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2024 Annual Letter

Westley Dang
Westley Dang
— 6 min read
2024 Annual Letter
My brother and I in Taipei

Happy New Year from Taiwan! 🇹🇼

My brother and I flew here the day after Christmas to be here for New Years with one of my best friends (Michael what up!) who said I should celebrate New Years here. Absolutely no regrets so far. I'm writing this from a shoes-off Japanese reading room / art cafe, an experience I've never had before. There's so much cool stuff here that I wouldn't be able to find in the US. I've only explored around Taipei, but so far I love it here. Consider this a postcard.

This year has been wonderful. People and health are the two biggest themes of my 2024. I don't force any themes going into the new year, but I'm feeling... creative. I hope I get to share the fruits of that creativity in a letter a year from now.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday and looking forward to seeing you in 2025~

P.S. you probably have my phone number. I love getting long voice message updates from friends. Something to listen to while I brush my teeth or clean my room. If you have time, I'd love to hear from you, if not a call, then maybe a voice message? 🫶

My people era

  • In February, I went to Kenya for my friend Jenny's wedding and it was one of the most life-changing trips I've ever taken. I met her amazing now-husband and friends for the first time and realized "Oh right... this is why we became friends." The best advice that she had gotten about her wedding was "Don't just invite people who you've been close to for 5 years, invite people who you want to be closer to in 5 years." This is probably the life-changing part for me; I became much more intentional about who I spend my precious time with this year.
  • Part of the intentionality is about making it easy. I listened to this podcast that made the case against managing your life. "If you learn to manage your life, you end up with a life that you need to manage." I leaned into what felt easy, to flow down the river instead of constantly going up it. Lean into the people who feel easy.
  • Speaking of which, I made a new bestie (what up Mishi!) and we've only been friends for a year and it feels like much longer. Friendship is so much easier when you live a few blocks away and share location. We threw a joint birthday party, invited our closest friends, and asked them to bring a friend who we'd never met before. We had everyone wear a name tag with no name, just something that they loved (my name tag said "NPR tiny desk"). This catalyzed a bunch of new people in my life that I'm incredibly grateful for. Some I've run a Taco Bell marathon with (Camille what up). I camped at Burning Man with others (Jeff, Dan, what up). Joined a cookbook club that someone started. It's been a really fun year.
  • I've spent more time flying to Eugene to be with my sister and my 14-month-old niece. I love them both, and I especially love being an uncle. Seriously, being with her brings me so much unabashed joy. It's really wonderful to share moments with your siblings and niece (pictured below: brother-in-law, sister, niece, brother).

My health era

  • I consider this year "my health era," and one of the reasons is that I started to wear a continuous glucose monitor, which the FDA has approved a consumer version of this past summer, and you can get 2-week sensor for $45 (Stelo, Lingo). It is THE BIGGEST ROI on my health I have ever spent. I bought a few CGMs as Christmas gifts for my family. Being able to see how certain foods affect your blood sugar is game-changing, and it makes it much easier to change your diet when you can see and quantify what is going on.
  • Added more structure to my running this year. Was gunning for a 2:52 marathon goal, but had to go to Buenos Aires for a work trip during the peak of my training, and my training got completely derailed by jet lag and not having enough time to run. I didn't run the race. My Garmin had already predicted 2:55 when the training started, so I was almost already there. But this was a growth moment for me: I wasn't sad about not being able to compete. I was grateful and proud of myself for enduring the grueling training, and all those moments at 6 am or 10 pm when I decided I wasn't going to skip the workout that day.
  • I also bought a Zeel membership which is a monthly subscription to at-home massages. I was running on average 200 miles a month, so it was a little reward to myself. Zeel was also my answer to my friend asking me "What is something small you spend on now that you wouldn't spend when you were in your twenties?"
  • Added strength training to my regimen again. I wrote about my training philosophy here. It feels good to be strong again.

Smaller updates

  • I bought a Playstation 5. I don't consider myself a gamer and it's been 15 years since I last owned a gaming console (Nintendo GameCube), but I do love story-driven games like The Last Of Us (which was on HBO). The week of the election, I bought a used PS5 and have rotted many hours on the couch playing Hogwarts Legacy. I'm excited to play Black Myth: Wukong after my gaming reflexes get better.
  • I bought a DJ deck this summer thinking that it would be fun to learn to DJ. I do not have an aptitude for this. Small learning lol.
  • Remember that "made to fade" tattoo from Ephemeral that I got in 2022? Yeah... it's still only 90% faded. I'm not the only one.
  • Officiated my fourth wedding!
  • Started a practice of morning pages via The Artist's Way. I'm a firm believer of physical journaling now.
  • Ran my first trail 50K since 2018. Placed 3rd in my age group.

Readings

  • The Poppy War by RF Kuang - wow I'm 6 years late to this train, but I love this book. It's a mix of fantasy with 20th-century Chinese history (roughly the Sino-Japanese war and the Nanjing Massacre). It has world-building, humor, military action, magic, and dark themes like addiction, patriarchy, and politics.
  • The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager - Was recommended this a few times, and finally read it. Really great story behind of one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, the Haber-Bosch method, which is the industrial-scale transformation of nitrogen into ammonia (which is used as both fertilizer to feed humans, and bombs and chemical warfare to kill them).

Viewings

Writings

  • I was on a panel in Buenos Aires about climate change and food security. Here's roughly what I said there.
  • I wrote about how I maintain friendships the plays in my playbook to do that
  • The Kendrick v Drake beef stayed rent-free in my mind this whole summer. I had to write about it.
  • I almost got killed by a car, the driver didn't have any remorse and didn't apologize. I was so fucking angry, I wanted to be violent. But then I channeled it into understanding using non-violent communication.
  • I wrote about running, from a biochemical perspective, for anyone who is new to running or wants to get into it.
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