After I began playing in an improv theatre, I've been observing people more. The more I observe, the fewer people I see who are willing to move out of their comfort zone. Even when they have the energy and really want to do something, like sign up for a hobby class or host a dinner with friends. When I ask why they...
Most newsletters have turned into daily newspapers, publishing 3-4 pieces a week. If you're like me and subscribed to many newsletters, you find yourself in a constant "catch-up game," never able to read and, more importantly, understand the content. For the ones you are able to read, you skim and delete them,...
I read Guy Standing's short essay on education in Monocle's Issue #195. I have mixed thoughts about Guy's arguments. I think the introduction explains the whole article well: The acquisition of knowledge is becoming more commodified, seen as a way of filling gaps in the workforce. But for a society to thrive, it...
I never understood why most bookstores in Berlin (and perhaps in Germany) don't sell magazines. I'm writing a new article right now about magazines and how they shaped my life in the last year. While writing it, I realised that for magazines I often go to stores other than bookstores. Weird. Reply via email | Reply...
Hello! How are you? (I moved to a new email address to match my blog URL, and from now on I'll be sending you an email from this new address. Don't forget to add it to your contacts when you receive the email.). It's been a while since I sent you an email. I've been debating the value of the Mediations newsletter in...
From the day that I stepped into a manager role till today, I've been relying on other people to do my job. Every passing year, I sacrificed a piece of my software engineering 'expertise' to organisational constraints.: the work that requires me to help aligning people and problems, gathering context and structuring...
One thing I keep thinking about is making sense of the Internet. Everything is mingled and mixed. I'm okay with it being chaotic. I'm not okay with my corner of it contributing to this jungle. Although a little outside of the context Jim & John talk about in their posts, I've long struggled with the newsletter...
I watched this video that shows (and also explains) the universe from the Big Bang till now. The moment you see the human is the last thing, as a fraction of a second. That tells how insignificant we are in the universe. However, it's also impossible to comprehend billions of years. We don't need to go too far;...
When you onboard someone to the team, what do you care about? Their contribution, whether they solve the right problem in the right direction. The same should apply to the AI. You must treat AI as a teammate. Consider them as junior engineers with infinite energy and zero context. Sources: Patterns for Reducing...
102 asks O’Sullivan’s question from the writer’s side: what happens when the production of prose no longer guarantees a mind behind it? Mandy Brown answers the same question from the reader’s side. Reading, she writes, “presumes that what we are reading is the product of a mind, that the reading is itself a...
James O’Sullivan argues in his essay on Psyche.Co, “Essentially, the criteria for valuable writing might shift to provenance, from fluency to accountability, and writing that matters will be writing that can still function as evidence of human deliberation—work that cannot be faked because it carries the marks of...
“What happens to writing when the production of prose no longer guarantees the presence of a mind behind what’s written?” James O’Sullivan, Psyche.co, 29/05/2026 Then James answers with: “Writing has always asked of the person who does it: a willingness to stand behind words, to mean them, and to accept the...
