2025 is coming to a close in a few days. It’s been a relatively quiet and uneventful year for me, with most of my time spent close to home and work. In mid December I flew to California for a retreat with a group of about 50 other meditators. I returned back to Australia feeling like something important had consolidated. But what’s coming next? What will 2026 be? I’m not sure, but I’m hoping I (and everyone else) are prepared as best as we can be.

Since January 2025, I’ve published 34 things, the exact same as last year. Most of my writing has gravitated around two major internal obstacles for me: My perfectionism, which causes me endless issues at work and a sort of martyr like approach to life which especially reared its head as I trained for a difficult bike ride in March. I’ve organized the articles below into loose thematic categories. Here’s everything I wrote in 2023 and 2024. As always, all posts can be found on my Substack too.

Working

• Designing with concepts – How to make software that’s more enjoyable, learnable and effective
• Are designers making design hard for themselves? – A review of ‘Why Design is Hard’ by Scott Berlin and Bryan Aug
• Designing like a spreadsheet – How constraints can help your thinking and creativity
• Is this co-design? – Finding a balance between too much and not enough collaboration
• Working well with others – How being a perfectionist ruins teamwork
• In the beginning, there was blame – Why we blame, and why we should stop
• Don’t imitate entropy – How laziness and disorder spread
• Ways of Worrying – Reflections on a design conference
• Your services are no longer required – Musing on a potential inevitability

Striving

• Don’t grind your teeth – How perfectionists make life impossible for themselves
• Swimming under pressure – If there’s no race, there’s no need to keep up
• Don’t die on a hill – I was spiraling, a cold drink brought me back
• Critiquing the critic – How to have a friendlier inner voice
• A study in frustration – What Frank Grimes can teach us about efforts and expectations
• Claws and teeth – Everything I know about anger

Thinking

• The Peppercorn Perspective – When status turns gold into dust(iness)
• Taking meditation seriously – Where exactly do our affinities come from?
• The best course of action – Recommendations are what others think are best for you. But what do you think?
• Sliding doors – How your dreams can help you let go of the past
• Breaking the habit – How do we know when our habits are no longer helpful?
• The Wall – The intelligence of a concrete wall
• Yes? What else? – How to take thoughts less seriously
• Drawer shoving – Why we should avoid avoidance
• Light pollution – How both the ego & shadow constrain us
• Police in plain clothes – Using dreams to find hidden parts of us

Expressing

• The slow and painful way to effective speaking – Following recipes ≠ clear communication
• Writing rightly – 15 ethical goals for publishing words on internet
• Totally and seriously – We’d all be better off if we did things a bit more seriously
• Don’t look at these words – If we don’t look, we can’t see properly
• Chirping clearly – How to speak the truth without losing your filter
• Being wrong for the right reason – Balancing persistence and pigheadedness
• Abstractified – On the refreshing, unusual writing of Temple Grandin

Notes & quotes

• Motivation, bees & true creativity (November)
• October

Leisure is an attitude of mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to receive the reality of the world.

Joseph Pieper

It’s Saturday morning. It’s 11 degrees celsius (51F), but the concrete grey sky and whipping winds make it feel close to zero. A few stragglers walk past me, scuffing their heels as if to say ‘isn’t this a nasty morning?’

I would tend to agree. I’ve just picked up my coffee and I’m about to turn down my street to walk home. I’m standing on a street corner, bracing against the wind and I glance up across the road.

It’s something I’ve never done, and will never be able to do again. To stare at this old boot repair stop. This bridge over train tracks. These shrubs. Holding this coffee. Right at this moment. And it’s not easy.

Because this particular intersection, it’s so banal to me it’s almost hard to do.

Because there’s nothing interesting there. 

I’m both familiar with it, and tired of it at the same time. First impressions stick. I saw these shops, this bit of road, this dirty sidewalk once, and I knew it wasn’t worth my attention. 

And so it was.

It made me think. If I have make up my mind so quickly about this place, I likely do the same for everything else I register with my eyeballs. 

Try it out. Look at something you perceive to be ‘nice’. A bright red apple is pretty universally liked. Maybe you notice some thoughts naturally come to mind. Nice, little, yum, crunchy. These are basic value judgements. It’s a little word cluster. Morphed together it forms a sort of ‘vibe’ of that thing you’re looking at.

Two people look at a church. One word cluster ‘god, epic, holy, sacred, safe’, the other ‘junk, old, history, old people, boring’. Two word clusters. Two different churches are seen.

Conversely, a row of trash cans on the street: Dirty, plastic, gross, smell, ugly. 

And that’s what they look like. Don’t they? At least that’s how they look to me.

Back to that street corner. Conscious of my little value descriptions, ‘concrete, grey, ugly, empty, sparse, boring’, I push myself to continue looking and let the value judgements drift off into the distance. Not much changes. But every cell in my body wants to move on, to ignore what I’m seeing. I’ve seen it so many times before. Another word drifts in: ‘waste of time’. But my eyes are content to move around and they rest on a little green electrical box. It’s an interesting colour and shape. And nearby, a similarly green shrub, about a foot high. More shrubs. A glimpse of a pastel coloured mural behind a car. The dull shine of a wet rubber. 

It’s all there. There’s probably a lot more there too. 

We need the ability to critically assess the world around us. In many ways, we are critical assessment machines. Instead of a body with eyes, we are eyes with a ton of CPU and some moving apparatus attached.

But when we allow our minds to run wild with fearful stories, harsh judgements and defensive attitudes, we start to lose touch with reality. 

Although it wasn’t how I usually explore a country, riding 950km around Taiwan with 40+ strangers was a vivid experience that rekindled my love of travel. Here are a few of my observations.

Time

I’ve never travelled in a large group. For everything to run smoothly, everyone needs to stick to the schedule. Phone call to the hotel room at 6am. Breakfast at 6.30am. On the bikes at 7.10am. If you sleep in, you miss breakfast. I think of myself as pretty organized, but I was surprised to find myself one of the last people to get to the breakfast hall in the morning. Was I really that slow? At first I felt annoyed and rushed. A schedule can put some stress on you if you fall behind. But since logistics make up a big part of travel, when things are decided for you, it frees up a lots of mental bandwith. As long as you are on time, you can relax.

Focus

When you’re riding a bike by yourself, or in a big messy peloton like we were, you need to concentrate. If you hit the wheel in front of you, you’re going over the handlebars, or worse. But after hours and hours of cycling, day after day, concentration is bound to dry up. Once in a while I found myself grasping for my brakes or swerving around a potholes. My concentration worsened when I was bored (long straight road) or when I was really uncomfortable (too hot).

Interestingly, my concentration improved by itself when it started to rain, or when the road started to twist downhill. The cycling might have been a bit more difficult, but it was much easier for me to focus. Maybe this was because the task was a better match to my capability. But on a 950km+ round trip, you can’t avoid long stretches of road. To help improve your focus, you can give yourself something to do. It could be a simple intention like “I’m going to ride safely down this hill” or “I’m going to smoothly stay close to this white line.” It doesn’t need to be a fanciful game. Your attention will inevitable drift away, but you can always come back and you’ll find yourself much more focused, no matter what the weather or the road is doing.

Opinions

“How is it bad? If I weigh the statement correctly, what harm can it do me?”

Epictetus

Judgements are like little opinions or evaluations about what’s happening in front of you. Something happens and we respond. The sun glares off a puddle. Your jersey sticks to your back. Your socks are hot and sweaty. A judgement is passed automatically. “Not this again.” “Please no!” “I wish this wouldn’t…” When someone complains out loud, you are hearing their assessments of what’s in front of them. “Oh this looks like it’s going to be a hard hill to climb” or “wow so many cars on this road, when are turning off?” Every minute judgements trickle out of us quietly, usually without us noticing. They sizzle and crackle, charged with positivity or negativity. Judgements can make your time on the bike really miserable.

One way to help to quiet down this running commentary is to try and notice what’s actually going on. Let’s say you’ve got a flat tire and you’ve pulled over to the side of the road. In 5-10 seconds you’ll be able to see that you’re overheating, your nose feels burnt, your shirt is sticking to your back and there’s a lot of traffic noise. These are all happening. And you are probably commenting on all of these things. You probably don’t have a chance of stopping the traffic but you can control your opinions.

Of course, we judge people too. We form snap judgements very quickly. We might say to ourselves that someone is a certain kind of person, and this prevents us from really getting to know them. We might think we are being friendly, but it’s really superficial. We are better off making objective notes about people, and deprioritizing the judgements (or discarding them altogether). Rather than noticing a ‘weird old guy’, we could instead note down that he’s a man in his 60’s, traveling alone and doesn’t talk much. Leave it at that rather than anything too negative. On one of the last lunches of the trip, I sat next to a couple who I had never really even noticed. I had clearly made a judgement about them early on and blocked them out. I just didn’t think they spoke English and therefore hadn’t bothered to interact with them. They did speak English, and turned out to be friendly and interesting. 

Encouragement

A few times a day, people would see us riding past, stop what they were doing and smile and shout out Jiayou! I was told this could be loosely translated to something like “go on” or “keep going” or something like that. It didn’t matter where we were or who it was. It could be an old woman scrubbing dishes or little kids walking home from school. I started to feel like the whole country was smiling at us, gently encouraging us to ‘go on’. In comparison to Taiwan, I think of Australia, my home, as bigger, brasher, louder and less personal. Would Australians smile and cheer us on with such plain good-will? What would they say? I couldn’t think of a direct translation of words and attitude that would fit.

After the trip, I was walking with friends to my local pub and a car sped past with a man loudly jeering out the window. That’s what I think of when I think of Australia. All noise, no connection. As the trip progressed I started to think of Taiwan as a more introverted country. I related to this. I felt like the Taiwanese, especially older folks in the south were quite happy with themselves. Tending to their gardens or homes or children comfortably and quietly.

Words

When you don’t understand the language of a country, you’re left alone with raw noises and sights. Cycling through a busy city still feels intense, chaotic and colorful, but it’s naturally ‘quieter’ in your head because you can’t read any signs or overhear anything meaningful. It can be confusing, but it’s also less stressful. I noticed the same thing with my group. After a rainy afternoon of riding, we arrived at hotel and there was the usual rush for room keys and luggage. Everyone is shouting at each other and jostling toward the lift, but it’s all just noise to me. It struck me that this sort of scene would usually be really overwhelming, but with the mandarin floating over my head, it was easy to stay calm. The downside of course is you can’t do anything. You’re like a helpless baby relying on the kindness of your new friends. Restaurant menus, road signs and briefings would have left me stumped if I wasn’t traveling with friendly people who were always offering to translate for me.

Thanks

Guilt is a horrible thing. It can seep into any activity and leave you feeling bad, no matter what you’ve actually done. When we travel, we can feel guilty about lots of things. The impact on the environment. Ignorance to local traditions and customs. Inequality and the position of power you might have as a foreigner. But does this guilt serve any purpose? Instead of feeling guilt, you can approach travel with a sense of gratitude. If you’re lucky enough to step on the ground of another area of the world, instead of saying sorry you can instead say thank-you.

I don’t know any mandarin, but I was encouraged to learn the word xièxie. I found myself saying it a lot. At the restaurant and at the hotel but also quietly in my head. You can say thank you to anything. The grass you’re stepping on. The food you’re eating. Thanks to this architecture. Thanks to the sun. Thanks to the rain. The company. The air you’re breathing. This fresh peanut mochi. Whatever. Rather than feeling guilty that you are taking these things, see that the country is endlessly giving them up freely. The air keeps coming. The waves keep coming. Travel can be about receiving rather than taking. And there’s a whole lot of stuff to receive. So don’t feel bad about it, just remember to say thank you.

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Trialling a new way to write publicly. Rather than preparing an article every week, I’ll share some of my personal notes. Here are a few of them from the past week.

Big fish

On Saturday afternoon I swam some laps by myself. This used to be a very common thing for me to do, but for most of this year I almost only swim in a squad. So swimming some laps as the sun went down felt very nostalgic. It reminded me of swimming laps at the appropriately named Lone Mountain in San Francisco. When you have the lane to yourself the view is like what an airline pilot might see at night as he prepares for liftoff. Two lines stretching away from him. It’s a view that doesn’t get old. You’re not truly alone of course. There’s little interactions with others in the neighboring lanes. There’s the sound of children laughing and divebombing in the far lane. There’s the sun reflecting off you. And there’s the water that’s always there, but never the same. And there’s problems too. Boredom. Questions like:

• 38 laps, should I round out to 40?
• How many laps have I done?
• Are we there yet?

When you swim with others, there is more comparison, more structure and more pain but I rarely get bored, and in general time passes faster.

We need both. In every aspect of life, we need to do things alone and with others. Swimming is inherently a lonely, individual task but doesn’t to always be that way. 

Small fish

• Notice what makes you finish a task slightly before it’s finished. What are you feeling and thinking when you decide to finish at 38 laps rather than 40? There’s usually some very subtle sensation there.

• My swim coach told me off for slacking and I got really angry. I was saying to myself “but I’ve done so much hard work.” It’s an obnoxious, righteous part of myself. The fact was, I was slacking off. For me, I think this is actually a disguised craving for acknowledgement and praise. Funnily enough, I struggle to accept praise even when it’s handed to me fairly and squarely. Go figure.

• How to forgive yourself / others: “I didn’t know what I was doing.” “They didn’t know what they were doing.”

• Spring Haiku: Spring drizzle / Browsing at the picture book stall / Umbrella propped up – Anonymous

• “Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.” – Zen flesh and bones

• If you ever find yourself chased by a monster in a dream, the best thing to do is to stop running and turn to it in friendly way and say “Here I am, what exactly do you want?” A good analogy is a ringing phone. Pick up the phone.

• “People’s mind have become restless. Since they have money, they spend sleepless nights. Thinking about what to buy. Though we don’t have money, we sleep in peace. Our minds relaxed.“ – Zanskar monks

• It actually feels unsatisfying to generate new ideas because you’re not consciously doing it. It’s not the same feeling as writing a to-do item and ticking it off. You can’t say to yourself “I’m going to focus and come up novel, creative solutions.” You can only supply the intention, the material and be receptive enough to greet the idea when you have given up (in a shower, a walk etc). Your ego is simply too proud and deluded to admit it that it can’t come up with good ideas.

• Ben Shelton’s celebration. There’s something so striking about someone standing still while thousands of people cheer for them. It reminds me of Michael Jackson at the 1993 Super Bowl. He bursts through the stage only to stand dead-still for nearly 2 minutes. Can you imagine the energy of 100,000 people, revved up by the football looking and screaming at you all at once?

• “Lie down. Morning is cleverer than evening.” – Finnish and Estonian folk tales

• Album: I’m In The Wrong Business – A.C. Reed (1987)