But you get used to it

Hello. It is good to see you again.

Did you sleep well this past week? Has everything been alright?

Whatever has happened — good or bad — please set it aside for now. Let your body have permission to rest.

When I wrote this, the channel had six videos out. I had actually filmed twelve, but I had not found the time to edit and publish them all. Never mind, slowly is fine. Putting them all out at once would not have brought many more people to watch anyway.

I am writing this because I want to talk with you. And I want you to be sure you are talking to a real person.

I am not an AI. Although AI does help me translate into other languages, and sometimes it checks my spelling.

My father, coming home at noon

Last week I had a chance to go back to my hometown, to visit the house.

It was the middle of a bright, hot noon, and my father was just coming home from work. My father is a construction worker, and I am sure you know that construction is heavy work that takes a great deal out of a person.

Especially in Vietnamese weather. It is very hot, and the humidity is high.

Every day he came home soaked through with sweat, because on summer days near forty degrees, working outdoors is always a trial.

When I asked him whether he was tired, my father said:

I asked again — had he been sleeping alright lately? My mother answered for him. It takes him less than a minute to fall asleep.

That is still my father’s habit. Put him in a bed and he is gone.

I was struck by that, and I love him for it — that he can work so hard in such harsh weather. But part of it is what he said: he is used to the work. And he said he still would not give it up. To him, it is a joy.

Two kinds of tired

I realised something. Some work leaves us tired in the body. And some work leaves us tired in the mind.

That tiredness of the mind — have you noticed when it comes most? Is it not when we are not yet used to something?

I saw this most clearly when I started this channel.

Coming up with ideas. Finding places to film. Learning camera angles. Recording sound so it would not distort. Working out how to protect the equipment. Once I raced from home all the way out to the location, and the rain had already stopped.

Then sitting down to edit. Working out what to write. And on, and on. There was so much of it.

Honestly, the first video left me more tired in the mind than anything else. The pure tiredness of doing something you are not used to.

I still remember the first time I went out to film. I fumbled about in the rain, trying to work the camera quickly with one hand while the other held an umbrella over it. A shame there is no photograph of that. I imagine I looked very awkward.

But after filming ten or so videos, I now have a pile of experience. Little by little, this has become familiar.

I no longer feel tired, or braced against it. Well — there is still a small tiredness, still hoping some stranger will leave a comment. But I am used to that too.

What tires me now is mostly the body. The tiredness in my mind has come down many times over.

And I understand now that some work will only tire the body, and will not tire the mind. That, sometimes, is a happiness. A privilege.

So if you are tired in the mind because of something you are not used to yet, something you cannot adapt to yet — if it is good for you, please accept that tiredness of the mind for a while. When you grow used to it, all that will be left is this tiredness of the body.

Last of all, I wish you a good night’s sleep.