Writing this post on Medium is ironic. But let me make this clear: the writing experience they provide is amazing. It feels clean and simple. It helps de-clutter your mind. I felt in love with it the first time I use it, and I still love it now.

Back in 2015–2016, Medium was a breath of fresh air. The quality of content was high. The community was enthusiastic. Content discovery was spot on. The fact that Ev Williams and his team are keen on going against the advertising model is admirable. I love the platform as much as the next guy, but I don’t like where this ship is heading.

Medium is getting more and more aggressive at pushing premium content since they rolled out their “Open Paywall” program in late 2017. A large amount of good publications have been moving away from the platform. Medium is turning itself into a walled garden. “Open” is the last thing this is about. I’m okay with writers getting paid, but the way it’s done right now result in a horrible experience for casual users. Around 70–80%, sometimes 100% of the homepage is premium content. Writers are also competing for claps and eyeballs. A simple, easy-to-digest article is much more likely to receive claps from a majority of users. This leads to a plethora of click-bait titles and listicles. That being said, lot of authors deserve to get paid for the huge effort they spend on stuffs that are useful to others. $5/month is not a lot. It’s just a cup of coffee. The problem is that for $5/month, what you often get as a reader is a bunch of random articles with variable quality. As publisher, if you’re an expert in a certain topic, you already have better ways to monetize your audiences. You want to be focus on a small amount of audiences who is ready to pay you big money. There’s a limit on how much self help and political content that one can consume, which is not much.

If you’re after good, quality content, there are other much better options. For example, Pocket App is free and when you’ve bookmarked enough links, they can start suggesting relevant content across the whole web. For ~$9/month, you can subscribe to Scribd for unlimited ebooks, audiobooks and magazines. Or you can subscribe a major publication like The Guardian, New York Time, WIRED (to which Backchannel, a great publication that used to be on Medium, move) or any else that is up to your taste. The quality is much more consistent. I don’t know, it feels like Medium is becoming what they hated so much: a walled garden littered with premium click-bait articles. You can remain a casual users, but they will make sure to remind you about it, again and again, by shoving tons of premium content to your face. It also hurts authors who want to provide free content to their reader. I thought you were the chosen one Medium. I’m not really sure how to fix this. Perhaps a tipping system or to pay for individual content would be much better. I hope you get better soon Medium. I still love you. But I cannot in good conscience recommend anyone to host all their content on your platform anymore.

You know what I do when I have an awful, horrible, absolutely soul-crushing day, and terribly in need of some peace? I get to the supermarket, find some nice ingredients and have a long, relaxing cooking session at home. I don’t think too much about how the dish would turn out. I cook because it’s therapeutic. I cook so that I don’t have to think about anything else. Cooking is my form of meditation. But I think there are more to why I find it so strangely enjoyable.

Something about cooking make it feels really personal. Maybe it reminds me about the good old time when people gather around for a meal, talking about things in their day, and having fun; no judging, no mentioning about work. It reminds me of family and of authentic, heartfelt social connections. Maybe things were never like that, but still, cooking remind me exactly of that. When people cooking together, or for others, it feels special, close and naked. I think it’s because of the patience and the level of attention that it require. We are fully present, there are plenty of silence, and it shows that we care.

When you cook, you can’t help but appreciate the small details, that how something so subtle like a sprinkle of black pepper and diced basil can make such a difference to the whole experience of the dish. The process viciously attack all of your senses; the smell and sound of garlic sizzling in hot oil, the pleasant combinations of colors of bell peppers, the hot overtone on the tip of you finger after you dice the chili, and the savory taste of beef soaked in oyster sauce. You also learn to appreciate the spices for how awesome and expensive they can be. They can either make a dish go completely off track or hit impressively close to home. In a way, cooking helps me practice gratitude, to be thankful to be alive, to have such good food and time to enjoy it.

“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude” - Julia Child

Cooking can sometimes be quite adventurous though. It’s full of trials and errors. Initially, you are absolutely bad at it. It gets much better and less messy everyday, but only if you practice everyday, just as with every other activities, hobbies and professions. Fear doesn’t help you much in the kitchen. I like to think of the kitchen as a laboratory, you mix things together, sometimes they explode, and that’s okay, but other time it can turn out to be something really amazing. As Julia Child put it: “The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” You jump in and never look back. Also, it teaches to be creative with your leftover and whatever you have left in the fridge when you’re too lazy to go get groceries.

So yeah, I absolutely love cooking. And I think all men should too, or at least learn how to do it sufficiently well. Apart from how relaxing it can be, it’s also healthier and cheaper. And the next time you want to build connection with someone, cook for them, or with them. Nothing can beat good food and good friends on a good Sunday morning.

Harris Nguyen

In Buddhism, Pretas are supernatural creatures that, because of their past karma, have to suffer from extreme level of hunger and thirst. No matter how much they eat or drink, they are never able to satisfy themselves. They’re disgusting, yet we can’t help but feel pity for them. I have the same mixed feelings about the digital equivalent of Pretas: the businesses that feed on our attention. There are no such thing as enough. They can’t stop because their whole business model depends on it. They’re hated by some, yet justified by others.

Business Does What Business Does

Here’s what I believe: businesses are not born evil. They existed and grew because they have a good product/service that actually help customers solve their problems. That being said, business is about making money while offering value; that one thing, is justifiable. But once you have a majority of shareholders that are only in because of profit, your customers might become second-class citizen. And at this point, every decision is a trade-off between what is actually good for your customer and what bring you money. Sometimes you balance it out, do a little bit of both, other times, you sacrifice one end. It’s all about priority of the business and the level of absurdity that customers can accept in return to the product/service.

The Attention War

In the digital landscape, businesses are now facing brutal competition. And when you’re operating with a business model that rely on users’ attention, you’re basically competing for a scarce resource. The more you have, the better. No business of this type complain about user spending too much time on their app, the same way no nation ever complain about having too much oil on their land. And just as the same way oil causes instability in the real world, the war for attention renders the digital world a mess. Now with dozen of apps on our phone screaming “Me Me Me” every single day, we’re facing the risk of having our attention span deteriorating to that of a goldfish. Have you ever been notified about a random friend of yours not posting anything in a while and now they do? Or that someone you barely know started a job 4 years ago and you should congratulate them? Or that one time, they notify you about a random friend going to a random event near you (that is actually a dozen miles away)?

You hate it, but deep down, you think to yourself, oh wow they’re sure desparate, yet brilliant at the same time. It seems like they never run out of thing to notify you about. And while they always tell you that you can reconfigure your notification setting, they make it so obscure and complex that you’ll likely give up around 50% of the way. If they truly designed with customer well-being in mind, that would never be a problem.

The point is, a business either knows what is enough, stops and goes on being responsible business; or keeps growing bigger and bigger until they become one of those starving ghost. For now, we’ll have to accept that the some businesses that we once loved have become so foul and horrendous that we cannot stay with them any longer. We understand why they do what they do, we wish them good luck and goes on with our own life. Pity.

Harris

We messed up every now and then. It’s almost unavoidable. What to do then? If you’re like me, most of the time, the solution is not to desperately try to fix them, but to wipe it out and start all over again. Remember that time when you noted furiously about some problems on a piece of paper? Remember what you did when you were stuck and the paper felt insanely cluttered? Well, there’s a high probability that you torn that page off, crumbled up and threw it in the garbage can. Now think about it. No one tells us or teaches us that we should act that way, we do it kinda instinctively. Deep down, starting fresh with a blank piece of paper is much more preferable than working with a cluttered one, even if it would require significantly more efforts. With a blank page, we remove all the limits or constraints that we previously put on ourselves, and that is when we have the most accurate perspective of the problem, as well as what to do the sort things out this time.

Zero-based Budgeting Is About Decluttering

In business management, zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is, explained in a naive way, “building a budget from zero”. What does that mean? It’s a process of budget planning where the organization break down the cost struture, review every single dollars in the annual budget in a detailed, structured and interactive way, in order to increase visibility into cost drivers, which then help the organization to see cost reduction opportunity that would otherwise be obscure. It’s similar to the paper example above in a way that, when things get too cluttered to the point that it makes critical problems obscure, you would better off start fresh, review carefully what we should and shouldn’t put on the paper this time. That being said, ZBB or the process of ripping off that piece of paper is only the fix after the problem has already happened. We, somehow, made things so complicated and/or organized them so poorly in the first place. Where can we look at, so that we can learn to avoid cluttering ourselves next time?

Lean Methodology vs Minimalism

Lean methodology in business originated from lean manufaturing which has a simple purpose - that is to minimize waste and uneeded complication. It does not only mean that we need to get rid of bottlenecks and problems once it’s already occured. It means that along the way, any acitivities that does not add values to the value chains need to be avoided or fixed as soon as it happened. The system is not designed as a whole, but as individual components. Processes are divided into smaller processes, production is done in smaller batches. When things went wrong, we know exactly where it went wrong, the cause of it and how it should be changed. Lean methodoly does not restrict to physical products. Software industry is now a big fan of it. It makes perfect sense. Build individual features, test them, if things end well, congrats, if it doesn’t, no biggie, just try something else. Quick, simple, cost efficient, less heartbreaks.

In my opinion, minimalism is not really that much different. Even though it has different applications and practices, it serves that same purpose of “staying lean”, by limiting what we possess and/or consume. We carefully review what we need, if we truly need something and cannot live without it, then it’s here to stay, if we don’t, throw it out. I think a large number of us have the tendency to keep something we don’t need, with the reason that we may need it again someday. But let be honest, we all know that it will stay in our closet for all eternity, until the day the sky fall and all hell break lose. Just think about how much space has been wasted for those kind of stuffs. I think it gets worse than that. When the enviroment around us is cluttered, our life feel also cluttered and foggy. Minimalism might sound a little bit extreme, but I think we should all give it a more careful look.

So, What Now?

Well, I think it’s utmost important not to let anything feel cluttered, in business, in relationship, or in any aspects of life. If things get out of control, remember ZBB, remember to wipe it out and start fresh, even if it seems scary. And this time, let be more careful about what to bring in. Stay lean. Less stuffs, less headache. More visibility, more comforts later on.

What!? So much irrelevant examples and definitions just for that? Well pardon me, but I was desperately needing a way to remember these interesting concepts. What’s better than writing it out and trying to explain it to someone else? All jokes aside, I do think we need to remind all of this to ourselves every now and then.

Harris Nguyen

For the sake of this publicity campaign, a huge amount of property have been destroyed. Some obviously deserve it. Most don’t. What seems like a mistake in govermental urban planning has now been transfered to a part of community that has no control over it in the first place. The point is while some may be able to embrace this change (and the cost that comes with it), the most vulnerable part of the community can’t. We are risking putting thounsands of people out of their job, people that are mostly women and elders. You can make a disruptive change, but it does not mean you can just simply get away with it. You break something, you have the responsibility to work it out. I’m not sure how much time they have spent thinking about this. Selling streetfood through Facebook fanpage? That may work for young, sexy hot girls, not for middle-aged women and elders. There must be a way to co-exist together until there’s a better solution, no? Changes take time, at least good changes do. The most important skill these days, in my opinion, is the ability to actually giving a shit about things around you and your action. Have empathy, be kind, ok? There’s no point crying over spilled milk. It’s too late to turn back now, just pray that they might come up with something good.

Harris

I’m glad that he passed away though. Too much pain to the point he didn’t seem to enjoy living anymore. My mother follows Buddhism and she believes that in the afterlife, he can finally be a human. Dog is the closest thing to human, she says. In a country that still eats dogs, they may say that it’s ridiculous to mourn for a dog. But it’s okay to mourn for a friend, right? He was our friends — a loyal and loving one. I dug his grave this morning, 2 and a half feet deep. It was my honour to bid him farewell. I thought I could hold it. But when I put the first shovel of dirt on him, I broke. It just felt strange. What the hell am I doing? I’m burying my childhood friend. Stop. I felt old. I felt the time passing me by one second at a time. It’s over. The power to turn back or stop time is beyond the grasp of reality. I felt weak. My mother was praying for him to be happy in nirvana.

One shovel at a time, I’m burying my friend. His name is Nô, and he’s a dog, a good dog. He’ve done a good service and now he’s dismissed. So long, partner.

30.12.2016
Harris Nguyen

1 AM in the morning, the long-distance bus was packed with people. Most of them are from nearby provinces. They come to the city to work, to study, to have health treatment and for various other reasons. Not everyone want to be asked about it. At this time of the day, they would prefer putting in their headphone and calling it a night.

This bus station is a strange land where you can meet all kind of people, to the point that you don’t feel surprise about anything anymore. One time I walked three blind people from the ticket booth to the platform. They were completely on their own, relying on any stranger they can ask for help. How could that even be possible? They travel from a place 300km away, back and forth, with no assistance, two tiny men and a woman. That’s insane! The level of trust they had must be phenomenal. Other time I met a pastor, who told me about God and the universe, who then tried to convert me to Christianity. I don’t have a hard feeling about religion to be honest. My family followed Buddhism, but I don’t follow any specific religion. This particular morning, though- this Christmas morning, for once I wished that anything that pastor had told me about God and miracles were true.

She was there, small and weak. Her father lay down right besides, trying to make more space in the small area they have at the end of the bus. It’s the worst beds on the bus. He was a nice man and a nice father, I can tell. It’s not the first time I saw someone travel with their child, but I can’t help but notice the difference this time. They looked lost and lonely. Turned out my guess was right. The man was from Nghệ An, in the other half of the country, and was travelling to the far far south. He gave me his phone with a message opened in it. Someone had told him to go to somewhere called Tan My, that’s all, no more information. His daughter was gravely sick. They said there’s some miracle healer in that small town who may be able to help her. There were conflicts inside me. I’m more like a man of science and would never trust those bullshit healers. They might be just wasting their money. But who am I to tell them? They had something to believe in, the daughter believed that she might be well once again, and the father believed he can have back his healthy child. I couldn’t break that hope. Damn my belief, if I were him, I would also try anything.

Now I feel worried for them. He has no idea where that place is, and I don’t either, even when it’s supposed to be near my hometown. He has no smart phone, no Gmaps, nothing. I’m a 20s something man but if you put me in the other part of the country with no smart phone and no mean to find out where I am, I would still be freaking the hell out. For me, that bus is a journey home, for them, that is the begin of a grand pilgrimage.

I fired up my phone, searched for the location and tried to figured out how to get there. 2 ferries, 25km of rural road away from the nearest city, Tan My is located on a river island with no bus-line to get there. She was not in a good shape to sit on a motorbike (the popular means of transportation in Vietnam) and using the taxi the whole way might be too expensive for them. I asked and luckily the busline we were using did offer to help getting them to the first ferry. 5AM in the morning, we were sitting there in the empty station. We had a small talk. He didn’t talk much. I didn’t want to ask much. We said farewell. Something will be stuck inside my head for a long time: the scene of a father, holder his daughter hand, walking down to the end of the station during a sunrise, hoping to find a miracle from God. For such a small child, such journey must seem scary.

During the night, there was one time the father had to get off the bus for a while. It was raining heavily outside. The light was off. I told her it would be okay, but I failed to comfort her. If I were her age, and were left on a bus with a complete stranger, I would also be as scared as she was. The look of her was heart-breaking. Such small, precious soul should be saved, if there is God in this world. As for that man, God bless him and ease his suffer.

Harris Nguyen

I was a part of the organic craze. Food safety has been a huge problem in this country in the previous years. Say, when you get an apple in the traditional market here, there’s no way in hell to know where it came from. The vendor is just as clueless as you. They got it from someone else who got it from someone else who got it from someone else… No bar code, no packaging beside a plastic bag, non-existent certificates; maybe they’re illegally imported from China, maybe there’re from the local farmers; only god knows. People get scared. Everyday, somewhere on the social networks, some bullsh*t fanpage says that some new kind of food are giving us cancer. Fish sauce? Cancer. Noodle? Cancer. Vegetables? Cancer. Fruit? More cancer! Don’t get me wrong. Food safety is a real problem here but most of the time it’s highly exaggerated. Among the unethical farmers and vendors, there are actually lots of good, hard-working people. And this food denouncing trend has hurt both sides. Some consumers are now turning away from the traditional local produces and favour imported or “organic” ones. Organic food startups appeared one after another and they’re saying that they’re working for the health of the community. Is that really so? And is organic food the answer to the food safety issue?

Let me raise a question: How many people in this country can actually afford to buy organic food? Organic produces are better (as they say) and safer for a reason: they’re grown in a completely natural way with no chemical pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Sounds good? I think so too. But, that also means they gives much lower yield compared to the normal farming method, which contributes to their sky-rocketing price on the market. If you can afford to use organic products, that’s great! I actually believe that they’re better for your health. However, I also believe that going organic can only solve the problem for the upper-most part of the society. We, as a country, depends largely on agricultural export. The organic trend continuously denounce chemical products and modern farming techniques, but without them we couldn’t have managed to end national hunger and then became a major food exporter. Personally, I think we have much more serious food-related problems to take care other than that. We may have ended hunger, yes, but not malnutrition, yet. Dairy products (besides eggs) is still not affordable enough for the lower class to be a part of their daily diet. People are eating an awfully large amount of staple carbs (which is cheap) to make up for the lack of calories from other kind of food. This could lead to diabetes and other health problems. It’s getting better in the urban areas but still terrible in the countryside. The point is: we’re still far from organic.

Organic food business are viable. But we don’t need organic food to be honest. In my opinion, what we actually need for the food safety issue is food with clear origin, reasonable use of chemicals and affordable price for all. So sorry, organic is not the answer right now. And they may never be the answer.

Harris Nguyen

The power bestowed upon us by an Internet connection is immense. Ten years ago, the way we communicate was different. There was no way to easily get the exact piece of information that we wanted. Our view about the world was also limited to what we saw around us. Everything changed when the Internet nation attacked. Your life, your family’s life, everyone else’s life would never be the same without it.

The Age of Internet dawned kinda late in Viet Nam. It was not fully available to the mass market until the previous decade. The Internet brought fresh air to the old and largely traditional economy and gave it a taste of innovation. The way we conduct business is changing day by day. New CRM systems, POS solutions, online distribution methods are introduced on a regular basis. Digital natives are no longer going to the market to buy stuffs. Everthing that can be automated will eventually be made to be automated. Internet and mobile technology changed our way of life so much that we can’t seem to recall what we was doing before all these stuffs happened.

The problem is: some of us are fast on adopting new things, but some aren’t. The old and the new used to live peacefully together. Not anymore. Technology brings power, but only to ones that speak its language. The obsolete became more obsolete. The potent became unstoppable. The old and obsolete somehow, against all odds, still find a way to stay in the game. And I’m quite certain that they won’t be completely replaced by new, fancy technology anytime soon. They’re stubborn, and amazingly charming.

Remember the traditional market? When was the last time you go to the market on a regular basis? With the booming business of convenience stores and online shopping, I find myself having less and less urge to go to that messy place. But everytime I do, I’m left with awes. It’s a feast of colours and sounds. Everything is there, right in front of you, not behind a computer screen, not in vacuumed plastic bag. That fish smells so fresh, it must taste so freaking amazing. The fruits, the flowers, the vegetables all look so great. The conversations between the buyers and the vendors somehow feel fascinating. Oh, 50k per kilos? It’s a bit expensive, can you give me a slightly better price? No? What if I buy 5 kilos, can I get a discount? Yes, it’s messy, but at the same time, it feels humane. It’s exactly what keeps me returning again and again. No code, no algorithm, no user interface. It’s human vs human. It’s life. Technology can not replace life, yet. They can not replace empathy and compassion. They cannot replace a real community with an online community. I used to think that e-commerce business will be the dominating buying channel, and that traditional market will eventually come to an end. Now I doubt that they will.

The point is, the best CRM systems, cannot help you build a great relationship with your customers if you don’t actually care for them. The best distribution method cannot help you sell if your product is shit and doesn’t add value for customers. In the end, it’s human vs human. Technology is created to honour that relationship, to serve the purpose of transferring value and to bring prosperity to human kind as a whole. Technology is over-glorified. The old and the obsolete proved that you can live without it. It does not mean that you shouldn’t pursue new things. It just means there is something that can be as equally important as technology: life. As long as life is appreciated, technology will never reach full domination. It feels better to talk to someone face to face, it feels better to buy from someone you know in person, it feels better to have a conversation with a real human, not a chat bot. It just somehow feels better.

Harris

Imagine you was a chubby kid all your life. It sucked. You got exhausted before any of your friends did. When you ran, everyone laughed at you. The worst part was that most of the time you’re not even taken seriously. Eventually, you would learn to get used to it. Many bad habits happened; and each one of them attracted even more. “It’s fine; it’s not like the world is gonna collapse or something”, you bargained with yourself. Until one day you heard that someone you knew had just died at the age of 25. Too young. It hit you hard. It made you realize how limited your time in this world can be. Suddenly the bad habits you had were not acceptable anymore. You wanted to be better. And so, the journey of changes began. “What’s the point? Don’t act like you were a healthy person all along”, your friends joked at your effort. Sure as hell you were not. It’s most likely that you had already did some permanent damage to your body after all those years. But who cares? You just wanted to change. You were sick of compromising.

First thing you did were reading about how your body works. It’s so incredibly simple that you questioned yourself why you didn’t read about it earlier. All those money and other resources wasted could have been used to maximize the wellness of your body instead of silly stuffs that do not actually matter at the end of the day. You were ignorant. You thought that your brain will always function well no matter what you do with your body. “Well, the brain has no relation to physical wellness, right?”. You thought that spending time to do physical activities, to go jogging or to cook a healthy meal is wasteful. “Well, I’m not handsome anyway, what’s the point? I don’t need a six packs or big biceps”. You made assumptions. False assumptions. You’re glad that now you know.

You know that Dopamine is the reason you seek to do things that are quick and easy, it control the reward and pleasure part of your brain. A dose of Dopamine early in the morning will keep you addicted throughout the day. That’s why they always tell you to “eat that frog” first. You also know that everytime you’re stressed or doing hard labour, your body create a hormone called Cortisol. Higher and more prolonged levels of circulating Cortisol can cause increased abdominal fat, sleep disruption and other health problems. You know that spiking your insulin levels by absorbing sugary food will leave you more tired afterwards. That’s why we often feel sleepy after we eat a meal full of rice or starchy food. You know that being overweight or obese can disrupt the secretion of Testoterone, which can hinder muscle and bone growth, cause depression and give the feeling of un-wellness in male.

These things may feel trivial or irrelevant to you. What’s the point of knowing that much? Well, the point is that you’ll be in a better relationship with your body afterward. Your body is the only way for you to interact with the world outside and it will always be with you at the end of the day even if you like it or not. Love it, understand it and fix it if needed. And it will give you back the best experience you can have. Changing your habit a little bit each day, and you will find that the process of being healthy is actually painless. In my case, I’m actually a lazy bastard, I don’t go to the gym and I only go running occasionally. But when I find myself repeating bad habit, I go on full Rambo mode to stop it. A few tweaks here and there can do more wonders than you can imagine.

Note: Pro tip on losing weight - Cut out sugar in your food. Drop that soda can. Now!

Harris