Essays from the Weekend

Hello! Haven’t gotten to write for the past two weeks because of a couple of major things to attend to which have been throwing my daily/weekly routines off-center. This is not even the weekend, yet here is an essay. It’s been a couple of months since I got my iPad Air 4, Apple Pencil 2, and Smart Keyboard Folio set-up. The verdict: best tech set-up ever. I now understand why so many software engineers/tech people declared the 11-inch Macbook Air “best computer ever” when it came out. It’s like a small laptop, but you can rip out the keyboard easily and it’s a tablet. So portable, so nice to type on, a true companion for your thoughts and daily personal operations. Like how Steve Jobs originally wanted to name Apple “Bicycle” instead because he envisioned the computer to be a bicycle for the mind. Easy to bring everywhere because of the 10.9 inch size and light weight. It’s been indispensable. Currently geeking out over putting together my home office. I’ll share when it’s ready. Inves...

  Image from Apple Once upon a time, a friend of mine, let’s call her Rachel, felt miserable because she got realized that she got sucked back into being hooked on social media for the past few days. She had been on a social media break for months. It felt liberating not feeling that strange and persistent impulse to reach for her phone and mindlessly scroll. It felt like she got a God-given time refund of a couple of free hours each day. It was peaceful. It was peak contentment.  Then she had her last day with her company, and, feeling a little sad she couldn’t say goodbye to her work friends in person, decided to add them on social media so that they could maybe keep a digital connection alive while they wait out delta before having drinks in person. She posted a picture to commemorate her last day too, her first post in almost a year. It had likes. Interesting. The feeling of wanting to check likes came back. People kept adding her. Pretty soon she found herself reaching fo...

  I have a love-hate relationship with the news. I grew up seeing my dad read multiple newspapers every weekend. It was a habit that I wanted for myself too. It seems responsible to be on top of current events. I never did get into it consistently though. The news appeared to be constantly disappointing. It served me heartbreaking headline after heartbreaking headline, especially in the recent years.  Tim Ferriss gave me an idea back then that it was okay to stop reading the news in the name of focus and mental health. He said he didn’t read any news because there was no purpose in keeping up to date just for the sake of being up to date; and when there’s something we absolutely should know, the information makes its way to us somehow anyway. I subscribed to that worldview for a while, a little relieved that  Tim validated that. Then I subscribed to New York Times and only read that. It was foreign news, great writing, great drama, and it all seemed far-distanced from me,...

Two weeks ago, this book came out of my baul .  It was time. I've been hearing people talk about The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron for years. Mostly in connection to morning routines.  I used to be obsessed with operationalizing the optimal morning routine, and productivity gurus on the Internet mostly recommended: meditation, exercise, and Morning Pages.  Morning Pages is an exercise where you freely write three pages of longhand in the morning, every day. Write about anything, stream of consciousness, whatever you like. As long as it's three pages.  This is supposed to help unblock your thoughts, to get you started on your day with a clear mind, as you already unleashed all the issues and blocking thoughts out on the page first thing in the morning.  People recommending this cited The Artist's Way.   So I was doing Morning Pages for some time now even if I haven't read the book, I can't go without regularly doing that. It's therapeutic. Most times I ...