I have come to realize that I have overexaggerated the difficulty level of tasks through the course of my life. Granted, there are complex operations in life, but not every task has elaborate procedures and high risk. I just spent a life time thinking that things were more complicated than they were. In hindsight, it was pretty foolish to punk myself out of handling all matters of simplicity.

My parents and I are of agea where roles are being reversed, and I find myself making meals for my mother after a lifetime of being fed by her. She never taught me how to cook. Back when I was a teenager, she got frustrated at how slow I was in prepping for curry rice that we both realized she didn’t have the patience to suffer with my foolishness. She did teach me how to eat though, so I know what tastes like garbage, and what would potentially taste like garbage, and more importantly what tastes and would potentially taste good. I was throwing out ideas for lunch, and we settled on an egg salad sandwich. I can’t recall ever making an egg salad sandwich before, but I figured I could fake my way through it. I make more complicated meals, I figured I should be able to knock it out. Boil eggs for 8 minutes. Cool, peel, and mash. Squirt some kewpie mayo. Splash some dashi shoyu. Stir and drop that mixture between two pieces of whole grain toast. Boom.

I probably scared myself out of the kitchen early in life watching cooking shows and reading recipes. I got overwhelmed with multitudes of hows and not a lot of whys. I stopped reading recipes for the most part after a 4 year stint making cookies at a cookie factory. After my four year stint was over, I understood the basics for what makes a cookie work, but I didn’t feel the need to continue to know the exact recipes, and that sentiment bled out to the rest of cuisine as far as my attempts to replicate them. I know what fat, salt, sugar, and alcohol do. I know basic vegetable combinations. I can work my way through ratios of miso/shoyu/mirin/sake/dashi to make different dishes. That feels sufficient for my needs.

It’s amazing how simple things can be if you let them be. In my late twenties, I stopped drinking sugary beverages and started to drink sencha and genmaicha instead. I couldn’t bother with the specifics of a diet. Lost a decent amount of weight on a simple strategy. At the time, I didn’t take that life lesson and apply it to other facets of my life like the fool I am. I finally appreciate that I don’t need to overthink things. I don’t need to keep reading exercise routines, I just need to be less sedentary. I am not competing for Mr. Olympia; I am just trying to be less of a fatty. I don’t need to be a Michelin star chef; I just want to avoid eating bowls of regret. I just need to let simple acts lead to simple favorable results.

Soundtrack for the day on Spotify, 08052024:

1. Even Flow – Pearl Jam
2. Super Stupid – Funkadelic
3. Paranoid – Black Sabbath
4. I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones
5. Just A Girl – No Doubt
6. Let’s Make Love and Listed to Death From Above – CSS
7. RYDEEN – YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA
8. Stress – Justice
9. Shook Ones, pt. II – Mobb Deep
10. In The End – Linkin Park
11. STELLA – MAN WITH A MISSION
12. Stay – The Kid LAROI, Justin Beiber
13. I Loved The Way She Said L.A. – Spitalfield
14. Wouldn’t It Be Nice – The Beach Boys
15. Ain’t It A Shame – Fats Domino
16. オトナチック- Gesu Wa Kiwami Otome
17. On and On – Gladys Knight & The Pips
18. I’m Housing – EPMD
19. Rock Steady – Aretha Franklin
20. Block Rockin’ Beats – The Chemical Brothers