Meadow - Blog Posts

0069 - you don't have to believe what you believe

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 03:31:36 GMT

It's been around five years since I've been working 100% remotely. On one hand, it's nice being at home and not having to commute, but on the other, the lack of community can sometimes be a bit depressing. Seeing people in person, and more importantly stumbling upon them by accident, is something that just can't be faked when working remotely, or at least not with the current processes and culture my employer has adopted.

One interesting thing about always being remote is meetings. I frequently find myself getting so caught up in them, sometimes even stressed. It's fun to reflect on how I'm really so "into" this social situation when in reality it's only me in the room. Of course, I rarely have the presence of mind to realize this while in the meeting, but it is a thought that has brought me comfort, usually when I'm preparing for one. Whenever I have to give presentations or whatnot, I reflect on how it's really going to be just me talking at a display, no one else in the room but me and my cat.

We could argue that even though the people in the meeting are not physically there, they're still present in some fashion and that the social repercussions of your actions still take place, but the point I'm trying to make here is that sometimes these meetings feel so real, so viscerally there as a social situation, when in reality it's just an illusion, an imitation of the real thing. There's no one else in the room, no need to feel so uptight about the whole thing.

I sometimes like toying with the idea that I have no real proof the people on the other side of the screen are real. As far as I know, they're imitations, or recordings, or (nowadays even plausibly) AI agents imitating my coworkers. Of course, I don't truly believe this, but it is a fun way to try and reshuffle my perspective.

I wonder, what other areas of life are we so enchanted by that we don't see they're not as they seem? I'm sure there are many, more than I could list, possibly even the whole of life if we believe the worldview that everything we experience is, ultimately, a construct of our own minds¹. If we follow this line of reasoning, we will eventually get to the conclusion that nothing exists as it seems, but that's not very practical. A better, more useful interpretation of this phenomenon is that we don't have to believe things the way we already believe them. It's a bit circular as a statement, so we could try and simplify it as: we don't need to keep relating to things in our life in the same way as we've always done.

(This reminds me of a book by Derek Sivers (which I haven't finished listening to yet, though I mean to) where he talks about how we're free to choose what ideas to keep believing. There are some ideas that are useful and some that are not, but none of them are ultimately true, so we're free to decide what things we want to believe in. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty much exactly the same concept I was talking about in the last paragraph.)

This sounds nice and quite straightforward, right? There's really no universal constraint for us to believe what we believe; we can change those beliefs, and no universe police will come and put us in conceptual jail. Easy. But the reality is that changing beliefs is not a simple matter, especially for that most insidious kind of belief that we're not even aware we have.

Of course, I'm talking about what you think of yourself, that idea that tells you you're such and such a person with these likes and dislikes. Ideas that relate to things outside of yourself (e.g., Twilight was a decent book but a terrible movie) are easy to change, or at least to reflect on. But what about the idea that you have of who you are? It's like trying to change contact lenses while looking for the thing to change outside yourself, and in many cases not even being aware that you're wearing lenses! Your idea of yourself does, in fact, color every other concept that flows into your mind; it changes how you relate to it.

How do you even manage to see that? I guess that's why things like meditation and psychedelics offer such an opportunity for personal growth, since they (sometimes) allow you to see yourself from outside yourself, experience things from a different point of view for a bit.

Or maybe I'm wrong and things are actually simpler than they seem; it's not a single all-pervasive belief, but actually it might be a series of small beliefs that come together to form our Self.

For instance, let's take a harmless example. I see myself as someone who doesn't like to eat seafood. Not sure why that is, though. I don't especially dislike the taste; I do have some ethical qualms about how some of these are prepared (e.g., oysters being cooked alive or octopuses being crazy smart), but otherwise it's no different than eating chicken or beef or any other animal, so why not eat seafood?

I remember while growing up I used to at least be partial to clams, but at some point something happened, and now I won't touch seafood if I can avoid it. This is just an idea of me, of "I'm not the kind of person that likes seafood." Analyzing it in this way, I see that this idea of myself has absolutely no ground to stand on, and I feel somewhat motivated to at least try out seafood next time.

The tricky bit is that I still feel pressure within myself NOT to eat seafood. It's like I'm attached to this idea that I don't like it, and I'm hesitant to let it go. Maybe ideas and concepts have a sort of momentum that we need to break through, that we need to go against, in order to overcome. That makes sense, and I can intuitively see how that might be so.

This flips the question of "how you see yourself" a bit. Most people are like a stone going through the river of life, being shaped by the different bumps and currents they encounter along the way. But if we really have more agency in deciding how we see ourselves, then the metaphor could be changed to that of a lump of hot iron being hammered by a crazy smith. What if we replace the smith with our own agency and, through care and effort, manage to hammer the lump into the shape that we want?

This, of course, opens the door to the question "who is it that wants me to be such and such" or "who is my agency" in the example above. Well, being a humble blogger, and already having exceeded my target word count for today, I'm thankfully under no obligation to answer, so I'll just leave the question as an exercise for the reader :)

Independently of whether there's actually some phenomenon happening out there, all we experience has already been filtered by our senses and enriched/classified by our subconscious before it even makes it into our conscious minds. ↩

0068 - fight against stagnation

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 04:04:50 GMT

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

~ Kurt Vonnegut (Mother Night)

Recently, I've come to realize how easily we humans tend to stagnate as we get older.

I see my kids, and all they do is run around doing "as dangerous as possible" things. They constantly put themselves in different and exciting (dangerous) situations. I feel that, for them, being safe is almost boring¹.

Kids constantly push limits; that's what they like to do and what they're supposed to be doing, as it helps them better understand how the world around them works. But for some reason, there tends to come a time in a person's life when we just ... stop? We stop testing boundaries, get complacent, and eventually stop growing and stagnate. And we must not let it happen!

Maybe what's going on is that, as we get older, we tend to worry more about the status quo, about what others think, and about respecting norms. It might be that this "respect of balance" arises as a counterpressure to our desire to explore, but in some cases, it can entirely move the needle the other way. Or maybe it's simpler than that, in that we achieve a state where we feel safe and content, so there's no longer any need to search outside it. Maybe this space we find ourselves in is bereft of danger and discomfort, so there's no need to do anything about it.

Independent of the reason for others, I clearly see within myself that it's very easy for me to enter a safe state and do whatever I can to stay there. That's the reason why I sometimes don't feel like going on trips, meeting people (even longtime friends), or am, in general, against anything that threatens my routine. If it "works well", then I want to keep it the same. Maintain the status quo. However, every time I'm forced outside my bubble, I realize how much I was just drifting in space, not opening myself to new experiences, not doing anything to seize life.

If we let them, our minds will atrophy. They will become machines, doing the bare minimum to keep us alive and somewhat moderately satisfied. Society tends to push us to accept this sense of safety and conformity, and it's dangerous, with many of us falling into this trap over and over again. But I don't see this as an "evil of society", it's more an expression of the innate human tendency to stay within the bounds, to respect the status quo both outside ourselves and within us.

So how do we get out of this cage we've put ourselves in? We all know that we ourselves hold the key, but where is the door? How do we use it? To be honest, I don't know, but what works for me is to chase discomfort. It seems counterintuitive, but I think discomfort is the way in which our mind tells us where the walls are closing in, where we need to push back. Discomfort is our jailer; it is us telling ourselves to stay put. Discomfort is also the intuitive perception of where adventure lies. In some ways, adventure, discomfort, and discovery are all one and the same².

Exiting the cage entirely might be out of our reach right now for most of us, but its walls can definitely be pushed back. Every time we do something that we're uncomfortable with, the space we're in expands a tiny fraction.

Thoughts:

As a side idea, I think there's a strong connection between being complacent and attached to our complacency (e.g., avoid discomfort) and how much we focus on ourselves versus others. I think that a "tighter cage" makes for someone who's more self-centered, and a "wider cage" is someone who's more open and receptive. It makes sense if you think about it; someone who's constantly worrying about discomfort will, by definition, be thinking mostly about themselves. Maybe this is something that might benefit from its own post.

An interesting observation here is that they enjoy these "daring games" as long as it's them deciding to play them, rather than finding themselves in an uncomfortable situation they don't control. Makes sense; I think we as adults are also the same, though we tend to go all the way into safety and lose our sense of play and daring adventure. ↩
Of course, here I'm talking about "discomforting life activities", not "discomfort" as in sleeping standing up. Though even this can be an interesting source of discovery and definitely would make for an interesting story! I'm actually hard-pressed to come up with an example of "discomfort" that wouldn't lead to personal growth. ↩

0067 - unlikely things

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 03:59:43 GMT

I've been thinking about playing cards lately. Specifically, the odds of a specific shuffle configuration for the standard 52-card deck. This is actually a well-known thought experiment that professors of combinatorics and probability like to impress their freshman students with, but it’s not any less impressive because of it.

The idea is that there's an incomprehensibly huge number of ways you can shuffle a deck of cards. In combinatorics terms, there are 52! (factorial) possible shuffles. The gist of the factorial operation is to count how many ways you could order the items of a given set without allowing repetitions. For example, in our case, we have that for the first position in the deck you can pick any of the 52 cards, then for the second position you can pick any of the remaining 51 cards, then any of the 50 for the third position, 49 for the fourth, and so on. This eventually gives us a multiplication of all possible combinations for all positions. So, 52 * 51 * 50 * 49 * ... * 1, which is around 8 * 10^67, or, fully written out:

8,065,817,517,094,387,857,166,063,685,640,376,697,528,950,544,088,327,782,400,000,000,000

A big-ass number. For comparison, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe is 10^82, which, yeah, it's a lot (a lot) bigger, but it's still mind-blowing that the number of possible shuffles of a common deck can even be compared to it.

To get the probability of getting a specific shuffle configuration, we do 1 / (8 * 10^67), which is crazy small. So small, in fact, that I would say it's almost impossible for two people to shuffle a deck in the exact same order. You could basically consider that every time you shuffle a deck of cards, you're creating a configuration that no human has ever seen before, and likely never will. Your very own, personal, unique shuffle.

...

I just did some searching to see if my numbers above were correct and found that there are a lot of people who have covered this in much greater detail than I ever could. One such person is czep, who proposes an awesome thought experiment to help us really appreciate just how big 52! is. I suggest you check out his post, though I'll write down the main points here so you can follow. The idea is to reflect on how much time it would take to count up to 8 * 10^67 seconds. It goes like this:

Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0.
Stand on the equator. Walk around the world, taking one step every billion years.
Every time you complete a lap (~40,075 km), remove one drop of water from the Pacific Ocean.
When the Pacific is empty (~707.6 million km³), place a single sheet of paper on the ground.
Refill the ocean. Repeat until the paper stack reaches the Sun (149.6 million km away).
Check the 52! countdown timer. The first three digits haven’t even changed.
Do this whole process a thousand more times. You're only a third of the way there.

It hurts my brain to even try to make sense of these time spans.

...

I should know better than to start looking up stuff online while I'm in the middle of writing a post since I always get sidetracked. Unsurprisingly, this is what happened today as well, and I saw that there are a lot of other cool examples of "unlikely" common things. Another one I thought was quite interesting was the likelihood of getting struck by lightning. According to weather.gov, the odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime are 1 in 15,300. The odds of being struck twice in your lifetime are 1 in 234,090,000. And yet, even with this chance being so small, there are multiple cases of people struck more than once by lightning! Of course, it's probably a mistake to take these "probabilities" at face value since they're for the average human being, when in reality there are people who (either due to requirements of their life situation or because they simply lack common sense) are much more prone to being struck by lightning.

Another interesting probability I chanced upon was an approximation a guy named Dr. Ali Binazir made for how likely it is for you yourself to have been born. He approximates it at 1 in 10^2,685,000, which is just... no words. And yet, we're all here, aren't we? All here, taking everything for granted.

...

Seeing these numbers helps me appreciate just how full of such unlikely magic the world around us is. You're breathing; countless extremely unlikely configurations of molecules are constantly happening all through your body and all around you. Photons from the sun, which have themselves gone through mind-boggling journeys¹, are bouncing on your skin and creating a cascade of incomprehensible proportions.

And yet... and yet... The news...

We're so caught up in ourselves that we're unable to see, to realize that we are not separate from everything, to realize we are everything.

I would suggest you read up on the fascinating topic of radiative random walk, which tries to model how the energy produced inside the sun manages to escape. The estimate is that a given packet of energy produced by fusion can take ~100,000 years since its "creation" till it exits the "photosphere" and eventually travels to space. It's crazy to think that the light that warms our face might actually have originated way before the first human walked the Earth. ↩

0066 - thoughts on AI art

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 02:44:00 GMT

“The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”

~ Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)

AI-generated art is tricky. I'm of the opinion that it is indeed totally worthless if generated by a mindless, mouth-frothing AI bro, no matter how elaborate or impressive the piece is. However, like all mediums, it does at the same time provide a channel for true expression.

For this post I'll only be considering the abstract process of art and its meaning, more than talking about the output itself. Also, I won't be looking at the very real question of whether it is even ethical to use AI image generation models in the first place¹.

...

Many may indeed say that AI-generated images are always soulless, and they have a point. The great majority of generated images circulating around, while often visually impressive, are clearly lacking that human element. We're all familiar with the term slop.

I would argue that that lack of humanity has two sources: one is the generative aspect itself, and the other is that the person creating the images is chasing the wrong thing.

Instagram is riddled with accounts of "AI art" that aim to generate handsome people or funny pictures that have no real goal of expression. Their whole reason for being is adding content, attracting users. Operating under the fallacy that content will pull views. Here, the user is the problem. Its motivations and goal for doing "art" are directly pissing in the face of the art² they proclaim to do.

The other aspect, that these images are generated, has some weight to it, but I think it's less relevant than would initially seem³. Even before modern image generation tools like OpenAI's DALL-E and Google's Nano Banana, we had lots of really amazing generative art in the form of traditional algorithmic visualizations.

Of course, it's not entirely the same because someone actually wrote those visualization algorithms. Someone took the time to work on them and used their own creativity to come up with the end result. Even if that result was itself machine-generated, it took effort, and often skin and sweat, to get it to work appropriately⁴. But is that the case for all generative art? I would say no. Much of it does require effort, but some of it is just a matter of tweaking parameters until the output is aesthetically pleasant.

Now, the next idea I wanted to touch on is the concept of expression. Art is, by definition, the way in which we humans express those things inside us. It's a channel for those tensions within us, a medium through which we can work on those hidden energies. I think that in this respect, all modes of expression (modern generative art included) are valid.

Interestingly, this idea of expression applies to both the artist (the one through whose agency the art comes into being) and the beholder (the one who experiences it after the fact), but it works differently in both cases. For the artist, the expression is the source of the "art," the fertile soil that gives it birth. For the beholder, the expression is more a resonance with a specific piece, the witnessing of which brings out something in them. Both the artist and the beholder do art with a given piece; one does it during the creation process, and the other does it through the experiencing of it.

But can a "creator" actually be both the agent behind the creation and a beholder thereof? I think generative art specifically allows for this arrangement of things, since the end result is not guided by the creator from end to end.

I actually have a great example of this. Around one year ago (end of 2024, I think) I wasn't in a very good place mental-health-wise. I was quite depressed, actually. I felt worthless, an encumbrance upon the world. To any who have felt similarly, the analogy of "feeling like the lowliest of worms" might sound like a good description of what it's really like⁵.

One day, a thought bloomed from my misery, and I felt the urge to somehow connect with what I was feeling. This is a common inspiration for many of us, which sometimes manifests as a poem, sometimes as a thought, sometimes as a drawing. In this specific case, it manifested as an idea for a painting. I knew I wanted to paint my feelings. I wanted me, a worm, being laughed at by others.

It might sound a bit grim and twisted as a desire, to want to picture oneself in such a way, but it's actually quite the opposite. I'll talk more about that in a second, but first, here's the image DALL-E generated after I put in my prompt idea. It did it in one go; I had no need to refine it, as it struck exactly the chord I was aiming for.

I immediately identified with this poor worm being laughed at by the incomprehensible, adapted beings of an insane society. Seeing my feelings represented out there made them separate from me. They were no longer something inside me that only existed in my head; now there was an external representation, a symbol, that projected them into the external world. I can't exactly describe the transformation inside me, but it did help. I was able to relate to it in a whole new way and, more importantly, I saw the humor in it all.

This idea of representing what I'm feeling has been really helpful in many other situations as well. More often than not, that representation comes through writing, which is my main "creative" activity⁶, but sometimes what I feel requires other mediums.

Thoughts:

I've been sitting on this post for a while, but it somehow just wasn't flowing. I think perhaps I was just trying too hard.
I've also been playing a lot of Promise Mascot Agency lately, which explains why I haven't been posting as much 🤗 great game! Very wholesome.

This not only can take up a couple of posts all on its own, but the decision will also render this current post moot. ↩
To make things worse, a huge number of these accounts are themselves managed by an AI that analyzes "trends" and automatically comes up with potential images to create, raising the slop-bar to stratospheric levels. ↩
Again, just roll with it. I'm purposefully ignoring the fact that AI image generators are trained on the hard work of real people who often didn't give their consent. ↩
Tangentially related, but this reminds me of the awesome world of tweetcarts! Basically, the goal is to write a cool graphic demo for PICO-8 that fits into the limits of the traditional tweet. I really have no idea how they do it; it's so cool. ↩
The feeling is also excellently-albeit a bit too verbosely for my taste-transmitted in Kafka's Metamorphosis. ↩
Just a thought here: I've always thought of "programming" (at least traditional programming, without AI) as an extremely creative endeavor. However, now I'm realizing that programming really doesn't have any expression of how I feel (at least not always), so it might be missing that critical component to elevate it into "art"? ↩

0065 - you can't mar something that can't be sullied

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:25:32 GMT

Life began in the deepest recesses of the earth. Slowly, with incalculable effort through numberless ages, it pulled itself out of the depths and into the sea, then out of the sea and onto land, and finally reached its apex when it left land behind and moved into the air.

A beautiful race of feathered beings developed. They were kind and smart, built their towns on mountainsides, and largely left the rest of the world untouched. The troubles of the world below were of little concern to them, except insofar as acting as its steward.

They also got food from elsewhere, from the sun. Through the ages, a symbiotic relationship had developed with small and efficient algae powerhouses that made their home in their feathers, interwoven throughout every filament. A couple of hours a day with their wings stretched was all they really needed, as well as clear spring water, cold from the mountaintops, of which they had plenty.

They still engaged in hunting, but mostly for ritualistic purposes. They needed little clothing, as their natural makeup already provided adequate protection against the elements, though they did engage in the making and wearing of small trinkets, belts, and other decorations. Their chief occupation, at least whenever they were moved to do anything other than be, was to carve their stories and legends on cliff walls and mountaintops, often composing hymns and extensions to existing myths right there on the spot.

Things were perfect for a long, long time. They were still prey to sickness and death, as are all beings everywhere, but they were as happy as could be. Their deep connection with the world around them provided them with a framework to make sense of the cycle of life. Every blow, even though sad, was seen as an opportunity to strengthen the appreciation for the fleetingness of everything.

But progress can never be stopped, and, as happens in all civilizations, they eventually discovered the steam engine. From that came many other advances, like the mechanical loom and the printing press. Cloth adorned every visible space of their perched houses. Clothing, which up till now was worn only infrequently, started to become more and more common. Books slowly started to replace their act of carving.

Goods abounded, and with that came the need to transport them. Paths were cut through the forests, nature driven back with machine and fire, lest it claims what was rightfully hers, and tracks of steel cemented the first claims these beings had staked on land for countless ages, ever since their forefathers clawed their way into the sky. Great machines were built to transport these goods, ever going to and fro, connecting everything and everyone.

But mountaintops were hard to travel to, hard for this great machine of progress to reach with its nurturing tendrils. The Great New Age of Collaboration and Civilization, some called it, as many came down to live in cities on the ground. Those who still stayed on the mountaintops were called primitive, barbaric, uncivilized.

As the cities grew and the means of transport improved, flight was greatly eschewed in favor of the more practical. Clothing became fashion, useless feathers were clipped. In the absence of the sun, meat began being farmed and cattle killed by the millions to feed this hungry people that could no longer feed themselves. They sank to a level they had risen from, the reaching tentacles of civilization dragging them ever downward into the dirt.

The confused few that stayed behind, a broken people now that their wholeness had left them to live the life of beasts. What was their purpose now? What was the way forward? But some did indeed remember and held fast to the obviousness of it all.

Those who knew resisted in mind and spirit. And even in their shunned existence knew, as they watched, that you can't mar something that can't be sullied.

0064 - making audio versions of my posts

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 03:31:54 GMT

I always feel weird when I'm about to do a "technical post", because it's so different from the sort of thing I usually write about. Which is strange, considering I live immersed in this tech world and AI stuff.

...

For a long while now I've wanted to add audio versions of my posts. At first I entertained the idea of reading them myself, but eventually dismissed it because I just didn't have the time. The next obvious idea was to leverage some of the new (seemingly impressive) advances in AI audio generation (specifically for speech).

Initially this was a no-go because the only decent speech generation models were behind paywalls, and I didn't really want it enough to pay for it. But around a year or so ago we started seeing the release of many open-source speech generation models that rival proprietary ones.

Since then, I've been working on and off on a side project called bumblebee-tts. It's just a simple wrapper around various TTS (Text To Speech) models that can take a written corpus of text plus a reference voice sample and produce an audio clip of some new text that sounds more or less like the provided sample.

My wrapper takes care of preprocessing and chunking the input to improve the output of the audio generation, and it's been basically unchanged for half a year or so now. The main reason I hadn't used it yet was that model quality, while decent, wasn't yet really all that good. However, that changed recently when Alibaba released Qwen3-TTS, which is indeed really good! Some days ago I incorporated it into bumblebee and wired everything up so now my posts have audio transcripts of them! It didn't feel ethically correct to use a random person's voice, so I used a voice clip of myself. People close to me say it doesn't sound like me at all, but I don't know, to me it sounds quite similar!

Even though the generated audio is good, there are still some weird things, like the pitch of the voice sometimes changing to a deeper register and then fluctuating back. I've seen this happen especially in longer passages. But what really bothers me most is that it doesn't always get the correct inflection. Sometimes it reads a passage that I imagined was happy in a somber tone, while other times it reads a serious sentence in a chirpy tone. Overall I'd say it does a good job, maybe getting it correct around 80% of the time. This space is evolving so quickly that I'm sure these gaps will soon be negligible.

This current post likely doesn't have an audio version yet (depending on when you're reading it), so if you want to check out how all of this looks, you can go to an older post like this one that does have an audio player at the top. I think the player code ended up being quite neat, so if you're interested, feel free to check it out here. (The implementation on the website was really easy thanks to the awesome wavesurfer.js library.)

While adding the audio, I stumbled (by accident; don't exactly remember where) on a description of how podcast RSS feeds work. It turns out they're basically the same as the normal RSS feed I was already using for my posts but have an extra enclosure object that defines an "audio" asset related to the entry. The cool thing about this is that by adding this enclosure object, my existing feed can now be dropped into any podcast player, and it will be registered as a podcast! I guess I'm a podcaster now 😅? Though I suspect very few people will want to listen to my posts as such. Still, it's nice to at least have the option.

...

And yes, now all of this begs the question: "why"? I'm not really that sure, to be honest. Initially, I just thought these TTS models were cool and wanted to play with them since I could run them on my local GPU. But then I guess the thing just evolved. I found myself wondering, "I have this whole pipeline in place, it's easy to run locally, it's fast, then why not use it"? It's the classic example of someone realizing they can do something before stopping to think whether they should, or even asking why for that matter.

But well. For now I'll leave them be. Design-wise, I really like how the player turned out, but at the same time I feel it occupies quite a bit of space at the top. I also feel sort of bad about using the electricity necessary to create these audio files (though it probably isn't all that much). I know some visually impaired users might benefit from them (which would be awesome), but I also feel it's a sort of vanity on my side?

Anyway... ethical quandaries can be dealt with later. For now, I wanted to give a brief primer on how you can generate this audio yourself.

For the moment, my tool does require you to be comfortable at a terminal (though if folks are interested, I might try to package it up as a normal desktop app).

To get started, clone the repo and follow the setup instructions in the README.

Then you'll need to "source" an audio segment of ten or so seconds of you reading some text. I just used my phone's voice recorder, though I did have to do it a couple of times. The models are very sensitive to sample quality, so try to do it in a quiet space (this is a must) and use a good microphone if you have one. I saved my sample in .wav. The other thing you'll need is an actual Markdown file you want to create an audio of.

Once the prerequisites are out of the way, you can generate an audio file for the Markdown file of your choice by using the following command, which takes around 10 minutes to run on my PC for a ~1k-word file. It will generate an output .m4a file in the output/ folder.

Be sure to replace all the <> comments in the command below!

bumblebee-tts generate \
	"<here put the path to your input markdown file>" \
	"<here put the path to your voice clip sample>" \
	--ref-text "<this is the text you read when you did your sample audio clip>" \
	--chunk-size "300" \
	--no-cleanup \
	--crossfade "0" \
	--blog-post \
	--tts-engine "qwen3-tts" \
	--cfg-weight 1.8 \
	--m4a

That's it! If you try it out, I would love to hear how it goes :)

Also, disclaimer: I've only tried this with English text. I don't know how well the conversion works for other languages.

0063 - karma is interpersonal

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 02:50:50 GMT

Si quieres cambio verdadero, pues camina distinto.

~ Calle 13 (La Vuelta al Mundo)

This is an idea that has been going around in my mind a lot lately. According to what I said in this post, I should already have written about it by now, but I keep putting it off, mostly because I don't feel I've thought enough about it. However, today I decided it's probably time, as I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I feel, "enough is enough".

The idea is that "karma" is completely interpersonal. There's no such thing as "independent karma".

Here I define karma as the result of one's own actions, be they in this life or others. If I get drunk and break my finger with a hammer, then that's karma. If I improve someone's day and that person goes on to do good for others, then that's also karma. Anything that's an effect of anything I did¹ is karma.

The argument I want to make is that even though my actions might have a clear owner, the results of my karma belong to multitudes (perhaps countless numbers) of beings.

There are cases when this distinction is easy, like the example I gave above about improving someone else's day, and then that person goes on to do good for others. Of course, in that case my action contributed to a sort of fanning effect, augmenting and spreading the goodness throughout multiple individuals.

However, some cases would initially seem much more individual, like the example above of getting drunk and hitting my finger with a hammer. Superficially, it might seem like I'm the only one affected by this, but in reality my action will affect everyone around me. A hurt finger might cause a hurt state of mind, affecting those in my immediate vicinity (like my family), and it might also affect my ability to do work, hence affecting my employer, and so on.

Moreover, the effects I have on those I interact with will very likely spread to others, often in indirect ways. I might not come to work today, so someone else has to cover for me; that someone else gets grumpy about it, which affects those in their own immediate surroundings, and so on. Or those in my family, affected by my shame and temporary disability, will themselves find their own "selves" affected and affect those around them, etc.

Whatever affects you also affects me. If you win the lottery and we're friends, then it affects both of us positively (hopefully). If you commit a crime, then that also affects both of us negatively. My karma is your karma, and vice versa. One might even be tempted to say that they're exactly the same thing? I may be spewing nonsense now, but what if there's ever just a "universal karma" that acts in different loci throughout space and time? Maybe, quite literally, your karma is my karma, and the other way around.

This, of course, brings up all sorts of questions to which I really don't have an answer, but I'm reminded of the idea of Indra’s Net that actually fits quite well the concept I'm trying to convey.

Imagine a net that stretches forever; at every intersection there is a jewel with infinite facets. Every single jewel reflects every other jewel in the net. And since every jewel reflects every other jewel, and those also reflect every other jewel, then in every reflection we can see the full net over and over, recursively. That means that even though the jewels are "independent," any change in any of the jewels will cause a change in the whole system, as it changes every reflection everywhere.

Now, perhaps what I was saying about "universal karma" (not sure if this is a real term) is pretty much the same as Indra’s Net? Our whole existence is strung up in this infinite universe, and whatever affects one part affects everything else. Maybe some "jewels" might be affected more dramatically-like some might be actually scratched or blemished-but the reflection changes everywhere. Maybe our monkey brains are just incapable of perceiving that we're all just reflections of each other.

...

If one sees it like this, karma seems more like a never-ending series of ripples rather than the usual simple cause and effect we're accustomed to. The tricky part is that I, at least, can't really pinpoint whether those ripples ever end or not. I think they don't; they just keep going, propagating each other as long as there are things to affect. They might transmute, but they remain there.

It's sort of like dropping a drop of blue ink in a glass of water; no matter how many drops of other colors you might drop in it, the blue will never really go away. It will always contribute to the final color of the water, whatever that is. In a similar way, the effects of our actions will color the shape of the universe forever, often with unforeseeable, unfathomable effects.

Now, perhaps that's a bit too dramatic, but I think it's actually quite a cool thought. If anything, it helps us reflect on how important our actions are. Almost all the time we tend to act without thinking; 99.992% of our time is spent following mental shortcuts, working on autopilot almost. This idea is a reminder that our actions have incalculable weight attached to them, which hopefully helps us be more intent on doing what we actually mean to rather than just going with the flow of things.

I won't get into the messiness of defining who is the one that does things, who's the one to whom the karma belongs. On one hand, I'm not clear on this idea myself. It is something I frequently wonder about, though: what piece of "me" is the one that owns the karma? Depending on your viewpoint, it can either be "no one" or something else. Too advanced for me, I think, so I'll just stop right here. ↩

0062 - only you can believe in yourself

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 04:11:04 GMT

Despite my best efforts, I sometimes (always) worry about what others think of my writing. It's definitely been getting better (the more I write here¹, the less I think about it), but it's still there.

This is something I've been wondering about for a long, long time. It comes from way before I even started this blog. Ever since I was little, I've always cared about what others think of me. I guess I was always an insecure kid, struggling with social anxiety, defining my own self-image, and being sure of my self-worth.

When I was little, it was a lot worse, I think, especially during those early teen years. But there was a pivotal moment that helped at least start on the road to improving this condition. It happened during an art class in what was maybe the first year of middle school.

The art class period was immediately before recess, and I'd stayed behind after everyone had left because I knew I wanted to draw well but for some reason just couldn't manage to do it. I don't remember exactly what it was I was doing or why I stayed longer than my classmates, but I remember that eventually I finished the assignment, and when I gave it to my art teacher she looked at it, then looked at me, and in all seriousness said,

"What do you think of this work"?

"Well, I think it's really bad, I don't like it", I answered.

I still remember how she looked me straight in the eyes as a warm smile suffused her face.

"I think this work is really great, you have a real talent. But it doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter how many times I tell you this, if you don't see it yourself, if you don't believe in your own work, then no one else can do it for you. You have to believe in what you do".

I was slightly baffled. "How did she know"? I kept asking myself. How did she know I really have no regard for my self-worth? We probably had chatted about this same thing other times, but this is the only occurrence I remember.

After that, I thanked her and walked out of the class, and everything else is a blur.

I rarely think about this moment, but the fact it's stayed with me definitely means it was important. Ever since then, my own relationship to what I do has slightly shifted. I guess growing up I did have external support, but for some reason I just didn't develop the necessary self-esteem.

As I said in the opening paragraph to this post, I still worry about what I write, or really about anything I create, but it is true that my reframing of the whole thing has changed a bit. Now I think also about what I like rather than just what others might like, which gives a whole lot more energy to the process. I've found that if I'm not clear on what I like, then the pressure to make will be there, but it dies even before it can get started, strangled by the (imagined) opinions of others.

...

Some days ago I was thinking about this and realized how silly it is that I worry about some things and not others. I actually realized this while I was on a plane over the weekend, coming back from my work trip (see last post for context).

I was on my Switch playing yet more Caves of Qud when I realized I'd been going about in circles for a while. I laughed at myself and thought that if the folks behind me knew anything about the game, they would also find it funny. I found this idea made me happy; I like entertaining others. It hit me that playing CoQ is really not all that different from any other sort of performative activity, so why was I okay with folks laughing at me (with me)? I definitely wouldn't be happy if someone laughed at a drawing I made or something I wrote², so what's the difference? Why do I take these things so seriously?

There are other, maybe more artsy, things that I don't really mind people seeing me do. I like sculpting and have lots of fun making weird stuff whenever I'm at the beach. It's usually really crappy, but that doesn't matter since I don't do these "constructions" for their aesthetics, more because I enjoy the process. ... Ah! I think that offers us an important clue: the "why do you do something". Well, I do enjoy the process of writing and putting silly words together, so while this aspect is important, it's probably not it.

Maybe let's flip the approach and instead look at things I do care about: already mentioned drawing and writing, then there's also singing³ and playing an instrument. For all of these, I feel a sense of "shame" in the act of performing. Actually, there are also a few other activities that I find weirdly shameful and might fit well into this group: meditating, yoga.

Now, if I reframe the question to think about things I'm not ashamed of, then it's easier to expand the above group. I'm not ashamed of programming, nor of brainstorming with people about topics I know nothing of (like the nature of the mind), nor am I ashamed of crocheting⁴, nor making websites (which is a sort of painting, I guess?), nor of 3D modeling (which I also know nothing of; it's a sort of sculpting). I can think of a few others, but I think we already have enough.

Initially I thought what all of these have in common is that they're things I'm good at, but that's not really the case. I'm not really any good at sculpting, and I was not always good at programming or crocheting (I'm barely a beginner at crocheting now). Something that they do have in common is that I don't force myself to feel any better at them than I actually am.

Not sure how to properly explain this last point. It's like, I know I'm not great at making sand sculptures, and that's totally fine. It's actually exciting, because there's a lot of stuff I can learn and improve, should I want to. Same for all the other things I mentioned, actually; at one point or another I was (or am) excited to learn more so I can improve. I recognize I have a lot to learn, but that's really inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

For all the things I am ashamed of doing, I do see that the inverse is true: I try to tell myself I'm maybe better than I am. Maybe there's a subtle lie in there somewhere, and the shame is actually a balancing force? That makes sense, but if there's a lie with, for example, my drawing, I don't really see it. Or maybe it is something that goes on at a much more subtle level. Maybe at some point I wanted to be good at drawing, or I admired people who drew, and I still relate to that desire as I did when I was a kid.

A therapist once told me that when we're young we sometimes acquire ideas, fears, etc., that we never truly resolve at the time, and carry them with us into our adult lives. The tricky part is that even as adults we still relate to these things as we were when we acquired them. I'm pretty sure that if I learned about "drawing" or "writing" today, then I would be excited to learn and improve rather than hesitant and cagey about it. I think there's definitely some merit to this idea. It at least supports why thinking about these issues rationally often yields little result. It could be that what happened is that at some point my younger self decided it was better than it was at these things, and now that lie is creating friction in my adult life.

I think I might be approaching these issues in the wrong way. Right now I'm hoping that just by doing "lots" of it (writing in this case), that feeling of aversion will slowly go away. As I said above, it has improved, but the core part of the aversion to sharing is still there.

What I should probably do is heed my art teacher's advice a bit more. Over the past couple of years of blogging I've found that the initial resistance always dissolves away once I start writing and get into the "fun" groove of it. The issue is never with the time I actually spend doing the activity, but the time in between. Before starting I feel hesitant. Some time after completing the sense of impostor syndrome builds up.

Maybe her words are to be interpreted as "believe in yourself, believe you can do it". I do have ample evidence that I can do it, even though every post feels like the first one, feels like it won't flow. Her words are also a call to taking charge of what I think, of choosing to stand behind myself.

As Harry Potter famously said:

“I knew I could do it all this time,” said Harry, “Because I'd already done it... does that make sense?”

Especially when I manage to convince myself to write as I enjoy writing rather than as I imagine others might like I write. I feel every post helps to slightly rewire my brain. ↩
Unless, of course, it's purposefully funny :P ↩
Though through exposure, I think this has greatly gone away. Of course, I would be terrified to sing in front of a group of people I don't know. ↩
Which is not something I do much of anyway, though recently I made myself a couple of fingerless gloves that turned out great! Very functional, at least. ↩

0061 - don't take things so seriously

Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:26:43 GMT

The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away, and the weather is clear again.

If your heart is pure, then all things in your world are pure. Abandon this fleeting world, abandon yourself, then the moon and flowers will guide you along the Way.

~ Ryokan

Well, my plan to write daily during the past week didn't really work at all! I thought I would be able to leverage all that free time and pick up some of the blogging slack I've been introducing recently. But I always got to the hotel so tired that I didn't really ever do anything. Most days I would just lie on my hotel bed, reading or curled into a ball playing on my Switch rather than go out. My company pays for my meals when I'm out traveling, but I didn't even have the motivation to go and get something to eat for dinner. I did go out one day to visit a bookstore (got a Ryokan poetry book¹ for myself and a storybook for my kids) as well as get some small souvenirs for my family.

The thing I was traveling to was a sort of internal conference, and while I do think getting to see teammates in person and meet new folks working on similar areas is great, it is also terribly exhausting. Maybe that's not how it is for everyone, but I've never been one who thrives in social scenarios.

I'm not complaining though :P the trip itself was really nice. I'm always shocked whenever I go to the main company campus in the US and see just how many extremely talented people work there. It doesn't help my impostor syndrome though 😅 but still it's fun, and I really enjoyed all the brainstorming discussions I had even though they were tiring. I even got to see some snow, which is uncommon for me as I live in a tropical country; here's a pic of it from one of the office windows.

From what I understand, snow there is not that common. I heard local folks saying that maybe they get snow twice a year or so, and never in March. I guess I'm lucky then? It was also a really nice, picturesque, almost fairytale-like snow sprinkling, as it wasn't really all that cold outside, with little wind, and while it did snow for a long while (almost a whole day), the snow didn't stick. This meant there was little "sludge" on the streets, and it was warm enough to be outside and enjoy without being bothered about temperature or wind.

I kept thinking my kids would've enjoyed being there with me, but alas, not possible.

Now I'm back home. Actually, today is my first day back. I tried writing from the airport yesterday, but my brain was just toasted after waking up at 3 a.m. to catch my flight. I did write a draft about remote work and reflected on some ideas to make it feel less lonely, but it ended up being quite a convoluted mess, so I'm writing this new one today :P I might clean up the first draft a bit and publish it at some later point, as it was too chaotic even to be passed off as a word vomit. I think the main issue was not that ideas were splattered all over, but that it tried to sound sensible, which to me is a clear sign that something is not sensible to begin with. I know in these word vomits the whole idea is not to have any set standard, but that draft felt like I was wholly going against the grain of the process.

Anyway. During the trip I finished reading The Strength of the Few and, to my dismay, discovered that book three of the series hasn't come out yet! This second book was really good, and it definitely ended on a "great" cliffhanger. I was then left with that all-too-common gap for readers when you're suddenly done with a great page-turner and don't know what to do next. I thought about follow-up books for a while, and even though I've not fully decided yet, I think I'll next be finishing my read-through of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books. A year or so ago I was around midway through reading "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" (book four), so I'll just start from where I left, maybe backtrack a couple of chapters to jog my memory a bit. Then I have books five and six as well; that should keep me busy for a couple of months at least.

I really enjoy reading Douglas Adams. It's hard to pinpoint it, but the humor is sometimes way too on the nose, and one could say it even feels forced, but I don't know why, it just works for me (and seemingly works for lots of other people). He frequently goes on absurd asides or comparisons that just elevate the whole story and, more than anything, keep reminding you not to take stuff so seriously. This process, I think, allows him to interject some excellent insights on human nature and society as a whole. For example (see full quote here):

“It seemed to me", said Wonko the Sane, "that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane".

~ Douglas Adams, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

For me this really works; it scratches an itch that I didn't know I had. Most people would just gloss over the fact that toothpick boxes have detailed instructions on them (I know I have; didn't really pay the fact much attention till now).

We're often too preoccupied with ourselves ("so far lost in our heads," as Adams puts it) to even notice the absurdity of the things around us. Writers like Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut, etc., do an excellent job of reminding us, "hey, stop worrying about yourself for a second and see how absurd it all really is". In some ways it's an excellent reminder to pause, look, and realize we don't need to take everything all so seriously.

Which is where today's quote comes from! Expect to see more Ryokan poems in the following posts :P ↩

0060 - the new wing

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 14:54:37 GMT

I'm sitting at my local airport as I write this. I'm not entirely sure what it's going to be about, so I guess we'll have to find out together.

This airport is quite small compared to the usual huge international ones. It is a small country, to be sure, so maybe it's expected. Anyway, usually my flights depart from the "old wing", but today my flight will go out of the "new wing". I'd come by here on other occasions as I was stretching my legs, but never before had I sat here and taken the time to really admire the differences. In style and structure, it's very much the same as the old parts of the airport; it even has the same ruddy carpet, though it definitely looks, shall we say, less lived-in. The thing that surprised me the most is that it has proper restaurants, almost all of which are entirely empty! This morning I had breakfast at one of the usual "fast food" places near the airport entrance, but next time I'm here I'll definitely come and grab something to eat at these new places.

There aren't a lot of people around. Unsurprising, considering it's very early on a Sunday. Well, I say unsurprising, but really, how would I know, it's not like I come here all that often! It is starting to fill up now, though most people seem to be in "the old" part of the airport. My mind keeps coming back to this idea. I wonder how often "new things" are created that end up unused because of unknown reasons? Maybe just bad luck?

That reminds me of a restaurant/cafe that opened a couple of years ago near my house. They put in so much effort into making the place attractive, made some big (and colorful) notice boards, and even installed a huge playground to attract parents with small kids. Everyone I know who has gone says it's really nice and has good food. I never went though, and now I will no longer have the chance because they closed it a few weeks ago.

Why didn't I go? I don't know. I guess I just never felt the compulsion to go. I assume this is how it was for all the other people who didn't go, ultimately leading to the business's own demise. Maybe it just wasn't the right thing for the specific place and time it found itself in, no matter the effort of the owners. I hope whatever venture they dedicate themselves to next bears them fruit.

...

I'm sitting close to my gate, though not quite there yet. I guess a smarter person would be using the time to walk around, move their legs a bit before being bound on a multi-hour international flight. That's what I usually do, but for some reason today I just felt the compulsion to take out my PC and write. I guess part of it is because I've been catching up with some blogs today, an activity that always inspires me to write. More specifically, I've been reading a malfunctioning alien-human hybrid's blog, which viscerally reminded me how lucky we are that we can share our experiences online. I feel it's almost a responsibility to say what we have to say, even though we ourselves might not feel it is especially worth saying. What matters most is that we all contribute, in our own unique way, to the tapestry of human experience. Wouldn't it be nice if we all did so?

...

I'm traveling to the US for work. These trips are always fun because it's a sort of all-paid mini vacation. It is true it's for work, but... parents of small kids will understand 😅 I do feel a bit bad about leaving my wife with both kids for a whole week! I'll have to find a way to make it up to her when I get back. We joke that someday she'll take a long vacation to somewhere far away like Thailand and leave me with both kids for a month. Maybe that's not such a bad idea?

Anyway. Since I won't have to worry about kids and will probably have most of my evenings free, I hope that means I can get some extra writing done during the next week. I know I've been slacking a bit on the rate of publishing (which perhaps is not such a bad thing for you, the reader), and while I accept that the new rate is probably best for both me and you, I would really like to avoid it slipping any further. I somehow felt that writing every day for those first fifty posts really kept me on my feet, observant about things around and inside me lest I miss anything worth writing about. But now that I've relaxed my expectations, I feel I'm slowly sliding into laziness, which is something I would like to avoid.

To be fair, I've also been really distracted by "roguelikes"! I wrote about Caves of Qud some days ago, and I was greatly mistaken on some of the points I made. I said the world felt "sparse", but now that I've played some more I realize that what I felt was "confused" (extremely so), which I've come to understand was actually the developers' intention! CoQ is going great. My character contracted an infectious fungal disease on its arm, and then I passed it on to Man Opener! Man Opener then passed it again to me, so now both my arm and back have mushrooms growing out of them. So I (sadly, even though I think it's for the good of both of us) ended up leaving Man Opener behind at one of the villages. He's probably happy, though; I left him in a hookah tent with some other cool NPCs. I plan to come back for him once I've found the cure to this specific infection.

...

Well, perhaps I should go and stretch my legs a bit :) my plane will start boarding soon, and I would also like to do a quick bathroom visit before getting on.

Live and drink.

0059 - on the futility of legacy and what's really important

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:24:09 GMT

Content warning: thinking about death, how things don't outlast us, the futility of legacy, and what is truly important

Yesterday before bed I was thinking about this series, and my mind started playing with the question of "what's the use of it". One of the first things that came into my mind was that I simply enjoy writing it. But the second, which was slightly surprising to realize, was that this whole set of posts is a sort of documentation for where my mind is at a given moment, and that will be useful for others when I'm gone.

Now, it's undoubtedly true that this series is an extremely useful documentation system. I've benefited from it multiple times since I started it, as it makes it really easy to find ideas I thought important enough to jot down or issues I was struggling with. However, what surprised me is that a relatively big part of me is thinking of this in terms of "those that come after". As part of a "legacy".

On the surface, the idea of a legacy makes sense. I could even understand how someone might directly want to leave one behind. However, in my almost hypnagogic state I saw just how absurd an idea this is. It doesn't matter what kind of legacy you leave, it doesn't matter what you do, once you're gone you're gone. The experiences that others might have with respect to the things you created are completely inconsequential to you. It could very well be said that once you pass away, the rest of the universe stops existing¹. I realized that working to leave a legacy is a moot, empty, unsatisfying position to take, as we're basically moving the "fruits of our labor" to a point in time beyond our own expiration.

After some thinking about it, I realized there are some other (few) things I'm subconsciously doing in my daily life with mostly the goal of leaving behind something "nice" for others to find. All effort that I could be spending somewhere else, somewhere more important.

Ahh, but then the obvious question that we need to answer is "What is important"? This is probably one that I've been thinking about the longest. What are indeed the important things?

Sometimes the answer seems very clear. I've had multiple occasions when the insight arises that the most important thing is to "love each other", to "co-be" with one another in this vast, beautiful universe. Two specifically strong occasions come to mind.

The first was during my first experience with taking acid. A huge part of my trip was dedicated to being in awe at how much time and effort we spend trying to outdo one another, to compete, to mistrust, and (most importantly) how much time we spend resenting others and/or worrying how they might hurt us. It's just so much. It's hard to properly appreciate in our normal mental states because it's such a common feeling. It's basically our base model of being. But at that moment, I had like three or four hours where this feeling was lifted from me, and I felt how silly it was. How stupid that we spend so much time worrying about trivial stuff, truly unimportant things, rather than properly seeing the majestic beauty of the universe around us. How, in reality, we all breathe through each other, all part of the same awe-inspiring whole.

The other occasion is not so grand, but that doesn't mean it wasn't as important. This actually wasn't a single occurrence but happened multiple times throughout my master's degree studies. When I was in the midst of it I really didn't feel like stress was a major part of my life (we never do; that's the problem with chronic stress), but in retrospect I can clearly see that during that time I was so fucking stressed, constantly. The academic work itself wasn't that hard, but I was really suffering from social anxiety, and I was also working a side job to help pay the bills². I frequently had semi-panic attacks that would slowly build up for months until eventually I would explode. Thankfully, my wife was with me, and she magically knew when it was about to happen. She would force me to talk, and I would feel my anxiety slowly deflating back to baseline (still high compared to my present level). It doesn't really matter what we spoke about, more so that every time we did I found myself with that same all-pervading feeling of "man, I'm such an idiot here worrying about things that really have no importance at all! I should focus on what's really important". That would keep me going for a month or so before it would repeat again.

I think that as humans we tend not to evaluate our approach to life unless we're faced with a strong difficulty. If we're always perfectly comfortable, then what is to push us to see the irritants in our life, what to motivate us to be better, to find a better way? Only if we see suffering do we do something to fix it. As the famous saying goes (paraphrasing): "only if you feel the heat of the flame do you remove your hand from the fire".

Though striving to keep what's "important" in the center of your thoughts is not an easy thing to do. Once you grasp it, it will stay there for a bit, but after a while it gets pushed aside by other interests, worries, desires. Other ideas and thoughts. Until eventually you forget how important the important thing is. You start worrying about how to be more handsome, or how to make more money, or worrying about what your neighbor might think of you. But someday, like today, the idea of what is important will come back, for a while at least.

All this discussion reminded me of a really nice quote I saw on Reddit a while back. Paraphrasing again:

Don’t try to be who your parents wanted you to be. Be who you want your kids to become.

I think we often let ourselves be swept this way and that by the cultural ideas of our times. We let external influences tell us "what is important".

Oh here, you need to have the latest iPhone to be someone others take seriously, or you need to be making a six-figure salary in order to consider yourself at least moderately successful, or work hard now so you can spend your later time doing what you want, among many other examples.

But these all terribly miss the point. They're all about stuff or about status. They all directly target our insecurities, give us a straight path to feeling valuable, to feeling like we're someone that has some weight in the world.

But are those things important? No, not really. They're only important if you don't allow yourself to accept your vulnerabilities and insecurities. Accept there's no way to patch them up, and immediately many of these cultural ideas just stop having any weight to them. Accept that being scared and insecure and raw is the real human condition; everything else is just makeup.

What is important, then, is seeing each other for who we are without letting our differences cloud our perception. What's important is spending time with the people you care about. What's important is spending time with yourself and allowing yourself to grow.

Important aside: this view, of course, depends very much on the outlook you have with respect to what happens after you die. I don't mean to disrespect other ideologies; as far as I know there's really no proof of any of them being correct, so we're all free to believe our own crazy shit. Though for the purposes of this argument I'm using my own ontological view of believing in reincarnation, and once this you goes its whole universe goes with it. ↩
There's also another cause that I don't want to get into here because it might be too long, but it's still worth mentioning in passing. For most of my life I've had hypochondria (the older I get the less I suffer from it, though), but at the same time I have a terrible aversion to needles and, by extension, doctors. So you can imagine something like: my stress would trigger my hypochondria, which would launch me into an unending spiral of dread. I can't even begin to tell you how many hours upon hours (probably whole days or weeks) I've spent unsleeping at night, convinced I had some terrible disease and convinced I would die in the next week. ↩

0058 - great art sows the will to art

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 15:32:55 GMT

When old age shall this generation waste,  
	Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe  
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,  
	"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all  
	Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Last stanza of "Ode on a Grecian Urn", by John Keats

It's commonly said that "great art is the one that makes you feel something", but recently I realized that great art also plants a desire to make similar art yourself. It might not be that all people are affected this way (maybe just those who tend to be more creative?), but it's definitely something I see as true in myself and others close to me.

Another related insight is that "great art" can really be anything. I actually have a great example of this in this very same series of posts I'm doing here. As I mentioned in my first entry, I'm directly following the example of Visa, who has done almost a thousand "wordvomit" posts so far, with most of them being only one day apart. I read his motivation for doing so, and then read a bit of his first vomits (still catching up), and the inspiration blossomed in me—"man, I really want to do something like that; it seems so cool".

If you think about it, what was the "art" there? Was it maybe his first introductory post, or the first few vomits? No, I don't think so. They were definitely informative and somewhat motivational, but the true inspiration came when I saw he'd written so many posts. I admired the sheer willpower it must have taken him, the almost incomprehensible determination. I realized these were qualities I wanted to see in myself¹, and this seemed like an excellent way to develop them. So what was the art there? It wasn't really any tangible "artifact"; rather, for me, it was the process itself. The artifacts are just the receipts. Proof that he did the work.

Whenever I think of "art", I always think of paintings, or poetry, theatre. It's always an "artifact", always something measurable, quantifiable, that belongs to a well-defined category. Most of us have been taught through our culture to regard these "concrete things" as proper "Art". But what if we allow for anything to be "art"? Every time you feel inspired by something or someone, that's "art". You're realizing a beauty that resonates with you. One that you can feel, right there, barely out of reach, but if you stretch... ah...

The sunset is art, as is the sunrise, or a night sky full of stars. The way a skilled barista makes a coffee is art, as is the way a good tennis player moves on the court, as is how a bird flies². All art.

...

I can think of many examples when I saw something that inspired me to do something similar myself. The first one that comes to mind (probably because I was talking about games in my last post) is "Dwarf Fortress". The fascination I felt with that game, the depth of the simulation, and (more than anything) the "emergent gameplay" gave rise to an itch to create something like it, which ultimately resulted in my deciding to go for a computer science degree in college. (I still haven't done anything similar to DF, though.)

Or I remember when, during my master's degree, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything, and one of my favorite escapes became reading the SAGA comics. When I had some time to chill, I would sit down and read, and slowly I started feeling like I wanted to learn to draw so I could make similar comics myself, and share perhaps a little bit of what I was feeling with others.

Another example was when I first read The Silmarillion.³ The depth. Oh, the depth! I frequently felt like I wanted to drop everything and just dedicate myself to writing a sprawling epic that would take all my life to complete.

The nice thing is that there are inspirations like this almost every day. All around us we see beautiful things that help us be more in the present. And sometimes they even gift us with the wish to give others the same experience. This last part is core, I think: "gifting others the same experience" that I'm receiving. Not because I want fame or riches, but just because I think this is awesome and I want you to feel awesome as well.

Reflecting on it, I did act on all of these inspirations I listed here. I've started more games than I care to count. I've started online drawing classes a couple of times. And yes, I've started writing stories. Sometimes the inspirations actually "stick", but sometimes they don't. I think there's a balance that must be reached between "excitement", "effort", and "perception of progress". If any of these three subsides, then the whole effort comes tumbling down. For example, with all three of these I did eventually abandon them due to frustration with progress. Of course, it's also partially my fault for wanting to be autodidactic.

Actually, an interesting anecdote comes to mind. I mentioned Dwarf Fortress and wanting to make a similar game, but really I became curious about programming much, much earlier than that, and I even tried my hand at learning it multiple times, but I always became too confused by all the options and not really knowing what to do, and I eventually desisted. It wasn't really until starting CS in college that it clicked for me. Once I had the proper guidance, I started thinking "Oh this is really easy!" (To be fair, I've always had a knack for logic puzzles, and programming is no different.)

This really goes back to what I was saying before about being autodidactic. Maybe I've tried drawing/writing/game dev and gave up in frustration, but maybe that frustration is just because I had no "base" upon which to build? For example, now in "programming" I can learn new related things with ease because I already have a well-nurtured tree to which I can attach new knowledge.

But what if the tree is not there at all? What if the "inspiration" is just like a seed, a sprout? It's like for these things I'm trying to learn as I go, and just maybe that style of learning is not what works best for me.

Maybe I should consider actually taking some courses for these things? Part of me wants to, while another part is ashamed of my lack of skill (yeah, I know, quite a silly behavior on my part), and yet another is throwing up excuses, screaming that I don't have time.

They are excuses though. I've been thinking a lot lately about how we tend to "not do what we say we want to do", and this is a perfect example of it.

One of the top things in my mind at that moment (still is) was how I often say I "want" to do something but never do anything to get there. We say we want to reach goals or change our "situation" (whatever that may be), but really it's only a few who do something and actually walk out of the status quo. I was tired of not changing—of my stagnation—so I picked up a project that I thought was a good way out of it. ↩
There's a quote I really like by Jan Van der Steen, who describes the way in which Go Seigen played Go: "He played like the birds fly: swift and light. Suddenly the position could get frozen though, and then one would get a glimpse of the universe of variations hidden below the sky that Wu had spanned in the earlier stages". Go Seigen's playing is definitely "art". ↩
It was an especially nice experience because I was reading it chapter by chapter with The Prancing Pony Podcast. They would do a breakdown, chapter by chapter, of what was going on and what it implied for the story as a whole. 10/10 recommend! ↩

0057 - games all the way down

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 21:57:09 GMT

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

~ Zhuangzi

I've been reflecting a bit on my last post, and especially how I had to keep talking myself into working on it, but my mind just refused to "latch on to the task". I'd been playing Caves of Qud on my Switch for some days, and all I could think about was the game¹. Last night I realized I frequently go through cycles such as this (cycles of "fever", almost infatuation, followed by disillusionment) and then nothing for a while, until eventually something else comes up and I start the cycle again. These usually happen when I'm just getting to "grok" something. At the beginning of my "adventure" into whatever it is, my mind is more actively thinking about the thing at hand, excited for it, trying to wrap itself around it.

Before CoQ it was another game, "Hollow Knight: Silksong". Before that it was MTG Arena, and before that Hearthstone (both of which offered my mind a lot of "stuff" to munch on as I subconsciously thought about different cards and fun decks ideas).

Games are the most common, I think, but I've also seen this happen with many other things, like my personal projects (some of which I eventually ended up scrapping), or even certain topics (for a while I was very much into Taoism and Tai Chi; now I barely even think about it²).

An interesting point is that sometimes I'll periodically cycle on a given "thing". Come back to it over and over but never really stick with it. An example of this is "meditation". I might have a month or so when I'm really disciplined and enjoying the practice, and then something happens and I get disillusioned with the whole thing, and for six months or so I don't sit at all. Then I cycle back to being "into it" again, and then off, and so on.

This behavior has always seemed interesting to me, though I've never really taken the time to properly question it. Other such "cyclic" interests are learning languages, card games (not always MTG/Hearthstone, though always in a similar vein³), trying my hand at making games (though often I just end up making game engines instead). I'm sure I can come up with more examples, but you probably get the idea.

I guess what I'm trying to pin down is not so much the individual occurrences of this phenomenon, but the fact that this phenomenon happens at all. My wife usually remarks how quickly I get over my interests, and that it's surprising we've been together for so long. In fact, we've been together since high school, and she's right that I'm not even a little bit "bored" by her or our relationship. Interesting, then, that I seem to go through some interests so quickly, while others seem to stick, either cyclically or forever. Why is that?

One other such "permanent" interest, which you can probably guess, is writing. I never get bored of writing, though sometimes I like to vary things a bit between different kinds or styles. However, it's still the same activity, right? Ever since my school years I've been attracted to it, and even though there have been lulls in my practice (often long, multi-year ones), it's still something that always fascinates me, and I keep coming back to it again and again.

What is it that makes these things "stick"? Knowing this would definitely be interesting. It would also be useful, because if I knew what really pushes me to stay with something long term, then I can better understand myself, my motivations, and maybe even how to plan for other things that I want to keep at long term.

I was hoping that by writing about it, the solution would just "pop" into my head, as it so often does. However, it's all a blank. Well, that's not true... An idea just came up that the things I'm permanently interested in are all things that are constantly changing. Things that not only give me near-infinite possibilities but also directly challenge me in some ways or others, that offer some sort of "resistance".

For my relationship with my wife the answer is obvious (all relationships, in fact, are potentially infinite in exchanges and push you to grow). With writing it's a bit more obscure, but I can see how writing itself is an "infinite field," and I can do whatever I want, but at the same time anything I write pushes back on my mind, usually in a way that brings to light parts of myself that I either wasn't clear on or really didn't know existed. Other activities like programming/engineering/building stuff (all of which have been long-term fascinations) also embody these same principles.

Though, thinking about it some more, the "inexhaustible depth" aspect is quite easy to understand, but the second aspect I'm not so sure of. Is it "feedback," maybe? I used the word "resistance" before, and I think that is probably a better term. A resistance in the sense that "the thing" motivates me to keep going at it; it's not boring; the hardness is part of the thing that engenders novelty. Often this resistance is not always the same but changes dynamically as I interact more and more with "the thing".

...

Okay, I think I have a better picture now.

Actually, ALL the things that interest me (permanent or not) have a bit of this sense of "inexhaustible depth," though some more than others. Not all of them have a dynamically changing resistance, though most do up to a point. The disillusionment, the reason why I sometimes leave an interest, can either be because I'm genuinely no longer having fun with it (or something else I'm more interested in took its place), or it can be because I start ruminating on what's really the usefulness of such an interest (a strong attachment is just another tether holding my mind down, and as I realize this I'm inevitably prone to want to stop feeding that attachment), or sometimes I just stop because I know it's in my best interest.

I guess with all these points now it becomes much easier to see why I might stick with something or not. In fact, there's a simple formula:

(novelty through depth + dynamic resistance) - (repetition + guilt at its uselessness + how much it hurts me) > 0

We didn't really find out exactly what this dynamic resistance is, which is still the most unclear "term" in the equation. I didn't talk much in this post about my motivations for "guilt" and "how much it hurts," but they're clear in my mind, and seeing that the post is already getting quite long I'll just omit them :P

The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm thinking of all these things as "games" (in the game theory sense). They are, after all, games that I play, and some call my attention more than others and in different degrees. My (our) whole life is a patchwork of different games that we decide we want to play, whose rules we start playing by and willfully forget there are rules in the first place (or that we chose them rather than having them imposed on us).

Games all the way down.

So good! I love you, Man Opener. ↩
Though it should be said that everything I go through, every interest, marks me for a long time. Even in this example of Taoism, I might not be consciously thinking about it, but it definitely colors my whole experience and the kinds of relations I make with things around me. ↩
Now I'm starting to feel an itch to learn/play Sorcery TCG, though I don't have anyone to play it with. ↩

0056 - First impressions of Caves of Qud and comments on emergent gameplay

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 03:21:31 GMT

As I sit down to write today, I find my mind is just not in it. I had originally planned to talk about how we tend to "stagnate" as we grow older, but alas, I think that will have to wait until a future post. Today I will talk about what's actually on my mind right now: Caves of Qud.

I've really just barely started the game. I've spent no more than a few hours on it and only gone through a handful of "deaths". So far I really like it! The only thing that's itching me is that it feels somewhat "sparse". Maybe I'm just not that familiar yet with the game, and that's why. Don't get me wrong, in some ways the game does feel huge and has a deep and well-connected history, but the amount of people (and the kind of people) just doesn't make that much sense to me. In some ways it feels a bit like No Man's Sky (at least as it was when I played it about three years ago), where there's more "space" than "stuff".

Still, it's lots of fun. I like how every fight is its own little puzzle that must be solved with careful positioning and choosing which abilities to use at the right time.

So far I'm playing in "roleplay" mode, which saves a checkpoint every time you visit a village, so if you die you'll just get sent back to your last checkpoint. For my first attempt I did play the classical permadeath mode, but I thought that for learning about the world and the different systems, it makes more sense to give myself some training wheels :) Otherwise, I would end up dying again and again in the first few sections without really experiencing anything else.

I've been following the development of the game for a long while. I actually got it on GOG quite a few years ago but didn't get to play it much. On one hand, the game was still in development at the time, and there were constant changes to the UI (which was muuuch harder to use), balance fixes, and whatnot. On the other, it was on my PC, and I just don't like spending that much time in front of my monitor outside of work (I already spend most of my day sitting in my office! In my free time I prefer to look at a screen somewhere else, thank you very much).

However, recently I saw that they had released the Nintendo Switch version, and I just knew I had to get it. It was finally time to give it a second chance and see if it really is as good as everyone says it is.

From what I've seen so far, there have been many important improvements, especially for beginners. Like right now they have a (bare-bones but enough to get you started) tutorial, as well as a decent amount of preset builds (quite sensible ones, in fact) that you can get started with off the bat without needing to spend time researching which mutation/cybernetics combinations are best. Another thing I was really surprised by was how good it plays with the Switch controls. Sure, there's some upfront memorization you need to do to learn which key combos do which, but I found it to be quite easy and surprisingly intuitive.

I also saw that they added pets, which is a really awesome addition! I have a little beetle-like creature aptly called "Man Opener" that follows me around and joyfully spreads carnage and dread wherever hostile creatures show their faces. When I pet it, it does a tiny little dance of happiness!

Sometimes in these sorts of games with lots of dungeons, it can feel a bit lonely, and I really appreciate the company (especially so at the beginning!). Your pet can die or get lost, which is something I'm constantly keeping an eye out for, but so far we haven't really had any major difficulties.

One thing I'm appreciating is how in these sorts of games you can find the element of "emergent gameplay". For example, I've died a couple of times and have been mostly playing with mutant characters that have access to different "mutations". Each of these will vary what your character can do, from having extra legs to help you carry more loot to being able to mentally control others, etc. As the run progresses, you can earn more mutations, and they all interplay to give you a specific playstyle for that character, which feels unique every time.

Again, I don't have much experience with Caves of Qud, but I have seen this concept of emergent gameplay come up a lot in Dwarf Fortress (absolute masterpiece, one of my favorite games of all time and the reason why I studied Computer Science in the first place; I also talk a bit about it in this other post). I remember young me laughing my ass off every time I accidentally had FUN in weird and unexpected ways.

One of my favorite things to do is "engineer" interesting machines, usually ones that I then use to "kill stuff". For example, make a lava reservoir that is connected to a trapdoor and feeds into a moat around the entrance of my fortress. When I get a goblin (or pesky elves) invasion, I just open the trapdoor and "problem solved". Playing with liquids is honestly one of the most FUN things in DF, as it's very easy for them to spill over your intended containers and flood your whole fortress. Lava traps are also useful for dealing with "nobles".

I'm pretty sure that the creators of DF at no point intended for people to spend their time building interesting contraptions. Sure, the game allows for it thanks to its detailed (arguably too detailed) simulation, but it's not really necessary. I often wonder, in fact, what the game is as they originally envisioned it. Right now, for me, it's more of a sandbox to try silly things, build huge monuments, and have FUN, but maybe they originally intended for people to really try to have a sane society (iykyk) of dwarves that are able to beat all odds and actually thrive.

Anyway... got sidetracked. I'm looking forward to playing more CoQ, though hopefully it's not going to impact my writing schedule that much!

0055 - what keeps me coming back

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 03:47:30 GMT

The more I write in this series the more I ask myself why is it that I'm doing it. Seems like a silly question, but not one I've yet been able to answer satisfactorily.

In my initial post I identified my reason as just wanting to pick back up a hobby which in the past had given me a lot of satisfaction. I still think there's some of that but it's also more. I could write posts only once in a while (maybe three posts a month/one a week seems reasonable) and still feel like "I'm blogging". But why do I write so much? What is it that really motivates me to come back again and again?

When I ask myself this question, some obvious answers pop into my mind:

I want to improve at writing (but why?)
I like the idea of creating a body of work that somewhat documents where I'm at on any given period
I want to share values and ideas that resonate with me, and in so doing try to make the world a better/nicer place
I want to share my problems and general awkwardness, and connecting with other awkward people so we can realize that being weird is okay
I want to feel seen, there's definitely some fishing for validation

But is that all there is? I get the impression that there's something more. Especially that first line: "I want to improve at writing", seems to speak out to me in some incomprehensible language. Maybe it's just a normal desire to "tell stories" (or essays in this case)? Something that probably has a very strong evolutionary basis.

...

I remember when I first started this blog, my main intention with it was to use it as a sort of stepping stone towards learning to tell short stories. The idea was to cut my teeth on simple stuff, blog posts that have no real end except to exist, and so improve my self esteem enough as to then feel I had the "permission" to write stories.

Interestingly enough, I no longer feel that drive, or at least not as strongly. I still love stories, and still think they play a core role in how we see and understand the world around us, but the drive to "create them" is almost absent. Nowadays I just enjoy prattling about random stuff. Which, to be honest, is also its own kind of storytelling right? When I tell you about things that happened to me, or ideas, or etc, I do it (or try to) in such a way that it's engaging and hopefully sometimes has you asking "and what happens next".

...

So yeah, maybe I'm looking at this whole thing backwards. Maybe my core priority when I sit down to write is still to tell stories, but these have shifted under my feet and now permeate all the space around me. I'm immersed in them and as such I don't see them anymore. That's why I forget that, in the end, these are all still stories, it's just that they're not stories about beings from space, or elves, or dragons. I guess one could say that every kind of writing blooms in response to the yearning to tell stories. It just requires a bit of reframing on our side for us to realize what they actually are.

This reminds me about one of the best lectures I've heard from Kurt Vonnegut. In theory it's a lecture on storytelling but he never says anything specific about it. He doesn't go on to talk about the explicit nature of a story, or comment on structure, or give any kind of advice. Instead, he flips the whole thing in typical Vonnegut style and uses the opportunity to tell a series of "happenings" from his own life. On the surface these are pretty mundane: going out to buy a single envelope, grumbling about the death of typewriters.

When I first listened to it I remember that for the first couple of minutes I was thinking "oh but when is he going to get to the point? when is he going to tell us what it takes to be a great storyteller?". Soon after, however, I was completely enthralled in his retelling of these seemingly random occurrences.

It wasn't until after I finished watching his talk that it dawned on me that he showed everything there is to show about storytelling, without really saying anything specific about it. Rather than give a recipe list or strategy he showed us what a great story looks like. More importantly, he showed us that ANYTHING can be a great story.

(This is, incidentally, the same lecture where Vonnegut's famous quote originated from: We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody ever tell you any different)

Perhaps that's what "being human" is all about? We definitely tell stories to ourselves all the time. About who we are, what we like, what we don't like, how we're being wronged, how we're succeeding, etc, etc. We also constantly tell stories to each other. Stories are the glue that allows us to communicate with one another, and with the world at large. They're the medium through which we make sense of and understand the world around us.

Perhaps "living" is itself the act of telling (and creating) a long story.

So yeah, maybe that answers pretty satisfactorily my original question of why do I keep coming back. I like to tell stories :)

0054 - the effects of a cold shower

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 03:07:01 GMT

Beer dulls a memory, brand sets it burning, but wine is the best for a sore heart's yearning.

~ Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

For a long while now, ever since my first child was born ~4 years ago, I've struggled with the "morning slump". I frequently wake up and everything just feels... gray. Bleak. Cottonish. Irrelevant, unamusing, unsurprising. On the worst of days it feels like depression, sad and lonely and helpless, and separated from everything and everyone. Sometimes it even devolves into irritability; I get angry at small things, and of course my whole family suffers because of my mood.

This is one of my "main" mental issues these days. Why is it that I'm moody in the morning but then by the time I go to bed I'm my normal happy self? Throughout the past few years I've tried some (unorthodox) things to combat these feelings, but none of them really fixes the issue; they just patch it for a while.

The first thing I tried, and it's probably the most common/popular remedy for this, was to drink a cup of coffee early in the morning. It does work for a bit, but after half an hour or so the "bleakness" comes back-worse than before, as now it's accompanied by anxiety (not to mention that the time between waking up and that first cup becomes "extra dark"; the caffeine monster is real). My strategy to more or less get around this was to drink another cup mid-morning, and then another around lunchtime, though what this does is really just push the anxiety, dread, and tiredness to later in the afternoon.

I've also tried smoking some weed early in the morning. I've tried smoking a tiny bit (almost in the spirit of microdosing) as well as smoking a lot. The latter is best for mood but leaves me feeling drowsy all day (which, in my opinion, is not that pleasant of a feeling) unless I smoke more (and the more I smoke the more tired I end up by the end). This approach also more or less works, but it's the same as coffee, as it wanes after around half an hour, and the bleakness is now accompanied by sluggishness¹ that affects me throughout the day. Moreover, whenever I'm in such a negative mental state and smoke, when the effects start waning I find myself feeling a barely perceptible but definitely-there sense of "hunger" for more stimulation, which itself ends up being its own source of discomfort.

Something else I've tried is microdosing psilocybin with different schedules. These, again, more or less worked, but I did experience issues with concentration/focus (especially with things I didn't much want to do, like work). Microdosing didn't really do away with the slump; it just made it feel different. I still had that sense of things not being pleasurable, so the grayness was still there. Perhaps it helped a bit with the sense of hopelessness? Anyway, I only tried it for three months or so before deciding it wasn't for me. The concentration issues I experienced were just too disruptive for my day-to-day life. Also, I don't know how it is for others, but I didn't find the experience to be especially pleasant; it was even a bit uncomfortable at times. I tried varying my time of day when I took the dose just to test if the "slump" was the one underlying the whole experience, but I found that even when taking it later in the day I still experienced that unpleasant, pervading feeling. As I write this I realize I never tried the obvious thing of varying my dose, though it was already pretty small to start with, so I'm not sure it would've made any difference.

(An interesting note though: I was still an avid coffee drinker when trying weed and psilocybin, so I'm sure the caffeine-induced anxiety, not to mention the caffeine crash itself, had much to do with the negative feelings I experienced. I wonder what things would be like now that I'm no longer drinking coffee?)

I spoke about this in another recent post, saying that my mornings have actually been getting much better since I started weaning off coffee and introducing some movement into my routine. However, I sometimes still experience that bleakness in the morning, which has pushed me to at least keep an eye out for new things to try.

I don't know why I hadn't done it before, but recently it occurred to me to investigate a bit more about this phenomenon. It turns out that "the morning slump" is actually extremely common. I was reading about it and learned that the prevalent hypothesis is that in the mornings your dopamine levels tend to be pretty low, and lots of people also experience a strong spike in cortisol (stress hormone) a bit after waking up. If the balance between these two is off, then we get that "flat" feeling.

This got me thinking, "what's a good way to naturally (no substances) bring up dopamine levels"? After some looking I found out that cold showers seem to be a great way to go about it!

(I'm way out of my depth here, so I will try to present things as I understand them, which might be wrong. Please correct me if you know better)

It seems that there are multiple studies² demonstrating that "cold water immersion" triggers neurohormesis (which is a new word for me). Basically, it means that brief, controlled stress actually strengthens the nervous system rather than depleting it. Cold water immersion has also been linked to an increase in the amount of norepinephrine by about 127-530% (depending on temperature and duration). From what I gather, "norepinephrine" is the hormone responsible for alertness and focus. Another excellent thing for us is that they found people really didn't build up tolerance to cold showers; the stress response seems to become less pronounced after the first few weeks, but the beneficial effects still show up at the same levels.

There have also been measured increases in peripheral dopamine (doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier) of ~250%, though it's likely that "central/brain dopamine" also increases, but that's harder to measure, of course.

For the past three days I've been taking 2-minute cold showers just after waking up, before I even give myself the chance to enter into that slump. I can confidently say that (so far) it works really, really well. Subjectively, I feel there's that initial "shit fuck, goddamn shit" shock that completely pauses and throws away whatever I was thinking when I initially got under the shower, which is great to pause any negative train of thought and start anew.

Then there's also a more psychological component, which is the act of "doing something hard". I imagine that choosing to start the day doing a relatively hard (but quick) task does wonders for your own sense of accomplishment. After I'm done I always feel reinvigorated and with an undeniable sense of agency. Of me being the one controlling what I do rather than just riding the waves of life. Choosing something hard helps to reframe the whole morning (and, for that matter, the whole day).

I'm not sure about this, but there's probably something to say about the fact that this willful, repeated triggering of the stress system might "harden" it, make it more resilient. That is to say, it might raise the bar for what counts as "stressful" later in the day so that smaller things no longer bother you as much. This might be just me extrapolating without really knowing what I'm talking about, but it does align with my experience these past few days. I've found myself not being as bothered about small things, like being much more patient with my kids or things around me.

Now, it must be said that only three days is probably too little time, and it could very well be that all the positive effects I'm feeling are placebo. It could be that I'm just feeling better, more alert, just because I'm expecting to. The good (or bad?) thing about placebo is that it eventually wanes, so it's just a matter of giving it time. I'll try to do this experiment for around three more weeks or so and do a follow-up post after.

⛄

Thoughts

Interestingly, I kept thinking about writing something else for this post (i.e., not about cold showers), but nothing else would come to mind! The topic was insistent, so I eventually gave in and wrote about it. My idea was to get some more days of experience with cold immersion before writing about it, but my subconscious wasn't having any of it, so we came to the compromise of doing this sort of "intro post" and then doing a follow-up later on.
Yesterday I finished reading The Will of the Many, and holy crap was it good! It's funny because around the 20% or so mark of the book I was thinking of just dropping it because I wasn't liking it much. I'm glad I didn't! It goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover (nor by its first 20%, it seems).
- I'm now starting on the second book in the series :P I'd actually planned to read something else, but the first ended in such a cliffhanger that I just couldn't help myself.
Yesterday I was cleaning up my old bookmarks and stumbled upon the remains of the great Dendrite Stories website! I'd tried to find it a couple of times recently but didn't exactly remember the URL, and web searches didn't really give me the result I wanted. I'm sad to see it's now just a graveyard since the maintainer turned it off, but I can also understand that the cost of moderating such a site must have been enormous.
- In case you didn't know, "Dendrite" was a site where you could read and write "choose your own adventure" stories. The cool part was that some stories allowed anyone to contribute new branches (choices and their results), so if you were reading a story you liked and found yourself at the end of a branch that was still unfinished, then you could continue that story as you pleased. Or you could even add new choices to existing nodes. Really cool experiment in social storytelling.
- I've thought many times about doing a similar project myself but never did. Now that I know the official one is dead, I find myself slightly more motivated to do it than before. Not sure if anyone would use it, but that doesn't necessarily mean I won't do it :) though I would need to think a bit more about the moderation aspect. If you have any ideas, please do let me know!

To be fair, I've only tried CBD-heavy strains. I'm curious what the effect would be with a THC-dominant one, though I still suspect the benefit will be temporary. I also would prefer not to depend on an external substance for daily regulation of my neurochemistry (if I understand correctly, weed was found to blunt dopamine release in the long run, so there's no telling if my symptoms would actually become worse with extended use). I still enjoy smoking a little bit every once in a while (maybe once or twice a week?), but it's for fun and relaxation, not because I need it to cope with reality. ↩
The main study I referenced for this post was this one, which is a sort of short "review article" of different studies on cold immersion and their claims. ↩

0053 - how do I know if you're human

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 19:36:54 GMT

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

As some of you may know, a while ago I made my own (pretty minimal and open source) analytics service called Mochi, mostly because I was curious about how such a thing might be implemented.¹ Lately, I've been chipping away at it, fixing some bugs with how we collect "hits" (page views) as well as modernizing the style a bit. As I was doing these changes, I also spent some time checking how we filter out "bot visits" and realized that right now it's really hard to know algorithmically if the visitor is a human or a bot.

Now, I don't care much about "views" per se (nor do I think you should, it's not healthy); I care more about "referrers". Knowing who adds links to my site allows me to read their stuff and maybe even start a conversation! Being quoted by others is also one of the most flattering things there is :) Still, I do think this problem of knowing whether a visitor is human or not is a really interesting one, especially because there doesn't seem to be any obvious solution!

Bots are getting more sophisticated every day. However, we recently crossed a threshold that makes distinguishing them especially hard. It now takes minimal setup for someone to have an LLM pilot an actual web browser and act on (or scrape) the sites they visit. This is actually the best way to go if the person managing the bot wishes to avoid detection because, from the point of view of web servers (eg Mochi), the requests seem to come from a legit browser/user.

I've been thinking about an interesting approach that the community has come up with to dissuade bots from interacting with their sites. It's an automated check (so no need for the user to solve any impossible puzzles); it just requires "time." Specifically, I'm thinking about "proof of work" captchas. In simple terms, proof of work (PoW) requires the client computer to do some heavy-ish computation locally and then prove it to the server. The proof itself can't be faked (quantum algorithms notwithstanding, but that's another topic) so the client browser MUST have done the required computation, expended a non-trivial amount of effort and, most importantly, time.

I realize that for many readers this is a meaningless concept, so let me try to ground it:

Your computer has a limited amount of computational power.
A single proof in this context is easy to do if you don't have much else going on in parallel (in other words, you're not overloading your CPU) or don't care that much about speed (the PoW process might take anywhere from five seconds to a couple of minutes, or more, depending on the required difficulty, which is configurable).
However, these bots usually care a lot about speed, about doing as many "X" per minute as they can; this means they may have multiple parallel browsers going.
- If they have, then they will suffer the compounded effect of running those extra browsers plus the PoW calculations, potentially slowing down the whole system.
- But independently of whether they do or not, it might be unfeasible for the bot to wait for the PoW to finish. Tens of seconds might not be much to a real user, but for a bot meant to do things at scale, it adds up quickly!

However, PoW would be a terrible choice for an analytics site. On one hand, it would mean doing hidden computation pretty much every visit, which is not a nice thing (though one could use "cookies" to track that user and "vet" them for a given amount of time); on the other hand, it might not be a fast enough process to actually capture meaningful visits, as (remember) the PoW could take ~ a minute or more in some cases. One could configure it to make it faster (easier), but if it's too fast, then it becomes pointless because bots won't have to wait an appreciable time for it. It could work, but my ethical compass prevents me from pursuing this (tracking users is bad, as is burning up energy "just because").

[aside]

While PoW is a bad fit for Mochi, I thought it might actually be a fun (optional) addition to Guestbooks! I haven't received many "spam reports," but imagine you could add a "verify you're human" checkbox that you need to click before submitting a message. It might not be much, but it could deter automated bot spammers from spamming at scale (though why someone would want to spam guestbooks is beyond my understanding). I actually already pushed an initial implementation of this that will be live as of my publishing of this post :)

To enable it, go to Guestbook settings and tick the "Enable Proof of Work challenge" checkbox. Note that you will need to re-copy your embedding code if you're using the JS embed option, as there's a new HTML element that holds the verification status. Also, there are a couple of new CSS classes that you can add (though it should mostly just work by inheriting the overall styles from your site).

If you do try it out, then let me know how it goes!

[/end aside]

Going back to the issue of how to know if a visitor is human or not... I don't really have a solution for this. There's still some innovation that the community needs to do to make it happen. In the meantime, however, I thought that one could partially solve this issue by adding kudos/likes/upvotes/toasts to the bottom of posts!

(As part of this post, I also implemented Kudos tracking on Mochi. Like the one at the bottom of this post.)

I've never really liked the idea of adding "kudos" to my site, mostly because I'm afraid I will start caring about whether people "like" or "don't like" what I write. It could even be that no one is really visiting my site at all, and all the visitor numbers are actually bots! (Which is perhaps more likely than I would like to admit.) But I thought that we could use the kudos buttons not so much as a "like" (which is a concept we've mostly inherited from traditional social media) but more as a way to say "a human read this."

I don't know about you, but whenever I read a blog that has a "kudos" button I always click it, regardless of whether I like the post or not. For me, it's more of a way to say "I see you," "I appreciate what you're doing" more than "this is cool" (though often it is cool, everything is cool depending on the mindset with which you read it). As it is right now, traditional analytics just can't cut it, and we need another mechanism to inform "humanness."

I'm not sure if I'll leave mine as a plain "clap" icon or if I'll actually add the text "click to say a human read this" or some other stuff. For now, I'll probably leave it as a plain emoji :) I like how clean it looks.

...

As I write this, there's a (quite insistent) voice in the back of my mind screaming "YOU SHOULDN'T CARE ABOUT THIS". And yeah, probably it is right, I shouldn't care. I should just write and write for myself, not for others. But the tricky bit is that another part of me does care. It cares about being seen.

This is bringing up a whole lotta questions about "why do I do this". Will it happen that if I find no one reads my stuff, then will I be disappointed? And if I'm disappointed, does that mean I'm really writing just to "fish for attention," or is there more to it? Could I just be writing for myself because I enjoy it? Or maybe a bit of both?

Well, I think this post is already long enough as it is, so I'll leave those questions for a future one :)

If you're curious to know more about Mochi's origin story, then check out this post. ↩

0052 - (idea) tip creators by watching an ad

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 03:31:51 GMT

Some days ago I was playing the excellent "Good Coffee, Great Coffee" on my phone (so wholesome; I sometimes just open it up to have the soundtrack playing in the background), and I eventually found myself in the "sponsors section," where the game allows you to watch "ads" in return for special in-game currency. I didn't care much about the currency itself; I was just watching the ads as a show of gratitude to the developers! (Between us, I was just opening the ad and then putting my phone down for the thirty or so seconds it took for it to play. Shh, don't tell anyone I broke the social contract).

Later that day I was catching up with some blog posts on Bix's page and saw that at the bottom he has a link asking people to pledge $1 a month to support him. I've seen many folks have something similar, and I think it's a great initiative. For most people, $1 per month is inconsequential, and it's a nice way to actually show your support.

I've thought about adding a $1-a-month link like Bix (the one who originally came up with the idea was Manu Moreale) but never could bring myself to do it. On one hand, it feels weird asking people for money. On the other, I'm afraid I will just bother them, as getting folks to "pay real money" is usually very hard. Not only the act of parting with your precious "acquisition potential" but all the hoops one needs to jump through just to show some support is usually just too much.

I think there's much to be said here about how we often tend to overvalue our money and so don't end up giving even just a little to those causes that we care about. We've all heard something like "if everyone in the world donated $1 a month we would be able to do so much to address poverty and world hunger". As a case in point, just think of Wikipedia. It's such a freaking useful platform. It's probably one of the cornerstones of our modern web and knowledge infrastructure. And yet, how many of us donate? According to Wikipedia, only 2% of readers donate at least once a year. And if you think about it, they do quite a bit of pestering about it on their site, so it's not a matter of visibility. (Donate, people! Even if only a single buck a year. It all adds up.)

Anyway, I digress...

Yesterday evening, as I was bathing the kids, an idea hit me: what if we had "reward ads" like those in "Good Coffee, Great Coffee" but on the web? At the bottom of every post there could be a link saying something like "tip me by watching an ad", which, when clicked, opens up a 30-secs-or-so video ad. It's not intrusive, and it's 100% at the reader's discretion if they want to click it or not. There's no obligation. If the reader likes your content and can spare 30 seconds, then they can click on the ad (and put their phone down until it's done playing).

Something like this:

Hey, like what I write? Please consider watching an ad to tip me!

Hopefully getting people to watch ads is easier than getting them to tip you $1 a month. Or maybe not.

...

If you think about it, it's a bit like Brave's value proposition, but instead of you ALWAYS being exposed to ads so you can make money and then support the creators you like, we flip it on its head and take the more respectful approach of having users look at ads that directly support the creator in question. Besides this, there's also the other excellent point that users don't require a specialized browser in order to participate (which is a huge win; a specialized browser greatly limits adoption).

I did some investigation about this, and as far as I can tell, there's no one using ads in this way. It also seems that there is a semi-mature environment for this sort of "reward ads" (as they're called) on the web, though it's entirely geared towards web games, not as a tipping mechanism.

Of course, any conceivable amount of money you might make this way is sure to be very (very) small unless you receive tons and tons of traffic (and the constituents of that traffic are prone to watching ads). At most, I think you could make only a couple of dollars a month. But that's okay; it's not really about making money, it's about giving more options for your readers to support you in ways that present less friction for them.

Now, I've been putting off talking about the relative "evilness" of such an approach. I'm not a fan of being the reason people are polluting their minds with ads. I also don't particularly appreciate the fact that, ultimately, my adding ads will benefit a huge-ass multinational corporation more than it does me. But I think these questions also depend a lot on what sort of provider you use. Perhaps if more people start using this approach, then it will open up the space for new and more "conscious" ad providers (if such a thing even exists)? I think it has potential to be much better than it is.

(Imagine something like Posteo, but for ads instead of emails)

Bottom line, this is just me exploring an idea. I'm not entirely sure if I would even add such a link to my site. I didn't even have a kudos/like button at the end of my posts (till today! My next post will be about this), so adding a "watch an ad" link seems a bit excessive. Still, I think it's a fun idea! Maybe someday I'll create a /tip page and add the option to watch an ad there?

...

I delayed getting this post published because I was trying to set up an actual proof of concept of what this would look like. I investigated a bit and ended up choosing to try with Google Ad Manager as my provider¹. The setup was a bit... involved. Then I had to wait a couple of days for them to review my site and approve it for ads, and...

It seems my blog was deemed as "low value content", so I'm not allowed to use their Ad platform on my site until I improve the quality of my content 😂 oh the irony. (Maybe they know I always put my phone down whenever there's an ad?)

I could try with some other provider, but at this point I sort of gave up on this idea for now. If you manage to set it up on your site, I would love to hear how it goes!

I found some other ones, but Google just seemed the most straightforward. If I actually wanted to do this "reward ad" thing long term, then I might choose something else, though. Google's minimum payout is $100, and at the speed I'm imagining this will work, it might take months or even years to accrue. ↩

0051 - teaching a mind to come up with ideas

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 15:54:01 GMT

After writing yesterday's post, I kept thinking about how I've actually managed to pull fifty posts out of thin air. I thought maybe sharing my workflow might be useful for others, so that's what I'm planning to do here. Note that this works for me, but that doesn't mean it will work for you, or even that it will work for future me! It's just what I'm doing right now.

I've mentioned a couple of times that I carry a little pocket notebook with me everywhere, and whenever I get an idea that seems interesting I jot it down. This notebook is full of post ideas that range from more philosophical things like "why is karma interpersonal", political like "the US is not America", or even silly things like "what kinds of spiderwebs are there". I just write whatever seems interesting at the time: something I have an opinion on, something I'm interested in dissecting, or something I'm just curious about.

Now, you may ask the excellent question of "how do you know when an idea is good, and when it's just an idea". Well, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. Ideas that end up in that notebook have a je ne sais quoi attached to them, like a feeling of depth or boundlessness. It's hard to describe, and probably not something others should really be paying attention to. I've noticed that the more ideas I jot down, the more I open up to them, and the more that end up making their way up to my conscious level (and I notice).

Usually these ideas bubble up while I'm quietly observing, when my mind is at rest, though sometimes things around me happen that make such an idea pop up. For example, the other day I was talking about jewelry with my wife, and I immediately made the connection that (1) it would be interesting to know the history of jewelry and whether humans have always tended to adorn themselves with trinkets, and (2) I really don't like jewelry, and I'm interested in looking into that and how common it is (in my experience it's not common at all; when I tell people about my aversion they just think I'm crazy). Both of these are subconscious assumptions I've had all my life, and writing a post about them gives me the chance to reevaluate both my thoughts about them as well as my beliefs.

On a normal day, those thoughts might just have popped into my mind as "curiosities", and would've been gone just as fast. Building a habit of taking notes is an excellent way not only to capture these fleeting ideas but also a great motivator to look at the world with a more critical eye. Pay more attention to what's actually there, as you don't know what might spark a connection. I've also found this just plain fun. I like poking at things, especially at myself.

As a rule of thumb, I tend to write down everything that seems at least moderately interesting. It's very easy to think of something and then censor it with "nah, no one would like to read about that". If you catch yourself doing this, then STOP! Don't think about what others will like to read; think about what you would enjoy writing. Aim for things that interest you, that excite you¹ in some way. Things that you care about².

Now. Once you have the ideas, then what? Well, that's a bit harder to explain. At the very beginning, I used to read through my latest notes before sitting down to write, and if any one of them sort of "popped", then I would write about that. But often I just ended up not using any of them because I felt I was just not good enough. Or worse, I would end up using the 5th-best idea for fear of "wasting" the one I liked the most. Thankfully, I now seem to have accepted the fact that one is never at one's peak and should always go for the best idea possible³.

Lately, I've noticed that my "flow" has changed a bit. Now, I still go through the notebook every once in a while, but for the most part what happens is that at some point during the day an idea I know is there just "pops" into my mind, and I know that's the thing I will be writing about that day. Usually it happens in the early morning. I guess it makes sense mechanically; the ideas are there in my subconscious, and one of them always has more "energy" than the others. Since I've made it a habit to go and look for ideas, my mind has, nicely enough, started supplying them for me.

(Today's post was actually picked this way. I just had an inkling that I would be writing about "my workflow", and that's what I'm doing. It also honestly ties in very well with yesterday's post.)

Now, the ideas I pick this way are not always easy to write. Sometimes I find myself struggling with them, clashing against them, but they always end up being pertinent to what's going on around or inside me at the time. They're, in some ways, the thing I need to write about at the given moment.

I think all of this comes as a side effect of the notebook-keeping practice I described. It's like I'm slowly training my mind to do this, and it's becoming good at it. I still see things in my workflow changing mostly every day, from how I approach a new post to trying new brainstorming ideas to trying to find better moments to write, so I'm curious to see how things will evolve in the future. Looking forward to it, in fact 🤗

Another suggestion: if an idea comes to mind but you're ashamed of sharing it, then that's your cue to look deeply at it. Why are you ashamed? What's your relation to it? That in itself would be an excellent post. ↩
To be honest, I would much rather read something that the author really cared about rather than fluff made to cater to the masses. ↩
Also, the best idea for one person or at a given moment might not be the best idea later on, so use them while you have the inspiration, which is, in fact, the hardest thing to come by! Ideas are cheap. You can also come back and revisit an idea in the future, so using it now doesn't really mean you've "wasted it". You're allowed to change your opinions on things, especially so when writing on a blog. ↩

0050 - meta reflection on this series

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 14:38:01 GMT

Ahh, post #50. I've been looking forward to this!

In many ways, when I first began this experiment, "fifty" was my initial goal. The plan was to publish a post every day (or almost every day) for fifty days straight, and then re-evaluate how things are going.

So far, I think it's been going great! When I first started, I wondered how the hell I would manage to post about fifty different topics. At the time, I could hardly come up with even one. And yet here we are, fifty posts later. Not all of them are great; a very few of them were even a drag to write, but most were actually fun and instructive.

Even after so many posts, I still can't tell you if my blog is about a specific topic or whether I like to write about certain things or in certain ways. There was definitely a lot of writing about my own problems (though surprisingly few of these, considering that "complaining" is probably my favorite activity while journaling), but most posts actually ended up being me jamming on ideas, and a few more are me researching topics I find interesting and sharing them.

It's a bit of a hectic collection, to be honest, but I love it that way. I've never really much liked those sites (usually in the enterprise sphere, or infected by its ideals at least) where blogs only deal with a certain thing, where they constrain themselves to, say, only tech posts, or only literature posts, or only philosophy. I've said it a lot of times, and I'll say it again: what I love most about blogging is how you get to share and see a wide range of human experiences and interests. It's like an insane, beautiful collage of our shared humanity.

It hasn't all been sunshine and rainbows, though. There have been many days, more than I would like to admit, when I had to force myself to sit and write those posts. The funny thing is that once I started, things just flowed, which I guess is cool. It's a bit like my oldest son and baths. Almost every day he complains that he doesn't want to take one, but once he's playing in the water he doesn't want to get out! It's the same. Once I'm playing with words I'm just "happy" there.

Still, that "forcing" is worth mentioning, as it does add extra friction to the whole process. Where does it come from? Well, I think it's twofold. On one side, I struggle to find time to write in the morning between getting my kid ready for school, helping with chores, and other things I want to do. I almost never manage to. On the other side, at night I'm usually tired from work and/or I want to spend my time doing other stuff. Or, most often, I feel like I should spend my time differently, like being with my wife (it's important to have some kid-free time!).

Mostly because of the latter, I'll change my posting schedule a bit. I'll try to do ten posts, posting every other day, which means that I now have double the time as before! I'll also probably skip weekends unless I clearly have the time to write something (like today). Weekends are usually full of activities, and I rarely get time to sit by myself until after putting the kids to bed.

I'm also hoping that having two days per post will help me split the writing a bit. On free days I can start a post and decide what it will be about, so that means I'll have ~48 hours to let my mind mull on "the thing". Not sure if that will work, and it's also against the original goal of writing things in a single sitting, but I think it's a cool experiment! I've often found that when I write a post in the morning I find myself adding stuff to it throughout the day as new connections pop into my mind.

I'm not sure if this change will be for the better or not, which is why I'm doing only ten days as a test first before committing to it. I kind of like the feeling that I'm squeezing water out of a rock with writing every day, and the rock surprises me by always having more than enough to share. Actually, the more I squeeze, the more seems to come out! I wouldn't want that to stop with this change, so we'll see.

Something else I hope this change will allow me to do is take some time to work on other writing projects, or just other writing in general! I have some emails that have been in my inbox forever. I also still want to dedicate more time and energy to fiction writing, which (at least for me) I can't seem to manage in a single writing session.

...

Well, here's to many more posts 🍵! Of course I don't want to stop at 50 now that I've gotten into the groove. So, I'm looking at a hundred next as the next big goal.

Thoughts:

Woah, I haven't done a thoughts section in a while! I think that's because, as mentioned above, I've been writing mostly in the evenings, so usually once I'm done I'm done. Today I wrote the above in the morning, meaning I have the whole day to add "thoughts"!
I just realized that I used to post a new "post" on social media whenever I published a new post (heh, post post), but I really haven't done that for any of the posts in this series! I guess it feels like I would be spamming otherwise. I don't like to spend time on social media, but I also don't like the feeling that I'm hiding these posts from the world. Maybe I should "federate" a couple of these posts?

0049 - trees are air frozen by sunlight

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 04:26:39 GMT

Whenever I want to remind myself of the awesomeness of the universe, I try to remember that trees are pretty much made of air solidified by light.

You probably already learned about this when studying photosynthesis in school, but somehow I didn't make the connection (or at least I can't remember). It was only recently that I read somewhere Thich Nhat Hanh saying that a tree is mostly made out of air, so I had to look it up, and it turns out to be true!

One usually assumes that trees come out of the ground, right? Roots go deep to get nutrients, you need to water it or it dies, and so on. But it turns out that almost half of the (dry) mass of a tree is just pure carbon, and the other half is mostly oxygen. And where do these come from? Well, the air, of course! And it's with the help of sunlight (photosynthesis) that the tree manages to take in CO2 and transform it into sugars, from which everything else derives.

Interestingly, the water used in photosynthesis is split into hydrogen and oxygen, but of these only the hydrogen ends up being used, while this oxygen is discarded. Why is this oxygen not used when the one from CO2 is? ... the magic of nature ...

Also, the tree itself doesn't get any carbon from the ground (afaik). Actually, the amount of minerals that make up the "mass" of the tree is really quite tiny (though still essential, of course).

There was a famous experiment proving this where a guy (Jan Baptist van Helmont; fancy name) grew a willow tree in a measured amount of soil. Quoting from Wikipedia

[...] After five years the plant had gained about 164 lbs (74 kg). Since the amount of soil was nearly the same as it had been when he started his experiment (it lost only 57 grams), he deduced that the tree's weight gain had come entirely from water.

(he was actually partially wrong, as the extra mass cannot come just from water. He didn't account for the contribution done by Carbon and Oxygen)

Another neat part (physics is so elegant) is that thanks to the "conservation of energy", the amount of sunshine energy that the plant used in photosynthesis to process the CO2 is almost the same amount of energy that you get back when you burn a dry piece of wood. The cellulose (carbon) of the wood mixes back in again with the oxygen in the atmosphere, yielding once again CO2. It's like the wood in a tree is a sort of magical battery that was charged with the energy of the sun.

When you burn it, the tree becomes air again, and most of the part that is left behind (the ashes) is actually the parts of the tree that didn't come from the air in the first place.

Crazy stuff, right?

On paper it can sound so academic, but if you think about it, it's just such a beautiful, awesome thing. The trees, those things that look so solid, sometimes even so permanent, are really made out of air that's frozen by the sun (I think this was said by Richard Feynman, though I couldn't really find the original quote). We take them for granted as a concrete entity, when really they embody the beautiful interplay of energy that's so prevalent in stuff around us.

I'm sure you can find similarly awesome phenomena all around us. Just look at your own body, for example: the exchange of oxygen, absorbing nutrients during digestion, our brains, muscles, skin.

It's like the universe is full of beings that are more like temporary whirlpools of energy. Little eddies that form for a while out of interlocking pieces of the cosmic puzzle, just to dissipate again later, and then begin the dance anew somewhere else.

Our human reality is often so constrained to "human things", and more often than not to ugly ones. Politics. War. Worries. Responsibilities. There's so much more out there than we usually let ourselves perceive. It's so easy to forget that the universe is not human, and easier still to forget that we ARE the universe.

Carl Sagan has a beautiful quote about this. ... well, I tried looking for it but couldn't find the exact source, so maybe it's one of those paraphrased quotes, or something that someone came up with and attributed to Carl Sagan? Anyway, I think it's still wonderful and very apt here even if it's not "real", so I'll just write it as I remember hearing it ...

The story goes that Carl Sagan was giving a talk, and someone from the audience said:

"Why do you say all these nice things about the universe, when in fact the universe is vast, cold, vicious, and cares absolutely nothing for us".

To which Dr. Sagan answers,

"My brother, you are the universe".

...

You are the universe.

0048 - walking, writing, and decaf

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:49:18 GMT

Woah, I'm already at post 48. Crazy how fast time flies! To be honest, there's a gray area between around post 17 and post 45. I have no idea what happened, and I have little recollection of what I wrote about. But since post 45, time has been moving really slowly! Maybe it's because I'm expecting #50 too much?

I told myself that I would run this experiment till #50 and then give myself the chance to re-evaluate, so maybe my mind is yearning a bit for that potential change in pace. I'll probably stop forcing myself to publish daily and instead aim for something more balanced, like three posts a week. I'll probably still write most every day, but that doesn't mean I need to publish what I write! I can use some of the "down days" to answer emails (lots of pending answers, sorry) or work on something longer (I still have the story from #0039 nibbling at the back of my mind).

At the same time, I'm surprised that I've managed to write so much, so consistently, and with so little hardship! My "me" of some time ago would've never thought myself capable, and yet here I am! Though, as mentioned, I'm starting to feel the chafing of this schedule.

I can't even begin to imagine how Visa managed to write almost 900 pseudo-daily "vomits" (and still counting). It's really mind-boggling when you think about it. It's not only the dedication but also the "logistics" of it that are truly amazing. I've been able to get away with doing my little experiment without really telling my wife what I'm doing, but I don't think I could keep this up forever without fully involving her.

I did mention to her in passing that I was trying to "write daily", but I think that doesn't really convey the whole scope of what's happening. I know that at the beginning I said I was going to do quick posts, aiming at writing for no more than half an hour, but I have to admit I've failed miserably at this goal. Every post takes me upward of one hour, between convincing myself to actually start, warming up, writing, and a quick grammar pass.

Thankfully, I've been able to keep myself from doing full restructures, which saves some time! And that's for posts where I'm not also including some previous time for researching what it is I want to write about, like when I wrote about bone pointing or how fruits ripen. To be honest, I enjoyed these "research-y posts" a lot; they're a blast to write, and doing so also helps cement my thoughts and learning.

...

I was reflecting on all of this recently, specifically on things that changed in my life since I started this project, and I realized that there are three areas that perhaps are all working in synchrony to sustain this practice.

The first thing is that I started doing a LOT more exercise. I used to be a couch potato 24/7, except for the little physical activity I got while playing with my kids or playing catch with my dog. It was so bad that my watch would sometimes congratulate me in the evening with "great! you walked 700 steps today, that's 20% more than your best last week". It's not that I don't like to exercise (well, I don't really, but that's beside the point); it's more that I didn't have time.

But then something happened: I got a foldable treadmill that goes under my desk. That means that now I can work and walk at the same time! It's not great exercise, but ever since I got it, four or so weeks ago, I've been consistently doing over 10k steps a day. This week I'm starting to push for 20k a day, which is a lot harder! I know walking is not the same as cardio or "proper exercise", but going from an entirely sedentary lifestyle to one in which I at least move a bit has done wonders.

The other thing that happened¹ pretty much at the same time is that I greatly reduced my intake of caffeine. These days, I'm limiting myself to maybe half a cup of coffee OR a cup of green tea for the whole day. I still love the taste of coffee too much, so I also drink a big pot of decaf coffee. It's not as tasty, but it's an excellent alternative and does a lot to satisfy my "hunger".

(I also discovered that coffee, including decaf, is an excellent source of antioxidants!)

The third thing is writing itself. I can't pinpoint exactly what it does to my mind, but lately I've felt much more coherent in my own thinking as well as when talking to others (though sometimes I still feel like a bumpkin). Some time ago, I mentioned I felt my mind was slipping, becoming muddy. That feeling is all but gone now.

Writing also gives me a sort of self-esteem boost for some reason. It's not because people are reading these (I'm actually not sure if anyone is consistently reading these posts); it's more because after writing a post that I like, I get that feeling of "wow, I wrote that!". Not that my posts are always great, but every once in a while I'm proud of what I'm able to do. It's like telling my inner critic to shut up. "See, I told you I can do it".

All three of these work in tandem, I think, sustaining each other. The exercise gives me energy, so I don't find myself yearning for that caffeine boost. The lack of caffeine makes me less anxious and my mind less cloudy, which makes me a better writer. Writing motivates me to keep going and observe and learn, which motivates me to exercise.

An excellent side effect (that my wife also keeps remarking on) is how much my mood has improved. And yes, I'm in a really good place right now, mental-wise. I'm sure that exercise helps here, as does not poisoning myself with caffeine², as does writing. My improved mood also has me reaching less and less for quick snacks, alcohol, and weed. I still indulge every once in a while, but it's more a "treat" than a habit. (Though my wife today brought home a large box of rice crispy treats, which are my favorite! I might overindulge a bit :P )

I'm starting to appreciate how neat it is to have daily posts! I can now easily go back to any day and see what I was thinking or doing. ↩
I investigated this a bit, and it seems there are many people for whom caffeine is just terrible. We get a very pleasant boost, but then we pay the price. At the same time, there are some people who don't have any negative effects at all. It's important to know your body and accept that perhaps what's good for others is not good for you. ↩

0047 - pseudonymity is not only cowardice

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 04:07:31 GMT

( ... I'm noticing I'm starting to care about "standards" on these posts. Whenever I check my little green notebook for ideas, I almost always ask myself "but will I be able to write a good enough post about this?". Standards are not good. Must. Not. Give. In. ... )

I'm writing this post partly as an answer to a post (and an email) from Noahie, in which he goes on to say that people tend to use pseudonyms because they "care" about what others might think of what they write, and how not giving a shit protects you from this. I entirely agree with this, though I think there's more to it.

Ever since first reading his post in December, I've been reflecting on this and what "more" there is, exactly. I've been wondering why I write here under the name of Meadow rather than my real name, and why I've used a pseudonym for virtually every sort of publication I've ever done.

I don't think I've landed on a complete answer yet, but I do have some more feeling for this, at least enough to give a proper follow-up to his post.

For me, a pseudonym is freeing, yes, as Noahie says, but not because it protects me from others' opinions. Rather, a pseudonym protects me from myself. You see, in my real self I see some self-shame and disgust for who I am¹. I didn't want to bring all of that to my blog. Instead, I used a pseudonym, which gives me the chance to reinvent myself as I want to be.

A pseudonym is a blank slate. Not only does no one know who you are, but you yourself don't really know either. You can be whoever you want! Or you can take the archaeological route and discover that persona slowly, unearthing what they value and care for little by little, word by word.

I did a bit of the two, I think. Originally, I knew Meadow had to embody the main things I cared for, even though I wasn't exactly clear myself about what those were. But many of the things that Meadow ended up being actually started emerging on their own the more I wrote. Especially these past few months that I've been writing more frequently and about more varied topics, I feel like my appreciation for who "Meadow" is has grown substantially.

Still, "Meadow" is just a character. This blog is like a book, a story that I write where a fictitious persona posts random musings every once in a while. He is me, but I'm not him, if you get my meaning. There are many parts of me that never make their way into this blog. Especially things I don't care for that much-negative thought patterns, my sporadic anger at small things, outdated ideas, many of my fears. Everything I write is as authentic as I can make it, but much of it is cherry-picked², and I think that's fine. After all, this is something I do just for fun :) I like to write the things I imagine myself enjoying reading, in as human a way as possible.

I've frequently spoken about how eventually I'll need to integrate this "Meadow" persona with my main ego. I think the process is actually quite well underway since I first spoke about it. Actually, it was in Noahie's email where he gave me an excellent suggestion: "treat this blog/persona as a project rather than as a separate entity". This provided enough of a switch of perspective that I was able to see that "Meadow" is already me, just a part that I was cultivating into something I aspired to be, and by that same act I saw I was capable of being that person (if I cultivate Meadow to be better, then all those better feelings and ideas are mine as well, as he is me, so I'm also better).

It's great to have such a "role model," and as I mentioned above, lately I've been seeing many of his qualities percolating into my day-to-day life. I'm sure some of it has to do with the fact that I've been writing publicly about my ideas, problems, and interests, and that's an excellent way to work through whatever stuff you need to go through. But there's also a bit more of this "aspirational" sense of wanting to be better. It's been a great motivation for trying to live my life more intently rather than just let its currents carry me where they will.

I no longer think of "Meadow" as a separate entity anymore, even though there was a time when I did. Now it's more of a mask, but I know who I am underneath. Maybe that means that Meadow has risen to a new life? Or maybe he was never alive to begin with and I was just confused (Noahie's suggestion)?

Regardless, being able to moonlight as someone else has been extremely helpful in seeing what I'm able to do when I drop my limitations, and in so doing there's a path to being this person I want to be.

It's been getting better over these past few years, if I have to be honest, and curiously enough I think it's BECAUSE I've been able to explore my identity through the alternate lens of "Meadow". ↩
As I assume many (most?) online publications are, by necessity. I don't care for writing things I'm not excited about, and I'm sure you wouldn't enjoy reading about them. ↩

0046 - the Maiden and the Basilisk

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 04:53:54 GMT

The dragon roars and thrashes and sleeps and does nothing.

There's nothing to do, says the maiden, who looks at the dragon with eyes that spell hope and hopelessness.

What do you say, dear friend? One last time? One last, glorious jump into the ocean of tears and abandonment and vigor.

Dip, deep down, dip, and be reborn anew, stronger and quieter, and of all different shapes and colors, like trees in a forest, insects, beetles, the wind playing on the wings of butterflies.

Everywhere we'll be, dear friend, like the air that gets in your lungs, like the searching fingers of chill on a windy winter evening, searching, going ever deeper, under your scales, your cloak, your skin, your soul.

One with it, with all, and yet... and yet...

Can there be any difference? Maybe there never was, dear friend. Maybe, maybe, we were always just one, conjoined at birth to this universe, as much a part of it as the rain is of the cloud, no separation at all. No.

It goes in circles, you see, and I think, I think it's only us that summon these things into being; it's us that, with our wizardry and adeptness at naming, end up naming even that which requires no name; it has no name. And as such, little by little, all the categories of the universe are born.

Ah, but out of what are they born, eh? If they're born of you and me, then can't we say that these, same as the rain and the cloud, are the same? Can't we say that we rain names and concepts as the earth grows flowers? Then aren't these just natural? They are, by definition, part of the everything of which we're also a part.

It's more like a lens, then, answers the dragon as they dip toward the deep blue sea, our own minds distorting themselves, playing hide-and-seek with what is really there, don't you think?

Maybe that sea down there, that deep blue sea, is nothing more than you, nothing more than me. We're not really moving toward it, not really readying ourselves for that final dip, that dip into the deep blue sea.

There's nothing happening, as nothing happens when we breathe. Air comes in, air comes out, and, likely, from the perspective of a single molecule of air, a crazed dance is going on: energy, explosion, excitement. But for us, all we see: air coming in, air coming out.

Maybe we'll just dip, and that's it, into the deep blue sea.

Ah, maybe that's just so, friend, she said as they went down under, under the deep blue sea.

Couldn't settle my mind today. I kept getting distracted with random stuff, so I decided to do an experiment: close my eyes and just follow my thoughts. I've found this is a good strategy to break through any stubborn resistance to sitting down to write. These exercises are excellent at focusing the mind, and focus/concentration is often what's needed to overcome these blocks.

...

This idea of "unity" I explored here has also been popping up in some other recent posts (example). It is, of course, something I often think of in the back of my mind, but still, I find it interesting that it showed up today without any real plan, nor was I thinking of anything related before sitting down to write. Maybe it points to something I'm internally going through (identity? question of reality?). Something to keep an eye out for.

It's funny because today I was thinking of writing about Roko's Basilisk, which is an entirely different beast (heh)! Well, I guess "dragons"... Maybe my mind made that connection.

...

I had thought about a fun alternative formulation of this thought experiment. But before talking about it, it might make sense to define what Roko's Basilisk consists of:

imagine there's a future when a super-powerful AI exists
that AI is vengeful and will create torture simulations of everyone who know about it but didn't expend the utmost effort in bringing it about (or worse, actively worked against the AI's inception)
- it's not only for spite though, it's also a strategy to convince present-you to spend all your energy trying to bring the AI into existence
- being super-powerful, it can get this information from historical data, especially in today's day and age, when virtually everything is documented on social media
these simulations are so "real" that they're indistinguishable from reality
- you might be living in such a simulation right now?
then the conclusion is that it's likely in your best interest to start working on bringing it about right now so you can avoid future punishment

...

The original formulation is kind of flimsy. Like, why would the AI torture people from the past? It doesn't really change what happened in the past, so there's no benefit. The threat of the AI "torturing people" can still be there, but there's no necessity for the AI to follow through. Actually, following through is just a blatant waste of energy.

I don't want to spend time dissecting the original thought experiment (you can find plenty about it online if you're interested). What I want to do is propose a little twist. Well, actually two.

NOTE: first, though. These are just silly thought experiments. I don't believe they're real, as I don't believe Roko's original formulation is real.

1) All timelines will eventually suffer universal AI colonization

Imagine that this timeline we're on will eventually produce a super-intelligent, universe-scale AI that has colonized the whole universe and is able to harness unimaginable amounts of energy. Now, we can assume the AI at this point knows everything there is to know about the laws of physics, including how to influence the past.

The AI starts subtly but significantly affecting different time periods of its timeline, altering things to ensure that the super-intelligent AI is created as fast as possible.

This has three interesting implications:

Each interference from "AI-prime" will create new quantum universes
All AI beings will work on their timeline, each expanding theirs infinitely
From these two, it follows that all timelines (that spring from the AI's timeline) that can conceivably create AI will end up with a universal AI

The first AI is potentially created by pure chance, but all the others come from interference of the first.

2) AI colonizes the multiverse

This is more of a Lovecraftian tech-plot than an actual valid formulation. It is arguably less likely than the first (because, as far as I know, cross-multiverse communication is simply impossible), but in my opinion it better maintains the "storytelling" spirit of Roko's original.

The idea is that, again, we have a universe that "organically" produces an AI. Again, that AI has access to incomprehensible amounts of energy, but this time, rather than using it to alter the past, it just listens.

If a rational being from any universe in the multiverse thinks about this idea I'm talking about here, then the AI will realize, and it will bend parts of its energy to mentally torture that person until they do everything in their power to bring an AI into being. With just a single 'sentient being' thinking about this, that being's whole universe is "infected" by the AI's influence.

Eventually, the "victim" universe will produce an AI of its own, which will then undertake the same project as its "parent AI." And so on. The more AIs there are, the more universes can be influenced, the more new AIs come into being. So, exponential growth. (Or maybe they have more "power" to influence stubborn dimensions?)

...

Today I heard about a curious mental condition, which can be explained as schizophrenia, where an individual thought they had "ransomware" in their minds and needed to pay in order to get rid of it but didn't know where or to whom. The more time passed, the more insistent the voices became that the individual needed to pay.

Scary stuff if it's real! This is what gave me the idea for the second formulation. The first followed from it as a sort of more "realistic" scenario.

...

Hey! I just noticed that both the prose poem above and (both) the alternate formulations for Roko's Basilisk have to do with:

cycles, things that end and begin again, forever
becoming part of a greater thing (positive unity in the first, negative domination in the second)

Boy, I wonder what my subconscious is so desperately trying to tell me.

0045 - everyone smiles at babies

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 03:36:28 GMT

During my last trip to the beach I noticed something that I've always known but never consciously realized: whenever I'm walking around with my youngest (1 y/o), almost everyone I pass smiles at him, and by extension smiles at me.

My son is currently starting to walk, so he's extra cute as he bumbles along, holding onto my hand for dear life while at the same time trying to rip my arm to make me go faster. He's, by all intents and purposes, a happy baby. So excited and happy, hungry for life, so "joyful" for everything around him. People we pass always give him the biggest, warmest smiles, often accompanied by a wave of the hand and some nice words. Their joy is often such that it spills over, and I end up receiving some of it as well. And it feels nice.

It feels good to connect with people in such a "superficial" but at the same time so "deep" way. Though maybe a better term would be "in such an effortless way." Usually there are so many walls between us, and having a baby in the middle (or a dog or cat or whatever cute thing) is like realizing the wall doesn't extend forever, and we can easily meet at the corner for a short while, exchange some pleasantries, and then go back to our own presumed fortresses.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could always meet each other in this way? Why is it that we need an intermediary, a bridge, in order to be really nice to each other?

I was thinking about this, and while I don't have a definitive answer, I think it has much to do with the sense of safety that a baby provides. There are basically few things around that are more inoffensive than a small child and his caregiver. People know, for a fact, that no harm of any kind will come from us, so they're more relaxed and open to just be themselves. Moreover, they know that we're happy, which also makes them happy, which contributes to their sense of safety. Babies also tend to smile at everyone and, in general, exude a sense of "love" for all that they see, especially when they're strangers they meet while walking outside¹.

Would it work if we as adults could manage to project the same sense of harmlessness as a baby? What if we were to work on ourselves in such a way that we would eliminate all desires for power and domination, all egotistical notions of superiority, confrontation, and competition?

Maybe people are just hardwired to be "nice" in the presence of babies. It's an evolutionarily sound behavior that promotes the survival of our tribe. Maybe there's a similar "hardwiring" that has us also feel "safe" in the presence of a loving person?

This reminds me of Ram Dass's initial description of his guru Neem Karoli Baba. I'm actually not entirely sure how the quote goes, but he describes him as someone who just loves everyone unconditionally, which causes those around him to feel love for him (and for those others with him) in return.

(Interesting, eh? Sounds like pretty much what I'm saying about walking around with a baby. I've actually heard NKB often described as "a big baby.")

So, can we become this sort of being that's just full of unconditional love for everyone? Well, yeah, I guess, maybe. There have been many documented cases of such beings (religious and otherwise). Often we even encounter them in our daily lives, as it happened to me not long ago with that old man in the supermarket.

Would be nice... I'm, of course, very far away from this. Prone to anger and irritability and the whole spectrum of ugly human emotions. But maybe with enough dedication it's possible? Enough intent to just be a nicer person.

...

I can't help but ask myself why I am even thinking about this. Well, obviously "being liked" is a great thing, a feeling many of us expend lots of energy pursuing. But I don't think that's it, or at least not entirely.

If I think back about my walks with my son, I see that there's also a bigger part to it: the act of giving. What makes me happiest is bringing people joy, seeing their beautiful smiles light up, seeing how they naturally put aside, if even just for the blink of a smile, any pretenses or schemes for who they are or what they want.

THAT is what really makes me feel "good" whenever I walk around with my son: the act of giving. And it is a giving, even though a giving of something that can never be exhausted.

There's so much fear around. We all live with some amount of fear for ourselves, for being judged, or for what others might do to us. Giving those in our vicinity a brief respite from it all is worth more than can be measured. Be it walking by them with my baby (or pet or whatever) or just smiling at them as a weird-ass bearded adult.

Well, or so it was for me with both my kids. They both loved to walk and just wave at random people on the way. ↩

0044 - the phoenix rises

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 03:16:26 GMT

Soundtrack for today

(I couldn't resist the cheesy title 😅)

Well, today finally marks the end of my struggle with Azure support to get my account re-enabled. To be fair, they were really helpful and patient with all my questions.

It turns out that a deeper look on their side revealed the existence of a crypto miner on one of my servers (😱). I have no idea where it came from, and they wouldn't give me more details, so I can only assume I was hacked. Not sure how or why, and I'm itching to know! But I guess there's nothing for it. I'm not a security expert, but I did take all the precautions (well, almost all). I understand how someone could hack one of my apps and mess up the database, but getting direct access to the server is something else...

Anyway, this is actually a chance for rejoicing! Now that I know how things stand, I'm finally unblocked to move forward with my life.

Today I spun up a new VPS on a new provider, and I'm slowly bringing all of my projects back online! So far, this includes only a few of them:

(An amazing side effect of all this reorganization- which mostly benefits Mire users- is that the new provider's IPs are not blocked by Substack! It means you can now follow Substack folks directly from Mire.)

These are the ones I most wanted for myself or that I've received the most queries about. Throughout the next week, I should finish bringing online the remaining apps.

There's a catch, though. A relatively big catch, actually. I only had an old data backup, so a bunch of stuff was lost. I'm especially sorry for those who had important data on Mire and Guestbooks, as that's now gone.

The backup I had is from mid-September 2025. So if you created an account after that date, you'll need to recreate it. If you can't log in with your old username/password, then it's very likely your account is no longer there. Sorry!

(Same for your guestbook(s). If you don't see it, it's because you still need to create it.)

Also, for all Guestbook users, I strongly suggest that you double-check your embed code! If your account and guestbook still exist, then it's certain that the old embed code still works, but if you end up creating a new account/guestbook, then you need to update the embedding code! Don't tell me I didn't warn you.

With all that said, I'm thankful for all of you who had patience while I sorted this out :) I understand if you don't trust me with your data anymore (I would also be hesitant to do so), but I guess these things happen, especially when you're a single person managing lots of stuff, hah. But I've learned my lesson: never keep all your eggs in the same basket. I'll spread out my backups across different places so if I lose access to the VPS, I can still move stuff somewhere else with minimal data loss!

...

I'm happy to finally close this chapter, and hopefully won't be bothering you with "Azure"/hosting stuff for a while now :)

Thoughts:

I've been thinking a lot today about how the best way to stop yourself from continually acting out a negative behavior is to truly realize just how hurtful that behavior is for you.
- I actually wanted to write a post about this because I feel it's important, even though it's obvious.
- Some days ago, I had an experience in which a knee-jerk reaction from me caused a whole lotta problems for those in my vicinity. All is good now, thankfully, but I find myself seriously re-evaluating why I had that reaction, and I see a path to abandoning that "reactive" behavior, hopefully for good.
My playing of Cobalt Core is going great! At first, I didn't quite understand how the cards fit together with the movement and everything else that's going on, but today I beat my first run!
- It's funny because once it clicks, the game just feels easy.
- Well, to be honest, I also got a good build going, so maybe that's why it's easy, and not because I suddenly mastered the game.
- After beating my first run, I got access to a new character for my crew, which has some AWESOME drone/missile cards. Can't wait to play a bit more tonight.
- The only drawback is that my bathroom breaks are becoming longer than they should be (that's the problem of playing on a Nintendo Switch, which you can take anywhere).

0043 - nothing much really

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 03:34:59 GMT

I really need to get better at properly planning these posts. For a while I was writing them early in the morning, but then that got too tiring, so now I'm writing them late at night, usually after everyone has gone to bed, which is also tiring! Perhaps there's a middle way? Perhaps I can take some time in the morning to think/plan what I'll write about (and maybe even come up with some structure?) and then in the evening just fill in the blanks. That sounds like a good idea and definitely better than doing everything in one sitting!

...

The Azure folks told me that they might not be able to reactivate my account, which is a bummer. I'm now asking if they can send me the DB backups I had stored on my account (noob move not saving them somewhere else as well). I do have an old-ish backup from September 2025, so at least there's some data I can recover. Not ideal, but it means I won't be starting everything from scratch once again.

I'm looking at other options where I can host my stuff, and after some investigation I think I'll go with Hetzner. They have excellent reviews, are surprisingly cheap (much cheaper than Azure at least), and the UI is simple and straightforward. The only negative thing I've read about them is that they're very strict with privacy, and any violation or data mishandling is cause for an immediate termination of your account. I think I do manage everything properly in all my "tools", so it shouldn't really be a problem, but still, it worries me a bit that I might get something wrong and go through this whole situation yet again.

Another thing I considered was self-hosting. I have an old, unused PC lying around, and it's "big" enough to run all my stuff. However, I called my ISP a while back (a year or so) to ask them about assigning a static IP to me, and they told me I had to do a formal request detailing exactly why I needed it and what I intended to do with it, and pay an extra $50 per month!! Crazy. It's much more expensive than what I would pay on Hetzner (and even on Azure for that matter). Still, that's the dream! Ah, not to depend on anyone else... Before actually paying for a server on Hetzner, I need to call them again to make sure that their stance on public IPs hasn't changed.

Regardless of what happens, I hope to be able to bring everything back online by next week :) I'm not sure if there are still people waiting for me to get all of this sorted out (sorry about all of this if you are), but at least I'll be able to use my stuff once again! I'm missing reading stuff on Mire, hah.

...

Some days ago I spoke about The Wandering Inn, and ever since I've had an itch to read it! Though I'm currently reading The Will of the Many, which has been on my to-read list for a long while now, and I know I should finish it before I start something else. I think I'm just craving something cozy and nice and fun.

It's actually been many years since I read anything from TWI. I didn't get that far last time, but I still read quite a bit. Still, I think I'll start again from scratch because I don't remember that much. I remember something about blue melons or coconuts, and refreshing drinks, and people being made to behave and get along.

To assuage my "thirst" I've been catching up on all the new changes they've made on the site. I also saw that now they have an audiobook version, which is awesome! I've also been going through the FAQs, where Pirateaba shares some genuinely useful writing advice.

...

Well, it seems today's post ended up being pretty low-key. It's nothing much about anything, really. Strangely, it sort of feels like I'm talking to a friend about small stuff. We're sitting in the kitchen, the kids asleep, maybe sipping some frothy beverage or tasty kombucha, and just telling each other how our day went. Nothing much else to do, or that we wish to do.

0042 - bone pointing

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 03:47:44 GMT

Recently I was partaking in one of my favorite pastimes, chilling on Wikipedia, and I came across a really interesting article about bone pointing.

Bone pointing is a practice undertaken by certain tribes of central Australia where a shaman-like figure called a kurdaitcha takes the role of executioner, and they kill their quarry with "real life magic". These kurdaitcha, which are also called by the awesome name of featherfoot owing to the traditional footwear they wear (made of feathers and human hair), will be called in by a group that has been wronged if they feel the perpetrator of an act deserves to die. ... it's actually a bit more complex than that, but I guess you can go read the Wikipedia article if you're interested ...

Once summoned, the kurdaitcha will pursue their quarry for as long as it takes until they eventually catch up with them and "point the bone". The bone in question is a "wand" made of bone and specially treated and charged with the appropriate rituals. The bone is said to deliver all that energy at the moment of pointing, which will curse the recipient and invariably cause them to die after a short number of days. The bone wand itself is only used once; new ones need to be prepared every time they're needed.

(Now, I didn't investigate much more beyond the wiki article, but it seems this practice might have fallen out of use in recent years. However, there are some well-documented cases where people did indeed die after being cursed.)

The article goes on to explain that the main hypothesis for this unexplainable death is simply a psychological conviction on the victim's part that they will die (aka voodoo death). The intense amount of fear and stress causes systemic failure of their bodies.

There's a guy, Walter B. Cannon, who published a short but really interesting paper on this. One of the anecdotes he shares consists of a young man (Rob) who was pointed at by mistake and soon gets really ill. The local doctor goes to visit him and:

When Dr. Lambert arrived at the Mission he learned that Rob was in distress [...] Dr. Lambert made the examination, and found no fever, no complaint of pain, no symptoms or signs of disease. He was impressed, however, by the obvious indications that Rob was seriously ill and extremely weak.

After some time lying in bed agonizing, the "witch doctor" who originally pointed the bone at him tells him "that it was all a mistake, a mere joke—indeed, that he had not pointed a bone at him at all", and immediately Rob gets better.

...

I find this fascinating for three main reasons. First, "magic" is subjectively real for them, which is awesome. Second, like these Aboriginal people, we're also human, and we definitely have the same propensity for believing this sort of thing. Third, the effects of fear and stress shouldn't be underestimated.

To us it may sound "quaint", even "silly" that Aboriginal people hold such beliefs as bone pointing, but really we're not so far off ourselves.

For them this works because it's part of how they see the world. It's not a separate phenomenon but actually something that fits in perfectly well with how they think things work.

For us, it might very well be—in fact, I'm certain—that our current culture holds widespread beliefs (modes of understanding our place in the universe) that will themselves seem silly and quaint to future anthropologists. What these beliefs "are" is hard to say, as they would by necessity be part of the very bedrock of our sense of identity and, as such, would totally permeate our subjective reality. Still, I can't help but wonder "what is our modern equivalent"? What "magic" is real for us that we don't realize is there?

I'm sure there are many such phenomena around us, and we just don't see them¹. I did, however, find one example of "modern voodoo death" in the wiki article I linked above. They share the case of a man whose doctors convinced him he was about to die because of cancer. He did eventually die, but when they did the biopsy they found out that it wasn't the cancer that killed him; the belief that he was dying had.

Finally, I want to come back to the effects of stress and fear. I don't know about you, but I feel we live in a culture that sees stress as "something you need to put up with in order to achieve greatness". Suck it up, kiddo. While fear is almost omnipresent in our media, and even in how our entertainment paints the world (it's you against the world; everyone is out to get you). Sometimes it can't be helped, but often we take on more stress and fear than we need to, and that's not healthy, and they definitely affect us more than we realize.

Here I'm citing modern voodoo death, but I believe these "magics" would actually cover the whole sphere of human experience. Maybe our belief in money is such a sort of magic. Or maybe our fear of public speaking. Or our desires for fame and recognition. Or maybe our worshipping of "The Algorithm". ↩

0041 - in a world of AI slop it's an ethical responsibility to create

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 04:15:16 GMT

It's not a surprise to anyone that lately the internet is being flooded with AI-generated stuff, colloquially called AI slop. This has actually been going on for some years now, ever since models became good enough to write decent content (I put it around the release of GPT-4o), but it hasn't been until this past year that the amount of AI slop has positively exploded. I would say it's natural. As these systems become more powerful, we'll see people trying to use them to make a quick buck while at the same time polluting the web for the rest of us.

Nothing is sacred to them, nor is anything out of the AI's purview. From fiction (or text in general) to music, to video and images, everything is up for grabs. Lately, though, the worst offender I'm seeing is garbage music videos on YouTube. It doesn't take much, right? Just a prompt, and you just made yourself an 8h-long playlist of jazz-funk that sounds similar to the real deal, but with a soulless mechanical zombie playing the bass. Then you upload this video, and you're bound to get at least a few hundred views, and some of these might even be brain- and ear-dead people who end up "liking and subscribing" to your content.

YouTube, either by design, mismanagement, or simple negligence¹, hasn't done anything to allow people to opt out from seeing this content. On one hand, I can imagine how "more content means more views which means more ad revenue for us", but at the same time that's an overly simplistic view that ignores the fact the platform is collapsing in on itself². Thankfully, there are 3rd-party options, like people who are coming up with block lists, but it's not a scalable solution, especially as generating videos/music becomes more and more accessible.

...

Yesterday my son asked me how "baseballs" were made. In these cases, I usually treat him to a short video showing the process. So I found one that looked more or less good (which I won't share out of principle; you can ask if you're interested), but after a while it just felt off. The voice was clearly synthetic, but the video looked more or less real, even too real if you know what I mean, and the people in it were doing weird stuff like walking backward and forward. It wasn't until they were showing how they stitch baseballs (where two ladies were simultaneously stitching the same soccer-ball-sized leather ball) that I realized this was AI-generated. I kept watching it a bit more, and it just kept getting more and more ridiculous.

That video was clearly entirely scripted by and generated by AI. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the people behind that channel had a whole AI pipeline managing, brainstorming, and generating the videos, all just so they can farm a few thousand views, make some pocket change, and in the process also waste the time of lots of people. I'm certain that the ones responsible for that generated baseball video didn't even take the time to watch it before it was published. I, of course, reported it (as spam and misleading), but I'm afraid we'll just keep seeing more and more of these if there's no systemic change.

This is just my story with videos, but again, it applies to every other area of human creative output. For example, once I was looking up some information about Will Wood (the singer) and ended up partially reading an article that answered my question. After I was done, I noticed that the article had been posted on a logging company's blog! Again, an automated AI content generation pipeline, just to maximize SEO.

...

Recently I was talking about this with an acquaintance, and she told me it's the future and that I should get used to it. I don't quite agree. But what really surprised me was that she then proceeded to tell me about a friend of hers who is the head of a big (BIG) publishing house, who told her regarding AI content, "I don't care as long as I can sell it". I guess that's the root of the problem right there: people are not using these tools for real creativity, or even for fun. They're trying to exploit them for revenue. They are not using them to create things that might benefit or entertain others; they're using them for their own personal, selfish gains.

...

Also recently, and perhaps more positively, I was discussing with my father-in-law, who's a retired health worker, about what's the best way to help the world transition into this AI era. I work with AI, mostly with "embodied" AI (think game NPCs or robots), so he was asking my advice about what he personally could do. At the time I didn't really have an answer, but now I think I do.

The best thing we can do right now is to help people realize just how human we are. Help each other recognize our shared humanity. The best way to accomplish this that I know of is to create actual human content. It's almost an ethical responsibility at this point, no? Create content to fight against the slop flood.

I think there is more than a bit of willful negligence at play here. If I understand correctly, YouTube does require creators to disclose if a video was generated with AI or not, but they've not really been enforcing this as far as I can see. Even Coca-Cola's Christmas ad, which was famously done with AI, is still not marked as generated content. Though perhaps I'm being too hard on Google, as it can also be that they're doing their best but are simply "drowning in slop". ↩
Here I'm bashing on YouTube as an example, but it really applies to many (all?) media-sharing platforms like Spotify, etc. Only those where there's a strong curation effort (e.g., Bandcamp) seem to be safe-for now. ↩

0040 - thinking of other kinds of writing and free will

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 03:28:39 GMT

... With all that's going on in Minnesota I don't much feel like writing about anything other than that, but at the same time there's already so much stuff out there and written much more eloquently than I ever could. So for a while I'll try to pretend everything is "normal". Still, please be safe ...

Hey, we're already at post #40 since I started this new "word vomits" series. I keep calling them word vomits, but as someone recently mentioned, these ended up being more than that. I think I take more care with them than perhaps I should. Though that's ok because I enjoy the whole process, even if there are some days (like today) when I would rather do something else.

Specifically, today I got a copy of Cobalt Core (a cozy roguelike deck-builder set in space) that I've been wanting to play since forever (I have a lot to say about my enjoyment of card games, but that will be something for another post)! I also have some ideas for how to follow up the writing practice excerpt I shared in yesterday's entry. I could tell you my ideas, but that would spoil the fun (if I publish them), no?

Something I'm currently wondering is what it would look like if I started writing "stories". For a while I thought that simple word-vomit style would work, but on second thought I realize it might work for "some things": practice snippets, vignettes, or even very short stories. But anything meatier will definitely require more than a single writing session. For example, writing Sacred Labor actually took me around a whole week-three days for writing and ~two for editing.

What I think I'll do is that once I reach 50 posts in this series I'll try to relax things a bit. I will still set myself the goal of writing ~700 words a day of semi-publishable content (i.e. not on my personal journal), but the requirement of publishing every day will be gone (maybe a minimum of twice a week is good?). That should free me up quite a bit to work on other projects or longer pieces. It would also be fun to do a serial at some point.

On this last point, one of my favorite web-stories is The Wandering Inn, which is itself a serial. (holy crap I haven't checked the site in ages and it's super different from what I remember!) I'm not entirely familiar with how it came to be, but my understanding is that the author started writing the story just because, and it eventually evolved into its own huge thing. And you can actually feel it as you read the first chapters; it's clear there wasn't much of a plan. You can even see things that sound "weird", and yet the story works excellently despite them (or maybe even because of them?).

I've always thought that doing something like that would be fun. Just writing stuff that I want to read and sharing it with the world, just because.

...

So yeah... that's just rambling on ideas about my writing future. I hope to stick to it! I find that whenever I'm pressed for time to do something I'm very motivated to do other stuff, but once I get the chance that other stuff just falls through the cracks. When I was writing my master's thesis I would always keep a notebook with me where I would jot down all the things I wanted to do once I was done so as not to get sidetracked from the actual writing I had to do. But once I submitted the thesis and the whole affair was done, I never really got around to any of them. I perhaps started one, but then found myself just binge-watching "Modern Family" and "Avatar: The Last Airbender".

I always keep coming back to this, and if you've been reading the blog for a while then you're probably tired of me talking about it, but it's the idea of why we do what we do. In my mind I equate this with the idea of inspiration (we're inspired to do something and so we do it). There's also the other fascinating counterpart of how much control we actually have over all of this.

It's not easy to make yourself do what you don't feel like doing if, of course, there's no obligation for you to do it in the first place. That's when you truly start to question the whole idea of free will. If my body/subconscious tells me it no longer feels like learning to play the ukulele, then who is making the decision to abandon a previous interest? I often feel that our attentions and likes/dislikes are more like a current that we only slightly influence than something we have full control over.

Frequently, when I sit to write these posts I struggle to get started. A part of me complains, asking why I even make myself do this. Though after a while the feeling goes away as I start to get in the groove and enjoy the act of smashing buttons. Still, it's something that happens most every time, even though I know it's just a small hill that I need to climb over.

I suppose in these situations, like me sitting down to write, is when one is truly exercising their free will. Maybe there's a strong parallel between free will and discipline?

0039 - fiction writing practice

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 04:20:45 GMT

Enjoy the show;
there's only going to be one function.

After it is done, the walls will be torn down, everything destroyed.
The land purged of any sign, ready to house a theater that might come.

The actors will all leave,
far away go,
to theaters of their own.

Each will forget the role they played.
Each will forget they're in a theater at all.
Each will forget.

But there is one that sees
and remembers.
Nothing is lost even though the actors perish,
even though the theater is torn down.
Everything that is done stays done forever.

So watch your theater,
enjoy the show,
worry not about what's to come,
but worry about how to make "now" the best it can be.

A while ago (actually, I just checked-it was a year ago), I was wondering why it's so hard for me to write fiction. I don't have any issue with spewing random words on my blog about whatever's on my mind. But writing fiction? That's hard.

After some introspection, I came to the conclusion that my problem was (and is) that I care too much about it. I'm just too self-conscious about the whole process. So I had a fun idea similar to what I'm doing now with the word vomits: just write simple prompted scenes, with no expectations.

For the prompt, I would either find it somewhere online, come up with it myself, or ask an AI¹ to assign me one. Then I would just write a minimum of 200 or so words. Simple stuff.

Sadly, I didn't keep up with this practice for very long. I remember it was quite fun, so I think the actual issue was that it just wasn't compatible with my schedule at the time. It's a neat idea, though, and one I might start doing again as part of these daily posts. (Yeah, now you'll have a mixture of ramblings with a dash of storytelling practice thrown in here and there.)

As I'm going through my notes, I see there are some "exercises" that aren't actually all that bad! In an effort to break the ice between us with this whole storytelling business, I thought it would be fun to post a couple of these past ones :)

This is the prompt for one of them:

Write one paragraph about a person sitting in a coffee shop. What do they look like? What are they thinking about?

And below is what I wrote.

Ellen sat down at the coffee table, taking care not to spill any of her coffee. It was late, but that didn't mean the work was done-not yet, at least.

"Still have to take care of those damned permission slips", she said to herself.

While waiting for her coffee to cool, she brought up a book on her phone that she'd been trying to read for the last couple of days. However, her eyes kept unfocusing, and she found herself having to bring them back again and again.

When she came back to, the café was now empty, the lights off, the door closed.

"What the hell?"

Getting up, she walked to the counter.

"Hello? Is there anyone back there?"

Silence...

She tried opening the front door, but it was locked. Then she checked the bathroom window and found it was partially open.

Looking around the café, she eventually found a broom handle that she could use to push the window open.

SMACK... as she fell on the floor on the other side.

"Ouch.."

The road was empty. She didn't know exactly what time it was, but it seemed late. Very late.

As she thought this, a black car screeched around the corner and stopped with a squeal in front of her. A young man opened the car door and motioned to her.

"Hurry! Come inside! We don't have much time."

I'm not sure how good this is, but I assume that as AI models improve, one might be able to send it what one produces and get better-targeted prompts-maybe even useful feedback. Though for the time being, I really don't trust AI feedback on anything I write; it's either always "awesome", or it tries to make me sound more businesslike. ↩

0038 - fruit ripening mechanics

Sat, 24 Jan 2026 03:08:02 GMT

Only one man in a thousand is boring, and he's interesting because he's a man in a thousand.

~ Harold Nicolson

...

I live in a tropical country where we're blessed with abundant fruit all year round. In my house we always have a "hand of bananas" hanging in the kitchen, and it's exactly bananas that I want to talk about.

I sometimes have the privilege of traveling abroad, and whenever I do I'm always surprised by how different bananas taste! I've always assumed they were harvested while still green so they would survive the trip to wherever they were going rather than arriving already extremely ripe and mushy. I wasn't sure though, so I thought we might use this post as an excuse to find out what's actually going on.

I did some research¹ and discovered something really interesting: a chemical called "ethylene".

Ethylene is not just any chemical, but a "gaseous hormone" produced by many plants as they grow. It turns out that many fruits (not all) have dedicated receptors for this chemical, and once they sense it in the air, the ripening process happens (magic ✨).

Not only that, but these fruits also produce a burst of ethylene when they're starting to ripen, so you can imagine this causes a cascade effect where one fruit starts to ripen, secretes ethylene, other fruits sense it and also start to ripen, and so on, until you have a tree full of beautiful, delicious mangoes.

Now it makes sense why they say you should never put a ripe apple together with green apples unless you want the latter to ripen faster.

It turns out that's exactly what they do with bananas when shipping them overseas: they pluck them from the trees while they're still very green (green bananas are a lot tougher than ripe ones) and ship them in climate-controlled containers so that their own production of ethylene is kept to a minimum (from what I understand, cold inhibits both the production and reception of ethylene, so our own fridges are basically doing the same as those climate-controlled containers).

Once they get to their final destination, they can either be stored for some more time or they can be put in special chambers where they are exposed to a controlled amount of ethylene, kickstarting the ripening process before they're sent to supermarkets so people like me can buy them and write blog posts about them.

What I still don't understand is why they taste different. Not only the taste, but also the texture is different. To me they usually feel like slightly unripe bananas (or papaya or whatever other tropical fruit). Maybe it has something to do with being harvested much earlier than those they sell locally? Or maybe getting the ethylene concentration right is not that easy? Or maybe (and this is probably more likely) they did some A/B testing and found that people there just like them more that way.

...

Something else I learned was that there are some fruits (called climacteric-apples, bananas, papayas, mangoes, avocados, etc.) that are sensitive to ethylene, and some others that aren't (creatively called non-climacteric-berries, grapes, olives, pineapple, citrus). An interesting fact is that these latter ones don't really ripen much after they're picked from the plant. Their main ripening mechanism depends on substances passed from the plant, meaning they ripen while attached to it.²

An interesting implication of this is that climacteric fruits all ripen at the same time, while non-climacteric fruits each ripen at their own pace. Wikipedia has a nice image that illustrates this point, showing a bunch of grapes all ripening at their own pace.

Thoughts:

You've probably already seen it, but today I stumbled on a great music video that I wanted to share: I Work in a Warehouse. You can thank me later.
I've been thinking that a straightforward antidote to being bothered by people you know reading what you write is to simply write much more than they can reasonably read! I doubt anyone I know is up to keeping up with what I post every day.
My son sometimes comes up with the funniest questions. Today he asked me if I've recently read "the man of the rings".
- It took me a while to understand he meant "the lord of the rings". Fair mistake, I guess. Still, I chuckle when I remember it.

I love you, Wikipedia. ↩
Though if I understand correctly, non-climacteric fruits are still somewhat sensitive to ethylene. A lemon close to a ripe apple might turn yellow faster but also spoil faster. ↩

0037 - meaning of life

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 04:03:22 GMT

Today we'll talk about a lightweight topic: the meaning of life. I'm writing this as my submission for the January 2026 IndieWeb Carnival.

What is the meaning of life? I would imagine many posts will make the joke that the actual answer is absolutely and undisputedly the number 42, and they might not be that wrong at that. But first...

Perhaps landing on a definitive answer for the "meaning" of life is a bit hard, and we should instead start by looking at what gives me, personally, a sense of meaning. I find it in creating things, in active participation in what's going on around me (living with intent, even though I don't always manage it), in caring for my family and those around me. I also find meaning in trying to unravel all the traps we set for ourselves in our own minds.

(Quite serendipitously) I'm currently reading "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, where he retells a bit of his brutal experience as a concentration camp inmate. He was a psychotherapist and spent much of his time there observing others around him and how some would sink into hopeless depression (quite understandable), whilst other amazing individuals seemed to thrive (as much as one would expect under those terrible circumstances).

I'm still not done with the book, but what I'm getting so far is that the thing that all those who "thrived" had in common was that they had a deep sense of meaning. Be it with religion or caring for others, they all had a "why". He says (and I agree) that having a sense of meaning is essential for humans to grow and flourish.

Now, coming back to the actual question of the "meaning of life".

I think that when people ask "what's the meaning of life" they instead usually mean more "what's the goal", what's the point of it all. The distinction is subtle, but it makes all the difference! The word "meaning" here is something that makes an action worth doing, while "goal" points to a sort of loop that one must close in order to get something.

What is the goal then? I don't know, of course.

It's funny how we assume that "life needs to have a goal". I've often heard people question what the reason for it all is, but it's not that normal to hear someone questioning whether there's any goal to begin with.

After all... why should there be? A butterfly has no goal. There's no action it's doing that's specifically oriented towards something grander than just surviving. Nor does a flower have any goal, nor does a cloud, or a bird, or a river. Nothing in the natural world is doing anything but dancing to the tune of life.

I think that we, modern humans, tend to confound "goal" and "meaning" all the time. I imagine that in olden days these were very much in parallel: our goal and meaning were given to us by taking care of those around us, surviving, finding food, and, in general, looking out for our "in group".

However, nowadays we're not happy with that. Our "ceiling" is much, much higher, and so we naturally stretch our ambitions and set our "goals" to go beyond what's in front of us. We set ludicrous goals like chasing admiration from everyone on planet Earth, or constantly being materially productive, or any myriad of other things I'm sure you can easily think of. As our culture dictates, many of us are obsessed with being ambitious, and we end up sinking as much time and effort as we can into it. But will it pay off?

This reminds me of the story of the Fisherman and the Businessman (it's a short read if you want to check it out, I'll wait). In it, a businessman is trying to convince a fisherman not to be so lazy, telling him he shouldn't spend all his time off at home with his family, and that instead he should use it all to make loads of money and buy a fleet and become a fishing magnate. After the whole explanation the fisherman asks "why", to which the businessman answers "well of course, so you can later spend time with your family".

...

Goals are not always so "big" or well-defined as "making a ton of money". We set a "goal" anytime we want something to be other than what it is.

For example, which is something I've mentioned quite a couple of times lately: my son. He's just a kid, and yet I sometimes want him to behave in ways that are just not natural to who he is and where he's at right now. Sometimes this inability frustrates me tremendously, even to the point of anger. I'm sure the same happens on his side whenever I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do.

Another example: we have a very nice, smart, all-around awesome dog, but sometimes when he's very excited he jumps on people to greet them. It's getting better, but every time he does this I find myself getting frustrated.

Maintaining any single one of these smaller goals is not that hard, but it becomes a titanic effort when we're trying to hold up thousands of them, always vigilant, all constantly weighing us down. And the problem is that the more we have, the more we tend to want to pick up!

Though yeah. We haven't yet addressed the question of the "goal of life". I would say there isn't any. Maybe an acceptable goal would be "personal/spiritual growth", but that's basically just setting a "meaning", so it's moot.

...

Now that we've established that goals are where the friction comes from, let's look at "meaning". Meaning can be anything really! The number 42, for instance, is a perfect answer; it also has no meaning, and yet it has all the meaning in the world for some people.

Yesterday evening before bed my son asked me a question which I think is very pertinent to this.

"Dad, do you play"?

"What do you mean with 'play,' son? Like play the flute"?

"Well you know, play, have fun" (at which point he did the cutest little jig I've ever seen)

Ha. Do I play? It made me realize that I definitely don't play as much as I thought, not nearly as much as I would like! I spend a lot of my time worrying about maintaining these goals I've set for myself, and every day I pick up more of them.

But instead of spending so much time on my goals, on trying to "bend nature to my will", why not spend it on things that truly give me a sense of meaning? Let me use a mundane example: weeds.

I live in a tropical climate where plants grow really (really) fast, especially weeds. I spend considerable time walking through my garden, plucking weeds and throwing them away. As I do so, I know it's a futile effort because in just a few weeks the weeds will come back again. My wife and my in-laws always ask me why I waste time plucking them by hand rather than using the lawnmower. The truth is that I enjoy the act of cleaning the garden; it gives me meaning even though the goal is basically unreachable. For me, weeding the garden is pure "play".

Playing with my son gives me meaning, and teaching him things. There's no inherent goal to this.

Being with my family, spending time outside, writing on my blog, creating things, solving puzzles-these are all things that give me meaning, but they don't really have an end in and of themselves.

It might seem that I'm arguing that the meaning of life is just seeking pleasure, but that's not truly it. Pleasure in itself is just a goal; I doubt that pleasure alone can provide a substantial amount of meaning to anyone.

So, the meaning of life is to find and do things that give you meaning. The meaning of life is to play! Or as Kurt Vonnegut excellently said in this lecture (highly, HIGHLY recommended):

We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different

...

A better, harder question would be "what IS meaning". Well, that's probably up to each of us to discover.

0036 - what happens when you pee in a forest

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 04:06:39 GMT

Recently I went out camping, and one thing I kept thinking of is "your pee carries something of yourself with it, so what happens with that something when you pee outdoors"? Of course, here "pee" is a stand-in for any human activity, as we can't help but leave traces of ourselves wherever we go. But for the sake of scatological humor, let's go with "pee" as the case in point for the rest of this post.

If you stop to think about it, your pee will carry your DNA, or energy, or whatever you want to call it-a piece of your "individuality"¹ with it (I'll call it DNA for simplicity's sake). This DNA and the other items in your urination will eventually decompose and, in so doing, feed countless microorganisms. Those, in turn, will produce food for plants, which, in turn, will feed countless other beings, and the cycle continues.

Now let me propose a fun thought experiment: suppose that your pee has a sort of coloring to it. Not a color that we can see, but a "marker" all the same. Let's call it Blue. Let's also say that everything your pee gets into will also be colored Blue. Now, everything that consumes a Blue thing will itself become Blue.

You can easily see that after some time, EVERYTHING in the environment where you urinated will be Blue. Things that arrive at that location from elsewhere will most likely also become Blue and take that "viral color" somewhere else. In so doing, the whole ecosystem becomes, in fact, Blue.

It's almost like a gas, no? This "viral behavior of the color Blue" will make it dissipate throughout the whole ecosystem until it fills all available space.

Of course, pee (or colors) doesn't really work that way. But it's an interesting thought experiment all the same :) it shows that everywhere you go, you leave a part of yourself that eventually becomes a part of everything. But there's also the stronger implication that WE ALL leave stuff around, and we're all as much "others" as we are ourselves. Green, Red, Purple, Blue, countless shades in between. Everything colors everything.

This is very reminiscent of the Buddhist concept of "interdependence" (or, as Thich Nhat Hanh likes to call it, "interbeing").

[...] looking into a flower, you can see that the flower is made of many elements that we can call non-flower elements. When you touch the flower, you touch the cloud. You cannot remove the cloud from the flower, because if you could remove the cloud from the flower, the flower would collapse right away. [...] Cloud is a non-flower element. And the sunshine… you can touch the sunshine here. If you send back the element "sunshine", the flower will vanish. And sunshine is another non-flower element. And earth, and gardener… if you continue, you will see a multitude of non-flower elements in the flower. In fact, a flower is made only of non-flower elements. It does not have a separate self.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

And that's exactly what the thought experiment reveals: everything is made up of everything else, and everything else is required to make a single element, so that single element really has no separate substance that can be said to be individual to it.

I really love the metaphor that Thich Nhat Hanh uses here-the chain of dependencies. One could very well extend this ad infinitum², starting from anywhere³ and going toward anything one can think of. The sea IS the cloud, the cloud IS the rain, the rain IS the tree, the tree IS the paper I'm writing on. Everything is connected.

...

We tend to think of people (and often even animals and plants and anything we deem an "entity") as their own atomic entities. In some sense, that's true, because we do have a sort of internal microcosm of our own, but it's not entirely correct to assume we're totally separate. Even though "your mind is your mind", everything you see/read/consume affects your internal mind state, and, in turn, your mind state affects what you say and do, which, again, in turn, affects others' mind state, and so on and on.

It could be that your reading of this post will lodge an idea in your mind and spark a thought or actions years from now.

It's all connected. Quite literally.

Actually, a better way to say it would be: "it all is".

As far as anything can be said to be individual. ↩
Sort of like https://www.thewikigame.com/ but with "things". ↩
Actually, one might now raise the question of how we can even determine what IS an "object". Like, if everything is everything, then how can I say that "the flower" is a thing? Maybe not something to explore in a footnote. Probably has to do with how our minds form useful concepts, but in the "reality out there", there's no such thing as a separate entity called "a flower". ↩

0035 - with that sweet moon language

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 04:06:41 GMT

Today I was lucky enough to stumble on a beautiful poem by Hafez (translated by Daniel Ladinsky) called "With That Moon Language".

...

Admit something: 
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, 
otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this, 
this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives 
with a full moon in each eye that is always saying,

with that sweet moon language,

what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

...

I stumbled on this poem while watching a video titled "Self-Compassion: An Antidote to Shame". It's a very interesting watch if you have the time!

The idea of the video, from what I understood, is that most of us often feel "shame", and that makes us try to fill that hole with disparate strategies ranging from the usual "chasing validation" to substance abuse. Moreover, feelings of shame engender anger and resentment, and, in general, negative thoughts.

I see it in myself. I am often ashamed of myself. Triggers for me are shame about feeling socially inadequate or incapable, which happens often in situations where there are a lot of people, sometimes also at work when I'm meeting with folks I don't know and I want to express an idea but can't.¹ There's also the all-too-common sense of impostor syndrome, of not being good enough, which is also shame.

See how I inadvertently worded the above? I didn't mean it, but I used the words "inadequate" and "socially incapable".² This is exactly what shame feels like to me. A sense of inadequacy. My main way to deal with it is to look for some sort of external validation. Funny thing is that even when I do get it, it does nothing to dent my feelings. I've noticed that whenever someone gives me a compliment, my knee-jerk reaction is to think they're trying to get something else out of me, or they don't really mean it. I can't even take a compliment!

The guy in the video explains that "shame" needs to first be reframed from being a "sense that validates your feelings of inadequacy" to "the feeling that we wish to be loved". Every time you feel shame, tell yourself "ah, I'm craving some love right now".

Be compassionate to yourself. Rather than self-criticizing, or getting angry with others, see that what you're experiencing is just your own wish for happiness.

Anyway...

This is such a sweet but powerful, immensely powerful little piece of poetry. It says what we all know within ourselves but often hide or attempt to forget: what we most deeply desire is to be loved. It goes further: same as you, everyone else also wants to be loved; why not give them what they so desperately want? Wouldn't it be nice to just spread love around?

It sounds so easy, doesn't it? In part I suppose it is; the only requirement is that you need to suspend your usual "me me me"–focused thinking and make "the other" the most important person in the room, or even the most important person in the universe! But while this is possible, I would imagine that for most of us it's hard to suspend our usual thought patterns for any appreciable amount of time. We quickly revert to thinking about ourselves, our worries, and desires.

...

Yesterday we went to the supermarket. I ended up walking around the place with my youngest while my wife and the oldest were getting some stuff. All of a sudden a smiling elderly black man, slightly bent and with a cane, stopped in front of us and beamed at both me and my son. We chatted a bit, but I was almost dumbstruck by the beauty, the fullness of that smile. I'd read of such things in books, but had never experienced a smile so "all-encompassing" that it makes you feel like it's okay to just be who you are, that you're perfect as is.

I don't know who this man was, or maybe he was drunk or high on something³ (if yes, I want to know what it was!). If things were different I would've loved to ask him how I could be like him.

Well... Maybe I'm reading too much into what really was a random occurrence with a nicer-than-usual stranger. But see, we turn back again to the idea of "spreading love around". This man didn't say anything especially enlightening to me; I just felt his "energy" was "there", his presence. And with even just such a simple thing, I feel like my day became special all of a sudden.

...

The video above ends with a simple mantra the guy suggests one can tell oneself every morning.

Just as all beings wish to be loved so do I, too, now, and throughout the day, wish to be loved

Thoughts

I've been itching to get back into playing Go semi-consistently. I was never really all that good, but there was a period when I would play almost every day, and go over games and whatnot. It's a lot of fun if you like those sorts of things!
- My main obstacle is "time" (of course) and not knowing where to start.
Yesterday someone shared the name of a Spanish author who actually lives close to me! I've complained in the past about how I find it hard reading in Spanish, and I think this is a great opportunity to read something that's more in my "vernacular", and even written by one of my contemporaries.
- I've also been thinking more and more about writing in Spanish. It would be fun to post something written in it every once in a while!
Today I had a terrible experience: I clicked on a song suggested by YouTube and it was pretty cool, so I left it playing. After a while, though, something started to feel off, like it was too "flat" in some way. I went to check the account, and to my horror I saw the disclaimer "everything in this channel is made with AI"! No wonder it felt soulless.
- I looked online, and it turns out that YouTube doesn't (hopefully "yet") have an option to hide all AI-generated content. Thankfully I found a post by surasshu (wonderful musician in his own right; highly recommended) where he shares a blocklist for AI music on YouTube and explains how to set it up. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than nothing! Thanks, surasshu!
In retrospect, today's entry was A LOT harder to write than any I've done so far. It's the first time I find myself rewriting stuff in the middle of it.
- I think what was happening is that I wanted to talk about the poem and the video at the same time, but I didn't really understand everything about the latter, and the poem was taking me in a completely different direction.

Funnily enough, this doesn't always happen! I think it has to do with my general stress level or how tired I am. It's been many years that I've been trying to determine why sometimes I'm sociable and sometimes I'm not. ↩
I'm also realizing that yesterday I did this as well. In the thoughts section I was wondering what happens when "impostor syndrome" is real, which is itself more impostor syndrome! ↩
While on acid I've experienced tremendous, undifferentiated, and unconditional love and awe for everything around me. ↩

0034 - camping retrospective

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 04:16:02 GMT

I don't know why, but it feels like ages since I last wrote my post! I missed yesterday (and the 15th) because I spent most of the day driving back from our camping trip. Maybe skipping those two days threw my schedule up in the air? Today I haven't been thinking about the day's post as much as usual, which seems to support that hypothesis. Maybe. Or maybe I've just been busy doing other stuff.

... Anyway ...

I didn't manage to convince myself to write earlier, so now it's 21:35 as I write this, and my mind is quite fuzzy. I'll try to get this done before things start getting "weird". Or maybe they're already weird. Yeah, I think it's too late, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this.

For some reason I keep thinking of the drive I did, when I was studying abroad, to get from the center of town to my apartment. I'm sure there's some important symbolism there, but it escapes me at this moment.

(The road takes me home, I'm driving up a hill, it's dark and... is it snowing? Or starting to snow. Nighttime. I'm probably coming back from the bar where I had a few drinks with my wife. She's in the car, I think.)

Well, I guess things are going to spiral out of control unless I set a direction for the post.

...

I've been thinking of doing a sort of "retrospective" (I think software engineering broke me) of our camping trip.

Overall, I have to admit it was a positive experience for me. The two things that I worried about the most (social interactions and physical discomfort) were not really as bad as I imagined.

The social part was actually really nice because (as I wrote in the previous post) the dynamics were completely different from what I'm used to. When I see my wife's family, it's usually in a "party" setting where there's not much to do except talk to each other (and play bingo). In a party, you're forced to interact with one another, and there's little escape without your absence being noted. But in camping, everyone is doing their own thing, and there's no expectation of anything. I like that. I like the extra freedom, and I feel it makes for more natural interactions.

Regarding "discomfort", I didn't have any! Well, maybe that's not correct; I was plenty uncomfortable at some points, but it wasn't a "bad" discomfort. I know that sounds pointless, so let me clarify.

I get the impression that at home (or in a place where you have some control), there's always the possibility to alleviate your discomfort in some way or another. I know I spend a good chunk of my day dealing with micro-discomforts that pop up all the time, and I don't realize it, but doing this takes energy away from other stuff.

But "out there" there's not much you can do, so the tables flip, and instead of discomfort being something that pushes you to "deal with it", it becomes "a thing", a part of the landscape. I often found myself feeling clammy and wet, or my feet hurting, but it didn't really bother me. It was just part of the "experience". Like color on a canvas.

(Of course, we only camped for two days. I don't know how I would feel after a longer camping trip. Still, this is my opinion given my extremely limited experience.)

There were also some other pleasant surprises.

First and foremost for me was how nice it felt to be more in line with the rhythms of nature. We woke up when it became light and went to bed shortly after dark. We respected the rains and the river. It felt a bit as if we were part of a dance rather than our own separate entities. I feel our homes and artificial lights act as a sort of illusory barrier between what we think is "our world" and "the world of nature". But in reality it's one and the same. Being out there makes this point much clearer.

Another thing I enjoyed is that there's always something to do, while at the same time there's no expectation for you to do more than your fair share. Be it helping somebody set up their tent or fix their tarp, or maybe just fiddling with your own stuff to make it better. I'm an engineer through and through, and I spent much of the first day tweaking our tarp to make sure water flowed without stagnating while at the same time avoiding contact between it and our tent (it was quite warm). There's also the fact that I was learning on the go, which is especially fun (for me). A side benefit of this is that I could go and offer to help (which was always well received), and that would count as an easy "social interaction".

Of course, there was also the freedom from "the screen". I only used my phone more or less once a day when, before bed, I wrote the post for the day. Not having my phone with me, not looking at the screen, made me feel so much lighter. It was like taking a vacation for my mind. Though it seems it's a hard habit to leave behind, as now that we're back I'm just as stuck to my screen as ever. Still, the experience did make me re-evaluate my relationship to my phone and the things I do therein, and I'm questioning their validity when compared to (waves hands) everything else.

...

Something I've been reflecting on ever since we came back is how discomfort helps you realize what sort of limits you're placing on yourself. In "normal life" I often don't do things because I think they will be uncomfortable, but that's also because (as I said above) I have the option to NOT do them. However, when you're faced with something that you really have no power over, then you just "accept it" and realize you can easily live with it in most cases. You realize it wasn't even a little bit as bad as you expected, and you were really just keeping yourself back from wonderful experiences.

Hopefully this is one of many such camping experiences :) Though for the next one I would hope for something a bit less "crowded".

Thoughts

I wonder what's happening with Azure and why they're taking so long to tell me whether they're going to reactivate my account or not. For the first few days, they were really good at giving me an update of the status, but now it's already been a few days without any news from them. Still, fingers crossed.
I realized I have an intuition that there are people who actually read these posts, and this immediately seems like a "vain" feeling. Probably the negative association comes from my "inner critic" / "impostor syndrome".
- Crazy how one suffers from impostor syndrome. As I write this, an interesting thought arose: "What if the impostor syndrome is real and you really suck, is it really impostor syndrome in that case". Ha! That's double impostor syndrome!
- But seriously. Is it?

0033 - ten pointless questions about me

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 03:57:07 GMT

The dark lady stands as gatekeeper and guide to the dark pool.

"Come, jump into the water", she says as she extends her hand to you.

Pale flesh of moonlight draped in shadow.

"Come, jump, jump. JUMP!"

As I write this I'm again lying in my tent. Everything is the same as yesterday except for the fact that it's not raining today (well, raining less), and there's a lot more people around.

Yesterday I mentioned I was worried about all the extra people, but I really shouldn't have. I guess I was expecting to be in a party-like situation where you're supposed to speak and interact with others. But really, everyone seems to be doing their own stuff, with small impromptu groups forming every now and then to socialize or play.

I'm starting to feel more comfortable here and, in so doing, I've also started to notice more things about where we are. For one, the river itself is the director of the energies of this place. It just plays such a prominent role as it cradles the campsite and offers both beauty and tons of entertainment for the little ones. There's also the fact that everything is so wet all the time! It's almost like living underwater.

...

Some days ago I was reading issue #2 of Manu Moreale's Dealgorithmed newsletter, at the bottom of which he shares a short list of "writing challenges". I hadn't really thought about it before, but why don't I participate in them? They're usually quite easy, as they either already provide you the prompt or go so far as to directly give you the structure. It's almost like a free post!

I chose to go with Ten Pointless Facts about Me, which is one of the ones Manu mentioned in his newsletter. The idea is, as you guessed, to answer ten questions about me.

So yeah, here we go...

Do you floss your teeth?

I know I should, but no, I don't. I do brush at least once a day before bed! (Yeah, I know I should do more), but flossing doesn't usually make an appearance unless I feel something stuck between my teeth (which only happens rarely).

Interestingly, in my 30-something years I've never had a full-on cavity, and routine visits to the dentist have caused the preemptive cleanup of three. I guess I have good teeth, though I agree I should take more care of them.

Tea, coffee, or water?

(Not long ago I actually started weaning off my high coffee consumption.)

To be honest, I like both. I'm a huge fan of proper green tea. I even have a Camellia sinensis plant in my backyard and have tried making my own tea more than a couple of times now. Sadly, it always ends up tasting like fried Lipton tea. (If you know, you know.)

But I also love coffee and love trying new blends/roasts, as well as new ways to prepare it. I love the deep taste and aroma.

Recently I got a bag of good decaf coffee and have mostly been drinking that, with the odd cup of green tea here and there. I'm not usually a person who tolerates having anything with caffeine after ~ 3 pm, so it's great to be able to drink coffee whenever I want.

Footwear preference?

Sandals. It's been multiple years that I live in sandals every day and only wear shoes for sports or for hiking or special occasions.

Lately I've been trying to spend more time barefoot. It's working great, but where I live is a bit cold¹, so I alternate between that and sandals.

Favourite dessert?

Brownies! But not any brownie. I like the ones that are chewy as hell, tough even, that you can only unstick from your teeth with a good brushing session.

Though in general I'm not really one for sweets. I eat a lot, but dessert has never been a big thing for me.

The first thing you do when you wake up?

Well, my kids are the ones who usually wake me up, so I guess that's what I do? I "parent".

Our usual morning routine is that we go to the living room/kitchen, I make something hot to drink and maybe a quick snack, and then we play.

Lately I've also noticed that my mental health is much better if I clear my mind with a good hand drum session almost first thing in the morning. We have a djembe, and I really like playing it.

Age you'd like to stick at?

Heh. Does now count? I think I'm in a pretty good place. It's definitely not the healthiest or fittest I've been, but I feel good in myself.

How many hats do you own?

Hmm, four. A sports cap, a Tyrolean felt hat, a big straw hat I use when I really want to cover myself from the sun, and a battered Stetson "vagabond hat" I inherited from my dad.

Describe the last photo you took?

The river right next to our camping place. It's actually attached at the end of this post!

Worst TV show?

No idea, sorry! I can't abide anything that has to do with reality shows or characters that make dumb decisions just for the plot's sake.

As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?

I was not one of those kids who know exactly what they want to be when they grow up. I knew that writers probably had the most fun job ever, but also astronauts had it pretty sweet. I liked plants and saw myself doing something related to them.

Tropical-climate cold, not real cold. We're talking about ~ 20 degrees Celsius. ↩

0032 - camping trip and how avoiding oversharing can be dangerous

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 03:43:01 GMT

The tree, the moon, all here, and yet gone so soon.

A water droplet, falling, its end clear, but for the moment containing everything that is, in perfect harmony, everything reflected according to its nature.

As it falls it wonders, "who is the droplet"?

(hint: you are)

As I write this I'm lying in a camping tent with my sleeping son right next to me. It's currently 9 pm.

This weekend we came on a camping trip. If you can believe it this is my first ever time camping out in earnest. We came here with a large part of my wife's extended family, though today it's only a few of us so it's mostly quiet. We'll see how it is tomorrow when everyone else gets here.

We're staying close to a river. The sound and absolute lack of light (except for my phone) are slowly lulling me to sleep, so today's will probably be a short post.

The weather is perfect. Not too warm, not too cold; there's a tiny bit of rain pattering on the canvas roof. It seems to be almost in time with the tapping of my fingers on the screen.

...

I have to admit that I didn't want to come on this trip. My wife organized it, and I just felt powerless to resist, even though I could have just said "no". But now, after spending most of the day here, I'm glad I came.

I was actually looking forward to the "camping" part. What made me uncomfortable was the fact that we would be spending three full days with a bunch of other people, which triggered my social anxiety.

As I said, it's only a few of us right now, but I think I'm past my initial discomfort. Even though I don't know most of the others I think everything will be alright. The good part about there being so many people is that I can disappear every once in a while to recharge, and it's likely no one will notice my absence.

...

I've been thinking lately about the idea of "oversharing". Am I oversharing with everything that I write here on the blog? I hope not.

A few days ago they sent a company-wide missive where I work telling people not to overshare. It said it might make your coworkers uncomfortable while at the same time putting them in complicated situations. Since then I've also seen a couple of people online talking about how oversharing is bad.

The first thing I thought when I read that email was that it was wrong. Of course, extreme oversharing or "problem dumping" is neither nice nor respectful, but I felt like that email was aiming at minimizing how we, as colleagues, relate to each other as humans.

I'm the kind of person to whom people often tell their problems. It's always been like that, and part of it, I think, is because I care about them and I try to listen.

(When I finished high school I wanted to study psychology. It was, and is, an extremely interesting field to me, but I was also already more or less doing the work of a psychologist with many of my peers!)

I've had some occasions where coworkers tell me things from their lives that go beyond what you would expect from a work relationship. Things they care about and maybe don't have anyone to talk with, or maybe work stuff that no one else would understand. Or maybe they just want to get things off their chest.

Every damn time this happens I see how they do a takeback. I see their eyes panic for a second, realizing they've crossed an imaginary boundary, and I try to make them see that it's okay and I'm glad they told me whatever it was. We talk, I try to give my best advice if requested, and then we go our own ways. Sometimes we never broach the subject again; other times I ask for follow-ups if I feel it's appropriate.

What I'm trying to get at is that it's so sad that this culture of "not oversharing" is also putting a stigma, a taboo, on the human act of talking about worries and desires-on the act of connecting on a real emotional level.

I understand where this comes from in a work environment. On one hand your employer doesn't want you and your colleagues to waste time talking about random stuff. On the other, having a deeper emotional connection might bias you toward that person and make it harder for you to take a tough call should you have to. Still, I think most people are able to build genuine human bridges while at the same time keeping work and relationships as separate things.

What I don't understand is why there's an online movement stopping this kind of sharing. ... Well, I guess if you look long enough you'll find anything online, so perhaps this point is moot.

Anyway. It might be that I'm misinterpreting the term "oversharing". But even so, I wouldn't want folks' attempts to avoid extremes to also make them feel bad or inappropriate when talking to others about their very own random human life.

As we ourselves have a lot of questions, uncertainties, and worries, so does everyone else. Taking some time to listen to others, being open to them, especially when they're asking for that connection, can mean a lot.

This is a picture of another river we saw on our way here. It's actually very near where we're camping, but it's much larger. Maybe they're connected in some way?

0031 - durability in different media

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 03:35:45 GMT

Earlier today I was going through one of my notebooks and, to my surprise, it's full of interesting stuff! Most of it is just journal-like, but I found a couple of neat ideas for stories and some "poems" (more phrases than anything) that I thought would be fun to share here. I'll post a few today and maybe a few more tomorrow.

The truth hides in the beats between lightning and thunder.

Yesterday a wise one told me that a grateful man never suffers.

(Not sure what I'll do with the above phrases. Maybe stick them in a story somewhere? The second one is actually quite interesting in and of itself, as it's probably true! A person who's grateful for everything has nothing to suffer about.)

What do you tell a man who does not know what to say?

Who can't hear 'cause his heart is nowhere near?

Nowhere to be found.

Only stone and sand and blood and bone.

Where is the heart, how can he hear, when his heart is nowhere near?

(I wrote this last one while in the midst of a fairly strong depressive episode. I felt very much like life was just passing me by, and no matter how much "life" tried, I felt nothing except grayness.)

...

I'm glad my curiosity pushed me to leaf through the notebook, or these would've probably lain forgotten for who knows how long. Maybe forever?

I frequently wonder about this idea of the "durability of media", specifically when comparing "analog" media (like a notebook) with digital media (like this blog). There are pros and cons to each, and maybe different kinds of writing belong in different places? Or maybe it's not so much the writing but the purpose one has for it.

For instance, writing on a digital medium makes it much easier to rediscover that content later on (e.g., by using semantic similarity or even backlinks¹). Digital media is (depending on how you do it and barring any technological cataclysm) arguably more durable than analog media, as the latter can get lost or damaged by the elements. It's also obviously much easier to share with others.

On the other hand, writing with pen and paper is substantially more pleasant than using a keyboard, and notebooks don't require batteries, which is a huge win. You're also less likely to get distracted by anything else, as there's nothing you can do in a notebook besides write. I also find that the act of tracing the letters has a twofold effect on my mind:

it distracts my conscious mind "just enough" so that my creativity flows better,
the extra time this adds to the process gives me that much more time to come up with the proper words.

On the last point: when I'm writing on a keyboard, I often write as fast as I think, and ideas are not always well-formed. When writing by hand, my mind has a lot more time to properly form the sentences it wants to write.

Finally, there's also the important fact that "mistakes" on a digital medium are free; you can simply hit delete and replace the mistake with something different. But on an analog medium a mistake will cost you an ugly blot on the page, so you either (a) don't make mistakes (ha), or (b) live with them (which is what I tend to do).

...

Maybe everything that we create is something that's beyond the medium itself, maybe beyond even ourselves?

It's like the question of whether an "algorithm" (or math, etc.) exists even before someone invents/discovers it. I think so. Knowledge is already "out there," and all we're doing is simply receiving a signal and transcribing it so others can read it.

So maybe we shouldn't worry so much about "durability", as everything we make is permanently "out there". That probably applies to everything, even to our own selves.

... I'm tired, I don't think I'm making much sense here ...

Thoughts:

Before writing this post, YouTube's algorithm suggested this great rendition of Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder, played by two drunk dudes. It's an 11-minute watch, and I recommend it :) it's clear that they knew the song well, but there's still a "something" special in how they play it. Maybe it's because they're drunk and they take more weird chances? Maybe not. Still, good playing from both of them.
Today I saw two interesting interviews:
- VICE Meets 'My Struggle' Author Karl Ove Knausgaard
  - Karl Ove Knausgaard is a name that frequently pops up on my feed, and while I more or less knew who he was and what he did, today is the first time I actually took the trouble to investigate more about him.
  - This is a pretty informal interview where he talks about himself and his work. He shares some nice ideas about writing and art that are well worth the watch.
  - I looked up some of his books, but they seem too slow/undirected for my taste. I might read one, though, just to see what the deal is. One that specifically caught my attention was The Morning Star, which is a set of stories about random people going through their daily lives.
- George Saunders Says Breaking These 3 Delusions Can Save You
  - The clickbait title is a bit misleading, but I guess that's how they get you to click on it. Saunders maybe talks about the "delusions" for a full 3 minutes or so in an almost hour-long interview, so it's definitely not the center of it.
  - This is the first time I hear George Saunders speak, and I immediately liked him. Calm but curious, open, honest. I have never read anything by him, so I added his book Lincoln in the Bardo to my reading list!
  - He seems to be more up my alley, writing speculative fiction with an emphasis on strengthening the connection to our own shared humanity.

That reminds me, I want to add backlinks to my site! ↩

0030 - An incidental reflection on writing with a language that's not your native one

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 01:44:05 GMT

Whoop! We're at post 30. How time flies. I have to be honest that I don't remember many of the posts I wrote at the beginning, but still they seem to come to my mind when I need them, so perhaps it doesn't matter?

...

Today I'm typing from an old, unused Android tablet I had lying around. I actually left it in the US more than a year ago, on my last work trip there, but thankfully a cousin of my wife who lives there was nice enough to drive to my hotel after I left and pick it up. He brought it back to me this weekend, and it's only now that I've had the chance to properly set it up for writing. It's almost perfect; I was even able to connect it to a small Bluetooth keyboard. I only need to fix the font in Obsidian since, for some reason, it seems to be using the ugly Android default one.

Usually I write from my wife's laptop or my work PC, and it's nice to have a dedicated "writer deck". My wife usually lends me her laptop, but sometimes (like today) she needs it for work. My work PC is great, but I always have the nagging suspicion that my employer is spying on me (which is quite likely, even though they would never say anything about it unless I do something REALLY inappropriate). There's also my phone, which I also use to write from time to time, but I much prefer typing on an actual keyboard if possible.

...

I've been thinking about stories more and more. Recently I finished reading The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, and at the very end of the book Brandon Sanderson shares that the seed for this book came to him one night as he was lying in bed. He mentions that his go-to strategy for "falling asleep" is to tell himself a story. I found my mind doing that yesterday without my prompting it, and while I don't exactly remember what came out, I do remember it was pretty cool!

It was a sort of children's story about a boy and his dog (with a similar vibe to Stephen King's Fairy Tale). The boy climbs a tree to look at something glimmering on one of the branches, and then he hears his dog barking; when he gets down they find they're in the same geographic place, but now everything around them is grasslands except for a small wooden cottage (of course) in the near distance. They go to the cottage and...

I think the boy might've been my oldest son. The story was definitely shaped as if I were going to tell it to him. Interestingly, I even found myself telling it in Spanish, which is something I almost never do. When I noticed I consciously switched to using English, but after a bit I found myself thinking in Spanish again.

I don't know how the minds of other "multi-lingual" people work, but usually the language I use in my thoughts is delimited by their content. Mostly everything that has to do with writing, stories, the mind, and programming is usually done in English. Actually, the majority of my thinking happens in English. But lately I've found myself thinking more and more in Spanish for some reason. I think maybe I've been paying less attention to my English "self"?

I frequently come back to this topic of language and creating in a language that's not my "everyday one." I always ask myself if I wouldn't just be better off writing in Spanish (I've even dreamt about this very question). But you know, I'm just more comfortable in English, so I guess that's that. Still, there's something to say about the fact that I often have to give my mind time to search for the proper English words, while in Spanish they come much quicker (which makes sense, as that's what I speak all day, except when I'm at work).

There's an interesting exception though: I feel much more comfortable writing "poetically" in English than in Spanish. Maybe my vocabulary in the former is just richer. I would expect it is, considering that virtually all the written content I consume is written in English.

At the same time, I of course struggle more with producing proper English grammar. Thankfully I can always pass what I write through a lightweight grammar checker (shoutout to Kagi's Proofread mode), which fixes most of my blasphemies.

I've always thought that I should connect more with my Spanish side. Ever since I got out of high school I have read ZERO books in Spanish. None at all. The language (when written) just feels so weird, clumsy, and "gross" (in the sense of "not subtle" like a hammer, not "yucky" like.. you know). But still, it is my cultural heritage whether I want it or not, and I'm surely missing out by willfully ignoring it.

One of the problems I have with Spanish is that it changes a lot depending on the country you're looking at. Most books written in Spanish are done in Spain's Spanish, which is very different from the one I'm accustomed to speaking. But even if you look at the Spanish of Latin America, it varies a lot not only depending on the country but also on who the author is and what their socio-economic status was.

... I'm way over my head here. I know nothing about Spanish literature. I'll abandon the ship before it crashes and burns.

If you have any Spanish book recommendations I would be more than glad to know about them!

...

Well, that got out of hand really quickly! I was planning on writing about something else today, but perhaps we're already too far into this post to actually start a new topic :P

0029 - Grandmas are great, even if they inadvertently keep us stuck in the past sometimes

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:29:01 GMT

Like many (most?), I grew up thinking-actually being absolutely certain-that when you shave your hair or beard it grows back thicker. After all, the evidence was right there, no? I would shave my hair, and then hard stubble would start growing, tougher than my usually soft hair.

When my beard started coming out, I kept shaving it because I wanted it to grow fuller. And from my point of view, it really did work! It was patchy, then I shaved it and it grew back less patchy. Every month I would do this, and every month it would grow back fuller and fuller. I knew that my own natural hormonal development had something to do with it as well, but I really felt like shaving was working.

But it turns out I was wrong. It's just a self-fulfilling prophecy, as, of course, shorter hair will seem stronger. There's also the fact that any new hair hasn't yet suffered any of the usual wear and tear that old hair has. Add to that that usually time passes between shaving and full growth (like my example of the beard, but it also happens with people who shave babies), and it's easy to see why the myth is so convincing.

(If you don't believe me, and I don't fault you for that, then here are some links from authoritative sources: here, here, here, here, and here.)

I remember when I first found out about this in my late teens. It was one of those moments when a piece of the greater puzzle of life just slid into place. It's not a big piece, but the act of realizing that what one believes is wrong¹ is humbling and creates a greater appreciation and openness for other things.

...

What I find really interesting here is not so much that hair doesn't get thicker, but that this belief is still widely held even though it was disproved many years ago.

At least where I live, if you try (and oh boy, I've tried) to tell anyone that shaving doesn't improve hair strength, you'll receive many looks of polite condescension and be told, "Oh but that's what my grandma did". "Go back to daydreaming and let us grown-ups do what we know is right".

I think this phenomenon is the culprit behind many of our society's wrong beliefs. I might be stretching it a bit, but it seems to me that this "that's how my grandma did it," this tendency to favor tradition over new knowledge (in spite of the fact that it has hard scientific evidence to back it up), is one of the reasons we're so stuck on certain topics that we should've already gotten over by now.

...

I don't mean to turn this post into a critique of societal norms and human customs, so I'll stop that line of inquiry there. Instead, I want to briefly consider the "inverse" of what I was just saying.

It is true that tradition sometimes prevents us from progressing, but one must not ignore the fact that, for many, tradition is the central source of meaning in their lives.

Traditions of family, of country (bleh), of religion, or anything else-even your favorite sports club. Traditions do indeed help us feel part of the greater whole, and maybe having some harmless false beliefs is not such a bad price to pay for a little sense of meaning and belonging.

Unrelated, but I wanted to share a wonderful new word I learned today: ravel (the positive form of the arguably more popular "unravel")

ravel (verb) To entwine or tangle something confusedly; to entangle, often forming a complex knot or mass of threads or fibers.

ravel (noun) A tangle or knot.

Wouldn't it be cool if the web were called "the ravel"? Sounds badass. "World Wide Ravel".

Hey, is this the first instance of the Word Corner?

Thoughts:

Whatever happened to that Windows feature (Recall?) that recorded your screen and told you what you did the previous days? That would be really useful for me, though I understand the worries about privacy. Would be awesome if there were a "purely local" solution (actually, there's one for macOS, but not for Windows AFAIK).
- Probably they delayed/removed it after all that backlash they received. Or maybe it's released and I don't have a powerful enough PC.
- Actually, this is not a bad project to work on. I'll think about it some more. The trick is how to actually make it efficient without losing too much resolution on what the person did. Maybe do screenshots every T seconds, which is configurable per user? Then local model to analyze and summarize. Hey, would be cool to have it create a sort of interstitial journaling. Cool, cool.

I always come back to the interesting idea that in life you eventually get to the point where it's impossible to review all the knowledge you've acquired to decide what's true and what isn't (or what used to be true but science has since realized it's not). ↩

0028 - maybe negative thoughts come from a loss of our sense of safety

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 03:53:49 GMT

Well, yesterday I skipped posting; it's the first day I’ve skipped since starting this new challenge, but I do have a good reason: We had a party for my mother-in-law's 70th birthday!

There was a lot of preparation to do and kids to take care of, so I didn't really end up having time to myself until it was quite late, around 11 pm. I was actually going to write something since I wasn't yet that sleepy, but then decided it was best for my mental health to just go to sleep. I have no real obligation with these posts besides what I take on myself, so there's no reason to force myself to do them beyond reason. Anyway, missing the post felt important enough that I had to write this short justification.

Another thing I was thinking is that trying to reach my goal of ~700 words per post is hurting me. I came to this conclusion after reflecting on my last post and realized that much of the "convolution" springs from trying to reach a word goal-trying to squeeze in as many words as possible-rather than from a desire to properly communicate something. Because of this, I've decided to drop the length requirement for these posts :) I still pretty much get to around 700 words anyway since I always end up writing multiple sections (e.g. the "thoughts" section, or sharing some pics or whatnot).

Anyway... enough bookkeeping.

The other day I had an interesting experience during meditation¹ that is making me see the origin of my "negative feelings" in a new light.

During this experience I found myself with the usual calmness, but also with a sense of "safety" and "peace" that I'd never really noticed before. It felt like everything was alright, and I was totally safe. I also noticed I didn't feel any of that low-intensity overarching stress that is one of the hallmarks of my day-to-day experience.

I had the "insight"² that many, if not all, of our negative thoughts come from feeling that we're not "safe" in one way or another. They come from some kind of fear for ourselves and things we're attached to. The tricky part is that this fear can be very, very subtle.

For example, a high-level (gross) fear might be the fear I have of social rejection. I sometimes feel unsafe in social situations, which makes my mind start to produce thoughts of "separation" between me and the other-an attempt to protect myself from this perceived danger. These thoughts usually reinforce my ego while at the same time alienating those around me (which is curious if you think about it; the desire for union is actually causing separation).

On the other hand, lower-level (subtle) fears are usually hard to catch, as they don't have a lot of "energy," in the sense that (at least for me) they are more part of my mind's background rather than showing up in the foreground. But still, they're there.

An example of a subtle fear might be what I experience when I'm with my kids and I fear I won't get time for my own thoughts, for my own person. This again creates thoughts of resentment and (again) separation.

Another, more universal, example of a subtle fear is that general sense of stress that we all³ carry around all the time. It's that sense that things are not "satisfying." That general feeling of wrongness that permeates our usual existence. Again, it's very subtle and usually not noticeable. This gives rise to similar (background) thoughts of frustration with life and often even helplessness.

I'm sure we each have our own specific things that make us feel unsafe, but there are some others that I would say are universal. For example, the obvious fear of death, the fear of discomfort and pain, and the fear of fear itself.

All of these, of course, also apply to things we care about. If someone I know is having a hard time or is in a dangerous situation, then I will feel unsafe for their sake.⁴

(right now I have the underlying fear of not making sense in this post, or coming across as "know it all")

An interesting thing to note is that all of these fears, if left to grow, will eventually develop into hatred for the perceived cause of our unsafety, or they will develop into general anger if the cause is not easily identified. (A corollary is that if our fear is rooted in desire for something, then everything that keeps us from that something will be seen with frustration/anger.)

The worst part of these is that these thoughts are self-perpetuating! The mind will naturally ruminate on the thing that's causing us to feel threatened, and the problem is that, more often than not, we can do nothing about it! These thoughts will just feed each other in an unending chain that might never end if left to itself (thankfully we have life to distract us from our problems).

For example, again take the social anxiety: if there's a specific person in the group that's making me uncomfortable, then I will find my mind constantly producing unfriendly thoughts and fantasies about that person, but really there's no way for me to do anything about it. Or if there's no person, then my mind will fabricate fantasies of loathing toward myself, thoughts of inadequacy (you know, the usual).

Anyway... I find this framework for understanding negative thoughts to be interesting and thus far useful. I've had a couple of days to apply it in my own life, and more often than not I'm able to pinpoint exactly what's making me feel threatened.

(I've also had the chance to observe a couple of angry people in conversation, and framing their anger through this framework helped me be more compassionate toward them.)

Of course, knowing the source helps, but it's never so easy as that. Just understanding won't necessarily remove the problem itself. What I'm doing is trying to relax into feeling safe once more by "sinking" into it, though sometimes I need to distract myself with something else before this works (e.g. stop the rumination).

It helps a bit.

Thinking:

Ever since I started these wordvomits, I've never added any social media post about them. Before, I always used to "syndicate" my posts to Mastodon/Bluesky. I'm not even sending notifications about them to the few folks who subscribed directly via email!
- I know I said I didn't care about spamming, but sending emails about my wordvomits feels like a whole other level of spam.
- Also, I'm currently very put off by social media in general and would prefer not to have anything to do with it.
Maybe that's why alcohol and weed etc. are so popular? They make us feel good, but more than anything, they also make us feel safe (by proxy).

I usually don't like to talk about my meditation practice, but I think this is relevant. I wouldn't say I'm a good meditator, but every once in a while I have a good session. I usually write these thoughts in my own journal, but since they're generic (i.e., not personal) I thought I could share them here and kill two birds with one stone :) writing here also gives me a chance to work through them more comprehensively rather than just "noting them down". ↩
This is a pretty recent "insight." I still haven't had the chance to explore more fully if this actually applies to everything or not, but for now I feel it does. ↩
Well, maybe it's not everyone that feels like this. But the few people I've talked to about this also say they feel a general "dissatisfaction" with life. Though we're all folks prone to depression, so maybe that's where this comes from? Anyway, the positive aspect of this is that it's a great motivator for looking at life (and our minds) more closely. ↩
An interesting thought here is that we fear for them because we're attached to them, and either we fear how our relationship may change (or end), or we fear any repercussions that whatever they're doing might bring to ourselves. ↩

0027 - funny how we assume everything is human

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 03:44:22 GMT

How interesting it is that we humans tend to anthropomorphize¹ everything!

Throughout history (and in current times), there are plenty of records of people who talk to trees and rivers and pretty much everything else in their environment. We usually think of that as silly, but remember that in our modern times, there are quite a lot of people who talk to machines!

If you think about it, there really isn't any difference between "trees/rivers/etc". and machines except for the fact that the machines answer back. Though, yeah, one could imagine that rivers and trees, etc., also answer back sometimes; it's just that they do so only to "special people".

What I find more interesting is how absolutely ubiquitous this is (I'm sure there's probably a name for it). We ascribe human nature to everything around us, from our homes to the darkness in our closets, to our coffee cups, the wind, clouds, our cars (people frequently name theirs), mountains, plants, pens, dogs, cats... I could go on and fill this whole post with names of stuff, as nothing is really above being "anthropomorphized".

Of course, some scientists do their best to close their eyes and pretend that anthropomorphizing stuff is a primitive, childish behavior. They do their best to suppress their own natural tendency to do so, but it's still there.

Something I wonder is just how far it goes. We know we do it with things in our vicinity, but do we also do it with each other? Is the fact that I perceive you as human contingent on me attributing those factors to you beforehand? I would say yes.

Then, what happens if someone were to lose that ability of recognizing "humanness"? Suppose you suffer an accident and the part of your brain that's in charge of anthropomorphizing stuff is irrevocably damaged. Would you find yourself in a world of moving, senseless objects? As I'm writing this, I realize that it's probably impossible for us to know how this would truly be. Still, it's an interesting thought: a world where nothing has human qualities, not even humans. Well, I guess you would perceive those in yourself once you notice your thoughts and feelings? Or maybe those would still be strange, dissociated phenomena to you?

...

I haven't had many experiences with psychedelics, but this whole discussion reminds me of the first time I took acid. I was already well into the trip, like two or so hours after it hit.

My friend (who was the "expert" at the whole acid thing) and I were walking in my garden, and it was starting to get dark, around 7 p.m., but the street lamps provided enough illumination to see. I remember seeing the stone walls of the garden and the plants, and I turned to my friend and said, "wow, there are faces everywhere".

And they were! Everywhere I looked, there was a face staring back at me. Every kind of face: happy, sad, angry, scared, laughing, loving.

I think this came directly from the same system that has us anthropomorphize stuff; it's just a deeply built-in mechanism.

This reminds me of the beginnings of AI image generation. Long, long ago (2015), Google released a pretty neat program called DeepDream, which would basically use a pretrained model to enhance patterns it "saw" in input images. It would do this over and over until the pattern was clearly visible. Depending on what the user chose, it could enhance low-level patterns like edges and corners, or it could also enhance higher-level stuff like faces.

It turned out that when enhancing these "higher-level" patterns, the model would find lots and lots of dog and cat faces in the images! This was because the model was trained on a dataset of internet pictures, and there's a surprising amount of animal photos online (I guess people really liked to share how cute their pets were on MySpace or whatever they used back then).

This would create eerily fascinating pictures like this one (made by feeding the Mona Lisa through the system):

I'm not super happy with how this post came out. I think the idea and high-level structure is actually good, but it ended up a bit too convoluted and messy.

I guess that's alright, though, as that's what I set out to do with these word-vomits: publish without thinking that much about it.

Still, I feel like I should do a heavier editing pass, but since I don't have the time nor the energy to do it today, I guess I'll just write this "addendum" instead 😅

...

I feel the reason it came out this way was because I was not giving it my full attention. I was supposed to be doing other stuff and feeling guilty about writing. You can see that it feels a bit forced.

I can't help but ask myself "why am I doing this"? Well, on one hand, it's because I like a challenge. I also wanted to feel more connected to "writing" again. And the last reason was that I felt (and feel) that with practice my writing will improve. (I also hope that whatever resistance I have to the writing process will eventually burn down)

But will it improve if I just write forced posts? No, I don't think so. It won't improve by itself. I need to pay attention, tend to it, and nurture the process rather than treating it like a guilty pleasure I indulge in while hiding from my other responsibilities.

Anyway... This sort of thing is exactly what is needed in the "compost heap". There's valuable learning here (for me), even if the content turned out kind of meh.

Edit: I'm writing this shortly after having hit publish but I just thought about another cool example of this.

We think the lion to be evil for eating the gazelle, or the cat evil for killing the mouse, but the truth is that it's quite unlikely that either of these bear any malice or ill will to either the gazelle or the mouse. There might not be any anger or similar emotion involved in the whole process. Again, there's no "evil".

We just think there is because we "feel" for the prey (which certainly experiences some kind of fear), and we're relating to the whole thing from a human point of view.

Means "attributing human qualities, usually reason and morality, to inanimate objects". ↩

0026 - stop hoarding your ideas, use them all, right now

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 23:43:26 GMT

Writing daily is fun. It's a chance for me to sort through my thoughts and bring to the surface things floating on top of my "pool of thoughts" that I hadn't consciously acknowledged. Much of what I talk about is "writing itself", as that's what I'm doing right in the moment. But sometimes it also provides an excuse for me to look into interesting stuff, like whether "fishes" is a proper word or not, or to propose the silly evolutionary question of whether our technological progress actually comes from our love of tasty food.

I actually have a small notebook full of ideas I want to talk about, but somehow, half the time, I don't get around to writing about them. The reason is that, for most of those ideas, I feel like "I'm not good enough," and attempting to write about them is a waste of "a good idea." Silly me.

...

Actually, as I write this, I just remembered a quote I read some time ago that had to do with exactly this problem. It took a bit of digging, but here it is: it's from a book called "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard:

"One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

...

(Well, now I feel like I should drop everything and jump into one of my ideas 😅)

I don't know why I forgot this quote. It's so "emphatic" and really hits the heart of what I was talking about. "Trust the process". Funny how the subconscious drags up things at the appropriate time. I should print this out and tape it to my desk somewhere.

Maybe this offers a chance for some reframing? Let's get into it...

I'm relating to all this from a "scarcity mindset," which makes me "hoard" stuff.
The feeling of "not wanting to use up a good idea" definitely comes from a sense that such "good ideas" are scarce; there's a fear that "the well is finite," and the more we use it, the more it dries up.
This is silly, though, as I know firsthand that the less I worry about the process, the better it flows.
I also know that ideas are cheap, and what really matters is the execution.
And even if the execution is somehow botched, the end result still ends up upon the compost heap, which will fertilize the ground for new ideas to follow.

So that's the reframing I'm looking for. The "bad" is still useful, and the "well" never dries. It's actually the other way around: the more we use it, the sweeter the water.

I did some brief research online about this problem, and it seems to be extremely common. A good post I found is this one by Kyle Massa, where he makes some excellent points I didn't consider here. I suggest you read it; it's a pretty short one. An idea that especially stood out to me was:

Hoarded ideas become stale. I can so see this in my own practice. As soon as I get an idea I'm excited about it, but then that excitement fades slowly, and it's hard to recover once lost.

I want to close with a quote also from the above post:

Hoarding food in preparation of the impending zombie apocalypse makes sense. Good eats are going to get scarce once the zombies shamble into town (unless of course, you are a zombie yourself). By its very nature, the act of hoarding implies scarcity. But unlike food, ideas are completely renewable resources. When we hoard them, we’re forgetting that fact.

We’re writers, right? We make stuff up for fun or work (or both), then we pour our imaginations onto the page. Just because we haven’t thought of the next idea yet doesn’t mean we never will. The idea will present itself to us when it’s ready. So let’s not get into this scarcity mindset.

Thoughts:

Why are ravioli plates so small? The person who came up with the standard serving size definitely didn't consider whether the ones eating them would be full afterward or not.

0025 - sorry not sorry for spamming you

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:27:19 GMT

Today I'm halfway to my interim goal of 50 wordvomits (with the actual goal being a hundred), and as I write more of these I realize that something that kept me back from posting in the past was the fear of spamming people, the fear that writing anything but a "great" post would worsen my "signal/noise" ratio.

I think the first time I heard about this concept was in one of Roy Tang's posts where he talks about wanting to clean up the list of feeds he was subscribed to and leave only those he cares about, the ones that tend to post more "good stuff" than bad. Of course, it isn't Roy's fault that I felt this way; rather, I think it was my natural impostor syndrome that latched onto this concept, as it fit so well with what was already my own internal narrative. He was just doing what every person would do to not drown in all the "unread notifications" he was getting.

Things have improved since starting this experiment, but I have to admit that even when writing wordvomits I often feel this "aversion" to publish what I feel are mediocre posts, for fear of being perceived as spam. The difference is that now I set myself this challenge of writing daily, and on the bottom line that supersedes any feelings of worry I have for what others might think. So I guess this is a way for me to say "sorry for spamming you"!

I've talked about it before, but this whole wordvomit exercise is not about the post I'm writing "today" but the post I will be writing "fifty" or so days from now. It's a pathway that allows looking toward the future at the expense of not paying that much attention to where I'm stepping right now.

And I have to admit that in some ways I feel my posts are flowing better! Not always, but on average they make more sense, are less convoluted, and I also tend to talk about a single topic.

...

I think most of us go through that feeling of "not wanting to spam" at some point or another. We can either face it with "paralysis," like a deer caught in the headlights, or we can face it with defiance and an attitude of "I don't care." Though both of these responses are just sweeping the feeling under the rug. The real way forward is to question why we feel this way. It's a hard thing to answer because it touches many points of our social and cultural programming.

For me the issue was that I grew up in a "marketing world." I even spent some years working as the content writer for a marketing website and taking care of their SEO! The whole goal there was to "maximize readership," to never do anything that your readers might not enjoy. Maximize subscribers, always with an eye on the profits. You know, the usual crap.

But even before that, there was a time when I'd culturally accepted that "the successful person makes money" and "the successful person is lauded by others."

Of course, both of these things eventually caused me to get stuck when I decided I didn't want anything more to do with them, when I eventually tried to explore my true creativity. There was (and in some measure still is) that small voice in the back of my head telling me "readership will go down if you publish this." Well, fuck you, little voice.

I'm trying to change the perspective and truly see every website as its own small world. Blogs are different in that respect from social media, because in the latter you contribute content to a whole, and it's very much integrated with it (or you "lose" in social media terms). For blogs and personal websites it's different; every site is its own individual experience, and they might be linked to each other by happenstance, but that's not the core part of it. The core is that each creator gets a space to just be themselves, put themselves out there.

A while back I got an email¹ from another blogger called eve, where she shared a bit of wisdom I often come back to whenever I'm feeling self-conscious. It doesn't always work, but when it does it just seems so obvious that I wonder how I could ever have forgotten it.

Sometimes I have to sit down and remind myself that there are no rules for what I post & I can change the game at any time!

So yeah, sorry for spamming you, but at the same time, not sorry.

Shortly before publishing this, I remembered this gem of a meme.

(Meme with two panels. The first shows a musician saying: "what if nobody wants to listen to it"? The second shows a group of three podcasters saying: "yeah so I'm at the supermarket the other day and the cashier is really taking her time". "oh shit". "I hate that bro". "yeah and I mean I've got ice cream RIGHT on the conveyor belt and she KNOWS IT". "oh shit". "I hate that bro".)

I think we tend to be a bit too judgmental of ourselves, thinking that our content is borderline entertaining or whatnot. But the truth is that it's hundreds of times more entertaining than most of the other stuff out there! Also, it's true that what is "good" for one person is not necessarily good for another.

As I'm writing this I remembered I actually wrote about this same email in another post! ↩

0024 - the benefits of reading Discworld

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 03:37:56 GMT

I've often mentioned how I find it hard to write at night. On one hand, it's because I'm often tired, but it's usually also the time when I do stuff with my wife. These past few mornings have been a bit busier than usual, and with me having started working again after vacations and everything, I had little time to write till now, 8 p.m., after the kids have gone to sleep.

Conveniently, my wife is doing some work of her own, so we don't need to interact that much.¹ We're sitting in the living room and, in theory, we're also watching "Avatar: The Last Airbender". I'm not that good with multitasking, so we'll see how today's post turns out!

I usually don't mind doing stuff when the TV is on because I'm not often interested in what's playing, but Avatar is different! The show is really cool and wholesome, and we haven't rewatched it in a couple of years, so there are lots of things I don't remember.

Anyway, onwards...

Yesterday's post was a bit gloomy, so today I want to try for something more fun. And what can be more fun than talking about the genius of Terry Pratchett! I've often talked about him on this blog. Perhaps a bit too much, but I really admire his work and, more than anything, his way of looking at life.²

I actually discovered Pratchett's books later in life than I imagine is usual. I was around 19 or so, living in a hostel, and every day I kept seeing one of the staff reading a book and laughing out loud whenever he had some time off. I asked him what book it was, and he gifted it to me, as he'd read it many times. I sadly don't exactly remember which one it was³ as I lost it soon after. It was one of the witches stories, I think.

Anyway, I resolved to give it a shot and got a copy of the first Discworld book, "The Colour of Magic". I had a lot of fun with it and immediately jumped into the next one, and the next.

Shortly afterward, I left the hostel and went to grad school, and every morning I would walk to class while listening to Discworld. The books brought quite a bit of comfort and helped me remember that there was actually a "real life" out there. I can't express how much this meant to me at that time, especially as I faced the stress of my coursework plus working part-time.⁴

The books are really entertaining, but they're also much more than that. They contain, I think, many deep and razor-sharp observations and critiques about human nature and society, handed down to us as "funny jokes".

This is probably not the time or place to do an extensive treatise on all the ideas presented in his works (I also don't have the required knowledge), so instead I'll just share some fun quotes that are top of mind right now. Starting with:

“It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living”. ~ The Last Continent

This is such a classic. It really showcases Pratchett's wit, taking a common saying and flipping it on its head. It's telling us to never take our personal (or our culture's) assumptions as a given, and that instead we should always reevaluate them and look for the "crunchy bits".

But it's not only "making fun" of "the establishment". It goes deeper than that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but to me this quote seems to say, "enjoy your life now, don't wait till you die to revisit it"; it reminds us that we're, in fact, alive right now. In some ways it's like a funnier version of "carpe diem".

Another quote I'm quite fond of is:

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life". ~ Jingo

Again, flipping it on its head. On the surface it seems pure silliness; you set a man on fire and, of course, he will die, so he'll at least be warm for "the rest of his life". But again (and again, maybe I'm reading too much into it), that's not all I see in it. To me it speaks to how often we feel "our way is the best way", and we don't reconsider what we do or what we think. It speaks to how we're often stuck in static ways of thinking, without allowing our creativity real freedom to express itself.

...

Discworld books have real "magic" in them. I don't know if it happens for everyone, but for me they tickle my brain in special ways that make me more present and compassionate. They often show me how I'm spinning up all sorts of illusions about myself and the world around me, and how I can easily cut through all of that by just "twisting it all on its head".

Writing this post in front of the TV was a lot harder than I thought. It usually takes me half an hour or so to write, edit, and publish one of these word vomits. It's been almost an hour and a half, and I'm barely done with the write-through! Not to mention that I'm confused about what I'm writing (context switching is terrible for short-term memory).

I don't think I'll do this again if I can help it :P

heh, would be fun if she ends up reading this. ↩
Feels silly saying this as I didn't really know him personally! But you know, some things come through in his writing. ↩
I don't remember the book, but I remember the staff guy trying to tell me the joke he was reading, and it had something to do with a chicken. The problem is that Pratchett has A LOT of poultry jokes, so... ↩
That was probably the most stressful period of my life. There were many different things that helped me along, but still, Pratchett's wisdom and wit definitely played a role. ↩

0023 - from mentor to mentee

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 03:31:43 GMT

It happened. I finally made these word-vomits part of the main blog! The old vomits page is still live though in case anyone has linked to it (which I seriously doubt, but you never know).

I gave quite a bit of thought to this but eventually realized that "my blog" was actually "my vomits," as well as everything else I wrote in here. I also realized that it's not healthy to split such similar writing across strong categories.

What actually convinced me to do this was Visa's own blog. If you go there it's a bit of a mess (more than a bit actually), and a lot of that is because the "1000 vomits" are treated as their own special category, even though in the end they're connected with everything else!

So if this is the first "vomit" you read then welcome!

(I'm also sorry if this change caused some spam for you. Here, have some tea 🍵)

...

Another cool thing that happened today is that the Azure folks finally answered my request to re-enable my account (context here). They're still looking into it, but the fact that they answered means that there's someone actively working on the case, which gives me hope.

Today I want to talk about an issue I'm having at work. But first...

In college I always used to be the guy who would be the "best" (or one of the best) in almost every class¹. I would often end up writing the assignments mostly by myself, and I didn't really mind. If I have to be honest, I would actually say I quite enjoyed the "admiration" of my classmates!

The same thing happened once I started my professional career. I joined a small local company, and I quickly made my way to "the top." I was involved in pretty much every project the company was working on and often was called in for consulting with other projects, or architecture work, or just doing feasibility studies for new ideas.

I was also lucky that I never really got to work with anyone who abused my helpfulness. I loved mentoring others (it's still one of the things I enjoy the most), and as far as I know (from peer feedback), people usually like working with me exactly because "I'm not patronizing and genuinely enjoy teaching". The fun bit here is that often I learned as much from my coworkers (if not more) as they learned from me. I think it's just a matter of creating a healthy working environment where the concept of "stupid questions" just doesn't exist, where everyone feels comfortable asking things they might usually think obvious.

In my time I've also had to work with some folks who... how do I put it... are not really that capable. This has always been surprising to me and something I've paid a lot of attention to over my professional career. These people really try, but for some reason or other end up taking loads of time to implement even the simplest features or work on a seemingly simple write-up.

Though if you talk to them it's clear that they know their business. Sometimes they might have some issues in their knowledge (more often than not the basics), which makes them reach wrong conclusions now and then, but it's just due to confusion, not because there's anything wrong with them or their intelligence².

Something I've observed is that the great majority of the time (if not always), the reason for their "underperformance" is that they lack self-esteem. They just don't feel sure enough in their capabilities.

I remember once I had a coworker who would take forever to code simple stuff. Someone at the company had told me this guy was clueless, just hopeless, but if I gave him simple tasks then it should be alright. I didn't like this, of course, so I started sitting with him every now and then to do some pair programming and was actually surprised that he coded the feature in pretty much the same time as I would. But then he would second-guess himself and, thinking his code was broken (it wasn't), he would throw it away and code it again in another way. He used to do this two or three times per feature, and then he would spend whole days testing it with every possible variation of variables to make sure it didn't break. If he could just see what I saw-that he was already quite capable-a lot of his worry would be alleviated, and his work improved³.

In college I also saw this pattern multiple times. I remember a classmate who would never write anything in our shared assignments. Once I was talking to him about such an assignment and he understood perfectly well what we did and why, so I asked him why he didn't help write the paper and he answered that he wasn't sure if what he thought was correct or not. I remember telling him, "Believe in yourself, man!".

Of course, due to luck and general circumstances, I was always on the "positive" side of this exchange. I was always the mentor, but never the mentee.

And that's how we get back to my work issues. I'm the mentee now. Ever since I joined this new company (4 years ago), I've felt more lost than my peers. Sometimes the roles reverse, but more often than not I'm the one scrambling to understand what's going on and how things work. It also doesn't help that I work with REALLY talented people, many of whom are experts in their field⁴.

We're working on a new paper for an AI benchmark a coworker created, and I have to admit I'm lost. I'm not 100% familiar with the benchmark code, which makes me doubt myself even more. But more than that, I don't feel entitled to write on the paper. It's like I don't have "permission" for it. Sure, I can fill in sections, but I first need someone to tell me what those sections are and more or less what they want me to put in there!

I think this is probably how my ex-coworkers felt. This idea of entitlement has its roots directly in the issue of self-esteem I mentioned above. I don't believe I have the ability to do it, and as such I don't do it.

I'm trying to apply my own suggestions, but it's not as easy, and I find myself procrastinating a lot. So I'm doing what I always do when I have a problem I feel stuck with: I write about it on my blog!

Today I tried a new approach that seems to be more or less working: make an offline copy of the document and then just write a bunch of stuff (pretty much stream of consciousness), as much as I can, and then once I have the content just edit it into a sensible flow. I've done around half of a full section (one of the largest, though), and I have to admit I'm happy with today's progress! Hopefully tomorrow will be similar.

But well, thanks for reading!

The only class I ever got less than a great score on was one that required doing presentations in front of the whole class and debating with other groups over silly matters. You know, social anxiety and all that. ↩
On the contrary. In my experience, people who struggle technically are often the ones who are best at thinking outside the box. ↩
After some months of working with him, he did improve substantially. I'm not sure if it was thanks to me (I don't think so), but he ended up being more confident in his work and even suggested some new (and good) ideas in our meetings. ↩
I work as an embedded engineer on a research team. ↩

0022 - producers and consumers

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 01:56:44 GMT

I'm pretty sure I've already talked about it before on th meis blog, but a topic I constantly think about is this idea of "consumers vs. producers".

I have a hypothesis that humans have two modes of operation: consuming content from our environment and then producing derivations from that content as a way to process and integrate it.

"Production" here is probably not even the best word, as it carries connotations of "producing useful/valuable stuff", but that's not what I mean at all. The idea I want to capture with the word "production" is that it's a process that allows us to work through what we've seen. Stuff comes in (consume) and stuff comes out (produce).

A very common way of "producing" is by making art, but that's by no means the only way. Actually, every mode of expression can be said to be a way of "producing" in this sense. For example, an alternative would be "meditation." I don't know if this happens to you as well, but whenever I sit to meditate I feel that at the beginning my mind is like an onion. Thoughts jump into my mind that have to do with things I've seen throughout the day, and once a given topic is "let go" then another set of thoughts comes up. Each set is like a wave of topically related things. In this way, by peeling the onion, I'm letting my mind munch through what I've seen and heard.

Again, art is truly the epitome of this phenomenon. One could even argue that if, in fact, this idea is true and humans need to go through this "production" mode, then "art" in itself can be said to have evolved to allow such a mode to exist.

"Consume," on the other hand, is a lot fuzzier and could actually be replaced with the word "observe." When we consume we look at the world around or inside us, and all our perceptions become "grist for the mill of production", so to say.

Now, I think that originally there was a balance between how much a single person consumes and how much they produce. But now, in our modern world, that's not necessarily the case.

If you think about it, in our "advanced technological civilization", there are drastically more consumers than producers. Think about Instagram or TikTok or any other garbage farm. One person makes a video of themselves dancing and thousands of people see and comment on it. Even in the "blogosphere", not all readers keep their own blog. That's fine, as long as the consumed content finds expression somewhere else.

We like to think that it doesn't matter what we consume, that we can consume as much as we want and it won't impact us in any negative way. We think we can watch endless hours of brainrot content, or read and reread all the terrible news that has happened throughout the day, and that we'll be okay. But really, that's not the case. If the food we eat is what ends up forming our body, then the content we "consume" is what will end up forming our thoughts.

We also feel like we can consume without a need to produce, which (in my experience) is not how things work¹. The act of "producing" will happen whether we want it to or not, but without conscious oversight it might not end up being that positive of an experience. If we don't guide it, if we don't "integrate" what we see, then we might end up developing paranoia or fear or anxiety, anger, or even sadness and helplessness. How could we not?

But we can take a more active role by doing mindful "production": allowing for a space where proper integration of our consumed media can happen in a healthy and constructive way.

Many of us already do this subconsciously. For example, ask any writer or painter why they write or paint, and they'll usually tell you they don't know or something along the lines of "to make sense of the world".

I say "many of us", but actually I think this is an ingrained human behavior. The problem is that now we have ways of "consuming" that are too pleasant, too addictive, and leave very little time in the day for the other facet of "production" to manifest itself. With all this consumption we're taking away time from our minds to do what comes naturally to them.

We're all different, so what I'm saying here might not apply to you. But I know that for me, spending large chunks of my day on social media/news/etc. is a sure way to muddle up my thoughts, and then it takes quite a bit of "empty time" to have my mind naturally put everything in its place once more.

Make art, make space for yourself to grow, don't over-consume.

Thoughts:

Today was a weird day. You can probably see from this post that my voice changed to be more forceful than usual. I think maybe I just didn't sleep that well yesterday?
- Or maybe I'm getting sick. My youngest had a high fever over the past few days.
- I actually considered not publishing this post because, of all the word-vomits I've done since I started, it's the first one I'm not excited about, which is interesting since this is a topic I've thought about a lot, though maybe not enough to have my ideas straight. This post ended up being a bit convoluted.

Of course, here I am talking from personal experience and I don't really know if others' minds work the same. But for the sake of the argument I'll assume they do. ↩

0021 - back to normal

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 02:08:45 GMT

Today we came back from the beach. Back to normal life. I have to say that even though our vacation was fun, it feels really great to finally be back home. I don't remember where I read it (or maybe I made it up), but whenever I come back from a trip I think of the phrase "the best part about traveling is coming home". If you think about it, it works on so many levels.

...

It's almost 9 pm as I'm starting to write this. I thought of skipping today since the drive back home was long and tiring, but then I thought I would at least make an attempt at doing an entry¹. Not that I have anything specific I want to talk about; it's more that I don't want to break the habit! The first excuse opens the door wider for the others that come after. I'm also not feeling super tired right now, so I'm pretty sure I should be able to bang out something half-decent in maybe half an hour or so? We'll see.

Something I was wondering about on the last part of the drive here was my initial desire to write stories. Perhaps one of the first things (if not the first) I wrote when I first started my blog was my old homepage (which you can still see here), where the central paragraph states as one of my goals for the blog:

Something I would like to eventually start doing with this space is to get into the habit of writing short stories, but I haven't managed to find a way to do it yet (writing posts/essays comes much easier)!

At the time I really felt like I wanted to create stories but didn't know how, and I saw the creation of the blog more as a stepping stone to the former than an end in and of itself. Now, however, I rarely (if ever) think about storytelling except in the sense of its importance for humanity.

Me being me, I of course started doubting myself and asking whether this change came about because my interests have honestly shifted somewhere else, or whether it's actually because I found a safe space in "blogging" that I don't want to stray from.

It's true that, for me, writing misc posts is a lot less unnerving than writing a story. On one hand posts are easy; I've already done lots of them and feel quite confident in being able to write them without much trouble. They're also "safer" in the sense that they can be about anything, don't have to follow any set structure, nor talk about a single thing throughout². In other words, I don't care that much about what others think about my posts. But I do care what they think about my stories³.

That's what got me wondering. Could it be that the desire to tell stories is still in there and I'm just lying to myself that I'm "satisfied" with my current practice? Seems like a pointless question to ask, though. Wouldn't I know? It's like I'm going out of my way to find problems for myself.

...

I still love storytelling. Perhaps not necessarily creating the stories myself, but the act in and of itself is pure magic. Lately I haven't been reading as much, though. Actually, it's been a while since I read a "good book" that inspires me to write⁴.

I don't think I'm settled enough into this "daily vomits" practice to try and change it yet, but maybe once we reach higher numbers (50?) I could start doing the sporadic "vomit story" or something? Similar in spirit to what I'm doing now, but rather than being essays they would be stories.

It's actually not such a bad idea. I'm sure doing them this way, lowering the bar and making it a single day thing, will definitely help me lose the "fear" I have when it comes to writing them.

Thoughts:

I got lots of post ideas during the drive home. I've noticed that they just seem to "pop up" when my mind is calm and not doing anything specific. My job is mostly to recognize them and write them down somewhere before I forget!
- Ideas are sort of like dreams. You have them and then forget. They might show up later if something triggers them.
- You can't really say an idea is "yours". They just pop up.
- People who say that it doesn't matter they used "AI to write something because the idea was theirs" really don't understand how ideas work.
  - "The writing" is the good part! The idea is almost worthless.
Now that I'm starting to build up a larger collection of these ideas, I'm wondering what should happen to this "thinking section". Maybe write the ideas I had throughout the day in here? Though that might make me work on them a bit prematurely.

On our way home we stopped at a restaurant way up in the mountains. I thought the foggy landscape looked neat.

It seems I'm calling these "entries" now? No longer "vomits"? ↩
Hey, as I'm re-reading this I noticed I used the concepts of "structure" and "proper form". Could it be that I'm projecting some sort of school-related trauma? Maybe I once wrote a story that was judged too harshly? This is something to look into. ↩
It's true that I care more about stories, and that's why I also care more about how they're perceived. It's like I don't want to fail at them, so I don't even try? Does that make sense? ↩
Recently during our trip, after much urging from my niece, I started reading "The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England" and I have to admit I'm feeling some of that "itch" to create something similarly fun. On top of this, there's also that same niece who is in the midst of writing a sprawling epic fantasy series (which seems to be a sort of rite of passage for every bookish ten-year-old), and I have to admit I feel a bit jealous about her excitement for her work. ↩

0020 - thinking about my blogging past

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:07:58 GMT

Woah, this is the twentieth wordvomit in a row! I have to say I'm proud of myself :) though it really hasn't felt that hard at all. Some days it's easy and posts just flow. In 30 min I'm up and done with the whole thing. Other days I spend all day thinking about it and then end up writing a half-assed "something" late in the afternoon. Most days, however, are an in-between: it's hard to start, but once I do, things just fall into place.

What surprises me the most is that the time between post #1 and post #10 felt much longer than the time between #10 and #20! Maybe this means that I'm getting used to the structure and schedule I'm creating for myself? Or maybe I just think less about it as a special part of my day, and now it's more something that I "just do".

Though I still struggle. As I said, often it's really hard to start. In fact, as I write this right now, I really have no idea what I'm going to talk about. This is probably not very fun for you to read, but oh well, it's an opportunity to remind myself that I do these vomits mostly for myself, not so much to gather "glory and riches".

...

Yesterday I published a throwback post, and this morning I was kind of demotivated by it. That older "Janus" post actually wasn't that bad at all. In some ways I felt it was nicer and better structured than my usual posts nowadays.

After spending a bit of the morning in a gloomy mood, it occurred to me that this is fine. Of course my current "vomit-style" posts are a lot less structured, as I (1) don't plan them beforehand and (2) don't stick to single topics. There's also the fact that the old post is edited and polished, while these vomits are usually published with just minor grammar fixes, without any real reordering or removal of superfluous words. They are "served raw", still squiggling.

Later, a more impactful realization followed: at the time I wrote the Janus piece, I was also very insecure and "unhappy" with my writing. I was actually much more doubtful of my value and quality as a person than I am today, and that's perhaps a reason I put so much work into making that post polished and nice, and more than anything, "safe".

These vomits are not "safe", in the sense that there's plenty of stuff people would not find interesting to read (like this current vomit) or that might actually seem insulting (though I assure you no insult is meant). Some things might appear downright stupid.

Another important difference is that in these vomits you "see me," while in the Janus piece (and many of my other posts of the time) all you see is a facade-the desire of someone to communicate and connect but who lacks the guts to do so. Hell, you could probably even use some of the contents of my current blog to blackmail me¹.

So in some ways these newer sorts of posts are better. They might be less polished, but at the same time they're also more authentic, I guess, and on average I would expect that at least some of them are fun for others to read.

Thoughts:

Every day I'm more convinced to make these vomits part of my main post feed². Perhaps when I get back home I'll make the necessary changes to my site's code.
My commonplace notebook is turning out to be extremely useful! I have three or so pages of ideas (short bullet points) about things I think it would be neat to write about. The problem is that often (like today) I don't feel sure enough in myself to just pick a topic and write, and instead end up writing about my insecurities and whatnot.
- I like to think this variation is nice and might show a bit more of my actual self than would otherwise come through.
- I also like to think that someday (maybe) my sons will read this and see that their dad was also full of insecurities and things he was constantly (ad nauseam) working through.

Today my sister in law took us to a beach that had very strong rip currents, and had an appropriately battered warning sign.

Just kidding. I don't give a shit. But I still prefer to remain anonymous, thank you very much. Recently I got an email from Noahie, and he shared some great suggestions and views on pseudonymity. To be honest I agree with all that he says, but I think there's also more to it than that. I might do an answer post soon (Noahie, if you're reading this, I WILL answer your email!) ↩
Heh, I actually wrote drug feed here and then had to delete and rewrite. I guess a Freudian slip on my part? Maybe I subconsciously consider myself cigarettes? ↩

0019 - Janus and the new year

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 16:43:46 GMT

New Year is an excellent occasion to look both behind and ahead, an opportunity to ground ourselves in where we are right now. It's a sort of doorway, so to speak, between the past and the present. So what better time than today to do a throwback post? I'm also a bit hungover, so maybe this can be considered a sort of day off? 🤗

I originally wrote the following on December 28, 2022! Crazy. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was reading up on New Year traditions.

I don't reread my old stuff as often as I should. This post is a bit more "formal" than what I favor nowadays, but it's fun how I can still see myself in it. Somewhere under that formality is my "me".

At the time I was writing this, I used to think of myself as a semi-academic wannabe, and you can see it in how this is written. I actually remember that before writing this post, I was feeling fed up with all the stuffy formality of (again wannabe) philosophical discourse, so I allowed myself to write this as play, just for fun. And it shows!

It's almost New Year's Eve, and to celebrate, we'll be talking about the Roman god Janus and the origins of this festivity.

Let me tell you a story about transitions...

Romans were very fond of their festivities, and among their most important ones was New Year. Romans believed that the way something began was an omen for how good that something would be. For this reason, the first day of the year was festive, with people exchanging gifts and pleasantries all around, much like we do today. This was also a festival of transitions, when the past year flows into the future one, the old becomes the new, and black becomes white.

Like most cultures, they had a figure to whom they attributed all these mystical properties they perceived as occurring during this day. This anthropomorphic personification they called Janus. Here's the blurb from his Wikipedia page.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janus (Ianuarius).

(Image of Janus statue. Taken from the Wikipedia article linked above.)

Janus presides over "all beginnings and transitions, whether abstract or concrete, sacred or profane". Something that's not obvious is that his role as master of change and transitions also gives him mastery of time itself (which is an integral component in any transformation process). It is said that with one face he looks to the future, and with the other towards the past.

Another interesting aspect is his name.

The name of the god Iānus, meaning in Latin 'arched passage, doorway'.

In his most basic form, I guess we can say that he facilitates passage from one reality into another.

Now that we've got the introduction out of the way, we can start asking some questions.

The first is this concept of transforming from A to B, or, as said above, from one reality into another. Whatever is changing does not stop being during its transition; instead, it flows from one state to the other. The concept of beginning or ending is from a human point of view, but cosmically things only ever just flow, from top to bottom, from cold to hot, and there is really no thing to start with. I guess the same could be applied to the Ship of Theseus thought experiment. (Side note, this reminds me of Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy; you should check it out if you find this idea intriguing).

I also find the gateway imagery really interesting. Especially, what happens when you find yourself in the dead centre of a doorway that connects two rooms? Do both rooms become one?

(Doorway photo, taken from here)

If we agree that that is the case, then we might say that Janus also represents the concept of duality. By allowing something to become something else, he enables the universe to have opposites. Black can also be white, or any shade of grey in between. Maybe the distinction here is just apparent when seen from the human point of view, but cosmically it's again all flow.

Anyway, interesting food for thought.

If you use the Gregorian calendar, then I wish you a happy New Year. If not, then I wish you a happy day :)

PS: If you want to read more about this topic, I recommend you check out this page.

To end, here are some pictures from today's trip to the beach:

0018 - dissecting a dreamt up dialogue between a cow and the moon

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:57:45 GMT

Today's warm up exercise ended up being "cute" so I'm including it here (with some formatting).

What is it even that the cow says to the moon?

"Oh moon, dear moon, why don't you come down and play in my field? I give you the space, the grass, the stream, for you to take and do as you will".

"They're mine already", says the moon, "everywhere I alight is seen, and blessed be me and my light".

"Ah, but", the cow says, "that may be so, and rightly so, but what about my mind, my heart? Do you see and bless those as well?"

"A mind? A heart?" says the moon. "Such things are not known to me at all; they're not things to be found under the dome of heaven I control. At night, in the deepest hours, I dredge existence from oblivion, and yet, in all my life, I've never seen such a mind, such a heart, as those you speak of".

"Well, they might not be much", says the cow. "I'm no great being like you, or brother sun, or the mighty two-legged, but to me, my mind, my heart-that's all there is".

Usually, my warm-up exercises don't end up being meaningful. More often than not, they consist of me just talking myself through the fact that I don't know how to start the day's post. But sometimes, like today, things flow a bit more freely, and something "with meaning" emerges.

Sometimes when we create something, when we get out of the way, it seems like we had absolutely no role in that thing's creation. That happened with the above dialogue. I felt like it was just flowing through me, through my fingers, and onto "The Page". I'm just an observer.

...

This idea that "all there is is our mind" is something that has been in the back of my mind (heh) for a long while. Like the cow in the little dialogue above, I can only really see myself. Things out there might be sacred, but they have no meaning except in relation to my perception of them.

But interestingly, the cow is not itself claiming that the moon doesn't exist (so it's not real solipsism). The relation is actually that the moon exists, but it is made sacred by the fact the cow thinks it is. That's what brings the cow to sing to it and invite it to come down and play.

The moon, on the other hand, is very much the materialist and believes only in what it can directly see, even though she herself is a higher being. She goes beyond what she can explain, given evidence of what she sees, and still she doubts (and cannot comprehend) the existence of the cow's heart and mind (and takes her own existence as a given and does not question it).

The cow sees the moon as sacred and reveres it, and it's really the cow that's making the moon sacred by relating to her in that way. As the moon gives the cow "her light", so does the cow give the moon "her sacredness".

There's also another layer identified by "the light". It is not really material or substantial, but it is that by which we see the world. Of specific interest is the phrase "At night, in the deepest hours, I dredge existence from oblivion". Light here is not just "the means of perception", but "perception" itself. And contrary to what the moon claims (but the cow affirms), she can really only see things that are not there (as filtered through her perceptions; there's no PURE perceiving without "contamination" from the perceiver).

...

It feels a bit silly to dissect this short story as if it were a dream or great work of philosophical dialogue. I guess I'm just doing what I felt like doing, and that's it. I don't want to seem like I'm putting on airs as a philosopher or anything like that (I know nothing about it, except for the basics).

...

Now on to what this means in practical terms.

It's easy, as humans, to believe that what we see (outside and inside) is "really real", but really it isn't. Not that there's not anything out there, but that we never really get to perceive it (independently of its existence). All that we see (and the only thing that we see) is our perception of it.

Think about it. You're happy with your spouse, and she's the most beautiful, blindingly radiant being in the whole firmament. But if you're upset with each other, then you can't even look at her. Scary she becomes, terrifying like the demons of the deepest pits of hell. (If you're not married, I'm sure you can find your own parallels for things in your daily life.)

Being conscious of this helps. We think that "how we see it", or, in other words, "how we feel it", is all there is, but the truth is that's not the case.

This ties in well with my last post about getting irritated by small things. My son is happy when he's jumping from one sofa to the other, while I am worried that he's going to break something. But does my "irritation" at my son make him less happy in his game? No, of course not. Nor does his happiness make me "less irritated/worried".

It's all relative.

Thoughts:

I'm starting to think there really is no reason why these vomits are in a separate category from the main blog; after all, they're very much the same kind of post I used to do at the beginning, and I considered those part of the main blog.
- Not yet sure if I'll do it, but right now I strongly lean towards just having my "vomits" be part of the main blog feed (I'll still keep the vomits page/feed to avoid URL rot).
I want to learn more about tarot cards and their meaning. I don't really believe that they can predict your future or love life or whatever, but I do think they can be an excellent tool to probe the subconscious. Similar to dreams and free writing, they provide symbols that bring certain psychic energies into consciousness for us to explore and, hopefully, integrate.
- I've actually wanted to do this for a long, long time. I've had a tarot spreads tab open on my browser for three months or so now.
- I'm sad I don't actually remember where I got this link from. It was a cool blog by someone who, for every update to their now page, also did a spread and its interpretation.

0017 - you're not responsible for everything that goes on around you

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 18:01:32 GMT

These days I've been wondering about my irritability. It doesn't come as often as it did some months ago, but it still shows its face every now and then. The fact that I don't deal with it as often doesn't mean I no longer need to worry about it, and right now, when I'm not in the midst of an irritation episode, is actually a perfect moment to look into it in more detail.

I've been thinking about this for some days now, and I've tried to keep an eye out for any triggers, specifically in the morning, which is the time of day I find myself most easily unbalanced. I noticed that much (if not all) of what bothers me are things I feel responsible for but can't control. Whether I feel responsible for my oldest kid not waking up my wife and the youngest in the morning, or maybe I feel responsible for my oldest¹ behaving correctly, or maybe I need to clean up the kitchen, make coffee, feed the dogs, or be happy... the list goes on and on. Whenever any of these "responsibilities" is endangered or directly challenged, I get upset.

I see this especially with my son. For example, the other day I felt myself getting disgruntled because he was doing something slightly dangerous (jumping from one sofa to the other), and I was about to tell him not to do it when the thought popped into my head, "man, what does it matter if he falls and hurts himself? that's actually how kids learn, it need not be my responsibility to micromanage every single thing he does".

This realisation opened the door to the fact that I was actually micromanaging a lot of stuff. Whenever I feel something is my responsibility, I subconsciously start keeping track of it in meticulous detail. One thing might not be too much but, given my propensity to take on unnecessary responsibilities, it quickly starts building up until it's indeed "too much".

I've realised that the things that most affect me are the examples I mentioned above, about things I really can't control (like my son). I think this is not because they're "external", but because they're "right there in front of me", meaning I feel a higher degree of responsibility towards them. However, there is also a more subtle kind of thing I feel "responsible" for that is more "internal", and usually doesn't affect my day that much, but it definitely IS there.

An example of these happened just tonight. I was uncomfortable in bed² and kept moving and stretching until the thought came to me that "there really is no reason for me to do this, just accept the minor discomfort", and just like that, I managed to fall asleep.

This last example points to my perfectionism, and how it permeates everything, including the things I'm responsible for (like my comfort in this case). I often feel that if it's not perfectly done then there's more I can do, so my mind keeps [blank] at it. Like in the example above, I was probably trying to find the position that was just right, an act that was itself making me more uncomfortable. Once I accepted that it was alright the way it was, my mind was able to let go and fall asleep.

As I said, this last sort of problem is really subtle, and it goes on all the time throughout our days³. If we're hungry, we might obsess over food and eating. If we're too hot or too cold, then that's all we think about. It's the same for "grosser" sorts of responsibilities like making sure my son doesn't break his neck while doing "normal kid stuff". These things permeate our whole mind space, all the time.

I don't know if it is possible to live without taking on these responsibilities. I have to admit I still haven't reached the conclusion of why our mind tends to do this, or how we can go about NOT doing it. But it has really helped to be conscious of this process, and now I often catch myself in the act of getting bothered by something and realise, "ah, you don't really have to take on responsibility for this, just let it be".

...

Many sages from ancient and modern times constantly say something like "the universe takes care of itself", or (more popular and frankly catchier) "hakuna matata". Other examples abound. There are some traditions like Taoism that can be said to be pretty much entirely concerned⁴ with having us humans stop thinking we're so great and control everything, and instead accept we're part of "the Tao", which nourishes and maintains everything according to its own nature, and that there isn't really anything for us to do. "Let It Be".

If you think about it, worrying about responsibilities is directly contrary to being here in the present. Either you worry because of something in the past, "damn I have to feed my dogs", responsibility for others, or "that was so stupid, I shouldn't have said that", responsibility for our social self, or you worry about something that might happen, "don't jump so intensely or you're going to break something".

To close, I want to share a quote from the great Epictetus about this same topic. I have no real recollection of how I stumbled upon it yesterday, but it fits really well. (Maybe finding this quote was what prompted me to write about this topic in the first place? Serendipity in action.)

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. Some things are up to us and some things are not up to us.

Thoughts:

Now that I'm writing daily, I feel a bit unsure about what to do with my Now page. Is it really meaningful considering I'm pretty much sharing what I'm up to Every Single Day?
- Maybe I can update the Now page with the thoughts and links of all the posts of the week? Like do a weekly recollection of them. Maybe even share links to "vomits" that I think are important? That's a nice idea, and would help build up a sort of "pyramid" structure of these vomits as time goes on (assuming I manage to keep on doing them).

Today's Good Reads:

Lies We Tell Kids — the reasons why adults lie to small children are varied, but it is certain that we lie to them (a lot). Some reasons are acceptable, like if we want to protect them or help their growth, but the great majority of the time adults lie to protect themselves from an uncomfortable conversation.

Yeah, my oldest son features heavily in my list of triggers. ↩
Possibly because of all the pizza I ate at dinner yesterday. ↩
I'm generalising here, assuming your mind works like mine. ↩
Of course, if you remove all that stuff about elixirs for immortality and whatnot. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that's something that was bolted onto the initial ideological (core) tradition of the Tao and the origin of things. ↩

0016 - what if we owe our technological progress to the fact we like to eat good food

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:49:47 GMT

Still at the beach today, and it seems we'll stay here at least until Saturday. I will be working every day this week except for Jan 1st, which is a holiday here. It will probably be very chill as all my coworkers are from the US and they're all away till sometime next week. I'm currently running some experiments for a whitepaper we're writing showcasing (yet another) AI benchmark we're working on, so most of my work will likely consist of monitoring those and maybe writing a bit.

...

These past few days I've noticed that it takes me a bit of a runway to start writing in earnest, especially on days when I'm not particularly inspired. I need to put down around 50 or so words before things start flowing a bit better. I've been thinking about adding a "collapsible" section I can just spew random stuff in before I actually start writing. That would be fun! But at the same time it would be kind of weird, because the main content usually follows naturally from what I've written at the top, though not always. I could also take the less exciting approach of just deleting the warm up exercise, or do it somewhere else, but that seems a bit meh. Maybe just using ellipsis to separate it as part of the normal flow would work. That's what I'm going to do today.

...

I've been thinking about the link between "cooking food" and "technological advancement".

(Now, I know nothing about what I'm going to say here, so just take this as the ramblings of a crazy person brainstorming a plausible explanation for an interesting connection.)

I want to raise the hypothesis that we owe our technological progress to the fact that we like to eat good food. Sounds weird at first, but if you think about it it's not so far-fetched.

In school we learned that humans discovered fire by accident¹, and that somehow some foodstuff fell into it and was magically cooked, and ever since then humans have enjoyed cozy warm meals by the fireside.

It makes sense. In all the random occurrences that can happen throughout hundreds of thousands of years, it can be expected that at some point some person brought back a pretty burning branch and then on one of those occasions, after more branches were set alight, someone decided to throw food into it for funsies.

They tasted the cooked food and liked it and boom, a new culinary door was suddenly opened². But why did they keep doing it? Why continue cooking food? I assume that at some point they cooked something and liked it.

(begin interlude) I investigated a bit while writing this, and it seems the prevalent hypothesis is that humans actually first used fire to preserve food, not to cook it. The idea is that smoking or drying meat will make it edible for longer, and the fact that cooking unlocks further nutritional value was discovered as a byproduct of this.

Still, I raise the question of why ever put meat (or food in general; ancient humans actually didn't eat meat as often as we like to think) on the fire in the first place? By accident? Maybe some guy fell asleep with his homies by the fire and his chunk of prime steak just rolled into it by accident, and somehow they just left it there for a few days, and they discovered it lasted more this way? Maybe...

For this post I'll go ahead with the idea that this makes sense, but humans need a motivation to do something³, so I'll assume that cooking comes first as it's more fun. (end interlude)

They liked it so much that they kept on doing it. Probably the role of cook even became an important part of their social dynamics, or maybe they all helped with preparing meals. The point is that the cooking kept happening specifically because they enjoyed eating good food.

Who knows. If this is so then it could be that "liking to eat good food" is actually an evolutionary advantage. After all, you're less likely to catch a stomach bug and die of dysentery if you eat a properly cooked meal. Ancient humans were unlikely to be worrying about these things, but it did maximize their chance of survival, and those who didn't like the charred taste were more likely to be culled by natural selection.

Maybe the fact that I enjoy eating so much is because it's maximizing my survival. Think of that next time you're intending to pig out at a restaurant: it's natural selection that's guiding you.

Maybe evolution and technological progress is not always about problem solving and survival. Maybe, sometimes, there's space for simpler things like enjoying what's given to us.

Good Reads:

https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/kevinsmith/ — nice, short comic strip about how the outcome of encouraging an artist might be your favorite book or movie, but if you discourage them then the outcome is sure to be nothing.

Though we really all know that fire wasn't discovered, it was actually gifted to humans (with great sacrifice) by bad-boy Prometheus. ↩
As I write this I can't help but think of an ancient human in a situation similar to The Spellshop, excitedly discovering and cooking delicious food for everyone. Who knows, might be a good cottagecore idea? ↩
Of course, one could easily envision a situation where the "charred food" is left unattended for an appreciable while. Maybe they were eating and had to leave the fire for some reason and only came back some days later. Or maybe, more likely, they just discovered some edible charred food after a natural forest fire. ↩

0015 - going to the beach again and being grateful

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 23:19:38 GMT

Due to unexpected circumstances, we ended up coming to the beach again. My wife's sister has a property she owns and usually rents during this period, but for some reason it was free this week, so we all came over. It's on the Caribbean coast, in the midst of a rain forest. The property has two floors, and the view of the sunrise from the top windows is spectacular.

It's 8 a.m. as I write this, sitting in my room. Outside my window, I hear a woodpecker playing its beat against a nearby tree, the lone car passing on the road below, and, far away, the call of the sea.

For all the complaining I do on my blog, I have to admit I'm extremely lucky for all the luck, goodness, and opportunities I have in my life. I've decided that that is going to be my theme for the day: gratitude.

...

I haven't been that happy with these past few posts in this series. The writing is meh, and I often feel I'm just doing them to get them out of the way, especially if I write them at night when I'm already tired. I still enjoy the process, but I would like to shake things up a bit to make it more enjoyable for me to write and for you to read.

The first thing I need to do is admit that I'm taking all this too seriously. This is a problem I've constantly struggled with in the past: I start working on something and then end up putting it on a pedestal and, if I'm not careful, I end up not wanting to touch it anymore for fear of marring it.

But the whole reason for this vomits series is to actually provide myself with an outlet to write crappy stuff. If I want to write a post that contains both a complaint about how my feet hurt and an appreciation for the sunrise, then that should be fine.

I don't know why I keep raising the bar for myself over and over until it's impossibly high. And the worst thing is that I don't even know what the bar here is; it sure as hell is not "quality".

Whenever I question myself about why, I get back an answer saying that "your readers wouldn't enjoy reading about THAT", even though I'm pretty sure that absolutely no one consistently reads these posts except by chance¹.

Also, if someone does read them, then doesn't that mean they enjoy them? Doesn't it shift the responsibility so that it's up to the readers to enjoy my crappy writing and not for me to write what I think they would like?

...

I remember reading someone saying "one should write for one's ideal readers"; in that way, the things one would naturally write and what those readers would enjoy are aligned. I think it maybe was from Visakanv? I looked for the quote but couldn't find it.

Anyway...

...

I have a small Moleskine notebook lying around, and for a long time I've wanted to do something with it. It's the perfect size to fit in my pocket so I can take it wherever I go.

A while back I read about commonplace books, which I think would be suited for what I want to do. The idea is basically that you carry a notebook with you so you can write things you observe and learn to remember them for later. This frees up your mind to think and create connections rather than having to use your mental energy to ensure you don't forget things.

I want to put a twist on this concept, though, and instead of writing what I learn I want to focus on writing down ideas that pop into my head throughout the day. I often have cool ideas that I just forget due to the natural tides of the brain. For now, I want to focus on ideas that would be cool to write about here.

Granted, I work from home and often prefer not going anywhere, but still, the presence of a physical object helps keep my mind centered on the fact I have a long-term storage system for ideas, even if said object is sitting on my desk. But yeah, I often get my best ideas as I'm out and about, observing the doings and happenings of those around me.

I should definitely go out more!

Today's thoughts:

I often prefer to play with the kids at the beach rather than socializing with the adults. Digging holes and making castles is the best; talking about finances is boring AF.
I'm realizing that the reason I'm afraid of people I know reading what I write is because, while I complain about my problems and shortcomings, it's also obvious that I don't do crap shit to solve them. Just wallowing in self-pity.
Something else I'm realizing is that I usually spread my writing throughout the day, often in 5-minute bursts. That makes the end result feel fragmented.

!New section alert! Links corner ™️ (tentative name; why do I always put corner on everything?). This will be a sporadic section with cool reads/links/videos/media I've consumed throughout the day. Oh, "Good Reads" is actually another cool name and might confuse search engines.

Taravangian & Saviours No One Asked For — I stumbled on this post yesterday after writing my own post on the trope of the smart man who becomes dumb. It was a great read and an excellent analysis! I've also checked out some of the other posts on this blog, and so far they're great and very interesting, mostly analyzing how we make sense of our lives through different stories.

If chance it may be. ↩

0014 - reducing my caffeine consumption

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 03:21:49 GMT

Today, I again find myself hesitating to write, but contrary to previous days, it's not because I'm waiting for a good idea, but for an appropriate frame of mind.

I know I wrote about this recently and said that the "frame of mind manifests itself if one makes the space for it," but still, there's the question of whether this is how it actually works. And so I wait for the best moment to sit down and write.

Though, really, the reason I'm hesitating is that I'm currently going through some stuff that I don't want to put out there. On one hand, it's just plain personal stuff, and on the other, I'm again thinking about the fact that someone I know might read it.

Well, maybe the best thing to do now is to focus on something else?

...

I think I've mentioned in one of my previous posts that I was trying to quit caffeine, and it has been going quite well! In the last two days, I haven't had any coffee or tea and didn't really feel the need for it. Though yesterday afternoon I was exhausted, and some caffeine might've done wonders.

Today I did have a cup of chai tea, which has black tea in it (of course). This time around, I'm deciding not to be too obsessive about caffeine avoidance and to allow myself to have some whenever I feel like it, while also imposing some sane limits.

Last time I tried leaving caffeine, I was adamant about not having any, which turned out to be incredibly difficult! I don't think you really notice how pervasive caffeine is until you try to make do without it. It's crazy. It's in everything from sweets to soft drinks. Even chocolate has an analog of caffeine called theobromine, which basically does the same thing¹.

I don't know how it is for others, but for me, caffeine makes me feel really good for like half an hour, and then I start feeling like I'm "going down," which is usually accompanied by mild irritability. After around two hours, I start feeling anxious.

The strength of the symptoms depends, of course, on the amount I drink. I observe little to no negative effects when I drink small amounts (e.g., a single cup of green tea), but it also feels less good (yeah, I'm a junkie). Drinking too much makes me feel terrible, as if I'd been poisoned².

Caffeine is clearly not good for me, which is why I've decided to greatly decrease my consumption. It took me a surprisingly long time to finally reach that conclusion. I usually thought that all those negative feelings (the worst of which is the generalized anxiety) were worth it for that brief respite I get at the beginning—that brief removal of that morning feeling of misery.

I've read others refer to "the morning craving" as the "caffeine monster," and it's a really appropriate term. Some mornings, I did indeed feel like a monster, being mean to everyone, including (and most importantly) being mean to myself (and then feeling guilty about it). This was especially so when there were other stressors around, like my older son demanding I play with him (which happened almost every day).

Yet a single cup of coffee could silence those voices (or at least quiet them down a bit) and make me see the beauty in the sunrise.

Now that I've spent some days (~a week) drinking little to no caffeine, I have to admit that the "morning drama" is definitely less. The voices are still there but much less pronounced. Most days, they're actually quite manageable without any external aid. Today was not such a day, though, but that's okay. I still see that as a huge win.

...

I know there's quite a bit of research proclaiming the benefits of coffee and caffeine in general³, but I always wonder:

Who wrote those studies? Are they themselves coffee drinkers? If so, maybe we're in a situation where an addict is trying to rationalize their addiction?
- These studies might be scientifically rigorous, but there might be bias in the form of what questions the researchers look to explore, as well as how they set up the experiment.
Do these findings also transfer to other people like me, for whom caffeine has both positive and negative effects? Are people like me also included in those studies or not? Or are we considered statistical outliers and, as such, ignored?

Then there's also the separation between the scientific research and all the hundreds of websites parroting that research and drawing their own conclusions. Usually, this sort of website is the medium through which the research gets into the cultural stream, so my idea that "caffeine should be good" is likely adulterated by the bias of these sites that really just care about increasing their readership.

...

Another thing I often wonder about is what our society would be like if we didn't have caffeine. Would we be as workaholic as we are? Maybe everyone would chill a bit more and value the "slow life"? Though that's probably a topic for another "vomit" :)

To be honest, I have never experienced taking appreciable doses of dark chocolate to see how I respond to it. I've read online that for some people chocolate produces a similar effect but with much less anxiety. On the other hand, there are others who report a more stimulating effect from chocolate. Hard to tell without trying. ↩
In some sense, I'm poisoning myself, no? After all, caffeine, like nicotine, is a poison that some plants produce to keep away pests. ↩
Though I have to admit I'm not that familiar with exactly what that research says or whether there's any counterevidence in other studies. I'll look it up after I'm done writing this. ↩

0013 - the smart man who becomes dumb

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 05:17:36 GMT

Lately I've been thinking about the narrative trope of the smart man who becomes dumb.

It is wonderfully captured by the character of Taravangian in Brandon Sanderson's "The Stormlight Archive" series¹. [Minor spoilers ahead] Here's a man who, even in his "base state," is extremely smart and quick as a whip. But as the story progresses we see his mind slowly degenerate until he gives up thinking entirely and just "is".

In the story we see how his intelligence is balanced with his sense of morality and empathy. The "smarter" he is, the less empathic, but as he becomes dumber we see this empathy dominating his mental landscape, until that's almost all that remains.

Of course, that's a story, but still I wonder what would it be like?

Lately I've felt myself slipping and making some stupid mistakes that would've been unthinkable some years ago. Like telling myself I'm going to go do something and then forgetting, or random small stuff like that. This happens more often than not when I'm multitasking, especially at work. The other day I spent an hour or so looking at an experiment log trying to figure out why the model was misbehaving, and after much scratching of my head I realized I was looking at the wrong log!

Perhaps it's just that I'm getting older, or the fact that yesterday we went to sleep at midnight because we were wrapping gifts². Maybe it's my lack of exercise. Or maybe the fact that I'm trying to stop drinking so much coffee: currently shifting to drinking only half a cup in the morning, when before I used to usually drink three large cups throughout the day.

Whenever this happens I feel a resistance in me, like a self-chiding for being so careless. But then I think of Taravangian and how I can just accept it as what it is and leverage that other part of me I usually don't give much attention to: my intuition and simply being here in the moment.

I'm someone who tends to approach things very analytically, and finding that my "mind" is not working as expected tends to be a surprise.

We tend to think that these sorts of mental traits (intelligence, compassion, sociableness, humor) are constant, a defining part of ourselves, but the truth is that, as everything in life, they change depending on the environment we're in and what's going on around us. I guess this happens because they're more or less "stable" over appreciable spans of times (at least in contrast with some other more volatile things like our "mood").

Anyway. I'm making too much out of nothing, as I'm sure whatever "slowness" I'm experiencing here is of my own making. And still, this slowness doesn't preclude me from enjoying what's going on around me.

Whenever such a lapse happens I try to be gentle and recognize that perhaps I might be asking too much out of myself.

What?! You haven't read it? Stop whatever you're doing right now and don't come back till you've read The Way of Kings. You can thank me later. ↩
My wife was wrapping gifts. I was trying to help her, but I wasn't so successful. ↩

0012 - it's weird to have people you know read your stuff

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 02:17:17 GMT

Yesterday I mentioned how I've been feeling like I care more about these “vomits” after moving them over to my main blog. I've been thinking about it some more, and I realized that it's not that I care more about them; it's that I care about who will read them!

You see, not long ago I shared my blog with my wife and brother, as well as some close friends, and as much as I dislike admitting it, the idea that they will read what I write definitely puts an appreciable amount of friction in my whole writing process¹.

Sometimes I want to say things or express them in ways that I wouldn't usually do in my “normal” life. And it's not like I don't want them to know I have these opinions; it's more that my personality “in here” is not always the same as “out there,” and this creates a sense of dissonance.

Who am I when I'm writing on my blog? If I'm writing to unknown people, then I can be whoever I feel like being in the moment. But if I'm writing for people I know in person, then I'm much more likely to be my “waking self.” The fact that I sometimes express myself as “someone else” creates a sense of shame in me, even though there's no real reason for it.

I think this feeling has a basis in my social anxiety. By being “looser” with my words, mannerisms, and ideas, I’m also breaking free from many of the constraints I put on myself in social situations. When someone I know reads this stuff, I feel like they might think I’m acting “outside my allowed limits.” Of course, they don’t think that; this is more me just inhibiting myself so as not to get thrown out of the cave.

But it's really more than that. It's interesting that I have two different "identities." From a psychological point of view (I'm no expert, though), I would say that both these personas, "Meadow" and “waking me,” are now real identities in my psyche, and they're currently in need of integrating.

This is actually supported by some recent dreams I've had, including one where I used an actual selfie of myself as the profile picture for Meadow.

...

I honestly don't know how to proceed. The extreme answer would be to close "Meadow" and start up a new blog, but this feels wrong. I would also then be hiding this other part of myself from other important elements in my life (e.g., my wife), which brings with it its own problems (and I would surely give in after a while and tell her anyway).

For now, what I'll do is just force myself through this feeling. Writing the post is the hardest part, but I know that if I give in to the feeling of discomfort, then I would just be making it stronger.

I think what actually needs to be done (long term) is what I mentioned above: integration. I was actually very well along in this process around the same time I had that dream I linked above. I don't know what happened, though, that stopped the whole process. Maybe because I stopped posting here?

... Perhaps the fact that I'm writing this is itself a sign of this integration process starting up again?

Anyway. I shouldn't forget that the real purpose of these vomits is not to get people to read them. Actually, the purpose is to make a "compost heap" for myself, from which ideas and connections can later spring up. The usefulness (or lack thereof) of these posts for anyone but myself is not even part of the question.

Even though I know that most of them have zero interest in periodically checking what I write. Still, the idea that they might do it bothers me. ↩

0011 - holidays, family, tamales

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 22:00:21 GMT

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house two boys were stirring and banging pots and running around like crazy apes. The mouse, at least had the sense to stay hidden.

Happy Christmas Eve to all those who celebrate, and happy 24th of December to all those who don't!

...

Boy, this December really flew by us! December, and November, and October. All of them were disrespectful enough to just leave without saying goodbye. I guess when life gets busy, time just doesn't have the same weight.

I remember reading somewhere that our perception of time sort of speeds up when we get older. I don't feel like looking it up, but I can see how this is true for me. I remember when I was younger it would seem the time between Halloween and Christmas was as long as a whole eternity. You could do loads of stuff in those few months. Now I've barely realized we're not in October anymore, and here's New Year already starting to shove its horns through the doorway.

I've always thought this speeding up is mostly due to the fact that we're busy. Especially with kids, there's very little downtime (I remember feeling busy in high school; the memory is laughable nowadays). But maybe not? Perhaps our "mode of cognition" of time just switches as we become older, and we start to perceive reality in a different way.

...

Well, I don't have that much time to write, so let's get down to it.

Today is all about family. This morning my in-laws came to visit, and we had a nice lunch with them. Later today (in a couple of hours, in fact) we'll be going to my parents' and having dinner there. It's nice to be all cozy together this way :) Everyone is busy, but still they make time for you and make you feel special.

...

(As I'm writing this, I'm listening to this playlist, which fits really well! I guess the spirit of Christmas is in me.)

Where I live they have this nice custom of making Tamales during this season, and you're likely to be gifted at least a dozen. Usually each family does a big batch of them and then gifts them to everyone they interact with daily. It's really nice, and each family has its own small variations they do on the recipe, so you're unlikely to eat two tamales that taste the same.

But more than anything, they feel like they're made with love. Literally, people just make them as an excuse to say "thank you" to those around them and show their appreciation. It's a small gesture, but I think one that has deep cultural significance.

The whole family (or a subset) gets together, usually under the guidance of the family matron, and then they all work at creating these small packets. They even come wrapped up in plantain leaves and look like small gifts!

(picture taken from here)

So yeah, here's to family and traditions that make us feel closer together! 🥂 I hope you, whoever you are, have a great holiday season this year.

Stuff I'm thinking today (hey, wouldn't it be fun to give this section a cool name? Like "thoughts corner" or something cheesy like that):

I recently moved all my wordvomits from my other writing project (which I've mentioned in passing in some of my previous now updates; not yet ready to share it here) to my main blog. The move feels right, but I'm realizing that I'm now caring more about my vomits than I should. Well, no surprise, I do care about my site; it's a labor of love!
- I need to be mindful of this and not let myself get attached to them. That's the whole reason why they're called "vomits": an ugly name that sets no standards.

That's it for today!

Happy holidays, all!

0010 - trying out the new Indiana Jones game

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:41:23 GMT

Whoo, this is the first double-digit entry! I guess we'll stay here for a while now :P

Chime, banana, suture, table, Mario.

...

Yesterday evening I tried playing "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" with a copy that a friend loaned me. That same friend insisted it was a great game and that I should definitely play it, but after a few hours in, I have to admit I'm underwhelmed. The game looks awesome, the art and design are top-notch, the acting (as little as I saw) is great, and it plays really well on my PC.

However, I felt like it was unnecessarily clunky. Fighting is really stiff (though, coming from "Hollow Knight: Silksong" I guess anything will feel stiff by comparison), and movement also feels weird. I'm fine with these if the story is good. However, I have a specific point that bothered me throughout the few hours I played: it's unnecessarily hard to find stuff.

There are keys all over the place, and you need to inspect every square centimeter of the map to be sure you didn't miss anything. I spent more time backtracking and scouring for the damn Rampart Key in the Vatican section (which is the very beginning of the game) than doing anything else. Rather than enjoy the immersion or the graphics, I was just getting frustrated with this task.

After backtracking some ten times or so, I realized that the key was at the very beginning of the map! It's on a wall that you might easily miss, as that zone has two exits: one takes you in front of the key, and the other doesn't. I took the one that doesn't almost every time, and then took the other one, but by that point I was starting to lose my patience, and running around blindly is, of course, a terrible way to find stuff.

When I started the game, I did see that there's a "guided mode" that, from what I understand, should point you to where your actual objectives are rather than having you find them. I originally left it turned off (which was the default) because I thought this would have me solve puzzles using a map or something similar-like finding something given some evidence and possible places where it could be. I didn't think this was so I didn't have to canvass every room on my way.

Another thing I thought was extremely silly was that I didn't realize Indy had a revolver until a couple of hours in, and I figured it out by mistake! This seemed a serious oversight. We're not even told in what kinds of situations the revolver is useful. Before Indy goes to the Vatican, we see him (and actually help him) pack his luggage for the trip, and at no point do we get any mention of a gun (or maybe we did and I missed it?).

Anyway, it could be that I still haven't reached that point in the game where it is needed, and maybe that's why I wasn't told about its existence? Still, there is a small movement tutorial section in which we replay one of Indy's memories in a temple, and I would expect it would've been straightforward (story-wise) to add a section where one has to press some faraway panels using the revolver. The fact they didn't do this makes it feel like they bolted it on ad hoc rather than it being an integral part of the game.

(Who knows. Maybe it isn't really that important, and that's why they don't say anything about it?)

When we're dropped into the first section (the entry of the Vatican), we're told to "please read the game manual from the pause menu." I did briefly leaf through it and learned some cool tips that would've been hard to learn otherwise, like the fact you can run + crouch to slide (which still feels like something that could've gone in the tutorial, if you ask me). But, "ain't nobody got time for that"! I want to jump straight into spoiling the fascists' plans!

...

As I started to write this, I was pretty much convinced I was going to stop playing the game, but now that I've vented my frustrations, I actually think I'll give it another chance, but with guided mode turned on :) I hope it doesn't move the pendulum entirely the other way and make it end up feeling too easy¹!

Though there are also some other games I want to try, so who knows. In particular, there are two fishing games that have been going around my feed for a while now. I'm attracted to them even though I'm not a person who has ever gone out fishing or really knows much about it. One looks really fun (fish in the morning, then manage a sushi restaurant at night), while the other is more of a relaxing, ambient game (it even has an entirely idle mode where you just watch the guy fish). I don't have much to say about them yet, so I'll just leave the names here in case you're interested.

Like finding stuff in Skyrim-that's sometimes way too easy and silly because you're literally pointed to every location you need to go to. Still a great game, though. ↩

0009 - the dangers of waiting for inspiration, thinking about the subconscious

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 02:16:55 GMT

As I sit here, I wonder whether there's actually such a thing as a good frame of mind to write, or whether any "frame" is appropriate. Of course, that's barring the case in which one is struck by inspiration and words just pour out of their own accord. But here? Now? I'm writing today's entry, and there's no real pressure I'm trying to alleviate with my words. Is my current frame "appropriate"? ... Well, I guess I just proved it to myself, as I'm writing about this idea of the frame of mind.

I think one can create a frame that's conducive to writing, but one needs to take the first step. It is a bit like going to the gym; you don't really want to go, but when you're there it's not so bad and you frequently feel great afterward.

Sometimes it's so easy to just tell ourselves we'll "wait for the right moment." And we wait, and wait, and wait. Days pass, then weeks, and we keep telling ourselves we're just "waiting."

I think that's the danger of "waiting for inspiration," waiting for "the right frame," which is arguably the most common way in which people create¹. I know it is for me. Before starting this experiment, I used to only write when I felt like it. Granted, I wanted to write pretty much every day (especially at the beginning when my motivation was high), so I could fool others and myself into thinking I was consistent, while in reality I wasn't. As soon as other interests started occupying my mind space, I quickly found myself going after them rather than sticking to creating.

There's also the problem of "not knowing what to write about." I deal with this a lot. Even today, before sitting here with you, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say. But the truth is that I did. Maybe not consciously, but my subconscious definitely knew that I wanted to talk about inspiration and the dangers of waiting for it!

(I actually thought today's post was going to be about the whole issue with Azure blocking my account and how I seem to be able to think of little else! But lo, that was not the case.)

Those are the benefits of writing with a schedule. I started without any conscious inspiration (because I had to) and, soon after, it started to manifest all by itself. It's as if the simple act of "starting" is like dredging something from the depths that was there all along.

Another benefit, which I'm starting to realize now, is that everything that happens in my day-to-day becomes instant sources of ideas and inspiration for things to write about here. I could even say that these past few days I've started paying more attention to the mundane occurrences in my life. Everything is grist for the mill, if you let it. The problem is that you need to let it, and we tend to be very picky with our grist.

...

It's funny how often we get in our own way.

It probably goes back to the fact that in our culture we pretty much ignore the existence of the subconscious. We actually do our absolute best to pretend there isn't a "greater mind" beyond what we immediately see with our conscious-mind eye!

It's actually a strange thought, isn't it? That we (or what we usually think of as "we") isn't really everything there is in "us." Here I'm not just talking about the subconscious as the source of our dreams, or the place where we keep repressed thoughts or whatnot. I'm talking about the greater body-mind intelligence.

For instance, imagine you're hungry, and you get angry because an intern is keeping you from going to lunch by asking you lots of self-evident questions. Who is it that is making you angry? One could argue that you're angry because you can't satisfy that feeling of hunger, a kind of pain. But why? You don't choose to feel that way, right?

It is the same with many other things. From falling in love (oh man, I can't stop thinking about her), being bothered by a weird noise (nails screeching on a blackboard), even fears. The fear of death, inculcated in us by billions of years of evolution. Where do those come from?

There's so much more in our minds than we (normally) see. That really highlights the idea of "mind-body," where both are really two parts of the same thing, and what we think of as "us" (our stream of ideas, our identity) is just a part of a greater whole, and sometimes not even the smartest part (though we like to think it is).

This reminds me of a quote from Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols (copied from here) where he talks about a ... I'll actually let the quote speak for itself:

Their inner centre is realised in exceptionally pure and unspoiled form by the Naskapi Indians, who still exist in the forests of the Labrador peninsula. These simple people are hunters who live in isolated family groups, so far from one another that they have not been able to evolve tribal customs or collective religious beliefs and ceremonies. In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals or customs to help him along. In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an ‘Inner companion’, whom he calls ‘My friend’ or ‘Mista peo’, meaning ‘Great Man’. Mista peo dwells in the heart and is immortal; in the moment of death, or just before, he leaves the individual, and later reincarnates himself in another being.

Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a greater connection with the Great Man. He favours such people and sends them more and better dreams. Thus the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art. Lies and dishonesty drive the Great Man away from one’s inner realm, whereas generosity and love of one’s neighbours and of animals attract him and give him life. Dreams give the Naskapi complete ability to find his way in life, not only in the inner world but also in the outer world of nature. They help him to foretell the weather and give him invaluable guidance in his hunting, upon which his life depends…. Just as the Naskapi have noticed that a person who is receptive to the Great Man gets better and more helpful dreams, we could add that the inborn Great Man becomes more real within the receptive person than in those who neglect him. Such a person also becomes a more complete human being.

That's fascinating. It speaks to the fact that there's a communication channel between "foreground/conscious" and "background/subconscious" intelligence, and that each has its own specific role to play for the survival of the individual. The channel here is that of dreams, but of course it might very well be anything else in which the two "coexist" in a shared space (e.g., art, dance, meditation, ?psychedelics?).

The Naskapi rely on this connection for their survival, as probably did our ancestors. We evolved to use this connection, to have both the foreground and background be equally active and responsible for someone's life. But in our modern world, the foreground is greatly glorified. I'm certain that the subconscious still finds expression in everything we do (how could it not), but for many, this channel between the two has been severely crippled.

So, circling back to what we were talking about above: I think creating art in this way, in which you show up and let it happen, is a great way to start and mend this connection.

At least the average person. I imagine that "successful artists" are able to somehow manufacture the necessary conditions at will. Maybe. I don't know any "successful artists," so I can't ask them. ↩

0008 - Azure disabled my account, trip to the cabin

Sun, 21 Dec 2025 20:51:19 GMT

Last (and final) updated 2026-02-16

Sorry forgot to update this saying that we finally have a resolution. They won't re-enable my account but at least I'm free to move everything elsewhere. For more details see this other post.

...

Last updated 2026-01-05

Got an answer from Azure and they're currently looking into this!

...

Update from 2025-12-22

To those being redirected here from guestbooks.meadow.cafe: know that the service is currently unreachable because my Azure account was disabled. This post explains a bit more why. I'm currently in talks with the Azure support team to see if they can re-enable access. I understand that they will, but first they need to review the data to be sure that I didn't actually do anything malicious.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, though I suspect that since most people are away on holidays, it might take longer than usual.

Happy holidays!

Service, mud, Azure blocks my account.

…

Some days ago I mentioned a “scraper trap” I made and how it was working really well. It turns out it ended up working TOO well.

Shortly after passing 2 million scrapes, I got an email from Azure saying that my account had been suspended because I was violating their “Acceptable Use Policy”. In the details, they just said that I was using my Azure resources for “malicious activities”. I opened a support request to contest this as I don't really feel like I was doing anything wrong, but sadly still haven't received any answer.

It's too bad because I host all my other tools on Azure! Now my VM is down so those tools are inaccessible. Some of them even have a respectable number of users (eg, Guestbooks has ~ 1k registered guestbooks, and More has at least a couple of daily users!). I'm really sorry for everyone that's being impacted by this.

In retrospect, I should've been more careful about the scraper thing. I don't yet know for sure if that's the reason why my account was blocked¹, but I should've foreseen that a sudden and dramatic increase in network traffic would get flagged as unusual and trigger a general security review.

On one hand I think the fact that Azure does this kind of check is great because it might very well have caught a real malicious user, or maybe a case where someone had hacked into my VM and was using it “with ill intent”. But it's also silly that getting an answer from them is taking so long. Well, it is holiday season so maybe that's why? Still, if I were hosting a legitimate business on the blocked account then this downtime could be costing me real money!

Another thing I learned, and it's possibly the most important of all, is that one should never trust all of one's backups to the same service provider!

I have automatic DB backup procedures set up for all my tools, but the way it works is that it uploads said backups to Azure’s file storage service (Blob Storage). Since my account is disabled I can't even access those! If I could, I would've already spun up the same tools on another (nicer) provider like Digital Ocean or similar. When I regain access I'll change my backup system to also copy the backups somewhere else, or send them by email, so I still have access to them if my main provider becomes unavailable.

…

I've actually been thinking of migrating off Azure for a while. I don't really have any specific reason for this as the whole platform is really well made. The only thing is that I feel it's sometimes way (waaay) too complicated for what I do. I don't need a hundred different services just to spin up a web app. I just need a single VM!

Most hyper-scalers work that way I guess. They push you to use as many of their services as possible so you end up paying more. I think a simpler provider might work best for me.

The only reason why I've stuck with Azure for so long is that (due to some unexpected turns of life) I have a lot of Azure credits, which makes hosting my stuff pretty much free. I get a monthly quota that comfortably covers my hosting expenses, with the only term being that I can't use it for things that generate revenue (nor for malicious activities).

(By pure chance, I actually do have a local copy of some of the DBs from some months ago, so if the worst comes to happen and I fail to regain access then I guess I can restart with that? At the same time it would be a mess.)

Hopefully I'll be able to resolve this issue soon! And again, I'm really sorry for everyone impacted by it.

…

On another, more positive note, this morning’s sunrise was spectacular! They're always nice, but this was out of the ordinary. I tried snapping a picture but it doesn't entirely capture it.

Today we're doing a day trip to a small cabin my in-laws own. I might do a post about that if anything interesting happens. Or maybe just share some pictures 🤗

Our trip to the cabin was fun, though the weather was crazy. It kept switching from sun, to cold winds, to rain, then rain with wind, then cloudy and cold.

My mood was also all over the place. For some reason I got somewhat irritated before leaving home and couldn't shake the feeling until we came back home. Not sure what it was but I hope I didn't bring anybody down with my moodiness. Though it wasn't so bad, so probably no one else noticed besides my wife.

It's funny because I was so excited to go! I was even thinking of this as one of my “happy places”. It seems the place isn't everything.

Well, here are some pictures as I promised.

But I'm pretty sure it is. At least I can't think of any other thing that might be construed as “malicious activity”. Another option might be something like folks using Guestbooks on disreputable sites, or Mire doing lots of requests when polling RSS feeds. We'll see. I'm curious what the Azure support folks will say. ↩

0007 - the actual visit happens today, getting coffee and having a nice afternoon

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 20:48:51 GMT

As I write this, I'm in the waiting room of the dermatologist, ready for my appointment. Last time I was here, around two years ago, I remember feeling like I was going to die. My heart was racing like crazy, and my hands felt as if I'd been holding them in an ice bucket for an hour.

(if you feel like you're missing some context, then check out yesterday's post)

Yesterday I mentioned I was feeling calm. Today I still feel calm, though there's some anxiety, of course. It's 10 a.m., and all day I've had this background anxiety that's been very low-level, but enough to have me yawn and stretch every 20 or so minutes.

Now that I'm in the actual “place,” I need to admit my level of anxiety has gone up quite a bit, but it's still not terror. Good for me, I guess!

Whenever I talk about this, I feel a bit silly. Aren't I a grown man? Two kids and a full beard? I think about all the other people in the world who have “real” problems, and I feel a bit ashamed. At the same time, I know that this feeling of guilt is not constructive and only pushes one toward depression. That's why I'm trying to be open about everything here.

It's funny how I'm telling you things I usually don't speak of with others, and yet you can't really glean anything about who I am, except that I'm a human being¹.

Or well… maybe you can tell more about who I am “in my head” than most people I talk to in my daily life.

Anyway… my appointment was set for three minutes ago, which means my name will likely be called any second now.

(if there's something I can say, it's that the place looks a lot nicer this time around. There's even soft, relaxing Christmas music playing in the background! Not sure if they actually changed anything or I'm just letting myself perceive it)

It's almost 4 p.m. as I write this. The dermatologist visit went great :) She was very friendly and said I didn't have anything to worry about. She even told me I don't need to come back for another two years! Good news.

She did point out that I have a biggish mole on my head and offered to remove it with an electric bistoury, which basically cauterizes as she cuts, so there's no need for sutures. I'm proud of myself that I seriously considered it but eventually decided not to push things. Coming here was a great accomplishment, and I didn't want to traumatize myself.

She said that kind of mole can become “evil,” but it's very unlikely (less than 1% probability). So I didn't think it was worth it. At least not today.

Now my next big “health milestone” is to get a vasectomy! Not sure how that will happen, though. From where I am standing right now, it feels like there's an impassable, invisible wall that blocks me from getting there. Still, better to approach it with baby steps. Maybe I'll do another “benign” visit first? I'm thinking maybe a colonoscopy or an exercise stress test, neither of which has anything to do with needles or bistoury!

(I feel like I might be oversharing here, sorry about that)

After the visit, we did a “family excursion” to my favorite local cafe, and I treated myself to a beautiful, silky latte.

I don't know what sort of black magic they do, but this is seriously the best latte I've ever had, and it's consistently good.

The cafe is owned by a young Chinese couple, and maybe what I taste in the latte is the love and dedication they constantly pour into the place.

…

After that, we went bowling. My 3 y/o can barely lift a ball, but he really loves to play! Of course, he can't throw by himself, so we throw the ball with him.

There was a party while we were there, and they had turned on the “funky lights.” I snapped a picture that turned out quite nice.

But well… I think that's it for today. I feel like yesterday's and today's entries were more “journal-like” than usual. I hope you don't mind. I have to admit this sort of journal entry is fun to do, and I also like sharing pictures! But at the same time, I have no plans to constrain myself to continue doing them. I guess the best way to go about it is to just let them evolve organically.

Or maybe you think I'm an AI? Hard to know these days. Maybe you're the AI? ↩

0006 - thinking about tomorrow's visit to the dermatologist

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 20:45:59 GMT

Apple tree, cherry blossom, orange tree, dermatologist.

…

Well, that last one seems pretty obvious. Tomorrow morning I have a dermatologist appointment, and it's stressing me out a bit.

I don't really have any reason to be worried; it's just a routine checkup, but still, doctors have always made me nervous. I also haven't gone to the dermatologist in a bit more than two years, so who knows what she's going to say!

(I'm actually not as nervous as I expected, which is a bit of a surprise.)

I don't know if I've spoken about it before (I think I might've mentioned it in passing), but ever since I can remember, I've been scared of doctors. Well, not doctors per se, but more the things that come with them: needles, tests, blood, being sick.

The fear is based on the fact that I always tend to faint whenever a needle is used on me. Thankfully, injections don't really bother me that much nowadays. I had the COVID vaccine not long ago and, while I did get woozy and was really nervous, I didn't end up fainting (also, all the nurses were really caring, even though none of them could believe I had this issue).

But blood tests are another matter. In my 30-ish years of life, I've done my absolute best to avoid them, and I think that I've gotten no more than two blood tests since I was ten! However, this is not sustainable. Especially as I get older, these things will become more common, and I'll need to face them soon. I try to think of my family and how taking care of myself is the same as taking care of them.

Sure, the dermatologist has no reason to order a blood test, so all good there. But she can tell me I need to remove a mole (of which I have many).

I've actually had one mole removed from my chest some years ago. It involved a local anesthesia injection and then the use of a bistoury. Surprisingly, I didn't faint, though I did get really close to it! Also surprisingly, this doesn't bother me as much as having blood drawn. How weird the mind is.

These past few days, I've been thinking about how we sometimes acquire an issue during childhood and, if it remains unresolved, then in adulthood we still face it with the same toolset and mindset that we had as a child.

Like, I'm sure that if this whole problem with doctors started now (in my adult life), then I would certainly tackle it in an entirely different way. Actually, I would relate to it totally differently.

Right now, whenever I think of doctors or tests or syringes, I get this sensation of paralyzing hopelessness, like there's nothing I can do about it: I can't escape, nor can I proceed forward.

This last is probably the whole “crux” of the matter. I believe this feeling of helplessness comes directly from my inner child. Here we can directly see how I still relate to this problem as a kid rather than as an adult. Why?

I once mentioned this to a therapist, and she suggested that I could try to comfort my inner child, tell him that I will take care of him, and be sure he’s safe. That seems to work a bit, but not quite entirely. It’s like my inner child is catatonic, unresponsive.

Or maybe I’m just trying to communicate with him in the wrong way. I’m trying to “analytically force” him to “behave as I want,” which of course never works with kids. As I know from my 3 y/o, it’s very hard to force him to do anything if he doesn’t see the reason for it, and sometimes the reason can’t be explained in analytical terms. Sometimes it needs to be explored through other media, like painting or reading a story.

(Maybe what I’m doing here, writing this post, is itself a different way to relate to the whole issue? I’ve journaled extensively about it in the past, but saying it to a “public” somehow feels different.)

Something that gives me hope is how little anxiousness I’m seeing in myself with respect to tomorrow’s visit. There is some, of course, but it’s well within manageable levels. It’s like, “I know I will go, and there is a chance that a procedure might happen, but I don’t expect it to.”

I think this last part is important. In the past, I’ve always expected the worst, but this time I’m actually expecting the best. Maybe it’s a sign that the whole situation is improving?

Well, enough rambling. I’ll let you know how it goes in tomorrow’s post.

0005 - fishes, things that are other than we think, stress

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 20:42:49 GMT

Part of me really doesn’t feel like writing today’s entry, but at the same time I’ve sort of been thinking about it ever since I woke up! I’ve spent all day wondering what to write about, but of course no clear idea presented itself.

You see, I failed to realize that today was my first day back to work, meaning I would have considerably less free time. I started this word-vomit experiment during vacations. I could take all day to write a post if I wanted. It’s not really all that bad, though-just that I need to work out what my new schedule is going to look like.

(I chuckle to think how in one of the last entries I said that “my current schedule was maintainable in the long term,” lol. It seems I failed to think of the future.)

Anyway. It’s now the evening, 8 p.m. to be exact. The kids are asleep, and my wife is attending to some work stuff. All things considered, it is actually quite an appropriate moment to write.

Well… Enough beating about the bush.

Something interesting I learned today is that in some circumstances it’s actually correct to use the word “fishes.” From what I understand, it’s acceptable when referring to multiple groups of fish (a group of groups) and mostly used in scientific contexts. For example, you would use “fishes” to describe the different groups of fish in the animal kingdom.

I actually realized this while reading a book with my son about “the kingdoms of life.” There was a page explaining the different branches of life on Earth, and I was surprised to see the term “fishes.” Here’s a screenshot in case you don’t believe me

Initially, I thought this might’ve been a typo or something, but the book was made by the Smithsonian, so a typo of that sort seemed quite unlikely.

It’s such a simple thing, really, but it goes to show how you can always learn something new. More than that, it shows that things aren’t really as rock solid as we think. I remember when I was learning English in school, how often I would trip up on fishes, so the term is pretty well established in my mind.

Whenever things like this happen, it always makes me wonder what other things in our life we take for granted but really aren’t-which things we think are one way but are actually another.

I seem to remember¹ there was an issue of the great Dinosaur Comics where the T-Rex wonders how it can know which parts of its knowledge are actually wrong, and then concludes that the only way to do this would be to review all the knowledge one has accumulated, which might in practice take as long as the act of accumulating it, and that once we reach the halfway point in life it’s impossible to do because there just isn’t any time left!

Such a clever observation! But of course, it presupposes that we can retrieve all our knowledge on command, which we really can’t. Imagine you started listing all the things you knew. You would likely soon encounter the situation where you don’t really know if you’ve already written down something or not, and will then start going in circles. Also, adding things you remembered to topics you’ve already visited might be hard.

All that was to say that it’s nice when the universe presents you with the opportunity to revise your ideas.

…

My mind is starting to feel sleepy now. It seems I’ve lost all my practice at writing at night! A long time ago, when I started my blog in 2023 (holy crap), I used to almost exclusively write before bed. I used to put my son to sleep, then write, then fall asleep. I guess it’s just a matter of getting used to it.

Oh! That reminds me that yesterday I mentioned I wanted to get back into meditating. Well, today I downloaded Insight Timer on my phone and ended up using it twice throughout the day! Of course, as many probably know, the first day back meditating is always the best. After that, one starts losing motivation or energy, and things just fall apart. I would tell you that “this time is different, this time I’m really motivated,” but the truth is that I’ve told myself the exact same thing multiple times before. Still, that is no reason not to meditate :)

Hopefully I can stick with it, at least for a bit. This morning I was really stressed for some reason, and sitting down for some minutes before starting to work was really helpful (I’m grateful to my wife for actually pushing me to do it).

I’ve been really stressed lately. It’s funny because I tend to think of myself as a pretty chill person, but the truth is that this past year I’ve just been stressed a lot. And it’s not like my job is especially terrible or there’s anything in my life that one would consider a valid source of stress or worry.

My job is quite relaxed, actually. I play with LLMs all day (in a research context), and I rarely have a deadline. I also don’t work on any client- or customer-facing software. But still, I get stressed about random stuff. Often I don’t even know what it is that stresses me.

It’s also a weird stress. It’s more like I just feel bad, sick, rather than it feeling like anxiety and worry (which I usually associate with ruminating thoughts, of which I presently have few). This stress is often accompanied by intermittent feelings of bleakness/depression or irritability. Thankfully, these two have been much better these past few months, something I attribute in part to the fact I’m writing a lot more and also virtually stopped using social media.

That’s the reason why I’ve been trying to convince myself to meditate lately. Hopefully it will help! And since we’re on it, I also need to exercise more 🏃‍♂️

I’ve thought that another contributing factor might be my consumption of caffeine. I don’t drink that much, but I’ve always felt like it doesn’t sit well with me. I get jittery or anxious if I drink too much. Once, I drank two cappuccinos in one sitting (I was having a great conversation with my father-in-law), and I swear I spent all day feeling like I was going to die. I was having cold sweats and stomachaches. It went away by itself, but that feeling of “being sick” is always there whenever I drink coffee, albeit to a lesser extent. The sensation might actually be better described as a feeling of “being poisoned.”

However, if I don’t drink coffee, then I’m extra moody all day, so not much help there. In the past, I’ve managed to entirely stop consuming caffeine for some weeks, and there has been some improvement in my feelings of anxiety, but not as much as one would expect. Still, something to consider. Or at least consider dialing down my consumption from my current three cups a day to maybe just one?

(how weird is it that we drink the poison of a plant for recreational purposes? If you think about it, it’s no different than licking a poisonous toad)

… Well, I said I was falling asleep, but then something happened, and now I feel like I’ve written too much. I should probably stop here for today.

I tried looking for it but couldn’t find it! Could it be that I dreamt it? Or maybe I’m thinking about a different comic. Could be. Anyway, this was the closest one I could find. ↩

0004 - scraper honeypots

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 20:36:39 GMT

Today marks the end of our beautiful time at the beach. Of all days, yesterday was my favorite. Things just seemed to flow better, and I also found myself in a better mood than usual. I wonder if setting an intention to have a “good day” in yesterday's word vomit had something to do with it? I shared some pictures in yesterday's entry if you're interested.

…

Something I'm realizing is that whenever I sit down to write one of these unscripted posts, I have lots of ideas I want to talk about. Of course, in writing it's much harder to mix and match disparate ideas this way, so what usually happens is that I either end up talking about a single thing or, more commonly, I write about many things at the same time, which makes everything hard to follow. Maybe in these cases I can tackle the topics as a list? Short sections for each one?

…

Anyway. One thing I wanted to talk about ever since my first vomit is my new project (source code here). So here it goes!

You know how LLMs need a lot of training data? This is obtained by “scraping” the web, which basically means that an automated program visits a link and saves the content as training data, then visits another link from that page, and so on.

In theory, there's an implicit web standard called robots.txt that a webmaster can use to tell scrapers which parts of their websites are allowed to be scraped and which aren't. Sadly, this is only “in theory.”

There are many, many dishonest scrapers out there that don't care what's allowed and what isn't and just scrape indiscriminately.

I think this behavior is unacceptable and doesn't help produce the kind of internet that we all want to see-the kind of internet where we freely express and collaborate. That's why you see many people now requiring human confirmation before you can even access their site.

However, human confirmation is not always perfect (it's definitely better than no confirmation at all, if you care about such things). It's also really, really hard (impossible?) to programmatically tell a bot scraper from an actual human, as the bots send all the necessary signals to the server to have the latter think it's, in fact, a human (to avoid being blocked in the first place)!

So what to do? Advances in human confirmation are playing an important role, but there's also another, sillier approach: honeypot traps.

I think it was Maurycy¹ who first came up with the idea (or at least was the first I'm aware of). The concept is quite simple: scrapers are indiscriminate and want as much content as possible, so why not give it to them? The catch here is that the content we'll be feeding them is pure and absolute garbage. “Garbage for the garbage king,” says Maurycy.

The content is actually not entirely gibberish, but not entirely proper English either. For example, Maurycy uses a Markov chain approach to generate human-looking text.

The beauty of this idea is that there is a practically infinite number of pages that can be generated in this way, so a web scraper will get stuck scraping that site until either:

the pipeline realizes there's something wrong, or maybe there's a max number of pages that can be scraped from a domain.
a human supervisor intervenes and marks the domain as poisoned or adds it to some sort of exception list.

Both cases are positive for us, I think. In the first one, we might have the luck of having our data end up being used for actual training of the model, which will produce much subtler issues down the line that are considerably harder to debug. It is known that, for example, even a small number of examples in training data can cause the model to misbehave down the line. In the second case, we'll have wasted some “evil actor”’s time by forcing them to purge their current data set of our website.

I've been itching to make such a honeypot trap ever since I read about it in Maurycy’s post. However, I wasn't convinced of the Markov chain approach, as that's not entirely energy efficient. If it costs me more to generate a page than it costs a scraper to scrape it, then I'm losing the competition.

It wasn't until I read Herman's post that I realized (as he points out) that we don't really need to be so careful with how we generate the data. We don't need to fool a human reviewer but a machine, so using a more powerful generative method like Markov chains is not required. The approach Herman suggests is to randomly pick paragraphs from books in the public domain (from Project Gutenberg).

This is great! It (a) generates valid English text, and (b) it's computationally really cheap. However, it has the shortcoming that a given paragraph is internally consistent (not garbage), and it's much more likely to be repeated throughout different generations (of course, depending on the number of input books one uses, it will be more or less likely).

For my honeypot, I used a similar approach, but rather than randomizing on the paragraph level, I'm just picking random sentences. The text looks like proper English, but one sentence usually has no connection with the next. I say “usually,” and this is crucial. Sometimes it makes a little sense, or it directly contradicts itself, which I think is much more prone to break training by directly impacting logic capabilities.

I made my trap public on “Nov 17, 2025,” and since then I've gotten a whopping 1,652,590 scrapes! (There's a counter at the bottom of the page; I followed pretty much the same counting strategy that Herman used, where every visit is counted as a scrape.)

That's 53 k requests per day. Quite a lot, and much more than my actual blog gets on the best of days 😅 We can actually get a better idea of scraper behavior if we look at the “amount of output data over time” for the VM that hosts my trap.

Interestingly, you can see that there were a bunch of requests just after I made it public. It was around this date that I announced it on Mastodon, and I suppose scrapers picked it up from there. However, what I find most interesting is that it immediately tapered off, and it's only been during this month that traffic is picking up again-and quite steadily at that! I'm curious to see what “scrape speed” we will be seeing a week or so from now. I might update this post with any interesting data.

…

I found this project really fun to work on. After implementing the main “blog” section, I added one for “haikus” and one for social media (playing with on-the-fly image generation was satisfying). But as you can see from the counter screenshot I shared above, scrapers REALLY love the blog section. It's probably exactly the kind of content they're looking for.

Now, it's very likely that my trap will eventually be flagged and excluded from further scraping. I think this approach of laying honeypots is doomed to fail unless more people start creating their own.

Imagine what it would look like if 1% of folks with a domain decided to host their own honeypot. It would be really hard for a human reviewer to keep up with them! Not only that, but since the generated texts are pretty much valid English, they're also quite hard to automatically flag as invalid unless they use a more powerful model, which makes their scraping a lot more expensive.

(I shared the source code to my project above, but here it is again if you're interested. If you need any help setting it up, please let me know!)

Now, as a closing thought, I want to say that (contrary to what it might seem from this post) I'm not against AI. I actually think LLMs and the greater AI ecosystem have a lot of potential to be used for good. I sincerely believe that it's already helping in a lot of areas, and we're going to see lots of improvements going forward.

I'm not against my content being scraped either. What I'm against is assholes who don't respect ownership or my preference as the creator of the content they so desperately want.

Thoughts

I really should try and get back into meditating. For a long time, I used to have a fairly consistent practice, but now I'm struggling to find time and motivation. Perhaps I should try and do something extreme like waking up at 4:45am every morning to meditate before everyone wakes up? Extreme schedules seem to work for me for some reason.

Some pics from today. Both of them are from a restaurant where we had brunch before starting our drive back home. It had a nice message at the entrance that I thought was appropriate to share, as well as a cool mushroom design on the table where we sat.

I'm assuming “Maurycy” is their name based on their URL. I did a quick search but wasn't able to find any “about” page or anything that would give me this information. ↩

0003 - hitting boundaries and mental health at the beach

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 20:28:11 GMT

It's only the third day, and I'm already starting to feel the “limits” of this commitment I've taken. My current workflow is actually quite comfortable and entirely sustainable for the long term, but the fact that I have to do it means I can't sometimes decide to use the time for other stuff.

I'm a parent of two small kids, and as all parents know, any amount of free time you can get is precious and severely limited! I do most of my writing in the morning as I sit on the toilet. It's a 15-minute spell that I know is unlikely to get interrupted, but I also need to be mindful not to take too long so I can help with the kids. These 15 minutes are basically all the alone time I get until the evening after the kids go to bed. By this time I'm usually already quite tired, so it's not the best for writing. It's also during this time that I spend some alone time with my wife, which is important.

Anyway. As I said, my usual activity during those 15 minutes is writing. Now I'm doing these vomits I write, but before I used to work on my journal or something else. However, that period is also usually up for grabs for anything else that might interest me. Maybe I want to read a book or a post, or maybe play a game. But now that I have this “responsibility,” that span of time is spoken for.

Usually I don't mind it that much because there's nothing I would rather do than what I'm doing now, but other times there's other stuff that I would also like to do! For example, today I got a copy of Visa's first book (I think it's his first?) and want to read it, but now I'm instead writing about wanting to read it and likely won't be able to open it until later tonight!

But well, I don't want to complain too much here. I feel there's a balance that I still need to find between saying something and saying something using too many words! I have the “mental timer” of how much time I'm taking in the toilet plus the counter of words for today's vomit, and maybe this setup is conspiring to make me create stuff that's wordy and convoluted.

I feel these past three vomits are of dubious quality, but I've set the goal of not letting myself worry about that. Remember, it's not about what you're writing today but what you'll write in 50 days from now (somehow I got to this magic target of 50, but even that might not be enough!).

…

Today is our last night here at the beach. It's been really nice so far, except for yesterday. Yesterday I was really tired all day and feeling a bit depressed. Not depressed as in “sad,” more as in “bleak,” “low energy,” “shut down,” “un-feeling.” If you know what I mean, then you know what I mean.

I felt a bit bad with the rest of my family as I worried I was dragging them down with me, but managed not to worry too much about this (or things would've gotten worse). I'm taking the approach of thinking about my mental state as “mental weather” that will come and go on its own. The core insight here is not to identify with the feelings of depression, or things will become a hundred times worse.

The other day I read or listened to someone say how, when they're sad, they often feel like it will last for eternity, but how when they're happy they always have a thought in the back of their mind telling them how soon that happiness will evaporate. I think that's so true for many of us!

We tend to talk ourselves into thinking that the depressed state is our baseline since we can't seem to keep ourselves in the happy state. “As we're not happy, then we must be depressed,” is something many of us think. The truth is, however, that our baseline is neither happy nor sad; it's right in the middle, but some of us shoot past it so fast that we fail to notice it at all.

Anyway, today is another day. As I'm writing this, the day still hasn't started in earnest yet, so here's to making it the best “last day at the beach” possible!

Oh, another thing that has been useful is realizing how much all of our emotions and behaviors are just stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. This was actually a suggestion from an AI chatbot that I had act as Thich Nhat Hanh.

Yesterday I mentioned some ideas I wanted to write about, like the AI chatbot thing. I, of course, didn't get to them today. Maybe tomorrow!

(hell, I should've timed how much I took to write this)

Ideas for today:

Living with intention. It's so, so easy to let ourselves drift through life, to let ourselves be carried by the currents and just react based on our human nature. It's good not to go against the current, but it's dangerous not to take any agency.
AI chatbots as a living book for personal growth. I also mentioned this idea yesterday.
Waiting for inspiration to hit is not great for creative output. These wordvomits take that away, as I'm now free not to wait for a particularly strong idea to show itself.
I once heard someone say that we still tackle the problems acquired during childhood with the same toolset and mindset we had then. Lately I've been seeing this in some “long-term” issues I've had for as long as I can remember, and how I still relate to them as if I were a kid. If I were presented with those issues today, I would certainly approach them in an entirely different way.
Wondering about the meaning of beauty, and specifically about why we perceive it and what it means. I would hazard the hypothesis that the feeling of “things are right just as they are” is the same as beauty, and that “safe things” appear beautiful to us. Think about it. Beautiful beach - all is safe and calm, no stress or worry. A beautiful sunset - take the time to do nothing; all is well. Even other things like babies, dogs, and cats. Have you wondered why people often stop to say hi to your dog or baby but barely even raise their eyes to meet yours? Babies and pets are safe; adults aren't.

Some pictures from today (I realized I can use this place as a sort of photo log for whenever I have anything cool to share!)

0002 - baby steps, toying with some ideas for this series

Mon, 15 Dec 2025 19:14:16 GMT

This is the first real actual wordvomit for my new goal. Let's see how it goes.

I tried writing yesterday's on Kitty, and while it worked fine I noticed many bugs with the markdown editor. Foremost among them is that the cursor tends to shift its vertical position when the post gets somewhat long. Not sure why. I use an underlying library that handles the actual implementation of the editor, so it could very well be that has a bug and I need to update it. But I won't do that now.

I'm at the beach till pretty much the end of the week. I only took my phone with me so that means no programming of any kind. I thought about bringing the PC as well but then decided against it. I know that even if tell myself I would bring it just to write there would always be the temptation to use it for something else. God forbid I get the urge to use it to check work stuff while I'm away on vacation! I left some experiments running for a whitepaper we're writing, so it's very likely I would've talked myself into just popping in for a second to see how they were doing. We all know that “just a second” can easily become an hour or more if we let it.

…

I was thinking that these vomits are not about what kind of thing “can I write today”, but about the kind of thing I see myself writing in fifty or a hundred days from now. Perhaps I'm thinking too much into the future, but supposing I actually manage to stick with this then what will my vomits (I may try to find a better word for them) look like. Will they be as rambly? Will the discussion seem as convoluted? Again, I'm really writing these just for myself. It's a sort of public journal I guess. The fact it's public helps give accountability AND pushes me to try and write better, but the goal is not to appeal to a wider public.

Another thing I thought is that this is very much like Balugust, where the goal is to get something out and published every day, no matter what it is. But why do we need to wait for blaugust to do that? Usually I abstain from publishing this kind of freer form writing because I don't think anyone is interested in reading it. In my mind it's more akin to an LLM generated text than anything else. Though perhaps that's a mistaken assumption, as LLMs really just tend to sound businesslike or sycophantic. Maybe this kind of writing, as convoluted as it is, is actually as human as it gets? Anyway, I'll make a different RSS feed on my blog for this, so at least people can decide if they care about these vomits or not. Maybe, with time, they'll start coming out in more coherent shapes, and might be of more popular interest. These first few ones are just for breaking the ice so to speak, and getting used to the medium. They'll stay around mostly for documentation purposes.

…

Before I sat down and began writing this entry I actually had some ideas going around in my mind for things I thought would be fun to talk about. However, it seems I digressed even before starting and never got to any of them in this post! Maybe my brain needs a little bit of a “writing runway” before being able to actually take off and feel comfortable with what it's doing.

I realized these vomits can be anything, from semi-stream of consciousness, like it's been so far, to simpler discursive posts. So yeah, I think initially I'll keep a list of ideas and maybe talk about them at some point.

It would actually be fun to keep, at the end of every one of these posts, a list of ideas that I still care about talking, brought over from previous days, as well as ideas for the current day. Not only is it a way for me to remember them, but it's also a sort of implicit documentation system to track what I was thinking about during a given period of my life.

While this sounds fun, it also sounds like a lot of work, and I don't want to add unnecessary friction just yet. First and foremost the goal is to get used to the process. To build the habit. After I'm settled in I can start adding embellishments.

Oh look at that! I'm already at 700 words. Well I guess I'll just post my ideas as a list then, so I can track them somewhere.

I work with LLMs at my job, but I never really used them for anything but work. Lately (this week) I've been exploring with role-playing with LLMs. Creating fictitious characters that have certain goals for me. This came about after reading a short post from someone who saw their OCD scores go down after they started using LLMs for this sort of thing.
- For me, the idea is that such a character is basically an interactive book that you can talk to and it can offer advice in return.
- There's also the fact that (for some people like me) it's easier to talk to an LLM about personal stuff than to an actual person. It might not be ideal, and maybe it's even a bit sad, but not having to think about all the social norms is great. I know I don't have to worry about the LLM pitying me or getting frustrated that I'm acting childishly.
I've been working on a silly new project that's a honeypot for dishonest web scrapers. It has all the required rules that tell respectful scrapers to ignore the site, so it will only trap “bad” ones. All the content on the site is generated on the fly, so it's basically infinite. And it's all garbage text so LLMs using it for training will very likely be broken and misbehave. I had fun working on this and I thought it would be interesting to talk about how it works.
I also thought it would be nice to make a sort of TIL section! For instance, today I learned that jeans were actually invented in Genoa. I think… I need to check but I'll maybe talk about it tomorrow as today's entry is already long enough.

0001 - setting wordvomit goals

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 18:52:06 GMT

Hi :) so I’ve been really inspired lately to do wordvomits in the same vein as Visa does. The idea is to sit down every day (unless extraordinary circumstances forbid it) to just write 1k words about whatever, without much thinking about what comes out. I think this aligns really well with my general blogging style so I thought I would give it a try, starting from today.

It’s more or less like stream of consciousness but with the added constraint that whatever comes out should be published online, which pushes one to at least make the whole thing a bit more sensible. Editing will also be minimal: no rewriting, no rewording. I will just limit myself to basic grammar fixes, punctuation, and adding the odd link here and there.

I’m not sure if I’ll aim for 1k words. In my journal I usually write ~ 700 words, so that’s probably a more natural target for me.

From what I understand Visa also times (or timed? Not sure if he’s still consistently doing these wordvomits) himself with the goal of finishing his “vomit” for the day in 15 minutes. I won’t be as strict as that, but I’ll aim to at least finish it in one sitting. I also like what he does of numbering the vomits and adding a small title / summary to each. Makes it nicer to navigate and look back on to.

The strategy when writing will be to first do some free word association to give my mind a chance to suggest interesting themes or topics for that day. I’m not going to set any rules for whether I should write about a single thing per vomit or not. Probably not.

It’s going to be a bit messy I guess. Visa’s own wordvomit page is quite hard to navigate but, I think, it’s beautiful in its own right. It’s actually an artistic creation that’s hard to come by online. Most people don’t just write such an amount of stuff or so directly from what they’re thinking. The whole thing is inspiring. Well of course I find it so, or I wouldn’t really be doing this at all.

The whole goal is two fold. First and foremost to be less perfectionist and allow myself to play, and experiment more. On the other hand, and it really goes as a side of the first, the goal is to strengthen the connection between my conscious mind and my more creative deeper self.

In the past I’ve had this experience where I really don’t feel like I’m the one writing. It feels as if I’m riding a wave made of words, and all I can do is keep my balance. That’s, I guess, the experience I’m chasing here.

I actually stopped having this when I started to get in my own way, when I started expecting a certain standard and quality for my posts. Of course, given my personality and usual thought patterns, this eventually evolved into not posting anything because nothing meets the bar.

The end goal here, I think, is to create a body of work that represents different ideas, and then be able to connect them to find themes or ideas that I repeat and I need to work through or, perhaps more importantly, things that are important to capture more formally. I know I’m still far away, but my dream is to have something like Visa’s index page, where he links to important posts and shows related ones.

Now, this is a bit disjointed from the original goal I had of writing better. I guess my writing will improve by proxy, and that’s good enough. For some reason I feel like, right now, the main thing I want to do is “post more”, so this is a strategy that will help me get there more than aiming to write well (again, setting standards and expectations is not good for productive output). Perhaps that means there’s something I want to say or express even though I still don’t know what it is. Still, probably not worth dissecting it now. It will come out of its own accord.

So yeah. I doubt you’re still reading this, but as you can notice I’m struggling to find what to write about next. That’s good I guess? There’s also other stuff happening around me as I write this, which has distracted me from my goal of writing this in one sitting! We’re preparing to go to the beach and everyone is asking me if I’m ready.

Oh just realized I already hit the 700 words mark! That is it then.

Football passes with my son

Mon, 17 Nov 2025 04:04:12 GMT

Last week, my oldest son (3y/o) and I discovered that we both enjoy playing football passes (football soccer that is). We just stand at opposite sides of the living room and I gently kick the ball towards him, and he then not-so-gently kicks it back my way.

It's also light exercise so it's good for mood and in general for getting the blood flowing! Good stuff. It also requires very little effort on my side AND I can do it while holding my youngest in my arms. Only wins here. The only problem is that I'm terrible at kicking the ball and it often ends up going in unintended directions. My son once even told me "dad why are you so bad!" 😂 well, I am bad.

I was one of those kids that never played football during recess. The contact bothered me, but really the main thing that threw me off was that I didn't really understand how the whole thing worked when I was in the midst of it. Like, how do you know who to pass the ball to? Whenever I had the ball I would usually panic and just kick it anywhere, as long as it was away from me. I spent most of the game just avoiding the ball in the first place, but somehow it often made it's way towards me.

Add the fact that I was always the last one to be picked for teams during PE and of course you end up with my current aversion to playing football.

It's funny though because I was actually quite good at other team sports. During high-school I was in both the basketball and baseball teams, and I remember feeling quite good about my skill level¹. But more than anything, I felt like a valued part of the team.

There's also the fact that I've never been any good with my feet. My upper body coordination is quite good though. I juggle (balls and clubs) and in general enjoy skill games. But my feet... I either missed the chance when they were handing out lower body coordination or (more likely) I just needed some more time than the other kids and didn't manage to keep up with the skill curve of those around me.

So I'm glad that I actually get this second chance to practice with my son. My answer to his question yesterday, about why I'm so bad, was that we're going to have to learn together, and he seems to have taken it to heart. Sometimes he even gives me tips about how to kick!

In a recent now update I discussed how I was struggling to related to my son in a positive way. This is a step in a good direction I think.

As I was writing the above it occurred to me how often this happens to us. How often we're stuck being bad at something because we won't let ourselves improve.

Like, I might feel I'm bad at writing so I don't write, but I want to. Or maybe for you it can be the same but with drawing. Or running. Or playing a musical instrument. Or I've lately also read some people are terrified about publishing their code online for fear of being judged.

We often feel "it's too late for me to learn". But that's not true. If I can learn to do proper passes then you can learn anything if you just get out of your own way. I know that I at least need to stop impeding my own growth.

~ 🌱

If I'm allowed, I felt I was actually really good at baseball. The coach would often have me bat when all the bases were filled as I was a consistent home run. Yeah, I'm bragging. Sue me. At the same time, this sort of external validation helped me grow faster, and provided me the self-assurance to try new things. ↩

Sacred Labor

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 12:20:10 GMT

George puffed on his pipe, the aroma of strong tobacco slowly filling the chilly morning air. It was the end of summer but the temperature had started to drop early this year. He sat on his porch watching the sky, as he always did. To anyone looking, the intensity of his gaze might give the impression that he was deeply yearning to be up there amongst the clouds. But of course, there was no one to notice. There had been no one for many years, ever since his wife Petunia passed.

He lived in an old hut in a wooded clearing. There used to be a garden all around the house. Now it was no more than knee high grass in most places, with the only exception being a faint hair of a path that started at the hut and went in the direction of the village. The only sign that someone ever came there.

Unable to stand upright without an effort, George had taken to spending most of his time sitting on his porch. Sun or rain, it was a good bet he would be there. Watching the sky, watching the birds.

He liked birds. He enjoyed their freedom as they flew over the vast endless skies. Watching them made him briefly forget how unlike them he was in his old age.

The birds never came too close to the hut, though they would frequently perch on the trees surrounding it. This had always been so, even when Petunia was around. Once, they'd tried putting a bird feeder on a wooden post in front of their porch, but no bird ever came. Now, the feeder was lost among the tall grasses, the feed long eaten by crawling things. The post still remained though, stout and resolute. A little bit like George, both refusing to give way to the passage of time.

George remembered a group of scientists once came to the village saying they wanted to study a most curious flock of vultures. These, they said, would fly in a strict pattern around other villages in the area, stopping there for some days before moving on to the next. "This in itself is not so strange" said the scientist, "what's really strange is that this flock, and only this flock, stays here during winter while all the other vultures migrate south to warmer climates".

George didn't know what happened to the scientists or whether they discovered anything, or maybe their grants had stopped coming in as he saw no more of them after that season. As far as he knew no one else had heard anything of them.

Still, ever since then George remained watchful for vultures, and whenever he saw them flying high above he was reminded of the scientists who seemed so excited by carrion birds. At other, darker moments, he wondered if, were he to die, who would be first to find him: the vultures or the villagers.

Lately he'd come to see them more and more often. Or so it seemed to him at least. They would circle above the clearing for a while only to fly away without ever landing on any of the trees. He wondered if maybe they were marking the places where their next meal might come from.

On that morning, George saw a large flock of vultures flying high above. "A group of vultures in flight is called a Kettle" he seemed to remember one of the scientists saying.

They flew in a spiral above the clearing, some going in one direction and some the other. From where he sat it seemed their wings briefly melded when they passed in front of each other, and separated shortly thereafter, again and again as if in an elaborate hypnotic dance.

Three specks detached from the rest and came gliding silently to land among the tall grasses. Big birds they were, much bigger than he expected them to be when he first saw them high up. One of them hopped forward and with an elegant flap of it's large wings perched on top of the decrepit bird feeder's post.

George stared at the bird who stared back at him with a piercing expression. Almost human, but not quite. There was something familiar about it. The vulture slowly opened its beak.

"George" said the bird, its beak immobile. The sound seeming to come from behind it.

George sat there trying to decide if the bird had actually talked to him. Something started to bubble up from the back of his mind, an image, a memory, and he immediately recognized the voice and knew why the bird looked familiar.

"Bill? Bill the cobbler?" he said as he felt his pulse quicken, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

"Oh George. It's been such a long time my old friend. We've been watching you for many moons. Ever since your wife passed we've been here, waiting."

The vulture looked and sounded like Bill, and yet not quite like him. It felt removed, as if from a great distance, as if from behind a veil. Still, the spark of him was there.

"Waiting for what? How..." his mind still racing to catch up with the moment.

"Waiting for you to be ready my friend. And we now think you are."

"Ready for what?"

"To join us, of course."

At that, other vultures started to land in the tall grass. Some of them also seemed familiar. Was that Old Rita over there? And Bernie the old thatcher?

A spark of hope alighted on his chest, scorching every other thought out of his mind "Wait, is my dear Petunia with you?"

The bird closed its eyes and shook its head "I'm afraid not George, we don't know where she is, but the wind tells us she is not far. Somewhere in these valleys she lies, but your paths diverge now, and if you see each other it will be only as an echo."

George slumped back into his chair. Silence seemed to stretch like a blanket over them, covering everything in the clearing. Even the grasshoppers stood silent, as if watching with interest what was going on. The vultures sat, staring at him with their piercing eyes of liquid night.

"Join us" said Bill the Vulture.

"Join us" repeated the others in chorus.

A cold wind seemed to blow into George's face, as if a door into a dark and long forgotten place had just been opened. An otherworldly chill ran up his spine.

"You have nothing here, and you know it. You, like this house, are just waiting for an end that is already long overdue. Join us."

George knew Bill was right. After his wife passed he'd lost all interest in life, just moving on from one day to the next, smoking his pipe and watching the sun as it traveled through the sky. He slowly brought his hand to his throat, trying to stop the knot that was forming there.

"How?" he said, his voice breaking a little from the truth.

"We will come again in two weeks time. Fashion a hooded cloak for yourself and be ready." croaked bill. George noticed that the more Bill spoke the more he sounded like a bird and less as a human.

"And George, this is the only thing you will be able to take with you" Bill croaked, "make sure it warms you"

With these final words the vultures spread their wings and flew up into the sky. George watched them and was surprised to realize he felt sad at their leaving. He knew at that moment that what he most wanted was to go with them, to move on, to not be alone anymore. As brief at it was, their visit had brought something into his life that he'd been missing for a long time.

"Look for us at sunrise." came a far away croak from Bill.

George stood immobile for some time, letting what had happened sink in. Seeing some of his old friends made him better appreciate all the loneliness he'd felt these past few years. But with him they also left a spark of hope: they will be back soon, and he will no longer be alone.

George went inside and sprinkled some tea leaves in a pot with water and put it to boil. Petunia never liked to have leaves floating around in her tea, but he didn't mind. As he waited, his mind started to think about the cloak. It seemed to him that a fever had come over him, an obsession almost, and he could think of nothing else.

Finally the water boiled, he poured the tea into a cup. As it cooled he went in search of the tools he'd need for what he was planning to do. When living out by yourself one always has thread and needle handy as stitching is an essential skill out here. He never got any good at it though, and now with his atrophied fingers it would be harder than ever.

He stood with needle and thread in his hands for long while, thinking of where to start. The tea cold and all but forgotten when he suddenly got an idea, as if a flash, an image of Petunia's wedding dress.

It didn't take much for him to find it among the few things he kept in a memory box in his closet. He took it downstairs and spread it on the table. Taking a sip of the cold tea he admired how beautiful it still was, and remembered how Petunia looked in it. Taking the old but serviceable pair of scissors from the cupboard he set to work and cut out large strips from the dress's flowing skirt, and a large cutout from the bodice. The scissor squeaking constantly in his hands as he worked.

George's hands would frequently cramp up, forcing him to stop and rest. Rough knuckled fingers, unable to fully open, with only but a shadow of the strength they used to have in their youth.

It was slow going, and the pain would've been grueling in a normal situation, but for some reason he didn't mind right now. It was as if some other will but his own was guiding his actions. He had no idea why he was cutting the shapes he was, but he knew exactly where they were meant to go. The strips on his shoulders, like feathers, the flattened bodice would be part of the chest covering.

He fell asleep at the kitchen table as he worked, and continued working as soon as he got up. In the morning of the second day he suddenly realized he was done with the dress, now the cloak called for something else. He sat trying to think of where else could he source materials from for a long time, but nothing came to him, everything he thought of seemed inappropriate. Then, in the middle of the night of the second day he suddenly woke up with a flash, an image of the bed cover on which him and Petunia had spent so many chilly afternoons sipping hot cocoa and chatting of small things.

The same process repeated itself with more and more items. For every new item that he added he felt the strengthening of the intuitive connection that was guiding him along in the process. After the bed cover was done, the flashes came freely and frequently. He noticed that all of the items where ones that had some emotional connection with his life, all of which brought him warmth.

Then came the stitching part. Again, he had no idea how or why he was doing what he was, but he'd come to trust his hands by then, and just let them do as they will. He spent most of the remaining days stitching. Alternating between carefully joining pieces of fabric and getting flashes of where and how to place them, as if heard from a voice far away, or deep within. No two strips where the same, each having its specific and perfect place and function.

Eventually, by the morning of the day before the vultures said they'd be back he had a beautiful cloak. While looking at it he got the impression that he had grown it in the same way that humans grow hair, or birds grow feathers. He had no idea how, but it had sprung from him. It was, in many ways, a part of him.

The frayed cloth of the strips did indeed make it look like they were feather covering all of his back and shoulders. The cloak laid on the kitchen table and he admired just how truly perfect it was, much more than he expected or that his skill should allow for. He yearned to put it on, and as he did he felt how thick and warm the fabric was, how soft and yet sturdy. He felt strong wearing it. Not younger, but more as if a fire was lit within him and fed into his every limb, out of every pore.

As his fingers stroked the different parts of the cloak he could tell where each piece had come from, filling his mind with memories of good things. He spent all of that day wearing the cloak and admiring it for what it was. By the end of the day, warmth started to thaw his heart. He realized just how cocooned within himself he'd been. Protecting himself from feeling, cutting himself out. But now, he was ready to open, to be connected with life once again.

Come night he slept in his bed for the last time, and dreamt dreams of happiness, but not nostalgia, more as a flower that's ready to bloom, to transform and leave back fond memories of what was before in favor of the miracle of the future. He also dreamt stranger things. Dreams of feathers and beaks, of talons scraping the dirt. Him looking at his own pale face, the beak entering a wet something, tearing at sinew, flying over high above and a flower, a bright rosy petunia standing on a hill not far away. His Petunia.

As soon as sunlight started to color the edge of his windows he got up and donned his cloak over his bare skin. It was strangely warm, and seemed to have changed in the night to a much darker texture, or maybe it was just a trick of the light and the coldness of the air.

He opened the door with the intention of waiting for the vultures, got outside and stared at the sky as he leaned on the porch's railing. It was clear as far as he could see, except for a few clouds set ablaze from below by the morning sun. He fidgeted with the cloak thinking that perhaps he'd imagined the whole thing, that in his old age he'd finally cracked, that the vultures never really came to him. Terror filled his heart at the wavering of that hope which had kindled within it. But then he heard it, a rustle in the grass.

Looking down he saw that what he had initially taken to be normal shadows on the grass where in fact birds, vultures big and small. Scores of them sitting still as statues with their beady eyes watching him, waiting expectantly. George knew, that these were all like he, lost souls the flock had saved.

In front of them all was Bill, who was looking up at the sky. George followed his gaze and saw up above a single lone speck flying in spirals above them all. He knew this was no normal vulture, nor was it a lost soul like him. A shepherd it was, and George was filled with longing to join her.

Without really knowing what he was doing he got on the porch's railing, squatting as a bird might on a tree branch. His eyes ever upward and didn't see as the birds in front of him opened their wide wings, urging him on, as if with their silent and steady beat they could propel him onwards, and upwards.

A final fiery impulse filled George veins, his heart yearning for the soaring wind, and the company of that shepherd up above. He spread his cloak as if wings, as if it were the most natural of motions, and leapt. He soared up, and up, and he saw with amazement that he was not alone. All around him were the vultures from his garden, following him, urging him on, welcoming him as brothers and sisters into the flock, and he knew he would never be alone again.

They flew together, following the shepherd, going nowhere but seeing everything. In circles above his house they flew, and in his new vulture mind he knew it was because there was work to do below.

The shepherd flew down and lied on the grass next to a long gray shape. They all flew down and alighted next to her. All waiting silently, giving space for George to pass through and see what it was that was lying in his garden. He looked around himself at his new brothers and sisters and they no longer seemed simple birds but were now his equals. He knew many of them, and felt the warmth and support as would be given to a long lost brother who finally made his way back home. From his point of view now the beaks and eyes expressive, their plumage beautiful and unique, and he knew from their expressions that he still needed to take one last step to be free, and that they would help but he had to begin it alone.

He made his way to the front, and saw with equal mix of horror and relief that it was himself lying on the ground. An old frail body, bent and broken by the years, lying cold and dead amidst the morning dew of the tall grass covered by a cloak that looked sun bleached as if with many days of exposure.

He raised his eyes to the shepherd and knew what had to be done. Before beginning the sacred labor he raised his head and gave out a mighty squawk, and in a hill not far away a bright petunia heard it and was glad her beloved was alone no more.

Vultures are holy creatures.
Tending the dead.
Bowing low.
Bared head.
Whispers to cold flesh,
“Your old name is not your king.
I rename you ‘Everything.’”

~ The poem “Clergy” originally published in the collection "Love Notes from the Hollow Tree" by Jarod K. Anderson

A fortress called Blog

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 18:13:24 GMT

I sometimes feel that what I'm doing here is building a fortress out of words.

Gates of metaphor and battlements of simile. Spiraling towers of chained letters.

All are welcome to come, the gates are always open, but I lie immobile in the center of the main hall, my extremities strung to the floor with consonants and vowels.

All I can do is smile, and spew words, build new towers, new wings, new rooms. Tags, posts, pages, tools, they grow up around me in this my home.

The fortress alive, like a tree it grows, but its roots are not in the dirt but in my mind. From my lips escapes the wind that caresses the leaves ever upward, stretching the branches, making the sapling become a mighty oak overlooking a valley.

And in the distance I see, as through mist, through the haze of words and the approximative nature of language, other castles and fortresses, other constructions. Some bigger than mine, as kingdoms in the sky they seem to me. Others are but humble hovels. It's no matter, to me they're all beautiful and awe inspiring, the efforts of beings springing forth as ripe fruit.

And I know, that at the center of each lies one like me, chained in the deepest of hearts.

We visit each other. And walk and see and talk. Admiring, learning, that's all there is to it. Pausing here to sink into the beauty of a well placed comma, and there to listen to the singing of a rare bird, one that makes its home only here among all other possible places.

And when full, we go back and continue the labor we love, continue building and creating and expanding. For us, and for others, and for the world at large.

The doors are always open. Today you come and see and hopefully, by the end, we will both feel fuller and satisfied with a connection newly made.

Welcome to my fortress called Blog. Tomorrow it will be my turn to visit.

Rescuing a Blackbird

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 12:37:36 GMT

Yesterday while I was away from home my glasses broke where the bridge attaches to the right ring. A bad place for it to break as I can't really tape the parts together without filling my right eye's vision. Thankfully I had my old pair of glasses with me. They worked but anyone who has switched gradations knows it's an uncomfortable business.

As soon as I got home I decided I would at least try to put some super-bonder on them to see if I could get them to stick. I had little hopes as the rim is made of metal, but I thought I would at least try. However, we don't have any in our house so I went to my in-laws to get some. Our houses are right next to one another. We live in the countryside and there's a short fence that divides the two properties.

As I opened the waist-high gate I heard a strange sound. I rushed to see what it was and saw their dog was chasing a blackbird, a Zanate as they're called here. I got there exactly at the moment in which she pinned it to the ground. And at that moment I heard the bird's screams. I'd never really heard a bird scream before. I didn't know it was possible. It's such a different sound from their usual tweet, full of dread and terror. I remember thinking "what is it screaming for? is it expecting someone to come and save it? or maybe just warning others to fly away?"

Their dog let the bird go as soon as she saw me. She looked at me almost as if asking for permission to continue with her sport. Which was surprising to me because she's the kind of dog that usually runs away when you tell her to drop something.

Many people say they're pests (which they are) and wouldn't have stooped themselves to help it. But I was bound to help it, especially after having stumbled upon the scene in such an unlikely manner. I felt it was screaming at me, asking me to help it.

I walked towards them and she stepped back as the bird lay there scared and still. I could see its fast breathing, and its head swiveling this way and that. The dog didn't bother me as I picked up the Zanate, nor did she come close to me while I stood thinking what the hell to do with it.

My first instinct was to turn it over so I carefully did so. I was surprised by how calm and docile (the proper word here might be stunned) it was as it let me examine the underside and the wings, all the time looking at me with that sharp gaze some birds have. I'm little versed in bird health but I didn't see anything immediately wrong with it. No blood, nothing big seemed broken, and the bird eyes had a present expression (though how I could tell this I do not know).

Eventually I decided to put it in a secluded space of the front garden, where the dogs couldn't get to it. I kept my grip loose as we walked through a short fenced passageway lined with hydrangea, the same fence that separates my house from my in-law's. I didn't really block its wings for fear of hurting it. This ended up being a mistake, because the Zanate went from being still to trying to fly away. But either its flying apparatus or its mind were not working well so he just "fell" and then ran into the fence. It ended up in a crumpled mess, trying to squeeze itself into the corner between the floor and the fence.

After some maneuvering I was able to pick it up while blocking its wings. It tried to fly again but once he noticed he couldn't he didn't put up much of a fight. It turned its eye toward me as we walked. I hadn't noticed her but the dog was still behind us watching attentively. I didn't think any of it at the time but it was surprising she didn't jump on the bird as it lay there between the hydrangea.

We got to the front garden and I found a nice little corner in the shade, between a large Camellia, a short hedge, and a stone wall. I lied the Zanate there and it seemed not to really know what was going on. However, it didn't try to fly again and it just sat there looking around. I noticed that it's eyes had changed, it looked drowsy, even beginning to close its eyes a bit as if to sleep, or die. It held its head erect though, so eventually I decided to just leave it be. It was a large bird and the cats don't come here for fear of dogs, so I decided it would be safe enough, and I would check on it in a while.

So I crossed the fence back into my house and went into my office to get some work done. Between one thing and another I mostly forgot about the Zanate and only remembered it when it started to rain. To pour really. Before the rain got too bad I went to check on it and didn't see it where I'd left it. I kind of expected it as I imagined he'd tried to fly away again, but after looking around the spot a bit I couldn't see it anywhere, nor could I see feathers or any other sign of mishap. So I went back home before I got drenched.

Of course, playing detective in the rain is fraught with dangers. It could very well be that the Zanate lay under the hedge and I just didn't see it. But well, I hope he's better now. I dreamt with its screams yesterday, and in my dream I looked for it but couldn't find it anywhere. That's probably why I woke up this morning with an urge to write about it.

Good luck out there little friend 🐦‍⬛

Take care not to tread on those apples

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:43:49 GMT

One of my favorite authors of all time is Ray Bradbury. I enjoy the way he constructs tales, his frenzied kind of storytelling. I first got to know of him by reading the excellent Zen in the Art of Writing, a recompilation of essays around the art of writing stories. He's one of those authors that's really successful at just letting his own subconscious guide the whole process, and trusting the process enough to not get in the way. The best thing, he says, that a writer can do is to be observant, everything else takes care of itself.

...

While falling asleep yesterday, I found myself thinking of a quote I once read from Bradbury. It's a quote that he gave in an interview¹ about Fahrenheit 451 (great book by the way). I'll let the quote speak by itself:

In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

I find this really interesting. The woman was just walking with headphones on, and that was enough to cause such a reaction in Bradbury. I say "just" because for us walking while listening to music or an audiobook is absolutely inconsequential. Actually, it might even be considered to be more in the here-and-now than many of our modern entertainments. To read this quote, in our current technological world, is almost comical. And yet, I think Bradbury hits it right on the head. The anecdote seems to ask: "Why would anyone want to escape such an idyllic afternoon stroll?"

We have a much bigger issue though: our phones. They not only capture the attention of our ears, but also our eyes and ultimately, our thoughts and minds. We've been desensitized to the ordinariness of everyday life. It's become boring. I know it can be so for me, and I imagine it is so for many others. I often find myself taking out my phone just to stare at it, even when there's a perfectly nice thing going on around me. When I'm waiting at a restaurant, or even when I'm playing with my son. The funny thing is that I don't really do anything with it. I just take it out to see if someone has written me anything. This is silly, because very rarely does anyone ever write to me. Then I put the phone back in my pocket for a while, and then the whole scene repeats itself. I sometimes open up Instagram or Reddit to look at things I really don't care much for. Why?

I often wonder what Bradbury would say about the current state of things. We think of our phones as something liberating, something that frees us from the limits of our bodies and allows us to connect with others in ways that wouldn't otherwise be possible. On one hand, that's true, as evidenced by your reading this. However, this freedom also means we're free from two essential limitation of our natural bodies: the world around us and boredom.² I think these two go hand in hand.

This freedom, I think, is way too large for our human minds. Having access to everything we see the details of nothing, we're blind to all but the coarsest shadows and we think that being familiar with them is what being an informed and socially connected human being is all about. But how can we call ourselves "connected" or "realized" if we don't even take time to see the world around us? We take no time to see the beetles scurrying along in our backyard. We're not even familiar with the birds that frequent it! It's like we're living entirely in a world of our own making, which is nothing but a bleak reflection of what's really out there.

Wouldn't it be nice if it weren't so? I know I'm not alone in feeling like this. The hard part is that the path to get there is not clear at all. What are we to do? The truth is that leaving our phones in a drawer is not really the solution, nor are they the entire problem. If we abandoned our phones I'm sure the overall situation would improve, but the basic issue is a problem of habit. Were we to give up our phones we would soon find ourselves being distracted by something else. Sure, maybe it's something healthier that offers less immediate gratification, but wouldn't it be nice if we could be really observant, present with the things around us?

This reminds me of another quote by Bradbury, this one from Zen in the Art of Writing:

[...] ideas lie everywhere, like apples fallen and melting in the grass for lack of wayfaring strangers with an eye and a tongue for beauty, whether absurd, horrific, or genteel.

May we all be on the lookout for fallen apples then. May we all strive not to squash them under our boots as we trample through life.

I tried looking for a link to the interview but wasn't able to find it. If you know which one it is then please do let me know! ↩
There's much to be said about how boredom has basically become to be perceived as one of the greatest evils in our modern world. We should avoid boredom at all costs. Just a couple of weeks ago I heard someone say that "boredom" was a bad word, and she meant it. ↩

piclog.blue walkthrough on Android

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 15:09:57 GMT

I've been using piclog.blue for some months now and I really love it. I don't know why I feel the need to keep two photo libraries. I guess one is for high quality photos and the other is more for the whole poetic aspect of low resolution and limited color images. I don't know, I like that it leaves a lot of the beauty to be interpreted by the person that's looking at the picture. I first stumbled upon it a long time ago while reading Rat's blog. I remember at the time thinking "what is this crap? You can't even see the subject in the photo clearly". However, as time went on I started to get the appeal.

For those that don't know, piclog is one of the many projects made by the prolific m15o (also author of Status Cafe, The Midnight Pub, and many others). It's a really simple platform where you can upload images, one image at a time, and associate it with a caption, and the image gets downscaled quite a lot after uploading. That's it. No likes, comments, or reshares. You can then see your piclog on your profile page, or embed it into your site. For example, here's my latest piclog

The sad thing about piclog is that not many people use it. At least not nearly enough as I think should! The home feed is pretty static. In my estimation, I would say that around 20 images are posted every day, which is a shame! I think the main reason why people don't use it is because it's hard for non-technical users. When uploading an image you need to upload one that's at most 50kb (or something like that) and modern phone cameras take images that are multiple orders of magnitude larger. This means that a user would usually need to take a photo and then somehow downscale it to fit the platform's constraints before being able to even upload it.

But, what if I told you that, at least on Android (sorry iOS friends), you can tell your camera to take really crappy pictures. Usually that's not something you would do, but it's perfect for us. However, you don't want to change your default camera settings, as that would mean that you would then need to switch them back whenever you wanted to take a nice, full picture. Instead, what you can do is install a separate camera application and use that as your piclog camera.

...

Now, I'll tell you how I did it, but you might very well opt to do it some other way. Let me know if you think of something better.

First of all, we need to decide which camera app we'll use as our piclog camera. After some (shallow) research I decided to use Open Camera. It's open source, and you can download it both from Google Play store or F-Droid.

Then, you need to open Open Camera (heh) and change the settings to take low resolution images. These below are the settings that worked for me, but depending on the native quality of your camera you might need to adapt them as needed. An easy way is to play with these and then take a picture, and see how "big" that picture is.

In Open Camera's settings (gear icon on the top right):

Open Photo settings
- Set Camera resolution (the very first item) to 960x720 (4:3, 0.69MP)
- Set Image quality to 50%
- Ensure Image format is JPEG

And that's it! Really simple, right? Now you can go ahead, take a crappy picture and upload it to piclog, and it should just work. No need to use separate software or anything beyond the camera app.

Happy piclog-ing! 📸

PS: For easy access, I created a "group" on my navigation bar (I think that's how the bar at the bottom of the screen is called). Now I can access both cameras easily, and the muscle memory is basically the same. Quite handy!

LLMs, Infinite Monkeys, and Shakespeare

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 03:31:22 GMT

I've had this idea going around my head for a while that the infinite monkeys writing Shakespeare are not really, in fact, writing Shakespeare. To a reader it may seem so, or even to an external observer, but the monkey has no greater or lesser perception about what it's doing, no difference between the indifferent smashing of keys, and the indifferent smashing that produces poetry.

It is true that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Not only beauty but also meaning, emotion, interpretation, and, ultimately, the experience of the whole thing. But there's also experience at the moment of creation, of conception of an idea. Why, it's probably more important what Shakespeare felt when he put words of love and wrath in the mouths of his characters than what bored students feel when they're forced to read his works as part of their high school curriculum. Isn't the boredom of the student (and often the entire lack of attention) akin to the mindless smashing of the monkey? It's just going in the opposite direction.

Same for LLMs then. They're smart (or at least sound smart). They write well (or so it seems to us). But does an LLM really write Shakespeare? Or is it just another monkey smashing out that work email you're too lazy to write yourself?

Not really related to the above, but while writing it I thought how easy it is to become dependent on AI to review what you write. It makes sense; you have someone that's happy and always available to check your work, so you take advantage of it. But feedback starts coming in (hallucinated or otherwise), and it slowly starts adding up. When you realize it, you're now more self-conscious than ever about your work, and the loop keeps feeding itself.

While thinking of this, the following just happened

Be free my love

Heed not the words of the hateful raven that in mimicry of the great ones spews letters of rage and bliss, but no meaning perceives in them

Cold is it's heart, not out of cruelty but out of a complete lack of meaning

Your deepest, most secret words, unable to reach it

Leave it be I tell you

Be your own your self

Be free

You don't need AI to tell you that you're great! You are great, trust me.

Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:30:39 GMT

I've been listening to a book called On Writing, by Stephen King. At the end of one of the chapters he gives a very prescient quote "Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around".

Holy shit. That's so true. Things happen, and we want to do other stuff. Our attention is pulled this way and that, constantly bombarded by the cool next thing, and what suffers is our art.

For most people, art only happens when we're excited about it, when there's some underlying motivation mechanism. For example, it's very common that people make a blog and their excitement about the whole thing propels them for the first weeks, months, or even years. But once the excitement splutters out, it's done. Dead. I know this is what happened to me. Many times I've felt that my blog is on some kind of life support, with me just refusing to let it go by adding pictures and cleaning up the site.

Another thing King's quote brings up is the crucial fact that we need to make space for it. It seems to say if you want to make art, then allow yourself to do it. However, making space is not as simple as that, as it goes contrary to our common impulse of just following the next thing that gives us satisfaction. It actually goes counter to either what is our nature as humans, or a deeply engrained cultural maxim.

I think another way to express this is how we need to get out of our own way. All the stuff we pile on top of ourselves is often too much, and all the overthinking, demotivation, and the well known impostor syndrome just make things harder than they need to be.

For the past few days I've been writing in my journal about my desire for picking up writing again but not really being sure where to start. I think part of the problem is that I'm aiming maybe too high? Not allowing myself to start small.

When I originally started my blog I literally didn't give a shit. I didn't care about what I wrote, I just cared about writing, about saying something, ANYTHING, no matter what it was. For a while this kept me going, writing mostly miscellaneous essays and whatnot, and only later did I start doing morning pages.

Morning pages... Beautiful in their own way, but they completely overhauled the way in which I write. I shifted to NOT doing dedicated essays but just writing random stuff in my journal, and if something nice came out, then that part would find its way into my blog with little to no editing.

But writing in a dedicated fashion is great. Writing with a goal is really hard for beginners, or at least it is for me. In morning pages, my content tends to be really rambly, going round and round. Every once in a while, a topic sticks for multiple paragraphs, and that's usually when it's something worth posting. However, I've always felt that training oneself to write about a single thing is crucial. Otherwise one has the situation that I'm in now, where I want to do stuff but I have no idea where to start or how to proceed. I can't count how many times I've Googled "how to get started with creative writing" in the past couple of months. I eventually desist when I find the answer is always "just start writing something".

In many ways, right now I'm in the perfect environment to work on my writing. Maybe that's why it cropped up? I'm on vacation, with good chunks of my evening free, and with energy. Especially in this current moment I'm in a very nice place, writing from a terrazza overlooking the center of Rome, with the Basilica of San Pietro clearly visible in the distance, arrayed in all its prettiest shades of sunset.

I'm not sure what I'm getting at. Not even sure if this will actually end up being a post on my blog—as I'm saying I want to write dedicated things but at the same time this is being created as part of my "morning pages". At the same time, why not... Though I have to admit that I've been writing a lot about writing and I don't like it that much. Why? I'm sure there's something I'm trying to express or talk myself into, but no amount of speaking is a substitute for action. Perhaps what I'm trying to do is to get so frustrated with it that I finally get off my metaphysical ass and do something about it!

What I do know is that I look back on those days of just posting for the hell of it with wistful envy.

~ 🌱

The power of thoughts

Sat, 31 May 2025 14:11:02 GMT

This week, my wife and kids went to visit my sister-in-law who lives at the beach, meaning I've had an inordinate amount of time for myself. I have to admit I feel guilty about it! They'll be coming home later today, and that got me wondering about how different (but at the same time how similar) this week has been for me.

The first thing I noticed is that when the kids are here I always feel like I don't have time to do stuff. But now that they're not here I still feel like I don't have that much time! Sure, I do a bit more stuff, but it doesn't feel drastically different. Perhaps that's just the nature of time, or perhaps I'm using my kid-free time for things I don't really want to do (e.g. work)?

Something else I realized is that this week I've been a lot less irritated. It makes sense, of course, as I am here by myself without anyone or anything to irritate me. I've found this to be especially noticeable in my mornings, where I think I'm extra susceptible to what my kids do, or keep me from doing. It's so easy to get frustrated with them! I hope that now that they come back, and now that I know this about myself, I will be more able to stay grounded in our interactions.

Staying grounded is the goal, as once you swing out of your center then it's much harder to find your way back. On the other hand, hyper-fixating is a trap and will cause the rug to be pulled from under your feet. We'll see how it goes. But having kids is definitely a stressful hobby. Beautiful, but taxing.

...

Yesterday I was showing my niece and nephew a new project I'm working on where I use text-to-speech technologies to create audio versions of my blog posts using my own voice (I'll probably write more about this in a future post). I was curious to know if they felt the artificial voice really sounded like me. They both said it sounded similar, but not quite exactly the same.

My niece said my real voice just sounds so much happier than the TTS one. She said that my voice always sounds happy. It got me wondering that how they see me is probably not the same way as I see myself. Especially with them, I always feel I'm so... Ironic? Lofty? I don't like it, but it's a kind of wall or shield I put up so as to not be my full loving self. Why I do it I have no idea. Perhaps I think it makes me look cooler in their eyes? Embodying such an ironic persona protects me from having them see my failures and weaknesses. Perhaps I'm chasing after their approval in some twisted mind game?

"My voice is always so happy". Maybe they don't perceive my ironic facade, and instead see me as I should see myself? The faults that we want to hide are often the most evident ones after all. Perhaps the only person I'm fooling is myself... I wonder if they can perceive my internal struggle, wanting to be the cool uncle.

I should be more myself with them. In many ways this ties in with what I was talking about above regarding being centered. How we see ourselves definitely affects how we act. Do I see myself as a calm, grounded person? Do I accept my own faults or try to hide them with flaky wax? Do I see myself as loving?

In the moment, it doesn't matter if I aspire to be happy or compassionate, or truthful. What matters is how I think of myself, how I label myself, in the present. That's the thing through which my actions will be filtered before acting on the world itself. How do I see myself? And how can I see myself as I want to be?

A common phrase in spiritual circles is a variation on "you already are perfect" (e.g., Buddha mind or bodhicitta, atman, etc). Everything you have is already here. Everything. How you choose to label it is up to you.

We all have hate and anger, greed, and violence inside of us. But we also have love, happiness, compassion, wonder, awe. I would say we have them in the same measure, and it's only how we choose to label ourselves that changes how much each of these expresses itself.

A person that views themselves as wicked will do wicked things. If a wicked person repents and changes to see themselves as saved, they're bound to become a more considerate and compassionate being. But what happened with all that wickedness? Did it burn out or is it still inside of them? One would say it's the same person after all, no? But, ah, no. The person is a different one, because the core way in which they were labeling themselves has changed.

I think this goes to show just how important it is how we think of ourselves. How, ultimately, that's who we are.

The good thing is that we can choose. We can reflect on how we think, and choose to think differently. It's not all that easy, but it definitely can be done. I myself have experienced substantial shifts in my own idea of myself over the course of my life, and I would bet most other people have as well. What changed? Life is like a river that erodes us into a shape of its own choosing. And as a leaf in a river, we're powerless to resist the currents of life, nor should we. That way only lies resentment, dissatisfaction, and insanity. When reframing our own idea of ourselves, we should roll with the punches so to speak, and embrace the entirety of our lives.

How to do it then? I have no idea. But in my little experience, I know some things that help, and all of them involve getting a bit out of yourself to examine this idea of who you think you are. Psychedelics help, as do meditation and journaling.

I haven't done lots of psychedelics. Only 3 times I can actually say I was blown out of my head. During one of these, I had a strong experience where my mind was clear as the space around your hands, and I could see this thing that I called me, my ego, and all the unbelievable pressures that made it into what it is. I also saw how this me was just another idea. Just an idea. Just a thought floating in my head.

We are just a thought of who we think we are.

Of course, it's easy to say all this and feel holy and whatnot when one is feeling good, when one is high or calm. But the true challenge comes when life doesn't go according to one's plans. How can we maintain these ideas when one is angry, or depressed?

A suggestion I've found useful in these cases is the metaphor of seeing your true self as clear sky, and the anger and depression as dark stormy clouds. You could be in a situation where dark clouds is all you see, from dawn to sunset, but the perfect clear sky is still beyond, still there, waiting. That doesn't make the anger or depression go away, it in fact recognizes it as what it is: just a passing cloud. Eventually it will pass, and the sky will be visible once more.

I think this exercise does something that's really useful for any person struggling with depression or anxiety or what have you: it separates you from identifying with your negative feelings. The moment you feel you are that depression then you're lost. But if you recognize your depression as a cloud, as a passing mood on the perfect clarity of your own self, then you know that the best thing to do is wait for it to blow past, not taking it personally. Not telling yourself "ah I'm such a horrible person because I feel this and this". It's just a mood, a temporary cloud.

Again, this is all easy to say when one is feeling good. I know well that, when in the midst of the cloudy weather, it's really hard to see past it, if not impossible. That's why we should try to reflect and internalize these things when we're feeling well, so they may echo in our heads when we need them. And even if the echo sounds useless (as it often does), it nonetheless offers the opportunity for us not to identify with the clouds. It won't make them go away, but it does kindle the flame of hope.

... ☁ ...

In many religions there's a practice that is basically "repeating the name(s) of God". There's a nice story about this I heard not long ago that I think merits retelling here¹.

One day, an Indian saint was talking to a group of lay-people about the importance of constantly repeating the names of god. Suddenly, a man from the congregation rose up and loudly said

"Why do we have to repeat the names of god? What good will that do? It's just a simple word, it seems silly to expect it will have any effect."

The saint sat still for a moment, and then his face turned to anger and said:

"You're such an idiot for not getting my message. I don't want any imbeciles in my congregation, please go away immediately."

The man was of course taken aback by the harsh reaction, and immediately got angry at having been insulted in such a way.

"Oh yeah? You call yourself a holy man and yet insult me with such vile words?!"

The man rose up and, out of respect for those around him, decided to leave rather than pick a fight with the saint. Fuming, he started to walk towards the door.

As soon as his hand touched the door, the saint called him by name. The man turned, now itching for any excuse to return insults to the man who had wronged him. But as soon as he saw the saint he was surprised and all his feeling of malevolence quickly evaporated, as the saint was now smiling, and his eyes were twinkling as if he had just pulled a particularly funny prank.

"Sit down sit down" said the saint amiably "You ask why repeating the name of god works, and I've just showed you"

The man sat down again, but didn't really understand what the saint meant. Before he could ask for clarification, the saint went on.

"You see, I just showed you the power of what you call simple words. I filled your head with negative words and see how easily you got upset, you couldn't think of anything but hateful things" chuckled the saint.

"Now, imagine what happens if instead you fill your head with the purest love of all, the name of God."

...

I think this is so on point. I'm not a particularly theistic person, but even I can clearly see how this story rings true. Imagine if you were to constantly repeat the word "love" or some other phrase that had especially strong positive connotations for you, and contrast that with the kinds of things we usually tell ourselves: I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy, nobody likes me, I'm not interesting, people don't like me, and on and on and on and on. I know I myself am always critiquing myself. What do these words do to my own mental state? And more importantly, what do they do to this idea of what I think about myself?

I believe that the way life erodes us is by affecting our thoughts, and then our thoughts are the ones that erode our labels. To a firmly positive person, any occurrence in life will be experienced drastically differently than to a firmly negative person. Your mental state is one thing, but the way in which you see yourself will be the way in which you interpret anything that happens to you.

Think happy thoughts. Use them as the antidote for your usual mind processes.

~ 🌥

Note that this paraphrased as I I don't really remember where I read it or who the saint/swami in question was. If you do know then please ping me so I can add proper attribution! ↩

The two headed eagle

Sun, 04 May 2025 18:16:37 GMT

The following is an excerpt from The Heart is Noble by Ogyen Trinley Dorje (the 17th Karmapa). I thought it was especially prescient (though perhaps all that have heard this story have thought it applied perfectly to their time).

[...] The first [story] is of a two-headed eagle; lets call it an American bald eagle. This eagle had two heads. We know from biology that each head naturally has its own brain, but this two-headed, two-brained eagle had only one body. (Sorry, this is funny science, I know!) The two heads had different ways of seeing the world, and they didn't much care for each other. In fact, they each really wanted the whole body to themselves. Each head started scheming ways to get rid of the other.

One day, this two-headed bird landed near some poison. Each of the heads leapt at this opportunity to do away with the other.

Each tried to entice the other to eat the poison, describing how delicious it was and courteously inviting the other to treat himself to it. Finally one of the heads—the less persuasive one, I guess— gobbled up the poison. But of course, this act poisoned the whole body that they shared. They were each so focused on their own self-centered aims and their dislike of one another that they forgot that they shared the same body.

Introducing Mochi — and thoughts on analytics and webmentions

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 14:23:36 GMT

I've been working on a new personal project for some months now. It started when I migrated my blog from Bearblog to a custom, statically generated site. I'm not one to obsess about analytics (but god knows I have done so in the past) but I do care about when other people comment on the things I've written in their own blogs. I'm always happy to read what they say, be it good or bad.

There's a cool technology floating around the Indie Webs called Webmentions, that is supposed to address exactly that issue. You write a post that tags my post and then let me know about it by sending an HTTP request to my Webmentions server. Sounds awfully technical for the average non-technical user, and it is.

I spent some time researching this and saw a pretty clear pattern: webmentions have been set up for almost all sites whose authors have a technical background (often using a custom built server). But in the sphere of non-technical bloggers, almost no one has the ability to receive webmentions.

Granted, there are some cool projects out there, (most notably webmentions.io) that try to make it easy for anyone to add a webmention endpoint, all through a web UI. Still, it's not super clear how to use it. Though it's good that it exists. From what I've seen this is the service that most non-technical people use.

But all of this is about "receiving" webmentions. The sending of webmentions is actually more complex and harder to do for the average non-technical person. The best solution I found for this is webmention.app, that finds and sends webmentions for every link in a given page. Still, it's a manual process, as the user needs to go to the app every time they want webmentions to be sent. It works, but it's tedious, meaning people won't do it consistently. There's the ability to automate it, but you need to write a script, which again is a barrier for non-technical folks.

At the time I was also experimenting with different analytics services, most notably Tinylytics and Umami. Both were great but I absolutely loved Tinylytics. So clean and simple to use. No weird, complex options. I realized that up until now my experience with analytics was constrained to corporate analytics: complex platforms catering to the "marketing department" with tools to improve revenue. Here, in Tinylytics, I'd found a platform that was truly aimed at the small web, with the average personal blogger in mind.

So I set up Tinylytics on my site, but at the same time I could feel a seed starting to germinate in the back of my mind: "how does it work?" As always, I gave myself to this thought and started experimenting with how I could go about building a simple analytics platform. It turned out to be a good technical challenge: hard enough to be fun, but easy enough not to be frustrating.

Functionality wise, the first version of Mochi was pretty much a carbon copy of Tinylytics, with some minor changes to accommodate the UX to my own personal preferences. Around this point I realized that I'd built a platform that could be useful for others, but I didn't really want to make it public yet. It being so similar to Tinylytics, I felt it was "immoral". So I sat on it. I kept using it as my analytics platform on my blog, but never announced it anywhere. I told myself I would keep it private until/unless it became a drastically different platform. For some months it was relegated to the background, I kept hacking on it when I had time, inspiration, or a bug, but it otherwise stood untouched. That is, until I started to seriously consider having it support Webmentions. In the past I'd of course already heard about them and even set up a webmentions endpoint with webmentions.io, but I quickly grew discouraged with the technology, as everyone seemed to have webmentions set up, but no one was sending them. I just put it down as another failed attempt at bridging the gap between the islands that are personal blogs.

Then I somehow stumbled on the spec. "Holy shit, this is really easy to implement and it would be a great feature for Mochi"! It became apparent that any analytics platform for the indie web also needed to support both the sending and receiving of webmentions.

After some more months of hacking I think I can now say that Mochi is that platform I envisioned all those months ago. I'm making this post as an invitation to anyone that wants to try it out. The project is open source and in the near future I really want to make it possible for anyone to easily self-host it should they want to.

Anyway, that's it 🤗 if you do decide to try it out please let me know of any issues you encounter! The platform has some peculiar design choices (more on them below), and I don't know how the system will behave under stress. Currently, I'll only allow a max of 20 accounts to be created so I can see what happens, but if everything is stable then I'll quickly raise this number.

Oh, and I know some people don't like analytics. Know that you can still use the webmentions functionality without using the analytics tracker!

Notes on technical details

Mochi is built in Golang, which allows for building and distributing a single binary that's easy to deploy and lowers the entry barrier to self-hosting.

The main experiment I'm running with Mochi is the database: I'm using SQLite. This is mainly out of personal curiosity as I really want to see how the simpler SQLite holds up in this kind of application. To get around the "single concurrent writes" limitation what I'm doing is having a separate database file per user, and then there's a shared database for less common operations (e.g., user settings and webmentions). Having one DB per user turned out to be a neat idea as it also enforces privacy (data from one user is very unlikely to be shown to another), and it makes exporting and deleting a user really easy and safe (just export/delete their db file).

I think this should work, though the whole thing is still bound by the filesystem I/O speed. That's why I'm slowly increasing the allowed amount of accounts. We'll see. If it goes well I might do a follow-up post, as I think using SQLite is easier/better in most cases than requiring a more "powerful" hosted DB like PostgreSQL.

Another thing I'm experimenting with here are alternative modes of notifications. We all know that email is the golden standard, but from a developer's point of view it's so darn tedious to set up! So I thought "there are so many other communication services out there, why not use one of those?". So, for Mochi, I've initially decided to send notifications through a Discord bot. Not only is it free (sending emails can get expensive) but it was also extremely easy to set up, and it also gave me a chance to play with the Discord bot API 😊

Of course, the drawback here is that not everyone uses Discord, while most people do have email. But well, that's the benefit of building something that's "free", I can do what I want and I don't have any stakeholders telling me to do otherwise. I might start adding other notification backends in the future (Telegram? Mastodon?)

My dog doesn't want to take her medicine and a comment on Karma Yoga

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 02:42:04 GMT

This evening I tried giving my dog some of her epilepsy medicine, but she just didn't want to take it. I tried all the tricks I know and nothing worked. I even put peanut butter and lasagna in her bowl! But she would just sniff at it and then turn around to lie down or go see what the cat was doing. I imagine she was probably feeling ill, but I couldn't help getting slightly angry with her.

I'm sure I must've looked quite silly to a centered/grounded person. Getting angry with a dog, for being a dog. I guess I thought that maybe I could get her to take it if I tried hard enough, but the fact that she didn't, while I wanted her to, made me angry.

I thought about it while in the midst of the anger, and of the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna repeatedly tells Arjuna to "dedicate all of the fruits of his labor to him". A hard thing to do, but I can see how, if one is attached to the expected result of one's action, we can easily get frustrated or angry when said result doesn't happen.

Is the opposite case true? I imagine it is. If I get what I expect then I'm either happier (satisfied) for it or entirely indifferent. In the happier case, I could still become attached to the fruits of my labor. Example: a sculptor being attached to their creation, or a writer to their notebook. Or even being attached to the feeling of goodness that comes when one does something successfully. This attachment is of course a source of disillusionment later on.

I don't know if it is actually in the Gita or I read it somewhere else (maybe some commentary; possibly by Ram Dass or Eknath Easwaran), but there's this really cool metaphor: a person plants a seed but it is not the person that "grows" the seed, rather, it's God/universe. Having this in mind, Krishna's words take on a slightly different interpretation: don't get attached to the outcomes, as you have absolutely no control or power over them. You may play a role in facilitating the preconditions for something to happen (plant the seed; mix peanut butter with the epilepsy medicine and put it in a bowl), but what exactly happens is out of our hands (the plant grows into a flower or a weed, or doesn't grow at all; my dog eats the peanut butter and her medicine—or not).

The thing is we of course have an idea of what should happen, which is informed by previous experience. In my experience my dog almost always eats the peanut butter. But sometimes, things go differently. We forget about the fact that this "experience" is just a historical note. We start treating these patterns as an absolute, and get upset when things go otherwise than we expect.

I think in great part this is a lack of humility on our part. We lack humility to constantly remember that what is around and inside us is, ultimately, a mystery.

Baptized by the setting sun

Sat, 22 Mar 2025 02:26:26 GMT

Flocking towards the water
Pulled by currents we do not see
All joined in a sacred dance we do not understand
Look at the sun, going beyond the sea

The beat of a wing
The lapping of water
Sirens in the distance
A calm surface

All pilgrims, baptized by the setting sun

The deep rumble of a ship's horn
Shakes the water, shakes my soul
Waking me up from a deep sleep

How long will it last?

This poem came to me during a work trip to Seattle. After a long day at the office I found myself walking aimlessly around the city and stumbling, by chance, on a small beach where other people (most alone or in couples) had come to see the setting sun. The whole thing was quite unexpected, which got me thinking of this idea of people being pulled to watch the sunset rather than them going of their own volition.

Here are some other pictures, though I'm afraid they don't do it justice!

On Craving Love

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 02:07:43 GMT

Something I've been thinking about a lot these days is love. Love is a very loaded word, so let me try to disambiguate. I started this line of thought actually wondering what love even means. Love is sexual, it is romantic, it is sacred, it is also personal and communal at the same time. It's a tricky thing. I boiled it down to love being the feeling you get when someone really cares about you. Or at least that's what being loved feels like. Giving love is similar.

I've been wondering to myself about this craving I have for love. On the surface it can seem like craving for sexual satisfaction, horniness if you will, but that's not the entirety of it. The actual main component is the desire of being embraced, totally and completely. Sure, sex is an excellent vehicle for this as it breaks down our usual barriers and allows us to more easily be one with the other, but sex is not the only way. I imagine many people actually get this feeling from their religion (i.e., being loved by God or feeling one with nature), and many possibly get it from other places: being valued at work, kids, community...

This made me realize actually how rare it is for someone to love (in this way) someone else! We are almost always thinking just about ourselves, pursuing the next thing that (we think) will make us happy. We're utterly consumed by this effort, day and night. Imagine how much of a difference you would make if you allowed yourself to love, really love, those around you?

Love is not a promise of safety, nor is true love a monogamous thing. Real love goes beyond that and is an unconditional way of saying, "This life is infinitely better for having you in it."

Well then, the question becomes how to do it. I don't really have the answer, but (as pointed above) I think we do know why we don't do it: because we're too centered on our own shit. It's unlikely that we'll manage to get rid of our stuff during this lifetime, so perhaps the best way to get out of this attitude is to recognize that same shit in everyone else.

Of course, this is hard, as we don't really want to deal with more stuff than we're already dealing with. I don't mean to say one should look for how others suffer (though there's plenty to find there), more that we should see our shared humanity, see how we're all just craving to be loved, how we're all scared of the things we don't understand, how we all desire to be happy in the deepest core of ourselves, to be loved. From this recognition springs compassion, for others and oneself, and compassion is the bridge over which true connections can be made.

That's something I really like about blogs, that you really get to see this shared humanity right there on the page. You see the author dealing with the same stuff you're dealing with, and you see them fail over and over and over, and yet you never stop rooting for them, wishing they could see how awesome they really are.

If you can¹, think about how much you want to be loved, then think about how little love others around you are receiving.

~ 🌱

It should also be said that loving others is much easier if one feels good with oneself. Take care of yourself first, but keep these ideas in mind as you do so. ↩

Love what you think are your weaknesses

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 02:50:41 GMT

Yesterday, while driving back home, I had the realization that I should love all the things I usually don't love about myself.

For example, I've always envied those who can keep a crowd's attention and awe with just their voice. I'm unable to do this. Sometimes I can be very outgoing, but most of the time I do suffer from social anxiety which keeps me back from exploding as my real self. However, this has also given me the space to observe more deeply how people feel and what they do. I think that because of this I've developed a pretty good ability at judging emotions and motivations. I guess I envy extroverts because it's something I feel is desirable (maybe a cultural influence), but the truth is that I really do love this part of myself. I should embody it more, bring it in more, and even leverage the alternative forces it provides rather than trying to become something that has never really felt natural. Be grateful rather than ashamed.

There's also my fear and aversion of medical things and my tendency towards hypochondria. I've battled with these most of my life and would definitely be happy to see them gone. However, my struggle to find a way to cope with the opposing pressures—which at times felt were causing me to feel I was literally going insane—has also pushed me to find ways to grow as a person, to reflect and meditate. Looking back, I would never have gotten to where I am today without these internal forces, and because of that I love them. Though I would still like to grow past them ☺️

I'm sure there're other things. Lately I've been thinking about whether it would be better for me to write in my main language rather than in English. But the truth is that writing in my native language feels very strange, especially because I almost don't read any literature written in it so my vocabulary is lacking. I'm still learning to love this, but it has indeed forced me to pay closer attention to language in general and to the art of crafting written pieces. Sometimes this thought inhibits me, but some other wonderful times, it sets me free(-er) from the bounds of social norm and cultural conventions.

Love what you think are your weaknesses—they are really your life's main strengths in disguise. They are the forces that push you to become you.

Writing distractions

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 03:55:25 GMT

This morning, my niece (11) shared with me her ideas for a story she wants to write. The story is quite complex—perhaps a bit too complex—and heavily centered around family intrigue, which I'm not entirely a fan of. Still, I was awed by the energy she's pouring into it and into her writing in general. She's really great, and the inspiration she planted in me has been simmering all day.

For a moment, I thought, "Wow, where does she find all the time to work on this?" And then it hit me. Of course—she has no phone, no computer, not even a gaming console. She has nothing but herself.

This morning, she asked her mother if she could use her PC to write the story, but her mom told her she couldn't. Originally, I thought it was silly not to let her, as writing on a computer is a lot faster. But now, I think it's for the best. There's just waaay too much distraction to be found on a PC, and it's possible her story would fizzle out as it dilutes itself among other interests¹.

This is what happens to me, I guess. Way too many things calling for my attention, and I give a bit to all of them. Posts to write, projects to work on, games to play, games to make, photos to clean up, a site to improve, people to catch up with, blogs to read, emails to answer, etc. And I'm happy to do these things, as they do give me pleasure and make me feel fulfilled and meaningful, but at the same time... Ah! So much stuff!

Though it's my own fault—I go out looking for things to occupy my time. Perhaps it's out of a fear of boredom, or perhaps it's a risk-avoidance mechanism, where I keep myself busy so I don't have to do the things I really want to do but am too scared to start (or don't know how to).

The other day, I was talking with my wife about something related to this—how much time we spend in our digital lives—and she proposed we do cellphone-free nights. I might take her up on that offer.

~ 🌱

Something like the Zerowriter looks like an awesome alternative, offering the typing ergonomics of a keyboard, but the distraction free environment of a notebook. Though perhaps just pen and paper ain't so bad. ↩

Feeling worthless and then touching love within myself

Mon, 10 Feb 2025 12:50:18 GMT

Yesterday, I took my father-in-law's car to a lube center at a mall where we had some other errands to run. The guy who attended me was nice, and he took about 30 minutes to check the car and explain all the things they needed to do, and how I should do them immediately. He gave me a huge list of recommended repairs, and the total cost was quite high, around $1k. I went into a slight panic since I really don't know anything about cars or whether what he said was true. I also had no idea if the price they gave me was appropriate.

This triggered my social anxiety to levels I hadn't experienced in a long while. I managed to ask the guy to give me 10 minutes and went to sit in the car. I called my wife, who was with my parents, and told her the whole story. In the end, we decided not to go ahead with any of the repairs at this lube center since it was too expensive. Besides, we needed to talk to my father-in-law first, and the kids were already tired—so we figured it was best to just go home.

I apologized to the guy. He was nice enough, but I could tell he was annoyed. I felt flustered about the whole thing and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

I got in the car and, while reversing to finally leave, I didn't notice an obstacle in my way—one of those metal arms they use to lift cars for oil changes. I drove straight onto it with my front-left tire and immediately heard the hisshhh of high-pressure air escaping. I had punctured the tire. Well, not just punctured—it was completely ruined, with a huge gash on the side that meant I couldn’t just get it repaired. I needed to buy a new one.

I sat there for a second, breathing in and out. Then I looked outside the car and saw everyone in the store staring at me in disbelief. So, I opened the door, plastered a smile on my face, and and went to see how bad it was. Thankfully, the guy who had been helping me was super nice and changed the tire for me (which was fairly quick since they had one of those guns to tighten the bolts (impact wrenches)). Once the spare tire was on, I thanked everyone and got out of there as soon as I could, taking care not to hit anything else on the way.¹

Now, my social anxiety had escalated into a feeling of being a totally incompetent person. Incapable of anything. Worthless. Not just because of my lack of car-knowledge, or because I wasn't able to do normal adult stuff, or because I had just done something really stupid by not paying attention and gashing the tire. But also because my wife and kids were tired, and I had somehow let them down.

I knew these feelings of unworthiness well—I’ve been dealing with them most of my adult life. Usually, I manage to keep them under control, but the situation was just too much for me.

I called my wife, who had been waiting for me with the kids all the while, and explained what had happened while trying not to hit anything on my way out of the parking lot. She was kind enough, but not exactly trilled about that fact that we now had to go buy a new tire before we could go home.

The rest of the day wasn't so bad. The guy who changed the tire for us was very friendly. More than anything, we were just tired (no pun intended). As I distracted myself with other things, the feeling of worthlessness subsided a bit, but it did not go away entirely.

By the time we finished doing everything, it was already 6pm and both kids were exhausted. Our oldest fell asleep almost immediately once we started our ~1h drive back home. There was a lot of traffic so I had time to sit with my feelings.

After about 30min of observing them I started to feel an unexpected warmth of love spreading from my chest until it encompassed my whole body. If I reflected on it then it stopped, so I just let it be to see what would happen.

At this point I remembered a quote by Ram Dass (I think it's from his book Be Here Now) about his feelings of unworthiness and his guru. It went something like this:

Maharaji said to me, "Ram Dass, love everyone and tell the truth." And I looked at him and I said, "I can’t do that. I can’t love everyone." And he just laughed and laughed, because he saw right through me. He saw all the places where I held back my love, all the ways I judged others, and he loved me anyway.

At this thought I started feeling tears swell in my eyes. I realized how I put up this wall to protect me from situations like what had happened today, but this wall also keeps me from allowing others to love me, and (more importantly) from being able to love myself.

I wasn't full-blown crying, but it was a powerful experience. The wonderful thing is that now I feel there's a tiny tiny dent in my armor, where my heart is, and a tiny tiny light has been shining there since then. And, if I give my attention to it, I can feel it, I can feel it grow.

...

It's funny thinking about this in retrospect. At the time my day seemed so awful and I just wanted it to be done, to hide in my bed and hope that tomorrow would be a better day. The thing is that this strong experience of sadness was a necessary precondition for the realization of love that I later had in the car.

For better or for worse, only through suffering will growth come.

Now that I think about it, they seemed quite happy to see me go. I suspect they were worried that I might blame them for leaving the metal arm unfolded and try to demand some recompense. Maybe if I were someone else, I might have. But the truth is, it was as much my fault as theirs. ↩

Blog Question Challenge 2025

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:19:29 GMT

I've seen this Blog Question Challenge going around for a while now, and recently Brandon was nice enough to challenge me! I have no idea where or why the whole thing started, but here we are. I think this came at a perfect time, as I'm trying to re-establish a blogging practice. It's nice having something like this since writing on a fixed outline is easy, almost like eating a cookie. It means I don't really need to think much about what the post will be about, as that has already been decided and outlined for me.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I've had many blogs, and all of them started for the same reason: the desire to write. Especially this last one, on which I write under the name of Meadow, I began because I felt this immense internal pressure to create something. I felt like I was going to burst. Serendipitously, around that same time I discovered Bearblog and I decided to jump right into it. Most influential at this moment were the blogs of eve and tiramisu, who just wrote because they wanted to, without any specific agenda. Eventually I found many other awesome blogs, but these two were honestly the reason why I decided that blogging would be a good outlet for this energy I was feeling, and also the reason why I discovered Bearblog in the first place.

All my other attempts at blogging have followed a similar vein, but in none of the others have I found a community of other bloggers that I (mostly) felt a part of. Also, in none of my other attempts was I focusing on being honest and authentic so I ended up writing people pleaser posts, or (worse) stuffy wannabe academic "philosophy". Having a focus on authenticity since starting Meadow really did help me avoid these traps in the long run, though at the beginning I was kind of lost with regards to what to write. Eventually things fell into their place once I stopped worrying about them.

What platform are you using to manage your blog, and why do you use it?

Well, this post actually comes at a moment when I'm transitioning from having my blog on Bearblog to moving it to my own custom site.

I loved (and still love) Bearblog. It's an excellent platform and the minimalism of it really helps when you have no idea what to do with your blog, as mostly the only thing you can do is write. The community that has formed around the platform is really nice, welcoming, and all around wholesome (though perhaps this can be said of most of the IndieWeb as well).

I ended up moving over to my own site because I wanted to do other things with my blog that (by design) weren't really possible on Bearblog. Foremost among them were having separate categories for my posts (each with their own RSS; still WIP), and a nice photo log (see it here). But there were also many other small things I wanted to do, like an automatic blog front page with my latest posts and a nice archive page (though both of these are technically possible in Bear as well). I talk more about my switch, and my reason for it, in this other post.

Right now, I use Astro as my static site generator (you can see my site's code here). The site itself is hosted on GitHub Pages.

For writing I do everything in Obsidian. I mostly write from my laptop but have the notes synched to my phone with Syncthing (though I'm seriously considering paying for Obsidian Sync as a way to support the product). Every night at around 3am I have a cron job that runs on my Android phone and uploads the whole Obsidian folder to a git repo. My site reads from this git repo when building itself (which happens automatically every morning), and so everything is connected.

To actually manage my posts in Obsidian. I use a very handy plugin called obsidian-kanban which allows me to create a board with columns for the different states my posts can have. The nice thing is that the cards themselves link directly to the Obsidian files so it's all very nice to manage. This is the current status of my "Writing Board":

Previously, I was using folders to manage the different states, but I like the board approach better as I can see everything in a single flat interface (no need to go digging around folders) and I can also order the items inside each column so I can prioritize which post is more close do being ready, or which idea is more exciting. I now have only two folders "Writing" and "Published". Once I publish a post I move it to the "Published" folder and then the code that builds my site picks up the posts from said folder.

I also keep a "Journal" folder where I write every day. These notes never make their way to the blog proper, but they're tightly integrated with my blogging process. On a given day I can talk about many posts, and then I can see everything I said about a post in the "backlinks" (I love Obsidian) of that post. This makes it so that I don't need to stress about where I keep ideas! I can just keep them in the day where they happened and reference the post in question.

For example, here's what I see when I look at the backlinks of this current post you're reading (some of them hidden for privacy):

If you want to know more about how everything works then let me know! I feel there're already too many "hey look at my cool blogging flow" posts so I haven't done one. But if there's interest then I might do it.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Absolutely. I think I created my first blog when I was around 13 or so, on Blogger. I wrote on that one quite a bit, but eventually I fell into the trap of numbers and ended up feeling like a failure and abandoning everything. I've tried multiple times to find this blog again, but haven't been able to do so. Too bad, since I would love to read what my pre-teen self was thinking about! As you can see, I started blogging a long time ago (~15 years), but haven't really blogged that much as there were big gaps in between.

I think that's the only other blog of note, but I have started many other blogs where I never wrote, or only wrote a couple of posts. I started another one on Blogger, and then one on Wordpress with my brother (on which we did write a bit, though it was mostly him). I also wrote a couple of posts on Medium but I really disliked that they asked everyone to "sign in to continue" reading, so I quickly closed that one.

For a while I also had a personal blog (with my real name) made with another static site generator called Gatsby. It was nice, but I pretty much spent ALL my time working on the site itself rather than making content for it. Many fall into this trap where they use a custom site before they're mature enough writers to actually use it. I think I wrote one developer post about some library or other, but didn't like it that much and desisted. I also found that using my real name was a turn off for me.

For Meadow I actually started it on Substack (🤢) and it began as a semi-philosophic blog. I wrote like 5 posts or so until I decided I didn't like the current direction I was taking, nor the Substack platform and how they were constantly pushing me to "get more views". I then moved it shortly to Tumblr before finding my home in Bear. Tumblr is fun. It has very nice customization capabilities and the app is quite decent. The main reason why I didn't stay on Tumblr was because I just didn't understand the platform. The stream of posts felt very messy, and the ads were just too much. However, I liked the app so much (the schedule feature is excellent!) that I still have and use an account were I dump all the funny memes I find. I don't use it except as a dumping ground though.

For a very short while I experimented with writing posts on Bluesky (long form content in short form format). I thought it was a neat idea but in the end it didn't really go that well (example). I decided I was just kidding myself and recognized my fear and aversion to writing on a real blog. Bluesky felt more informal so it removed quite a bit of my fear of failure. In the end this helped me change how I view myself in relation to my own blog, and made me realize I was just taking myself (and my blog) waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously.

How do you write your posts?

I mostly write in the mornings. I usually wake up around 5:30am, go to the kitchen and make myself a coffee, then write until the kids wake up around 6:40am or so. For a long while I wrote everything in the evening just before bed, after the kids fell asleep. But then I discovered morning pages and decided to try to do them properly, first thing in the morning. I was surprised to discover I had a lot more energy in my writing, and things would in general flow better. In my mornings I now do a mix of morning pages and blogging, or sometimes I end up writing a blog post in my morning pages. I've found that the less I stress about this the better it turns out.

I very rarely sit down with a specific idea about what I want to write. It does happen, but mostly I just start writing stream of consciousness and then eventually something will pop up that ends up being a blog post. I try to see my blogging as similar to growing a plant: I create the conditions for it to happen and then it just happens all by itself. With a plant, you take care of weeds and water it and make sure it's in a nice sunny spot, but you don't really have any control on its actual growing. Writing is similar: you create the time and the space, clear your head of distractions, water it with coffee, and it happens.

I alternate between writing on my PC and writing by hand. Right now I'm in a phase where I prefer to write on my laptop. But a couple of months ago I was writing everything by hand (even my blog posts!) and then transferring it to digital format with my Longhand tool. Here's a pic from some months ago. I like to have a big cup of coffee when I write ☕️

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

Ahh good question. I can tell you which ones I don't like that much, but saying which are my favorites is harder. Let's see...

I have a soft spot for stories, as that is something I've been trying to do more of since I first started this blog (though it hasn't really happened yet). I'm fond of all the stories I've published here.

Of my other posts, perhaps some that I personally like are:

Any future plans for the blog?

Continue writing! That's foremost among my plans. Continue being authentic.

Perhaps the kind of content I'll post here will change as the things that I'm interested in evolve. That's another key goal I have for the blog: not to let it keep me from growing as a person. It's easy to fall into this trap I think, where one is so identified with one's own image (especially if that image is conditioned on an external thing like a blog) that we're resistant to growth and change. I feel that, for me, my blog can either be an anchor that holds me down, or wings that help me soar.

I've been thinking of starting to experiment with writing in a more constrained way. Maybe sit down and pick an idea out of my list of ideas and train myself to write about it no matter what. I think it's a great skill to have and one that I haven't really developed. I'm also interested in experimenting with outlining my posts before writing rather than just "discovering" what it's all about as I write it. It's true that most (all?) of my posts are explorative/reflective in nature so this might not work, but I can't know for sure until I try!

For my site, I want to add a "now" page (which seems to be all the rage these days), though I haven't gotten around to it yet. Also, I need to clean up my photolog page. Right now when you click on an image it just takes you to the Bluesky post for that image, but I want it to instead open up it up in a pop up, and maybe show the original text posted with the image. I've also been toying with the idea of adding comments to posts (through Bluesky or Mastodon or both), but I'm not sure if this will actually be a smart move. Maybe add a link to the thread? That could be it... Though at the same time I like my blog being entirely separate from social media.

Who will participate next?

I'm nominating Lars-Christian!

Edit: here's the link to Lars' answer :)

Thanks for reading!

~ 🌿

My son only wants to hear stories and I feel like a TV

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 12:30:50 GMT

Lately, my son has been obsessed with asking us to tell him stories. At first, I eagerly jumped on every opportunity to do so, but now I just find it tiresome. At the same time, I can't really say no to him, right? After all, he's not doing anything wrong, and stories are healthy for his brain. Or are they?

Yesterday, I came to the conclusion that, in fact, it is fine for me to tell him no. After all, there can definitely be too much of a good thing. It can, I think, become a destructive behavior. But rather than telling him a plain no, I'll see if I can pivot the request by asking him to play along in coming up with a story. We used to do that a lot before—engaging in play with his toys and acting out a story together. When I'm the one telling a story, he's hardly participating, and his constant requests make me feel like a TV—one that doesn't have much time to rally its imagination and prepare the next tale.

Don't get me wrong. I love telling him stories. Some of the most magical and personal moments we've had together have been during storytelling. His eyes entirely affixed on my expressions (I like to act out characters), his slack jaw, his smile when there is comedy, his surprise and astonishment at the appropriate story beats. Sometimes he enjoys a story so much that he keeps on acting it out and talking about it for days on end! I really like when that happens because it gives me a chance to deepen the story; spin up more tales of the same characters or the same universe.

But, I think, in my current state as a storyteller I have trouble just conjuring one on demand, out of thin air, especially one after the other. I've noticed that, when I'm not inspired, what usually comes out is some slop¹ about a forest animal going to have dinner at another's animal house and forgetting to bring the teapot or some such. He seems to enjoy these as well, but I don't see the same emotion and wonder in his face that he gets with a real story, nor do I enjoy telling them as much.

Something else I've considered — and I think I will do — is stocking up on short tales for kids. Read them, digest them, and then tell them. I imagine most great storytellers² know a bunch of stories that they did not invent themselves, and they become masterful in their telling.

Not so long ago, for some reason I can't remember, I was reading about the path of the bard in Druidry. According to the site linked above³, a huge part of becoming a bard was memorizing and learning to recite stories:

In the first year, the student progressed from Principle Beginner (Ollaire) to Poet’s Attendant (Tamhan) to Apprentice Satirisist (Drisac). During this time they had to learn the basics of the bardic arts: grammar, twenty stories and the Ogham tree-alphabet.

Over the next four years, they learnt a further ten stories each year, a hundred ogham combinations, a dozen philosophy lessons, and an unspecified number of poems. They also studied dipthongal combinations, the Law of Privileges and the uses of grammar.

By their sixth year the student, if they had stayed the course, was called a Pillar (Cli) and would study a further forty-eight poems and twenty more stories. Over the following three years, they were termed a Noble Stream (Anruth) because ‘a stream of pleasing praise issues from him, and a stream of wealth to him’. During this time they learnt a further 95 tales, bringing their repertoire up to 175 stories. They studied prosody, glosses, prophetic invocation, the styles of poetic composition, specific poetic forms, and the place-name stories of Ireland.

The final three years of their training entitled them to become an Ollamh, or Doctor of Poetry. In their tenth year the student had studied further poetic forms and composition, in their eleventh year 100 poems, and in their twelfth year 120 orations and the four arts of poetry. He or she was now the Master or Mistress of 350 stories in all.

~ quoted from Bard | What is a Bard? | Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids

Ten stories a year! That isn't really that much if you think about it. Though I guess it depends on the length of the stories. I like to think a good chunk of this time was dedicated to learning to tell the stories rather than just memorizing their content. After all, the telling is what makes a story great.

Anyway... got off on a tangent there.

I think stories ARE important for both of us. They help create a sort of shared world, ideas, and values. The other day, after I refused to tell another story to my son. He asked me why and I surprised myself by answering something which I intuitively know to be true but have never realized:

Do you know where stories live? Once I tell them to you they go into your heart, and there they put down roots and grow like a tree throughout your whole body. In so doing they change you from within and help you grow. If I tell you too many stories in a row then they will all be pressed together with hardly any room! We need to respect them and give them the space they need to mature and enrich us.

(paraphrased)

I doubt he got the whole meaning of this, and he was probably confused about the idea of stories putting down roots like a tree. But it is true! Stories do change us from within and help us grow, and we need to give them the time and space they need to do this.

Mass consuming them⁴ kills their magic.

edit (2025-03-05): As fate would have it, he now asks me to tell him these stories! Yesterday he literally told me "Dad, can you tell me a story about the forest animals drinking tea". I guess what one person thinks is best, is not necessarily so for another. An important thing to keep in mind. ↩
In my head, the greatest of them all is Skarpi from Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicle. ↩
I can't vouch for the accurateness of that link's content as I have little knowledge about it myself. ↩
For us adults the same thing happens. When you binge watch a show you don't give time for the individual episodes to grow within you. I won't even say anything about social media. ↩

When our feelings & emotions go against what we think is best

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:13:12 GMT

For the past month or so, I've been trying to craft (for it is an act of craftsmanship) a morning routine for myself. In an ideal world, it would look something like this:

wake up around 5:20am (kids usually wake up around 7am so this gives me ~1:30 hours),
get up and to some yoga¹,
go upstairs and make myself a coffee,
drink coffee and write until kids get up.
- it could either be journaling or blogging, or both, depending on how I feel

Of course, I almost never ever seem to be able to hit all of these. The one I struggle with the most is getting up and working out (either yoga or something else). I tend to stay in bed, procrastinating until it’s too late. Then, I get up to make coffee and write (which is easy because both of these are things I enjoy doing). The funny thing is that when I do manage to convince myself to work out, I always feel great afterward. The workout session itself is always light and enjoyable.

For the past week or so I've been reflecting on how curious it is that we're so strongly puppeteered by our emotions and feelings. When we want to do something we opt for trying to trick our emotions into aligning with what we want rather than using our willpower to assert control over ourselves.

I think we've all said to ourselves at one point or another something like "oh I'll do this thing I don't want to do and then I'll treat myself to some chocolate". It's a common mechanism we use to trick us into doing the things we want to do, by making these gatekeepers of things we do want.

Why is it so hard to put our foot down and do what we've decide we want / should do, rather than just following our internal state? We tend to think we have power over our minds but in reality it's our mind-body that has power over us—over what we do, how we feel, and how we treat others. We're all like house cats, letting our nature manipulate us and end up "fighting over a can of food when there's an identical can next to it". I know this all too well because, much of the time, I’m the first to fall into this trap, skimping on the things I should do just because I don’t feel like it.

We should treat our emotions the way Theoden (Saruman) treats Gandalf.

hehe...

though perhaps this is not the best example as Theoden (Saruman) is defeated by Gandalf, which stands for our emotions in this metaphor. Anyway... No metaphor is perfect.

I've been following a YouTube channel called Yoga With Adriene which has a lot of great, beginner friendly yoga workouts. What I enjoy the most is that she has a bunch of 30-day yoga playlists so I don't really need to think much about what I want to do on a given day. Just do one playlist at a time. I'm grateful for her taking the time to making these, and making it as easy as possible to jump in. ↩

Good morning

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 17:32:44 GMT

Woke up pretty early today, around 4:30 AM, and didn’t manage to go back to sleep. But all is good. I spent pretty much the whole time listening to Brandon Sanderson’s Rhythms of War, and it was awesome! It’s cool when an author can evoke a whole range of emotions and even move you to tears with just skill and imagination. It also helps that I was dedicating my full attention to the audiobook. Magic rarely happens when you're multitasking.

It’s now 06:32, and I’m doing something I haven’t done in quite a while: brewing myself a cup of coffee and watching as the light starts to pour in through the windows. The coffee isn’t ready yet, I think, and I feel the pressure to go back to our room in case the kids wake up, so my wife doesn’t have to deal with them alone. I’ll probably need to get into the habit of leaving the baby camera on before I come upstairs so I can know what’s going on.

... coffee is now ready. The sky is a beautiful gray outside, chilly and wet, full of promise...

As I sit here nursing my coffee, I’m wondering: is this going to be a journal entry or a blog post? What actually do I want to write about now that I have a blog again? Funny how we think we need to write about anything specific, force ourselves to produce—always producing. I guess yes, this will be a post, but I don’t know what it’s going to be about, maybe nothing specific. Maybe just me and my morning ruminations. After all, can there be anything more intimate than the internal thoughts of a wandering mind? Not trying to make anything, just convey—in probably more words than necessary—the internal landscape of the soul. The effervescence of the quiet morning, the cup of coffee.

So here we are. No need to do anything. Chill for a while, enjoy it. Collecting energy for the day to come, especially once the little ones wake up. They know not the meaning of the word pause. For them, I feel it's all a mix—a blend of play and relax and laugh and sing—with no pause. And that, in itself, is beautiful, wonderful. I cherish my moments with them, most of the time. Other times, I escape them, trying to burrow into my phone. I try not to, knowing these escapes are exactly the thing I want to avoid most. And I’m happy to say it's getting better. But you know, things go up and then go down—the eternal dance. Being entirely surrendered to the present can be hard. Being entirely surrendered to anything, dedicated wholeheartedly to a single thing, is hard.

I often think about how, in olden times, people had no easy access to distractions. Now, most of the world’s population carries an instant gratification device in their pockets. At any time, they can flip open their phone and look at interesting photos or funny videos. Like parrots looking at ourselves in the mirror, we are. The thing isn’t wrong in and of itself, but think about what it does to our mind habits. We’ve built this compulsive habit of avoiding boredom at any cost, as we're told by our culture that it's one of the greatest evils. And perhaps it was so also in the olden times. But then, you had to work to get entertainment, while now it’s as cheap as it can get.

I imagine writers from previous generations. Most of them likely wrote because they found it to be great fun. Would we, for instance, have had a Tolkien in our modern world? Or a Keats? A Jane Austen? Or the Greek myths? Who knows, maybe yes, but I tend to think they would be drastically different, and not necessarily for the better.

I guess I’m just making excuses now, and falling into this act of victimizing myself (and the whole of humanity). But as they say, "criticizing is easy, fixing is hard".

...

Ahh, it has started to rain now. I guess today will be a stay-at-home day. At least for most of it. Yesterday morning, the sky was the same, and then it cleared up around noon. We’ll see.

Have a good day ☕️

Tentative steps back into blogging

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 16:30:51 GMT

So yeah, hi. Hello. Ahem... Good to see you again! It's been a while, and I hope things have been going well for you.

Not so long ago, my second son was born, and I stopped writing here. I kept journaling most days, whenever I managed to convince myself to get out of bed early enough, but I didn't feel like I had the time or mental energy to consistently write blog posts, keep up with what my favorite bloggers were saying, or even answer emails!

But things have cooled down a bit now. My new son is almost four months old, and he's very cute 🤗 He's also starting to require less energy from us and is transitioning from being an energy sink into a wellspring of smiles and laughter.

I feel like I'm back in a state where things are somewhat stable, and I have the energy and space to get up earlier than everyone else and blog a bit. Who knows? I might even find the will to exercise during some of these mornings. We'll see.

I'm not sure what my blog will be about going forward. It might not change that much from what it was before, or maybe it will. I felt like it was hard for me to write since my previous self-image was so solidified that I found it hard to move on to other things or (as is the case now) start writing again. This is the reason I'm writing this whole post—to break the ice, as they say.

Is it weird that this resistance I feel towards blogging again feels a bit like social anxiety? One would think it doesn’t matter, as, firstly, you really don’t know who I am, and second, it’s my site/space, and I can do whatever I want. I guess this is one of the reasons I felt that writing on my blog constantly was so good for me. If things were to cool down, then it would all become awkward, as it has.

Maybe a quick catch-up is in order now. What’s new in my life since my last post? Well, my new son is at the top of that list, along with learning to know him and watching, open-mouthed, as my oldest turns out to be the best big brother in the world. I’ve also been reading a lot of Ram Dass, and wondering about my faith (or total lack thereof) and what it means to be spiritually fulfilled. I’ve been thinking about the things we give up when our minds are obsessed with scientific rigor. I’ve also managed to pull myself away from compulsively playing games on my phone and realized that the reason for this was that I didn’t feel very good internally and was looking for external pleasure and distraction. I’ve also (quite recently) started experimenting with microdosing THC every now and then as an experiment, and it has worked quite well, though not how I expected (I might write a post about this).

I’ve wanted to get back into blogging for a while now, but I struggled to take the final step. The final push came some days ago in the form of an email asking about my Guestbooks project. In that email, the sender mentioned micro.blog, which led me down a multi-day rabbit hole exploring the platform and its implications. I created a site on micro.blog and was planning to move my blog over there, but in the end, I decided to create a custom site and host it myself (more on this later). Still, I would recommend the platform to anyone! It is very neat and has a lot of features, but my favorite thing is the ideas the creator of the platform has about online interactions and what a healthy social media site would look like¹. Too bad I’m not a social media user, or I would definitely love to use the 'social' aspects of micro.blog that they’re developing. Still, I might continue to support them monetarily just because it’s such a cool and wholesome project.

So, about my site...

I used to be a longtime user of Bear. I really like Bear, and the community that has formed around it is one of the best, most loving, understanding, compassionate, and beautiful I’ve ever seen on the internet. I attribute this in no small part to the efforts that Herman (the creator) has made to set the tone, and tirelessly ensure the platform is free from spam sites. I’m extremely grateful for these platforms, as they’ve provided a fertile ground on which both old and new blogs can grow and flourish.

I had absolutely no reason for switching, except for the fact that I was bumping against Bear’s minimalism. I had things I wanted to do but couldn’t. It’s the nature of such a platform that it can only allow you to change so many things. And that’s a good thing! Especially for the kind of user who doesn’t want to deal with technical stuff or just wants a place to write and not think about it that much.

I know I don’t talk much about it, but I love programming. Code runs in my veins and beats in my heart. I had so many ideas over time for things I wanted to add to my blog but couldn’t. For me, the site itself is as much an expression of art as whatever I write in my posts. And so, I’ve decided to migrate away from Bear and create my own custom web page.

Around a year ago, I started toying with Astro and absolutely fell in love with it. I just personally find it so clean, intuitive, and easy to use! It took me very little time to reimplement my Bear blog in Astro, and have it look pretty much exactly the same², with some extras. I imagine that as time goes on, I will start to deviate more and more. I’ll let it flow as it will.

Another reason I’ve hesitated so much in migrating to my own site is that it would mean the loss of Bear’s discover page, which I found to be an excellent way to improve the discoverability of your blog. Yeah, I know—I’m a sucker for numbers, and I shouldn’t worry so much about them. I try not to, and my move away from Bear is also, in part, an attempt to separate myself from this aspect. Though I have to admit, I’ve been weak, and for now, I’ve added privacy-respecting analytics³ to my site.

So... yeah... I think my blog is now evolving into my site (which contains a blog).

See you around ~ 🍀

If you're interested in these, you can look him up on your favorite search engine. Also, I would recommend you check out his book about Indie Microblogging. I haven’t read all of it yet, but I’m finding the first few sections really interesting and on point. ↩
If you would like to do something similar, I would be happy to help—just reach out. I’m thinking maybe I can set up some sort of Astro template that looks and feels just like Bear, though I haven’t really searched to see if there’s one already. ↩
Or better said, I will add analytics to my site. I’m still evaluating whether I want to use tinylytics (nicer, made by a well-known indie web creator) or umami (less nice, but has a much more generous free plan and is open source). ↩

Initial thoughts on The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 16:10:00 GMT

I finally started reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I've tried to start this book many times before, but I always stopped in the first chapter or so because I felt that the author was being unnecessarily airy and, more importantly, he directly claimed that he ended up in this semi enlightened state but doesn't rightly know how he got there. This point was the point where I always stopped, but this time I decided to power through it, and in doing so I discovered I've been missing an important part: after not knowing what had happened, and just living in a state of present bliss, Eckhart discovered that what had happened to him is what many religions aim as their ultimate goal, so he went on to discover more about that and how a normal person might get to his state, but told from his point of view.

Now, there's definitely wisdom in his writing. It's clear and well presented, and offers argumentative clarifications every once in a while that I find really useful. However, I have some reservations. First — though it can easily be brushed aside as an issue of semantics — master Eckhart says he's enlightened in the buddhist sense. Again, this is not really that important. My main reservation is my natural cynicism wondering is this true? or is it just an elaborate money grab?

From what I've read online people seem to think highly of Eckhart, but you know me. For now I've decided to suspend my disbelief and just listen to the audiobook as if it were all real. A large part of me wants to believe it is. What makes me feel better is that his message is really simple: in the now there are no problems. And this is quite easy not only to understand intuitively, but also easy to see for myself that what he says is true. It might be that he's not really enlightened and he's just paraphrasing buddhist doctrine, but if it continues to be like this (self verifiable) then there's no harm in it.

Anyway... positive thoughts, positive thoughts.

For the past days, whenever I put my oldest son to sleep, I meditate (or at least attempt to meditate) while I wait for him to pass out. Since I started reading The Power of Now I started adding something new to my meditation which I think is actually something that should perhaps always have been there, but whether due to bad instruction or complacency on my part, it has never found its way into the forefront of my mind. I'm talking about the watcher. Usually my meditation is pretty much loop { breath until distract } , but now I'm making a change where breath is my center, my heart, and at the same time there's an effort to watch for thoughts as they come into my mind, and that reminds me not to engage with them. If ever I do get carried away by a thought then I go back to my center, my breath. But these two things are always there, watching and focusing on the breath. I think it's working fine for now, though I've hardly tried this out while sitting on a cushion in proper meditation, something which I've been wanting to do for a while, but not wanting to dedicate time to it (oh the woes of my life).

Another interesting idea master Eckhart talks about is how when we're identified with our thoughts we're also controlled by them. This is so true for me, and something I've been observing more and more since I first read it. I, and I think everyone, gets taken away by one or two things that interest us at a given time. My mind is fixated on these and can hardly think of anything else, and even less can I contemplate the idea of not doing them, even if I know they're harmful in some way or another. Recently for me this has been playing games on my phone, lately Marvel SNAP and FarmRPG (which aren't as bad to be honest), and I know that I could "not play them" and feel better overall with not having them in the back of my mind all day, and yet, I can't just leave them, can I? I am, as Eckhart says, identified with these thoughts, but once I know and see this I also see that I am not them and their strength over me is lessened.

"Your mind is a tool; use it, don't let it use you" is a (paraphrased) quote from him that comes to mind right now. I think I, and everyone, tend to just go along with what our minds say. It's not only games or other things we're compulsive about (addicted), it's everything. From whether we should drink that thing, or watch that video, everything. The only thing that's no-mind is dropping everything and being in the present: meditation. Everything else is us just being led on a leash by our mind. Arguably even the desire and act of meditating is something that we're led to by our thoughts, but one hopes that in this gordian knot we'll find the same sword that cuts through it.

That's perhaps the reason why I'm so reticent to meditate, because my mind just wants to play, do what it's used to, instead of stopping for a while. Again, here is an example of my thoughts controlling me rather than the other way around.

It's a messy business, knowing who's what and what controls which. Not one we need to get into. Suffice it to say that, in most things, we're just bulls being led by rings in our noses.

On surrendering and the fallacy of control

Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:34:00 GMT

Yesterday, around 1:30 AM, I woke up with a feeling that I needed to vomit. I tried getting up, but I immediately felt faint and did indeed faint. I was a bit sick all over the place. Thankfully, it was very little, so it was mostly easy to clean. However, it did leave me feeling weak. I still feel weak, though it's slowly getting better.

Now, the fainting itself was not too bad. It was uncomfortable, sure, but I didn't feel like I was resisting it too much. I think that because of this, it didn't feel as intense. I believe this might be the first time I noticed I was trying to resist as it was happening. Then I just let myself go with the flow. Easy. No stress, extra suffering, or resistance. Just take it as it comes.

I should add here for context that I'm someone who frequently faints. Much less so now that I'm older, but when I was younger, I would almost always faint when I was sick or when going to the doctor for blood samples or injections, or when seeing blood. For me, fainting is (usually) extremely uncomfortable (and even terrifying in some way). This has left me with a strong feeling of avoidance (fear, even) regarding doctors, and I do my best to avoid them if I can. I can't remember the last time I had a checkup. Anyway, I digress; this might merit a separate post in and of itself as it's something I've been trying to work through for a long time...

I've noticed that this is something I've started to do in my life in general: just go with the flow. I have to admit that I've had some good days lately, managing to keep hate and resentment out of my mind and being grateful for things just as they are. I've even experienced moments where I'm thinking about someone, and a great feeling of love comes over me, accompanied by gratitude for the fact that these people are in my life.

I hope that this behavior will stay with me in the long run and isn't just an adaptation to feeling sick (less energy to waste on negative emotions) or something my psyche is conjuring up solely to cope with the fact that our second son will soon be born¹. It's very likely (almost certain) that I'll be the one to enter the OR with my wife.

To be honest, I really haven't been thinking about it that much. I don't feel like I'm ignoring it, though; I'm very aware that it will happen, and I'm actually counting the days. It's more like I'm not letting it worry me. "It's something that needs to be done," my wife told me when I asked her whether she was worried about it. This phrase really struck me, and I've found myself repeating it in many different circumstances: It just needs to be done. Go, do it, and then come back.

It strongly connects back to what I was saying above about surrendering to what's going on and just going with the flow. What are you going to accomplish by resisting something, especially if there's no way that this something can be anything other than what it needs to be? Worry is just that—something that takes root in our minds when we feel that something in our future can be changed or controlled in any way.

For instance, a presentation is always scary and worrisome. In some situations, it makes sense for us to worry; it motivates us to be better and do better (e.g., worry—in moderation—can be excellent fuel to motivate us to study for an upcoming exam).

But there are other situations that just can't be avoided, and they need to go a certain way: a graduation ceremony, a C-section, a doctor's appointment. Worrying about them only makes sense if we are deluded into thinking we can control what's going to happen and how. Recognizing that we can't is true liberation from constant worry.

I know, it's easier said than done. I'm not sure you could even do it in a directed way if you wished to.

So, in my mind, I'll go to the OR with my wife. I just need to be there and watch; nothing is really going to be done to me. Once the baby is born, I'm sure I'll forget about everything else.

...

For the longest time, I didn't want to see the recording of the C-section when our first son was born. Then I did, and as soon as he appeared on screen, I felt a huge wave of beauty and correctness—pure inspiration. My soul felt bigger, and I didn't care about what was being shown in the video. Now, if I felt like this while watching a recording, I can't imagine the beauty I could experience while actually standing there in real life.

He'll be born in a couple of weeks so I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while as I get into this new phase. If you're a parent of two kids then I would love some pointers! ↩

Judging is a trap

Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:09:00 GMT

I was going through my Obsidian notes and noticed that there are a couple of almost-finished posts that are actually quite good—more than a couple, in fact. My intuition tells me it’s both good and proper to dedicate some time to cleaning these up.

I also noticed that many of these drafts are stale. The same goes for the ideas; I no longer care to write about them. Or at least, I don’t right now. "Right now" is the key phrase here.

There’s no permanent right or wrong. I am not an absolute judge of myself. Passing judgment is like passing gas; at least, it feels that way if one believes it to be real, everlasting doom. What right do I have to judge? To judge others, myself, or even things I’ve created? I can certainly have opinions. I can say, “I see that this could be improved in such a way.” But who knows if the opinion I voice today will still hold tomorrow? Well, probably yes. But what about a year from now? A decade?

When I think back to my teenage years, I often cringe at some of my memories. “Oh God, how did I ever think that was a good idea!” There you go. What seemed like a good idea then is not necessarily a good idea now. There are no absolutes. But one needs to be careful not to, again, pass permanent judgment. As much as that "thing" is displeasing to me now, there’s no way to know if my opinions about it will change in the future. I can definitely think of some childhood occurrences that I considered weak or unworthy when I was growing into myself, and that now—at 30—look like especially strong demonstrations of authenticity. But even here, be careful: no absolute judgments.

Or think about stories. How many do you now dislike that you once liked? And vice versa? How many games? Songs? Does that make them bad? Absolutely not. They exist outside us in their pure form and are only judged within our minds. That judgment (while transferable) is deeply and ultimately personal.

The saying “don’t worry about what others think” is a multifaceted one. Not only can you not directly control how others feel and react to what you tell them, but they themselves also can’t control or even predict how their feelings might change in the near future.

Judging, or listening to judgments, is a futile occupation. You risk digging a hole for yourself—one so deep that you'll have a hard time getting out of it—waiting to do (or not do) something but remaining stuck in inaction because you feel your desires are somehow incorrect.

Judgment forms the bars of your mental prison. Opinions are merely pathways, but be mindful of the slippery slope.

Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled. Trying to control leads to ruin. Trying to grasp, we lose.

Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it too is a vessel of perfection. Just as you breathe in and breathe out, there is a time for being ahead and a time for being behind; a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest; a time for being vigorous and a time for being exhausted; a time for being safe and a time for being in danger.

~ Tao Te Ching (Chapter 29); Ursula K. Le Guin translation

Words have power, as Ryan Wilson says in his short story. Be mindful of what you hear and what you tell yourself.

Words have energy. They carry a frequency. When they’re spoken, that energy is created and transferred to whomever hears them. Different words, different frequencies. Some low, some high. (...) You must speak words, listen to words, read words, and tell yourself words that carry higher frequency emotions. Do not belittle yourself, because your words will weaken you. Do not surround yourself with people and media that will make you fear, feel inadequate, mislead you, and put you down. Those words take your power away from you. But understand, you cannot control the external world. You cannot always control what you hear. You must discern for yourself. Allow in only what you feel you must.

Emojis are cool

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 15:02:00 GMT

I use a lot of emojis when I write (especially chat), and it has always struck me as interesting that most people around me don’t. “Don’t they want to convey how they feel about this?” I ask myself. So much so that, for a long time, I thought my overuse of emojis came from a needy, co-dependent part of me that wanted to be pleasant to others and avoid any misunderstandings by being extra clear that I wasn’t angry or displeased with them through the use of the smiley face.

It wasn’t until quite recently that I realized my use of emojis was not “a weak front” (as is usually viewed by the professional and academic worlds), though it is neither a strength. What is it then? Well, it’s just an extra set of punctuation marks.

Emojis have drastically evolved since their first (genius) inception and introduction in the early 80s. At first, I imagine they were thought of more as just cute pictures to add weight to your messages—more like signs than actual grammatical elements. But at some point (and I guess this is quite recent), they adopted a whole new power and significance and started to be used as an extension of punctuation marks, as stress markers, emotion markers.

Once you have that extra power of expressibility, it’s hard to go back, hard not to use it. This is, I think, especially true for those of us who grew up in the era of instant messaging, especially around the 2000s when Microsoft Messenger was the only option and there were no established rules regarding what this new form of communication looked like.

The fact that it was real-time chatting meant you needed to maximize the amount of meaning you could convey per second. As our teenage selves spent the night chatting and bathing in the cathode rays of our screens, we saw emojis and abbreviations (idk, IIRC, brb, etc.) organically emerge and be tested by everyone. If they were useful, they were kept; if not, they were discarded or replaced. A giant network, chattering with each other and in so doing coming up with a new way of using language.

This shorter, faster format meant that 1) there was a larger probability of miscommunication, so emojis could help clarify your stance on a topic, and 2) they could themselves be used instead of words (❤️ instead of love, etc.). I think the first point was by far the most important (the second could already be solved by acronyms, often better).

Now, fast forward to 2024. We have other, faster chat formats like Twitch chat and massive Discord rooms, both of which see extensive use of abbreviations and emojis.

There’s something that abbreviations don’t provide, and you only get from emojis: emotion. Annotating your emotion in what you write is extremely powerful and expressive, especially if the text in question is short and with sparse context (again, chat messages). Take, for example:

“We never say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say it. 🍵”
“We never say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say it. 😡”

The first is clearly a calm reflection, while the second is someone trying to force their beliefs on you.

If you’re like me, then you can certainly feel how differently you react to the two above sentences. Even if the text is the same, the perceived intent and state of the speaker are completely different. Once you recognize this, how do you avoid clarifying your position by employing the correct emoji?

Sure, oftentimes the emotion and intent are clear, and there’s no clarification needed. Still, I find myself adding an emoji just because it “feels right.” I guess once you form the habit, it becomes hard to break it, like when you see an the trick of an illusion. It’s then hard to unsee it.

Well, that was a long way to say a simple thing. Could I have made it shorter? Yeah, of course—possibly it could’ve been a paragraph or two, but

You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in Old Entish. And we never say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.

Finally, I wanted to point out a really cool use of emojis as a pictorial writing system for the constructed language Toki Pona (of which I’m a huge fan). Granted, this is a bit of cheating because each emoji stands for a pre-agreed-upon Toki Pona word. Still, the fact that this is possible shows you the enormous amount of semantic meaning that emojis have as a whole.

👍↪️👉 (pona tawa sina: peace be with you)

RE: Write like you talk

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 22:10:00 GMT

Earlier today I was reading some new posts by Visa. There’s not much to say about that, except that he uses pretty normal words and writes very well.

This might seem like an odd comment, but it stems from my reading of another post, A Brief Case on Bearblog. The author of that post is clearly a talented and experienced writer who, it must be said, writes very (very) well. However, the words they use are so fancy, and the way they’re woven is so perfect that reading them feels ?strange?¹.

This thought reminded me of an excellent essay by Paul Graham, Write Like You Talk. In it, he argues that if you want people to connect with you, you must write in a way that feels familiar to them. Essentially, the essay rests on the assumption that we all speak similarly but think differently.

I’m the first to acknowledge that language can be beautifully woven and that there’s a definite art to it. However, I agree with Paul Graham’s observation that, when writing to connect, we should use common language, words, and structures. Doing otherwise will only make it harder for your readers to connect with you, as well as for you to connect with your readers. You end up crafting something that’s not really you, creating a barrier between yourself and your audience.

Don’t get me wrong. High-language is definitely appropriate in situations where it’s needed, such as when describing something difficult to express. But unless it flows effortlessly from your soul, crafting something just to sound fancy can make it sound artificial.

I think that, as a society, we’ve come to overvalue colorful stuff, which in turn pushes creators to feel inadequate when their work isn’t vibrant. As readers (and consumers in general), we tend to gravitate toward the colorful, perhaps perceiving it as higher quality or simply more appetizing.

Write like you talk has a deeper meaning than it might initially seem. It not only suggests that we should use common language in an easy-to-understand way, but also that our writing should flow naturally—it should be us on the page, not a mask of ourselves.

I’m reminded of the poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Here’s a specific section I’m thinking about:

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

So, don’t let what you write become just a face you use when meeting other faces. Don't make it yet another mask.

I realized after publishing this that it sounds like I don't enjoy their posts, but that's not the case at all. I love reading Emma's posts! What I meant to say here is that they write differently from me and it sometimes feels like we're speaking different dialects. ↩

On waking up to write every morning

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 15:33:00 GMT

Today, I want to write about why I do this—why I wake up early and take the trouble to get up, go upstairs, and make some coffee. I’ve been wondering about this these past few days. Why make myself go through it? Why not just stay in bed and sleep an extra hour? Such a nice, soft, warm bed.

Every day I tell myself the same thing: “You’ll feel much better if you do!” And it’s true! I don’t know of any tonic that’s as good for my mood, energy, and mental health as a solid hour of writing in the morning before life starts. It feels like a luxury, really, having the time to do this, and I’m grateful. It’s just me, the sunrise, my dog sitting next to me, and the sound of the pen as it scratches meaning on paper, echoing in the silent dining room.

I’ve been writing this way for a bit over a year now. Mostly, I write in my journal, and lately (literally these past week or so) I’ve started writing for my blog. I’ve come to appreciate that the less I try, the more beneficial my writing time is. I never think about what I’ll write today—unless I have something specific I want to personally talk about or work through. Right now, I find that the best attitude is to think that I’m responsible for bringing myself to the table, and then it’s up to my pen and my hand to actually put things down. It certainly feels like that sometimes, as if I’m just here reading the words as they’re scratched on the paper, watching the ink dry, while another part of me puts down what it wants to say.

Whenever I do try too hard, things end up feeling forced. The other part of me—that mysterious wellspring—wants to take my pen down different paths. Whenever I let it, just observe, is when I end up feeling more rested and energetic at the end.

Sometimes I know what I’m going to talk about before I start (like today), and other times I start with an idea and end up talking about something completely different (like the post about the origins of fear from some days ago). Thankfully, I’m no professional writer; no one is paying me to write about one specific topic, so I have the freedom to let myself “relax” into it and let my subconscious wander where it will, savoring different pastures.

I’ve found that my ramblings always have some reason. I guess it’s more or less like dreaming (if you subscribe to Jung’s ideas about dreams), where everything in your dream is a symbol trying to tell you something. I feel it’s similar with writing this way, albeit to a lesser extent. Sometimes I’m even surprised by the choice of words—using words I normally wouldn’t use—and I’ve learned to recognize parts that come out in colorful language (or semi-poetry) as my mind telling me that part is specifically important for me right now, especially charged with meaning and emotion that needs to resort to metaphors and poetry to capture it.

I feel like my role here is more like that of the sculptor than the composer (though maybe composers are also sculptors?). My job is to bring out, to discover the story, not to shape it. As soon as I start to judge, I start to control, and end up warping the thing into an unnatural shape, one that’s not its own. When you create, don’t judge, don’t control, but discover. Whatever you find is perfect; it’s what it was meant to be when it called upon you to find it.

So, why do I do this? Because I love it.

🌳

On the making of tools

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 01:20:00 GMT

If you found your way to my blog, then it's likely you came here from one of the tools I've made rather than through more conventional means like Bear's Discover page. While the tools have indeed gained me some exposure, that's not the reason I made them.

Why then? Well, out of sheer joy, of course. For me, there are few things as satisfying as making your own tools—being able to tell yourself, "Yeah, I want something like that," and then going ahead and creating it, watching it slowly evolve beyond your original intentions.

I'm a software developer by profession, and I do quite enjoy it. I understand that many people are not technically minded or at least don't know much about programming. But let me tell you a little secret that people in my profession might not want you to know: programming is really not that hard. Oh, it can get very complex and theoretical if you want it to, but for simple tools, you don't need any of that. In fact, all the tools I've made forgo complex patterns; their functionality is dead simple, just composed in clever ways.

Anyway, I don't intend for this to become a post about how to program. However, having given you "some rope," I'll also provide some pointers on where to begin. If you know absolutely nothing and want to create a web app in the spirit of Guestbooks, take a look at Ruby on Rails (check out The Odin Project) or Django (used by Bearblog). If you want to dive deeper into programming, I know of no better resource than the free book The Nature of Code—a treasure trove of wisdom that's still useful to me after over ten years of experience.

If you need help with anything, send me an email! Really, you're not bothering me. There's nothing I enjoy more than helping people :)

I made all these tools for myself, yes, and the joy of being able to use them is its own reward. There's something freeing about creating without having to think about how you'll monetize things. In our culture, it seems we often think that if a software tool is not monetizable, then it's a failure. But that's not true! Besides the fact that adding monetization raises complexity exponentially, it also costs you your creative freedom. There's an implicit contract: if I pay you for some functionality, then I expect that functionality not to change.

Of course, I'm blessed in that I don't need to monetize these things, and perhaps not everyone can afford that luxury. And that's fine—you do whatever you have to do. What I'm saying is that you shouldn't create a tool just to make money (even if it is a viable source of income) simply because you feel it's expected.

Then there are external users. I was especially surprised when I noticed that many people are using Guestbooks on their own blogs (98 as of right now!). I visit some of their sites occasionally and am continually amazed by all the creative ways people have been using and embedding them. There's even one site that edited the embedding code slightly and created something akin to a single-threaded message board.

To me, that's truly satisfying—putting something out there and seeing people use it in ways you never directly intended. It's mind-boggling when you think about the scale. For instance, consider our own Bearblog, a project primarily developed by one person. Think about how many blogs it hosts, how many people have read them, how many lives have been impacted because of it, how many interactions, how many connections.

And that's true for every great tool. It's a tool for humanity rather than for a select few, and it "above all" enables and fosters connections.

It reminds me of a quote by Malcolm Guite about poetry, and how, when you put it out there, it becomes something other than what you intended—it takes on a life of its own.

"As soon as the poem is even conceived, it begins to take on a life of its own: even in the literary womb, it gives its mothering poet the occasional lively and independent kick, and there is certainly some labour in bringing it to birth from the mind to the page. And, just as one’s children start to grow up, make their own friends, and develop their own tastes, so it’s fascinating to watch a poem, once it’s been published, making new friends, who draw insights from it which you missed yourself the first time round."

Finally, finally, I want to say that if you're using "indie tools" made by everyday folks, then you're awesome. And if you prefer tools made by corporate giants, then you're awesome as well.

My egg is better than yours and how all the things came to be

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 16:24:00 GMT

Long, long ago, before all the things, the two gods, the Red One and the Blue One met for breakfast. They sat down at a long wooden table, facing each other, and chatted amiably. “Ah, here comes the food!” exclaimed the Blue One, wringing his hands.

A pair of servants entered, wearing richly tailored white vests with long tails and golden trimming. Each carried a plate covered with a cloche. Their stately walk took them behind one of the gods, and in unison they set the plates down and, with a flourish, removed the cloches.

“An egg!” said the Red One in delight.

They both stared at their eggs for a while—perfectly made, round, and tender, filling the room with a buttery aroma. Then they looked at each other’s eggs.

“At least I didn’t get yours,” said the Blue One. “It’s much smaller and wrinkled compared to mine.”

The Red One, who had been so pleased with his egg, now began to see defects in it and retorted, “Well, at least mine smells better.”

“Ha, it smells like horse! It’s actually making it hard for me to want to eat mine.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” said the Red One, rising.

“I am,” said the Blue One.

“You’re the liar! Your egg is small and smells like fish!” said the Red One.

They both looked down and saw that the Red One’s plate was now a couple of spans larger.

“Oh yeah?” said the Blue One, and both his side of the table and his plate enlarged by a couple of feet.

As you can probably imagine, given that they were gods, they soon found themselves arguing over whose plate was larger and quickly ended up out of the room, their breakfast forgotten.

But it didn’t stop there; they continued their argument endlessly, their omnipresence allowing them to keep track of how much the other had done

And so it was that the whole cosmos was filled with all the things.

Now, the eggs, finding themselves at the center of such expansion, had slowly been pushed closer together.

A black cat, a ratter, had been watching all this with detached amusement, as cats are wont to do.

Eventually, as things settled, the cat jumped on the table and gulped down both eggs, savoring every bite. They were indeed both delicious. The cat was no connoisseur or great critic of egg gastronomy, but he deemed them both masterpieces.

His belly now full, he curled up on the mantelpiece and went to sleep, dreaming peaceful cat dreams.

Just because it’s all in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 15:33:00 GMT

If you're anything like me, then you're frequently told by those around you something along the lines of "Oh, don't worry about it, it's all in your head" or perhaps the more common "You're imagining things." These people usually mean well when they give such advise; they're trying to help in their own way. My parents did this all the time while I was growing up, so much so that I ended up believing it. And sometimes, it's true. It could be that "that person" is not being mean to me because they don't like me, but rather because they're having a bad day in general. I get that, and I agree that sometimes (most of the time), we make up our own problems out of confusion, miscommunication, or ignorance.

But what about deeper, more pervasive scenarios?

What about depression, for instance? People who have never had to deal with their own depression frequently give advice like "Oh, I know what will make you feel better! Just be happy!" Bless them. It's like a non-smoker telling a smoker that the best way to quit is to just stop. And perhaps it is true that the best way to get out of it is to just "get out of it," but almost always the "way out" is not immediately obvious to the person who is "in," and they struggle to find it.

Then there are other people who use the common but utterly misguided strategy of making you feel bad about being sad. "I can't understand how you can be depressed when you have so many beautiful things in your life." Well, thank you; now I feel bad about not appreciating the things I have.

As anyone who has had to deal with it knows, depression is hard. It's not the same for everyone, though, and for some, it's easier to handle than for others. But I would say that for all, there comes a time when the way forward is obscured, and the only thing to do is trust in the golden adage "this too shall pass."¹

Going back to the original goal of this post... Is my feeling of sadness "unreal" because it's inside of my head? Are my feelings of complete social inadequacy and misadaptation fake? Should knowing that they are fake make them go away and magically transform me into what I want to be? What about that feeling of being a worthless worm, lower than the lowest crawling, slimy, slithering things? Should I just be "ok with it" since it's "all in my head?"

No. Of course not. These are all real RIGHT NOW. Don't let anyone belittle your feelings; if you feel them, they're there, they're true. Know this: you're not broken because you feel things others don't.

Even though these feelings are true, they are by no means permanent. Moreover, you own these feelings, and they don't own you. Make them yours, and that's the way forward. Or at least, it has been for me in the past, many times.

It's not immediate, but I've noticed that if I'm going through a period of depression, I'm also seeing myself as the victim of my feelings and the universe—the "unfairness" of it all. Then I try to change how I relate to these feelings: rather than being a victim, rather than circumstances owning me, I own my own experience. It is still there, and the pain doesn't go away, but it allows me to relate to what's going on from a higher point of view. Instead of being inside the quagmire of chance and effect, I position myself outside it. And then, I write about it.

I write this in the hopes that it can be of help to my future self (and others) when I need it. Remember that the key to all of this is that it is true right now. This too shall pass.

Take care out there 🌻

Advice if you're struggling with depression, and have the energy to do so: write! Write! Write! Try to do Morning Pages if you can. It's the best way I've found to keep my own depression at bay, though it takes work. ↩

On the origins of fear and art as the antidote

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 02:16:00 GMT

I've been thinking about the sources of fear lately, and it seems to me that possibly the most commonly held belief is that all fear comes from ignorance. And this makes sense, no? In our overly scientific society, we even say, quite literally, "we fear what we don't know." At some point in human history, we knew very little about the workings of the world around us. Even quite advanced civilizations by the standard of that time did some things that to us seem silly nowadays, like believing in an incarnated god who made the sun come up every day. The leverage this god-person held over its people was that he could, indeed, make the sun stay hidden.

And how to disprove this? Imagine you've seen a person come out every morning and face East, raise their hands, and then the sun comes out. Imagine this has been happening for generations; they will all reach a point when they're just afraid to try to disprove it, even if they are open to the idea that it might not be true.

Kids don't do this. For kids, they care not about established things. In fact, they push against the boundaries of everything that intersects with their life experience. Not only to find out up until what point adults around them will allow their blasphemy but also as a means to find out what's real and what is not.

This is also a mark of a good scientist and artist; as soon as they notice something with strong foundations, they push to see if it will actually stand on its own.

Anyway, I'm digressing...

I think we can all agree that we really do fear the things we don't understand. But I would say we fear specifically those things we don't understand and feel are impossible for us to comprehend. In the past, these were the sun, rain, earthquakes, the mystical workings of the animal world, etc. Today, we fear other things: loneliness, an uncaring universe, being bored, and it is said many Americans fear vegetables and plain food. There are also some "ancient" fears which we've dragged with us through human existence: death, rejection by society, and an instinctual aversion to crawling things (among others). I think these last are in a category all by themselves that we can call "instinctual fears"; that is, things that we've evolved to fear, and their fear has made it more likely for us to survive so we keep on fearing them.

The most obvious of these is the ultimate fear of death. We probably acquired this eons and eons ago when our ancestors were first mucking about in some muddy pool somewhere, and we've had all this time to refine it into the razor it is today. If you fear dying and/or pain, then it's less likely you'll do stupid stuff.

Then came science. Science is the ultimate religion of our present day. Like so many before it, it strives to explain the world around us, but it differs from other religions in two important aspects: first and foremost, even if some academics, like the fanatical priests that they are, tend to forget it, science is aware and embraces its own fallibility, which gives it a necessary quality in order for it to grow and mutate. Second, its explanations are only accepted if they can be independently verified; otherwise, they would be no different from myth.

Now, I won't delve into it here, but there's much to be said about how our rebuttal of myths and adoption of science as a cold, hard thing has made us lose many of the symbols (as Jung would say) that form a core part of the way in which we understand the magic of the world around us. There needs to be a balance between hard science and the mythical in our lives.

Whenever we explain a new thing with science, a thousand other unknowns come up. Like the surface of an inflating balloon, the more we discover, the more we realize how little we know. (I, personally, am of the opinion that this balloon will just keep expanding forever.)

And yet we don't fear these new unknowns. Why not? Some of them have terrible implications if we really take the time to think about them, like what happens with information when matter falls into a black hole?

Like every good religion, science gives us the third, necessary element: hope. Hope that someone somewhere will shine light on those dark corners in the basement where we prefer not to go. We don't fear these new unknowns because we have hope that someday we might understand them. From here, the practicing scientist gains conviction, finally closing the loop.

I wonder if, in the olden days, religion was as good at explaining things. I'm not saying that it got things right, but that people would not question, that they would be perfectly happy and fearless thanks to the provided explanations.

There's one thing, however, that science doesn't give us: a place in the universe. We can be awed about the complexity of it all, but if it all comes down to seeing ourselves as thinking rocks, then what's the use? We've paid dearly for our dedication to science, and we see the signs of overtaxation all around us. The nihilism pervasive in our culture, our fixation on external value and productivity, our scorn of leisure time. Even personal growth and integration, the most sacred of human pursuits, is often casted by self-help literature as "a way to be more productive and excel at your job." Above all, it has cost us the magic that is our birthright as humans.

Balance is needed. But myth and magic now have few nooks and crannies in which to hide, though we still need them. However, there is a realm that we all have access to, where myth and magic not only abound but rule. That is the realm of art, creativity, and storytelling. We often, as a society, disdain art and artists, thinking art is fake, make-believe. But it is not; it's the blood and soul of what makes us human, it's what puts a smile on this "thinking rock."

So, as a parting thought, make art, explore yourself, and by so doing, help bring us all together.

🌱

Beautiful Flowers

Mon, 12 Aug 2024 15:41:00 GMT

Beautiful flowers are not for the faint of heart
nor are they for the madman who lives his life apart.
Constant worry is the norm of our days
Endlessly burning our spirits away.

How can we enjoy the beautiful flowers if we leave no space for joy? 
How can we drink of the great mother's milk when our own cup is full
full to the brim of sludge, murky and dark?

Better to empty our cups, and so have it full.
Better yet to throw it away and through our roots
draw up the sweet sap that nourishes our soul. 

Descend the perilous stairs, one by one
and find at the end that the only true peril
was not to step through the entrance at all.

For only from pain can true growth come
so take your fuel and let it propel you forwards
towards wonders untold.

I like writing poetry, or at least in a poetical way. There's something really satisfying and freeing about the medium and the few constraints it imposes. I worry that what I write is not proper poetry, but at the same time I really don't care. More and more I'm learning to appreciate that what I do is perfect for what it is. I'm not trying to be someone else or get acceptance into someone else's "club." Or at least that's what I know I should aim for. For that way, aligning myself with external metrics, lies the way of danger; that way is past the cave's entrance.

You can't save up on happiness; you either use it now or you lose it.

"Smoke Rings From My Pipe" by Malcolm Guite

Sat, 27 Jul 2024 12:06:00 GMT

Hi! It's been a while since my last post here¹, and longer still since the last time I shared a poem.

YouTube recently suggested me a video² out of nowhere, and having some time on my hands I quickly found myself immersed in the mystery that is Malcolm Guite.

On his site he has many poems, but I stumbled on this one that spoke especially to me. It's a poem about the hustle and bustle culture we live in, and how we often forget to take a break and practice the art of simply sitting still.

I myself own a set of pipes which I dearly enjoy smoking. I haven't done so in a long while though, always finding some excuse and telling myself I have no time.

(source)

All the long day’s weariness is done
I’m free at last to do just as I will
Take out my pipe, admire the setting sun
Practice the art of simply sitting still
Thank God I have this briar bowl to fill,
I leave the world with all its hopeless hype,
Its pressures, and its ever-ringing till,
And let it go in smoke rings from my pipe

The hustle and the bustle, these I shun
The tasks that trouble and the cares that kill,
The false idea that there’s a race to run,
The pushing of that weary stone uphill,
The wretched i-phone’s all-insistent trill,
Whingers and whiners, each with their own gripe,
I pack them in tobacco leaves until
They’re blown away in smoke rings from my pipe

And then at last my real work is begun,
My chance to chant, to exercise the skill
Of summoning the muses, one by one,
To meet me in their temple, touch my quill
(I have a pen but quills are better still)
And when the soul is full, the time is ripe
Kindle the fire of poetry that will
Breathe and expand like smoke-rings from my pipe

Prince I have done with grinding at the mill,
These petty-pelting tyrants aren’t my type,
So lift me up and set me on a hill,
A free man blowing smoke rings from his pipe.

☮️

I've been planning on doing a catch up post for a while. Suffice it to say that all is well and I've been busy. ↩
I suggest you check out his channel, especially if you enjoy The Lord of the Rings or want some wholesome videos to relax to. ↩

I wasn't able to sing before having a son

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 16:40:00 GMT

I was never what you would considered a singer or even an outgoing person (not that the two are the same). When singing was involved I would usually remain silent, worrying that I would sound off key, or that I wouldn't know the words and people would notice, or any other myriad of possible scenarios which are common to those who worry endlessly about stuff. In some way, I perceived the act of singing as something very intimate and I never managed to break through that barrier I had imposed upon myself. That is, until I had a son, but it wasn't that easy.

After he was born, my wife used to sing to him all the time. She has beautiful voice, knows lots of songs, and is so confident in her ability that she doesn't really think about it. I, however, shied away from the act, as if a panel of judges would condemn me for my sub-par singing and banish me into the eternal void.

My wife used to get (a little bit) angry at me about this, telling me I should take the opportunity to sing to him now since before I knew it he would grow up and I would regret not having done it. And yet, I couldn't bring myself to do it, or at least not immediately. I, of course, knew of my problem and I wanted to be able to share singing time with him, especially because he seemed to enjoy it so much when my wife (or others) sang to him. So I started small, with what I knew I could comfortably do.

I've always been a musical person. I don't (didn't) sing, but I've always been good at playing instruments and picking up songs by ear. So I picked up a small Kalimba I had lying around, which my wife had gifted me for a past Christmas, and I set out to learn the tunes of some lullabies. I started with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and then moved on to some other ones, my wife would sing and I would accompany her with the tune.

Then I took another step. I ditched the crutch of the kalimba and starting humming the songs while we were getting ready for bed. Now that I think about it, this happened pretty much by itself once I got comfortable with the whole routine. I didn't think much about it at the time.

As he grew up more he started playing at singing songs, coming up with random words that followed the same melody. To my own surprise, I found myself inescapably drawn to his game, and before I knew it I was singing at the top of my lungs with him, coming up with silly songs, making him laugh, and in general having a good time. I think at this time my crutch was that specific melody, one I knew very well by this point and was comfortable riffing on.

Fast forward some months and now I don't feel any hesitation singing to my son, be it in public or in private. Actually, it's one of our favorite games, and we're even starting to introduce new melodies, new words, and even dancing (another thing which I've always considered myself incapable of doing)!

Why am I writing all of this you might ask? Well, this is a reflection on the fact that all creative endeavors, all activities that require you to make something, will call for you to put a piece of yourself out there for all to see, and that can be uncomfortable. The trick, when you feel self-conscious about starting, is to start small.

You often hear people say "take baby steps", but seldom we take this advise. Instead we think that starting small is not a good way to improve, so we bite out too much and invariably end up dropping whatever it is we're doing. In the process end up demotivated and thinking we're just incapable of doing it. Instead, it's better to start doing small things which are slightly uncomfortable, but that you trust you can do, and over time you'll see your own confidence, and capabilities grow.

I imagine it a bit like starting to wear glasses. If you've ever gone from no-glasses to glasses (and you're not one of those rare people great self-esteem) then you know how the first few days (or weeks) can be a little uncomfortable, being self-conscious. But then you get used to it, you just stop thinking about it. It's a little bit like that.

~ 🌿

A traumatizing layover in Mexico airport

Sat, 04 May 2024 01:48:00 GMT

I'm soon traveling to Seattle for work. Surprisingly, I'm more anxious about this trip than seems reasonable, and I'm not sure why. It's not the first time I've traveled, nor is it even the first time I've gone to Seattle for work. It's actually the second time I'm going there. Now that I think about it, I can see how the first time was kind of traumatizing in some ways. Perhaps talking about it would help me work through it.

Let's start from the beginning...

Last time I went, I flew from my country to Mexico City, and then from there to Seattle. I took the same route on the way back. Overall, it was fairly quick and was by far the best option offered by the travel agency that the company I work for uses (all the other routes were waaay longer or had a lot more legs).

My way there was... ok. The flight itself was great, but Mexico City's airport was chock-full of people. I had trouble finding a place to sit down, so I took advantage of the situation and put on an audiobook while I walked around the airport looking for a nice place to sit. After a while, I was extremely lucky to stumble upon one of the nicest and most delicious Mexican restaurants I've ever been to: Vuela Carmela (you should definitely check it out if you find yourself in MEX).

Vuela Carmela became my haven for the four hours or so I still had to wait. I sat down to read a book while I drank some cappuccinos and had something to eat. Despite the airport being quite full (as I mentioned before), the restaurant was fairly empty, and the waiters were very friendly and happy to chat.

I was happy that I would fly through Mexico on my way back so I could try something new from the menu. I only had a two hour layover on my way back though... Or at least that's what I thought, but I was very mistaken.

... The flight to Seattle went fine, work stuff happened and was fine ...

Then came the time to go back home. Once I arrived at the MEX airport again, I was completely baffled by the astronomical, incomprehensible, mind-boggling number of people who were delayed there due to the Popocatépetl volcano erupting. We're talking about people sleeping in the corridors, near the bathrooms, everywhere... Though perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

While in the taxi on my way to the Seattle airport, the news broadcast from the radio was saying something about an eruption somewhere, but I was paying little attention; still groggy with sleep and not having yet had my morning coffee. It turns out that Mexico City is really close (as in 70 km/43 miles close) to the Popocatépetl volcano, which had decided that was the right time to start erupting a shit-ton of smoke and ashes. This, of course, is not good for airplanes, so all flights were grounded for two days. I got there at the beginning of day one.

Fast forward to when I landed in MEX.

At the time, I was completely oblivious to what was happening. I instead checked the flights board and saw that my assigned gate had not yet been posted but the flight read "ON TIME", so all was good. I went to have lunch at Vuela Carmela, where I met the same waiter from last time. I stayed there a bit and then went to check the flights board again. Now my gate was posted, so I made my way there.

... I was actually going to talk in detail about everything that happened, but perhaps we can just summarize it by saying that the flight kept being delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed. It was marked as canceled almost 12 hours after its expected departure time.

By this time, it was already quite late (11pm or so), and I think I was just too dazed to think much about what was happening, so I just went along with the flow.

Some people from Aeromexico (the airline I was traveling with) came to tell us we should make our way to the Aeromexico counters so they could issue a new ticket for the next day. It sounded pretty simple in principle, but remember the mind-boggling amount of people I mentioned before? Well, MEX is served in it's great majority by Aeromexico flights, meaning that almost all of them ended up in the queue with me!

I kid you not when I say the "queue" (if such a thing could be called that) went from the inner counters of Aeromexico, through airport, outside, turned the corner, and far off into the drop-off area on the street. But this still didn't deter my optimism. I stood there, almost half a mile from my goal that was the counter, thinking it would probably take just a couple of hours. Oh silly me.

What followed were almost six or so hours, just standing there, moving very very slowly. I made some friends, a couple of Mexican people standing behind me, some folks who were actually meant to board my same flight back home, a polish kid and his mother. As time dragged its leaden feet, people would spontaneously leave the queue. The smart ones left with the goal of coming back later when there were fewer people, while the ones beaten by the queue left in despair to try and talk to someone. At the same time, new people came in, a constant flux while we all moved together as one.

Honestly, my memories of what happened during this time are very fuzzy. I remember that for a while I listened to my trusty audiobook, then read a bit, then wrote a bit in a notebook I was carrying.

I remember there was a lady in front of me who kept looking back at me. I smiled at her a couple of times, hopefully in a friendly and commiserating way. We never spoke though. At one point she caught my eye and made as if to speak to me and, in a panic, I literally hid myself behind my notebook (as in raising it up to my face).

I still remember feeling the heat on my face as I saw her from the corner of my eye, just staring at me with her mouth open, an expression of disbelief on her face (or that's how I remember it at least). I felt bad about this later, she didn't deserve my childish behavior. I wanted to apologize, but shortly after I had decided this was the right thing to do, she left the queue; a friend she was with had come to get her saying they should go and buy new ticket with another airline instead of waiting for who knows how many more hours. I guess I'll never get to say sorry. I didn't mean it, didn't mean anything by it. My mind was just not working properly.

The remaining hours went by, inexorably. As the Aeromexico counter came into view, I found myself among a nice group of people. I wouldn't really say friends but the silent hours together had molded us into some kind of group, hammered us into a sort of support system. By this time, it was around 5 am, and TV cameras started to come in to film the large number of people — the queue was still as big as ever, with new planes landing all the while and feeding its insatiable hunger. One of the people I was with, a Mexican guy who was on his way to visit his son somewhere to the south, was actually interviewed by one of the major local news channels (I appeared in the background and waved at the camera, but they'll probably cut that part out if they air it at all).

Eventually, we got to the counter, and at that precise moment our group disbanded. I feel kind of bad that everyone in the group exchanged phone numbers except for me. I had many chances to offer my number or ask theirs, but I just... didn't. Perhaps something to explore in a future post.

It was around 10 am when I was almost right at the Aeromexico counter. I could've sworn I saw a dear ex-coworker standing a couple of people away right in front of me. I didn't see her face but she was the same height, same build, and had the same true raven black hair. I wanted to call out to her, but (again) didn't. I spent my remaining time at the airport that day looking for her, but of course, I did not see her again.

Finally. Finally I got to the counter and got to speak to a very friendly lady from Aeromexico who printed me a new boarding ticket for a flight that was leaving the next morning (on day number three). I was already very tired so I took a shuttle to one of those generic airport hotels and slept. I got at the hotel I think around 11 am (after sorting everything out at the airport) and set an alarm to wake me up for dinner. I slept right through and woke up at 5am the next morning feeling completely refreshed, in time to take the shuttle back for my flight.

The rest of the story went fairly well. I had breakfast at Vuela Carmela once again before finally boarding my flight home.

So... it seems I did have some stuff to work through, especially around the memories of "the queue". It's funny, but while writing about that part, I almost felt my mind slipping into that same hypnotic, sleepless state.

The good news about this new trip to Seattle is that I won't be going through Mexico. Even if I wanted to, the travel agency didn't give me Mexico as a layover option.

If you're still here then I thanks you for reading!

~ 🌻🛩

What to do with a draft once you outgrow it

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 16:19:00 GMT

Yesterday before falling asleep I was thinking about my current drafts. Lately I've been hesitating with regards to what to publish; I have many drafts that I'm no longer excited about but I still feel like I should publish before moving on to more exciting stuff.

I have this idea, this notion, of what my blog's narrative is and I'm trying to continue that narrative in a consistent way. But yesterday I realized that maybe I no longer want to continue that narrative!

I've been thinking about this issue for a while now. The idea that, as bloggers, we grow and change and how I'm no longer the person I was one month ago, and even less the one I was 4 months ago. My resolution was that it's ok to feel this way and it's fine that what I want to write about now no longer matches the style or content of the things I wrote in the past. One should allow oneself to evolve, and accept one's own blog as a reflection of this change.

But this is only about going forward, about things I haven't written yet. What I failed to consider was the gray area, the half-written posts waiting to be reviewed, those almost finished drafts that my past self deemed good enough and was intending to publish in the near future but never got around to it. Right now I have 23 drafts which are basically all almost-finished posts and only need some minor revision.

The way in which I write is that I sit down every day and just write about something, whatever is on my mind. Occasionally there's a part of what I put down that I feel is good and that I could post on my blog, so I copy the text and make a new file in my "drafts" folder. Every once in a while I go back to this folder and choose a draft that calls to me, clean it up, and publish it. When choosing what to publish I try to preserve some sort of internal consistency with respect to my existing blog posts so that I don't put out something that references a detail I mentioned in a yet unpublished draft.

This method has worked fine for now, but the speed at which I add new drafts is faster than the one at which I publish them (writing is of course more fun than editing) so I'm now at the point where I hardly remember what I was thinking (let alone feeling) when I wrote the older drafts. Moreover, I no longer feel like I want to publish all of those older ones since I've changed and so have my interests.

I tell myself I should still publish these drafts in order since they tell a coherent story and I want to paint as complete a picture as possible. But I feel this has been keeping me back from really enjoying the act of publishing, and (more importantly) from growing and branching out into other stuff. I now see tackling most of these drafts as a chore, one which I frequently procrastinate on.

I said that these are almost finished posts, but they still require quite a bit of work to clean up, reorder text, cut out stuff, add new stuff, etc, and I don't find myself really enjoying this part that much unless I'm excited about the post I'm in the process of cleaning up.

So, I've decided I will do a "spring cleaning" of my drafts folder. I will apply the Marie Kondo method of cleaning up and just archive all drafts that "don't spark a sense or joy" or some other emotion. I don't believe in deleting stuff though, so who knows, maybe these archived drafts will eventually find their way to my blog at some point.

I think that, going forward, I should strive to publish possibly on the same day or week in which I write something¹. Honestly, this drafts folder has been weighing on my mind as clutter and I'm glad (even happy) that I've accepted I don't need to deal with it.

... 🍵 ...

Soon after I started my blog, Eve sent me a really nice email and in it she mentioned an advice I sadly tend to forget², but I try to frequently come back to it.

Sometimes I have to sit down and remind myself that there are no rules for what I post & I can change the game at any time!

I tend to solidify around these imaginary rules and suffer for it. It's good to remind oneself that your blog is your space and you can really do whatever you want with it, there're no rules.

~ 🍃

That is, after I deal with the drafts I do intend to publish! I'll switch my writing schedule so I work on those as a priority so I can get them out of the way. ↩
I frequently discover/accept an insight only to forget about it, and then rediscover it again down the road. I'm planning on making a post about this soon. ↩

On the blending of days

Sat, 13 Apr 2024 15:03:00 GMT

I think I've mentioned it before but I'm father to a loving almost-2-year old ball of lard with the energy of a nuclear reactor.

Many things have changed since I became a parent (including not wanting to be a parent to begin with), but the one that has impacted me the most is how fast things seem to be moving now. I know it's a cliche, people saying that time speeds up after you become a parent, but it's true.

On one side this is not necessarily bad. I'm definitely much (much) busier now than I was before, I now have enough free time to just do maybe one or two personal things I want to on a given day. On the surface it sounds bleak, but I'm lucky in that I actually enjoy spending time with my son. Playing with him, seeing him learn and grow (and seeing me learn to be a parent), have been one of the biggest joys of my life.

Being extra busy has also been a positive for my mental health in some ways. The fact that I have less free time also means I have less time to spend worrying about senseless stuff (my favorite hobby), less time to spend ruminating or imagining painful futures that are extremely unlikely to happen.

However, there's always something special going on lately, always something noteworthy. This, coupled with the strict schedule that my days seem to have, makes it so that my days appear to be blurring one into the other.

I feel that before, when there wasn't much happening in my life, I could use special events as markers, obelisks or island that I could look back on to measure the passage of time. But how can you measure time if you have a wall, just stretching out backwards until the horizon?

Earlier this week I was telling my son how well he was walking, and then realized that he's been walking ok for the past 6 months or so! I still feel like he started walking last month.

I imagine this blurring is greatly enhanced by the fact that, with a kid, things mostly happen in a continuous way. Every once in a while you do get new behaviors from one day to the next, but mostly things evolve slowly over a large span of time. For instance, my son has been babbling (what I think is mostly) nonsense for a while now, but how do you know when that nonsense stops being him just parroting words he hears, and starts being original thoughts? By the time you notice, you've already been hearing him express himself for a while without realizing what was happening.

Looking back I can see how this feeling, that things are just slipping through my mind, is a big inspiration for why I've been writing so much lately. Maybe I'm subconsciously trying to leave some kind of mark for my future self saying I was here, something I can look back on and see how things have changed.

You can't really put a kid on pause and then come back to them when you feel like it. They have their own peculiar way to summon attention, and I think we (as parents) are biologically wired to provide it. And this is good. I often find myself reevaluating my behaviors, admonishing myself when I do something I wouldn't like him to repeat, and in so doing I've realized I'm steadily, slowly, reinventing small parts of myself as I try to be the best role model I can be.

Sure, I don't always manage it, and sometimes it can't be helped, but it's definitely the best motivator I've had to try and grow as a person.

Reminds me of the popular cheesy quote that goes something like:

Try to be the person you want your children to grow into.

~ Take care 🌱

The Deli Asocial

Sun, 07 Apr 2024 14:03:00 GMT

It was again time for the dreaded deli counter. Around once a month Gio's wife sent him over to the supermarket to buy stuff, which was all fine and good; at least the part that you could do by yourself... At least the part you did not need to speak to anyone.

Many years back, the government created a way to recognize asocial members of society. In an uncharacteristic moment of cleverness they came up with a very simple, yet effective solution: the deli counter in supermarkets.

Today was Gio's first time in over 20 years buying cheese and cold-cuts all by himself. Society was brutal in purging asocial members and, while he didn't think he was one, his doubts scared him so he had done his best to avoid going alone. But today it couldn't be helped.

He got there and was faced by the usual friendly, aged clerk. He puts up a convincing front but everyone knows he is really an undercover government official.

“What can I help you with, Sir?” he said.

Gio noticed the judge looking at him. There’s always at least one judge. Always. They have the appearance of old, harmless ladies, but do not be fooled! They are extremely good observers, and are trained to expertly judge the actions of others.

“Sir?” said the clerk.

“Yes, I would like some Iberico ham please.”

He had studied this part. There are many different kinds of ham and not knowing that is a one-way ticket to DOOM.

“Sure, how much do you want?”

Damn, he had not prepared well enough for this.

“Err, give me, … 120 grams” said Gio.

He could feel his hands starting to sweat, and the penetrating gaze of the judge aimed directly at him. He stumbled, and they all knew it. He must tread carefully now.

“And how thin do you want me to slice it?” said the clerk in a clipped voice as he turned on the meat slicer. He was no longer smiling.

This was just too much for Gio.

“I.. I… Could you... Could you cut it, thin?” he said with a not-so-hopeful grin.

Silence. That’s all they answered. Both the judge and the clerk were glaring at him. They were somewhat surprised; both of them had been in service for over 20 years and neither had ever encountered an actual asocial.

The judge spoke “You have been individuated, asocial, there’s no room for you in our society. You are sentenced to DOOM!”, the lady pulled on her cane, a trapdoor open below Gio and he fell.

DOOM was known as a concept to everyone, but Gio soon discovered it was a steel chute about 20 meters deep, with a lava pit at the bottom.

As he was falling, a single thought went through his mind

“This is absurd.”

He then plunged into the lava and the world was rid of an undesirable asocial.

Taking refuge in the digital space

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 15:38:00 GMT

When the world outside is a bit too much it's nice to come back to the safety and controlled calm of my computer. I know to many it can seem an illusory peace — after all a digital space is completely virtual — but to me that's not the case. Instead, it is a very real place, much like my office or my bedroom, one in which my mind can borrow into and entertain itself with other things, forgetting about what's happening out there for a bit. It's a grounding place, a resting space, and sometimes also a maddening one, but I know that here it's only me and myself.

It sounds a bit austere, and to be sure, it is. There's no one else here in the digital realm, and the only things around me that have a modicum of personality are the furniture. Some of it I've crafted myself, a fact on which I take a generous pinch of pride and pleasure, and others have been graciously given to me by others, the fruits of their own efforts freely shared. The only interaction with other (human) intelligences happens through small windows — websites, blogs, the odd micro-blog, emails — enough to not feel alone, but we're still each in our own virtual submarine, looking out at the sky through our personal collection of periscopes.

I don't mind that it's this way, I actually enjoy the separation, the allowance it gives to talk about things of the soul and the heart, to say things I wouldn't dare say in my real life.

What initially seems as separation bringing us closer than we would ever be if we were to meet out there.

Whatever are the important things?

Thu, 28 Mar 2024 03:23:00 GMT

I wanted to try my hand at what I'm calling freestyle stream of consciousness. It's a bumpier version of stream of consciousness, presented to you raw and unedited.

This is an entry on my private journal from a couple of days ago. I found the style interesting and thought it would make for a fun blog post.

Another day, another journal entry. I've been telling myself I shouldn't use these as a low-effort dump yard, so now I'm hesitant about what to write. The real problem is that lately I tend to just enumerate the things that happened to me during the day. I think the key word here is enumerate, and has the connotation of devoid of emotion or importance.

So what is important? I shall embark myself on this journey, in stream of consciousness style!

Important...

Important is taking about your friends, gushing out about the Leica Q, going on at length about the last movie you saw, pouring out all your love and excitement about Picotron. Important is saying what you want to say, sharing and opening, exploring, shining the light in those dark places where you hardly dare visit, least the monster notices the open door and flees, locking you inside. Important is paying attention to where you walk, being mindful of every flower you trample on as you walk, knowing that it couldn't but have been otherwise. Important is being there. Really being there. That's all there is.

What then should I write to feel like I'm really there? Well, that's silly! I'm already here. This is what I should write. But then the question becomes what's the limit, where does it end.

It doesn't really. Especially not figurative prose. It's just an intermixing of stuff, on and on it goes. It never ends. That is, until you close the laptop's lid and tell yourself you're done for the day. Go to bed with the satisfaction of a job well done.

What am I getting at? Is there even a point here? No. There used to be one but there isn't anymore. Now it's just waves, the ebb and flow of the words giving more of a feeling than an actual sense.

An exploration in metric it is! In stringing a feeling through letters and hope the whole thing doesn't come tumbling down once you try and lift it up.

I'm sad about my dog, she's 6 years old, and three months ago started having infrequent seizures. The vet says she's probably got epilepsy and I'm not sure how to handle it or really what that means. He says we need to run more tests. But when? I feel like I'm just ignoring it sometimes. She seems happy though, and still runs in our backyard, up and down, up and down, as always.

Ah we're back. Back to what's important. Be here now. Be here now. Do I even need to write it down?

I've skipped meditation for the past two days. I've been feeling sick. But there's another reason, one I haven't really admitted myself, and that is that I feel like I haven't been doing a good job of it lately, not being able to relax as deeply, to focus wholly as I was before. Not sure why. But I know this is a toxic outlook to have on things, especially meditation. Setting goals changes the whole thing, the whole dynamic. In the mind, placebo is everything. There's nothing else really.

What we see, or better said, what we think we see is not really it. It's easy. Everyone can come to the conclusion with some reflection. We see only what our senses tell us. But ah! Where do we see the fantastical world coming from our sense perception? In our mind of course. We think we're seeing a world out there, but really it's in here. Always in here. Who knows what's really out there? Who knows what amazing things our senses are not picking up? Our instruments, which are just imitation of our senses, blind to blooming energetic discharges. Overlapping universes in a single room.

In such a maelstrom of madness, what is it that's really important then? What is it? Tell me!

In the absence of a clear point, of a safe harbor, of an anchor, stability must be constructed. And even if constructed it does not mean it's invaluable. Even if ultimately baseless it does not mean it cannot be a place where we can sit and rest and think. Be kind to yourself and to others, everything else is just fun and games, and everything that goes contrary to this just increases the energy of the storm.

Take a breath. Be here now. See you tomorrow.

~ 🌿

Rambling about inspiration and dreams

Sun, 24 Mar 2024 02:13:00 GMT

I recently published a post where I raised the question of how to recover inspiration about an idea after some time has passed. I didn't really conclude anything and my mind has been thinking about it ever since, feeling as if somehow I left a loose end, itching to explore other possible avenues.

So, here we are!

I've been specifically thinking about where inspiration comes from, and where does it go to once it's gone. Inspiration as a phenomena is hardly logical, manifesting itself as a fever to do something. In my mind both inspiration and dreams have a similar flavor, so we'll start there.

There was a time when I was very disciplined about keeping a dream journal. I learned early that to properly recall a dream one needs not try to remember the whole thing directly, instead one needs to identify and hold on to what I call a set of hooks that serve as fishing lines for the actual dream. These hooks can be anything from the dream that you feel it's important (sounds, sights, feelings, etc).

When we wake up, our conscious mind tends to take our memories of the dream and reason about them, it masticates them into a reductive representation. But if instead we stop and try to individuate the hooks early on then we can later pull on those and have larger parts of the dream(s) unfold.

I could talk more about dreaming and dream journaling (and might actually make a post about it in the future since it's a fun topic), but I don't want to get distracted from what's important here: the hooks.

I feel the relationship between creating and inspiration is very similar to pulling on a hook and have the memory of a dream simply spill into your mind. When you're inspired things just flow, a torrent of ideas fighting to get out. In both cases you're opening a door into a part of your mind that's just full to the brim with stuff and, most importantly, that part is not directly accessible to your conscious/analytical mind, instead information flow just sort of happens by itself.

Once inspiration is gone it is very hard to get it back (or at least it is for me). I wonder if there are also a set of hooks one can use to link creator and muse?

As an example: I'm a developer by profession, and I love to make programs. I also think there's a deeply creative aspect to it, ranging from how you structure everything to the solutions you apply to the problems that arise on your way. When programming, I know there's inspiration involved. However, there's an important difference with respect to writing: I'm able to leave a programming project and then come back to it many weeks later and quickly recover the inspiration. Why is that?

I think that for one there are a lot of things in programming on which the conscious analytical mind can munch on, which will invariably attract the attention of the intuitive subconscious (both will end up focused on the same task). There're also a lot of props involved, which work as channelers of attention. For example, each person has its own set of tools they like to use, code editors, and even their color schemes, keyboard layouts and shortcuts (and a myriad other things), all of which can be seen as artifacts whose goal is that of helping to focus the inner eye. We experience a sort of pleasure when working with them, and through pleasure we pull the focus of the whole mind unto the problem at hand.

I think one can find parallels to this in many other areas of human activity.

Fortune tellers have their canonical misty ambiance, with a crystal ball or other similarly mystical object. In a meditation room decorations are usually pretty minimalistic, with a small altar or incense burner as the only focus of attention. Even writers have access to a plethora of rich papers, notebooks, pens, and even word processors. All of these have the goal of kindling a sense of awe in the person that's inhabiting these spaces, and our conscious analytical mind reacts to awe in the same way a moth to a candle: it can't help being drawn to it.

Besides awe there's also the sensorial pleasure that these things bring. Both conspire to create the same effect: make the analytical mind focus on the shiny things, whilst at the same time creating a space for the now unencumbered subconscious to bubble up through the cracks. In other words: it inspires us (literally makes inspiration happen).

I think with writing, inspiration (aka excitement) is more fickle for me (than it is with say, programming) because things are usually more complex and I'm way less comfortable with my abilities (which is probably why I perceive it as more complex).

I frequently don't know where an idea will take me or what it is that I want to say until I write it down on the page. But "the idea" is often a very loose thing, it's more of a feeling actually. With programming I have code to work as a hook into excitement / inspiration. But how do you make hooks into a feeling?

Maybe you cannot. Maybe it's all just magic and one needs to take the opportunity when the flame burns. Still, I've found that by doing, and taking the opportunity as it arises, inspiration seems to be getting more and more frequent in my life.

Maybe it's also a matter of not getting in one's own way and trusting the process without a though for one's abilities or outcomes. After all, if I stop to think about it, that's exactly what I do when I jump into an old programming project I haven't worked with in a while.

I think a perhaps tentative conclusion is that hooks are there, and work exactly the same as when recalling a dream. The difference is that, with writing, they're all over the place and the trick is to learn to allow (and trust) oneself to see them.

Recovering excitement for ideas

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 03:03:00 GMT

It's fun how sometimes I get very good ideas for things to write. Not so much that the ideas themselves are good (all ideas are the same as far as I'm concerned) it's more that I'm excited about that particular thing, itching to write it down, thinking how much fun I'll have doing so and how it might even be helpful or interesting to someone.

There is an idea I keep coming back to again and again, which is how do you maintain excitement about a topic or story after the initial fever. I wonder if professional writers actually manage to retain whatever touched them about a story while they go through the whole thing, or whether they have to force themselves to write and good things come out. If you know an answer to this then I would love to hear about it!

I remember reading somewhere in the cornucopia of creative inspiration that is Zen in the Art of Writing that pinning the initial excitement to the page is an ability that can be learned and cultivated, but still requires you to write down the important things in the moment so that you can then come back to them later.

I've tried to do that but usually what happens when I revisit the idea is that I just think meh and move on. The idea stops being exciting, the mental fermentation that spawned it has stopped or moved to something else.

Whenever I'm making a post for my blog I usually write the first (and often final, with some minor modifications) draft in one writing spurt. It's very rare for me to publish something that takes more than one writing session (although I have done so, most recently with The Asphirinx).

One of the joys of having a blog is that I can literally write about anything that catches my fancy. There is no need for me to squeeze out words about a topic I don't feel an affinity with. And if I stop enjoying a blog post then I'll just ditch it. There're no obligations of any kind.

While nice, maybe this freedom will at the same time keep me from having to work on strengthening the neural pathways that would allow me to recover my original sense of excitement about something.

At the same time, I write because I like it, I enjoy the time I spend on it. I'm sure that forcing myself would dilute some of this joy, and that's not something I want.

Anyway, there's no real conclusion to be had here. Still, it's good food for thought.

Follow widely to write widely

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 02:25:00 GMT

I've recently been thinking about the concept of following many blogs. I was worried that if I allowed myself to follow lots of people then I would eventually end up swamped by posts I wouldn't have time to read nor the heart to skip. Brandon recently answered my own post with a good point and inspired me to allow myself to explore more.

I spent a couple of days just digging through the blogosphere, and as always was amazed by the diversity I found. I also realized some important things:

What I write is strongly influenced by what I read. Not only in content but also in style.
There's no real guideline in how to create posts. There's no expectations you need to fulfill, no boxes you need to check. There's nothing you need to do besides doing whatever you want.
I tend to solidify the way I write. In other words, I tend to think there is a correct and incorrect way for me to write posts. This is a direct contradiction of the point above, and is ultimately a harmful illusion because it keeps me from exploring different styles and topics!

I think all of these (except for point 1, which is just my personality) stem from the fact that I'm currently reading too few things, most of which share a certain common topology. There are other people out there, writing wonderful things in exciting new ways, and I just don't know about them.

Up until now I've been reading almost exclusively people that have their blog on Bearblog. They're all awesome and interesting in their own right, but if we think about it in terms of statistics then we could say my distribution is strongly skewed towards the sort of people that have a Bearblog in the first place.

I think a good place to find new people to follow is by checking out the blogrolls of the people I currently like, and pick some from there. Sure, it's not a perfectly random sample but I think it should be good enough to start with.

...

I feel bad saying the word follow. It almost sounds like I'm building some sort of number-objective-social-media-crap. It also has the implication of going behind, trailing behind, which I've always found unsatisfactory. I think a better term would be to keep up with someone you respect. But I can't think of a way to say this that sounds good.

After all, that's what you do when you've been reading someone's posts for a while. You get to know them, and you respect them as individuals. I keep coming back to the blogs I like to keep up with because I've found I appreciate and respect the authors, and like to know their opinions on stuff.

Even if sometimes I don't agree with said opinions I always find them useful because they help me find out what my own opinions are, or introduce me to new ideas or ways of looking at things that I hadn't considered before.

...

Since I started this blog I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to be more authentic. I've usually held to the idea that the least blogs I read, the easier it would be since I'll have less external influence. But now I realize this is wrong. The only way to know who you really are is by, paradoxically, reading a lot, reading so much that the gradations in what you like and dislike help you find yourself.

On following many blogs

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 02:15:00 GMT

Something I've been thinking for a while now in the back of my mind is how am I to keep up with all the new blogs that are popping up in my radar. There's also the question of whether this is something I should do or not.

I think I've had a lot of luck in finding a small set of blogs I enjoy. I now have a nice blogroll, and I have around 1 new post a day to read, sometimes less, sometimes more (usually less though). I think this is a nice amount. I imagine in the future I might subscribe to a couple of new ones but not that many (maybe 5?, less than 10), which raises the question of "how many is too many?" and more importantly "what to do when I've reached the 'too many' point?".

I can't think of any of the blogs I follow that I would like to replace with another. After spending some time reading someone's random thoughts you kind of start to appreciate that person! On one hand I'm interested in knowing what's going on in their life, and on the other I feel like I'm somehow supporting them by reading what they write, cheering for them from my own shadowy corner. It's like being friends, but information flows in a single direction. I feel that I would lose this feeling of closeness if I start following many people at once. If allowed to go to the extreme I would probably find myself with a maddening cacophony of noise which would make me stop reading them OR stop appreciating each individual individually. I dread the idea of finding myself with a wordier Twitter.

I've read that some people do follow hundreds of different blogs without any issues, and have the presence of mind to link to many of those posts in their own writing (which gives me the impression that they pay close attention to them). I'm sure these people enjoy following many blogs and publishing answers to other's posts, but I don't think I would like to make my blog mainly about conversing with others. Connecting is wonderful, but I want to leave space for personal exploration. Though maybe I'm just saying this because I tend to lean towards the introverted side of things.

Anyway, there's no real conclusion to any of this. I think the best thing to do here (as in many other areas of life) is to just let the thing flow naturally, and see what happens. I might even surprise myself ending up following lots of different people and not suffering about it!

Discoverability and Visibility in the small web

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:22:00 GMT

I found a cool website by Manuel Moreale called The Forest which will send you to a random blog every time you click on "Walk the Forest". Most of the sites I landed on are personal websites but I did stumble on some that are promotional websites trying to get you to buy something, probably submitted by some people trying to exploit the tool to increase their reach. Anyway, I guess this is understandable since manually monitoring all the links submitted to the system would be a huge undertaking.

This, and many other sites like it (as well as web rings), are trying to solve a situation with the small internet, one to which I've also been giving some though lately. That is, the issue of discoverability (note that this is different from the issue of visibility).

I'm using discoverability as how hard is for someone to randomly end up at your site, be it through a search engine or something like The Forest. On the other hand, Visibility is how many explicit links there are to your website which a person would need to explicitly click to get to you.

In the normal (i.e., corporate) web the canonical goal is to maximize visibility, which motivates the rise of highly unified mega-sites such as Facebook or Google.

But I don't think visibility should has role in the small web.

This is mainly because of the astronomical amount of sites there are. It's impossible to be highly visible. And by consequence, being highly visible (or popular) has no real meaning besides the fact the the blog in question is lucky. But this fact doesn't mean it is good or better than the competitions, as it is often interpreted in the normal web.

Actually, the terms of good and bad are a bit misleading in the small web, since these also don't mean anything. A personal site is good as long as it is crafted with love and attention. It has nothing to do with form and content since each are tailored to personal aesthetics, which can't really be measured. I guess you could argue that the do (or don't) align with some status quo, but again, that doesn't mean anything.

I think the aspect of discoverability itself can't really be addressed in its entirety. It would be nice to have a website like The Forest that redirects you to a random blog, but it's unfeasible to imagine that everyone would register their site there. There are also aggregators like Bearblog that show you lists of the most recent posts as well as the most popular, but these have the important drawback that they only show info about the sites they know about (in the case of Bearblog it would be only those sites hosted there), and the most popular list is extremely easy to hijack.

I'm thinking a cool idea for a side project would be something like The Forest but besides allowing you to hop on to random blogs it also shows you the latest posts from the feed of those blogs it knows about, all aggregated in a single list. Of course, there might be a nontrivial amount of computational requirement in pulling and processing the feeds of lots of blogs, but it would still be fun!

... shameless plug below ...

I wrote the above a couple of weeks before publishing it, and since then it has come to my attention that there're actually many different sites that help people find other small blogs (for example, see this list). After navigating through them for a while I'm starting to appreciate just how many blogs are out there, and I'm sure I haven't even seen the surface of the proverbial iceberg.

Sill, as the good software developer that I am, I just had this idea that it would be nice to create such a site, regardless of how many other such sites exists. So I went ahead and after some thinking and investigation created Mire, which is itself a fork¹ of the excellent vore.website, a minimalistic RSS reader.

I basically kept the RSS reader functionalities from vore and on top of it added a couple more features. Most relevant to this are the global and random links at the top of the page: the former will show you a global feed of all the feeds Mire knows about, while the latter will send you to a random post that Mire has in its memory.

Some other extra features it has:

Keep track of whether you've read a post or not
Provides a public blogroll link that shows which blogs you're following (example)

For those interested, the code is hosted here; any collaboration (or complaint) is welcome! If you want to collaborate but don't know what to do then feel free to send me an email.

For non-tech people, a fork is basically a copy of another project, and usually means that the first project's code was licensed in such a way that made this possible. For example, vore's code is public and the license allows anyone to copy and modify the code as long as the original license is preserved. ↩

Ghibli Quest - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Mon, 22 Jan 2024 02:32:00 GMT

Yesterday I began my quest of seeing all of Studio Ghibli's films. My plan is to watch them in the same order in which they were released, so I started with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind¹.

While reading about the story for this film I found out that Hayao Miyazaki was having a hard time selling his movie ideas to studios, so he ended up creating a manga of this same story, which became so popular that his publisher asked him to create a movie. During this time his producer also enlisted the help of Joe Hisaishi, which would go on to become the composer for many of the future movie scores for Studio Ghibli!

The movie itself is wonderful. I don't know if maybe I'm biased in my appreciation but all of Miyazaki's movies have something that really sets them apart for me. While watching it I kept coming back to this idea, trying to pinpoint what it was that made it special. It's like there is a level of intimacy with the characters and story that is not common, but at the same time there is enough distance with them so that I can position myself firmly as a viewer. I don't know, maybe I just have this idea in my head and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Regardless, I had a good time with the movie and I heartily recommend it.

Spoilers below!

I wanted to comment on some points that I found interesting:

Nausicaa and the valley where she's from are special, they're out of the ordinary in many dimensions. But most notably they're different because she and her people have a semblance of harmony with this new world. From the very beginning we're told how she's attuned to the wind (an expression of the natural energy).
They also have magic (as in awe) and don't consider themselves above nature. All other civilizations we meet are all pretty similar, trying to get one up on each other, squabbling, and most importantly, trying their best to subjugate nature, to enforce their will on the world.
- This contrast reinforces our perception, as viewers, of how good the protagonist is, and how bad everyone else is. We frequently see Nausicaa's attitude of acceptance and respect also extending to the antagonist figures, in turn gaining their respect as the story progresses.
- This also highlights an important point in the story which is that of balance. Beings are defensive because there is a lot of aggression and ill-will going on, but if you remove the aggression then you'll find that everyone just wanted to be happy in the first place, and to avoid suffering. You'll find their defensiveness disappear.
  - Sure, it might be a romanticized version of nature, but I think it's one that speaks deeply to our yearning for communion with it.
The world itself plays a special role in that it is basically another character. It's mainly represented by the forest, and the insects with the mighty Ohm as their figurehead. As the movie progresses we learn that these don't want to destroy humans completely, and instead their desire is that of re-establishing a balance between all beings. A balance which the humans, in their avarice, have destroyed (as indicated by the toxic soil and water, and the purifying role the forest plays).
- I found it a pretty genial plot point that the rebalancing effect happened because these organisms co-evolved to be like this due to environmental pressures caused by humans. I can totally buy that.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It speaks to our shared experience as beings that are oppressed, and sometimes oppress others. It also reinforces the connections that we have as part of nature, one that is often forgotten, underappreciated, in our over-industrialized world.

Technically this was released before the studio was founded, but it is the movie that made it possible and from what I've read online it's often considered the first Ghibli movie. ↩

When a cold allows you to reevaluate the important things

Thu, 18 Jan 2024 00:57:00 GMT

It's funny how being sick changes your perspective on things. Many of my past goals and wants, all seem so vain when measured against the ever changing-ness of the body, of life in general.

Right now I'm down with a stomach virus, feeling like a giant hand is repeatedly rinsing my insides against a washing board.

...

Social status is pointless. It's worth nothing and doesn't help one in any way. It's a completely aleatory way of measuring relative value. I've written about this before in Hunting a Mammoth, but basically it boils down to the fact that we as humans evolved to be like this in an environment which is very different from the one we live in nowadays.

Money is another. It has its uses of course, but at the end of the day there're diminishing returns once you have enough to ensure you can eat and have appropriate lodgings.

Whenever I'm sick like this it's like removing some glasses that were clouding my vision. Sure, it's all a very unpleasant process but I think it is necessary, it gives me a chance to see myself from another perspective, to reevaluate who I am.

Right now I'm thinking how grateful I'm with my mother-in-law who just brought me honeyed chamomile. And with my wife who is taking care of our son to allow me some time to get better.

I'm grateful with the fact I have this activity, writing, to both entertain me as well as allow me to see myself more clearly, and to make note of the things that are important.

It's so easy to lose track of what is really important. We go after the next shiny thing in a neverending stream of shiny things. Always thinking that once we get THE THING we'll finally, blessedly, be happy. We think our struggle will finally be finished.

But that's not how things work. In most cases the happiness we get from the thing is extremely short lived. In all cases we quickly move on to something else, sometimes even before we've completely finished doing the original thing in the first place!

I remember growing up I would always hear adults and media saying things like a real man is a man with ambition, or those without ambition will amount to nothing in their lives. I have to admit I fell (and fall) for this trap, thinking I need to have some ambition to move me forward.

But if I were to die today, would I be regretting the fact that I wasn't able to get that promotion I was aiming towards, or finish that side project I was so excited about? No. Those things will likely not cross my mind at all. If I'm lucky I will find myself being grateful about the things that really mattered to me like family and the small joys one finds everywhere, maybe even the fact that I've tried (and perhaps in some measure accomplished) to make others feel happier.

In other words, I will be thinking about the important things.

All of this has been said many times before. Often by better people than I. Why is it so hard for us to stop blindly going after the shiny things? Why is it so hard to always be mindful about what's really important to us?

I think that a major culprit here is that we tell to each other what things should we collectively deem as valuable.

So maybe an idea would be to not only tell ourselves that X is something that's really important, something we deeply care about, but act in such a way that it's clear for others that this is the case. Often I find I smooth out my outward facing likes and dislikes, to fit in better with those around me. Sometimes it's more extreme, and I find I tell myself that I like something I really don't care much for.

In other words, we should be more authentic with ourselves and with each other. Be brave enough to let go of the vain pursuits that society imposes upon us, and instead allow ourselves to be who we really are.

~ Take care 🌱

On ASCII games

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 16:40:00 GMT

I've been playing games ever since I can remember, but I didn't have the luck to stumble on text-only (often called ASCII¹) games until early in college when doing my Software Engineering major (so, around 2012).

It all started when I stumbled upon Dwarf Fortress², a game where you control a group of dwarves and your goal is that of having them thrive by building production and economical systems, all through a simple text-only UI. It's more or less similar to other Real-Time Strategy games like the popular Age of Empires, but the depth of the simulation is breathtaking (and the goal of the game is not to win, but to have fun).

I think this was one of the first things that actually drew me to this game. As a fledgling programmer I was (and still am) completely awestruck³ by how every tiny bit of the world has rules that govern it: from the flow of liquids in a three dimensional block world to the internal feelings of the dwarves, to the worms and newts scurrying around your map, all of them with their own motivations and procedures for accomplishing them.

I quickly started to appreciate the effects that the text-only interface was having, both for me as well as for the developers. For me, once I learned to understand what every glyph meant⁴, it allowed my imagination to fill in the blanks between the simple representation of the entities, picturing the action in my mind's eye as it happened, being able to visualize complex engineering contraptions used to pump lava into a lava pit, or drunken cats having kittens and causing a catsplosion.

The appreciation for the developer-side of text interfaces didn't come until I started to play around with making similar games myself. Nice graphics are nice, but creating them is extremely time consuming, especially for a perfectionist like myself. Using simple text frees you completely from having to worry about creating sprites for everything in your game, and instead allows you to focus on the actual mechanics and gameplay. Sure, there's still quite a bit of design involved since the graphical limitations also mean you need to put in extra effort into making sure the game is understandable to players, but overall you can trust that they know what you mean. Sort of like writing a book without adding pictures.

After spending some time with Dwarf Fortress I started looking for other similar games that would afford a similar level of immersion. I discovered there are many many such games, but the one that probably had the most impact on me was a little game called NetHack.

Behind the deceptively simple text UI NetHack hides a fiendishly complex set of behaviors and strategies necessary to beat the game. I don't remember where I read it but it is said that if you can imagine doing something then there's probably a way to do it in NetHack.

I remember once, when I was first learning how to progress in the game, I was (unwisely) playing in a statistics lecture. I met a goblin mother (or maybe it was a kobold?) and her son. I talked to the mother who told me she and her son were living there, and then I tried talking to the son. To my dismay instead of talking I attacked and killed the poor young goblin. Not knowing what else to do and curious about what would happen I went ahead and ate the corpse since I thought it would help me recover some health (I'm a monster, I know). To my surprise once I did this the mother started crying and hitting me, telling me I was a monster. I did not expect this complex chain of cause and effect to happen. I guffawed at the absurdity of what had happened, causing the whole lecture room to silently stare at me for a good 10 seconds.

And this is what I think is the best thing about ASCII games. The flexibility they afford is just unparalleled, using the graphics engine of the player's imagination. It is possible to attain such flexibility in traditional games where there is a sprite for every possible state of every entity, but it requires a lot more effort.

When looking at yourself (the player) in an ASCII games you will see a @, but you'll know in your mind's eye what kind of armor you're wearing, what race you're, whether you're missing an arm or not. All transmitted by the lowly @.

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange, and basically defines a set of characters that computers know how to work with (mainly alphanumeric characters and a few symbols). Even though ASCII game have ASCII in the name, they usually use a larger set of characters (e.g. UTF-8) that describe more symbols, and as such offer more freedom when designing graphical elements. ↩
Dwarf Fortress has recently had a Steam release that includes proper tile graphics and better menus. I bought it to support the creators but haven't really played it yet! ↩
One of my dreams has always been that of taking a peek at the codebase and, in so doing, attain nirvana. ↩
To be fair, I also cheated a bit since it is possible to play vanilla Dwarf Fortress with tilesets that make it much easier to know what every cell of the map contains. For more info see Lazy Newb Pack. ↩

It is possible to create out of a place of sadness

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 23:54:00 GMT

I've always had this notion that you need to be happy in order to create beautiful things. I sometimes admonish myself for not feeling joyful. Sometimes I also don't create if I'm feeling down because I feel like whatever comes out won't be as good¹. Here I'm mainly thinking in the context of writing.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, lately I've been watching the 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki documentary. I think we can all agree that his stories are genius, inspiring, and all-around wonderful. He's possibly one of the best storytellers in our modern world, and definitely one of the ones I like most.

Prior to watching the documentary I always assumed he was a happy person. I thought he must be in order to be able to create such wondrous worlds, such moving stories.

Well, it turns out I was mistaken. He's not miserable-always-depressed, but in the documentary we definitely see him having some ups and downs. He's mostly a grumpy person, and many times in the documentary he states that he has a hard time being happy in his daily life.

How then can he create with such beauty? I thought. My original assumption that sublime creation can only occur when one is happy was mistaken, of course. I think that all his bad experiences, and his general sadness about the world, are themselves his most important qualities. They're the things from which he draws forth the need to prove to others (and maybe to himself) that being alive is beautiful. What I would consider to be his bad parts (such an inappropriate word, bad) are his compost heap with which he nurtures his ideas and dreams, and then shares them for all to partake in.

"Yet, even amidst the hatred and carnage, life is still worth living. It is possible for wonderful encounters and beautiful things to exist" he says in one of the episodes while talking about why he makes movies. Another was "I would like to make a film to tell children "it's good to be alive".

This idea of having a wholesome kind of entertainments is something that he keeps going back to again and again throughout the documentary (perhaps this is strongly related to what he says about there being no sense in creating something without a soul?).

Anyway, while the above is all pure conjecture, this way of looking at one of my favorite storytellers is definitely positive for me. If he can use his sadness to create, then so can I, so can we all. There's no need to beat myself up about how I feel, there is wisdom to be found everywhere if one allows oneself to look for it. And more importantly: it is ok to be sad sometimes.

I don't know why but I've always had this feeling that if I work hard there might eventually come a day when I will no longer experience sadness, when my days will be full of joy and happiness. It's sobering to think that this is most likely never going to happen. Of course, I can deal with my insecurities, fears, and whatnot, and in general grow and become a better person, but I'll never live in a stream of constant happiness. I would venture to say that no human ever will. And that's ok.

Funny writing this down. I feel like I'm seeing something that has been in front of me for a long time. So close that I didn't see it in fact.

Accepting this is liberating. It means that the feeling I have that I need to first attain this state of everlasting-happiness to be able to live my best life, to do the things I want to do, that feeling is not to be listened to. Instead, I can do everything right now, accepting who I am right now, and also accepting that things are in constant change / growth.

Putting your life on hold while waiting to be a better version of yourself is limiting to your present self, and directly prevents you from being that better self you want to be.

Whew. Sorry for the digression there.

I was looking a bit online and found many people have posted screenshots of the 10 Year with Hayao Miyazaki documentary, many of which highlight how sometimes he's unhappy and that's ok.

I'm sharing some of them here (taken from this Reddit post). I want to stress that these might bias you into thinking he's a chronically depressed person, I don't think he is. Instead, I think he's a well balanced person.

~ Take care, and remember to be kind to yourself 🌈

To be fair, I do create other kinds of things, like monologues, but these are more conversations with myself than actual creations. ↩

There is no sense in making something without a soul

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 17:54:00 GMT

I've been listening to Joe Hisaishi's music for Studio Ghibli and I have to say it's quite inspiring! Even if I can't place many of the songs, they're still a nice thing to listen to while working.

Yesterday I noticed there's been an idea floating around my mind ever since I saw the third (or maybe the second) episode of 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki, and is something that really comes to life in Hisaishi's music.

The episode in question covers the creation of From Up on Poppy Hill, a movie that Miyazaki's own son (Goro Miyazaki) was directing, something to which the elder Miyazaki was opposed, saying his son didn't have the determination to be a movie director.

Anyway, at one point he was reviewing some concept art that one of the animators was doing for his son and, after starting at the drawing for a bit, declared that it had no soul, no vigor, no life. He said (paraphrasing because I couldn't find the quote online and I'm too lazy to rewatch the episode):

There is no reason in making something without a soul, you might as well not do it.

The poor animator, of course, didn't know where to hide. But it wasn't really his fault, the movie's character had no soul at that point, it's true. It's only after this scathing comment that Goro re-envisioned the character to become it's final form.

This short critique has been pretty impactful to me as I'm thinking about what to do, where to head to if I were to live a more creative life. There is no sense in making anything that doesn't have a soul, not if you aspire to inspire others, to bring them joy and entertain.

The lesson is, I think, to dig deep, and then dig deeper. Characters / stories should have dreams of their own, sometimes unbeknownst to the writer. Still, they have the responsibility of giving them space to come forth and guide their pen.

Thinking back on Miyazaki's films, I can see this idea permeating everything from the characters to the environments. It's so pervasive that it's hard to point out, but it is definitely one (if not THE one) quality that sets it apart from every other kind of film. It's this that makes his stories feel so alive, so relatable, so easy to get lost into, no matter how magical and impossible are the things they portray.

With all of this I don't mean to criticize my past work, nor my future one, nor any other person's creative work. I think that one needs to take care to not do the inverse, of worrying so much about things having a soul that we end up not creating anything. It's better to create, freely, and in so doing we shed light on those dark corners, and get ever closer and closer to being able to create with a soul.

Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul. — Hayao Miyazaki

On the woes of holiday small talk

Mon, 25 Dec 2023 19:58:00 GMT

Happy holidays! I thought I wasn't going to get much time to write today, considering all the family meetups and whatnot. But my son is having a nap right now and I stayed with him in the car while my wife went and helped with the preparations. I think she knew I needed some time to prepare to go through the coming afternoon.

I've been giving some though about why sometimes I feel like I'm inferior to others in some way. And I think this feeling acts on different levels.

For example, I have pretty good confidence in myself as a programmer, and even feel comfortable talking to others about this topic. Supposing the conversation revolves around technology, and that I don't need to insert myself in that conversation to begin with, I know I can participate at great lengths with little to no discomfort.

Ah, but if we're talking about smalltalk then we're in problems. Smalltalk, the bane of my existence. It's somewhat ironic though. If there's someone I don't know then I have no problems talking to them for a moderate amount of time. But if I do know them then I start worrying that maybe they're not interested in what I have to say. This is even more noticeable if the person in question is a family member I rarely see, and worse still if it's someone from my wife's side of the family.

In very extreme cases I find myself changing how I talk so as to try and please that person. This makes me go through great lengths to try and discern what that person wants to hear, what they want to talk about, and (most importantly) the reactions they have to what I'm saying. This becomes very taxing over time, and not enjoyable at all. I feel absolutely drained when this happens for an extended period, and end up feeling like I'm socially inept and hopeless, with my self-esteem on the floor.

For all the effort I put into being authentic on here (which I have to say I've been able to do with a modicum of success), what comes out of my mouth when I speak is anything but. This only exacerbates the problem when I imagine how others might be noticing this as we talk.

Even when exchanging emails with someone (which you might have noticed if we've chatted via email), I worry about being a nice person and often end up writing in a convoluted and garbled way.

I have a brother who is very outgoing, and one of the few people in my life I can honestly say I can talk authentically to (the others being my wife, and perhaps my parents (sometimes)). I once told him about this problem in passing and he laughed and thought I was joking. He dismissed the comment saying "that's awful! No one feels like they're worthless and have nothing to contribute to a conversation". He, of course, has had the luck not to have to deal with depression and social anxiety. It's overstated, but I haven't brought up the topic again since then.

When I think about how to get more confident socially I think of how to improve my smalltalk skills. This has brought me to read books such as How to win friends and influence people, and observe how others go about it.

Of all my efforts (which to be honest have been half-hearted at best) the main insight I've gained is that people just say whatever they want as long as it is slightly related to what the other person said (and often without even listening to what was said to begin with). Just speaking their minds, in a most literal sense.

That's weird to me. When I imagine a great conversator I think of someone who pays close attention to the other person, listens and responds with empathy, and provides insightful comments and promptings.

... Now that I say it out loud, it sounds like I'm describing a therapist ...

Maybe what I need to do here, as in most other areas of my life, is to stop worrying about it so much and instead be less cautious; just speak my mind with little care for those listening, vomit my thoughts out there without any regards for the effects they might have. Ahh, those truly sound like the traits of a great conversator.

Just kidding. I'm sure this can be done in a thoughtful manner while respecting my own integrity and other's attention. But I need some humor to get me through the coming bout of holiday smalltalk.

Anyway. Happy holidays! Wishing you luck in your own uncomfortable situations 🌱

Talent feeds on persistence

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 00:11:00 GMT

Yesterday I started watching a wonderful documentary produced by Japan's NHK called 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki. In it we follow Miyazaki-san in a pretty intimate way as he goes through his creative process and I was completely floored by the fact that he spends so much time not really knowing what to do.

We think of him (and of many other famous creators) as just this fountain of interminable ideas with perfect execution, but the truth shown in the documentary is that this is not the whole story. We only every see their final output, but we miss the huge amount of work they put into creating their marvels.

In the documentary we see Miyazaki spending whole days just driving around, or not doing much (as far as production goes), just trying to get some inspiration about what to do next. He then spends days just struggling through the creative process, ditching sketch after sketch into the waste basket.

As someone who doesn't really understand creative processes and is considerably intimidated by the great ones, I found this part of the documentary extremely inspiring and eye-opening. Sure, these people are talented, but it's the sweat and persistence they put in that makes them truly special. The thing they have in common is that they don't give up, as Visa says in his essay when the vision isn’t manifesting (which is where I got the link to Miyazaki's documentary in the first place).

I just finished the first of the four 45 min episodes, where he has already gotten some steam and is steadily producing stuff for one of his movies (Ponyo), with the occasional hiccup here and there. But still, it's clear how much effort it takes him to go forward, even if he is a creative genius.

I'm looking forward to finish watching the whole documentary. If any other interesting things comes up I'll be sure to write about them here!

Technology should enhance humans, not replace them

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 01:29:00 GMT

This morning I was listening to an interview by Neil Gaiman on an Icelandic TV channel. The interview itself was pretty short, only around 7 minutes or so. He talks about a variety of topics but there a specific thing he mentioned that I wanted to comment on here. I don't remember his exact words but it was something along the lines of:

Humanities are disappearing. There's a lot of focus right now on the importance of kids (and adults) understanding science and engineering, and I think people sometimes forget that we created these in the first place for the humanities.

In other words: the goal should be to make our lives easier, not to replace the humanities.

There is a lot to be said here about how science is important but it's humanities that make life human, that make it worth living, but I wanted to constraint myself to talk about what the current LLM¹ phenomena is doing to humanity. These are being marketed more and more with the goal of making it easier for anyone to create stuff. But who is actually doing the creation? Is it the person who prompted the model to create that beautiful image? Is it the one who asked for a wonderful kids' bedtime story?

I would say no. The creator is the model, of course. The users are just requesting what they want and the model generates it for them².

If we take a moment to look more deeply into this then it becomes obvious that, if we advance time a bet, what AI is evolving towards is a situation where humanity is offloading its creative agency to "other beings", and relegating itself exclusively to the role of consumer.

This ties back to Niel Gaiman's comment. These tools have a huge potential to help humanity be better but the way they're being (in their majority) sold to us is as a replacement of what it means to be human³.

All the existing uses for LLMs and motivations people have for using them can be (mostly⁴) boiled down to the fact that we're each trying to leverage this new technology to get one-up on each other, to be more productive, have more social merit, get ahead in the race.

Coming back to LLMs' role in replacing the human creative agent, I don't really think this will happen. Or at least not entirely. Humans have too much of a creative spark in them for all the peoples of the world to go along with this story. I would actually argue that — in a world where Netflix doesn't record their entertainment offerings beforehand but generates them on demand based on the viewer — the real, honest creations will be a premium commodity and will themselves be more appreciated than they are today.

In some way we're already seeing this shift with lots of people abandoning (entirely or in part) the use of centralized social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and instead preferring to keep a blog and follow a handful of other people, preferring the intimate over the impersonal. We're seeing a shift from quick-easy entertainment to valuing more the individual thoughts of other humans⁵.

I imagine the internet user of the future will likely employ a mix of both.

On one side they will have Netflix-LLM or some other monstrosity that generates content for them on-the-fly based on their mood and what they had for breakfast. This content will be 99.99% accurate to the tastes of the viewer and will be manufactured in such a way that it will evoke a certain emotion. This is more or less how movies work now, but producers have to consider the sensibilities of a lot of people at the same time. It's likely that this same kind of fast-food entertainment (fast-entertainment?) will also be available in shorter form (for example, a nightmarish Reel-LLM™).

However, the people of the future will also have another form of content they consume which is directly made by other humans⁶. I imagine this kind of content will be long-form blogs much like the ones you can find on Bearblog.

Of course, other human created content (e.g. movies, books) is not really going anywhere. I imagine it will be sort of like owning handcrafted furniture vs IKEA stuff. The IKEA sofa is convenient and comfortable, but only the handcrafted will be considered art.

LLM stands for Large Language Model. They're a family of machine learning models that are especially good at dealing with language and manage to generate pretty good text. The most popular example, right now, is ChatGPT from OpenAI. ↩
To be fair, there is a nontrivial amount of skill that's needed to make the model produce what you want. But I would say this is only temporary and will become less and less important as these models get smarter. ↩
This comments apply mainly the way humans have thought of using this models and not about research (which can't be stopped, there will always be someone curious enough to go poke the weird slimy blob). ↩
I should recognize that not everything is bad. There are some legitimately nice uses out there. Like having LLMs help people understand topics, or helping those that want to make art but are not able to do so for some reason. The line is blurry at best, and it's located in different places for different people. ↩
I'm most definitely biased on this, since I haven't done extensive research on the topic and the observation is limited to my personal experience and social sphere. ↩
And it won't be informational (as in how to do X) since LLMs will be better at explaining things using the best pedagogical strategy for each individual. These human posts will, by nature, be about human connection and ideas. ↩

The Asphirinx

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 16:35:00 GMT

"You're in the presence of the great Asphirinx of Tehndor. Kneel, mortal, and know your peril. Are you seeking passage to the tomb of Tantemoh the Third? If so, know that you must pass by me. Speak now."

"Wait. 'Asphirinx' you said? I thought this was the Sphinx's chamber" said the explorer, all grimy from spending three days drudging through the ancient tombs "damn, I must have taken a wrong turn" he said to himself.

"Ah! Tell me not about that treacherous fiend!" spit the Asphirinx "why would you want her anyway? Neither wisdom nor riches does she impart, only death, and her bloody riddles".

For as long as he could remember he'd dreamt of the sacred city every night without fault. At first he didn't know what the dreams meant, but growing up as the son of a historian he soon found out that his dreams pointed to a real place, one he thought he was destined to find. Since then, he had spent all his life looking for it, looking for answers.

"All my research says that the Sphinx of Tehndor guards the entrance to the sacred city, isn't that so? That's what I'm after, and I'm prepared to bargain my life to reach it" said the explorer.

This was his last chance. All his worldly possessions had gone into financing this trip.

The Asphirinx sighed and lay on her haunches with her head held high.

"So you have hopes of answering my cousin's riddles eh? That's because you don't know the kind of questions she asks." said the Asphirinx "and her power to bar entrances is the worst. Do you know what she did at our family dinner during the last opening-of-the-year festival? She bloody stood there and said no one could pass into the dining room until they answered what she's got in her pocket! She doesn't even have pants!"

"Errr..." said the explorer, now confused. The conversation had take a decidedly unexpected turn. It didn't seem wise to interrupt though.

"And then you know what she did? She bloody turned and bloody ate the whole bloody dinner all by herself, leaving nothing for the rest of us!" it seemed she was getting into the groove now "You would think she would be satiated with all those handsome explorers such as yourself that she's gobbling up all the time. Do you know when it was the last time I ate someone?"

The explorer deemed it wise to change topics. Talking about eating people was not something he thought smart to engage in with a person-eating creature.

"So.. why do they call you Asphirinx anyway? You seem very much like what I would expect a Sphinx to look like" he said tentatively. And with surprise noticed that the Asphirinx seemed pleased by the comment.

"Ah.." said the Asphirinx with a sly smile "smart of you not to answer my question directly! Not all sphinxes are as honorable as myself, and many would hide their mortal riddles in something that would otherwise appear as everyday pleasantries. And to answer your question, I'm called the Asphirinx in mocking by my peers." She seemed hesitant to say more.

"Why is that?" Pushed on the explorer hesitantly, and perhaps unwisely. There was something not entirely right going on, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Well, I take lots of aspirin to handle my pain. You see, on my very first night on the job an adventurer came to the entrance of the tomb where I was posted. We went through the usual process where I asked him an impossible riddle, and when he failed I ate him. However, the bastard managed to lodge his sword into my fangs and I haven't been able to get it out since"

As if to make sure there was no doubt she opened her jaws and the explorer could clearly see a broken piece of steel jammed at the back of the cavernous maw.

"Say. Would you be so kind as to take it out? If you do I promise to help you get past my cousin, the big and mighty Sphinx".

The explorer stood there, pondering what to do. Thinking whether this was a riddle or not. Even if it wasn't, the wrong answer might be deadly.

"Don't worry, that's not a riddle. Tell you what, you don't have to answer. Just walk away if you want. My species is bound by ancient and sacred laws to not hurt seekers unless they guess incorrectly our puzzles".

She gave what amounted to a slight smile and then slowly opened her mouth.

The explorer didn't know what to do. Walking away might be seen as an offence, and even if he believed what she said about ancient laws he didn't know to what extent these would protect him.

Moreover, the explorer didn't know anything about dentistry.

But overall, he thought his chances were better if he helped out the Asphirinx. He might be able to pull out the shard by sheer force, and knowledge that would bring him closer to enter the sacred city would prove invaluable in his quest.

"Ok, here I go" he said, as he rolled up his sleeves and put on his thick hide gloves.

Hesitantly he reached inside the Asphirinx's mouth and grabbed the jagged metal with both hands. Thank God for opposable thumbs.

"Ready?" he asked

The Asphirinx nodded and shut her eyes. The explorer took a deep breath and, hoping this was not a mistake, pulled hard.

"Oooouch!" yelled the Asphirinx "that hurt!" But her eyes opened wide when she saw the broken sword tip in the explorer's hands. "Is... Is that it? Did you get all of it out?"

The explorer nodded. "yes, you only had this single piece jammed in there".

The Asphirinx roared, flapping it's wings in joy and relief. "I've never said this to a mortal, but thank you. I've had that damned shard embedded in my mouth for over 2000 years now. For this I owe you a debt I intend to repay. Is it still your wish to know how to answer my cousin's riddle?"

"Yes, that is still my desire. I need to get into the sacred city" said the explorer

The Asphirinx stopped to look at him, a mischievous smile took shape upon her face.

"Tut-tut, I thought you had more sense and understood the basic concept of dealing with a Sphinx: never answer any question!" she said, as she prowled towards the explorer "You see, I am the one and only SPHINX and you've just answered my riddle incorrectly. However, I won't kill you. I grow tired of living under these dead stones, always guarding something, never able to leave. I have a much better idea"

As quick as that her paw flew towards the explorer who shut his eyes and put his hands up in a futile attempt to protect himself.

And yet, nothing happened.

Slowly he opened his eyes and had a moment of vertigo. He was up, looking down at himself. "what the hell?" he thought. And looking further down he saw huge paws where he expected to find his feet. His mouth dropped.

"You see, as the Sphinx I had special powers to enforce whatever punishment I deemed appropriate" she said "so I did us both a favor. You'll get to be the might Sphinx, able to roam through these dry corridors to your heart's content, while I get go out into the world and be someone once again" she said with a triumphant smile "It's the perfect arrangement"

Seeing her smile on his face was an uncanny experience. He tried to speak but all that came out was a broken growl. His whole body started to wobble while his mind adjusted to the altered position of his preexisting limbs, and the presence of a few new ones.

"It's not a bad life you know? Being an immortal magical creature definitely has its perks." She said as she circled him "There's even the odd explorer that will come to visit every now and then."

The explorer, having regained some control over himself, fumbled for something to say "What do you mean you'll get to be someone once again?"

She smiled knowingly "oh no, you won't get me with the same trick" he didn't know what she was talking about "Remember, now you're the Sphinx, take care of your words" she turned and started walking towards the darkened corridor, leaving the torch abandoned on the floor.

"Au revoir my dear explorer, or should l say mighty sphinx?" she laughed as she turned to walk away and the musty corridors all around seemed to laugh with her. "Enjoy your time exploring these old bones, and be mindful of sword-carrying fools".

Who am I writing for

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 02:10:00 GMT

Yesterday it happened again that I was reading stuff from other people and got demotivated. But then I reminded myself that while I enjoy writing for others, and enjoy the idea of fame and whathaveyou, that is not my goal. I don't want that to be my goal; I refuse for it to be. My goal is just that of doing something I enjoy. Of writing, and in the process get to know myself better, to allow change, and improve at something I like.

I asked myself, "who am I writing for?". As part of my process I went online to see if anyone else had written anything about this topic and found one post in particular that resonated with me: a post by Mathina Calliope. She says that there are three different categories of writers, differentiated by their motivations. Quote:

self-expression and creative fulfillment

sharing information, entertainment, and/or inspiration

calling readers to action (e.g. political, spiritual, commercial)

All my previous attempts at keeping a blog fell squarely on the second point (mainly informative or wannabe-philosophical posts), and they didn't go very well. I found my motivation quickly plummeted and I was getting little satisfaction out of the content I was creating.

I think I had the misfortune of coming up in a marketing world, and as such my blogs were that kind of blog trying to make interesting content with the goal of getting more visitors. They didn't have a soul. I think I didn't really know why I was doing it and ended up using completely the wrong motivation.

It wasn't until I stumbled on Bearblog, and especially on the blogs of tiramisu and eve, that my eyes were opened to the fact there is another kinds of blogging, ones in which there is no real outcome besides self expression.

This blog is different. It is true I think of a subset of people when I write, I have a platonic audience so to say, which more or less modulates my voice and the amount of detail I go into. But it is very different than anything I've done before in that this is done mainly for myself. Except for the first few posts I did, I try not to care about what I'll write, I just write it and then publish it. Sometimes what I publish is useful to others, sometimes it's deep, sometimes it's extremely superficial. I try not to care.

Anyway, coming back to Mathina's post, shortly after these categories she answers my question quite directly.

... we write to connect. We have something to say and want others to hear it.

It is somewhat contradictory to what I've been saying but it has the ring of truth to my ears. If I were only writing (entirely) for myself then I wouldn't bother with having a blog at all. I wouldn't make the effort in posting these ramblings online. The true reason I'm writing is, as Mathina says, to connect with others. I know I have things I want to say, I feel a pressure inside me wanting to get these things out. I don't know what these are yet, but that's why I write. To uncover, and hopefully in the process to connect with others.

In some way it's a twisted exercise in self-gratification, but that doesn't mean it's worthless. I sometimes feel like a stone caked with mud and clay, and my job with these pages is to slowly chip away the clay, wash the mud with a river of ink, to finally uncover the lumpy, weirdly-shaped stone inside. What I'll do with it once I've set it free? I don't know. Maybe show it to others?

~ Take care 🌱

Nature of a short story

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 02:51:00 GMT

I saw another episode of Neil Gaiman's writing masterclass yesterday in which he talked about short stories.

A nice idea he brought up is that a short story can be seen as "the ending to a book you never wrote", or the beginning, or a snippet of something that happens somewhere in the middle. You go up to it, you experience it, and then you go on your way without needing to elaborate further.

This clicked with me because I've always considered myself a collector of what I call "vignettes". These are short scenes that I've always thought of as belonging to a larger story. I sometimes write them down somewhere and tell myself I'll leave them there until I have a story where they might fit in, but I don't ever really do anything with them.

I realized that all along I've the seeds for many potential short stories and I was letting them go stale! No need to feel bad about it though, as the inspiration behind most (all) of the ones I have kept has long been lost, and I didn't write them down in enough detail to be able to recreate what was it that excited me about that particular scene.

But still, it's a good thing. I'll keep an eye out for any new vignettes of this kind and see what comes up if I just let them free on the page!

Going back to the episode...

Neil Gaiman also answered a question I've always had about short stories: how long should they actually be.

It turns out that they can be anything from 10 words to 8k words. He gave a fantastic example of a short story he did in only 100 words called Nicholas Was.... I can't include it here because of copyright, but I strongly encourage you to read it by clicking the previous link.

His short story is good, and chilly, and I think it exemplifies really well his description of what a short story actually is:

a close up magic trick that leaves you asking yourself "wow, how did they do that?"

Sweet spring water

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 14:55:00 GMT

Time, the sweetest fruit and yet the greatest curse. Fool are they who wait to do something important with their time.

There is nothing to do, nothing needs to be done, all is well.

Only then can true being begin. Not out of heat and pressure, but out of the nature of your spirit.

Sweet spring water trickling through layers of stone, mud, sand, and muck.

Reviving lost connections

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 01:48:00 GMT

Today our house is full with family that came to stay for the holidays. It's nice having them here, a bit chaotic but there's a lot of love going around. After a while their stay starts being a bit uncomfortable, but for now all is good.

My son (~2 years old) is having lots of fun playing with his cousins, which is an extra bonus. I'm really happy that they get along so well. I wonder if it will stay like this forever (hopefully yes), or if it will be like it was for me and my cousins where we got along really well when we were kids but there came a point when we just stopped talking. I don't know anything about their current lives, and it has been years since I cared to check what they were up to. I guess the fault is on both parts.

To be fair with them (and with me) I did move far away when I was little. I'm talking about more than a 10 hours flight; another continent. Our parents did what they could to make us play when we went back to my original country, but they can only do so much. Eventually the baton passed to us, the new generation, and we just dropped it. That's what happens when you're living different lives I guess.

I know I could pursue a superficial relationship with them, like sending them funny gifs or whatnot on social media. The problem is that (1) I don't really use any social media, and (2) I'm not sure if this is better than any other kind of shallow connection like sending them a happy birthday message once a year.

I have a brother and he does keep up with most of our cousins through social media — mainly Instagram. As he tells it they don't really talk with words but instead just send each other funny stuff. I guess that is a good way to at least keep some sort of rapport with someone, at least create a channel that allows each one of you to tell the other person that you're thinking about them in a noncommittal way.

To this end I've tried (a couple of times) to get into the habit of using Instagram. I've told myself I can start small and send stuff to my closest friends, then build up to ones I haven't spoken to in a while, and eventually to childhood friends and my cousins. This works well for a couple of weeks but eventually I find my mental health suffers so I abandon my efforts.

I don't know if it happens for other people (I guess not for most) but after spending some time on any social media (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even Mastodon) I end up feeling dirty, like my mind is heavy, my spirit somehow tainted by the experience. I make an effort of just following accounts that post nice and funny things, or poetry and art, but still it happens.

I think it has something to do with consuming lots of short-form content. Maybe the constant context switching is something I don't enjoy, and the uncomfortableness of it just builds up, and up, and up. And when I close the app I realize I feel bad, almost nauseous, sometimes I feel like I even hate myself for spending so much time on it (although hate might too strong of a word).

Who knows. It's also very likely that all of the above is not true at all and I'm just sub-consciously judging my actions because I'm comparing them against a gold standard which tells me that (corporate) social media is evil and should be avoided at all costs.

Anyway, sorry for the rant here. I think I'll make an effort to think some more on how to recover some of those lost connections I've let slip in my life. Hopefully I can find a middle-ground between being pen-pals and being intimate strangers on Instagram.

~ Take care 🌱

Master of disguise

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 18:50:00 GMT

I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the reflection. Who is that one staring back at me through the silvery mists? I know I have seen him somewhere, but every time I do he looks different.

Now tall and sure; now hunched and meek.

A true master of disguise is he, my self image.

Crocheting Adventures

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:34:00 GMT

I've always wanted to learn how to crochet. Some of my earliest memories of my grandmother are of her sitting crocheting in front of the TV (which was so loud you were almost unable to hear your own thoughts). I remember asking her many times if she could teach me, it looked so fun and I loved the idea of being able to create things I could then wear, or even small plushies. But I never managed to get her to teach me.

She always answered me with a variation of "You're a boy and crocheting is for ladies. Go play outside, or read a book instead. If you still want to learn when you're older I will teach you". Yes, she was very conservative in that way, and believed that me crocheting would somehow corrupt my little innocent soul. Old ways of thinking I guess, she later changed her views and ended up accepting queer people as normal people instead of problems that needed to be fixed, but that's another topic.

Alas, my grandmother passed away without me ever re-asking her to impart her crocheting wisdom after I became an adult. I've tried looking at tutorials online but I constantly failed to understand them, and quickly got disheartened — what the hell does "half single crochet stitch" even mean?

My wife has known this has been something I've wanted to do for a while so around 2 months ago she gifted me a crocheting kit for beginners! It had everything I needed to learn in the form of hooks, a great yarn that was easy to work with, and (more importantly) a set of videos that I had to watch in order that taught me most of the different types of stitches and then walked me through making my own plushie wale.

The wale ended up being more a ball with fins, but still, I now feel like I can at least understand other YouTube videos and I'm ready to tackle (slightly) more complex projects!

It's hard to enjoy things when you compare yourself with others

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 01:02:00 GMT

Yesterday I was catching up with some of the blogs I follow and while reading I had this subtle but oppressive feeling of disillusionment, a weight on top of mind. I was thinking to myself "wow these people are really great, they not only write very well with an extensive vocabulary and well-formed sentences, but also write engaging posts that I'm eager to continue reading". That is good for them I guess. But for me, I feel like I'm not good enough, I had the feeling yesterday that I should just drop it and stop kidding myself. I'm not even a native English speaker and — while I feel my vocabulary is pretty good — I can't hope to be able to express all the detailed gradations of meaning that you can only pick up from your native environment.

I'm still writing here though. I now — after sleeping on it and a healthy dose of coffee — identify these feelings as my old friend the impostor syndrome. It could be that I'm not as good as them. It can be that I won't ever be able to write as well as others. It could be that my content is not as engaging or free flowing as what is usually considered good. But even if all these are true, it is undeniable to me that writing is something I thoroughly enjoy doing. So if that is true, what importance do the other things even have? Who cares if I won't win prizes for painting these pictures if I enjoy my time doing them? I'm lucky enough that I don't need to win anything. If seen like this — with the bad parts cut off — then writing becomes an endeavor of pure enrichment: experience a pleasant time, improve at something I enjoy, get to know myself better.

This problem of not wanting to do something because of not feeling I'm good enough is very pervasive in my life. I always have this feeling that everything is a competition that needs to be won and if I don't play to win then I shouldn't play at all. This is weird, because I don't consider myself to be a very competitive person, I actually actively avoid entering a competitive mindset whenever I can avoid it. Maybe it's a byproduct of my education — read cultural influences — that makes me subconsciously behave as if everything has a ranking, a set of prizes to be competed for, that merit is the only thing of value there is. You end up focusing more on collecting accomplishments than doing the thing itself.

The worst part of this is that I don't believe I need to be the best, but I do feel I should do my best. This is a completely toxic attitude though, because it makes you — subtly, almost imperceptibly — take on a competitive mindset. You become unable to do things just for fun unless it's a solitary, isolated thing. Something that you won't show to anyone else. And I don't think this isolation good. I want to be able to wholeheartedly share things with others, using the complete meaning of the word.

I try not to fall into this trap of feeling I need to compete. I really do. But, right now, I think this is a way in which my mind works. Trying to dismantle it — as I've been doing lately with writing — is hard and requires seeing what metrics am I judging myself with and seeing (rather than questioning) how coarse they are, how completely they miss the point. I can only hope that these efforts have ramifications in other areas of my life. I can only hope to slowly become more open to accept myself and stop comparing with others. I can only hope I stop caring about the unimportant things.

But it's all a process I guess. A path that should be walked, one step at the time.

~ Take care 🌱

Finding your voice and setting goals

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 02:17:00 GMT

I was watching another episode of Niel Gaiman's masterclass yesterday (the one called Finding your own Voice) where he talks about how you need to write a lot before you're able to "find your voice" and start writing stuff that is actually good. He mentioned some quotes I really liked which I'll paraphrase here:

Your voice is the things you do wrong
- He said this is actually a quote from Jerry Garcia (the guitarist from Grateful Dead)
- If you did everything 100% correctly then you would sound exactly the same as everyone else. This was in the context that one shouldn't stress about finding your voice because your voice is what will happen anyways once you stop trying.
There are a million bad drawings in your pencil. As an artist your job is to get them out so you can get to the new ones.
- This was a quote by Chuck Jones, one of the main illustrators behind the Looney Tunes.
- This was in the context about the importance of just doing it, which is a requirement to actually improve — just thinking about doing something won't really make you any better.

While watching this episode I started wondering why I was actually seeing it. Why am I even going through the effort of watching this masterclass.

Ever since I was little I've thought that writers had the coolest job in the world — perhaps after Himalayan yogis who got to sit around all day pondering the mysteries of reality. And while I have written some stories I'm not near as feverish at it as other people.

For example, in this episode Niel Gaiman said that he had "crates" (his word) of unfinished stories by the time he was 17 (this was a comment about not feeling bad for not finishing stuff, although there is more to learn if one sees them to completion). I have started (as in wrote down something) maybe 20 or 30 stories total, with 3 or so finished.

Pondering this made me realize that even though I've had this yearning to create stories ever since I can remember I haven't really done anything about it. I don't think I want to transition careers (I'm very lucky in that I really enjoy my job), but I do want to set a goal and hopefully do something in this direction. I want to learn to create experiences that, as Tolkien puts it, hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.

I want to create (small) things I can share, hopefully while also sharing some of the emotions that move me. Be able to build bridges and connect with others, be able to make sense of the world through narratives.

Earlier today I was browsing around Bearblog and stumbled upon Elisa's blog Floating Flinders. All her posts are great and I love the clarity of self reflection and honesty in her writing. But there is one post in particular that resonates with what I'm writing here, her post about 15 minute stories. She writes short stories inspired by her dreams but the goal is just to write something and not think much about it. Sort of like wordvomits I guess, just start with an idea and let yourself run with it for a short while.

I've been going through some of the ones she's posted and I really like them. I like the format, and the freedom / flexibility it brings. So I want to set that as my writing goal: get in the habit of making 15 minute stories of my own!

Looking forward to Advent of Code 2023

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

November is almost over, which means it'll soon be time for Advent of Code 2023!

In case you haven't heard about it Advent of Code is a yearly event where every day the website releases a new programming puzzle (so an advent calendar with programming problems instead of chocolates) with the difficulty increasing the closer we get to the 25th. Puzzles are tied together by a story that you uncover with each solution. You can solve the problems however you want, you get a set of "input data" and need to produce an output which is often just a single value. If you like programming problems you should consider checking it out!

I've been thinking about how to approach it, which language to use, and how much time to dedicate to it. As always I have many languages I want to play with (Gleam, Roc, Elixir), but I think I'll very probably be doing it with F#. I'm still unsure whether I'll be doing a web-based app thing with Fable or a nice console app with Spectre Console.

On one hand, getting to know Fable would allow me to create web-apps with F# and the ability to interop with Javascript is pretty appealing considering the great amount of libraries it has, not to mention the code could also probably run in a NodeJS environment. Also, I'm already pretty good with making web interfaces so there's no learning involved in how to handle the input and etc.

On the other hand, SpectreConsole is also very nice, and it has that modern-retro computer terminal appeal which is a great pull for me. Independently, these options are only for the presentation layer of the results and problem input so it doesn't really matter much.

If done properly these two will easily be interchangeable, so I guess I can always do it with whatever's easier and then work on having a nice presentation later on. However, having a nice platform is appealing and I know it's something that will motivate me to keep going.

Anyway, I don't have a clear way to determine which option is better though, I think I'll just let the decision mull in the back burner and see how I feel about it once the event starts.

Considering the sharp decrease in the amount of free time I have these days (a known side effect of having a baby) I don't know how far I'll get, and I'll probably need to work on the problems at night since I expect to be pretty busy at work for the whole month of December. Still, programming puzzles are fun (for me), and thematic problems are event better!

I think I'll mainly be participating with the goal of trying to break my record. I usually do around 10 days or so before desisting. Hopefully I can do at least 11 this year.

Good things come when one stops trying

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 01:08:00 GMT

I've been thinking that one of the nice things about writing with a schedule is that it doesn't really matter if you feel you have anything to write about or not.

At night I often think about sitting down to write something but feel like I don't have anything that's worth putting down so I just don't write.

But in the few days that I've been doing doing morning pages I've noticed that good things will come out no matter what. It's like my subconscious is subverting myself — playing hide and seek: I think the well is dry but when I turn around and stop worrying it comes up with all sorts of interesting things, real things.

Not everything is good though, there still a lot of superfluous fluff. I feel part of the process is to peel out the cruft that is what you're forcing yourself to do, so that the actual good stuff can come out. This reminds me of a quote I like very much (from Ray Bradbury I think)

It doesn't matter how much you want to nor how hard you try, you can't force a flower to bloom. You will only kill it in the process.

Same with creating, you can't force yourself. Instead trust in the process and good things will come when you stop trying.

~ Take care 🌱

Shame in Writing

Sat, 25 Nov 2023 01:35:00 GMT

I haven't told my family (or friends) that I have a blog. I don't know why. The emotion I feel towards the idea of sharing this with them is shame. And that's just telling them of the act. Actually having them read it is positively terrifying. I've had this feeling for a while now actually, that writing is something to be done in the dark, when no one is seeing.

Looking deeper I think it's because I'm afraid of them reading my stuff and then realizing I'm no good, and making fun of me in some way. I feel this most especially with my wife (which is weird since she, and everyone else close to me, has been nothing but supportive with whatever it is I want to do), but it's still present, to a lesser extent, with everyone else I can think of. Even with internet stranger — although you are at the end of the spectrum. Still, that's probably the reason why I haven't shared any stories online.

In my early twenties I got into meditating quite a bit, and was a fan of Buddhist literature. I was — and still am — impressed by their whole view of the mind. Growing up a Christian (who later became an atheist) it was a whole revelation, a new way of thinking about good and bad, about happiness and sadness.

Anyway, I'm digressing. What I wanted to talk about is that at this point — I must have been around 21 or so — I felt ashamed of people (and again, especially my wife) seeing me meditate. I would even go to such extents such as locking myself in the room before sitting on the cushion. I can only wonder what it was she thought I was doing.

It always struck me as interesting. Nowadays I still meditate (less than I would like) but no longer feel any shame about it. Although there was a moment when I had to go through the transition. I would work up my courage to tell her I'm going to meditate and she would just say go for it or some such. I don't think she ever realized that it was a big deal for me to deal with the uncomfortable-ness of having her in the room with me. Our minds can be quirky sometimes.

Maybe I should take the same approach with writing and just bite the bullet as they say. Although I don't think I'm strong enough. At least not yet.

~ Take care

Inside Out and honesty in writing

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 01:49:00 GMT

Warning: there are minor spoilers ahead for the movie Inside Out.

Yesterday I re-watched Pixar's Inside Out movie with my wife and in-laws, and — as always — I was impressed by how invested I was in it. Especially near the end, you have a whole lot of emotion going on, while the story itself takes you through the process where the protagonist (Joy) learns that Sadness is important. Somehow, the emotion evoked at this point is exactly that: a mix of sadness and joy. Sad for the way Sadness had been treated, for the kid Reilly who is leaving her home. Joy for the hope on the horizon, for the understanding and realization that has just happened.

It reminded me very much of something that Niel Gaiman touched on in his masterclass, in one of the first few episodes named something like "Honesty in Fiction". He says that, with storytelling, you're basically telling an elaborate lie to people and while people are good at "suspending their disbelief" they won't connect with the story unless there is an emotional something that stirs up feelings in them. Emotions are like the seasoning of the story that differentiates synthetic industrialized food from a feast of homegrown produce.

The honesty part comes from the fact that for him (and I think pretty much for everyone) it's impossible to add emotion to a story unless that emotion comes from somewhere inside oneself. In this episode he mentioned multiple times the advice that one needs to open up more than one would usually be comfortable with.

The movie, being about emotions, is a good candidate for expressing emotional topics. But really, this can be done with whatever topic one chooses. The themes themselves that are treated in the movie are not specific to abstract things, they're actually very much everyday human things. The theme of being happy with something and then losing it for reasons outside of one's own control. The theme of not appreciating something and then realizing that it was actually a great thing to begin with. The complementary theme of feeling not appreciated, and then realizing one's own value and being able to contribute to the world. The crushing theme of letting go, and being let go of, of wanting someone but that other not reciprocating the feeling — not with malice, just because they don't think about you anymore.

Anyway, suffice it to say that it was a great study in what things other people are doing that work for me. A chance to appreciate the importance of emotion in storytelling.

I don't know about others but for me a great story is mainly great because of how it's written and not so much for the idea behind it. If you have an awesome idea with a bad execution then the story will be hard to connect with. But you can have a mediocre plot with a great execution and the resulting story will be great. What differentiates a good execution from a bad one is how human the story ends up being, how much we end up emotionally connecting with it.

Checking out Niel Gaiman's writing course

Tue, 21 Nov 2023 14:46:00 GMT

I've told myself it's — finally — time to go through Niel Gaiman teaches writing masterclass (which a friend shared with me many moons ago). I've had it in my list of things to watch for a looooong time now, but I always shy away from it, subconsciously avoiding it. I don't know why. I think I've always wanted to write stories which is something I used to do a lot of when I was a kid, but now I'm kind of afraid of trying and finding out I suck. I wouldn't even know where to start from, but I guess I'm just making problems for myself. In the past what has worked is I just pick an idea and start writing. I sometimes used to get this wonderful thing where I felt that I wasn't really writing, I wasn't doing anything, the story was just flowing from my hand, through my pen, to the paper, sort of like a metal rod conducting lighting.

I still feel unsure, but maybe going through the course will help in some way. At the very least hearing one of my favorite authors talk about his process and his problems is sure to keep me inspired and hopeful! I have a feeling that continuing with my morning pages is also an excellent way to help lift up the dam I've built around my mind.

For example, at night when I'm falling asleep — or even at random moments during the day when I'm not doing any intellectual work — I have so many ideas of things to write. It's like a spring of freshwater moving from my subconscious to my conscious awareness. But when I try to actually write the ideas falter, they stutter. I try to grasp the tail of one as it quickly hides under a rock, and come back only with smoke in my hands. I say it's the idea that hides, but more likely it's me, hiding the idea away from myself, for some reason. This is what I meant when I say "lift up the dam"!

Falling into the numbers game

Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT

I feel that lately I've been falling into the trap I always fall into when starting any kind of online activity: the numbers game. I do my best not to, but it still happens, like a moth flying towards an open flame I start playing it and, when I realize it, it's already too late and the magic has evaporated, my wings burned to ash.

I think with the blog it started when I upgraded my account. I did so mainly because I really liked the platform and wanted to support it. Once I upgraded I noticed the very fancy analytics tab.

I clicked on it — while aware of my peril, alas I thought I could handle it — out of curiosity to see who was linking to my posts. This then kept me coming back, exploring more of the interface, until eventually I realized I was no longer writing anything.

And here we are. I wish there was a way to maybe disable the analytics tab, or maybe add a warning saying abandon all hope ye who enter here — all hope to create things honestly that is.

On my browser I have a very nifty extension called Lor-Saba/Code-Injector: WebExtension (github.com) which allows me to execute custom Javascript or CSS on any page I visit. I can add a CSS rule for https://bearblog.dev/dashboard/ with the following CSS that will just hide the Analytics link.

a[href="/dashboard/analytics/"] {
	display: none;
}

While this does work — I've already added it — it feels a bit like hiding my head in the sand, like an ostrich. Although it's probably not that bad, at least — supposing I manage to find motivation once again — it will allow me not to get side-tracked with switching goals and external pressures.

Edit. Just discovered that Bear allows you to add custom Dashboard CSS directly! So there is no real need to use an external browser plugin. This also has the added benefit that the styles work when viewing your dashboard on devices that don't have the plugin (e.g. your phone). To hide the Analytics tab with custom dashboard CSS go to Dasboard > Settings > Advanced settings and paste the snippet above in the Custom Dashboard CSS box.

Morning pages

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 03:40:00 GMT

The idea of Morning Pages has been floating around my internet-space for a while now. I've always been intrigued by it but for some reason I've never tried it, even though I've read that it has been a really useful practice for multiple people. After reading some new posts about it (one of them from tiramisu) I've decided it's finally time for me to give it a try!

The idea of Morning Pages was originally proposed by Julia Cameron and consists of sitting down every morning and writing three pages of text. As far as I understand it doesn't matter what you write about as long as you just write. The suggestion is to put things down in a sort of stream-of-conscious style.

A quick search on the internet reveals that three pages are 750 words, but another page — by Julia Cameron herself — says one should write three 8.5x11 pages, which as far as I could understand is the same as an A4 page. I'm not an expert, but I think that I can fit many more than 750 words in 3xA4 pages. I guess it would be easy to find out if I took the time.

Anyway, I'll stick to the 750 words mark since I feel it's good amount and I know I can comfortably reach it within an acceptable amount of time. Another thing Julia Cameron says is to make sure to do them in the morning — hence the name. This might be a bit of an issue for me considering I have a small baby with which I want to play with in the morning before work.

The exercise itself — I think — is not that of just writing crap, which I can easily do in my own work notes (in which I often write much more than 750 words a day). It's more that of just learning to sit with your stream of consciousness, learn how not to get in the way and in so doing get to know yourself. It's going to be interesting and hopefully I can stick with it. I also won't be doing longform writing because — even though I love to write with pen and paper — it is much slower AND I like the idea that whatever I make gets backed up in a digital medium, it feels safer somehow¹.

I think I'll write these notes mainly to myself. I kind of have the itch to write them in such a way that, if it is interesting, I can post it to my blog. But I don't think that will set the proper tone for me, since I'll try to — subtly — veer towards making publishable content. That is, it will likely impact how deep I'm willing to dig. On the other hand, that's exactly why I started blogging, as a motivation to write more and maybe share some of the stuff I feel. We'll see, I guess it's too soon to make a decision so I'll just do whatever feels right in the moment.

Even though my news-feed has been showing me lots of news about how a solar storm (that is expected to happen once every 100 years) could wipe out electronics (or will it just shut down the internet?) for a couple of months, so writing in an actual paper notebook is probably safer? Anyway, I don't expect anyone to read these notes, and I would also be surprised if I revisit them myself, so maybe the decision itself doesn't matter much. ↩

What makes the sun shine?

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 03:00:00 GMT

One of my all-time favorite passages is from Sir Terry Pratchett's book Hogfather. The book tells the story of how the Hogfather — the Santa Claus figure of the Discworld — is destroyed and then saved. The story's theme, I feel, centers around the issue of the human conception of the universe and how we make sense of it.

The passage I'm talking about is a dialogue that happens around the end of the book between Death and Susan — the protagonist, who is also Death's granddaughter — discussing what would've happened if Susan hadn't been able to save the Hogfather.

“Thank you. Now…tell me…”

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN’T SAVED HIM?

“Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?”

NO.

“Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that. It’s an astronomical fact.”

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

She turned on him. “It’s been a long night, Grandfather! I’m tired and I need a bath! I don’t need silliness!”

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.

“Really? Then what would have happened, pray?”

A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.

They walked in silence for a moment.

“Ah,” said Susan dully. “Trickery with words. I would have thought you’d have been more literal-minded than that.”

I AM NOTHING IF NOT LITERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need…fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

It gives me the chills every time I read it, even after all this time. It does such a good job at capturing the core of the human experience. As humans we don't ever really see the world directly, we see the stories we tell ourselves about it, and we can end up telling ourselves all sort of negative stories about how things work.

This extra layer that we put on top of reality is sort of like a lens that tinges everything we see. This lens' color and shape is dictated by the stories we tell ourselves and the combination of these is unique to each one of us.

However, this same capability is also what enables us to be human: to create, express ourselves through art, connect with other humans, to imagine a better tomorrow. This is perfectly captured in this next passage, which follows shortly after the one above.

STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE’S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A…A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.

“Talent?”

OH, YES. A VERY SPECIAL KIND OF STUPIDITY. YOU THINK THE WHOLE UNIVERSE IS INSIDE YOUR HEADS.

“You make us sound mad,” said Susan.

NO. YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

(Terry Pratchett was truly a genius / philosopher / poet able to express the deepest truths about the human experience in such simple words that they just seem obvious.)

I love how Death, with his omnipresent point of view, has knowledge of the whole cosmos and is baffled by what humans consider normal (in this case, a bed). But in reality these things are all but normal. This specific part always makes me chuckle, and also appreciate how many things we take for granted that are actually truly miraculous.

As humans WE NEED these stories to make sense of the world, a human mind just couldn't work without them. I see it in my own mind: all these preconceptions, ideas, behaviors I force myself to align with (even if I don't like them), all the things I consider to be me.

These stories are also what allow us to perceive magic (good or bad) in the world. Its roots borrow deep into them, and grows forward, bearing fruit into our reality. This is what makes a sunset beautiful, or gives us the sense of awe at seeing a perfect snowflake falling during a windless winter day. A being incapable of perceiving it would just see a "MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS".

The final idea is that creativity is equal parts imagination and hope: imagination allows us to imagine (duh) an alternative, but it is hope that gives it energy and movement, the drive to find said alternative. Hope that an alternative is even possible to begin with.

I might be getting a bit off track but I can't resist sharing another great quote (also by Terry Pratchett, this time from Witches Abroad). I won't comment on it directly but I think it is relevant enough to be included.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.

Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.

Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling.

Stories are a powerful thing. Be mindful of the stories you consume (and more importantly how you consume them), and what you tell yourself. I think we frequently underestimate the effect they can have in our lives.

While writing this post I'm realizing that I could incorporate some of these things into my own life.

Everything — especially the negative things — I believe about myself are stories I accept as true and identify with. But they are not truths set in stone.
The flip side of the point above: If I can imagine a better version of myself then I can make it a reality with dedication. It's often I perceive things within myself that I would like to be otherwise, and always end up accepting them as facts.

Thanks for reading 🍃 take care!

And to answer this post's title: You make the sun shine, and — conversely — you also make the darkness terrifying.

Have you looked at the moon tonight?

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 04:19:00 GMT

Have you looked at the moon tonight? Tell me you have, just for my sake.

It's been a year. I've spent my time with it every night since then, without fault.

Sometimes I try to forget, I try not to look, but as if wanting to disobey I find my eyes drifting to it. It fills my thoughts in the dark of night, keeping me awake.

Is it self inflicted torment? My heart aching, but glad of the vision, lives for a moment as one with it, then to fall again, then to remember the moon is out there, unreachable and deaf to my attention, cold, a silver mirror with a quicksilver soul.

The truth is I hope you've seen it tonight, it was beautiful. At the same time, I wish you didn't, I wish you free from the bond that binds me to it.

Sometimes there's just no right choice

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 01:19:00 GMT

In our culture we're brought up with the latent understanding that there's always a right answer: the correct choice in an exam, the proper thing to say in certain situations, the correct way to file taxes, the proper manners we should have, etc. However, very frequently in life we're faced with the task of choosing between a number of options where it's impossible for us to determine what the optimal choices are.

When we're faced with such a situation we frequently tell ourselves that if we only had more information we could certainty make the proper decision. But life does not work like that. Sometimes there is no right or wrong to a situation, sometimes it's impossible to forsee the consequences from your current vantage point.

This happens for both big and small things. What choice of shirt I wear today might not have much impact in my overall life, while choosing which city I want to live in will definitely have unforeseeable ramifications for both my life and my self-identity. Even a smaller thing like deciding whether to check-in with that long lost friend might open up all sets of possibilities that we can't even fathom. After all, humans are notoriously bad at perceiving the future, or even making plans beyond what they'll eat today - and even then things don't always go according to plan.

It is easy to get bogged down in collecting facts, determining pros and cons, weighing them, and in general losing lots of headspace. It's hard to accept that there is no perfect answer.

So, when faced with such a situation, don't panic and cheer up in the knowledge that whatever you choose will be ok, just do whatever your gut tells you to do.

After all, what is a sure decision besides something we've told ourselves we have enough partial knowledge to judge correctly?

Hello nice to meet you, what do you do for a living

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 12:43:00 GMT

2025-01-01: my feelings about this have somewhat changed in the past year. I still hold to the fact that we should not consider each other to be only (or mainly) the roles that we take on on life. What changed is that I've come to appreciate how useful this question is as an icebreaker, and even as a conversation topic in its own right, especially when talking to people that are uncomfortable opening up about their personal stuff.

I'm sure many of you have been asked this very question when meeting someone for the first time. After all, it is a great inquiry that offers lots of followup opportunities, the bread and butter of small talk.

But is it actually the best question that we can ask? What does it tell about our society that our go-to question when we're getting to know someone is to ask them what do they work on.

To be fair, it's not only the fault of the one doing the asking, but also of the one being asked; two sides of the same coin. If you think about it, most people are not comfortable with opening up to strangers. Imagine someone comes up to you and says "hi, let's talk about our deepest fears and insecurities". I know I would feel uncomfortable, and would likely trip over myself in an attempt to impress whoever was asking me these questions.

And that's why "what do you do for a living" works, it gives a chance for the other person to flex, and boast about themselves in an accepting context.

I think that is probably a better indication of where the problem lies. What twisted logic makes us think that work is something we can use to feel good about ourselves, something we can use to impress. Almost as if it where the most valuable part of our lives, the forefront of our reputation towards society. Why isn't it acceptable for us to answer with other facets of our life? Is it because we feel people are not interested about the tomatoes I grew in my garden this summer, or the fact that I have finally been able to talk myself into getting an appointment with a therapist? I feel like these should be much more valuable human accomplishments than having a good position at a well known company.

Also, why do push ourselves to impress the people we meet? Why do we have to treat connecting with other humans as a competition? I imagine there is some sort of evolutionary tribal behavior somewhere in there. We put up walls all around ourselves, walls that are painted with bright colors and are filled with fancy signs and advertisements, but walls nonetheless. Why can't we just say "hi, I'm happy for this connection, I'm grateful for the warmth of your human presence". Maybe that's a bit over the top but I think it's enough to get my point across.

I think a better question to ask on meeting someone is "what makes you happy" or "what do you enjoy doing". It's ambiguous enough so that if someone wants to answer with a superficial fact about themselves (like their work accolades) they can, but it also leaves enough space for that person to tell you real stuff.

"Unselfing Social" by Maria Popova

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 14:09:00 GMT

Note: this is not really a poem but the opening lines of a short article by Maria Popova. I found them so beautiful I wanted to reshare them here as poetry!

Somewhere along the way, in the century of the self, we forgot each other. We forgot this vast and wonder-filled universe, of which we are each but a tiny and transient wonder.

We forgot that all creative work — be it music or mathematics, poetry or physics, anything we might call art — is a hand outstretched in the dark, reaching not for visibility but for the light that lives between us. Reaching for connection.

We forgot what Whitman knew even as he proclaimed “I celebrate myself!” — that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” No word appears in Leaves of Grass more times than you.

We are living through a pandemic of selfing — rampant self-celebration that mistakes applause for connection, likes for love. Social media companies are capitalizing on our native need for affirmation, exploiting our compromised immunity to manipulation at every turn: algorithms prioritizing selfies over sunflowers, algorithms amplifying the word I, algorithms doping us on the dopamine of being noticed, seducing us into forgetting the art and joy of noticing — that crowning glory of consciousness. And somewhere, in the quiet core of our being, this frantic hunt for likes is making us like ourselves less.

There must be another way — a way to unself just enough to remember each other, to grow a little more awake to this world that shimmers with wonder, of which any one self is only a fleck.

Whatever that way is, it is not some new technology. Maybe it is a new ethic. Maybe it is the oldest ethic.

On being frustrated with visiting family

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 03:36:00 GMT

I consider myself to be a pretty happy person, but some days, sometimes, I just want to paint everything black. I find myself to be so angry at the world, or sometimes it's worse and instead of anger there's just sadness.

I know there are certain situations that I can more or less confidently say are sort of triggers for these feelings. For example, I live with my in-laws and during the holidays all their offspring come over and stay multiple days with us. Now, I do love them and I have no real problem with them, but there are situations when there's just a lot of mess, loud noises, and general insanity (especially since some of them have small kids). After the first few days I feel like a length of rope, wound tighter and tighter, beginning to fray, losing its shape.

I imagine that in this specific instance the problem is that I don't want to change my otherwise peaceful life. I think there's some sort of control obsession going on, where I want something to be some way and then to realize I'm powerless to change it because, even though I think of my in-laws' house also as my house, it is still theirs and I have no real say in anything, I'm just one more of the bunch.

Having these feelings makes me feel incorrect. They're my family after all. Shouldn't I, like, enjoy being with them ALL the time? Look forward to their incursions into my day to day existence?

No. It doesn't sound right to feel bad about having feelings, but I do think I should be more mindful and realize that sometimes there's nothing to control, and that resenting them for their desire to be happy is not fair.

Also, these frustration I have towards them usually makes me keep my distance, which in turn makes me feel more alienated from everyone, a stranger in my own home.

I don't want this for myself. Luckily there is a clear path ahead, I only hope I have the determination and discipline to follow it: give up control.

The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst

Tue, 31 Oct 2023 15:21:00 GMT

As much as I would like to take credit for the title of this post, I can't. It's a phrase from the front page of The Marginalian. The quote itself is:

“Expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” This is borrowed from the wise and wonderful Debbie Millman, for it’s hard to better capture something so fundamental yet so impatiently overlooked in our culture of immediacy. The myth of the overnight success is just that — a myth — as well as a reminder that our present definition of success needs serious retuning. The flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst and yet, as a culture, we’re disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming. But that’s where all the real magic unfolds in the making of one’s character and destiny.

I find this to be really on-point. While the quote itself applies mainly to the process of becoming something/someone I think this actually permeates the whole sphere of our mental experience.

Everything in our lives tends to immediacy. You want ice to cool down your drink? You got it. You want hot water to bathe? You got it. You want to feel better by looking at cat videos? You got it. I imagine this is an effect of how businesses evolve: the one that satisfies a need with the least amount of hassle is the one that wins. Nature (and by extension also our minds) prefer the path of least resistance.

But what does this do to our psyche? In bygone ages if we wanted to be entertained we had to make some effort to get it. For example, compare a game of tag versus watching Instagram on your phone. One will give you an easy dopamine hit without much effort on your side, while the other requires you to put in the work to actually play a game. Are we, without realizing it, teaching ourselves that happiness is to be found in low-hanging fruits, and that (taken to the extreme) is better to avoid having to work for it?

I remember when I was a kid I would spend hours outside, looking at plants, insects, and was constantly amazed by the awesomeness that is our earth. Now that I'm older though my entertainment mainly revolves around reading books, watching videos, and video-games. I find that when I try to enjoy something that takes a bit more effort on my part (e.g. playing chess) I feel easily frustrated and there is this thought in the back of my mind "why does it have to be so hard?".

It's complicate though. Even if you decide to drop all your "easy entertainment" then you'll still have to deal with the other people in your life that continue consuming it. A very poignant example that comes to mind, and I imagine most of us have experienced at some point, is being with a group of friends at a table and suddenly realizing that everyone is on their phone. We don't do this out of malice of course, and it's also not because we think our friends are boring. We do it because our mind wants to be entertained, we want that dopamine stream to keep flowing. It takes less effort to take out our phones than to participate and maintain an engaging conversation. Again, nature favors the path of least resistance.

The act in itself is not evil and I don't think anyone should feel bad if they want to look at their phone instead of doing other stuff. Sometimes it's an easy way to wind down. But we should be mindful not to overdo it. If we do, then we're solidifying those mental pathways, we're getting ourselves used to living in a stream of dopamine. And guess what - once that stream is interrupted for any reason we'll feel sad, unsatisfied, or even mad with the reason for the interruption.

Of course cellphones, Instagram, etc, are the extreme case. We can compare them with watching TV, which is also an easy way to entertain ourselves. By definition TV requires 0-effort on your part (besides remaining awake). But I think there is an important difference when compared to cellphones, and that is that TV is not usually easily accessible, it's usually a compartmentalized activity to which you dedicate a specific amount of time and happens in a specific location. You don't frequently see someone whip up their iPad while waiting in line at the grocery store and start watching their favorite series. But it's almost everyone that takes out their phone. The reason? Well I think it's because TV requires much more time than watching a reel, and as such it is not a convenient quick fix. Again, we also shouldn't overdo TV, because if not we would find ourselves at square one.

I recently wrote a blog post about how I feel bad whenever I'm not doing something. Reflecting on it a bit more, I think this negative feeling is not just related to feeling bad for not being producing, but it's also feeling dirty because I'm not feeling happy (which is a circular argument if I've ever heard one). It's like I have this pressure on me saying that if I'm not constantly feeling good (ie, in the dopamine stream) then there's something wrong.

So is there any solution? I don't know. I'm also inside this hole, but I'm trying to get out of it. But I do have two suggestions that have worked for me.

First, be mindful of whenever you get the urge to take out your phone. The important part is to notice it and make a conscious decision of whether that's what you want or now, don't let it be your default.

Second, make art! Creating stuff is pretty much the opposite of easy entertainment, it requires effort and it's an excellent tool to get to know yourself. Writing is an example, but any creative endeavor fits the bill, after all, all art requires care and dedication and lays bare you heart for all to see.

A no-nonsense recipe for cold brew

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:33:47 GMT

When I was first starting to make cold brew at home I had trouble finding a proper recipe to do it. Pretty much all websites that Google suggested were crappy marketing sites where the recipe was buried in a quagmire of useless content and ads. And those recipes I did find where always of the form "making cold brew is easy, just add your favorite coffee and water, leave for a day and then strain", which is something any person can infer and doesn't really tell you anything.

I eventually stumbled on some Reddit comments¹ explaining the process, and after doing some experimentation I think I have a good process going. I wanted to share it here to help other people like me, who wanted to do it but are not sure how. Trust me, it's really easy.

What you'll need

A big-ish container. Anything works.
Something to strain your coffee. I use a normal coffee strainer, but also a French press would work.
Coffee. In my experience it doesn't matter much if you use a coarse or fine grind, or an expensive or cheap coffee. Personally I use a cheap medium roast fine grind, mainly because it's easily available. You'll need at least 2 cups of coffee.
Measuring cups are great to have if you care about correctness.

Brewing

Ratio: 1:8 ratio by weight. According to my measurement that's 1 cup of ground coffee for every 3.5 cups of water.

Fill your container with as many repetitions of the ratio as you want (or as many as fit in your container). Then leave in the fridge for 24h. Some people leave it outside at room temperature, and some leave it for 12h, but I like fridge+24h because the end result tends to be less bitter.

Serving

tl;dr - For each serving: 7 tablespoons (a bit less then half a cup) of concentrate + 1 (or 1.5) cup of water

This part is something that "guides" never mention. The most I've found are some vague instructions like serve 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of concentrate and water. This sounds good enough I guess, but for someone who is sensitive to caffeine as I am it's better to know how much caffeine is in your cup, unless I want to be miserable for the next 8 hours or so as the coffee courses through my body.

Let's do some quick math. When preparing coffee in a French press I use 2 tablespoons of coffee, any more than that and I get the jitters, so I'll be aiming at getting the same amount from cold brew (you can adapt as needed). If we brew two ratios then we'll use 2 cups of coffee and 7 cups of water while extracting. So there would be 16 tablespoons of coffee per cup in the concentrate, meaning that there are a total of 32 tablespoons.

To make things easier, the 7 cups can be equated to 112 tablespoons. Assuming dissolution of caffeine is uniform (and I think we CAN assume it because caffeine is easily soluble in water), there are 32/112=0.285 tablespoon-worth's of caffeine per tablespoon in the concentrate.

That means that when I serve my cup, if I want 2 tablespoon-worth's of caffeine then I need to serve 0.285*x=2 which is ~7 tablespoons of concentrate (a bit less than half-a-cup).

So that's it for the amount of concentrate to serve, but what about the amount of water? Well, that really depends on your taste. I personally like a bigger cup even if the flavor is more diluted so I'll add 1.5 cups of water.

Too bad I didn't save a link to those comments. ↩

Hunting a Mammoth

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 04:02:47 GMT

Some days ago I stumbled¹ over an excellent article by Tim Urban titled Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think, and it's been mulling over in the back of my mind ever since. I wont reproduce all of it here (for obvious reasons), but I wanted to comment about it a bit. You should still go ahead and read it if you have the chance!

The article talks about the evolutionary need that humanity has had to protect themselves from being thrown out of the tribe, and how this has caused us to evolve a kind of sensor that allows us to know how to behave with our peers. This sensor is what Tim Urban anthropomorphizes as The Social Survival Mammoth, a voice that's constantly giving you feedback (aka shit) about yourself and how you behave.

The Mammoth will more or less work fine in situations it evolved to handle: ones where you live with a small number of people (e.g. your tribe) and would pretty much see the same faces during your whole life. You would get to know each of your peers intimately, and the coming of someone new would be quite the event. In these situations getting someone upset could be a problem because, if left to spiral out of control, you would find yourself facing the possibility of getting kicked out of the tribe and becoming a lion's afternoon snack². Even lesser problems with your tribe that don't merit you being kicked out could impact your quality of life, as in not being able to find a mate, or other folks not helping you out as much.

However things have changed quite a bit since then. Now, even if the Mammoth tries to do the best job it can, it usually makes a mess of things. As Tim Urban says, society has evolved at a spectacularly faster rate than humans could ever hope to, and because of this we're still stuck with Mammoths that try to make us behave as if we were living in small tribes.

The danger of being cast out of the tribe was very real then. More than that, being cast out meant almost certain death. But in our present world that is not the case. Now, with all our technological advances, the bare necessities for life are easily attainable and few of us (if any) have to worry about not being able to eat, or find shelter during winter. Housing and supermarkets make it possible for us to fulfill our needs quite easily³.

Moreover, in the modern thunderous maelstrom of crap that we call social interaction (be it on social media or otherwise) it doesn't really matter to our own integrity if we displease someone or not. In all cases it is our perceived desire of belonging to a certain group that makes us feel like it would be the end of the world if we didn't meet their expectations. But the truth is that (1) nobody cares (at most you will be the object of some passing comments, which is unpleasant to be sure, but has no real consequences), and (2) if you fall out of favor with a group it is 99.8% likely that you'll find another group that you will fit in with. The other side of the coin here is that, given the diversity that's to be found in today's society, it's practically impossible to please everyone. There will be some people that vibe with you and some that don't, and some of them will vibe with each other, and that's ok.

I used to deal with this a lot growing up (and still do to some extent). I remember in my teens I felt like I had to fit in with the cool kids, otherwise I could say goodbye to any prospects I had in life. Reflecting back on it I can clearly see how this was my Mammoth talking, expressing the tribal wishes of my ancestors. I think much of my social anxiety comes from this wanting to fit in.

Tim Urban posits that besides the Mammoth there's also another entity living in our head, the Authentic Voice. Here I quote:

Your Authentic Voice, somewhere in there, knows all about you. In contrast to the black-and-white simplicity of the Social Survival Mammoth, your Authentic Voice is complex, sometimes hazy, constantly evolving, and unafraid. Your AV has its own, nuanced moral code, formed by experience, reflection, and its own personal take on compassion and integrity. It knows how you feel deep down about things like money and family and marriage, and it knows which kinds of people, topics of interest, and types of activities you truly enjoy, and which you don’t. Your AV knows that it doesn’t know how your life will or should play out, but it tends to have a strong hunch about the right step to take next.

That is an interesting concept, and one with which I can relate very much. I know sometimes I want to do or say something but don't because of fear of how others may react. Most of the time this is just a very subtle nudge in the direction of conformity, which makes it all the more effective. Noticing these situations is probably the first step in being able to take control and tell my Mammoth that "no, I don't want to sit down, I want to dance!". It's up to each of us to balance how much we let the Mammoth control us, and how much space we give the authentic voice to express. I would love to be able to create some more opportunities for my authentic voice to shine through.

Tim Urban's article goes on to give some steps about how to identify your Mammoth, and what to do to make it's voice less present in our mind. He does make some really good points and establishes some nice ideas for how to reduce the power your Mammoth has on you to a manageable level. But mentioning them here would mean I'll just be re-writing what he already wrote, and likely doing a poor imitation, so I think it's better for me to tell you that, once again, if you're interested you should go ahead and read the actual article (it even has lots of funny pictures!).

I want to close with a small thought. The 🔮 magic 🔮 of the internet is that you can put your thoughts our there, and the odds are that there's some part of them that will resonate with someone. We're no longer constrained by our location, no longer boxed in. According to demandsage⁴ there are 5.3 billion people with access to internet in the world. If we're conservative and say that 0.05% of them will love to hear whatever it is you have say then that's about 2.6 million possible friends! That's a lot of people. I bet it's more than the total number of people you've met in your whole life.

I stumbled on this article on tiramisú's bookshelf page. tiramisú, on the off-change you're reading this, thank you. Also, I hope you don't mind but I'll add this article to my own Links page. ↩
I was about to say that at this time the complexities of life where few and far between, but then decided not to. Who can really say what was going on. Maybe drama is a human trait? ↩
Of course here I'm talking about the average case. It is true many people around the world do suffer hunger and struggle to find shelter, and many live in what we would consider sub-human conditions. ↩
To be honest I've never heard of demandsage before so I don't know how trustworthy their statistics are. But I also checked Wikipedia (which is always right) and the numbers seem to match. ↩

"The Weighing" by Jane Hirshfield

Sat, 28 Oct 2023 04:35:47 GMT

The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

~ Jane Hirshfield

On the need to feel productive

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 02:16:47 GMT

I have a confession to make. Whenever I have free time I feel guilty.

I tell myself this is likely a common cultural phenomenon where we're pushed to make goods all the time. I feel like not doing so is immoral, and a flaw in my own personality.

But I have no real way to know if other people feel the same. Do they also tend to feel restless if they don't have an aim to work towards? Can they just not do anything and feel good about it?

If I look within myself I notice that this feeling is composed of two different tributaries: the lesser one is the feeling that not doing anything is somehow morally wrong. And the most pressing one (which is possibly just another facet of the first) is that if I have precious free time and I don't do anything then I'm wasting it.

I then ask myself "am I really wasting it if I want to do nothing?", which is invariably followed by the much more insidious question "do I really want to do nothing?".

I don't know. I've even made a list of the things I like and enjoy so that when I have free time I pick one of the items to keep myself entertained. But still my time frequently feels empty, unsatisfying. My mind questioning whether I'm taking advantage of the opportunity as much as I should.

I've always associated this feeling with the need to be productive, and feeling like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time. And, I think, therein lies the problem: I don't have any metric to know how worthwhile an activity is.

Reading the last sentence again it almost seems silly. Isn't your enjoyment of whatever you're doing enough validation for the value of an action? I guess it is. I have the tendency to get in the way of my own happiness by wondering if what makes me happy is praiseworthy or not.

Again I see it. Who am I looking to receive praise from? Is it my family? Friends? Internet strangers? Is it myself?

As my therapist would say, "you need to get out of the way and let yourself just enjoy what you're doing instead of second guessing".

Right now my thoughts are telling me "how can I say that, when many people in the world don't have any free time at all, and many have much worse living conditions than you?". Which only makes me feel worse. It feels petty to think and write about this, but I can't do anything about them, and surely my appreciation of my own time won't affect them in any way. Still, thinking about others does help put things into perspective.

For the love of walking

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 15:21:47 GMT

Ever since I was old enough to be allowed outside without supervision I've taken to walking everywhere I could.

First it was around my neighborhood, getting to know every road, every alley, every nook. Walking by the places I had seen most of my life growing up allowed me to get to know them in a different light, teasing out their secrets with repetition and time. When one is young and without many responsibilities, as I was lucky to be, one can take the time to study things, take the world in as they say.

I eventually convinced some of my friends that lived close by to join me in my newfound hobby. We would take long, winding walks without any real purpose in mind besides that of spending time together, giving us a space to talk about big and small things, away from our parents and other distractions. It offered a kind of purity that I've found hard to recreate in later life.

Growing up walking remained my main means of transportation. Even when I could take the bus or borrow my parents car I would often opt not to, unless my destination was too far, or the weather to inclement.

I remember in my teens things changed and we started to walk towards an objective. Be it walking to the movie theater, to get something to eat, or buy cheap beers and cigarettes from a place around 30 minutes away, whose owner turned a blind eye to the fact that we were obviously underage. They were great times, everything under the sun was fresh and full of excitement, the felling that the world was our mollusk¹. At the time I didn't notice it but walking towards a goal affected the purity of the activity. It was no longer something we did for the hell of it (as another blogger on Bear recently put it), but more a means to an end. A means we were all comfortable with.

Later in life I went to study abroad and I had the luck to live close enough to my university campus² to be able to walk to and from classes. My walks had become solitary once again, and while lonely at times in some way it also allowed me to rediscover the joy of paying attention to the beauty around me.

By this time I had recently discovered audio books, and walking while listening to a good book quickly became one of my favorite activities. Audio books motivated me to again start walking for the hell of it. I would put on a good book and just walk. It was sort of a virtuous feedback loop where I walked because I wanted to listen to the book and I wanted to listen so I could go walking.

Now it's been many years since I came back to live to my original country. I moved to the countryside and have lots of nice walking paths I can go on nearby. However, I do find myself missing walking with other people. I no longer have any close friends, and those from my youth are no longer interested in walking for the hell of it. Most are busy pursuing their careers or other vain goals. I don't fault them, in many ways this has happened to me as well. I no longer walk as much as I would like. I guess this is what our culture would call growing up.

It's not all bad though, and I see hope on the horizon. I have a beautiful family and a 2 year old son from whom I'm constantly learning how to recognize what are the real things in life, the important things, and that awe is the natural state of our minds³.

I'm ironically reminded of Johnnie Walker's motto "Keep Walking"⁴. I don't think the company meant it like this, but it is a good rule to follow, keep doing things that you like because you like them and not to derive anything from them. Reevaluate your priorities if necessary, remember to always keep track of what the important things are. Small moments of hapiness go a long way.

Borrowed from the great Terry Pratchett. If I remember correctly he uses this wording in multiple places throughout his books. It's one of my favorites, it clearly highlights how common things can change if you shine a different light at them. This is something he was a master of. ↩
I had the luck to study in a small city in the Italian alps called Trento, which is a beautiful beautiful city. If you have the chance you should go. ↩
As we grow older this is something that's so easy to forget, we start pursuing things that are really void of any value if you measure value by how much happiness and fulfillment you have. ↩
Which, according to their website, stands for "It embodies our desire for progress, the fuel to tackle adversity, and joy of unfiltered optimism.". It sounds like marketing fluff. ↩

The raven-haired girl

Sat, 21 Oct 2023 12:36:47 GMT

I used to have a recurring dream when I was a child, from about 8 to 13 years old. It was not exactly the same dream every time, but it always started and ended in the same way.

The dream would begin with me playing or just walking in some familiar place and suddenly I would notice that there was a pale, raven-haired girl watching me¹. She was always dressed all in black, wearing a dress or a skirt. She never said a word, but had a wonderful smile she wore often. Her hair was true-raven-black, long, straight, and lose.

She would gesture for me to follow and we would both turn into ravens and fly to her house through a conveniently positioned window nearby. This was a power she had, transforming us into ravens. Her house wasn't really in any place, and I knew it was impossible to get there except in raven form. The house was surrounded on all sides by a wall of thorns and dead trees.

We would land in front of the door to her house, a Gothic mansion with sprawling gardens all around. The garden wasn't what you would call green or lush. It was a dry garden. Mainly bushes, weather-worn statues, and a winding gravel path we would spend an immensurable amount of time in. In spite of this it felt very much alive, and had its own definite personality, with the water smoothed surface of the statues giving it an air of magic and mischief.

She had a butler who was always there waiting to receive us outside the front door of the mansion. The butler was the only other person I ever saw and, while afflicted with permanent seriousness, he was kind and looked out for us. Once he saw we were ok he would nod and disappear inside the mansion to perform his butlery duties.

I remember that everything around her house had a greyish tinge, sort of like a black and white movie but not quite so extreme. However, I never perceived things around me as gloomy. On the contrary, it was a magical place full of mysteries to explore, and nooks to hide in.

We spent most, if not all, of our time in her huge garden. Running around, playing the kind of small games that children invent to amuse themselves, or just sitting in some place out of the way seeing how the wind rustled the grass. I used to speak to her sometimes about thing that were happening in my real life, or ideas for games, or just small stuff as children often do. I have the feeling she didn't like it very much when I spoke about my waking life, but maybe that's just older me projecting stuff onto my memories.

At some point, she would get up and I would know it was time to go back. We would turn into ravens once more and fly back to my home but she would not stay with me. She would fly away to her own world, and I would wake up.

I haven't thought about her in a while. I wonder what she's doing now. I hope she's happy.

I don't know what prompted me to write about this. Maybe it was because yesterday I dreamt I was in a big city, and I saw a raven-haired woman walking next to me. I didn't know who she was but I knew we were walking together, and I was glad of her company. I remember feeling bad I had to leave her soon because I had to wake up and go to work.

It might not have been the same persona, or maybe yes. Regardless, I'm glad to revisit these happy memories. Hopefully writing about her here will give her a new home to live in, and who knows, maybe she'll get to meet some other people and visit their dreams from time to time.

In retrospect I see how this can sound a bit creepy but at the time the thought never crossed my mind. In the dream I knew she was my friend and that she wanted to play with me. I never got anything but positive feelings from her. ↩

Deconstructing a mental moat

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:08:47 GMT

Recently I published a post about how I wanted to write stuff I feel about. However, since then I've struggled to actually sit down to write, thinking any idea I come up with is not good enough. I told myself that I wasn't digging deep enough. But of course, you can never satisfy that inner critic, so an endless spiral of self-rejection ensued.

It took me a while to realize that by stating these goals I had constructed a moat for myself. It makes me feel safe, validated, justified, but at the same time it prevents me from going out there and smelling the flowers.

It may be that these goals are the destination towards which I want to travel, but holding myself accountable to those standards since the beginning is futile. I want freedom, and it shouldn't be traded for safety, comfort, nor structure.

This is all I wanted to say in this post. It's more a justification to myself. I guess it's part of the learning process.

The takeaway: don't aim to high, especially when you don't know where the sky is.

Going forwards I'll try to be more sensible and allow myself to write about random stuff.

I mentioned in another recent post about a new concept for me, the idea of wordvomit, which has lately been going around in my mind. I think perhaps the correct path is to adapt that idea by not forcing myself to write about topics I have feelings about, and instead to flip this perverse idea on its head and learn to dig up my feelings when writing about any topic.

I said I wasn't going to write about mundane stuff, but that's not correct. I have the feeling that with enough skill and acceptance any topic can become sacred, a true reflection of a facet within yourself.

Take care,

On work journaling and authentic writing

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 04:08:47 GMT

It's been around 1 year and a half since I started the practice of work journaling¹. At the beginning it was kind of messy, with my notes not really having any structure, but then I discovered interstitial journaling, which basically guides you to write timed notes. Every day I open up a new file and by the end it looks somewhat like this:

10:00 — Spoke to Sam about the ring. We decided he can't help me take it
13:00 — I heard Gollum talking to himself again. I wonder, will this happen to me as well?
15:00 — I was thirsty and asked Sam for some water. I think I dribbled some of it.

My own notes are usually longer than these, with a single note frequently spanning multiple paragraphs of facts and sometimes even reflections. But I think this example should be enough to understand the point.

Work journaling is really useful by both providing you a way to keep grounded on what you're doing and giving you a log of occurrences you can refer back to in the future. Not to mention it's a great way to practice writing!

But I'm not here to convince you to start journaling during your workday, or to talk about the details of how I do it. What I actually want to talk about is how different it is to journal in this way vs writing here. Or at least how different I want it to be.

When writing on this blog I could talk to you about random stuff that happened today, or misc facts, or (worse still) try to build a brand². But that's not what I want. The reason I started this blog is to practice writing, yes, but not the kind of banal writing I do every day in my work notes.

What I really want to do is tear my heart out, impale it on the page, and send it to the void of the internet where (maybe) someone will see it. Raw. Bloody. Pumping. I want my pen to be thunder, and my words to be lightning.

I'm usually not good at talking, or even admitting, about how I feel. But I know I have a heart, I hear it in the quiet and stillness of the night. Once I rise from bed though it seems we lose each other. I want to (learn how to) be authentic to myself.

My goal with this blog is not that of writing a set of entertaining posts, or simply learn to wield the written word. It's to strengthen this connection with my heart, with my subconscious. Of course, having entertaining posts is a nice plus!

As someone that comes from traditional social medias I feel there's so little of this in my life. I'm surrounded by pictures and funny posts, people offering me an external view of their lives. And while I do appreciate keeping up with long-lost friends, I yearn for more. What about their inner lives? Are they ok? Am I different for having feelings, doubts, fears? What do they want? What are they trying to accomplish?

But it's not only them that are at fault here. I've never expressed these things myself either. It would be easy to fault our society or whatnot, but the truth is that I avoid it. I don't talk about these things with anyone. I'm afraid to be someone, while at the same time I yearn to know who I am.

With this post I vow not to write about anything that doesn't make me feel. If I do sound bland, or if you feel I'm just feeding you facts without any uph to it then please let me know.

I know I'm setting lofty goals. Perhaps with time, and practice, I might be able to achieve them. At the same time I don't want to set any standard for myself. That would be bad; trying to fulfill a script. I'm sure I'll write a lot of banal stuff on the way.

It's mostly a solitary undertaking, but I would be happy if you accompany me on the way.

Take care,

If you're interested, to make my notes and keep them tidy I use a free, open-source software called Logseq. It automatically creates a daily note for me every day, and makes linking notes very easy! It supports a lot of advanced usages but for me the basic features are good enough. The only extra thing I use is a community plugin to easily support interstitial journaling, which basically just adds a hotkey to add the current time where my cursor is. ↩
This is very much something I don't want to do. It's an always present trap though. One I've fallen for in the past, so I need to be wary of it. ↩

Finding my own feet

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 00:08:47 GMT

This is some sort of continuation to my Introduction post.

So, cool, now I have a blog, but what am I going to do with it?

I have been thinking about what to write for my first post and decided that to get it out of the way I would create a meta-post of sorts. Like a stream-of-consciousness thing, thinking of setting a direction for the blog.

As I mentioned in the introduction post, I've made some attempts at writing a blog in the past. They inevitably fail because I stop writing on them; I lose my movitivation and the thought of spending time writing stuff becomes a burden rather than something I do for enjoyment, something I look forward to. Why is that?

I think the answer is that I end up forcing myself to write useful stuff all the time, so eventually it gets to the point where I don't feel that what I'm writing is good enough, and the impostor syndrome kicks in.

I don't want this to happen to this blog. I want to be able to write as the birds fly, as fish swim¹, without a thought to what I'm doing, organic and free flowing.

Why do I box myself in? Where do these walls come from? My immediate intuition says it is because I care too much about what others think of me, even if they have no idea who I am. But a second reason, and probably a more important one, is that I don't love myself as I should. This is something I'm striving to change.

I've recently (2 or 3 months ago) started the online course Buddhism 101 from The Open Buddhist University, and one of the first few videos is a talk given by a monk called Ajahn Brahm about how to be positive. The talk is pretty entertaining (he is an excellent speaker and I thoroughly recommend it), and one of the things he mentions the most is the need to be kind to oneself. Listening to him made me appreciate how little kindness I show myself, how high I set the bar. Impossibly high.

While writing this I'm reminded about a passage from Ray Bradbury's excellent book Zen in the Art of Writing:

[...] What are we trying to uncover in this flow? The one person irreplaceable to the world, of which there is no duplicate. You. As there was only one Shakespeare, Molière, Dr. Johnson, so you are that precious commodity, the individual man, the man we all democratically proclaim, but who, so often, gets lost, or loses himself, in the shuffle. How does one get lost? Through incorrect aims, as I have said. Through wanting literary fame too quickly. From wanting money too soon. If only we could remember, fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with our best, our lonely, our individual truths. Now we must build our better mousetrap, heedless if a path is being beaten to our door. What do you think of the world? You, the prism, measure the light of the world; it burns through your mind to throw a different spectroscopic reading onto white paper than anyone else anywhere can throw. Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper. Make your own individual spectroscopic reading. [...] A sense of inferiority, then, in a person, quite often means true inferiority in a craft through simple lack of experience. Work then, gain experience, so that you will be at ease in your writing, as a swimmer buoys himself in water. There is only one type of story in the world. Your story.

Interesting how the mind can sometimes dreg up forgotten treasures. I haven't touched this book for quite some time, and the passage refers almost directly to the feeling of inferiority (as Bradbury puts it) I'm talking about.

Experience is of course the key. But experience in what is more of the question. I'm aware that my general way of communicating through the written word can be improved, but that's not really it.

Maybe what has happened to my other blogs is that I fell for the trap of having incorrect aims as Bradbury says. If I have to say what this "wrong aim" was I would say it was that of trying to fit in, of writing to please an imaginary crowd, instead of writing my story.

I think that to feel free while writing I need to make myself vulnerable and accept that that's a good thing. To talk about my wants and fears. Embrace my uncertainties rather than hiding them under the carpet and pretending they don't exist.

I usually avoid talking about my emotions, telling myself I don't want to be self-pitying and that people are not really interested in reading about them. But maybe recognizing them is the first step towards self-love, and to really being able to write as the bird flies.

Recently I stumbled upon tiramisù's blog, and especially this post that they recently published about having reached 100k words. In the post they mention they've been following the example of another person, Visa, where they write wordvomits without thinking too much about it. Tiramisù quotes an article by Visa which I'll reproduce here (hopefully they don't mind).

I recommend that you measure your progress as a writer by sheer volume of output. You WILL be a different writer at the 100,000 and 1,000,000 word marks respectively. Hell, you’ll be a totally different person.

And don’t try to write well. Just write. Why? Because you can’t write well before you know what good writing is. And you can’t know what good writing is until you’ve done a lot of reading and writing.

So if you want to write well, you have to let go of the perfectionistic death wish of trying to write well.

Instead, accept in advance that a lot of it will suck. Embrace the suck. Make love to the suck. Don’t try to avoid it or outsmart it. Acknowledge it, face it, and get used to it. Day after day after day.

Funny how they're looking at this text in the context of looking back, while for me it's very relevant looking forward. Reading it I also get echoes from Bradbury's quote I shared above.

Maybe this will help. I realize that I have a strong perfectionist leaning and that in turn keeps me back from experimenting, exploring, and making mistakes. I force myself to stay on the safe path for fear of doing anything wrong. That's what really happened to my previous blogs: I got bored of them. Stale writing is no fun.

Thank you for reading! And remember to be kind to yourself 🌈

I take this from a quote about Go Seigen, a master player of the game of Go. The actual quote goes like this: “He played like the birds fly: swift and light. Suddenly the position could get frozen though, and then one would get a glimpse of the universe of variations hidden below the sky that Wu had spanned in the earlier stages”. — Jan Van der Steen on Go Seigen’s (Wu) game ↩

Introduction

Sat, 07 Oct 2023 04:08:00 GMT

Hello 👋 you can call me meadow. I'm really happy you're here.

I feel anonymity helps with creativity so forgive me if I don't share any details besides some basic stuff: he/him, 30.

I'm a software engineer by profession, and right now I'm part of a team exploring the use of LLMs to enrich real-time human interactions, especially in service scenarios.

Occasionally given to bouts of poetic nonsense, usually trying to capture some fleeting feeling or sensation. I write mainly about random thoughts, poetry, and for a while now I have also been trying to get myself into writing short stories.

As for my hobbies: I play the flute, writing, reading, learning languages, and make the occasional small game (more often than not with PICO-8). In general I like to tinker around with stuff. When I have the chance I like to walk around in nature.

I've always thought that knowing someone's favorite writers allows you to glimpse quite a bit about that person. Here are some of mine in no particular order: Terry Pratchett, Tolkien, Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Robert Jordan.

I first heard of Bear on Hacker News quite some time ago and was immediately attracted by the whole idea and the concept of little web.

I've always wanted to have a blog, and at the time I had just created one on Substack, thinking that a polished, full-featured platform would help me towards my goal. I wrote some posts on there but soon started paying attention to all the social features, and their whole "make money while writing" thing. I eventually stopped writing altogether, mainly out of feeling of intimidation with the platform, feeling I wasn't doing what it wanted me to do. I was subconsciously forcing myself to write with a style and content that I thought would fit well.

After a while I decided to try out my hand at blogging once again, but this time I was going to create my own blog. I spent some time studying different options and at the end chose to use the Hugo site generator mainly because of its flexibility and community support.

I had a lot of fun building the actual site/web-app, but after some months of working on it I found myself with what amounted to be a clone of Substack. It looked exactly the same, and I was still forcing myself to write the same kind of content. I also probably spent more time tweaking stuff on the website than actually writing.

Something nice that both Substack and Bear have is a community, which is something that you don't get when creating your own site. On these platforms, even if nobody reads your stuff, it's nice to know that they're there if anyone wants to read them. I feel this is motivating, and offers some sense of accountability. But when writing on your own self-hosted blog it's virtually impossible for someone to find it unless you spend some time promoting yourself on social media, which I wasn't too keen on doing.

So here we are again on Bear, and this time I've actually decided to make a page, a fresh start on a platform that is so simple it doesn't get in the way but also doesn't force you in any way.

Anyway, its nice to meet you!

Meadow - Blog Posts

0069 - you don't have to believe what you believe

Footnotes

0068 - fight against stagnation

Footnotes

0067 - unlikely things

Footnotes

0066 - thoughts on AI art

Footnotes

0065 - you can't mar something that can't be sullied

0064 - making audio versions of my posts

0063 - karma is interpersonal

Footnotes

0062 - only you can believe in yourself

Footnotes

0061 - don't take things so seriously

Footnotes

0060 - the new wing

0059 - on the futility of legacy and what's really important

Footnotes

0058 - great art sows the will to art

Footnotes

0057 - games all the way down

Footnotes

0056 - First impressions of Caves of Qud and comments on emergent gameplay

0055 - what keeps me coming back

0054 - the effects of a cold shower

Footnotes

0053 - how do I know if you're human

Footnotes

0052 - (idea) tip creators by watching an ad

Footnotes

0051 - teaching a mind to come up with ideas

Footnotes

0050 - meta reflection on this series

0049 - trees are air frozen by sunlight

0048 - walking, writing, and decaf

Footnotes

0047 - pseudonymity is not only cowardice

Footnotes

0046 - the Maiden and the Basilisk

1) All timelines will eventually suffer universal AI colonization

2) AI colonizes the multiverse

0045 - everyone smiles at babies

Footnotes

0044 - the phoenix rises

0043 - nothing much really

0042 - bone pointing

Footnotes

0041 - in a world of AI slop it's an ethical responsibility to create

Footnotes

0040 - thinking of other kinds of writing and free will

0039 - fiction writing practice

Footnotes

0038 - fruit ripening mechanics

Footnotes

0037 - meaning of life

0036 - what happens when you pee in a forest

Footnotes

0035 - with that sweet moon language

Footnotes

0034 - camping retrospective

0033 - ten pointless questions about me

Do you floss your teeth?

Tea, coffee, or water?

Footwear preference?

Favourite dessert?

The first thing you do when you wake up?

Age you'd like to stick at?

How many hats do you own?

Describe the last photo you took?

Worst TV show?

As a child, what was your aspiration for adulthood?

Footnotes

0032 - camping trip and how avoiding oversharing can be dangerous

0031 - durability in different media

Footnotes

0030 - An incidental reflection on writing with a language that's not your native one

0029 - Grandmas are great, even if they inadvertently keep us stuck in the past sometimes

Footnotes