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Everything Is a Project

I treat relationships, health, and hobbies like projects that demand effort, and whose success is my responsibility.

They become a perpetuum mobile of self-efficacy. The more I invest, the more control I feel over my life. This builds momentum. This flywheel can only be stopped by a lack of kindness toward myself.

To make this work, I see the things important to me as malleable, and I see myself as someone who can shape them.

Since everything, including myself, changes over time, this is a never-ending cycle of improvement. Hoping something will stay the same is a futile fight against entropy.

So I embrace entropy as a fundamental truth and consider everything important to me as a fun project I get to work on.

Making an effort is never wasted.

October 15th, 2024

Life-Affirming Choices

I pay close attention to the scalability of my actions. This often leads to situations where it seems like I’m acting against my best interests, but I want to make choices my future self will thank me for.

Instead of allowing myself a slow morning after a restless night, I go for a run.

Instead of relaxing on the couch, I'm teaching myself how to code.

Instead of avoiding a difficult conversation, I embrace it.

These things share one important truth: I know that I will feel better once they've happened. These actions are scalable because they optimize for delayed gratification. They anticipate a future that will be better because I welcomed friction.

Nothing worth having was ever achieved without effort.

Once I internalized this way of thinking, it changed how I see myself and those around me. Chasing instant gratification doesn't align with the life I want, and watching others do so isn't something I enjoy.

I want to be, and surround myself with, people who are willing to put in the effort to live a life their future selves will thank them for—people who make scalable, life-affirming choices because they know these actions grow and compound over time, leading to greater, unexpected benefits.

October 10th, 2024

Thinking From a Position of Strength

Since I started running in January, I’ve noticed something that, while not incredibly surprising, is still new to me: while I’m running, I feel stronger, more physically capable, and healthier. It’s a reliable way to experience eustress on a scalable level.

What’s more, when my body feels like it’s functioning as it should, the quality of my thinking improves as well.

Physical strength leads to clearer, more optimistic thoughts, and less ego-driven thinking. When I’m not using energy to build up defenses, it’s easier to be more kind, humble, friendly, empathetic, and loving.

In short, feeling physically strong makes it easier to think strong thoughts. Running is a simple, scalable and reproducable way to achieve that.

September 22nd, 2024

Apple’s Vehicle Motion Cues Changed my Life

Apple nonchalantly released iOS 18 with a new feature that’s about to change the lives of a huge part of the population. Vehicle Motion Cues is an accessibility feature that’s on by default and activates when your iPhone detects a moving vehicle around you.

It works by layering a bunch of animated dots on top of the content you’re looking at. When the device detects changes in the vehicle’s motion, it animates the dots accordingly, tricking your brain into thinking everything is fine instead of making you feel like you need to puke because the real-life physics engine stopped working.

I’ve struggled with motion sickness and haven’t read a book in a car or bus in 29 years. I didn’t find it very convincing that showing little circles on top of everything else would help, but yesterday, I spent 24 minutes on a bus, reading a whole chapter, and I was completely fine.

That never happened before.

Vehicle Motion Cues works, and it literally changed my life.

September 20th, 2024

Potential Iterations of Myself

Something I enjoy a lot is thinking about potential future versions of myself. At some point, I’m going to be a dog owner. Someone who enjoys classical music and regularly attends orchestral concerts. I might have a couple of years where I get into biking, woodworking, hiking or knitting.

It's not like I'm actively planning these versions. I might get a dog when I'm 50. Or when I'm 75. I could start woodworking tomorrow or 20 years from now. Maybe I'll spend my 40s learning how to play the piano. Who knows.

The fun in thinking about these possible iterations is not in knowing when exactly they're going to happen but in expecting to have a life full of achievable possibilities. A life full of things I’m going to enjoy.

No matter what happens, there’ll always be an iteration of me that’s preoccupied with his current obsession—who’s looking forward to getting out of bed to go for a walk with the dog, sanding a piece of wood, polishing a bowling ball for the big tournament, or practicing a sonata.

I love that for me.

September 19th, 2024

The Spatiality of Instruments

It had been years since I was in the same room as a piano. That changed the other day, and I didn‘t expect how deeply hearing it live would move me—far more than a recording of the same piece would.

There’s something different about hearing an instrument played in person. Every speaker will always only be a representation of what the music is supposed to sound like. But when that layer of translation is removed something changes and you’re somehow able to feel the instrument as part of the music and room.

Now I‘m wondering if I should give going to the orchestra a try. Or even start a new side quest by taking piano lessons?

September 18th, 2024

Sharing Atrophy

I feel like sharing thoughts with strangers online gets harder the longer you go without doing it. My plan was to write at least something in August so it wouldn’t be a month without any activity here. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Partly because my month was filled with great people, activities, and weather, and partly because I felt like I needed to write something of value and couldn’t manage to produce anything I was happy with.

August was great and I have the data to proof it

As you can see, I decided to solve this issue by posting something about not posting anything. An age-old trick in blogging: blogging about blogging. That being said, I actually believe it helps to keep the sharing muscle from atrophying. These posts don’t cost me anything. I don’t have to be precious about them.

September 2nd, 2024

Back Home

A lot has happened since I wrote about my intention to move back to Hamburg.

For example: I moved back to Hamburg.

The move itself went off without a hitch. My stuff was put into a truck, my cats and I were picked up by friends, and we all made it successfully to my new flat. It took far longer than expected, but it got done.

Since then, I have unpacked all the boxes, kind of arranged everything in a roughly pleasing way, and got to know my new neighborhood and even my neighbors. I have gone for lunch, dinner, and walks with friends. I continued running every other day, even together with friends. I went on a couple of dates, found a new dentist and hairdresser, and have thoroughly enjoyed where I live.

I can't stress the last point enough: my sheer existence here feels like bliss. I step out of the house and love every second of it. Life is happening all around me, and I'm taking part in it.

The last three weeks felt like reality has realigned with how it should be, and I couldn't be happier about it.

July 26th, 2024

I, for one, don't mind design tools experimenting with AI features.

Much of what we're doing is just going through the motions until we reach the stage where the real work begins. If a tool can help me design an MVP of a form in 3 seconds that would have otherwise required 1,200 clicks, I'm greeting it with open arms.

My valuable skill is not drawing boxes in slightly different iterations but thinking about complex products that require a bird's-eye view and a vision. It will take some time until AI gets us there.

June 27th, 2024