Today was relaxing. I didn’t rush getting out of bed. I wanted to take it slow and learn to relax. I made my typical breakfast and enjoyed it while watching an episode of One Piece (Yes, I still watch some anime – It’s my guilty pleasure).
After breakfast, I reviewed what’s happening in the Bitcoin world. We’ve been in a descending triangle for the past ten months, and we’ve been bouncing off of 6k support for the past two months. Within this year, we’re going to see some breakout of the triangle. Either we’re going to break down soon or shoot upward. I’m long bitcoin and here for the long haul. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next year or so since we’ve been in a 10+ year boom market. Eventually, things will correct itself. How soon is anyone’s guess but it’s important to be aware of it and proactively prepare for the inevitable economic correction. A lot of wealth is generated between the boom and bust cycle. It’s wise to learn about it and figure out your strategy for it.
After checking prices, I headed to Starbucks at Senafest to get my double shot espresso on ice with a little bit of coconut, almond, or soy milk. Unfortunately, they only have soy milk in Bangkok. I hung out in the upper room and just spent time mentally strategizing what endeavors I should take on and how I should approach it.
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Network and Market, and I realized my mistake in it was not approaching it with an MVP (Minimal Viable Product) mindset and getting to market as quick as possible. I spent too much time developing the product without focusing on what users wanted. It’s a good learning experience. Also, the pro behind building out Network & Market is that I learned how to prototype businesses online quickly instead of hard coding. Coding takes a lot of time and if the idea doesn’t work you just wasting a lot of time. The best way to approach a new business concept is creating a “lite” version of your idea. It doesn’t need to have all the bells and whistles; it just needs to have enough to prove your concept. If it does gain traction, then you can build out the full version of site/business.
After spending about 30 minutes just pondering, I called a Grab and headed over to the Grand Palace. This place was tourist central. I quickly determined that I don’t like touristy locations. I love the fact that I’m at the outskirts of the tourist attractions and get to see what typical Bangkok life looks like for most people. What was enlightening about the Grand Palace area was the poor living conditions that many people are living in. As I was walking around and going off the beaten path a bit, I saw a homeless and health issues plaguing the area. My first assumption is that capitalism is the cause of it but an economic structure isn’t the problem I realized, it’s a moral issue.
The human drive to create and build seems to be a written law in our hearts. It’s like we were hardwired to create and build. Capitalism itself is a neutral mechanism that drives the economy forward but hardened, and selfish hearts are what creates an epidemic of homelessness and despair. I haven’t fact checked this but apparently, we have enough food to feed everyone in the world, but we don’t do it. We have enough resources to take care of everyone, but we don’t. I believe as long as sin exists, homelessness will exist.
Homelessness is a result of many factors, but it ultimately was birthed from sin somewhere along the line. Let me clarify because it sounds like I’m condemning a homeless person for their actions. Homelessness can stem from many places, but if we traced back the lineage/experience of the homeless individual, we would see some form of sin that created the situation. We can say that they’re homeless because they deal with drug issues. Yes, that might be statistically true, but you have to go further back and ask why they deal with drug issues in the first place? Was it an unhealthy home? Were they abused? Were they abandoned? The genesis of the homelessness was the sin from someone not necessarily the homeless individual. This is just my thoughts. I know we can’t just box homelessness as a one size fits all but pervasive homelessness I believe stems from some form of sin.
It was saddening to see all the homelessness in Bangkok. I saw old Thai grandmas that were sleeping on the streets. That could have been my grandma. I heard this recently that you don’t have to focus on changing the world, just focus on change where you can. I hope I take this to heart.
To change the tunes a bit, I headed over to Khao San Road which is a famous street for many travelers. I’ve heard about it so often, so I had to check it out. For so much build up, I was sorely disappointed. There was nothing really special about it. Maybe that’s because I came from Chiang Mai and there are very similar setups over there. It was interesting to see so many backpackers and foreigners lining the streets and restaurants, but I was unimpressed. I walked around for a while just seeing if I missed someplace that created all the hoopla but I didn’t find it.
I was craving some seafood after yesterday’s escapade to the floating market where they had some of the best river prawns. I didn’t have enough, so I wanted to get more. I went to a restaurant that had the prawns, but it was in too large of a quantity, so I reluctantly opted for tom yum seafood soup and some scallops. The tom yum seafood soup was sorely missing the main ingredients…seafood! The soup was tasty, but I had almost no seafood in it. The scallops were excellent, but they were also small. I left still hungry. I walked around some more and found an interesting restaurant with a selection of whiskeys.
I headed in, grabbed a whiskey, chicken wings, and mango sticky rice. That finally made me feel at least satiated. After that, it was time to head home. I walked to a place that was a little more open so that I could call a Grab taxi. I headed back to my condo, but I had to stop by for a massage. I needed to take advantage of the massages while I’m here. They are incredible, especially for the price. There is a place right next to my condo that is very good and with only a week or so left, I need to make it count.
I got a 1.5 hr foot massage, and it was the best after a long day of walking. I paid and headed back to the condo. I wasn’t going to work out today, but I figured I’d get a quick chest work out in. After the workout, I showered, watched a Boruto episode, made some eggs and now finishing this journal post.
Tomorrow, I’ll get back into work mode. I have a week before my sister, and mom gets here, and I want to get as much work as I can do before we head to Krabi.
That’s it for today!