2025

Jan-Dec: Oracle Database@AWS

Conventional wisdom says scaling is horizontal, not vertical.

Conventional wisdom says the cloud is about abstraction, not about bolting specific hardware directly inside AWS data centers.

Conventional wisdom says to bridge two siloed distributed systems—AWS and OCI—with loose coupling, not strong consistency¹.

This, for me at least, is the real appeal: time and again, throwing out the rulebook.

The prototype is done, but hard to say it's ready for expansion: I didn't foresee that it is in the maintenance that we might bear the highest amortized cost. The difficulty now is to make sure the operational cost increases at most linearly as the system evolves.

Apr-Jun. 19th: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

What is manhood? I asked.

For Saint Francis of Assisi, it's unconditional love and sacrifice. For Jordan Peterson, it's truth and acceptance. For Hemingway, it is grace under pressure.

And this game gives me the answer with its aesthetic:

If saving you means losing you, then so be it.

I grieved, but never regretted. We played the same game, but with different stakes. You wanted the optimal outcome without the volatility; I wanted the life. My dear, I am sorry.

I did not hesitate for a second to fight as Verso.

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Recollection

We often hear the semi-lie that introverts seek only inner peace, that loners prefer solitude because the state is 'its own reward.' True, the quiet discipline of walking alone can generate a steady flow of autosatisfaction. But this does not mean that the loner does not crave the chaotic warmth of a shared table, or that he would not be better off with the noise of kith and kin breaking the silence of the road.

I do look back at these moments of companionship with longing, and I do cherish the times I could simply be with them.

Mar-Apr: British Columbia

July: Japan

Kyoto

嵐山(Arashiyama) 祐斎亭(Yusai-Tei)

島根(Shimane)

出雲(Izumo)

出雲(Izumo) 大社(Taisha)

足立(Adachi) 美術館(Museum )

Mt. Fuji

这次日本之旅我与表妹同行，我们彼此看对方不爽，有过大大小小的争执，但这不妨碍我享受这次旅行。

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Epilogue: Memento Mori to Amor Fati

Marcus Aurelius and Zénon of Bruges hold divergent views on the anatomy of the self:

• For Marcus, the body, soul, and intellect are potential liabilities: sensations, puppet-strings of impulse, and calculating judgements². The hēgemonikon must sever these strings not to destroy the self, but to refuse to be a puppet.

• For Zénon, these three are imbricated forms of a single sentient substance(seule substance vivante et sentiente). His spirit is activated by the continuous and almost furious impulse ( l'élan continu et presque furieux ) of the soul.

Last year, when I recited

Plaise à Celui qui Est peut-être de dilater le cœur humain à la mesure de toute la vie

May it please the One who perchance Is to expand the human heart to life’s full measure

I treated it merely as a last resort—a hedge against the void. I tried to graft Marcus's defensive logic onto Zénon's expansive prayer. I missed the profound subtlety of that peut-être.

I missed it because I was afraid. I was afraid that I am not a protagonist like Zénon:

Zénon is an Übermensch, yes, but an exhausted one. Nor do I believe he was ever truly inoculated against the fear of memento mori, as I am not. When the spirit cannot develop without the body—ne se développerait pas non plus sans les expériences et le contrôle du corps—regardless of the Work one aspires to, one remains fragile. To lose the body is to lose the very engine of the spirit.

Yourcenar loves Zénon as he Is³.

To make his spirit impeccable, the finale she granted him was a self-imposed coup de grâce, une immense et harassante liberté, the ultimate act of via negativa.

How far can I go with Zénon? I don't know. Reading the Meditations, Providence is constantly picked up by Marcus as his fortitude for controlling what he can control, and refusing to yield to what he cannot. Maybe I too can embrace the so-called Providence? In other words,

May it please the One who perchance Is to expand the human heart to life’s full measure?

No.

I don't believe in Providence. It's foolish and hypocritical to pretend I do, which is no different from trying to use a surgeon's scalpel without believing in the principles of anatomy.

But I do believe in my aesthetics.

I don't need to trust an omnipotent, omniscient orchestrator to appreciate l'Auguste Syllabe. I don't need to find a concrete, consecrated Zénon to embrace the fiction-imbued virtue.

Some aesthetic forms appeal to something in our biology, whether or not they originate in random associations or plain hallucination; then why fight it?

It is time to wager on Providence, perchance. Whether the One is a fact or a sublime hallucination matters less than the expansion it grants the heart. "You ARE the Fool," the Atoms whisper. Let it. I choose to be fooled by this specific beauty. Le génie cède la place à la sagesse.

My sovereignty allows me to stand alone among the Atoms; my aesthetic allows me to hear the tune.

Time to open Memoirs of Hadrian.

Les dieux n'étant plus et le Christ n'étant pas encore, il y a eu, de Cicéron à Marc Aurèle, un moment unique où l'homme seul a été.

从西塞罗到马尔库斯·奥列里乌斯这段时期，曾出现一个独特的时刻：彼时，众神已灭，基督未显，唯人独存。

Footnotes

1. Strictly speaking, not 'strong consistency' in the CAP sense, but a design that enforces reading the latest state from the authoritative control plane and sharing memory by communicating. ↩

2. Body, soul, intellect: for the body, sense-impressions; for the soul, impulses; for the intellect, judgements. To receive impressions by means of images is something that we share even with cattle; and to be drawn this way and that by the puppet-strings of impulse, we share with wild beasts, with catamites, and with a Phalaris or a Nero; and to have the intellect as a guide towards what appear to be duties is something that we share with those who do not believe in the gods, with those who betray their country, with those who will do anything whatever behind locked doors.

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3. Répétitions (mantras). Au temps où j'écrivais la seconde et la troisième partie de ce livre, il m'est souvent arrivé de me répéter silencieusement ou à mi-voix à moi-même : « Zénon, Zénon, Zénon, Zénon, Zénon, Zénon... » Vingt fois, cent fois, davantage.

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