Now

Table of Contents

The now page serves as a monthly log of what I'm up to regarding the blog. It's a less fleeting medium than a message here and there on social media or an email newsletterI discovered the concept from Maggie Appleton's digital garden..

It's a way to share what I'm working on in the background and keep readers posted on what I'm planning in the short term. It's also a way to update the website here and there in between long-winded posts.

2024 #

August #

This monthly update comes a bit late. I used to write these as a breather between long posts, but seeing as I'm pretty sure barely anyone reads this page, and I'm increasingly shifting to shorter posts, I think I'll start being less diligent with the updates.

I'm currently in the process of reworking my written content creation setup. I'll keep using this blog, but some things will change a bit in terms of topics and frequency. I'll give more details when I'm ready to start the transition in earnest.

On top of these restructurations to my routine, I'm also starting to get more serious with my job search and juggling a cohort course in parallel during the autumn, so my publication frequency is going to be a bit more sporadic for a while. With that said, my YouTube channel publication schedule hasn't been affected so far, though I'll be taking a few sabbatical weeks soon.

Monthly motley recommendations:

July #

As stated in the last update, I spend a good chunk of this month on holiday so I won't be publishing a post at the beginning of August. I've started working on the next one though, and so far I'm feeling pretty inspired.

I also did publish two videos, and one of them on existential bad faith blew up with more than 1100 views when my current max was around 150.

This month has been pretty reflective and introspective for me. I'm probably going to be making some changes to my current content creation system and approach in the upcoming months. I should still be publishing written and video content regularly but some of the scheduling, format, and platforms will probably change a bit. I still need to experiment and try out a few things before I feel comfortable making up my mind though.

I've also been watching movies — including Office Space whose satire of the daily reality of office/software engineering jobs is still hilariously and painfully spot-on nowadays — and reading lots of books.

When I said I liked Ishmael last month I meant it. I read the follow-up back to back, namely The Story of B, My Ishmael, Providence and Beyond Civilization. I reiterate my glowing recommendation and strongly suggest you give them a read, at the very least the first one.

Daniel Quinn wasn't the only author in my literary monthly diet, however. To stay fairly concise I'll list every book I finished followed by a short assessment: Free Will by Same Harris (interesting), Betty by Tiffany McDaniel (an unsettling blend of poesy and atrocity), Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be by Steven Pressfield and Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon (same verdict for these last two: insightful and inspiring).

June #

I spent this month writing my post on Epistemic barter. I also published four YouTube videos, including the two remaining videos in my philosophical school of thought trilogy: Perspectivism and Existentialism.

We're now halfway through 2024, so let's review the objectives I had set for myself in my roadmap for this first semester.

I've held up the rhythm of monthly publication pretty well so far. I'll be skipping next month due to holidays, but I intend to keep up this frequency for the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, my philosophical manifesto pages are still nowhere near ready. I've been doing a substantial amount of work on this endeavor in the background, but the clarification process never seems to end, and it's hard to juggle drafting long pages with the monthly posts. Therefore, I've decided to give up on semi-commitments and deadlines. It will be ready when it is ready, and I won't be giving estimates in the meantime. If you're interested, I went into more detail on this topic in my video Elusive clarity, perfectionism & the history of my content creation journey.

Recommendation-wise, I went to see Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga in the movie theater, and it's really great. It shares a lot in common with Fury Road. The action is a bit more dispersed throughout the movie, but the characters and narrative are fleshed out better. If you like high-octane action combined with creative, wacky world-building and an endearing villain, you should give it a watch.

I've also been reading a decent amount this month. I finished Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. I also gobbled The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I strongly recommend them all, especially the latter, which is truly amazing!

May #

I've been productive this month too, but I'm running a bit late on my usual schedule, so I'll try to keep this update shortish.

After publishing Gist triangulation, I got started on my next post. However, what I intended to be a simple subsection grew much longer than expected, and I decided to divide it into its own post: The unsung perks of diplomatic open-mindedness. So, the one I was initially planning to publish should be coming in July instead.

I've kept up with my weekly YouTube publication schedule. I published 5 new videos, including a spontaneous reaction to Dr K's Why Your Choices Aren't Really Yours video, which ended up becoming one of my most popular by far despite a pretty long runtime.

I was generously invited by my family to a pretty luxurious SPA Hotel in Germany for a week. It was a nice change of pace and scenery! It also served as a reminder that I need to append some introverted idle buffer time after holidays with plenty of social interaction and travel if I intend to feel rested by the end.

For my random recommendations section, this month I'd like to highlight the latest Neon Genesis Evangelion OST x Tenacious D mashup in camhcom's legendary series: I am (not) one of you. Staying on the topic of high artistic value shitpost, Andre Antunes has also released a banger: "I'm Not Gay No More, I am Delivert!" goes Metal. Lastly, I've finished reading the manga Ajin and binged the available Dungeon Meshi anime episodes. They're both great!

April #

April, just like March, was a busy month.

Blog-wise, I kept working on my new page in the background during the first half of the monthIt's a long process, especially since I do it in little chunks to fit my other publications. I'll publish it one day, but it's most likely still a few months away. and on my new post Gist triangulation on the second one. I also did a write-up of my overall newsletter philosophy under my sign-up page, created a personality typology resource page with a first section on the MBTI, and split my previous "about" page into subpages (website, author and contact). I also added more information to my "about the author" section.

Last month, I mentioned I had a project in the pipes, well it's now out. I started a Thoughtful Inquiry YouTube channel, and I've already posted my first 5 videos!

My birthday is in April, so I also enjoyed a short vacation with my family, which was nice!

I discovered too many interesting things this month, so it's going to be hard to keep things short, even by only keeping the cream of the crop.

I started playing with Airtable, which is a really nifty software. It's basically a simplified database manager, similar to Notion in this regard but much more powerful, with the possibility to do some math and stats like a spreadsheet. I've started creating a personal content tracker and CRM with it. A bit bummed out that they force you to start with the premium version only to strip it two weeks later and with it some nice QOL feature like the ability to color record, but it's still an excellent free tier, so I can't complain too much, I guess.

In terms of media consumption, I usually read at least a couple of noteworthy articles monthly, but The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models replicate the mechanisms of a psychic’s con by Baldur Bjarnason really impressed me with its quality this monthIn the same vein, AI isn't useless. But is it worth it? by Molly White is another good read.. I watched Frieren, House of the Dragon, and Shogun which are all excellent shows. Video game-wise, I got to play Neon White for the first time and succumbed to the hype around Balatro, and they're both top-notch indeed. Finally, the latest albums, El Magnifico by Ed Harcourt and Hyperdrama by Justice, are straight bangers.

March #

Seeing as I'm currently unemployed, I had more time than usual to invest in my personal projects and got a decent amount of work done.

When it comes to the blog:

I also took George Kao's Authentic Business Planning and Netcaring courses. I recommend both!

The first inspired me to improve the sustainability of my work routine as well as my planning and project tracking. It also emphasized the importance of working lightly and experimenting, and gave me new ideas for the different types of "content" and levels of effort investment I could try out. They should help rein in my perfectionism and allow me to increase my publication frequency and diversity.

The second helped assuage some of my conflicted feelings around networking by focusing on genuine connections free from covert agendas.

Lastly, I have another project in the pipes, but it still needs some time in the oven. I should be revealing it shortly, though.

Moving on from work-related topics, I'd like to share two notable entries of my monthly media consumption. The first is Contrapoint's latest video, Twilight. It's quite lengthy but worth the watch. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of her best, very insightful, and excellent production value (as usual).

The second is the anime adaptation of Monster by Naoki Urasawa. I had read the original manga a bit less than one decade ago, but this was my first watch. It's excellent, just like the manga. I found the ending more satisfying this time around, in part due to engaging with various fan interpretations (this one being the best I found so far, beware: massive spoilers of course).

February #

At the very beginning of February, I had a sudden spurt of inspiration for my Too skeptical to disbelieve post, which I started writing and finished publishing within the span of three daysThis is why I like short posts. A couple of sessions of fun, and you're done, instead of a one to two-month slog of existential ups and downs.. I spent the rest of the month finishing the edits on my bigger What it can spark isn't always bound by what it is post. Lastly, I wrote my 2023 recap on this Now page.

February also marks the end of my contract as a web developer at MAPAL after two years and four months of service. The departure process had been brewing since the end of October and was pretty mired in uncertainty up until recently, so I'm glad that it's finally done. I'm not exactly sure what kind of job I'll be aiming for next. I need to do some research and assessments first. In the meantime, I'll have more time to dedicate to the blog.

Now that it's finally finished, I also binged the entire Attack on Titan anime from start to end, as well as the two first seasons of Vinland SagaTechnically, I watched a lot more stuff, but the bulk of it was less significant than these two.. I highly recommend both, they're some of the best anime I've ever watched—and I've seen a lot by now—even if the end of the former is a bit disappointing in my opinion.

I often feel that way when a significant portion of the mystery driving the plot hinges on uncovering the motivations pushing one character (usually the antagonist) to go to such lengths. I never find them sufficiently convincing in the endTo be clear, I find most of Attack on Titan's reveals to be excellent, same for its characters' motivations and psychology. It's just the incentives of two specific and influential characters, which underpin the last arc and are only revealed at the very end, that left me perplexed.. Good old: all that for this?

The exact same thing happened with every Naoki Urasawa manga I read so far (i.e. Pluto, Monster & 20th Century Boys). I still love them, but I wish the quality of the final reveal was on par with the rest of the story. The only exception to this pattern I can think of is the movie Oldboy by Park Chan-wook.

January #

During January, I finished the first draft of my What it can spark isn't always bound by what it is post, which I started working on in December. I also kept refining and summarizing my overall philosophy in the background.

On a more personal front, I started learning Google Sheets to automate the management of some of my finances, and it's a pretty nifty tool. I also acquired a Meta Quest 2 virtual reality headset and completed SUPERHOT VR, which is a great game just like the non-VR original. Wiggling around in VR is definitely more immersive and strenuous than your typical "flat screen" gaming.

2023 #

Year recap #

Overview #

This was a pretty significant year, both for the blog and I. After all, the former first saw the light of day in July 2023. Other noteworthy milestones include the creation of my newsletter, the publication of my first four posts, and the launch of this Now page.

2023 was probably the most impactful year of my lifeUp to this point at least. in terms of personal epiphanies, especially regarding my core philosophy, which was a big driver behind the creation of this blog. Starting to work consistently on fleshing out and sharing my ideas has been a massive clarity booster.

I'd been intending to start a blog for about three years and, despite some attempts, I'd never made it past prototyping. I think this stalling was caused in large part by my general confusion regarding the purpose of said blog, beyond simply putting my ideas out there. Nevertheless, these early prototypes served as the basis for the first notes of my burgeoning PKM systemPKM stands for Personal Knowledge Management. By PKM system I'm referring to my personal Obsidian vault which I've been cultivating for more than two years and a half. which helped me incubate my personal constellation of fundamental ideas to an acceptable level of maturity.

And once I finally struck upon a concept close enough to my philosophical kernel in February 2023, I could begin realizing how manifold seemingly scattered ideas actually tied in together. That was good enough to get started and now, one year later, I've delineated my overall purpose well enough to devise the foundations for a career centered around it a few years from now.

Publications #

These were my publications of 2023:

NB: I only start measuring time spent when I intentionally sit at my desk with the explicit goal of publishing a post. This doesn't include my previous note-making or any brainstorming and pre-drafting I do in my head or on my phone when suddenly struck by inspiration.

Based on the stats of what I've published so far, I seem to follow this general pattern in terms of time investment:

Projects #

In September, I set up the following objectives for the end of 2023:

  1. ✅ Finishing my empathic inquiry series.
  2. Start publishing a manifesto series describing the general philosophy and positions of this blog. In order to maintain a sense of diversity (for the readers as well as myself), I plan to publish one of the six posts of the manifesto, then a standalone, and rinse and repeat until I'm done with all of them.
  3. ✅ Launching a newsletter. For the moment, it'll mostly be to keep people who don't use RSS feeds updated on new posts, but I intend to improve upon it with time.

I completed two out of these three: the first and last. Despite working a lot on my manifesto/core philosophy, which explains in part my haphazard publishing frequency this yearThe other part is that I'm an erratic slacker prone to perfectionism, existential doubt, overwhelm, and distraction., I didn't get to a point where I could start publishing it by the end of the year. Nevertheless, that work definitely helped me clarify my niche and glean new insights.

Initially, I intended to publish it as a pretty massive six-part post series, but I'm having second thoughts. I'll probably write an overview page sometime in 2024 and focus on creating smaller interconnected pieces of content instead. They're easier to digest for readers and easier to write on my end. I'm leaning back stronger on a bottom-up approach, which seems to suit me better. It's easier to polish bricks one by one than trying to juggle an entire wall at once.

I've also changed my mind somewhat regarding the newsletter. I personally dislike both lengthiness and exclusivity when I'm on the receiving end of newsletters. Emails are a pretty stressful and crappy way to engage with long-form content. If it's a worthy topic just make it a blog post, if not just don't even write it in the first place.

So I think I'll just use my newsletter as a way to send short updates on the content I'm publishing on the blog. Additionally, I might send these monthly Now page updates through it too, to keep subscribers posted without the need to sporadically check the page. I'm also considering switching mailing providers, but I need to investigate the matter in more depth.

That's about it for this 2023 recap.

December 2023 #

December was quite the month for this blog (and yours truly). Besides publishing my first very short post and starting the draft for my next big one, I was struck with a lightning streak of epiphanies regarding my personal history, a good amount of my behavior patterns, as well as who I'm trying to reach, and what I'm trying to accomplish with this blog and how they all relate to each other.

As it so happens, the final puzzle piece of this specific enigma happened to be identifying my fearful avoidant attachment style and how it pertains to childhood emotional wounds of being misunderstood, alienated, and peremptorily judgedDefinitely can't have anything to do with my mania regarding the importance of thoughtfulness, nuance, fairness, and the validation of subjective experiences..

It unlocked a new spring of clarity on what I do, why I do it, and who I do it for. I've further refined my "niche"Now that I've found mine, the word doesn't seem as repulsive to me as it used to. But you can replace it with any of these more romantic and inspiring alternatives: purpose, calling, dharma, ikigai, or any other similar term you favor. from "seeking fulfillment through the balance of rationality and subjectivity" to "providing hope, purpose & support for skeptics who want to believe". The same goes for the archetype I'm trying to embody, namely that of the intellectual swashbuckler, who disarms ideological bullies with flair and steals from the certainty rich to give to the certainty poor and downtrodden.

I won't dive into the details right now. These concepts deserve some individualized and in-depth elaboration, whereas these updates are supposed to be broad and short. However, I should start to make some changes in how I describe this website and what it centers around pretty soon.

Discovering George Kao's and Tad Hargrave's work (respectively, Authentic Marketing and Marketing for Hippies) was a huge help during this process. I very warmly and heartily recommend their work. They managed to transmute my unending supply of existential dread and contempt towards marketing into inspiration and stimulation. Had you told me I'd become amenable to entrepreneurship a month ago, I would have scoffed. Those are some impressive outlook judo moves.

Although, just to be clear, it didn't change the vast majority of my previously held sentiments. Most of the concepts and strategies peddled under the guise of marketing and business these days are still 100% morally defunct gag-reflex inducing utter soulless trash. I've simply realized they're not the only way to go at it.

In other news, I also enjoyed a vacation for the end-of-year holidays with my close family, which is always a great time. It also served as yet another opportunity for shared introspective insights.

November 2023 #

In November, I created the first version of my newsletter with Mailerlite. For the moment, I'll only use it to send updates on new posts, but I should expand its scope with time. I spent the rest of the month iterating on my manifesto outlines, but preliminary feedback leads me to believe they're still a long way from being ready. I'd be quite surprised (and disappointed) if I still haven't published anything on that front by the end of 2024, but I definitely won't manage to squeeze it in before the end of the current year.

In any case, there are too many unknowns regarding this project, so I won't commit to any definite date and allocate some of my time to other posts in order to keep a semiregular rhythm of publication. I'm going to try to pick something shorter than usual and hopefully, I'll manage to get it out sometime in December. No promises though.

On an unrelated topic, my latest TTRPG rabbit hole on the side is still going strong. I've also started trying a few really nifty Mac productivity applications, namely Hookmark, which lets you create links and connect almost anything on your Mac like files and emails, Raycast, a launcher like spotlight but on steroidsProbably my favorite of the lot, it'd already be worth it if all it had going for itself was its built-in calculator which includes currency and timezone conversions, but there's a whole lot more., and Arc, a browser with a couple of innovating and user-friendly concepts...and a concerning lack of business plan. You can find overviews for each of them on YouTube to get a feel for what they can do. If you use a Mac, I'd definitely recommend at least giving them a try.

October 2023 #

Most of this month was dedicated to finishing up and editing my draft for Resolving conflict through constructive empathic inquiry. All in all, it took me a decent amount of time (about 20 hours in October), but it's finally done.

This means I'm now free to start working on my next two goals for the year starting in November, namely creating a very basic newsletter to serve as an alternative to my RSS feeds and going back to work on my manifesto outlines. The latter is made up of two trilogies, and although the second is mostly fine, I need to do a good bit of restructuring on the first one to make its content more digestible. To be honest, based on my pace so far, I highly doubt I'll have the first post published before the end of the year.

In completely unrelated news, a succession of fortuitous triggers (including the D&D actual play from Baldur's Gate 3's voice actors cast) has rekindled my passion for tabletop role-playing games, which hadn't been this fierce for at least two good years. So my sleep schedule scourge of the month has been feverishly reading PDF rule books (mostly SWADE related), learning Foundry VTT, and binge-watching Matthew Colville and Me, Myself and Die videos, to name only a few of the main offenders.

September 2023 #

This is the month when I created this Now page. Other than that, it was mostly dedicated to the second half of my empathic inquiry series. It was slow-going, especially to get the momentum started. It led me to refresh my NonViolent Communication theory and get further radicalized into nonviolence as a whole :P. In any case, I finished the first draft at the beginning of October, so it should be out before November, but I still need to edit and proofread it. It stands at about 5,500 words currently.

Spending so much time on such long posts has got me considering diversifying my format. I may publish shorter ones centered on a single concept from time to time to increase my publication frequency and get a breather in between my more ambitious writing marathons.

I've also started reading the second edition of Internal Family Systems Therapy by Richard Schwartz & Martha Sweezy on the side. I'm about halfway into it and really loving it so far. IFS is probably going to become a new staple of my conceptual toolbelt.

August 2023 #

Almost all of my work on this blog has been focused on fleshing out the outlines for the six posts of my manifesto series. I'm now on its third iteration and I wanted to submit a complete outline of the whole thing for feedback in order to avoid starting everything over again in the futureImagine finding a cataclysmic flaw in the fifth draft after having published four posts and having to reset all progress 😰..

This project has been the throughline of the blog from the start, but I don't have anything to show for all the work I've invested in it so far (publicly, at least). I want to get it right before I start publishing it, and it's a heckin' chonker.

In any case, with that done, I'm free to get back to the second and final post of my empathic inquiry series. I already have a decently fleshed-out outline for it, though realistically, it's not coming out before mid-September at the very best. These babies are quite the time investment, usually around 20 hours of work minimum for a 3500-word post.

I'm a little anxious about the feedback on my outlines. I'm not sure how many more rewrites I'm going to have to go through before I can finally start yeeting the damn thing from the nest.

July 2023 #

I published this blog on July 2, 2023, an endeavor I had seriously started working on since February of the same year and had been daydreaming about for about three years.

I also proofread a post on setting up a simple exercise routine, which took much more time than I'd have thought. The whole thing was already written, so I assumed it would be done in a jiffy. Little did I know I'd spend twelve hours editing it. Guess my writing standards have already become more stringent since last year.