Chapter 1: The Sentence You Type Before You Pray

The dishes are still in the sink when your phone lights up with a message that makes your face go hot. Someone has taken a small misunderstanding and turned it into an accusation. You can explain what happened. You have the dates, the messages, and every reason to be upset. Your first reply is sharp enough to make the other person feel what you are feeling. You read it once, satisfied that it is accurate, and then sit there with your thumb over Send. The kitchen is quiet, but something inside you is not.

I think this is one of the least discussed costs of kindness: sometimes it asks us to give up the immediate pleasure of making someone else uncomfortable. In my companion video about the emotional price of kindness in an unkind world, I consider why generosity feels so demanding when we are already stretched. Money is only part of the picture. There are evenings when the thing we are asked to give is our restraint, and that can feel much more expensive than reaching into a wallet.

This is closely connected to choosing compassion without pretending you were not hurt, because the choice in front of you is not between being kind and having self-respect. It is between responding from your deepest convictions and letting a painful moment choose your words for you. I know how appealing a perfectly cutting sentence can seem in the imagination. It promises relief. It offers the feeling of having defended yourself. But I wonder how many of those sentences would leave us staring at the ceiling later, wishing we had waited.

Proverbs 15:1 tells us that a gentle answer can turn away wrath. That does not mean a gentle answer will always be welcomed, or that silence is required when someone treats us unfairly. It means the temperature of our reply matters. We can state what is true, correct a false claim, and protect a boundary without making humiliation our goal. That is not weakness. It is choosing not to borrow somebody else's cruelty to make our own point.

Maybe you delete the draft and put your phone facedown. You wash a plate, breathe, and ask God to help you speak plainly rather than punish. Tomorrow you may send a message that says what needs saying, with no apology for facts you did not distort and no insult you will have to carry afterward. The other person might still disagree. You cannot purchase a peaceful outcome by being thoughtful. But you can refuse to spend your integrity on a reply that would have felt good for five minutes. The message can wait. The kind of person you are becoming cannot always be repaired with a second text.

Chapter 2: The Kindness Nobody Sees You Struggling to Give

The coffee had gone cold beside the newspaper when a knock came at the door. It was Saturday morning, and you had been looking forward to having a few hours without anyone needing anything. Your neighbor stood outside holding a letter from the hospital. She wanted to know whether you could help her understand it. You had barely slept the night before, and the thought of another problem made your shoulders tighten. You invited her inside anyway, but part of you wished she had chosen another morning.

I think we need to be able to admit feelings like that without immediately condemning ourselves. There are times when kindness comes naturally, when our hearts are light and we have plenty of patience to spare. Then there are days when we are carrying private worries, and even a reasonable request feels heavier than it should. The difference does not necessarily reveal how much we love people. Sometimes it reveals how tired we have become.

What troubles me is how easily we can begin treating our own exhaustion as a moral failure. We believe that if our faith were stronger, generosity would always feel effortless. We imagine that a truly compassionate person would never hesitate before opening the door. Yet loving someone and feeling tired are not opposites. We can experience both at the same time.

In Mark 10:46–52, Jesus encounters Bartimaeus, a blind man calling out for mercy. When Bartimaeus comes to him, Jesus asks what he wants him to do. I have always appreciated that question. Jesus does not turn the man's need into an opportunity for a speech. He allows him to speak for himself.

There is something we can learn from that simple exchange. Sometimes we assume that helping requires us to take responsibility for an entire situation. Someone mentions a problem, and we immediately begin searching for a complete solution. Before long, we feel overwhelmed by obligations nobody actually asked us to accept.

Your neighbor may only need help understanding a letter. She may need someone to sit beside her while she calls the hospital. Perhaps twenty minutes of your attention would make a frightening morning easier. You do not have to become responsible for every appointment, every decision, or every uncertainty that follows.

That is where I believe generosity becomes healthier. We can ask people what would actually help rather than assuming we must rescue them from everything. We can offer what we genuinely have available and be honest about what we cannot provide.

And afterward, when the door closes and the house becomes quiet again, we can allow ourselves to rest without examining every tired thought as evidence of a deficient heart.

God knows what it costs us to remain gentle when our strength is running low. He also knows that we are human beings who need care, not endless supplies of patience for everyone else.

Chapter 3: Making Room for Someone Else's Good News

The email arrives five minutes before you shut down your computer. The position you interviewed for has gone to someone else. You read the polite words twice, trying to make them mean something less final. Then a coworker appears beside your desk, smiling so widely that you know she has news before she speaks. She has been promoted. She asks if you have a minute because she wants to tell you how it happened. You do, technically. But your own disappointment is so fresh that her happiness feels like one more thing you cannot afford to give.

This is the kind of generosity that never gets called generosity. Nobody is asking for money or a ride. Another person is asking you to share a moment that matters to them, and you're trying to do it while holding something painful of your own. It would be easy to offer a thin congratulations and turn back to the screen. It would also be understandable to need a little time alone. The hard part is being honest about the difference between protecting a tender place in yourself and wanting someone else's joy to become smaller.

Romans 12:15 invites us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. I love that both belong in the same sentence. God does not ask us to choose a world where only happy people deserve company, or where those who are hurting must stop noticing other people's good news. Life puts these experiences beside each other constantly. A celebration may happen on the very day we receive bad news. It takes a generous heart to make room for another person's moment without pretending ours has suddenly become easy.

Maybe you turn toward your coworker and ask what the new role will involve. You listen for a few minutes. When she leaves, you take your disappointment to the car and let yourself feel it. One honest conversation does not erase the rejection. You can be genuinely pleased for someone and still wish things had gone differently for you.

I don't think kindness should mean disappearing from your own life. God knows the news you received, too. He is not disappointed that you need to sit quietly before going home. The generosity worth keeping is not a polished performance of endless patience or happiness. It is a willingness to remember that other people have hearts as real as yours, even when you are struggling.

And when tomorrow comes, you are allowed to ask for the same tenderness you tried to offer today. There is no price of admission for being loved. We are all learning to give and receive grace while carrying things nobody else can fully see.

Your friend,

Douglas Vandergraph

Explore the complete Douglas Vandergraph Master Index:

https://douglasvandergraph.com/douglas-vandergraph-master-index/

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s faith-based videos on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

October 2026 Update

Haste now the running life leaves all behind, Like washed up husks of dead crabs on the beach Picked clean by the fear of falling behind The pace which never leaves time to be sure Who lost the keys to the back of your mind: “I have forgotten what my mind was for Because I spent too much of it online, And now my attention span is too poor To buy back those important thoughts of mine. Wait, what was the point of this metaphor? Was it just to think of a witty line? My life is too rich to care for the poor.” Such is the state of a mind short on time, Constantly bubbling with slanted rhymes.

— Sonnet 10

We say that time is relative, but time is the real constant. We call it relative because we experience it as relative from our perspective. Sometimes it seems to go fast and sometimes slow. It is really our language for and perception of time that is relative. I can’t really tell you where October went. It is a truism that time passes faster and faster as we get older, and yet the days feel long. I wonder why that is? What natural process in our minds makes the time seem to go faster the older we get? Our childhood exists as a monument which we do not perfectly remember and yet which no one else can define for us.

Writing

I have now crossed 10,000 words (around 40 pages) on The Abolition of Man vs. AI project and there is more that I could add. It is not really a full length book but it is not really an essay anymore. I guess it is a good thing since I have always struggled with output in my creative process. I always found myself having to add words rather than take them away, but I think using Koala Quill has gotten me into the habit more. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think I had a secret pride in this shortcoming of mine. I wasn’t like those other writers who word vomit onto the page — But then it’s all word vomit in one form or another isn’t it?

Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’m still working, and I’m almost ready to start querying my new novel. Fingers crossed!

Music

I did a little recording work on Bezukova, which is turning out alright. The pace was really glacial because even though the song is written, it was hard for me to really nail the sound I wanted with the guitar recordings. I have something I am mostly happy with, though that might change once I go back to listen and add vocals. I also got side tracked working on delay pedal that I finally finished. It’s a productive hobby but definitely a distraction.

I’ve also been falling back into “ricing,” which is a linux term for customizing your desktop and the tools you use everyday. I never thought it would happen again but here we are. To be fair, the tools I found make it a lot easier than it used to be, but it has still been a time waster. But then again, sometimes it is good to have something to waste time on that we only do for ourselves. But then again, again, I would get a lot more out of playing my guitar or reading a book — And it is far too easy to waste too much time. For anyone curious I am trying out the scrolling wm, Niri, along with Dux Material Shell. If we are judging by the time it took to get me up and running it’s the easiest rice I ever did.

Speaking of time, I wrote that sonnet about hurry I mentioned in the last update, which you may have noticed at the top of this post.

Reading

This month I picked up Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut (no relation to the Disney movie) and enjoyed it. It is perhaps not his best work, but I don’t think that’s the point. It was really good reading on my sporadic breaks at work because the structure of the novel itself is sporadic. He really messes with the form, and there are a lot of good quotes. Vonnegut is not for everyone but I really enjoy his zany pessimism which manages to snatch catharsis from the jaws of despair:

“What could be a more negative word than ‘futility’?” he said.

“‘Ignorance’” I said.

I also finished Death’s End by Cixin Liu, both in Chinese and English. This has been a multiyear journey for me, and while I don’t consider myself near native fluency yet, I was able to get about 80% of the reading/context by the end. Some passages I could just read, others were very hard to figure out, but I enjoyed it and it helped my reading level a lot. I plan to keep going, and should work on getting hold of a book soon.

I found the Chinese version of Death’s End randomly from a small online used bookstore. I think I started to read it and then got exhausted by how many words I had to look up, so gave up for a while. Eventually I tried again, and instead of trying to understand 100%, I decided to just write down a few words (roughly 5 new words per day) in my notebook, and then look them up in Pleco the next day. Pleco also has a flashcards feature, so I added them to flashcards and tried to review them every day. It was slow going. I set a tiny goal of one page a day (it’s a 500 page book), but I finished it, and I learned a lot more words. 5 × 300 = 1500, so even if you miss 65 days you are learning roughly 1500 words a year. I would also listen to/read the English afterwords to see how much of it I understood. I found that reading ahead in English killed my motivation to read in Chinese.

Source: https://wordsonrepeat.com/vocabulary-statistics

I think this approach, while “less efficient” than reading on an app where you can look up words instantly, actually led to a greater improvement in my reading level, since I had to think about the characters and try to remember them while reading instead of relying on the technology to do it for me. For my next one I think I want to try Red Sorghum by Mo Yan, which is a classic of Chinese literature. It will probably be hard, but at least there won’t be a bunch of hard scifi words. In the meantime I have a collection of intermediate Spanish episodes from Don Quixote that I want to try. I will try to keep up my flashcards, as well as listen to my favorite Chinese podcast, while I wait to start Red Sorghum. Studying languages is humbling. I think everyone should do it.

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#update #October

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Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

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Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

Haste Now the Slanted Rhymes

Haste now the running life leaves all behind, like washed up husks of dead crabs on the beach picked clean by the fear of falling behind the pace which never leaves time to be sure who lost the keys to the back of your mind: “I have forgotten what my mind was for because I spent too much of it online, and now my attention span is too poor to buy back those important thoughts of mine. Wait, what was the point of this metaphor? Was it just to think of a witty line? My life is too rich to care for the poor.” Such is the state of a mind short on time, constantly bubbling with slanted rhymes.

#poetry #sonnet

---

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

---

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

In Summary: * My Tuesday has been dominated by the afternoon appointment with my Retina Doc and the injections he gave me in my eyeballs. As I sit here now, it's taken about 4 hours from those shots for my vision to return to close to normal.

Have been enjoying listening to college basketball this evening: Wofford Terriers vs Tennessee Volunteers. Shall finish the night prayers after the game, finish taking my night meds, and retire early. Tomorrow should be an easier day.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night.

Health Metrics: * bw= 217.38 lbs. * bp= no readings taken today

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, toe raises, wall push-ups, BP breathing exercises, pilates

Diet: * 05:50 – Ube Halaya * 10:30 – egg rolls, cooked filipino vegetables, noodles & chicken * 18:00 – finished the Ube Halaya

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:05 – bank accounts activity monitored * 04:00 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, take daily meds, unpack, organize, and nap * 12:30 – listening to KONO 101.1 * 13:20 – leave home, going to see the Retina Doc * 16:20 – returned home, waiting for my vision to return from the injections so I can sort of do normal things normally

Chess: * 12:50 – moved in all pending CC games, winning 1 game, and losing 1.

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

Kim (part 9)

Affairs to unfold across this May portend The fair enough to vote away and new By sweetly by Days to night of cue All verse to allow the Son of Man And in this day to many The frightful and renew Of olive bet Officially denote The days to cross the chore Victory Afghan and light to weary And surely new The trials of vlad and who you are For loss and gain unflighted power The sympathy oppose at sighted free For Capulets and know A cricket to remain, implored remember But as a man unfree And History rewrite The stake and sorry Nights abliss and new And worry glad Across this awful horror of the news Making plain receipt The right of many jumped Deceased and crossed of gold- to amend Insuppose of that name and making wane Night supports amend And due for care Unbosses to relay- That May beneath the Earth in flight of home Apostles wear And shining in esteem- the frame of Summer Crossing there- Sights to meanly be what cross by there And husband to rewrite Kim is on recede by merchant pet For praying fast Dutchmen by the force and China’s call Why the toads unfold the crossing point Devilish and hell Escaping prime Forces by the fender- Earthly stall Why summon seconds to be near Worthing fold and by Lear Emanescent laughs While dusted men remain The time is new And what across but shoes opposed to season be Nightly new- Whispers to the void and as we go Praying West This affordant shore and afternoon Kim is gone Waking Peter by the store- and ready ground Weddings and all night The Angels’ day alone Silver dollar to his might Esteem to China sudden care And Earthly know Seven to the mire- Gladded hand and all anew We the poor of broken point Astray to early go un us to grave What option there annoy Notes to Beograd and nights to there Fortuned rain- and wearied star Distance to unvoy in trading by All of us did suffer just to be The mercy guiding flame as older then Why to such we be Innerving man and day Crosses of inflection and to recuse Mystery afloat in one of hour Heroes those Aping at our wheelhouse in as far In quantum gold at relay field Curtis for the night as we to go The rays of bin History rewrites to cure the new The new of peace and at this man relay A hundred beds to gnaw Our guiding bet Castles ever be by this our voice And common death We will remember- and as we were Trilliums of gold across accounts Victory supposing to this height Welcome by the nights and early back Off to fortunes by our light Focal to our know with this we write Finding new our name History atold and taking gear Fogs and fists proclaim By knighting her Kingdom lungs upon our sail Time as bet beside this know Airstrip to the right and waking then What launches to our tap Within our own destruct- Raking to our day and visit come Nights be with us and early back To upon us code The fated roar Substance of our year in tested rain Our gold as near Onus by relay and Camden right Early ply to view This our fortress as we know The horror surely was and cast a screw The missions ended here Phases to remain and as our star Witness to our view Capital and code in us decide The waking four Seoul was timely then Friends to write the distance of our worth And as we less Pockets to align as to our breath What we had here- was surely to oppose forever then No game to know All to second be our chance History waved at us Pain but to untold that we were sparse Made anew Our History land to fight our hand- Prophecy unknows but why and then- Our surest bet as rods asleep Making death our problem And mystery by wear God within us hail and nine of year Simplex to rewrite Wrath was Kim to this afford And History to age Trappings to be there as decent men Uncursed our lot and taking own- Appeases new But on to this new fortune as we Seoul As we speak and should Mercy seeking Rome and to our set In making time and giving way The early joy- of setting Earth across to see No making known- but of our love, Korea As time is might Joy is further running Distance what was here and never again Never shall we leap upon our age But as we prosper gain As inklings to our joy and Summer hold Our frost December Math at this duress Making time affords This forever good and riding new Seoul and new afford The timely new Timely year And for delivery- in History bet upon this road- This ninth at core- and made Korea new.

Wow, two posts today and it isn’t even 5 PM. A new friend asked me if I was interested in going to a rave with them in a group, and I was super excited and said yes! I asked them if they had already bought the tickets, and they said they were going to once payday hits. The tickets are about $150, and it was a little bit surprising to me and put things back into perspective about how things can be. For me right now, if I want to buy something like that, I don’t have to wait for payday, I don’t really even know when my payday is because I have plenty of a buffer. But at the same time, I realized how I was actually really stressed about money recently, because with property tax on my house, it is essentially an extra 22,000 a year. I know that most of my RSU’s are going towards that, and I also have ESPP. And I know that I also have things like the bonus I got recently, or just general savings, and I am also still maxing out by HSA and contributing to my 401(k). But with these things and also making more money than I could’ve imagined, I realized I am so incredibly stressed about money because realizing that I am essentially paying $6.5 thousand a month for the house that feels like I am suffocating, even though I still have so much money left over all things considered that I am able to live a very lavish life. I don’t have to skim on eating or or even even really have to focus on cutting costs there for me to at least continue the way that I am. I am also able to do things like pay $220 a month for Powerlifting Coaching as a hobby in addition to all of the other other random stuff I spend money on. I don’t have to worry about trips or things like that, and yet with all of this, I am still stressed financially. And this Stress originally came from the thought about how to pay for the property tax bill. I would have to touch the $20,000 of cash I have put aside to pay out the car loan, since it is slightly more favorable for me to do that rather than paying it off. And just a thought of having to touch that money temporarily makes me feel stressed and like I am moving backwards. And isn’t that such a strange thing? Compared to a friend who is living paycheck to paycheck, I am able to save large amount of money while living extremely well, and still am completely fine in a spot that people would kill to be in. And the funny thing is I’m still stressed about this and it was weighing a lot on me mentally. This makes me think about both the saying that life has its way of making sure that everyone drinks their fair share of misery from its cup. And also just how chemically we have baselines and essentially, we will always build a tolerance to whatever situation. I remember, I noticed this distinctly during my masters at one point because I realized how when my life is feeling like it is falling apart or horrible, I am struggling. But at the same time when life is arguably, smooth sailing, and no real issues, I still struggle, the problem just shifts up the hierarchy of needs towards something more abstract or overarching. And I can both view this in the lens that when I have a chance to work on those bigger issues, those are the things that end up, giving me future peace and fixing some systematic issues rather than whatever the immediate alarm bill is. But also, I think you can make the argument about perpetually falling into a loop of fixing and that never ending. And it almost feels like there is a carrot on a stick tied in front of me that I will perpetually chase. And I think recognizing that is a good start. I guess this is the whole thing about the hedonic treadmill in a different way. I also think about this looking forward, where I am currently making more money than I could’ve wished for, and yet I still feel like if I can hit the next milestone, then I will be better off, and while that is true, I think it is important to recognize when I get to that situation I am also going to be looking forward again. I think there’s a little bit of a distinction though however because I remember yesterday, I was thinking about how one of the things that I would like to be able to comfortably afford is a Cleaner monthly. With my previous apartment I was able to do that and I think it drastically improved my quality of life. And I think especially with a house, that would be really nice to have, especially because I am living in this big house by myself. I think something like that does make life easier and improves it, and at the same time there are things like getting a new car or a fun car to drive, or even if I’m being really hedonistic, like an expensive fancy sports car, and it’s ironic to say that because I think you could argue that I already have that. and I think this is one of the situations where if you get that, you will enjoy it for a bit and eventually reset that baseline and you end up with what I called the caviar effect, where once you try something really nice you don’t really enjoy it like you do the first time but everything below it gets less fun. I wonder if there is some way to flesh out that framework more rootedly to understand if there’s an end to this treadmill. I think about my dad, in the sense where he did not come from poverty, but definitely came to the US without nearly as much of the privilege or foothold that I have. And I think about him now, where he is in a position where he is making an incredible amount of money, yet he still lives so modestly. I think recently he has enjoyed himself in small ways, like going on some more trips, or getting the model S plaid, but compared to the amount of money that he has made and has saved or invested, it is pennies. He talks about how if you can pay off everything and not have any debts to anyone, then you have essentially everything you need. If you own your house, own your car, rely on services little for example, like having solar power, or not super inflating your life with different dependencies, you end up with a sense of peace. And he doesn’t go crazy buying things, he enjoys his hobbies, and he is not necessarily afraid to spend money, but he simply just seems to have less want. I think if you can get to the point where you do not need to worry about money, maybe that is the ideal way to live. And while this is easy to say in theory I wonder if this is something that I can achieve the way that I am right now. Maybe it needs a fundamental shift. I guess if I think about the kinds of things that I want to spend money on, it’s kind of hard for me to actually articulate why. Let me take for example the recent things I have bought such as a LED lamp for my bedroom so that I can read in softer, warm, lighting, or the light strips I got for arguably Christmas, but also photo shoots. Or the portable flashlight for photos. I buy these things because it enable something that I want to do, but I also unfortunately am aware of the fact that I want to do a lot more things than I actually end up doing. But it feels like money is a way to enable some of these things. I want to go to a concert to have an experience because I find that I really enjoyed them. I want to go on a trip with friends, or I want to spend money on a rush to be able to clean my shower properly. And I feel like a lot of these things are arguably unnecessary, I do think that there is still certain things where I feel like within reason they are excellent uses of my money. I think concerts are my example for that, I think they do a great job of resetting me mentally and helping me enjoy life and I cherish those memories. I guess experiences are something I enjoy, or being able to build memories and I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate for me to pull this card but I know that growing up I was unable to experience a lot of things and I regretted that so much and I wanted to make sure that that did not happen again. But I think there are also certain things that I think I need money for that aren’t necessarily happy. Like wanting to buy more expensive clothes or a nice perfume or something like that to be more attractive to others. Or wanting more money to be able to comfortably pay for someone else’s dates or things like that. And I guess all of these things revolve around the central want. And it would be very deaf of me, not mention Buddhism, but my understanding being a large portion to eliminate the want. But I guess how do you differentiate between I want to do something for the wrong reasons versus I want to do something because I am excited too, like creating art or something along those lines. Like I want to experience life is that not a want?

NCAA Men's Basketball

While waiting for my vision to return to my normal following the injections in both eyeballs from my Retina Doc earlier this afternoon, I've found a college basketball game with a live radio feed I can listen to. The Wofford Terriers are playing the Tennessee Volunteers. With nearly 10 minutes left to play in the first half, Wofford is leading Tennessee 16 to 15.

I'm thinking my eyes should be closer to what passes for my normal by the time this game ends.

And the adventure continues.

Finally the mental constipation has lifted in a flood of beautiful words

It is the expectations, writing such a high quality prose is setting unreasonable standards; time and time again I have to remind myself why I am writing my thoughts down

It’s got nothing to do with showing someone something beautiful, it’s about showing sincere thoughts, showing the real you

It takes courage, of course. People might think that I am an idiot, or superficial, or whatever

And yes they might be right , but so what

I am living from this book I got for Christmas present, the courage to be disliked, I read that someone who’s lived a full life without making any enemies hasn’t lived their own life

and wouldn’t that be a shame, what if we live only once?

Hello there are stars in the sky, the sunset was pink.

The fly I brushed off my cheek. It couldn’t be bothered to fly away so it fell down dead and shrivelled on the desktop; presumably, it had a passive death wish.

And it’s almost always dark. Before the snow falls to reflect it, the wet brown grass seem to be sucking all the daylight in.

But it’s frost, like the powdered sugar on a princess cake. It’s thawing in the sunlight, but where the shadows are, it’s still white.

Isn’t that something? A powerful omen in these trying times, with flies falling down dead or stuck dead on the ceiling, that the shadows are brighter than their surroundings!

Essentially, the flies will become dirt in a final state of metamorphosis, as we all do, I guess.

As we all do.

Isn’t this life awesome (in the terrible sense of the word)? And still I feel tired exhausted, it’s no problem at all, relating to these dried up shrivelled flies

Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, Alternative for Germany) the German far-right party won its first German election in the former East German state of Sachsen-Anhalt. With the region being only 150 kilometers to the West of the capital, Germany this result has widespread ramifications for the future of Germany, its holocaust memory culture and most importantly the future of its growing immigrant and refugee populations. With over 44% of votes the AfD came first in the elections, with the traditional Center-Right and Center-Left parties CDU and SPD getting a sound trashing from the electorate, a mandate that's probable to repeat in other state elections and set the tone for the federal election in 2029.

The CDU coalition which is in power at the federal level however would prefer to keep its head in the sand and whine about the Left party winning in the State elections in Berlin, a threat which it sees as being more existential than the one brewing at a much higher temperature in almost all the states in the country. The anti-immigrant platform on which the AfD campaigns on finds a perfect bogeyman for the German far-right to pin the ailing problems of the economy, the failure of reunification and the effect of austerity politics on anyone except themselves. Plus the Trumpian USA and their oligarchs pining for an alliance of far-right states across the world find a corrupt and worthy partner in the AfD, whose popularity is improving every election thanks to the support of the American political climate.

This iteration of the AfD might not build concentration camps like their families did in the past but are salivating at the ICE raids happening all over the US. They dream of remigration a bonkers racist idea that has been mainstreamed in the past decade. Germany without its immigrants, Germany as a white, blond, blue-eyed nation as it was intended to be. Germany with a second tier citizenship model with Whites above the others. A country where the hatred for the Jews is replaced with one for the Muslims. In all their fascination, they want Deutschland to be more like Dubai, where the workers who build the nation get to be there in forced labor conditions while the White Sheikhs get to enjoy their wealth. A world of inequality, dreams of colonialism and where justice happens only through oppression.

The might is about to get it right, it's time for all sane headed Germans and stomp this menace out with their votes at the ballot booth. But with economic uncertainity and the looming AI and Iran war fuelled recessions in the air, it looks like there's going to be a repeat of history after all.

#Germany #AfD #elections

On Friday I finished reading The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer. It’s an autobiography of sorts in which Ernaux navigates the milestones of her own life and times, meanwhile speaking more broadly on behalf of her generation. The text is thick with references to sayings, songs, movies, TV, advertising & other cultural touchpoints. I imagined Ernaux’s ideal readers to her compatriots & contemporaries for whom the these would be most readily recognisable, and richest with personal associations. From my standpoint — one generation, one country, one language away — there were very many references in the earliest parts of the book I couldn’t connect with. Nevertheless, I felt the pungent potency of Ernaux’s youthful recollections more than made up for the disorientation of unfamiliarity. Her reflections on the May ‘68 student protests, for example, brought home their significance more forcefully than anything else I’ve read about them. I less often lost my bearings as the text moved through the ‘80s, ‘90s and beyond, but felt the text’s power faded as the mellowing of age and the progress of cultural homogenisation wore on. There were passages that felt like little more than lists rattled off à la ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ Ultimately it was a book I liked rather than loved.

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Also from Fitzcarraldo Editions, one of two slim volumes of poetry I picked up at Waterstone’s in Cardiff on Thursday (I had the week off work): Mer de Glace by Małgorzata Lebda, translated from the Polish by Mira Rosenthal. Buying poetry brand-new is a luxury I seldom indulge in — it can feel like too much of an extravagance to spend £12.99 on a fifty-page book where many of the pages have more white space than text. I have to remind myself that, over the longer term, a pinch of poetry can easily pay back as much in reading pleasure as a pound of prose. I scanned the shelves and picked out a couple of dozen slender titles, putting most of them back very quickly after glancing at a page or two. The other one that stayed in my hands was Volvelle by Rachael Boast. I’d given both books a quick initial reading on the half-hour train ride home: both had memorable moments to offer.

A third poetry book read this week was This Great Unknowing: Last Poems by Denise Levertov, this one a hardback ex-library copy obtained from an Oxfam shop. I’d read some of her work from the ‘60s and ‘70s just last year. It quite often happens that a poet’s swansongs can be among their least interesting offerings so I felt some apprehension as to whether I’d get along with these pieces or not. I was aware too that Levertov had embraced Catholicism in her later years, and wondered how that might feature in her work. As it happened I was impressed by the quality control throughout, and, while religion does find its way into several of these mostly plain-spoken pieces, it’s in a natural way as a part of their fabric. Here are the opening lines of the last poem Levertov completed, ‘Aware’:

When I opened the door
I found the vine leaves
speaking among themselves in abundant
whispers.
               My presence made them
hush their green breath,
embarrassed, the way
humans stand up, buttoning their jackets,
acting as if they were leaving anyway, as if
the conversation had ended
just before you arrived...

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Upstairs at the ‘Linc’ Blood Cancer charity shop on Winchcombe St. in Cheltenham on Wednesday, on an unassuming couple of shelves of LPs, I found a trove of albums on the Supraphon label of works by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959). I bought six of them for £11 (Fig. 45). Three were devoted to Martinů’s string quartets. I’d tried listening some years ago to a couple of these works without gaining much appreciation of them, but this time around they did make more of an impact, with nos. 4 and 7 the most immediately pleasing. Of the symphonic pieces on the other three records, the tensely foreboding ‘Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani’ (1938), and the more lyrical ‘Violin Concerto No. 2’ (1943) struck me as the highlights. I already knew and loved a few of Martinů’s chamber works, so it was a delight to explore a little more of his extensive & idiosyncratic output.

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Wine of the week: the bottle of Les Aumôniers Séguret Côtes du Rhône Villages AOP (2025, purchased at Lidl) I dipped into on Saturday evening. I was exactly in the mood for this straightforwardly delicious wine, and do hope the migraine aura that came on a couple of hours later had nothing to do with it.

It's called Splatterboard. Check it out here at splatterboard.app. It comes with dozens of coloring book pages. You can draw and color by yourself, or with your family and friends, without creating an account or giving any personal information.

This is the kind of article that's bad content marketing because it just explains why and how I made it, rather than trying to convince you it's something you personally need right now. That's the joy of giving things away for free; I just do the fun parts.

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A few months ago, I took my kid on a four hour flight. To prepare, I loaded up the freshly minted travel iPad with PBS Kids and whatever else I could find that was harmless. But the one thing I could not find was a drawing or coloring app that wasn't laden with ads and in-app purchases, or tied to a brand. Does nobody make a decent Kid Pix clone these days? It made me mad, and it made me think about what I could accomplish.

I can do this

I have a long history with drawing apps. I wrote my first one when I was twelve years old.

A decade later, I had graduated college, and my skills had evolved enough to write the open source library Literally Canvas. It was a drawing widget that didn't have a ton of practical use for me, but was fun to work on and found its way into learning management systems. Someone even paid me to work on it once!

In 2020, I was suddenly forced to start interviewing engineers remotely, and as a result had a lot of contact with multiuser whiteboards. They all felt like crap to use. I knew I could do better, so I wrote Browserboard. It was a partial success, finding a niche with language and math tutors, and remote art classrooms. Despite its rough edges, I was able to sell it to a company making a learning management system. But after a couple years, the owners disappeared, and the site went offline.

What could Kid Pix look like in 2026?

In the 1990s, the best way to be a kid drawing on a computer was Kid Pix.

Kid Pix wants you to play. It doesn't want you to pay $19.99 for a monthly subscription or watch an ad. It wants you to use your creative brain: take chances, make mistakes, get messy!

And yet, simply cloning Kid Pix isn't enough. Besides, that's been done.

I came up with these criteria:

1. Simple enough for a toddler to have fun with.
2. Works on any modern computing device.
3. Fun for me to work on. (Critical for a hobby project.)

To fulfill #3, I also decided it would be multiplayer, as in more than one person can draw at a time, and that I would write a “drawing app framework” that I could use for other purposes in the future.

Overengineering a toy for children

A lot of my “drawing app experience” is in API design. Between Literally Canvas and Browserboard, I knew where it was hard to keep good encapsulation across the stack, and where simple abstractions would quickly leak. So the first few weeks of this project were spent just getting the data model and rendering strategies in reasonable shape. I was doing it with Claude Code in mid 2025, which means the output was bad enough to need line-by-line review and constant badgering to avoid a big mess. I had erasers, a couple different strategies for pen strokes with good support for opacity, and simple shapes. And unlike my past projects in this space, I had a comprehensive suite of automated tests for rendering.

Once I had a data-driven rendering model, I moved on to storage and sharing. My past project Browserboard had used a CRDT I designed based on event sourcing and versioned key-value pairs. It was reasonably correct and very resource-light, but it was complex to maintain. So rather than reusing or rebuilding it, I went with Automerge, a collaborative data structure designed by people who know what they're doing. It uses more RAM, but I appreciate having an abstraction layer for storage and sharing, and unlike Browserboard, it doesn't require a server at all.

With those hard problems solved, I could “draw the rest of the owl.” I built the in-app interface with RE:DOM to keep it as lightweight as possible, but I used Vue for the rest of the site since it's a good balance between size and convenience. I made sure the UI is zealously responsive. I sourced public domain coloring book pages from as many places I could find, and made sure the coloring book experience was intuitive. (For example, the pen and paint bucket draw behind the coloring book lines, but stamps go on top.) I chased down performance issues.

I made sure the essential tools were all there. Pen, eraser, fill, spray paint, and stamps from public domain images sourced from another half-started drawing app project of mine. (They're delightfully low-res.)

Losing steam and finding it again

Near the end of 2025, I felt like I was close to finishing. But since this was an app explicitly for kids, I wanted to make sure there were parental controls to lock down sharing with strangers. This is where I lost motivation and dropped the project for a few months. It's just not very interesting to implement and test a bunch of dialogs and restrictions!

It's a good thing I put it down, because when I got back to it, I was able to spot a bunch of UX issues around sharing that I had been too in the weeds to see before. With that new clarity, I was able to wrap things up pretty quickly and test with friends, family, and a sizeable group of coworkers.

What's next

At this point, I'd be happy to leave Splatterboard alone. It works well enough to entertain my kid on a flight, especially since I added the “toddler mode” which disables a lot of the interactive controls.

But it's not Kid Pix. It's not wacky enough. If I get inspired, I'll add more playfulness: new tools, maybe sound effects.

And since I spent all that time writing a data-driven multiplayer illustration framework, maybe it's time to rewrite Browserboard? Time will tell.

Interesting time for me because I’m driving over to work right now and I usually don’t journal this early in the morning, but I kind of wanted to just talk a little bit. I guess about something on my mind. Nothing too serious, it’s literally just on my mind while I’m thinking about things and so might as well write it down. In the book that I just finished, which I’m gonna leave unnamed to avoid potential spoilers, there is a central almost otherworldly entity that kind of hover over this town and an ex justice and is a big kind of mystery and scary source throughout the book, it includes things like a cult, rituals, or them being in trees and in the pitch black night, and also at some point completely butchering, a massive bull and hanging it, with its blood splattered everywhere as a sacrifice. That is all context, but in the end of the book they reveal that it is actually one of the characters mothers along with several other of the older women in the town, and they make a joke about it like a play on words by saying what is with all of those old birds. And I guess the thing that kind of bugs me a little bit with that is how it feels like it is cheaply shoehorning women into this role almost as a sign of see women can actually do this too. And my issue is not at all with the female empowerment, personally I’m a huge fan and I love when media does that but in this case, and with some other cases, it kind of just feels like it’s almost a bit of a token, like it is not necessarily focused on that, but rather that this is added in after as a brownie point kind of thing. And I will say I don’t wanna be too critical on this author because I don’t think that they are too guilty of this compared to some other cases, but I feel like with a lot of female empowerment stuff. It feels kind of like trying to force a specific role or archetype onto a woman character rather than playing a little bit more towards the characters themselves and highlighting their strengths. Like it feels so cheap that this housewife, mother character that has been incredibly quiet and subservient and essentially just a side plot point to be then described as this physically incredibly dominating, terrifying creature that also is routinely doing these things all without their family noticing? And I guess it isn’t the most unrealistic or the worst writing I’ve ever seen but at the same time I feel like it would’ve been so much more empowering to see this character embodying these things throughout the book, not as just a reflection by saying oh actually the full-time I’ve actually been a strong female character, instead of the entire book them being someone on the back foot. And again, I feel like I’m being incredibly critical and I don’t want it to come off that way because it wasn’t bad, per se. I guess I just more feel like this frustration sometimes whenever I see these cheap attempts of empowerment, and it’s not me saying that I would rather they don’t have it at all, but I just wish in a perfect world situations are not as much an afterthought.

Benjamin Button est l’un de mes films préférés. Je lirai bientôt le livre de Fitzgerald.

J’aime l’image. Le rythme. Le personnage de Benjamin. Le jazz. Mais le temps a une place importante dans ce film. Benjamin naît vieux et rajeunit tout au long du film.

Je n’ai jamais vraiment compris l’intérêt de ce choix scénaristique. Quelque part, je me disais que le film fonctionnerait malgré tout avec un Benjamin qui vieillissait comme tout le monde.

Mais le temps. Le temps est une notion toute relative pour Benjamin. Il défile, mais en sens inverse. Sa notion du temps lui est propre et unique. D’une certaine manière le temps n’a pas d’emprise sur lui puisque sa physionomie n’est pas en accord avec son âge.

Il est un homme. Et voit le temps comme un cadeau qui lui est offert chaque jour. Lui qui pensait qu’il allait bientôt mourir alors qu’il n’avait que 5 ou 6 ans.

Benjamin n’a jamais été jeune, vieux, ado ou quoi que ce soit. Il a toujours été Benjamin. Le même, d’ailleurs il a une constance dans son caractère que j’aime beaucoup. Un calme. Un détachement. Un amour pour les gens quels qu’ils soient. Surtout pour les vieilles personnes qui lui ont partagé tant de sagesse.

Benjamin est hors du temps. Il est hors de tout schéma. Il est fidèle à lui-même, en toutes circonstances.

C’est cette force tranquille que j’admire j’ai l’impression.

If technology is changing what we’re learning, why we’re learning it, and also how we’re learning it, then how do we make school relevant again?

What schools are doing in relation to technology varies considerably by location. Some schools and school divisions are embracing technology, while others, including some here in Manitoba, are shunning it in favor of traditional systems and approaches to learning. Even within those two extremes, there is considerable variation in how technology is being approached and implemented.

What stands out to me is the contrast between how schools are approaching technology and how the workforce is approaching technology. Computers are on most desks now. Many offices have some form of chat or messaging capability between employees. AI is increasingly being used to help automate tasks and simplify processes.

Then we go into a school.

The classroom may have few, if any, computers in it. The computer lab is still down the hall and treated the same as the library, an optional, extra activity that comes after schoolwork is complete. Or, if technology is in the classroom, it does nothing more than turn a paper-based activity into a computer-based one.

Computer skills are a necessary part of many jobs now. Without them, many employers won't even consider you, while some teachers in divisions where technology is not widely accepted or used still haven't learned how to turn on a laptop without help. That's a stark contrast.

There is a general belief that when students go home, they are using technology enough that they don't need more of it in school. But there's a problem with that logic. Texting your friends and playing video games does not teach you critical thinking, spreadsheets, workplace email etiquette, general computer use, typing with more than two thumbs, or responsible AI usage. It doesn't teach you how to work with a mouse, navigate Windows or Mac OS, have a video call, use Word to type a document, and so on.

Exposure to technology at home is not the same as learning to use technology effectively in the workplace.

If the purpose of education is to give students the knowledge and skills they need to determine how they want to live, then we are doing our students a disservice by not actually preparing them to use the technology that surrounds them in the outside world. Shunning technology at school or not adequately teaching it undermines that purpose, reducing education to little more than dispensing knowledge we hope will be useful someday.

There are digital literacy skills that can be taught from kindergarten to Grade 8. Early, age-appropriate introductions to technology help to set expectations, provide foundational skills that can be built upon in later grades, and offer additional teaching methods that aren't available using traditional pen-and-paper approaches.

I am not suggesting that we put laptops on every desk starting in kindergarten and move school exclusively to the digital world. I am suggesting that we need to prioritize teaching appropriate usage and critical thinking. To teach appropriate usage, access has to be available more of the time, not just when the teacher decides to take their class to the computer lab.

I understand that devices can be a distraction, forcing teachers to spend considerable time getting students to pay attention to their lessons. That's actually a two-fold problem. First, lessons need to be engaging to keep students' attention. Simply managing the environment by banning devices doesn't guarantee they'll pay attention. Second, learning to manage those distractions is part of appropriate usage, and it should be taught directly in the classroom.

If schools establish appropriate usage policies from kindergarten, and all teachers enforce and model those same policies themselves, over time the school can create a natural, technology-friendly environment.

How do policies around not running in the hall get established and enforced? It's because all teachers enforce the same rules. Those same strategies apply to technology.

Schools don't ban walking because students sometimes run. They teach students when and how to move appropriately. The same thing can be created with technology.

Technology has to change what we teach, which means age-appropriate, responsible usage and critical thinking need to be included in the curriculum, not just in theoretical discussions at the high school level, but starting in kindergarten.

Critical thinking needs to be taught as a transferable skill, practised across subjects, and applied to the kinds of information students actually encounter, including AI-generated responses.

Critical thinking is not just spotting incorrect information, although that's part of it. It includes examining evidence, reasoning, context, and whether conclusions are justified. It's also about learning to critically evaluate information by challenging the assumptions being made.

Students need to do this not just with printed articles in the classroom, but also online, in real time, while engaging with AI output or other material they come across.

In order for that to happen, teachers need to be trained as well. Teacher education does not generally prepare teachers to teach technology unless they specialize in the subject area. Teachers need to understand how to use technology effectively and appropriately themselves, which means they need opportunities to develop and practise the same competencies they're expected to teach. That will require substantial professional development throughout the profession.

Teaching students to use technology prepares them for the world as it exists. Rethinking what we teach prepares them for the world as it's changing.

We can't keep pretending that students are not surrounded by technology when they leave school every day, or that computers aren't an integral part of the modern workforce, or that AI isn't becoming increasingly prevalent in workplaces.

In some ways, this brings us back to a more fundamental question about what the role of education actually is.

Is job readiness still a foundational part of school?

High schools continue to prepare students for college or university by asking them to choose between university entrance courses and non-university entrance courses. We continue to ask teenagers to make critical life choices about their futures.

If job readiness is no longer part of the K–12 education system, then why are we asking teenagers to make educational pathway decisions that can affect their future opportunities? Perhaps there should be one academic track for everybody that focuses on foundational life skills and a more general education.

If job readiness is going to continue to play a role in high school education, then we need to make sure schools are teaching current technology with an eye towards what might come next.

We can't continue to pretend that the world hasn't changed.

We don't have 20 years to conduct research before writing new curricula, training teachers, and bringing education into the 21st century. Research is important, but it doesn't mean we have to postpone teaching the technology skills students already need while we investigate what comes next.

How many more students need to graduate without an appropriate technology education before we fix the problem?