i’m about to start popping caffeine infused pre-workout gummy bears, so it’s probably a good idea to reduce my coffee intake and drink more fruit tea instead.
i’m about to start popping caffeine infused pre-workout gummy bears, so it’s probably a good idea to reduce my coffee intake and drink more fruit tea instead.
other habit, no longer be in the mind of becoming, just be and remember don’t try to be someone else, be yourself.
coffee cup empty. a pause. i tap my finger, humming a tune (hell N back), unwittingly synching with the universe. Perhaps.
“Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, for everyone can see and few can feel…” “…Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.” -Machiavelli
do you ever feel like people are watching you? judging you? Virginia Woolf nailed it: “The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.”
Ingredients for an Indifferent Life:
1. Routine without purpose
2. Choices made out of convenience
3. A job that pays the bills but starves the soul
4. Relationships maintained out of habit, not joy or love
5. Activities that are time-fillers, not life-fillers
my new favourite website: Golden Era Workout Club which is a throwback to the 70s and the golden era of bodybuilding when workout beasts like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robbie Robinson, Franco Columbu, and Sergio Oliva roamed the gym. The site is a repository of workouts from some of the legends of bodybuilding.
oh yes, my favourite place to visit, especially on a Monday morning.
through self-awareness, we possess this remarkable ability to imagine alternative realities. it feels like a gift, but can easily be a burden. this “gift” often puts us at odds with who are.
“In that moment, I realized how dangerous it was to keep company with the characters from books. They lived book lives of fierce deeds and deep yearning.” ― Jeffrey Ford, Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage
“Most everything is a knockoff of something else. Once you get the idea, everything you see, read, taste or smell becomes an allusion to it. It’s the art of transforming things.” ― Richard F. Thomas, Why Bob Dylan Matters
i’m so tempted to lie in this grass and take a nap.
it’s what balmy Friday afternoons are for, isn’t it?
Is your title a refuge or a cage?
Step right up! 🎪
Here's where the path ends and the magic begins.
I haven't been to a Fun Fair in years.
Fairs are a rupture in the everyday—a 'carnivalesque' playground where societal norms can bend and even break, where we can embrace our innermost whims and fancies, however fleeting. 🎡
a sign in a field,
or is it a sign of the field of life?
it’s calling—do you hear it?
step right up, one and all.
PSA parents, don't let your children grow up to be philosophers. I can't even look at a simple sign in a field without tumbling down a rabbit hole.
I’m drinking fruit tea and pondering what a soul needs. What else would you add to this list?
Consider:
is your bucket list meant to be filled with achievable things, or is it more like a wish list?
death comes faster than you think
…to set things right—or at least, more favourable to our whims and wants. The very thought of changing the present to steer the future sounds like the plot of a sci-fi film, doesn’t it? Back to the Future comes to mind, where Marty McFly grapples with the fabric of time only to realise how intricate and delicate it is. Or maybe it’s more like Octavia Butler’s Kindred where history’s weight pulls you back, even as you struggle to move forward. Different mediums, same preoccupation: time’s hold over us, the paths we forge, the choices we make.
These three C’s circulate in my thoughts like constellations in a midnight sky, seemingly unconnected but shaping the landscape of everything I know.
So, can we change the present to change the future?
Yes. And no. It’s a paradox, like Schrödinger’s cat. Until you open the box, the cat is both alive and dead. In the same way, the act of changing the present both does and does not change the future.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously noted that you can’t step into the same river twice. The water’s changed, and so have you. By merely existing, you’ve altered the current of life. But there’s a difference between passive change—change that happens to you—and active change—change that you initiate.
Consider the butterfly effect, that concept rooted in chaos theory and popularised by Edward Lorenz. He observed that the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas. Small actions, rippling consequences. We see it in pop culture, don’t we? Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York explores a life spiralling in odd directions based on the smallest of decisions. So does the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, where you, the viewer, control the narrative. The stakes feel high even when the choices appear trivial.
2.
Every decision, a domino. Some fall predictably. Others veer off, striking tiles you didn’t even know were in play. That’s the gamble, the excitement, the terror.
I think of my own decisions, sometimes made on whims, that changed the direction of my life. Notebook in hand, my head filled with Montaigne-style ponderings, I started yet another blog. And just like that, paths untrodden revealed themselves. My new platform became a connection to the world, a stage where my ideas can dance and tango with other humans.
To change the present to change the future, we don’t need a time machine or a magic wand. All we need is intentionality, the conscious act of making a choice. Of taking a chance. Of embracing change.
It’s not just about leaping into the unknown. It’s about acknowledging the ground beneath our feet and recognising its potential to shift. It’s about being aware that even as we read, think, and reflect, neurons are firing, paradigms are shifting, and somewhere—in an unnoticed corner of our existence—the future is quietly rewriting itself.
So yes, change the present. Whether it changes the future is a story yet to be written. But at least you’ll be the one holding the pen.
life’s like a big dance where everyone’s trying to balance between fitting in with what’s trendy and being true to themselves.
I’ve been thinking about the nature of thoughts and how they’re not born in a vacuum, but shaped by the social fields we navigate like family, education, and the media. This, then to me, makes every thought I have a reflection of previous thoughts, or at least an amalgamation of a myriad of other thoughts, not all of them my own. How then, can I be certain that any thought I have is an original thought and not a derivative of other people’s thoughts mixed in with what I believe to be my own thoughts?
life unfolds, paths diverge, and somehow, through all of that, we find our way, don’t we?
Episode Summary
In this engaging episode, we peel back the layers of Sonia Catinean—a spirited adventurer and dedicated change-maker. A NYU Abu Dhabi alumna and fervent social justice advocate, Sonia takes us down the winding paths of her life journey. She unpacks her philosophy, globe-trotting adventures, and steadfast commitment to impactful work through projects and organisations like NA' AMAL. Fuelled by a belief in social research and public policy, she’s on a relentless quest to use her privilege for the greater good.
As a digital nomad, Sonia vividly recounts her diverse experiences. Living by the principles of courage, flexibility, and spontaneity, she regales us with tales of exploration, unexpected encounters, and the life lessons that followed. Throughout, Sonia emphasises the importance of serendipity, the ripple effect of small impactful actions, and the never-ending pursuit of joy and authenticity—even when it bucks conventional wisdom.
Don’t miss the full episode for an authentic and insightful conversation. Link
we live in a trance-like state, a Matrix of our own making, where the “self” is just a fake made up of societal standards, family pressures, and personal delusions. It’s like living in a novel written by someone else, where you’re both the protagonist and the victim of a plot you didn’t conceive.
fantastic!
what a piece of writing from Richard Dawkins from his book Unweaving the Rainbow:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.”
sunday morning scroll, plugging into the matrix (social media), i’ve been all around the world and back again, dipping in and out of random people’s lives for a few seconds, and now it is time to reset my mind, come back into time and place, and have a cup of coffee to guide me back into reality, or what passes for reality these days.