The other day I opened my notes app and found a list titled:

“Things I should probably become”.

Always a nice little thing to find.

Kinda like blackmail from future me.

Inside were several completely reasonable life plans, assuming I had seven bodies, no job, no family, no need for sleep.

This is how OKRs work in reality: there are some Objectives, no Key Results.

And this is where ancient philosophy quietly shows up wearing sandals and judging my Amazon cart. Which felt personal, because I had just ordered a Tapo smart plug. Apparently, flipping a switch by hand is now beneath me.

Epicurus had a surprisingly useful way to think about this.

Some desires are natural and necessary.

Food. Shelter. Rest.

Some are natural but not necessary.

Nice food. Better stuff. Comforts.

And some are empty.

Status. Fame. Impressing people. Becoming a person who “has a system”.

Very rude of him to be this accurate from 2,300 years ago.

Apparently, ancient philosophers had a very low tolerance for wanting everything.

Not because they were boring.

Yes, they were! Let’s be merciful, they grew up without TikTok and Netflix.

But they understood something I keep pretending not to know:

Wanting too much can make life feel strangely unusable.

Not ruined. Just scattered.

Because the things I think I want start interrupting the things I already have.

“What if I completely reorganize my life instead of preparing for Quarterly Biz Review?”

This is the annoying part:

Sometimes the wanting is stronger than the having.

I want the running shoes more than the running.

I want the notebook more than the writing.

I want the clean desk more than the boring task.

I want the budgeting app more than the budget.

I want the course more than the uncomfortable attempt.

I want the identity.

The object is just the receipt.

So here is my new policy:

I’m giving my desires a return policy.

Minimum seven days.

No shopping.

No app.

No “system”.

No announcement to the imaginary board of directors in my head.

Not even a reminder.

If I can still remember and care after a week, fine.

Maybe it belongs in my life.

But if the desire disappears the second I stop thinking about it?

Great.

That was not a dream.

I was just avoiding something else.

Till next time!

What we think is a decline in literacy is a design problem - 12 min read.

A better way to think about it: the problem is not always books vs. screens. It is feeds vs. focus. Someone who cannot finish a novel may still watch a three-hour Ottoman Empire video essay. So maybe the issue is not “screens are bad”. Maybe it is that slot-machine apps took over the room.

Holding Money vs. Seeing the Numbers - 6 min read.

This is interesting if online spending sometimes feels a little too frictionless for your own good. The article argues that digital payments remove the small pain of handing over cash, which helps explain why money now disappears with fewer emotional speed bumps.

You Are Not Your Job - 6 min read.

The line worth stealing is basically this: the machine does not replace you, it replaces part of what you do. That is a much saner frame for anyone spiraling about AI, especially if your self-respect has been doing a little too much overtime inside your profession.

A lot of founder books get boring the minute the company becomes successful enough to sound impressive at dinner. This one gets more interesting after that. Michael Dell is writing about control fights, reinvention, and the much less glamorous job of keeping a giant company alive when the market shifts under it.

My favorite weather: gray, damp, and overcast. What could be better for deep work? (As long as deep work includes cocoa with marshmallows, plaid, and Netflix.)

Eight-Day Engine: Simenon was famous for drafting novels in about 8 to 11 days. Which sounds insane until you realize he was not “winging it”. By the time he sat down, the book had already been cooking in his head.

Morning Window: His serious writing usually happened early, often ending around midday. He protected his best hours for the manuscript, not for scrolling social media. (And yes, I realize I enjoy absurd humor a little too much.)

Isolation Switch: During a drafting sprint, he did not want interruptions. The novel was a tunnel. Once he went in, the rest of life had to wait politely outside with its little clipboard.

One-Book Rule: Simenon worked on one manuscript at a time during those bursts. The speed was not multitasking magic. It was attention, pointed at one thing, until the thing was done.

Midday Stop: He often stopped around lunch. That detail matters. He did not confuse more hours with better work. He wrote hard, then got out before the prose turned into boring water.

Medical Checkup: One weird detail: Simenon reportedly got a medical checkup before starting a novel. Not because writing is a sport. He wanted to make sure illness would not interrupt the short, intense sprint.

Pressure as Fuel: Most of us feel pressure and suddenly discover 14 urgent household tasks. Simenon built pressure into the process. The short sprint gave him fewer chances to wander off, overthink, or turn the book into a beautiful little swamp.

Revision by Cutting: Simenon revised fast, mostly by removing things. Especially the parts that sounded too much like “look at me, I am writing.” Painful, yes. Because sometimes those are our favorite parts.

Portable Process: He wrote in different homes, countries, and even on boats. So the magic was not one sacred desk or one special lamp. The real ritual was the rhythm: prepare, isolate, write, finish.

Pen-Name Apprenticeship: Before Maigret, Simenon spent years writing under different names. It was not cool, but it gave him reps: speed, structure, deadlines, and the brutal little lesson that a finished story teaches more than a perfect idea.

Finish-First Instinct: Simenon had a strong bias toward finishing. A book was not supposed to live forever in a coma of “almost done.” It was supposed to become a book.

This one is about the slow death of “I bought it, so it’s mine”. Streaming, software, even printers - more and more things are turning from stuff you own into stuff you rent forever. Tiny monthly payments => hostage situation.

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