if I made any fuss. Nothing seemed to be able to harm Yesuk anyways, and Chorong would probably stuff itself in a crevice. So I decided to just go along.
โ Oh sure, just please tell them to be careful when they open the door, so that the cat doesn't run away.
โ Don't worry, we will take care of everything!
And he hung up. For a few moments that seemed like a small annoyance. Some builders entering my home... annoying... but part of life! But why did the landlord contacted me so suddenly after two years of silence? And that last sentence... "We will take care of everything." So unusual. Maybe because he was also not a native English speaker? But the man did seem to know the place was haunted, from the low price, and the sketchy way he dealt with me. Maybe he was just fooling me? Maybe he was going to try to get rid of Yesuk, somehow?
After a few hours of that mental back and forth I decided I couldn't take it anymore and had to go there to make sure everything was fine. I quickly said to my boss I had an urgent matter to solve and disappeared from the office before he had the chance to complain. I biked back home as fast as possible, with my mind concocting all sort of absurd scenarios. "Maybe he was just going to tear down the building?" "Maybe he was going to exorcize the place with a priest of sorts?"
The more my mind raced, the faster I pedaled, and soon I was making the final turn on the block where my haunted villa was located. Immediately I saw something was not right. There wasn't anything like a builder's truck parked in front of my home, but one of those old black executive cars, into which was entering the landlord, two younger men of larger build and, most curiously, a middle-aged woman dressed in a red gown with shiny patterns and a golden crown, not unlike those worn by ancient Korean royalty. Surprise became panic when I suspected: a shaman?
I rushed to them, but they departed as if I didn't exist. Then I went straight into my room in such a rush that I missed the door password several times. Everything was in order, except for a strong smell of incense, and no sign of Chorong or Yesuk. I called them for hours, desperate, crying. I opened books all around, smoke cigars until completely nauseated, and nothing.
Chorong eventually showed up from whatever nook he was hiding in, but no sign of Yesuk. I kept trying to call her for another day, and even rented one of those smoke machines from an event producer, but no matter how hard I looked into the swirls, I could not see her.
I called my landlord several times, and he never picked, until I sent text messages threatening him with a lawsuit. He eventually picked the phone.
โ What did you do in my home that day?
โ It's about the suicide... everyone found out, so I had to do something about it, something to recover my property value!
โ What suicide?
โ Ah, the previous tenant... he complained of strange sounds in the building, and then we found him...
โ And only now you tell me this? What did Yesuk have to do with any of this?
โ I don't know what you are talking about and I don't need to talk about it.
โ And who was that woman with you? The one in a robe?
He only gave me her contact and hung up. I called the number immediately, a secretary picked. They wouldn't let me talk to the shaman, or whatever she was, just make an appointment, months later. When I angrily said I wanted to know what had happened to the ghost in my home, a different person took over the call.
โ You're lucky to be alive. Yesuk was a vengeful spirit, she had no good intention towards the living.
โ What are you saying? She couldn't do any harm!
โ The previous tenant would disagree, if he were among us.
At hearing that I froze, my vision shaking from side to side. She continued.
โ You made her many offerings, that has appeased her wrath.
โ Wrath? She was... my friend... where is she? What happened to her?
โ You should be proud. Yesuk, that vengeful spirit, has attained divinity.
I hung up in anger. I didn't want to hear any more of that.
For a few years I relucted from moving out of that place. What if she would return? I kept incense lit every night, and a special desk with her favorite books spread around. Chorong seemed to have dealt better with it, and soon was acting like a normal cat. But I would spend hours staring into the smoke, and feel sudden rushes of false hope whenever I had the impression of seeing her face in the swirls.
I have a weak-spot for self-improvement books. Every time I visit Kyobo I see myself magically browsing the "business" section, and can't prevent bringing one or five with me. I used to hide them from my visitor's sight, and not place them in my bookshelf, but after running out of storage space I gave up.
Most of these books are just well-written chains of platitudes, "when in China, speak Chinese" kind of advice. Obvious and unactionable.
However, every other book has a gem or two. Here are the ones that have had an enduring impact on my life.
Main Message: We are all full of worries about stuff we gotta do. Keeping that in your head is stressful. Collect all that stuff in A4 sheets of paper, one for each, all of them. This will make you worry-less, make your mind "clear like water". Then for each stuff ask yourself "what's the next action required to get this thing done?". This will break paralysis and set you in motion to solve all your "stuff".
What I Took: 1) Asking "What's the next action?" worked wonders to break my paralysis. 2) A-Z folders are perfect for storing paperwork. I am still doing it 10 years after reading the book.
Caveats: After a first session of "Collection" I indeed feel my mind "clear like water". Then I tried to sustain that feeling by constantly noting everything I wanted/needed to do. As time went by I got really good at wishing ever so more detailed things, until I wasn't able to discern necessity from caprice.
Much worse, after writing something down in my system, I stopped questioning if I should really do that, and just ruthlessly went into execution mode. Suffice to say in one case I lost a friendship and in another I almost put someone in legal trouble.
Perhaps worry and stress have a role of their own in prioritization.
Main Message: Deep Work, that is, concentrated and specialized cognitive work, is both becoming more necessary, and--due to internet-related distractions--rarer.
What I Took: I keep 4 daily hours for working by myself, at my desk, shoes off, phone in drawer, without meetings, emails or calls. I do that in the morning, between 7:00 and 11:00. For the rest of the day I belong to the world.
Caveats: As someone's role drifts towards management, the definition of deep work needs to be expanded to accommodate for more communicative tasks, like meetings and email.
Main Message: Life is too short for long-form journaling, keep things short with the help of hand-written typographical notation.
What I Took: The typographical notations are indeed helpful. For example: TODO items are started with a dot, which you cross when the task is completed. Striking over the task line is kept for when you give up on the task. Making that dot a < or > shows that you have moved it somewhere else in the journal. I make it a ^ when I have delegated it.
Caveats: I have a hard time tracking TODO's in daily entries. I rather keep them in separate project pages.
Main Message: At any given time, focus your energy only on the most important thing. The most important thing is defined in the book as "that which will make everything else easier or unnecessary".
What I Took:
Caveats:
Main Message: "Splitting the difference" is lazy negotiation and will leave both parties with a suboptimal share. Rather, lay your cards on the table and use the many verbal tools provided in the book to cooperate with your counterpart in finding an outcome that is best for both sides.
What I Took: Tone of voice is crucial in negotiation.
Caveats: You might want to leave a bit of leeway to your counterpart in case you need their help in the future. Consider that you might be playing that game iteratedly, and generosity is also an asset.
I shall write no more about self-improvement books. I have read dozens, and only four have had any enduring impact in my life. In the end, it all just contributes to our idolatry of excesses, leading to burn-out rather than happiness. ๐
Being a perfectionist is not merely striving for perfection. It is striving for perfection always. It's lacking range of acceptable quality of outcomes.
When time is short, or the domain unknown, it is necessary to begin already accepting that the outcome will be rough. But still, one doesn't want to lower standards. So, what gives?
The solution is seeing quality as a range, and then dialing it in according to the available resources. In this way, one can manage expectations from early on, and will not fail to deliver. ๐
A function pointer is a variable that makes reference to a function. You can make it point to different functions in runtime according to conditions, and to call the function you just need to dereference the pointer.
The Pointer to Member Function is the same thing, but for functions that are members of a class.
The Pointer to Member Function has one crucial difference with the function pointer: it needs to refer to an instance. This requirement makes the syntax a bit convoluted and hard to understand at a glance.
Here's a runnable example:
#include <iostream> class Square{ public: Square(int s): side(s){} int get_area(){ return side*side; } int get_perimeter(){ return 4*side; } private: const int side; }; int main(){ Square small_square(1); Square big_square(10); //declaration of Pointer to Member Function int (Square::*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "Pointing to get_area method!\n"; pointer_to_Square_method = &Square::get_area; std::cout << "Calling it on small square: "; std::cout << (small_square.*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "\n"; std::cout << "Calling the same method in big_square: "; std::cout << (big_square.*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "\n"; std::cout << "Changing pointer to get_perimeter!\n"; pointer_to_Square_method = &Square::get_perimeter; std::cout << "Calling it on small square: "; std::cout << (small_square.*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "\n"; std::cout << "Calling the same method in big_square: "; std::cout << (big_square.*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "\n"; return 0; }
The key syntax here is:
.* : Pointer to Member dereference operator. It calls the method. ::* : Declaration of a Pointer to Member.
&Square:: : Getting the reference to a Method of Square.
Pointers to member functions are not used frequently in C++, so other people might not understand your code at first sight. It helps making our intention clear by defining the type of the pointer to member function with a typedef.
#include <iostream> class Square{ public: Square(int s): side(s){} int get_area(){ return side*side; } int get_perimeter(){ return 4*side; } private: const int side; }; //for readability typedef int (Square::*Square_method)(); int main(){ Square small_square(1); Square big_square(10); //declaration of Pointer to Member Function Square_method pointer_to_Square_method; std::cout << "Pointing to get_area method!\n"; pointer_to_Square_method = &Square::get_area; std::cout << "Calling it on small square: "; std::cout << (small_square.*pointer_to_Square_method)(); std::cout << "\n"; //... return 0; }๐
Vector Graphics can be added directly to HTML pages with the "svg" tag:
<svg> <rect x="1" y="1" width="100" height="50" /> </svg>
Which produces:
Another example:
<svg> <ellipse cx="50" cy="25" rx="50" ry="25" /> </svg>
Resulting in:
HTML has its own, native, math markup called MathML. It's low level and verbose (think HTML tables), but it won't require pre-rendering, and the result is searchable. If you are familiar with the—much friendlier—LaTeX syntax, you may generate MathML syntax from LaTeXesque equations here.
More info:
๐
A catfish, that is.
Bagre's objective is to be a presentable template for a technology blog using only a minimal of HTML. Ideas are being thrown here on an experimental basis. Posts are edited after publication without any notice. No qualms are had about the usage of the passive voice.
Bagre is pronounced "bah-gree", not beggar.
Bagre is written directly in HTML, trying to look more or less like the emacs color theme deep-blue.
Code display is done with emacs org mode HTML export (org-html-export-as-html), after fishing the <pre> block out of all the unrelated code. ๐
A healthy work routine would be:
seek -> act -> reward -> seek...
When procrastinating, one keeps trapped in a cycle of direct seek and reward:
seek -> reward -> seek -> reward -> seek...
This happens because:
The key is the link between seek and act, and then persistence in acting until finished. Enforcing rewards after completion before seeking another task helps preventing a procrastination trap. ๐