It’s October somehow. The sun sets earlier now. I’m constantly reminded I need to buy a coat. I still don’t own one despite having moved to the east coast 1.5 years ago. On the plus side, I’m not as worried about winter as I used to be. Maybe I’m no longer in denial about living in a place with seasons.

Here’s what the past few weeks looked like:

• Fell sick and spent the better part of a week recovering

• Spent a weekend in New York hanging out with my sister

• Spent a weekend in Austin eating bbq and burgers

• Taught myself html/css and git again

• Went live with my lil personal website

Throughout those weeks, I spent most of my mornings and evenings teaching myself how to build a website. In this process, one thing I started doing again (and never should’ve stopped doing) is writing out everything I’m learning.

This is something I used to do during my software engineering internships in college and it was incredibly eye-opening. It helped me visualize the progress I was making and explain things to myself in a way that was intuitive to me. It also allowed me to find the gaps in my knowledge and work towards closing those as best as I could.

For example, while I was re-learning git, I found the doc I created when I was first learning it. This was helpful because I didn’t start from zero, but it was also evident where I had gaping holes in my understanding. It’s a much better document now, and because I spent time writing it all down, it’s ingrained in my memory.

Sometimes I think about sharing some of my learning docs with the world, in case there’s someone that can benefit from them. While I might not share them anytime soon, the fact that they may have an audience at some point pushes me to make them more structured and simpler to follow. This, in turn, makes them easier for me to reference from time to time.

In the same vein, I began to document my learnings during the 1-1s I have with my manager at work. I use most of that time to ask big-picture questions about the organization, and that information can tend to get lost unless I have notes to look back on.

reading: I finally completed Token Economy by Shermin Voshmgir!

I also finished re-reading Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. I’ve picked up Debt by David Graeber and hope to work my way through it for the next few weeks.

learning & making: akosuru.com

Re-learning html/css to build my website meant coding again after about 4 years. Honestly, I’ve been having the best time. I didn’t realize how much I missed building things, which is one of the aspects I really enjoyed about being a software engineer - the tangible output I get to create.

The website is very much still a work in progress. I want to add a couple more pages and as I stumble upon more brilliant personal websites (there’s so many out there), I’m bombarded with new ideas for content. All in all, creating a space on the internet that I can fill with literally whatever I want has been both overwhelming and refreshing at the same time. The possibilities are endless.

Recommended reading if you’re looking to build your own:

• My website is a shifting house

• How to use a personal website to enhance your ability to think and create?

These past few weeks have been a lot of things. I’ve been getting back into routine, trying out recipes, enjoying brilliant weather, running, and a doing a little bit of reading.

There hasn’t been an overarching idea that’s been top of mind this past week, so I decided to sift through my archive - it’s my list of ideas, thoughts, and half-baked essays that are looking for a home.

I came across an essay I was drafting about how my current bookshelf is an amalgamation of all the bookish cravings I’ve had over the past 4 years. There was the summer of unhinged women 2022 (so much fun, highly recommend, sprinkled my bookshelf with some much needed pink). The time I wanted to learn negotiation. The winter of philosophy 2021. January 2024 when I only read sci-fi. Yuval Noah Harari. Poetry.

A couple of months ago, my latest craving was artistic insight. This is a recurring craving of mine, and surfaces when I want to explore: how a writer views their craft, learn what or who their influences are, or read their rich, inner monologue. My favorite way to do this? Essay collections.

With less of an incentive to perform, I think essays allow for honesty. My favorites are the ones that read like journals, or experiments in thought and craft.

So here are 4 of my favorite books in case you ever have a similar literary craving. Not all of these are essay collections; one of them is an interview with a filmmaker and one is better described as pieces of prose.

Too much and not the mood by Durga Chew-Bose

The best ideas outrun me. That’s why I write.

This is such a delightful collection of essays. Durga Chew-Bose is a writer and filmmaker based in Italy. This particular collection is compiled from essays that have previously been published in magazines and newspapers.

Side Note: Her first film, Bonjour Tristesse, came out in 2020. It’s a film adaptation of the book by Françoise Sagan. I’m dying to watch it, but before I do that, I need to read the book (I am very much a must-read-the-book-before-I-watch-the-adaptation kind of person). I will consume anything this woman creates.

My favorite is her opening essay, ‘Heart Museum‘ (although ‘Part of a Greater Pattern‘ is a close second). I won’t give too much away, but I do want to give you a glimpse into what it’s about, hopefully creating intrigue while preserving the novelty of reading a text for the first time.

Writing. Sisterhood. A woman’s inner life. Wrap-around porches. Parents. Grandparents. Nook people. Food. Sunshine.

The places of Marguerite Duras

I get the feeling that my films begin the day after they’ve been seen, the same as with a book one reads.

I found this one in a bookstore and noticed the introduction was by Durga Chew-Bose. I love reading introductions, especially ones by writers I admire and this one was amazing. The book is the transcription of Marguerite’s interview with Michelle Porte, and it’s everything you want from a filmmaker and writer. The questions asked were perfect and the answers they elicited, even better.

My favorite insights:

How Marguerite thinks of writing and stories. Why she began writing. Women and houses. What she calls the place of passion as opposed to the place of the spectator. Places and how they harbor memory. The metaphor of the sieve.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson

In which case blue is something of an ecstatic accident produced by void & fire.

Bluets barely starts as a book about Maggie Nelson’s love of the color blue before revealing itself as what it really is - a book about missing someone. It’s a difficult text to describe, but all you need to know is that it reads like fragments of thought that are almost erratic but extremely relatable. You’ll just have to experience it for yourself.

Upstream by Mary Oliver

So here I am, walking on down the sandy path, with my wild body, with the inherited devotions of curiosity and respect.

It took me a long time to choose a quote for this book - I kept getting lost in the essays. My copy of this book is messy, underlined in ink, tabbed, annotated and frayed at the edges. It is well-loved. Mary Oliver reminds me to play, watch birds, take responsibility and touch grass. Most essays in here have been read and re-read many times.

All of them are gems, but here are my favorites:

• Staying Alive

• Of Power and Time

• Sister Turtle

• Building the House

reading:

I finished reading The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan. The title of this book confused me so much. I was convinced it was supposed to be his highly quoted phrase ‘The Medium is the Message‘ (which comes from his book - Understanding Media). According to Wikipedia, I was right; the title was a mistake, but McLuhan liked the typo and kept it as is.

learning: More stablecoins

making:

I finally hosted a little dinner for the girls I’ve met in the city so far! I had so much fun creating a menu, playlists, and prepping. We ended up chatting the night away, sharing stories, exchanging restaurant recommendations, and enjoying all the food. It was such a wholesome time!

It’s been a pretty packed (but thoroughly exciting) 2 weeks with parents visiting, my former roomie getting engaged, and my sister going off to grad school.

We spent most of last week going around New York, settling my sister into her apartment, meeting friends and family in the city, and touring Columbia University. I haven’t been on a college campus since I graduated with a master’s degree about 2 years ago, and this got me thinking about the experience of being in school.

There’s a lot I don’t miss - multiple assignments vying for my time, cramming for tests over the weekend, an unfurnished apartment, and a somewhat irregular routine. But there’s one thing I do miss - college libraries and by extension - the educational environment.

I was originally going to have this tiny essay be about all the things I wish I knew and did differently while I was in grad school. But that would be a sad list (although perhaps useful to my sister so I will still make it for her). Instead I wanted to create a list of all the things I loved about being in university that I would like to incorporate back into my life. I also want to host a co-working session one day and this might be useful thinking for the kind of vibe I want to cultivate.

• spaces conducive to uninterrupted hours of work and learning

• studying in cafes

• syllabi

• note-taking, summarizing, essaying and the question-answer format for learning

• group chats with learners interested in the same or adjacent areas

If you’ve figured out how to retain the aura of a college library and the discipline it demands in a post-uni 9-5 routine, I would love to know. A reminder that you can reply to this email :)

reading:

Truth be told, I haven’t prioritized reading over the past two weeks with everything going on, but here’s my reading list for the end of August and beginning of September:

• Finishing up Token Economy by Shermin Voshmgir

• Re-reading Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

• The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan (recommended to me by Ramu)

Books make me excited and impatient which is why I’m constantly reading too many at the same time. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s overwhelming. Drowning in a sea of books is only fun until I realize I’m drowning.

learning & making:

Combining these sections because I’m really doing both at the same time for this project.

I’ve continued to learn how to use Figma as I design my website, one wireframe at a time. Resources: youtube and figma’s library.

I’ve also been learning about web design what I like to see when I look at a web page. Here’s how I’m doing this:

• look for other beautiful personal websites (bonus points if it’s a web designer’s). This hunt led me to Sari Azout’s own sublime collection: now this is an about page. Absolute gold mine.

• if it’s a web designers website, find and browse their portfolio for more inspiration

• figure out how to incorporate the elements I like into my own design (both visual and ideas for content) and see if it fits the overall vibe I’m going for

This process has led me to discover designers who also write. I’m having a wonderful time reading through their journeys, design processes, and if I’m lucky, how they built their own sites. I really like Judah’s design philosophy of delightful minimalism; it articulates what I want for my own website1.

That’s all for this edition. Thank you for reading!

I started running a couple of weeks ago and have slowly built up to running my first 5k. I’ve wanted to run for a while (2 years now?), but never prioritized it during grad school, choosing to focus on strength training instead. Now, I live near a beautiful trail by the river. It would have been almost foolish not to take advantage of the location and actualize my desire to run.

Running is one of the most popular forms of exercise, and a topic people seem to be enthusiastic to discuss. It’s always nice to be able to talk to someone who has been running for much longer than I have about pacing and breathing. It’s been even better to be able to plan runs with others as an activity. I’m rediscovering how much fun it is partaking in your interests and hobbies with others, and I find myself running much farther than I would when I run alone.

I can only imagine that this effect is multiplied the more interests and hobbies you actively pursue given you are passionate about these areas. It’s a recurring theme I’ve been reading about and reminding myself of constantly: doing more of the things that interest you and sharing those interests is a gateway into new communities and conversation. Being able to demonstrate shared interests and hobbies has been a great way to connect with strangers, beyond being in the same industry/school/city.

I’ve also found that tracking my adventures across disciplines has helped enhance conversation. I can readily share what I’ve been working towards, the approach I’ve been taking, and resources that have been helping me along the way. It’s one of the reasons I highly recommend some form of digital note-taking to keep track of your reading, maintain a log of your runs/workouts, store a list of recipes you’ve come up with, or keep a journal of learnings you’ve encompassed.

reading:

I’ll be re-reading Psychology of Money with the fam this month. Excited to pick this one up again! I read it for the first time a couple of years ago and learned a lot about what shapes our attitude towards money.

learning:

I learned how to use Figma this week!

I’ve been wanting to learn Figma for a while now but hadn’t really started any projects that would require it - I’m now using it to create wireframes for my personal website which I hope to either code from scratch or build using Framer.

making:

I’ve been working on building my personal website. I currently have an existing website that I built using a template on Wix, but I’ve been itching to design and build a new one from scratch. It’s been incredibly fun so far experimenting with different layouts, colors and fonts on Figma. It’s definitely a longer project, and will likely take a few months to complete with a busy August ahead, but I’m excited to be stretching my software muscles again after a 4-year hiatus.

I’ve only known this woman for a year, and I met her on (brace yourself) LinkedIn (please let me explain). I’d been looking for roles at companies that were on my dream list and came across one I really liked. I noticed she had that role and also lived in my city (I was living in DC at the time)! So I reached out for an informational interview, and to my surprise she responded. We got onto a call, I ended up going to an event she was hosting later that week, and the rest is happy history.

When I moved to DC after grad school, I had no idea how to go about making friends. As someone new to the city and working remote, the chances of meeting people organically were extremely slim. But I wanted to find community - people I could invite to try out new restaurants, coffee runs, long walks and explore bookstores. This meant shifting my narrative around building lasting friendships.

In the past, my approach to finding and making friends was non-existent. This meant I never went out of my way to talk to anyone unless it was required of me. Looking back, I believe this was an issue of confidence and security. So my friends, bless their souls, found me; breaking through invisible barriers I had put up unintentionally - something I’m grateful for every day.

Unfortunately, I did not think it was my responsibility to sustain the friendships that had made their way to me. I was under the naive impression that relationships have a life and will of their own. If there happened to be prolonged periods of silence, and the relationship one day fizzled out and died, well - then it was simply not meant to be. I treated abandoned friendships as a consequence of life instead of what they really were - a lack of effort and intention on my end.

If there’s anything my friends have taught me through the years, it’s to be deliberate, intentional, and relentless in the pursuit of friendship. And I needed to internalize that now more than ever if I wanted to make the most of my time in a new city.

Here’s what worked for me and how I currently approach this search and sustain problem.

Searching:

1. A friend of a friend introduced me to Bumble BFF. It seemed daunting at first, using an app to find friends but:

   1. I had not yet cultivated the kind of confidence required to go up to an interesting stranger and make conversation

   2. I was scared to join clubs/groups alone

   so an app turned out to be the comfortable option, and I’m happy to report it’s worked quite well! I’ve found that taking conversation off the app as soon as possible has accelerated making IRL connections. Things move much quicker once you exchange phone numbers - conversations that stay in the BFF chat tend to remain there, never materializing into a first date.

2. I’m now much more comfortable initiating conversations with strangers. Although I don’t do it as often as I’d like, it’s helpful to remind myself that the potential downside to talking to interesting people is well worth the potential upside. One of my friends in DC was a girl I met in the airport on the way back from Rome - I introduced myself because I noticed she was on my flight to Rome as well. It turned out she lived a 5-minute walk away from me.

3. I recently stumbled upon Luma as a way to find interesting events in the city. You can attend with a friend or alone, and it looks like a great way to meet like-minded people. I love the variety of events you can find on the app, a lot of which are free to attend. They’re also split up by category, so no matter what your interests and hobbies are, it’s likely you’ll find an event that caters to your curiosities.

4. Leverage your existing network. Ask friends if they have friends in the city they think you’d get along with, maybe you have long-lost family you can reconnect with in town, or an old colleague that used to live there can make introductions.

5. Lastly, choosing a sport or joining a club is a solid way to find community. I haven’t personally tried this, but my husband’s found a lot of good friends through tennis.

Sustaining (all of this is about initiation, life is both too short and wide to have fleeting relationships with interesting people):

1. Always. Initiate. Plans. If you’ve hit it off with a potential friend, chances are they want to fit you into their schedule. Everyone finds it hard to initiate meetups - just take the plunge - be the one to send the text.

2. Host things (reminder to self).

3. In the same vein as 1, immediately text people after you think of them. I always love getting ‘Hey, saw this and thought of you‘ or ‘It’s been so long, do you want to get coffee soon?‘ texts. They can really make someone’s day.

4. 20-something friendships are hard. Schedules are rare to line up, plans are postponed. It’s almost too easy to get caught up in our lives and lose touch with those we worked hard to cultivate relationships with. While frustrating, I’ve found that it’s helpful to be patient and assume the other person is trying their best as well.

I think I’ve come a long way from 22-year-old me and her passive approach to community. I definitely still have a long way to go. What’s comforting is the fact that you only have to do it for the first time once. Every time after that is experience built and if you hit it off with some good people, memories made. Over time it gets easier. You realize you have a routine, there’s certain questions you like to ask, activities you like to plan and eventually it becomes a part of your identity. You just make friends wherever you go, and you’re good at it. The people you meet introduce you to other people, your network grows and community is built.

I’m currently living in my 3rd city in 4 years. Moving this time around wasn’t as intimidating and scary as the first move. In fact, I was quite confident at the thought of navigating change for a third time. I did it once, so I knew I could do it again. As I meet new people in my city I’m aware of how much more at ease I seem compared to a year ago. I thank my past self for deciding to initiate conversation countless times, for realizing that community is not something you find but rather something you build with intention and care, and promise to myself to always be patient when it comes to new beginnings.

A few months ago, I carried out an exercise to craft a list of 6 questions that would help me focus my thinking and learning - inspired by Feynman’s 12 favorite problems.

This exercise helped me identify recurring curiosities, realize a few were more important to me than others, and frame those into questions. Feynman’s own questions largely pertained to mathematics and physics, but like all good frameworks, this can be applied to any area that is meaningful to you. The questions themselves are meant to be open-ended and broad, encompassing the parts of life you care about most and are likely to invest in for a long period of time.

I had forgotten about this exercise until now, when I was sifting through what’s been on my mind lately, scrambling to put together this edition. I was surprised to find that everything I’ve been thinking about neatly falls into the first 3 questions I had formulated:

1. What is the best way to write towards clarity of thought and work through ideas?

   Publishing here weekly has forced me to dwell on my thoughts longer than I normally would - allowing me to cement ideas that would otherwise remain as vague notions in my mind.

2. As a remote worker, how can I find and build community/communities centered around learning, health, and play?

   One of the motivations for starting a blog was to find said community - in the meantime I’ve been trying to meet new people based on shared interests IRL.

3. How do I create a household that fosters open communication, learning, play, humility, and community?

   This is something I think about every time I visit and stay with family and friends (like I did this past weekend). The wonderful thing about being an adult is that you get to be intentional about how you want your house to feel. I’ve been learning from different households and making mental (and digital) notes on atmosphere, warmth, and comfort to build on the ideas that resonate with my vision.

4. What steps do I need to take, apart from writing, to find my sustainable obsession?

5. What do kids need to learn to navigate the world with kindness, patience, confidence, curiosity, and joy?

6. What habits do I need to build to produce more than I consume?

The idea behind developing a set of questions is to subconsciously focus the information you consume towards a set of problems. That way every time you learn something new, you can ask yourself if and how it applies to the questions you are most curious about. Does my mind going back to these questions mean they successfully primed me to notice patterns and information I want to retain?

I’m not sure I will ever know, but as I continue to write and learn, I hope to stumble across new questions I’m craving to answer. I also hope the ones listed above grow more specific and nuanced as evidence of context gathered to create the life I want to live.

reading:

I finished The Year of Magical Thinking this week!

I’ve only been reading non-fiction this year and want to pick up some fast-paced fiction for a change - would love some recommendations.

This week’s substack bookmarks:

• How to increase your surface area for luck by Cate Hall

  I was sooo excited to read this absolute gem of an essay from Cate Hall about luck. It’s crazy how I’ve been thinking about this for a while now.

• Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog by Henrik Karlsson

  I’m happy to have found this when I did! I love reading lists of advice - this is one I want to re-read from time to time to help me keep writing.

learning:

I took a break from stablecoins and fell into a venture capital rabbit-hole lately.

making:

I’ve been working on an essay about essays :)

On the topic of writing, I’ve been finding it hard to consolidate all of my ideas for essays in one place. My daily notes and ideas go into remnote, some of my essay ideas go into notion and I use google keep to jot down ideas when I’m not around my laptop. I’m currently looking for a better workflow so that all my ideas end up in one place, making sure they can resurface when I need them.

Thank you so much for reading!

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on the floor of my living room. Which means this is quite literally coming to you from my coffee table :). It’s not my usual writing space but I read You were lied to about exercise and now I’m terrified of being a fall risk at 65, so here we are.

This week I’ve been thinking about ideation and the spaces that breed creativity. But really I’ve been thinking about a question my friend asked me when I told them I started a newsletter. Let’s call this friend Ramu. Ramu asked me why I started writing publicly.

Up until this point, I hadn’t given it too much thought, which meant I hadn’t written about it at all. Thinking back, I believe this was somewhat intentional.

When I initially felt compelled to start a newsletter, I remember not wanting to discuss the thought of writing publicly with myself or anyone else. I’ve always felt that giving an idea for a project too much time to breathe in your head was a bad thing. I knew how that would go. I would think of a million ways it would fail, the million people that would laugh at it, and the million reasons it was a futile project and how I never should have thought of it in the first place. As you can see my fears come in millions.

Time and other people’s anticipation kill the excitement required to begin. That is at least my current understanding. And I didn’t want this to be an experiment that failed before it started. If I wanted to hit publish for the first time I needed to do it before I told anyone about it. That is how I was able to begin.

Finally, here is what I hope to get out of writing publicly - a slightly more fleshed out list building on the answer I gave Ramu. I know I shouldn’t count my chickens before they hatch - but if there are to be chickens, this is what I want them to look like:

• a gentle incentive to be consistent

• an increase in my surface area of luck

• a way to find those who enjoy reading and learning about the same things I do

• a way to find ideas that resonate

• the joy of referencing my own thoughts and tracing my influences

• a body of work and a thread of thoughts that exist on the internet for people to read, reference, and steal

reading: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I suggested this book as the first read for my family’s book club, having deeply underestimated how devastating it would be. If you’re not familiar with Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking is arguably her most famous work and is an exploration of grief following the death of her husband.

I think I expected an abstract reflection on grief, but got quite the opposite - an intimate look into the details of her husband’s death, observed and analyzed with the kind of attention that only grief can demand.

This book’s been reminding me of why I enjoy her writing in the first place, it’s honest, sharp and reads like stream of consciousness - one of my favorite styles of prose. While it has me wanting to revisit her essays, I’m going to have to rush through it so that I don’t spend days in emotional turmoil.

Additionally, this week’s substack bookmarks:

• identity is just narrative waiting for evidence

• On agency

learning:

Still learning as much as I can about stablecoins, here’s what I’ve read recently to augment my understanding:

• Stablecoins Could Become One Of The US Government’s Most Resilient Financial Allies

• Stablecoins are a new platform

• The third edition of Token Economy by Shermin Voshmgir has a chapter on stable tokens - Stable Tokens: Money with a Stable Value

making:

I’ve been loving fish over rice lately and made two different versions this past week (should I start sharing recipes?):

• Nizami fish and bagara rice

• Chimichurri fish and cilantro lemon rice

I’ve also started making weekly menus every Sunday as a way to reduce decision fatigue during the work week. While I love cooking, I absolutely dread having to decide what to make for dinner. Having a list of dishes to choose from has dramatically lightened the mental load that comes with grocery shopping and meal prep.

On the writing side, I've been curating a list of my favorite authors and quotes to build out a couple of different essays :)

Thank you for reading!

I know, I know. If this was the title to the third edition it would’ve been perfect. But perfection is overrated and the stars did not align. Moving on.

In an effort not to use this newsletter to untangle all of the ideas and questions that have been plaguing me this week, I will be noting the 3 that have taken up most of my brain space:

1. Action does indeed precede direction and everything I want to create will only come to life if I make it exist first and perfect it later.

2. How do I build a routine to increase my creation to consumption ratio?

3. Only consider a reflection complete if it results in habits to build and/or a to-do list to work on.

Writing of ideas, I also wanted to share 3 AI apps that I will be trying out in the coming week to save and organize everything that resonates with me as I stumble across the internet:

• Cosmos: pinterest for creatives (visually stunning)

• Sublime: idea collection in a way that fuels creation

• Mymind: a privacy-forward extension of your mind

My initial thoughts are that they probably won’t be replacing any tools I’m currently using (maybe except for Pinterest) but I’ve been looking for ways to better curate thoughts, ideas and inspiration I come across online and to that end all 3 look incredibly promising.

If you’ve tried any of these I’d love to hear your thoughts!

read/reading: Keep Going by Austin Kleon

That completes my reading of his Steal Like an Artist trilogy, each of which I read in one sitting because they’re just that compelling. Especially Show Your Work which, if you haven’t heard of yet, is the one book I recommend everyone read. At the very least, it will get you thinking about creating an online presence for yourself and at most will change your life and perspective about art and opportunities in the digital age.

It’s tiny, barely 200 pages, and incredibly inspiring. All 3 sit on my desk at all times just in case I’m overthinking sharing my work, or need to remind myself to climb out of the consumption spiral.

learning:

I’ve been practicing and re-learning key concepts in SQL this past week. I really like Mode as a free resource for this; it’s what I’ve used in the past to sharpen my SQL skills before interviews and does a great job of going through important concepts while providing practice questions - which you can implement directly in Studio, which is Mode’s free IDE.

making:

Being on substack, I find myself venturing down so many rabbit holes that I sometimes need to slow down and write in order to process them all.

My last little essay was a result of that: https://ananyakos.substack.com/p/what-my-childhood-taught-me-about

Thank you for reading!

Growing up, I would eagerly look forward to these events, even though they were a very common occurrence. Almost every other week there would be a dinner one of my aunts was hosting (for no apparent reason other than wanting all of us to be in one place), a birthday party, or a sleepover. Spending all that time together - in conversation, playing, creating, having meals - created memories that wove the fabric of my childhood and built the foundation for the tight-knit bond my family and I now share.

Below is an attempt to reflect on the makings of these memories and find the commonalities between them. I hope it’s a list I can look at from time to time and build on with my own lessons-learned hosting in the future.

• Always greet new guests with the door already open, or better yet, in the driveway

  I’m sure this is custom in many cultures, but it has to be one of my favorite teachings on hospitality. Anytime someone new (or old honestly) came home, they needed to be greeted with an open door, or in the driveway and walked into the house until they were situated. They also needed to be walked out of the house and to their car when leaving - we were not allowed to go back inside until the car had taken off.

  This simple act, to me, has always felt like an ultimate gesture of love. There is something incredibly endearing about seeing a family member or friend looking forward to seeing you in their driveway. The only thing better is seeing them waving goodbye from their driveway, refusing to go back inside until you’ve turned the corner. How is it so soft and grand at the same time? A habit that is now lodged in my soul to the point where I am physically uncomfortable just thinking of closing the door before someone has left the vicinity of the house.

• Err on the side of too much food

  

  When entering a get-together, there was always a mock-tail or lemonade to sip on and an abundance of appetizers. Food was the focal point of every gathering and the first topic of conversation as we walked in. The initial moments looked like exchanging recipes, discussing ingredients and caterers, how long the prep took, and the constant nudging of trays full of food towards us.

  Everything must be tried, and everyone must have food and drink on them at all times. This was usually a self-imposed rule by the hosts, who would treat anything less as a personal failure on their behalf. Funnily enough, a frequent point of discussion after the night ended was how there were too many appetizers and so guests didn’t have enough of the main course.

  It was a purposely recurring problem because the opposite - not enough food - is absolutely unthinkable.

• Create (or find) space and an enthusiasm to play

  When we were younger, we would look to the host kid to suggest a game or activity - we’d usually end up doing whatever they were interested in at the time. If it was movies, we’d all watch one of their choosing. If it was arts and crafts, we’d paint or make something. If their favorite game was hide & seek that is what we’d play.

  If the host kid was undecided, our first instinct was to go out and play whatever all of us mutually decided (not without heated discussion and some possible sulking). This meant the adults would have to hunt us down at dinner time while we asked for 5 MORE MINUTES to finish whatever elaborate activity we were in the middle of.

  A few things have changed as we’ve gotten older. We usually talk about what we’ve been up to, and then one of us will put on our favorite youtube video or new movie trailer which prompts discourse that turns into spirited conversation. Even now (most of us are 20 somethings) when we get together back home, we like to end the night playing something we used to play as kids (kings, hide & seek, a variation of lock & key, crocodile1) or by putting on a Just Dance video and giving our parents an unwarranted performance (I’m sure they love it).

I still have so many thoughts on hosting, cultivating a warm and cozy environment, creating spaces that encourage play, and more. But I’ll save those for future essays and snippets of thought. In the meantime, I hope to gain experience doing some hosting of my own!

This year I’m hosting Thanksgiving for the first time - it’ll be a few people I grew up with but I couldn’t be more excited at the thought of planning games, movie nights and menus. The goal is to capture the nostalgia of sleepovers we would have as children while also building new memories to look back on when we’re older.

reads that got me thinking for this piece:

• the power of recurrings by Mathu

• 5 things that quietly make you really good at getting people together by Sarah Jannetti

I turned 26 last month. We were in Cannon Beach for my birthday and it was the most magical time. It rained all day (I love the rain), so we drove up to an overlook with a view of the ocean and sat in the car watching the waves and reading. It was everything I wanted. The ocean + the sound of the rain + books.

I like to set intentions going into any kind of travel. For this trip, I had a singular intention: to be present and allow myself to have as much fun as possible, while resisting the urge to pull out my phone from time to time (except to take a couple of pictures). As a result, I spent almost all of my time for those few days off of my phone. Whenever I did find myself scrolling on Instagram, a voice in my head would remind me of the intention to stay present, making it relatively easy to put the device down. It turned out to be one of the best trips ever, and because I didn’t subject myself to the mental chatter of social media, I have numerous vivid memories of happy moments from that time.

So, on our last day in Oregon, I decided to delete Instagram. While I don’t spend too much time on Instagram in the first place, it is the app that I find to be the most distracting (I don’t have tik tok). I loved having a quieter mind and the ease of going through your day without having the urge to scroll through someone else’s. I wanted to give that to myself even after we got home.

The one thing I’ve noticed post-deleting Instagram is how much more grounded I feel in a given moment. There used to be a kind of buzzing (I think that’s the best way to describe it) in my mind, the kind that comes from digital stimulation or even the knowledge of access to that stimulation. It’s still there, probably from the other apps that make up my screen time, however it’s no longer loud and distracting. The inability to access the app also gave me the energy and focus I needed for other projects and hobbies. I definitely don’t see myself downloading it back anytime soon.

read/reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

I’ve seen this book everywhere over the past few years and never bought it because I didn’t consider myself a creative. The idea of buying it felt like pretending to be someone I’m not, as if I was stealing from real artists. It sounds crazy now that I’m writing it, but it was a story I believed. I’ve since learned that the stories you tell yourself about your identity might be the very things stopping you from reaching your potential. I’ve also learned that creating for yourself doesn’t make it any less of a creative act.

I’ve been writing and journaling for at least 13 years now and it feels good to have finally given myself permission to call myself a creative. So I decided to gift it to myself on my 26th birthday and it’s been wonderful.

learning:

This year I (finally) decided to start learning about web3 and crypto networks, and I’m glad I started now given the recent stablecoin bill.

I’m slowly making my way through the second edition of Token Economy by Shermin Voshmgir. So far, it’s been incredibly educational and a great starting point for someone who is new to the field. I love how she covers a wide range of topics without compromising on the depth of the subject, all while providing context for the big picture and potential market disruption in various industries. I especially enjoyed learning about crypto-economics - a new field of science sparked by the advent of blockchain.

The author very kindly sent me a physical copy of the third edition, which came out 2 months ago!

It’s also available for free on GitHub.

making: this newsletter!

If you’re reading this, it means I finally hit publish! I’m excited to keep sharing with you, and I hope you’ve enjoyed this first edition :)

About a year ago, I started doing little writing exercises with the intention to figure out what I enjoy writing about the most. I found that there isn't really a common thread or subject matter. I write to explore ideas, expand understanding and for clarity of thought.

I wanted to document my curiosities here and share where they take me. This could manifest as the occasional essay, curated reading lists, and snippets of thought.

I move around a lot, but this space on the internet will remain and I hope it can serve as a virtual coffee table for conversation around things that fascinate us.

Subscribe for insight into what I’m reading, learning, and making.

I’m really looking forward to sharing with you all. Here’s to new beginnings!

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