6.14.25: Remote Work

Remote work feels like a cheat code until your days blur into soft deadlines and blinking cursors. You wake up late, respond to messages in half-sentences, and eat meals standing up. You forget what day it is. Sometimes you forget your own voice. There’s freedom here, yeah—but it comes with isolation. The kind that sneaks up in the middle of a spreadsheet. You tell yourself you’re lucky. And you are. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. You miss the stupid coffee breaks. The shared eye-rolls. Some part of you wants chaos again. The rest just wants another coffee.

6.13.25: The Deadlifter

There’s a guy at the gym who deadlifts like he’s summoning spirits. Screams, chalk cloud, dramatic rest between sets. Me? I stretch like I’m 80, then do three cautious sets of bench press while making a deal with gravity not to kill me. Still, I show up. Day after day. No PRs, no fanfare. Just sweat and a little less brain fog. Sometimes I think that’s enough. Not because I’m making gains—but because I’m still choosing to move when I could just rot. Progress isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s just not quitting. Sometimes it’s just showing up when it’s hard.

6.12.25: Too Quiet

Chiang Mai’s quiet tonight. Street dogs asleep, motorbikes off-duty. The air smells like wet pavement and fried garlic. I pass a 7-Eleven with fluorescent lights that hum like a warning. Inside, a teenage couple is fighting in whispers over which ramen to buy. I grab a toastie, nod at the cashier, and step back into the mist. The city doesn’t rush me. No one here does. That’s the trick: time moves different when no one’s watching. I take the long way home, barefoot and unbothered. The toastie’s gone before I hit the elevator. Life feels weird. But weird feels like progress.

6.11.25: The Last Bookstore

The last bookstore closed yesterday. People barely noticed. The building's being turned into a vape bar or maybe a cryo-lounge — no one’s sure. I stood out front for a while, watching them carry out boxes. Not just books, but shelves, signs, that little wooden ladder on wheels. Gone. I remembered the smell of old pages, the quiet clicks of people browsing. Algorithms don’t smell like anything. They don’t surprise you. They just feed what you already like. Bookstores were unpredictable. You went in looking for nothing and left with something that changed you. Now we just scroll. And scroll. And scroll.

6.10.25: Get 1% Better

Everyone says “get 1% better every day” like it’s motivational. But that math never stops. What if I don’t want to keep optimizing forever? What if I want to sit still without guilt? Rest isn’t regression. Maintenance isn’t failure. There’s beauty in plateauing sometimes — just existing without chasing the next version of yourself. Growth culture forgets that humans aren’t spreadsheets. We aren’t meant to scale infinitely. I’d rather be deeply good at a few things than constantly scrambling to improve everything. Sometimes the best version of yourself isn’t ahead — it’s right now, already good enough, just waiting for permission to exhale.

6.09.25: There’s No Time

When people say, “There’s no time,” they usually mean there’s too much happening. But sometimes, there really isn’t time. Like today. Like how the government just moved the clocks forward 23 hours. “Efficiency measure,” they said. People lost birthdays, anniversaries, deadlines. A whole day vanished. And it won’t come back. I watched the sun rise for a minute before everything flickered black. Then it was morning again, but not the same one. They say time is money, but now it’s policy. We don’t keep time anymore. We borrow it, rent it, revise it. And if you’re not paying attention, it’s gone.

6.08.25: Being Unreachable

I miss being unreachable. Remember that? When you could just leave? No one tracked your location, no one expected an instant reply. If someone called and you weren’t home, they just waited. Now everything’s urgent, everything’s right now. I have to consciously put my phone in another room just to think clearly. Not even to focus — just to remember what unstructured time feels like. We talk about freedom, but being connected all the time is its own kind of prison. Constant pings. No silence. No privacy. We didn’t choose this pace. We just stopped resisting it.

6.07.25: The Feed

They say you can’t survive more than four days without the Feed. Some guy tried last year. Cut his neural port out with a kitchen knife. Made it two and a half days before the tremors started. His eyes turned inward like he was watching something that wasn’t there. They said it was withdrawal, like unplugging from the only thing holding your mind together. I wonder if it’s true. Or if the fear is the leash. I’ve thought about trying it, just to see if my thoughts are still mine. But thinking that is probably already flagged. It always is.

6.06.25: Physical Maps

The city banned physical maps five years ago. Said they were security risks. Too easy to plan escape routes. Now everyone uses the sanctioned NavLink. You ask it where to go, and it tells you — assuming you’re cleared. People still whisper about paper maps, like they’re contraband. I saw one once, in an old book. Lines and ink, fragile and dangerous. I keep thinking about that: how freedom used to be foldable, how you could just walk somewhere without asking. Now, even wandering is illegal. You don't choose your path anymore. The system does. All roads lead to compliance.

6.05.25: Silence

I think one of the hardest skills to learn as an adult is knowing when silence is the better answer. Not everything needs a comeback. Not every slight deserves a response. Sometimes you just let it hang, let it die in the air. It’s not weakness — it’s restraint. The ego wants war. The wisdom wants peace. I’ve bit my tongue more in the last year than I have in the last ten, and I’m better for it. Silence doesn’t mean losing. It means choosing not to lose yourself. The older I get, the more I respect quiet power.

6.04.25: Airport Terminals

There’s something weirdly soothing about airport terminals. Everyone’s in motion, but nobody’s really in control. Delays, gates, customs — all decided by someone else. And for once, that’s fine. You’re just a body with a boarding pass, waiting to be told where to go. There’s freedom in that surrender. Time slows. You walk loops. You stare at overpriced sandwiches. And yet, you’re going somewhere. Airports exist in this liminal space where the future is close but unreachable. It’s a pause, wrapped in noise. I kind of love it. It’s the one place where waiting feels like part of the story.

6.03.25: How We Walk

I’ve been noticing how people walk when they’re alone versus when they’re with someone. Solo walkers usually move faster, head down, straight lines. But when you’re with someone, your pace shifts. You sync. You pause. You gesture more. It’s subtle, but it’s real. We literally move through the world differently depending on who’s beside us. Makes me wonder how many other things we adjust without realizing. Tone, posture, even path. We’re fluid like that. Maybe that’s what connection actually is — not just shared words, but shared motion. Walking in rhythm with someone might be the simplest kind of intimacy.

6.02.25: Narrating Life

Every once in a while, I catch myself narrating my own life in my head, like I’m in a documentary. “And here he was again, opening the fridge for the fifth time, despite knowing nothing had changed.” It’s not even intentional — just this weird, observational voice that kicks in. I think it helps me detach a little. Like, if I’m watching myself, I’m not fully consumed by the chaos. It’s oddly therapeutic. Maybe it’s a side effect of writing too much. Or maybe we all do it now, quietly becoming content in our own heads. Meta-awareness or coping mechanism?

6.01.25: Loyalty

I used to think loyalty meant sticking with something no matter what — a friend, a brand, a plan. But I’ve learned that real loyalty isn’t about staying forever. It’s about showing up fully while you’re there. It’s about effort, not endurance. Blind loyalty leads to stagnation. Smart loyalty knows when to pivot. I’ve left jobs, relationships, routines — not because I didn’t care, but because caring meant knowing when something had run its course. Staying isn’t always the brave thing. Sometimes, the brave thing is walking away with your values intact. Loyalty should be honest, not automatic.

5.31.25: Infinite Scrolling

Some people wake up and just start scrolling. No coffee, no water, no sun — just screen. I get it, the dopamine hits fast, but damn, that can’t be the first thing your brain consumes every day. You’re literally setting the tone with chaos. I’ve been trying to sit up, stretch, and do nothing for five minutes. Just breathe. Let my brain buffer like an old modem before I plug into the feed. It’s not always easy, especially when notifications are flashing, but that moment of stillness actually makes the day feel slower, like I’m steering instead of reacting.

5.30.25: Gym Hours

My new gym doesn’t open until 9am on weekends, and for someone who’s up at 7, those two hours feel weirdly empty. During the week, I just wake up, get dressed, and head straight there—no thinking, no waiting. But on weekends, I’m stuck pacing around, trying to figure out how to fill the time without losing momentum. I’ve tried stretching, cleaning, even slow breakfasts, but it all just feels like I’m killing time. Might need to shift my routine or find a way to make those two hours feel productive, because right now they just throw me off completely.

5.29.25: AI Agents

I’m genuinely excited about AI agents. Just being able to say, “Find me the cheapest flight to Portugal, book an aisle seat, and lock in a 4-star hotel near the beach for under a thousand bucks,” and then have it actually do all of that—no forms, no tabs, no stress—that’s a game-changer. I waste so much time bouncing between apps trying to piece things together. If an agent can handle the full process and stick to a budget? That’s not just convenient, that’s freedom. We’re getting close to that reality, and I can’t wait to stop planning and just go.

5.28.25: Handling Money

Handling money is a constant chore, especially when you’re living abroad and getting paid in different currencies. Between exchange rates, transfer fees, and juggling multiple accounts, it feels like there’s always something slipping through the cracks. I’ve got income coming in USD, THB, and RMB, and trying to keep track of everything while avoiding getting burned by hidden fees is basically a part-time job. Sometimes I just want one clean way to manage it all, without jumping through hoops. I know I’m not the only one dealing with this—it’s just one more thing that makes remote life feel unnecessarily complicated.

5.27.25: Notifications

I do not understand people who have hundreds of red dot notifications on their phone’s home screen and just leave them there. How do you live like that? It would drive me insane. Every time I see a screen full of little red numbers, I feel this urge to start clearing them out. Emails, texts, app updates — whatever it is, just deal with it. Letting them pile up feels like letting chaos take over. Maybe it does not bother them, but to me, it looks like visual anxiety. I need a clean slate. Otherwise, it just feels overwhelming.

5.26.25: Favorite Genres

I love time travel and zombie content because there is always a different, unique take on how they work. No two stories ever handle it exactly the same way. Some time travel rules are tight and complicated, others are loose and chaotic. Some zombies are slow and rotting, others are fast and almost superhuman. It keeps things fresh. You can tell the same basic story a hundred different ways just by changing the rules a little. I like seeing how different creators imagine the mechanics, the limits, and the consequences. It is familiar, but it never really feels recycled.