04 Jun 2026 #wellness
“You have to take care of yourself when you’re still young,” she told me.
I was walking around a shopping mall with my sister.
We stopped at a popcorn cart for a healthy snack.
I asked for one bag of popcorn with a tiny bit of salt.
Your heart and kidneys don’t like salty food.
“You know, I just turned 80 last month and I did take care of myself,” she told me while serving a brown paper bag of popcorn.
I couldn’t help but react in surprise: “80!?”
She had makeup on and was wearing golden earrings and heels.
“You look like you’re still 60,” I told her.
“I’m already a grandmother and great-grandmother,” she said while receiving my money.
“One of my sons was a soccer player. Maybe you know him.”
She said a name but it didn’t ring a bell.
I’m not a big fan of soccer, but I still asked her what team he played.
“He played in Russia. He already passed away…His son used to play too.”
She held the change and kept talking.
“His son bought me a house and a car. The other day he asked me how much I make here.”
His grandson wanted her to stop working.
At 19, after losing her parents, she had to raise six siblings.
“I think it was cancer. My mom stayed in bed for months,” she started to get tears in her eyes.
“My mom asked me not to let my siblings disperse. The last one was only 6. He’s now 60. She told me I was the only one who could take care of them.”
Four days after her promise, her mom passed away.
A couple of months later, her dad followed.
And even after sixty years, she was still touched.
Lesson: You will never get over losing a loved ones. You only get used to them not being around.
“Here I talk to clients…I have to get up and sit down. That’s exercise…If I stay at home, it’d be from my bedroom to the front door. I wouldn’t even dress up,” she said.
“I told my grandson, if I stop working, it’ll hurt everywhere and I’ll get sick. Then in a few months, you’ll get a call saying I’m dead.”
Then she finally gave me the chance.
I congratulated her for her 80th birthday and said thanks.
“I want to turn 80 and be just like her,” my sister told me.
Lesson: Work gives you more than money. It gives purpose and keeps you alive.
Writing this now, I realized she never told me what she did to stay in shape.
She never told me how much she makes either.
Maybe one day, over another bag of popcorn, she’ll share both secrets.
03 Jun 2026 #writing
For years, I was afraid of calling myself a writer.
In 2024, I doubled down on my writing.
After burning out and getting laid off, I paused my coding career.
I filled my days writing a daily post and studying my writing heroes.
Hundreds of posts later, “writer” still felt impossible.
I thought I needed a big follower count and a best-seller.
Of course, that was my inner critic talking.
Make your first $1
One rabbit hole took me to an interview with Devon Eriksen, a sci-fi author.
He said,
“If you’ve written and you’ve gotten paid for it, you’re a writer.”
Thanks to my blog, a company asked me to write tutorials for their website.
Somebody had already paid for my words.
In your face, inner voice.
Earn at least $1, and the title is yours.
Do the thing and hold the title
If money is out of the equation, redefine what makes you hold a title.
I had to ask myself who a writer is.
That’s someone who teaches, entertains, or inspires using words.
If I was teaching, entertaining, or inspiring with words, that already made me a writer.
And I was one the moment I decided to take writing seriously.
Do the work, keep improving, and you own the title.
“In a journey to…”
Often a new title is behind redefining your own labels.
Sometimes it’s as simple as updating your email and social media bios.
Something like “Coder turned digital writer” or “I’m on a journey to make a living writing.”
And when someone asks you what you do, plug your new title.
“I’m a software engineer, but these days I’m writing a book.”
It also helps you share your new projects.
Writing books finally quieted my inner voice. If you’re into coding or personal growth, my books are waiting here.
02 Jun 2026 #misc
If we’re not paying, we’re the product.
Because social media is free, corporations profit from our likes, comments, and scrolling data.
Apart from being the product, we’re unpaid workers too.
Recently Seth Godin wrote about participating in social media as unpaid labor:
“Labor is work that we get paid for. It’s work we wouldn’t do for free. And for most people on social media, it’s unpaid labor on behalf of the platforms.”
His words made me rethink how to use LinkedIn, before quitting social media once and for all.
Use it strategically to showcase your work and redirect people to a place you control.
Keep it at an arm’s length. Otherwise, you’ll become the fuel for AI, algorithms, and robots you don’t control.
01 Jun 2026 #wellness #experiments
Unlike my second Analog Sunday, I maxed out (and probably exceeded) my 1-hour screen time.
Here’s what I did on screens:
- Read Bubbles weekly and daily Briefing
- Paid my monthly bills
- Wrote tomorrow’s post
- Video-called my uncle and aunt
Offline, I spent most of the time:
After ~40 notes, some chain of thoughts have appeared: social media over-consumption, digital minimalism, and creativity/writing.
If you want to follow along, here are the rules for my Analog Sundays and a simple idea to reduce my phone time.
31 May 2026 #misc
Big cities have “content” in odd places:
- A gummy bear in a wall
- A love letter in a metro wagon
- A motivational message in a bridge
Thanks to James’ new ways of storytelling, I learned the Internet, like a big city, has odd places for art too:
Google Docs.
They’re a corner of the internet away from social media, search engines, and AI.
They form a gray web: The Doc Web.
A term coined by Elan Ullendorff, originally in a Google Doc.
Join the Doc Web
And to practice my 10-idea list habit, here are 10 ways to adopt the Doc Web as a writer, solopreneur, or creative:
#1. A book:
Publish it by sharing a read-only public url.
If anyone wants to download it, they can create a copy.
#2. A landing page:
Use headers, bold, italics, underline and include a call to action on the last page.
#3. A micro-blogging platform:
Tweet by adding a timestamped paragraph at the top.
Share it with “commenters” permission and you’ll have replies.
#4. A poll application:
Want to collect questions for an AMA or Q&A session?
Share a document and ask people to leave one question per paragraph.
They can upvote a question by increasing its font size.
#5. A survey or questionnaire:
Share a document with your multiple-answer questions.
People answer with a “+”.
#6. A membership area:
Use your members’ email to give restricted access to a document with your exclusive content.
#7. A guestbook (a la Facebook wall):
In your blog, link to a public Document for anyone to sign it.
#8. A magazine or episodic publication:
Use a single document as the latest edition.
To release a new version:
- Make a copy of the last edition
- Overwrite the original content, and
- Link to the previous edition
#9. A bookmarking service (a la Delicious):
Whenever you find an interesting link, add it to a public document.
Keep it organized with an index on the first page.
Share it with friends.
#10. A forum:
Start each question on a new page.
Include the creator’s display name and timestamp.
Answer by adding your name and a timestamp before your reply.
Use comments to start threads.
To run your next membership or community, the Doc Web is all you need.
And to start a blog, forget about hosting and domains.
You already know what to use instead.
A Doc. Why not!