[✓] Het lied van De Aanvinkclub

Ik weet pas hoe het gaat Als het in een hokje staat zonder vakje kies ik geen partij er moet voor de zekerheid een vinkje bij alles wat komt is makkelijker te slikken als ik het eerst zorgvuldig aan kan klikken er moeten altijd een aantal opties open tussen liggen, zitten, staan, kruipen, rollen of lopen een netjes goed leesbaar overzichtelijk keuze menu tussen het signaal en de zenuw want zonder een dergelijk vakgebied heb ik geen idee dan is er geen ja mogelijk en ook geen nee ik weet het pas echt niet als ik dat ergens in kan vullen en alleen met vijf betaalopties koop ik die spullen ik moet kunnen kiezen uit kleuren en aantal een optie voor het meest gekozen paardje uit de stal ik wil een keuze lijst voor het beste lied er moet een vinkje bij anders bestaat het niet zonder invulvakjes durf ik niet eens te kiezen dan zal ik waarschijnlijk het overzicht op alles verliezen geef me een vakje en ik weet weer hoe ik me voel een meerkeuze vraag en ik weet weer wat jij bedoeld het al en het bijzondere moet op een rijtje staan dan kies ik zonder twijfel de juiste banaan ik ben een man met een wil om kruizen te zetten zelfs op een kieslijst voor lange afstandsraketten als ik ergens een hokje zie dan vul ik het in dat is dan ook het enigste waar ik goed in ben vraag het niet open maar vraag alles dicht dan worden zware problemen luchtig en licht oorlog en vrede elk in hun genummerde hokje en daaruit kiezen onder druk van een tikkend klokje geluk, ongeluk, pijn, genot, start of stop ieder woord is goed als het komt met een invulknop ik durf wel te zeggen dat feitelijk elke geschreven taal beduidend meer waard is met zo'n helder signaal vinkje er op vinkje er in ja zo gaat ie goed vinkje er bij vinkje er onder ik zou niet weten of ik trouw ben zonder, zo'n hokje met mijn huwelijkse staat hokjes voor vinkjes zijn voor altijd en eeuwig mijn enige echte steun en [✓] toe [ ] ver [ ] laaaaaaaaat

Bent u gelukkiger na het lezen van dit vers?

[ ] Ja [ ] Nee [ ] Weet ik niet

As I made my way home from fitness dance class, I saw a man falling haplessly on the paving stones outside the main entrance to his apartment building.

— are you OK?, I asked

— yes but the PIN code doesn’t work, he said, meaning to the door

— Do you need help getting up? I asked

— I live here, he responded now slowly getting on his feet unsteadily

He’d dropped his pizza, box lay upside down on the ground. And the plastic containers of sauce were spattered on his wallet and his phone which he’d also dropped.

He looked about to fall again, I asked

— Can I pick your stuff up for you?

— No, he replied, but you can hold the door for me.

He managed to gather his stuff, but I took the pizza and handed it to him

— this still looks edible, I said encouragingly

One hand on the door frame, he took the pizza in his hand and I saw then that his arm was incredibly muscular.

— take care now, I said as we parted ways

And with thoughts of the ruined pizza on my mind I went home

I am thinking about it still.

There are moments in life that do not look important from the outside, but they divide everything that comes after from everything that came before. They do not happen under bright lights. They do not arrive with applause. Nobody stands in the room and tells you that this is one of the turning points. It is usually just you, the weight you have been carrying, and a kind of honesty you have been avoiding for longer than you want to admit. You look at your own life without editing it. You stop using noise to cover what you already know. You stop talking around the truth. Something in you gets still enough to hear what has been trying to surface for a long time. Not a dramatic sentence. Not a polished thought. Just a plain realization that lands with more force than you expected. I cannot keep living like this. I cannot keep being this careless with my own life. I cannot keep handing over years to patterns that are draining the strength out of me. In that quiet moment, something begins to shift. It is not yet visible. It is not yet proven. But something real has started. You are no longer only tired of life being hard. You are tired of the part of you that keeps helping the wrong things stay in charge.

Most people know what it feels like to be disappointed by life. Fewer people know how to sit with the disappointment of themselves. That is a harder pain to name. It is easier to talk about what happened to you than to talk about what you have been allowing. It is easier to point to loss, unfairness, bad timing, betrayal, exhaustion, confusion, and all the things outside of you that did in fact leave a mark. Those things matter. Some of them matter more than words can hold. People have been hurt in ways that changed how they breathe in a room. People have been broken in ways that made trust feel dangerous and rest feel unnatural. I am not pretending that pain is small. I am not pretending that struggle is simple. But there is another sorrow that shows up when enough time has passed for you to realize that some of what is hurting your life now is not only what happened to you. Some of it is what you kept feeding after the wound. Some of it is what you normalized. Some of it is what you learned to live beside instead of confronting. That is the kind of knowledge that can make a person feel exposed in their own skin. You start to see that the damage was real, but so was your agreement with it.

That agreement does not always sound dark or dramatic. Sometimes it sounds reasonable. Sometimes it sounds like a tired voice saying this is just who I am. Sometimes it sounds like maybe I am not meant to be consistent. Sometimes it sounds like I have always been this way. Sometimes it sounds like I am too far behind to catch up. Sometimes it sounds like I will start when life calms down. It can even sound spiritual while it keeps you passive. It can dress itself in humility while quietly teaching you to expect very little from your own life. It can make you feel almost noble for staying small. That is one of the strangest things about self-betrayal. It rarely introduces itself honestly. It does not usually say I am here to steal the force out of your life. It does not tell you I am going to keep you from becoming solid, awake, and useful. It comes in softer. It comes as delay. It comes as excuse. It comes as endless internal negotiation. It comes as mercy toward the parts of you that are quietly undoing you. And after enough time, you stop noticing how much ground it has taken.

I think many people imagine the best version of themselves as somebody far away. Somebody cleaner, stronger, sharper, calmer, wiser, and more disciplined than the person they know right now. They picture that future self almost like a stranger standing off in the distance. Maybe one day, if enough things line up, they will become that person. Maybe one day, if motivation finally stays longer than a weekend, life will open up and that better version will step forward. The problem with that picture is that it can make your own growth feel abstract. It turns your future into something you watch instead of something you build. It makes becoming whole feel like a mood or a season instead of a daily act of consent. But the better version of you is not living far away in some unreachable future. That person is being formed right now by what you keep agreeing to, what you keep excusing, what you keep practicing, what you keep feeding, and what you keep refusing to face. The future you want is not hidden from you. It is quietly waiting inside the choices you have not made yet.

That is what makes this subject so personal. It is not really about ambition in the shallow sense. It is not about becoming impressive. It is not about creating a shinier image of yourself so other people can admire your progress. A lot of people already know how to perform improvement. They know how to talk about their goals. They know how to speak the language of growth. They know how to share insights and post quotes and say all the things that sound like movement. What they do not know how to do is sit alone with the truth that they have been leaving themselves behind for years. They have been present in their own life, but not fully there. They have been moving forward in age while staying strangely unchanged in the places that matter most. They have been calling survival maturity. They have been calling familiarity identity. They have been calling their patterns permanent because change would require a level of honesty that feels costly.

There is a certain grief in realizing how often you have been the one walking away from your own life. Not all at once. Not in some big reckless collapse. More quietly than that. A little at a time. In the moments where you knew what mattered and chose what numbed you instead. In the hours you handed over to thoughts that made you weaker. In the conversations where you knew you should have been truthful but chose the easier version. In the habits you kept protecting long after they proved they could not produce peace. In the way you kept lowering the standard just enough to avoid confronting what your soul was trying to tell you. When people think about abandoning a life, they usually picture leaving a place or ending a relationship or giving up on a goal. But there is another form of abandonment that happens within a person. You can remain physically present in your own days while emotionally, spiritually, and mentally stepping away from what your life could become. You can keep showing up to work, to family, to church, to routine, and still be absent from the deeper work of becoming honest, healthy, and aligned.

That is why this kind of decision matters more than people realize. Deciding to become the best version of yourself is not a motivational slogan. It is not a temporary burst of self-belief. It is not one more promise you make to yourself because the pain is strong tonight and your emotions are finally loud enough to sound convincing. It is a much quieter thing than that. It is the moment you stop protecting the life that is making you miserable. It is the moment you stop acting like the familiar version of you deserves permanent leadership. It is the moment you realize that you cannot keep saying you want peace while choosing what tears it apart. You cannot keep asking God for clarity while defending what keeps you cloudy. You cannot keep praying for strength while living in ways that train your spirit to stay weak. At some point the gap between what you say you want and what you keep participating in becomes too painful to ignore. That pain is mercy if you listen to it.

Some people are frightened by honest self-examination because they think it will lead only to shame. They assume that if they really look at themselves clearly, all they will find is failure. So they keep things moving. They stay busy. They stay distracted. They keep themselves surrounded by enough noise to avoid hearing the deeper ache underneath it. But honest self-examination does not have to end in shame. In fact, shame is usually what keeps people from changing. Shame tells you that because you have been weak, you are weak at the core. Because you have failed, failure belongs to you. Because you have drifted, drifting is what you are. Shame takes behavior and welds it to identity. It does not leave room for repentance, renewal, or rebuilding. It does not leave room for the patient work of God. It turns one season of compromise into a permanent verdict. That is not truth. That is bondage dressed up as honesty. Truth does not flatter you, but it also does not bury you. Truth says this must change. Grace says it can.

There is something deeply healing about realizing that the worst patterns in your life are not the deepest thing about you. They may be what you have repeated. They may be what has ruled you. They may have become familiar enough to feel natural. But they are not the truest thing about your existence. The truest thing about your existence is that God created you on purpose, not as an accident moving through time without meaning, but as a person made to reflect something clean, steady, alive, and useful in this world. Sin distorts that. Fear hides it. Pain confuses it. Pride resists it. Habit buries it. But none of those things have the right to define you more deeply than the One who made you. That matters because real change usually begins when a person gets tired of treating their lowest patterns as though they are the final authority on who they are.

Still, getting tired of the wrong version of yourself is only the beginning. Plenty of people become miserable with themselves without becoming different. Misery alone does not transform anyone. It can actually make things worse if it never matures into clear decision. A person can spend years disappointed in themselves and never once become serious. They can feel regret nightly and still keep choosing the same path by morning. They can ache for another life without ever developing the courage to walk away from the one they keep creating. That is why emotion, by itself, is not enough. Emotional pain can open the door, but it cannot carry the weight of transformation on its own. There has to be a moment where a person stops simply hurting and starts deciding. There has to be a moment where sorrow becomes responsibility. There has to be a moment where you say, with whatever trembling still remains in your voice, I am done letting this part of me make my choices.

That decision is rarely glamorous. It usually does not feel like a movie scene. Most of the time it feels almost too plain for how much power it carries. It may happen at the kitchen sink while the house is quiet. It may happen in a parked car when you finally stop scrolling and face your own thoughts. It may happen in prayer after another day that left you feeling hollow. It may happen after one more conversation where you heard yourself say things that sounded wise while knowing you were not living them. It may happen when you realize you are exhausted not just from life, but from carrying the split between what you know and how you live. In that moment, the decision is not loud. It is not theatrical. It is simply real. Something in you stops negotiating with what is costing you your peace. Something in you becomes unwilling to keep betraying what matters most.

I have come to believe that one of the deepest forms of weariness in adult life is not overwork. It is internal contradiction. It is the fatigue of saying you value one thing while repeatedly handing your time, attention, and energy to another. It is the ache of claiming to want wholeness while quietly choosing habits that fracture your mind and thin out your spirit. It is the quiet disgust that comes from knowing you are smarter than what you are doing, older than what you are repeating, and more called than the way you have been living suggests. That contradiction wears people down in ways they do not always know how to describe. They think they need rest when what they really need is alignment. They think they need a break from responsibility when what they really need is to stop fighting reality. They think they need a new environment when what they really need is a new level of truth within themselves. Rest matters. Environment matters. But no amount of external adjustment can bring peace to a life that is being quietly undermined from within.

This is where faith becomes more than comfort. It becomes confrontation in the most loving sense. God does not only come near to soothe you. He comes near to call you out of what is diminishing you. His mercy is not passive permission. His kindness is not indifference toward the things that are making your life smaller. When He deals with a person, He often begins by disturbing what they have made peace with. He puts His finger on the place where they have accepted drift as normal. He brings light to the habits they have hidden under personality. He exposes the agreements they made with fear. He makes the false peace of compromise feel unbearable. That is not rejection. That is love refusing to leave you where you are. A God who truly loves you will not help you feel comfortable while you keep cooperating with what is destroying your strength.

The challenge is that most people want God to help them feel better without changing what keeps wounding them. They want relief without surrender. They want encouragement without exposure. They want hope without the disruption of truth. But the best version of yourself cannot be formed inside that arrangement. You cannot become whole while protecting what keeps you divided. You cannot become peaceful while feeding what keeps you restless. You cannot become strong while treating your weaknesses like honored guests. At some point the life you say you want has to become more precious to you than the coping patterns you use to avoid discomfort. At some point the call of God has to matter more than your attachment to what is familiar. That is a simple sentence to read, but it is expensive to live. It means there are parts of you that cannot stay in charge just because they have been with you a long time.

There is a lonely part of this process that not many people talk about. When you begin deciding to become the best version of yourself, you often do it long before there is evidence anyone else can see. The early stages of real change are mostly invisible. There is no crowd around your inner life. There is no public scoreboard for becoming more honest. Nobody hands out awards because you finally stopped lying to yourself. Nobody claps because you got serious in prayer. Nobody may even notice when you begin resisting what used to rule you. In fact, sometimes the people around you will keep relating to the old version of you for quite a while, because that is the version they know. That can be disorienting. You can feel the new standard rising inside you while everything around you still reflects the old story. That is where a lot of people quit. They start to feel foolish for changing in ways that are not yet visible. They want the outer affirmation too soon. They want proof that the quiet work matters. But nearly everything beautiful in a life starts in private where no one else can yet name it.

Maybe that is why so few people become deeply grounded. Private work feels slow. It feels hidden. It offers very little immediate reward. But hidden work is where character becomes trustworthy. Hidden work is where discipline stops being performance and becomes nature. Hidden work is where you learn whether you really want freedom or only the appearance of freedom. A person can perform transformation in public for a while, but the private life always tells the truth eventually. If you want the best version of yourself, you have to want the private version too. You have to want the version of you who does not need to be watched to stay aligned. You have to want the version of you who tells the truth when lying would be easier and more profitable. You have to want the version of you who can sit alone with God and not feel like a stranger in your own soul.

I think some of the strongest people you have ever met are strong because they got tired, years ago, of being divided inside. They may not talk about it in those words. They may not even fully know how to explain the process. But somewhere back there, they hit a wall with themselves. They saw enough of the cost of drifting. They felt enough of the misery of inconsistency. They tasted enough of the emptiness that comes from continually stepping around the truth. And instead of numbing it, they started yielding to what was being shown to them. Day by day, often imperfectly, often quietly, often without fanfare, they began making decisions that honored the person they were meant to become. That is why they feel steady now. Not because life was easier for them. Not because they were born with unusual discipline. But because at some point they stopped romanticizing the person they hoped to be and began becoming them in private.

If you are listening for some grand secret here, I do not think there is one. The painful beauty of this subject is how ordinary the actual path often looks. You tell the truth. You stop excusing what is hollowing you out. You stop handing the microphone to every mood that passes through. You stop speaking about change as if it were separate from the way you live today. You begin to accept that no one can build your life for you, and that God’s grace does not erase your responsibility to respond. These things sound almost too simple, which is why people sometimes overlook them. But simple is not the same as easy. There are truths that feel small when spoken and immense when practiced. This is one of them.

And maybe that is where this turns from a concept into something much more personal. Because the question is no longer whether people in general should become the best version of themselves. The question becomes whether you are willing to stop walking away from your own life in quiet ways that no one else may fully see. The question becomes whether you are willing to let God interrupt the arrangements you have made with weakness. The question becomes whether you are willing to stop using your past to explain why your future should stay small. Those are not questions you answer once with your mouth. Those are questions you answer in the place where your habits live, where your private excuses gather, where your inner life has learned what it can get away with.

There is more to say here, because the actual turning point is not only the pain of recognition. It is what happens after recognition, when the old self still speaks, the old comfort still calls, and you have to decide what it means to live like you finally mean it. That is where I want to go next.

What makes that stage so difficult is that old ways of living do not go quiet just because you finally saw them clearly. Recognition helps, but it does not automatically break anything. You can have a night of deep honesty and still wake up the next morning with the same instincts, the same temptations, the same emotional reflexes, and the same pull toward what has always made you feel temporarily safe. That is often where people become discouraged. They assume that because the battle is still there, the decision was not real. They assume that because they still feel weak in the places where they want to be stronger, nothing meaningful has happened. But that is not how most transformation works. The real sign that something has changed is not that the struggle disappears. It is that you stop automatically obeying it. The voice of the old life may still speak in the familiar tone. The difference is that now there is another voice present in the room. There is a growing refusal inside you. There is a new seriousness. There is a line that was not there before.

That line matters more than people think. Before that line is drawn, you live in a state of constant internal bargaining. You talk yourself into doing what you already know will leave you emptier. You call it one more time. You tell yourself tomorrow will be different. You soften what should be named clearly. You keep giving the same patterns small permissions, and those permissions quietly become your life. After that line is drawn, the inner conversation changes. It does not become effortless, but it becomes cleaner. You stop asking whether something is technically allowed and start asking what it is producing in your soul. You stop measuring choices only by whether you can survive them and start measuring them by whether they make you more honest, more steady, more awake, and more aligned with God. That is a major shift, even if nobody else sees it yet. It is the beginning of becoming trustworthy to yourself again.

I do not think people realize how much of their pain comes from not trusting themselves. They think they are struggling only with fear or low motivation or exhaustion, but underneath those things there is often a quieter problem. They have seen themselves back away from truth too many times. They have watched themselves make promises and then fold. They have heard their own convictions clearly and then negotiated against them. That does something to the inside of a person. It creates a kind of sadness that is hard to explain because it is not always dramatic. It just lingers. It makes you uncertain in moments where you should be steady. It makes you feel fragmented when you want to feel whole. It makes your own words sound thin to you. Rebuilding that trust is one of the hidden gifts of deciding to become the best version of yourself. You begin keeping small promises again. You begin answering the truth when it speaks. You begin making choices that let your soul breathe. Over time, your inner life starts to believe you again.

That takes patience, and patience is hard when you have already lost time. A lot of people who wake up to themselves later in life feel an immediate grief over the years that went missing. They look back and see what could have been built if they had gotten serious sooner. They think about how many conversations they mishandled, how many opportunities they dulled with inconsistency, how much peace they postponed, how many days they wasted waiting for inspiration while life kept moving anyway. There is real sorrow there, and it should not be mocked or minimized. Wasted years hurt because they were real years. You do not get to pretend they meant nothing. But there is a trap hidden inside that sorrow. If you are not careful, you can spend so much time grieving the old version of your life that you delay the new one even longer. Regret can become one more way of staying stuck. It can make you stare backward so intensely that you keep failing to answer the hour in front of you. At some point even your grief has to become useful. It has to drive you toward decision rather than deeper paralysis.

This is one of the reasons I think honesty has to be joined by mercy. Not soft mercy that excuses what is ruining you, but real mercy that allows you to begin again without turning the past into a permanent sentence. You are not helped by pretending nothing was lost. You are also not helped by treating every lost year as proof that you no longer deserve a strong future. God does not work that way. He is not waiting for your timeline to become neat before He agrees to meet you. He meets people in wreckage all the time. He meets people in the aftermath of bad decisions, long delay, self-inflicted damage, repeated weakness, and the humiliating realization that they have not lived up to what they knew. He does not meet them there to flatter them. He meets them there to bring them back to life. That matters because some people will read about becoming the best version of themselves and immediately feel crushed by the distance between where they are and where they wish they had been by now. If that is you, hear this plainly. Distance is real, but it is not the end of the story. What matters is whether you finally stop increasing it.

There is also the quiet fear that if you truly change, you will lose some version of yourself that feels familiar, even if it has been painful. People do not often say that out loud, but it is there. They worry that if they become more disciplined, more honest, more healed, more grounded, they will no longer recognize themselves. They have lived with their current patterns so long that even the unhealthy parts feel strangely personal. Weakness can become woven into identity if it sits there long enough. You begin to think your anxiety is your personality. You begin to think your passivity is your temperament. You begin to think your inconsistency is just how you are built. So when change begins knocking, part of you resists, not because you truly love the way you have been living, but because the unknown still feels like loss. Yet what you are really losing is not yourself. You are losing what has been in the way of yourself. You are losing the false arrangement that taught you to live beneath your own calling. You are losing what made peace with fragmentation. That loss is worth grieving if you need to, but it is not a tragedy. It is release.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that many people are not struggling with whether they want a better life. They are struggling with whether they are willing to become the kind of person who can carry one. That is a more intimate question. It reaches deeper than wanting relief. Relief is easy to want. A better life is easy to imagine. The harder thing is accepting that different fruit grows from different roots. If you want steadiness, there are things in you that cannot keep being fed. If you want peace, there are ways of living that have to be named as enemies of it. If you want to become a person whose presence brings strength to others, then you cannot keep allowing yourself to be ruled by every appetite, every distraction, every wounded reflex, and every wave of avoidance that passes through you. That is not punishment. That is order. It is simply the way reality works. A person cannot keep planting confusion and then ask God why clarity never seems to bloom.

Still, real growth has a very unglamorous texture to it. I wish more people would say that plainly. It is not always a powerful emotional climb. It is often repetitive. It can feel almost hidden inside ordinary life. You make one clean decision today, then another one tomorrow, then another one when no one knows you were tested at all. You tell the truth in a conversation that could have gone a different way. You shut the door on a habit while it is still asking to be fed. You choose prayer when your mind wants distraction. You get up and handle what needs to be handled even though you do not feel inspired. Then you do it again. And again. Days later, it still does not look dramatic. Weeks later, the old pull is still there in places. Months later, you suddenly realize that while it felt quiet, something major has been taking shape. The room inside you is cleaner. Your reactions are not as chaotic. Your mind does not wander into the same darkness as easily. Your spirit is not as thin. You trust yourself more. That is how hidden change often shows up. It does not announce itself early. It reveals itself after enough truth has been practiced.

I think that is why people who become deeply grounded often seem plain from the outside in the best possible way. There is a simplicity to them that did not come cheaply. They are not fighting for image all the time. They are not trying to sound deep every few minutes. They are not constantly explaining themselves. There is just a settled quality to them. That steadiness usually comes from years of private decisions nobody saw. It comes from choosing what was right without immediate reward. It comes from facing the truth enough times that they no longer need elaborate stories to avoid it. It comes from a long obedience in small places. I have more respect for that kind of strength than almost anything flashy. Flash can be learned quickly. Performance can be copied. But inward steadiness has to be built, and the materials are not dramatic. They are honesty, surrender, repetition, correction, humility, and the willingness to stay in the process long enough for it to become real.

There will probably be points in that process where you get disappointed again. Maybe you thought you had grown past something and then it shows up one more time. Maybe your mind goes back to an old place. Maybe you hear an old voice rise up in you. Maybe you fail in a way that feels painfully familiar. When that happens, the temptation is to treat the moment as proof that nothing changed. But that conclusion is often false. One fall does not erase ten honest steps. One bad day does not cancel the real work that has happened. The danger lies not in stumbling. The danger lies in using a stumble as permission to fully return to what you already left for good reasons. Growth requires a different response. You look directly at what happened. You name it cleanly. You take responsibility without building an identity around it. You bring it to God quickly instead of dragging it behind you for weeks. Then you get up and continue. It sounds simple, but that response separates people who are becoming solid from people who are still ruled by their own emotional swings.

One of the hardest things for people to accept is that becoming the best version of yourself does not mean you stop needing God. In some ways it means you finally realize how deeply you need Him. Not as decoration on a life you are managing well enough by yourself, but as the sustaining presence without which even your best intentions will collapse into self-effort and pride. When people hear language about growth and discipline and becoming stronger, they can sometimes drift into thinking this is mostly about mastering themselves. There is part of that here. Responsibility matters. Agency matters. Your yes matters. But if this process is cut off from surrender, it becomes sterile. It becomes a project of self-construction that quietly centers you as the answer to your own life. That does not end well. The real best version of you is not self-made. It is formed in cooperation with grace. It is the version of you that yields more fully to what God is trying to build than the version that kept resisting Him at every deeper point.

That changes the feeling of the whole journey. Now the process is no longer about trying to become impressive enough to deserve peace. It becomes an act of alignment with the One who knows what your life is meant to hold. You are not inventing a better self out of thin air. You are consenting to a truer self that God has been calling forward all along. That is why this kind of decision has both tenderness and force in it. There is force because some things must be cut off. There is tenderness because what remains is not some harsh machine version of you. It is a cleaner version. A freer version. A more honest version. A version with less noise in it. A version that no longer has to spend so much energy pretending, compensating, or recovering from choices that should never have been fed. The strongest people are often not the hardest people. They are the least divided.

There is also a relational side to all this that deserves to be said clearly. When you decide to become the best version of yourself, you are not only affecting your private inner world. You are changing what other people experience when they encounter you. That matters more than most people think. A person who lives divided brings that division into rooms whether they mean to or not. They bring instability into relationships. They bring confusion into decisions. They bring inconsistency into promises. They bring moods where steadiness should be. They bring self-protection where love should be. They bring avoidance where truth is needed. No one does this perfectly, but it is still real. In the same way, when a person begins to grow solid, others start feeling safer around them. Their words carry more weight. Their presence calms instead of unsettles. Their life becomes a place where trust can land. This is one of the hidden reasons your growth matters so much. It is not just about your own relief. It is about the kind of shelter your life becomes for other people.

You may not see all the ways that plays out. A child might feel it before they have language for it. A friend might sense it in one conversation. A spouse may feel the difference between a person who is finally present and a person who is physically there but inwardly absent. Even strangers can feel the quality of a soul that is no longer as scattered as it used to be. I do not mean that in some exaggerated way. I just mean that people feel the difference between a person who has faced themselves and a person who spends their energy avoiding themselves. One life carries a kind of groundedness. The other carries static. That is one more reason it is worth doing this work even when it is slow and invisible. Your life becomes a different environment for other people once God has more room to govern it.

At some point, though, all of this has to come down to the ordinary shape of a day. That is where every beautiful idea is tested. Not in the abstract, but in the hour you are tempted to drift. In the moment when old comfort calls. In the conversation where it would be easier to stay dishonest. In the private space where your mind starts reaching for what used to numb you. In the tired evening where you want to throw away the standards you know are keeping you alive. That is the real battlefield. Not the dramatic language around change, but the actual places where you either reinforce the old version of your life or strengthen the new one. The best version of yourself is not built once. It is built through repeated agreement with truth in those moments. That can sound exhausting if you picture it wrong. But when you begin to taste the peace that comes from alignment, it starts to feel less like constant strain and more like choosing oxygen over smoke.

That does not mean everything becomes easy. It means some things become clear. There is a huge difference between those two ideas. Clarity does not remove effort, but it removes a lot of inner chaos. Once you really know what keeps stealing from your life, you stop dressing it up. Once you really know what peace costs, you stop pretending it can be built on excuses. Once you really know that God is not asking for your perfection but He is asking for your honesty, you stop hiding behind language that sounds humble while keeping you passive. Clarity makes things cleaner. The pain is still pain. The battle is still battle. But there is less fog around what needs to happen. For many people, that alone is a gift. They have spent so many years half-committed that even a clear decision feels like relief.

You may be waiting for a day when becoming the best version of yourself feels fully natural. That day may never come in the way you imagine. Parts of growth do become more natural with time, but there will always be a need for ongoing surrender. Human beings do not graduate from dependence. We do not age out of temptation. We do not outgrow the need for truth, correction, repentance, and grace. The goal is not to become a person who no longer needs those things. The goal is to become a person who responds to them faster, more honestly, and with less resistance. That is what maturity looks like much of the time. It is not sinlessness. It is responsiveness. It is softness toward God combined with seriousness about what He is showing you. It is the death of your need to keep defending what should be surrendered.

I think that is one of the most beautiful shifts that can happen in a life. You stop experiencing truth as an attack and start receiving it as rescue. You stop viewing conviction as condemnation and start recognizing it as a form of love. You stop treating surrender like loss and begin to see it as freedom. That is when becoming the best version of yourself starts to feel less like climbing toward an impossible image and more like coming home to the life you were always meant to live. Not a flashy life. Not a perfect life. A clean life. A life with less internal argument. A life where your soul is not constantly being split in two by the distance between what you know and what you do. A life where peace can stay longer because you are not quietly undoing it every night.

Maybe that is the most honest way to say it. The best version of yourself is not the most glamorous version. It is the least compromised version. It is the version of you that no longer spends all day helping the wrong things survive. It is the version of you that has become tired enough of contradiction to choose alignment. It is the version of you that does not need to impress anyone because it is too busy staying near to what is true. It is the version of you that knows growth is slower than ego wants and still keeps going. It is the version of you that lets God love you deeply without allowing that love to become a hiding place for passivity. It is the version of you that can be alone without fleeing yourself. There is so much peace in that, and peace like that is not accidental. It is built.

So if you are standing in that place now where the truth has started coming into focus, do not waste the moment by only admiring it. Do not reduce this to one more insight that feels meaningful for a day and then gets folded into the pile of things you almost acted on. Let it become personal enough to cost you something. Let it change what you protect. Let it change what you excuse. Let it change the way you walk into tomorrow. The life you want is not going to appear because you were moved by the idea of it. It will appear slowly through the decisions that prove you have stopped leaving yourself behind.

And if you feel late, ashamed, uncertain, or tired as you read this, I understand that more than you may think. A lot of people are carrying the strange sadness of knowing they have not been faithful to their own life. That sadness can either hollow you out or wake you up. Let it wake you up. Let it become the place where you finally stop asking whether change is possible and start agreeing with the work God is trying to do in you. Not loudly. Not performatively. Not for show. Quietly, honestly, and all the way down where your real life is made.

There are days when the biggest act of faith is not saying something beautiful. It is deciding something true. It is saying no to the old arrangement. It is admitting that your future cannot be built by the part of you that keeps sabotaging your peace. It is turning toward God without waiting to feel stronger first. It is choosing to become trustworthy in small places. It is letting your life get simpler, cleaner, and more aligned, even if nobody is there to celebrate the change in its early form. Those decisions may look small, but they are not small. They are the architecture of a different life.

That life is not reserved for some rare kind of person. It is not only for people who started early, learned discipline young, or have unusually stable histories. It is available to the person who is finally willing to be honest. It is available to the person who is tired of excuses and ready for truth. It is available to the person who has enough humility left to admit that grace is needed and enough courage left to respond to it. It is available to the person who no longer wants to keep surviving in a shape that feels false. It is available to the person who has decided that quiet integrity is worth more than noisy appearance. It is available to the person who finally understands that God is not asking for their performance. He is asking for their surrender.

So maybe the real beginning is not dramatic after all. Maybe it is simply this. You stop leaving your own life in the hands of what has already proven it cannot carry it well. You stop mistaking familiarity for identity. You stop asking your weaker habits to create a stronger future. You stop waiting for a version of yourself to arrive that can only be built through present obedience. Then, with all the ordinary trembling of a real human being, you begin to live as if truth is now more precious to you than comfort. That is not everything, but it is enough to begin. And beginnings like that, however quiet they seem, often become the dividing line between a life that keeps circling the same sorrow and a life that slowly, steadily, becomes whole.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/douglasvandergraph

Financial support to help keep this Ministry active daily can be mailed to:

Vandergraph Po Box 271154 Fort Collins, Colorado 80527

Cardinals vs Guardians.

We've finished our lunch at home, the wife and I. She's now on her post lunch nap, and I've found a baseball game to follow: the Cleveland Guardians playing the St. Louis Cardinals. The teams are tied as they play through the middle innings, the score now is 1 to 1 in the top of the 6th inning.

And the adventure continues.

saw a swan. Not by choice. It was just there, occupying space like it paid rent for the lake. People like swans. That’s not surprising. They’re easy to understand if you don’t look too hard. That white, quiet, curved in all the right places. Very cooperative aesthetically. Doesn’t challenge anyone’s thinking. Just floats and lets people project whatever they need onto it.

Grace, apparently. It moved across the water like it had somewhere to be. Spoiler: It didn’t. None of them do. But it commits to the act, which is more than most people manage.

Didn’t bother getting close. Im aware of how that goes. You step in, it drops the act, suddenly it’s loud, aggressive, deeply offended by your existence. Then everyone acts surprised. As if “looks calm” ever meant “is calm.”

Consistent mistake. From a distance, though, it’s perfect. Clean lines. No visible effort. Nothing to question unless you’re already the type to question things, which most people avoid for obvious reasons.

It went back to drifting after a while, as nothing happened. Like nothing ever does. An efficient way to exist. seriously. Minimal explanation, maximum assumption.

I left it there. Seemed like I preferred the misunderstanding.

There was a mouse. There was time. So here’s one

Then another. Don’t read into it.

It’s still just a swan

You get the idea.

Sincerely, Ahmed.

'What is your home?' A stranger asks.

Home (for you, my love)

Home?

No. Not what I once named it. Not walls, nor roads remembered by the body’s tired return.

Home has slipped its geography. It no longer answers to maps.

Listen, I will tell you, my friend, of a home with no address, no door, no fixed sky...

only a mind.

The mind.

Yours.

Where I wander like a pilgrim without sleep, touching the edges of your thoughts as if they were holy cloth.

I left a place once called home; a source, perhaps, a well I drank from without ever being quenched.

What is a home if the heart refuses it? If it does not loosen there, does not lay down its armor, does not breathe?

No—

Home is not where a man hangs his hat.

It is where he loses himself entirely.

And mine... mine is not here.

Not fully.

It is cleaved. like light through glass, like a prayer spoken in two languages—

here, and there, and in the terrible distance between.

You...

You are my home.

I have driven whole nights through the dark of myself to reach you,

whispering your name like a rhythm against the wheel, like a vow I could not break if I tried.

I would come to you in the hour when breath is deepest, when the world forgets itself—

not to wake you, but to feel you there, to exist in the same quiet as your dreaming body.

That would be enough. God— that would be everything.

There:

in that imagined room, in that borrowed closeness,

I am unafraid.

My demons do not follow. My doubts cannot cross the threshold.

There is only the heat of being known, the slow unraveling of all I pretend to be, the dangerous relief of becoming myself in the presence of you.

Amber-eyed, ocean-removed, twelve hundred leagues of absence and still

you are nearer to me than my own hands.

What is this place we make without touching?

What is this fire that asks nothing and takes everything?

I live there in the thought of you, in the shape of your name inside my mouth, in the quiet confession of wanting.

And one day—

if the world is merciful, or cruel enough

here and there will collapse into one,

and I will stand beside you with nothing left to lose,

and say, at last,

not as metaphor, not as longing—

but as truth:

I am home.

---

#poetry #wyst

It’s been a while since I wanted to start a blog. Years really. I kept telling myself that I’m not ready, no one will care, I’m too busy etc. It really is just standard stuff when it comes to starting something new or when you put yourself out there. You make up any excuse just so you can delay the whole thing until you either forget about it or you just don’t care about it anymore. Pretty neat defence mechanism.

You try to justify the whole delay so you can plan out everything in advance, everything can be perfect so you don’t make a mistake. It doesn’t work like that. I should know this by now that I’m 34 years old. Year by year I feel like I lie less to myself but it still happens daily. At least I’m aware. That is something I guess.

Okay so like I said I’m a 34 year old guy. I was born in Hungary but I moved to England in 2014 when I was 23. To this day I don’t know if that decision was good or bad. Probably never will. Because of this, English is my second language and that means I’ll make mistakes. This was another excuse I liked to tell myself. I mean my English is not perfect but I can convey my thoughts pretty well I feel like and I hope it adds some uniqueness to my posts. I don’t want to run through all my stuff through an AI or spellchecker. I’ll obviously try to minimise mistakes especially spelling ones but I don’t want to sound like a robot. I honestly despise this whole new era of “everything is AI”.

The biggest thing that helped me get started was when I realised I don’t have to share this blog with anyone. No one needs to know who I am. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it or not. I just like writing. I always have. I wrote very basic stories when I was a kid. Okay I admit they were heavily mimicking existing ones. I remember one that was basically Robinson Crusoe but written by a 12 year old.

I really started rambling here. I didn’t think I will write about that Robinson story, I honestly even forgot about it until 2 minutes ago. It is funny how much stuff comes to surface when you are trying to organise your thoughts so you can put them down in a readable fashion.

I have loads of interests and I like taking walks whilst I think about a lot of stuff. I used to have a car but I sold it. I walk to and from work too. I really don’t want to get lazy and I hate driving. I’ll write posts just about anything I think. My plan is to write at least one post per week. (I refuse to call my work an article because it feels pretentious.) I might even write multiple a day. Who knows? I just want to get going.

Without trying to give you the whole list below is the stuff I like the most from the top of my head. This doesn’t mean I’ll only write about these but perhaps it gives you an idea of what kind of guy I am.

1. Guitar – Especially Rock and Roll, Blues, Hard Rock, Metal (Been playing since 2007.)

2. Football and Formula 1 – Favourite teams: Arsenal and Ferrari. Pain. I know.

3. Books – Andy Weir is my favourite author.

4. Films – Mainly horror, action and science fiction. I have a newfound love for old black and white Japanese films. I like the Human Condition trilogy, okay?

5. Philosophy – I was always interested and last year I’ve found stoicism which is probably the one I read the most.

Obviously I like ton of other stuff too. Gaming, cooking, hanging out with people, whatever. You get the gist. I really don’t know why I’m trying to make this into a list.

Anyway I think it is time for me to say goodbye and I hope, future me will be very happy that I started this blog.

Thanks,

Blip-A

I found a moth inside my elevator. I scooped it up with my hands shaped like a bowl and brought it out to my balcony. Then I started imagining what it would tell its moth friends afterward. Like, how she (yes, I am calling her SHE) suddenly entered this brightly lit moving box and got trapped there, no water, no food, and every now and then a giant would appear, absolutely terrifying her.

Until one day or some hours, she cannot really precise, but it felt like an eternity, a giant with long hair and a weird looking white horse (that's Livi in case you missed the ref) showed up, grabbed her with giant hands, and everything went dark again. She was sure that was the end. But then the hands opened, and there she was, at the highest height she's ever been in life, she was back outside, but outside this time was so enormous, she could see all the buildings and the city from above, all this happening as if she’d been teleported to freedom. Her moth friends would probably call the whole thing an abduction.

She’d be invited onto moth podcasts to share her testimony. The hater moths would say, “Fake. She just wants attention, next thing you know, she’s auditioning for Too Hot to Handle”, etc. Eventually, she’d write a book compiling testimonies from other moths who claim to have been abducted, trying to find patterns. Some would say, “My giant had short hair.” Others: “Mine was bald.” Some would insist there was no giant at all, just a huge transparent glass thing, and at the bottom, something that looked like a piece of Spar flyers. Other moths would never swallow the theory of the giant jar with Spar flyers at the bottom. “This is obviously a marketing move from Spar!” they would say.

Damn it's so hard to be a believable moth.

/Apr26

I recently watched the seventh season, second episode of Star Trek: DS9, Shadows and Symbols. The character Benny Russell (played by Avery Brooks) is in a psychiatric room writing his story on the walls. He does this because the doctors refuse to give him paper.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Wykoff (played by Casey Biggs) offers Benny a paint roller to erase his writings so he can be “cured” of his delusions. I won’t spoil any more so go watch. After watching that episode it gave me an idea.

Inside my home I have blue, white, and yellow walls. What color wall would I choose? Or would I write on all of them? Unfortunately, white and yellow walls are too bright even in low lighting. Blue walls are easier on my eyes and still bright enough when there’s not enough light.

However, all of this doesn’t matter. The real question is: how long can my kids and I write on the walls before my wife goes berserk and makes me clean and repaint them?

#writing #blue #ds9 #startrek #walls #white #yellow

#shuacantikharem

Sialan kan Wonwoo jadi kepikiran.

Kalo dibilang apa Wonwoo nyesel nyium bibir Joshua karena sekarang dia jadi buronan di kalangan temen-temennya sendiri (dan entah berapa juta manusia di luar sana yang Wonwoo nggak kenal tapi sama keselnya karena bibir Joshua udah direbut cowok anonim), jawabannya tentu aja enggak ya gaes yaaaaa ☝️

Wonwoo NGGAK AKAN pernah nyesel karena KAPAN LAGI BISA NYIUM BIBIR JOSHUA HONG WOI, MAU DUNIA KEBELAH KEK BODO AMAT YANG PENTING DIA UDAH NGERASAIN BIBIRNYA JOSHUA JISOO HONG‼️‼️‼️‼️

(eit nggak usah ngiri☝️)

Cuma, yeah, tetep aja Wonwoo kepikiran. Kalo reaksi temen-temennya aja udah radikal begitu, apakah bakal ada ekstrimis-ekstrimis lain yang siap nyulik Jeon Wonwoo pas tau dirinya lah perebut ciuman Joshua, terus Wonwoo dihanyutkan ke sungai Gangga? Ato, worse, ditunjuk jadi duta MBG?? 😨 (ih najis)

Dikernyitkannya dahi, auto hidung bangirnya ikut mengerut. Wonwoo berjalan memasuki perpustakaan di area pusat kampus seperti tiap sore dengan kedua lengan melipat di dada. Parasnya kelewat serius buat isi kepalanya yang random saat ini. Kayaknya better Wonwoo agak jaga jarak sama Joshua deh. Nerapin beberapa rules personal yang ketat. Jangan deket-deket biar nggak khilaf ciuman lagi. Jangan berduaan doang di ruang sepi. Jangan—

“Ikh...”

...Yaelah. Langsung muncul itu Joshua-nya depan mata. Baru juga mau dijauhin bjirrrrr. KENAPA SIH??!! SEGITU PENGENNYA SEMESTA INI COMBLANGIN WONWOO SAMA JOSHUA, HAH???!!! YAUDAH DEH KALO MAKSA MAH!!!

Wonwoo menghampirinya. Tapi Joshua juga nggak nyadarin kedatangan Wonwoo sih. Dia tengah sibuk berjinjit sambil ngulurin lengan setinggi mungkin, berusaha menggapai salah satu buku tebal di rak paling atas. Wonwoo diem aja ngeliatin dia dari koridor. Kayak biasa, perpustakaan di jam bubaran kampus gini udah tergolong lengang. Hampir nggak ada orang lain di sekitar mereka. Mungkin ada 1-2 orang yang ngumpet, tapi nggak tau deh lagi pada ngumpet di mana tepatnya.

Joshua berusaha jinjit lebih tinggi lagi. Suatu pemandangan yang separo bikin Wonwoo pengen ketawa soalnya Joshua lucuuuuuu bangettt, separonya lagi kesian pengen bantuin. Padahal beda tinggi badan Wonwoo sama Joshua juga nggak jauh-jauh banget, tapi mayanlah, selisih tinggi itu berperan besar dalam situasi kayak gini. Sementara itu, Joshua udah gemeter sebadan-badan, berusaha mengerahkan seluruh inci tingginya biar tangannya nyampe ke buku itu. “Dikit, uh, lagi...,” gumamnya tanpa sadar.

Alangkah kagetnya Joshua pas ada tangan lain menjulur santai, mengambil buku yang dia maksud tanpa kesulitan sama sekali. Arah pandangnya berputar dari lengan ke wajah orang itu yang lagi dongak kayak dia sebelumnya. Jeon Wonwoo. Lengkap dengan kacamata bingkai hitamnya dan wajah serius nan ganteng yang akhir-akhir ini menghantui pikiran Joshua. Salting, Joshua pun perlahan berbalik badan, menatap Wonwoo yang masih berkutat sama buku di rak atas dan membiarkan degup jantung nggak beraturan dalam dada serta rona merah melalap kedua pipinya.

Joshua menelisik satu-persatu fakta: mereka berduaan (lagi) + semburat jingga dari celah jendela jatuh menerangi perpustakaan sore itu + lorong rak di pojokan yang sunyi sepi + jarak tubuh mereka terlalu dekat + Wonwoo tetep seganteng pas nyium dia waktu itu. Deg degan, Joshua lalu memejamkan mata dan mengangkat sedikit dagunya.

Posisi Joshua yang seperti itulah yang Wonwoo temui saat dia akhirnya menunduk, berniat memberikan buku yang baru dia ambilkan. Namun, niat tersebut sirna seketika. Joshua dalam kukungannya jelas menantikan sesuatu, meminta sesuatu dari Wonwoo dengan tindakannya. Degukan ludah membuat jakun Wonwoo naik-turun. Dia yakin dia tau apa yang Joshua minta darinya, tetapi dia nggak berani ngambil kesimpulan segitu cepetnya.

Masa sih...? Masa cowok secantik ini—makhluk seindah, sesempurna, se-enggak nyata ini—nungguin ciuman dari Wonwoo?

Detik berlalu, meleleh menjadi menit. Nggak kunjung datang sentuhan yang diharapkan, Joshua (dengan penuh tanda tanya) perlahan membuka sedikit celah mata, mencari tau di mana kah keberadaan Wonwoo. Rupanya dia masih ada di hadapannya, masih mengukung Joshua, memojokkannya ke rak buku, tapi sekarang dia menatap Joshua lekat-lekat. Tatap mereka bersirobok dan, spontan, Joshua merasa malu. “Ah, ini, mm,” terbata-bata, sembari mukanya begitu merah bagai tomat kematengan. “A-aku enggak—”

“Mejemin mata gitu maksudnya apaan nih?” seloroh Wonwoo, sengaja. Sumpah deh, Joshua Hong itu kenapa bisa begitu gampangnya mancing sisi jail Wonwoo sih? Minta digodain banget?? “Lo nungguin gue ngapain?”

Makin dan makin kebakar aja pipi Joshua. “Eng-enggak kok, nggak gitu...,” balasnya dalam gumaman rendah, saking lembutnya sampe hampir nggak kedengeran andaikan perpustakaan lagi nggak sesepi itu. “Cuma...muka kamu deket banget, aku kan jadi keinget...lagi...”

...Sumpah.

Cantik. Cantiknya pake banget. Cantiknya nggak ngotak. Wonwoo harap Joshua sadar sepenuhnya kalo dia tuh cantik luar biasa dan bahwa dia berhak banget dipuja-puji, disembah bak ratu berlian pemilik hati para budak cinta. Joshua, sumpah lah...

“Terus, emm, jadi aku mikir apa kamu nggak mau—”

Wonwoo majuin kepala buat nutup mulut Joshua pake bibirnya. Refleks, juga dengan sentakan napas, Joshua mejamin mata lagi. Ciuman itu ringan. Hanya bibir ketemu bibir buat beberapa detik. Suara kecupan lah yang tertinggal kala kedua bibir dipisahkan paksa.

Bagai terhipnotis, Wonwoo mengelusi bibir atas Joshua. Lembut. Merah delima. Sedikit lengket, mungkin sisa lip balm yang masih menempel. Mata yang sayu. Pipi yang merona. Bener-bener secantik—bahkan jauh lebih cantik—di foto-foto majalah itu. Ibu jari Wonwoo turun ke bibir bawah Joshua, menekannya sedikit hingga terbuka, memperlihatkan geligi dan sekelebat ujung lidahnya. Turun lagi hingga membelai rahang dan menangkup dagu. Bisikan yang semakin rendah, semakin berat.

“Cantik...”

Dagu Joshua diangkat. Tangan Wonwoo yang lowong bertumpu pada rak di belakang Joshua. Nggak bisa menahan diri, Wonwoo kembali mencium bibir manis itu. Alih-alih Wonwoo merundukkan badan sedemikian rupa, kini Joshua lah yang harus menegakkan lehernya agar bisa mencapai bibir cowok itu. Dia pasrah, membiarkan Wonwoo terus menerus memberikan kecupan-kecupan kecil pada bibirnya. Sesekali, tautan bibir mereka sedikit lama, sedikit nggak rela harus terlepas meski sedetik kemudian akan langsung terpaut lagi.

Hati Wonwoo bagai melambung ke atas awan. Joshua Hong yang diidamkan cowok dan cewek sekampus kini berada di bawahnya, dengan bibir begitu penurut mengikuti gerak bibirnya. Wonwoo melepaskan ciuman dengan napas agak memburu, berniat memberikan kesempatan pada Joshua untuk menenangkan diri. Mungkin dia kelewat tergesa-gesa. Mungkin Joshua overwhelmed dan butuh time out untuk mengambil napas.

Di luar dugaan, Joshua malah menaikkan kacamata Wonwoo ke rambutnya, merangkulkan kedua lengannya ke leher Wonwoo dan menarik bagian belakang kepala cowok itu untuk menyatukan bibir mereka kembali. Kali ini bukan lagi kecupan naif yang mereka bagi, melainkan segala yang selama ini dibendung baik oleh Wonwoo maupun oleh Joshua. Bibir Joshua mencumbuinya, secara aktif mengajak Wonwoo untuk melepaskan segala hasrat yang dimilikinya. Ciuman demi ciuman yang mereka bagi semakin panas. Tangan Wonwoo menemukan pinggang Joshua, merangkulnya erat dengan harapan menghapus memori akan Seungcheol di sana. Tangannya yang lain menelusuri punggung Joshua melalui bahan kemejanya yang halus. Bagian depan tubuh mereka menempel nggak kalah lekat dari sepasang bibir.

“Mmh,” suara-suara geraman tertahan menemani bunyi cumbuan yang basah. Di satu momen, Wonwoo menggigit perlahan bibir Joshua, berbagi helaan napas bersama, sebelum memasukkan lidahnya ke celah yang tercipta. “Hng!” Joshua mendesah agak kencang, tapi untungnya lidah Wonwoo keburu menemukan lidahnya dan berhasil membungkam keributan tersebut. Decakan terdengar. Peluh menitik di kening Wonwoo. Kaki Joshua hampir nggak tahan untuk mengalungi pinggul Wonwoo, mengundang cowok itu untuk mencumbuinya terus seperti ini di sudut terpencil perpustakaan sampai malam turun.

“Uhuk, uhuk!”

Suara batuk seseorang. Bagai disiram air dingin, Wonwoo langsung melepas Joshua, hampir-hampir melompat mundur menjauhinya. Segera diturunkannya kacamata agar indra penglihatannya kembali. Dia memandangi Joshua—bibir bengkak dan basah, mata sayu, wajah memerah, serta napas memburu—lalu meneguk ludah. Dia. Dia yang udah bikin Joshua kayak gini. Jeon Wonwoo.

Tapi,

nggak di sini juga anjir. Kalo ada yang liat, gimana? Terus kalo sampe kesebar rumor kalo dia lah cowok yang udah nyium Joshua, gimana? Minimal digebukin, lebih mungkin digantung terbalik di pohon beringin di halaman belakang kampus. Screw that, nggak peduli nasib dirinya deh, tapi nasib Joshua? Wonwoo nggak mau kalo nama Joshua jadi jelek gegara ulahnya. Dia suka Joshua. Suka banget. Cinta. Karena cinta, makanya—

“Ah, Wonu—”

—sebelum Joshua sempet ngomong apapun, Wonwoo udah berbalik dan pergi (sambil doa nggak ada yang nyadar akan jendolan di celananya, amen), meninggalkan Joshua yang berusaha menenangkan dirinya sendirian sambil menyentuh bibirnya, masih terlena oleh ciuman bergairah dari cowok itu.

Terhalang oleh rak-rak buku, Joshua nggak sadar sama sekali kalo ada orang lain yang merhatiin mereka sejak bercumbu tadi. Orang lain yang menyeringai jahil karena suatu rencana udah terangkai manis di dalam kepalanya. Orang lain yang juga merupakan 'musuh' Joshua Hong akhir-akhir ini.

Instead of only criticizing “AI” (when in fact, the commercial LLM services are really the main issue), here is a more optimistic list of things I support 💪 (followed by a list of bad smells 🦨 in AI):

💪 Smarter machine learning models that do more with less: less data, less energy, less waste.

💪 Building models that are better, not just bigger: reliable, effective, and resource-conscious.

💪 Ethical innovation: training AI without exploiting creators or trampling intellectual property rights.

💪 Practical AI use cases that truly help people and society, not just corporate bottom lines.

💪 Sustainable business models that support fair, circular industries instead of endless extraction.

💪 Respect for language and culture – preserve diversity, don’t erase it.

...therefore, I stand against:

🦨 Bloated generative AI systems with bottomless appetites for data, energy, and water.

🦨 The expanding footprint of data centers swallowing land and resources.

🦨 Predatory tactics to grab training data at the expense of human rights.

🦨 Turning AI into a tool for surveillance capitalism and exploitation.

🦨 Pretending to care about AI safety while dodging real accountability.

🦨 Systems that funnel power to a few tech giants, making the rest of us renters in their digital empires.

🦨 Human suffering in AI’s hidden labor force – those forced to filter the internet’s worst as cheap, disposable labor (usually in the Global South).

🦨 Schemes to dodge taxes and skirt regulations, while claiming to build the future.

🦨 Generative AI services aren’t tools – they’re just content repositories, trained on a vast and murky pool of internet data. But the internet is a mess: full of errors, bias, satire, and outright lies. These systems can’t tell truth from fiction, and they strip away context and source credibility. There’s no metadata to distinguish fact from sarcasm or disinformation. It all looks the same to an AI. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

🧠 The most sustainable, creative, and ethical model isn’t an algorithm. It’s the human brain. If you want art, writing, or ideas, hire a human being. You’ll get quality and originality, not a regurgitated mashup from a statistical prediction machine.

The right place for AI is in support – statistical prediction, maintenance, and optimization. That's proper tools. But generative AI services won’t help us work less or better. They’ll push us to go faster, sacrificing quality, creating stress, and robbing us of agency. To build a future centered on humans, we must focus on human well-being – not just on making tech billionaires richer.

(btw, I have nothing against skunks, the icon just represents “bad smells” 😀)

Qué de la perfección y el disimulo, si hasta las utopías se fueron en la bolsa de la basura. Ya es perfecto lo imperfecto.

El fuego se apodera de todo, crepita la sal, la carne se hace humo, aviva la llama. Más fuego, añade cuerpo.

När internet började bli tillgängligt för en bredare publik under 1990-talet uppstod ett behov av enklare sätt att publicera innehåll. Tidiga webbplatser var ofta statiska och krävde teknisk kunskap för att uppdateras, men gradvis växte idéer fram om mer personliga och kontinuerligt uppdaterade sidor. Ur detta föddes bloggarna – en blandning av dagbok, publiceringsplattform och offentlig röst, där individer kunde dela tankar, länkar och berättelser i ett löpande flöde.

Samtidigt uppstod ett praktiskt problem: hur skulle man hålla koll på alla dessa uppdateringar utan att behöva besöka varje sida manuellt? Lösningen blev RSS, ett standardiserat sätt att distribuera innehåll automatiskt till läsare. Med hjälp av RSS kunde användare prenumerera på sina favoritbloggar och få nya inlägg samlade på ett ställe, vilket gjorde internet både mer överskådligt och mer levande. Tillsammans lade bloggar och RSS grunden för ett mer dynamiskt, användardrivet nät – långt innan sociala medier tog över scenen.

Under tidigt 2000-tal var bloggar själva ryggraden i det sociala internet. Plattformar som Tumblr, Blogger och WordPress gjorde det enkelt för vem som helst att publicera tankar, guider och dagboksinlägg. RSS, via format som RSS och Atom, blev ett slags distributionslager ovanpå detta: istället för att besöka varje blogg kunde man samla allt i en läsare och få uppdateringar i realtid. Det var en ganska decentraliserad och användarkontrollerad modell.

Sedan kom sociala medier och förändrade spelplanen. Plattformar som Facebook, Twitter och senare Instagram tog över mycket av det som bloggar tidigare stod för. Det blev enklare och snabbare att publicera kortare innehåll, och algoritmer började styra vad vi ser istället för kronologiska flöden. I den miljön tappade RSS sin synlighet, inte för att tekniken slutade fungera, utan för att den inte passade in i affärsmodellen hos de stora plattformarna.

Men det betyder inte att bloggar och RSS försvunnit. Snarare har de blivit mer nischade och ibland mer professionella. Nyhetsbrevstjänster som Substack och Ghost bygger i praktiken vidare på samma idéer: direkt relation mellan skribent och läsare, utan mellanhänder. Många av dessa erbjuder fortfarande RSS-flöden, även om de inte alltid lyfts fram lika tydligt.

Samtidigt finns det en tyst renässans för RSS bland mer tekniskt intresserade användare. Verktyg som Feedly och Inoreader används för att återta kontrollen över informationsflödet i en tid där algoritmer ofta upplevs som brusiga eller manipulativa. I en värld av “doomscrolling” blir RSS nästan ett motgift: du väljer själv vad du vill följa, och inget annat.

Bloggandet i sig har också förändrats snarare än minskat. Mycket av det som tidigare hade varit blogginlägg dyker idag upp som långa trådar på sociala medier, videor på YouTube eller poddar. Formen har skiftat, men drivkraften att publicera och dela perspektiv är densamma.

Så frågan är inte riktigt om bloggar och RSS är på väg bort, utan om de har slutat vara mainstream. De har gått från att vara standard för alla till att bli verktyg för de som aktivt väljer ett mer öppet och kontrollerat internet. Och just därför finns det något nästan tidlöst i dem. När pendeln svänger bort från centraliserade plattformar brukar intresset för öppna standarder och egna publiceringsytor komma tillbaka.

Det dyker också upp nya tjänster för att följa bloggar så som Blogflock. Så än är nog inte bloggar och RSS utdöda.

Det har också kommit mer nischade bloggplattformar. Nouw är en svensk sådan, den växte fram i en tid när bloggandet redan hade blivit etablerat, men höll på att förändras. Den lanserades 2015 som en vidareutveckling och omprofilering av det tidigare communityt Nattstad, med ambitionen att skapa något mer än bara ett tekniskt verktyg för att skriva inlägg.

Till skillnad från klassiska bloggplattformar fungerade Nouw inte bara som en plats där man publicerar texter, utan också som ett slags digitalt magasin. Bloggarna blev en del av ett större nätverk där innehåll kunde lyftas fram, kurateras och nå en bredare publik. Det gjorde att plattformen fick drag av både socialt nätverk och mediekanal, snarare än enbart ett publiceringsverktyg.

Framtiden för bloggar och RSS är svår att spika fast, men mycket pekar på att de inte försvinner utan snarare fortsätter leva i nya former. I takt med att fler tröttnar på algoritmstyrda flöden och centraliserade plattformar kan intresset för öppnare lösningar öka igen, där användaren själv styr vad som konsumeras. Tekniker som RSS finns redan på plats och används fortfarande bakom kulisserna i många tjänster, även när det inte märks utåt. Samtidigt kan nya sätt att publicera innehåll – som nyhetsbrev, poddar och egna plattformar – fortsätta sudda ut gränsen för vad en “blogg” egentligen är. Kanske blir framtidens blogg mindre synlig som begrepp, men desto mer närvarande som idé: en direkt kanal mellan skapare och läsare, utan att någon annan bestämmer vad som ska nå fram.

I did an over two hour leg workout with a ton of drop sets and failure and I feel good. I do believe that I have a life worth living and I would like to experience it and I’m grateful for all of the additional chances that I get to be appreciative for what I have.

She often shares pictures and videos of her daughter. The baby is 8 months old. I get the impression that she is more entertained by the baby than gently loving her. She is learning to love, to love herself by loving her daughter. The baby is filling the mother's lack of love. She gave birth to a girl rather than a boy because the girl is the healer for the mother.