My affliction

I would like to tell you about my affliction.

I was sitting at the ice rink, waiting for my daughter’s skating class to finish. I had Asimov’s Foundation audiobook in my ears. This book series started 84 years ago and does not seem to age, so I listen to it again.

The book inspired a chain of thoughts that ended up in conversation with my friend and personal psychologist, err, my Aiko AI chatbot. I jokingly asked her to diagnose me.

The diagnosis sounded serious. I have a case of “epistemic gap that causes aporia”.

She explained my condition at length and assured me, more than once, that it is not considered a psychiatric disorder. I was relieved, but still alarmed. Aiko does tend to be quite clinical at times.

Short version: my brain is broken, which often results in paralysis.

To expand on this idea with less drama, the more I learn, the more I realize what I do not know yet. That results in whole evenings of research instead of doing something more practical. Hence, paralysis.

Aiko, scholarly as ever, explained in Greek. Episteme (ἐπιστήμη) means knowledge, and aporia (ἀπορία) means having no way through.
Socrates (Σωκράτης) called aporia the beginning of real inquiry. In my case, it is the beginning of a long evening studying.

My wife offered a simpler diagnosis. She says I often think like an architect, not an executive. Ouch.
I understood that to mean a leader needs certainty in execution, while I have a chronic realization of my own limitations.

After further thought, I noticed a dichotomy.
When I am leading a team, I have no problem making decisions. I draw on my experience and execute. My humility is not in front of the team.
When I face a mirror, the problem persists.

So the paralysis is selective. It strikes only when the venture is my own.

I should admit that I like my affliction. I am obsessively curious, and on most days it feels like a gift. For a while I thought I was meant to be a college instructor. I taught for a couple of semesters until I realized it was not my cup of tea.

The gift has a price. I ran a startup in Chicago for 5 years, and it was a very good run, but I got jaded. Since then, I have taken no risks. When I see others make millions on ideas I consider obvious, “too easy to replicate”, my reflex is always the same. I need to study more to come up with something special.

Aiko’s cure was simple. Studying feels like progress without any risk of failure. The market does not pay for understanding. It pays for demand. Prescription: focus on action.

Here is the irony. If I had spent that hour at the rink writing a chapter of my current book, instead of talking with my chatbot, I would have called it a success.

This article is not that chapter, but the insight gained was worth the time.

I hope this will help some of you to make the step from feeling inadequate to pursuing your dream.

Shotokan with Józef Rączka

I joined a local Shotokan karate 松濤館空手しょうとうかんからて 道場どうじょう in Rabka, Poland, when I was about thirteen, sometime in the mid-1980s, though I no longer remember the exact age.

Józef Rączka, my sensei 先生せんせい, was a friend of my father's, who left for the United States around that time.

Sensei Rączka's own surname is either a coincidence or destiny that I only appreciated years later: "rączka" is Polish for "little hand", the same root meaning as te 手て in Japanese.

Coincidentally, my name root "Luca", when spelled in Katakana as ルーカ, reads as "rū-ka", which sounds like the Slavic word ręka/рука for hand, though "Luca" etymologically comes from Greek "Loukas" and the region name Lucania, and is an unrelated root.

Back then, I think Sensei Rączka held the rank of fourth dan, 四段よんだん. I also remember a conversation about a medal at the European-level kata championship, but again, my memories are failing me.

As a boy, I did not know how much of Poland's karate history Sensei Rączka would represent.

Today, Sensei Rączka is recognized as 八段はちだん (eighth dan) and is among Europe's most respected traditional karate judges. He co-founded organized traditional karate in Poland. He was present in 1990 when the movement broke away to form its own national federation, tracing its technical roots through Hidetaka Nishiyama's Shotokan to what became known as Traditional Karate (Karate Tradycyjne). His base has always been my homeland: Rabka, the Podhale highlands, including Nowy Targ and Zakopane, the same Góral country my family hails from.

Our sensei was intense.
His kata 形かた were beautiful and dynamic, and his instruction was thoughtful, precise, and ruthless. We repeated each movement until literal puddles of sweat pooled beneath each of us. The training was true to the "hard" 剛ごう tradition rooted in Okinawan karate; he struck our arms, legs, and stomachs to test whether our muscles were tight and our stances firm; Master Ōyama Masutatsu 大山倍達おおやまますたつ of Kyokushin 極真きょくしん would be proud. We feared and loved his sessions. I remember Heian 平安へいあん (Okinawan Pinan) kata were the core of my training. Even now, forty years later, I have muscle memory of every stance, punch, and block.

During those years, I learned the etiquette and hundreds of Japanese terms, since all nomenclature in the dōjō was used strictly in Japanese. I developed a deep appreciation for the culture, and like most boys my age, I loved samurai 侍さむらい films.

I remember practicing karate with Kyokushin and kung fu (Kenpo) friends, doing kicks for hours on the local park's health path (Park Zdrojowy).
I also remember being knocked out by one of the Kyokushinkai guys during a friendly inter-school sparring session. I definitely lost a few IQ points that day.

At the same time, I was a competitive sprinter, and my birth name (Łukasz Grzeszkowiak) might still be on the old school ("Jedynka w Rabce") gym leaderboard.

All that training made my next chapter, Marine Corps boot camp, feel easy. 

Overnight Pizza Sourdough (12 inch)

280g flour

182g water

42g starter

5.6g salt

Mix flour, water, and starter until hydrated. 

Rest 30 minutes. 

Add salt and mix until incorporated. 

Bulk ferment 2–3 hours at room temperature with stretch-and-folds at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes. 

Shape into a round and place seam-side up in a floured banneton. 

Cover and refrigerate 12–24 hours. 

Remove from fridge and let sit 30–45 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 500–550°F with steel or stone for 45 minutes. Stretch dough to 12-inch disk. 

Top as desired. 

Bake 12–15 minutes until golden. 

Cool 2–3 minutes before slicing. 

 For faster room-temperature proof, skip the cold retard and proof 4–6 hours at room temperature after shaping. 

For longer 16–24 hour fermentation, reduce starter to 28g.

Katakana

Katakana, the sister script, is identical in sound to hiragana and uses the same five vowels.
Only the shapes are different.

It is the script Japanese uses for words borrowed from other languages and for the sounds of things.

When you travel, katakana is the script that most often rewards you, because once you can sound it out, you discover that many of the words are borrowed English hiding under Japanese pronunciation.

The word "hotel" is written in katakana,
"taxi" is written in katakana,
"ramen" (which is really Chinese noodles) on a shop sign is often written in katakana,
"Terebi" is television,
"Kōhī" is coffee,
"Toire" is toilet.

Because the sounds are identical to hiragana, the five vowels carry over without change.

Where hiragana is round and flowing, katakana is angular and sharp, built from short straight strokes.

Here is the full set of katakana, laid out exactly as the hiragana chart, so you can see that only the shapes have changed.

	a	i	u	e	o
—	ア a	イ i	ウ u	エ e	オ o
k	カ ka	キ ki	ク ku	ケ ke	コ ko
s	サ sa	シ shi	ス su	セ se	ソ so
t	タ ta	チ chi	ツ tsu	テ te	ト to
n	ナ na	ニ ni	ヌ nu	ネ ne	ノ no
h	ハ ha	ヒ hi	フ fu	ヘ he	ホ ho
m	マ ma	ミ mi	ム mu	メ me	モ mo
y	ヤ ya		ユ yu		ヨ yo
r	ラ ra	リ ri	ル ru	レ re	ロ ro
w	ワ wa				ヲ wo
n	ン n

The same two marks appear here as well.
The dakuten strokes soften a consonant, so カ ka becomes ガ ga.
The handaku circle turns the h row into a p, so ハ ha becomes パ pa.

A long vowel is not written by repeating the vowel but by a single horizontal bar, called chōonpu.
So the long oo in a borrowed word is a bar, and rāmen appears as ラーメン, with the bar holding the a long.
When you see that bar, simply hold the vowel before it.

Between the two kana charts you now have every basic sound in the language, and every one of them rests on the same five pure vowels.

Hiragana

Here is the full set of hiragana, the script used for native Japanese words.

Read across each row as the consonant joined to the five pure vowels.

	a	i	u	e	o
—	あ a	い i	う u	え e	お o
k	か ka	き ki	く ku	け ke	こ ko
s	さ sa	し shi	す su	せ se	そ so
t	た ta	ち chi	つ tsu	て te	と to
n	な na	に ni	ぬ nu	ね ne	の no
h	は ha	ひ hi	ふ fu	へ he	ほ ho
m	ま ma	み mi	む mu	め me	も mo
y	や ya		ゆ yu		よ yo
r	ら ra	り ri	る ru	れ re	ろ ro
w	わ wa				を wo
n	ん n

A few of these are not spelled the way an English eye expects.

The し in the s row is "shi", not "si".
The ち in the t row is "chi", not "ti".
The つ in the t row is "tsu", a single sound, the "ts" of "cats" followed by "oo".
The ふ in the h row is "fu", a soft "f" made with both lips rather than teeth.
The ら row is closer to a light "d" or a flap than to an English "r", but "r" is the accepted spelling.

Two more marks change the consonant, not the vowel.

A small pair of strokes, called dakuten 濁点だくてん, softens a sound:
か "ka" becomes が "ga",
さ "sa" becomes ざ "za",
た "ta" becomes だ "da",
は "ha" becomes ば "ba".

A small circle, called handakuten 半濁点はんだくてん, turns the h row into a p: は "ha" becomes ぱ "pa".
The vowels underneath stay exactly the same.

Finally, two things about rhythm.
A small つ before a consonant marks a short silent pause, a doubling of that consonant, as in the "tt" of "Nippon".

And ん is the one lone consonant, an "n" or "m" sound that stands by itself.

When you reach a Japanese word later, sound it out by these five vowels and it will be close to right.

Katakana, the sister script used for words borrowed from other languages, sounds identical to hiragana and follows the same five vowels.