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chasing scraps (san francisco 2026)

today, much money was dangled in front of me,
two separate, opportunities
the first had a zero worth of more money, but bad people,
the other had less money but more fun.
didn't have much time to evaluate.

hard decisions, opportunity cost, focus
what's worth doing in life.
what's worth chasing?
what to say no to in order to chase those things?

most stressful day ever.

went to a nearby park, to clear my mind.
sat on a nice, shaded bench.
a human walks past with a cute dog,
dog cozies up to me happily, i pet it. 
i became happy as well.

after a while, another human and dog walks past,
same thing happens,
dog is excited to see me, i pet it.

best day ever.

five minutes later another dog tries to do the same thing,
it seems even dogs know what a great person i am.

the owner yanks it away.
that seems harsh. for dog & for me.

"leave it, there’s food at home." she says
??
i look under the bench,
there was a scrap of food below me.
deeply humbled, i reverted to my coping mechanism
introspection.

two lessons

firstly,
sometimes even if we think we’re the shit, and that success comes because of a certain reason, life is an exercise in imperfect information, there’s always the chance that we have a scrap of food below us, that people are there for a reason we don't see at all, and that we’re nothing special. so stay humble, and pet the dogs while we have the chance to.

secondly
it was mean to yank the dog away, but the dog will never comprehend that there is a bigger scrap at home. it's just happy in the moment, chasing the sensory high of that scrap.

at that moment, i magically realised the solution to my problem,
of focus, opportunity cost, and what to say no to.

common advice from steve jobs, elon musk, says relentless focus on what matters, is what’s important.
however, that's under the assumption that we as humans, who are wired so differently from each other, are able to identify what's truly important, which is probabilistically impossible, due to the complexities in life, and the time and experience it would take to fully understand it all.
theres always a bigger scrap that we can’t see, we’re all dogs to some other people on a higher plane of understanding. there will always be the bigger chunk of food at home that we are physically not wired to see. what we see and pursue, will very likely look like scrap to others.

therefore, the scraps we choose to chase in life,
should be the ones that we are uniquely blessed to see.
with the understanding that,
what's more important is,
enjoying the very act of chasing the scraps.
and finding others you love chasing with.
after all,
chasing the scrap is fun
but sharing it is better.

chase the scraps that attract the ones you love.

there's always a better view (san francisco 2026)

coming soon.

wantonmee, jollibee, joie de vivree (hong kong 2025)

hong kong, philippines, and beauty.
a chance to fight, no matter how short.
coming soon.

my best culinary experience (ho chi minh 2025)

for a while, i worked & lived in ho chi minh city (in a very weird office and business).

the most fun looking food was always found at isolated street stalls, flickering streetlamps, gaps between buildings, etc.
everything delicious. bahn mi with pate exposed to flies & elements. roast meat which followed the banger recipe of: 1 part charcoal dust, 1 part car exhaust. my favourite was some clam rice, made by a cute old lady. she was always happy, chainsmoking at her, unregulated foodstall.


expats always told me to avoid these places, especially if not being in pain for 3 days, was something i valued.

but

a) never listen to white people about food
b) i was isolated, sad and not so good with dealing with adversity back then (low seretonin, high cortisol L)

the vibe was
if I got rekt from eating these things, yolo.
if i didn’t, the payoff would be delicious.

eating tasty, simple $2 fare, always cheered me up. the combination of genuine human cook, unhealthily flavourful ingredients, & food poisoning roulette,

always reminded me to appreciate
that the world can be very beautiful,
how ridiculously lucky we are, to be us, to be where we are,
to feel the things we get to feel.
and to take more risk in life, specifically, probabilistically good risk, which eating these things was not.