Now: March 2024
Instead of social media updates, I keep a now page inspired by Derek Sivers.
March 2024
It’s been months since I’ve written here and nearly a year since I’ve published a now update. Somehow time both flies and stands still.
I’ve spent the last few days reading Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity, which I happily pre-ordered, and there’s something about the whole thing that deeply resonates with me. Our society judges productivity with the wrong cadence, measuring the outputs of days and weeks at most. While the most productive people across history had weeks and months of simply staring at the wall and letting their minds wander.
And so it’s taken me awhile to figure out what I even want to do with this site. There’s a lot about UX, typography, and some hobbies that I’d like to write about. There’s no rush. I’ll get around to it. There’s also plenty that I won’t be publishing here. Not that I have anything shocking to say; I’m boringly mainstream. But having a site under your own name should have the sort of content you’d feel comfortable chatting about with a stranger. This is my gentle push against the culture of oversharing.
So yes, back to Slow Productivity. The sorts of things that Cal Newport describes can be life-changing. Really. I sold my iPad. I keep my phone tucked away in a downstairs closet so it’s not distracting me. More often than not I venture outside without the thing; oddly enough I learned that you can pay for stuff without Apple Pay. And then I spend my time doing things I find rewarding: reading, long walks with my wife, spending time with friends, and engaged in hobbies far away from the virtual world. I’ve even made it a point to start cooking most nights.
It’s kind of wild how this has become something so unusual, despite it being how nearly everyone lived when I was growing up in the 90s.
In the meantime, I’ve read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. Thousands of pages of Brandon Sanderson, just sticking my toe in the water of Adrian Tchaikovsky, which reminded me I should probably reread Gene Wolfe.
I deeply enjoy the change of the seasons, the visible march of time. Each spring is something special, the days lengthening of the days, the first signs of warmth after months of cold damp darkness.
I have some gardening projects planned for the spring, but best not to talk about them ahead of time. 🪬🧿🪬
Strangely enough it feels like I haven’t done much of anything since I last wrote here, and I think that’s why I feel so good about everything these days.
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