I hear it in my practice all the time: “I want to be more confident.” What does this really mean? When I probe, clients usually express something along the lines of not caring what people think about them, and being able to handle anything that happens to them.

These ideas get bandied about in our culture like slogans, but I find they ring hollow. They seem like obsolete echoes of the American individualist ideal, which deprive us of our humanity. What does that life really look like? How can you have meaningful relationships if you don’t care how anyone feels toward you? I could name some people in high places who operate that way, and they’re not figures I want to emulate.

Being able to “handle” anything—this is about control. People don’t want to feel hijacked by their own emotions. They want to face every challenge in life unfazed. Is this, too, desirable? To move through the world feeling nothing, regardless of what happens to us? Most folks would keep only the good feelings and experiences, but how can you have yin without yang? What is joy without pain, or pride without fear?

The Joy Junkies

Avoiding emotional pain has become the American way of life. Much of my work is about shepherding people through their own feelings, helping them accept the multitudes of life’s experiences, and learn that they can live through those experiences and grow. I’d rather be resilient than unflappable, because when I feel things, it reminds me I’m human.

In our age, when so many corporate and political forces seem keen to turn us into robots, it is rebellious just to be human, to feel things. This means defying the temptation to “feel” good all the time by filling our minds and bodies with stimuli off screens and grocery shelves, because that’s not feeling; it’s numbing.

When we treat anxiety in therapy, we flesh out the details of the fear with a constant refrain of, “And then what?” What will actually happen if this person rejects you, or you miss your deadline, or you get sick? Making the possibilities real often makes them less scary. What remains, after this, are fear of feeling and fear of death.

Because when we really experience things, especially if we were numbing before, our feelings can be frightening. Emotions become overwhelming to the point that people develop anxiety about anything unpleasant, not from the details of what’s happening, but from the discomfort itself. And that makes numbing look awfully tempting, so the cycle repeats.

I can’t help my clients feel good all the time, because that’s impossible. Anyone who says differently is a snake oil salesman. And I can’t make the deep fears go away; we all live with our own mortality. But bad news-good news: it’s better this way, because this is what makes you a person. You’re made of flesh and blood and feelings, and that’s a beautiful thing.

The Painful and the Sublime

Pain, hardship, and stress are necessary parts of life, and make it worth living. It doesn’t mean “confidence” should be a bad word, but how can we redefine it? What if it means being open to the richness of life, in all its dimensions? Being able to endure through hardships and grow, rather than avoiding them? Caring and valuing what people in your life think of you, because you value your connections with them?

Living is scary; I don’t deny that. Every day we face uncertainty, and the only certainty we are given is the one we least want to hear. But I choose to embrace death, not run from it. If life were everlasting, why do anything at all? I find comfort in knowing I have a beginning and an end, and it motivates me to build something of value between them.

Directly or indirectly, I work on this with every client. I try to help people embrace their positions at the helm of their own lives, their ability to shape their experiences. Whatever challenges we face, we have choices available to us, even if those choices are rotten. In the words of Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

How things affect us is out of our control. We don’t choose our feelings, just like we don’t choose our bodies, or our families. So have grace for yourself. “Confidence” needn’t have anything to do with these things you can’t control. But it can be about building intuition and strength of character. If you allow yourself to embrace the messiness of life and your own humanity, you can discover some wonderful things, like growth, beauty, sublimity, and love. Your experiences will change you, and you just might find that you’re open to being changed.

Sadly, pervasive numbing has degraded human life and relationships. I touched on a lot of this in my social media piece, so I won’t repeat it here. It’s not our fault, for the most part. We’ve been handed the syringe. But it’s still our choice if we want to keep using it. I’m not immune to temptation myself, but I try every day to feel present and alive. I try to orient my life toward celebrating my experiences and connections with other people. I am defiantly humanistic.

Text and Photograph © 2026 Philip Bender

This journey has been so long It's thrown twists and turns at me I thought I was near the end but when I got through the weeds I found another path stretching ahead of me

I chose this path I didn't know it'd be this long but I can't turn around now so all I can do is take it one step at a time

Step by step Day by day I'll reach the end of this path The sky seems dark now but soon, it'll clear up

And the best part is that I'm not walking alone there are so many people walking alongside me holding my hand so I don't need to be scared

So step by step day by day and hand in hand I'll keep walking this path until it opens up to bright, blue skies

#Poetry #Healing #Friendship #Kindness #Hope

In my neighborhood in 2020, we started paying for security in our HOA fees because of car break ins. People assumed that those other people were coming in and trying to steal what we hard-working Americans had purchased. Oh the irony because although we may not live in the ghetto, apparently my neighborhood is ghetto—and this includes the Homeowners Association. What an interesting twist.

Ghetto is a term I am hesitant to use because people associate it with Black people. And, of course, Black = bad. However, I do not live in a “Black neighborhood.” This is the best term I can come up with at the moment because trash just doesn’t hit the same. People are out here thinking that moving out of the city and into pseudo suburban HOA communities—which are statistically most likely to be populated by whites and Asians—is an upgrade. Yeah, an upgrade in fees and violations of privacy!

The HOA sent this email this month (all emphasis theirs):

Dear Forest Brook Neighbors,

We hope you are having a wonderful week. We are writing to follow up on our recent communications and to cordially invite you to our next Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday, February 10, 2026, at 7:00 PM at the Forest Brook Clubhouse.

Navigating Our Growth Together As our community evolves, we know there have been questions regarding how we handle proxies and meet quorum requirements. We hear your concerns and want to ensure our processes are transparent, fair, and legally sound. To provide clarity, we requested a formal opinion from the Association’s attorney regarding the specific timeframes for collecting proxies and determining when a meeting can officially proceed. The attorney’s memorandum is attached to this email. We encourage you to review it so we can have a productive, informed conversation during the meeting. To further support our community, the Association’s attorney will be present at the meeting to answer your questions and provide direct legal clarifications.

What to Expect: Meeting Guidelines Our goal is to create a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing their perspective. To ensure the evening is organized and respectful of everyone’s time, we will be following these simple steps:

• Check-In: Please sign in with the security officer upon arrival so we can accurately track attendance.
• During the Session: To keep the focus on the discussion, we ask that everyone remains seated. Please refrain from approaching the Board table or walking through the room while the meeting is in progress.
• Your Voice Matters: When the floor opens for member comments, please raise your hand. We will call on neighbors one by one to ensure that every person who wants to speak has the opportunity to be heard without interruption.

A Note on Community Spirit We genuinely value your involvement. Your questions and feedback are what help us serve Vista Palms effectively. We simply ask that all dialogue remain courteous and neighborly. While we have security on hand to ensure a safe environment, our true hope is that the evening is defined by the patience and civility that makes our neighborhood a great place to call home.

Questions before the meeting? If you have immediate thoughts or questions you’d like us to consider beforehand, please reach out via the community website or contact property management directly.

We look forward to a great turnout and a collaborative evening!

Warmly, The Vista Palms Board of Directors

 Memorandumremeetingprocedures1.pdf

Community Website: www.mygreencondo.net/vistapalms

Roger L Kessler LCAM Property Manager E: Rkessler@UniquePropertyServices.com P: 813-879-1139 ext 106 P: 813-879-1039

So now, in addition to our other wonderful community amenities, we get to be ID’d and policed in our own meetings. Welcome to 2026—a continuation and escalation of 2025!

I remember one day I was minding my business outside and someone approached me and asked about my neighbor. Stranger Danger! After a few questions, the person identified themselves as a member of the HOA Board. Then, they provided me with some information. The whole time I engaged enough to appear cooperative, but was playing along responding with details that this person already knew. Why would the HOA put me in this situation?

I didn’t really think about this again until last summer when the roof tarp became my latest hot issue with the HOA (And the roof tarp issue was during the time the HOA was also foreclosing on my house. I am still getting to that story.). This is what the “HOA” wrote to me in a July 2025 email in response to my email query about a violation of which I was unaware (in-paragraph emphasis mine):

Any alterations to the exterior of the home must be approved via an ARC/ARB application. The tarp has been there for a long time and we have witnesses stating that. Any repairs that need to be done should have been done by now and will need to be done in order to bring the issue into compliance. Tarps may not remain on roofs and repairs must be made. What is the scheduled date of the roof repair? This issue was about to be sent to the attorney for further enforcement actions.

Thanks,

Roger Kessler, LCAM

The HOA had sent me an e-mail notice that I had an “architectural violation”. I don’t frequently check my emails over the summer because I spend 10 months of the year checking emails incessantly for work. Also, the CDD emails flood my inbox with junk. So, imagine my surprise while in the middle of the HOA foreclosure, I see a string of emails from them.

In this case, what the HOA claimed was wrong. They insisted that I had my whole house tarped for almost a year. I did not. I got at the end of May—right at the start of that same summer. When I asked them how they know when I got my roof tarped, as you can see above, they said they had “witnesses”.

I went on to inform the HOA that I could provide proof that their witness testimony was false. How did the HOA respond to that? They moved the goal post from:

You have had it on too long.

to

You didn’t appropriately submit an ARC to modify the house.

And so they sent it to their attorneys, Mankin Law, anyway.

The only conclusion I have come to is that somebody wants my house. And they have been waiting to buy it with the HOA’s help.

He never knew the world before. Before the touchscreens, the avatars, the voices behind glass. He learned to speak in prompts and swipes, to ask questions before he could spell them. He is native to the interface.

The Augur walks with one foot in the mythic past, one in a gamified, glowing future. He holds the wand of The Magician in one hand and the scythe of Death in the other. Creation and endings are not opposites to him—they are the same motion.

His light:

• Genius for synthesis.
• Born to remix, to rebuild, to reimagine.
• Speaks fluently with both code and chaos.
• Doesn’t ask if something is possible—only how soon.

His shadow:

• Overstimulated. Underformed.
• Trained to perform before he understands.
• Prone to shallow mastery, deep confusion.
• Grows in the shadow of crises not yet named.

But still—he is watching. Still—he is learning.

He sees omens in data. He touches spirits through screens. He is not waiting for the future. He is the future, already booting up.

He is The Augur, and his visions arrive early.

They were born under flickering light. A thousand windows, endless scrolls, every answer already halfway typed. Their cradle glowed blue.

The Dreamling is the archetype that dreams inside the maze. They feels too much, too early. They’re hyper-connected and strangely alone, raised on ambient crisis and curated personas.

And yet—they dream anyway.

They are part Star, part Moon: Hope in one hand, hallucination in the other. They want to believe—but know how easy it is to be lied to.

Their light:

• Sensitive, intuitive, impossibly adaptive.
• They read moods like maps.
• They seek healing, not control.
• They name harm out loud, even if their voice shakes.

Their shadow:

• Dissociation, doom-looping, and hyper-vigilance.
• Identity fractured by filters.
• Trust eroded by irony.
• Agency blurred by options that aren’t real.

They grew up watching everyone perform— and had to decide who they were in the reflection.

But they have something rare: the courage to feel in public. To cry on camera. To hold grief and memes in the same hand.

They are not lost—they are listening. And when the fog parts, they will be the first to see the new star rise.

She was told to follow the rules— but the rules kept changing. She was told to wait her turn— but the line got longer. She was told to trust the system— but the system broke on her watch.

The Dissenter hangs in the void between what was promised and what is. Not passive. Not resigned. But watching—upside-down, eyes open, weighing every injustice with a trembling hand still gripping the sword.

She is both Justice and the Hanged One: a seeker of truth suspended by the lies of the age.

Her light:

• Relentless integrity.
• She sees the cracks in the structure and asks who benefits.
• She refuses to call silence peace or policy justice.
• She makes compassion political.

Her shadow:

• Burnout from over-accountability.
• Endless deferral: “When the debt’s paid... when the market’s stable... when the planet recovers...”
• A paralysis from trying to make everything fair before moving forward.

She inherits collapse but doesn’t mythologize it. She wants more—than survival, than slogans, than legacy systems on life support. But she doesn’t always know where to put her fire.

She is held in tension: between cynicism and care, between shouldering blame and demanding repair.

And yet, in her suspended stillness, something radical occurs:

She doesn’t sever the rope. She studies it. She learns how it's knotted. And when the time comes— She cuts herself free.

He doesn't speak unless it's worth the breath. He doesn’t trust easy, and he doesn’t flinch when the wind shifts. He’s already lived through collapse—more than one.

The Wasteland Sage came of age in the gap between myth and rubble. He watched the towers crack: family, church, economy, culture. Not all at once—but one by one, until there was no place left to belong. So he lit his own lantern, packed light, and walked out alone.

He learned to keep his own counsel. To stay sharp in silence. To expect the floor to give out.

His light:

• Resilient, self-reliant, and unillusioned.
• He doesn’t ask for rescue—he maps escape routes.
• He listens deeply, because he knows noise is cheap.
• He carries fire through the ruins, not to rebuild the past, but to keep truth alive.

His shadow:

• Isolation as instinct.
• Skepticism calcified into numbness.
• Belief feels like a trap; hope, a setup.
• He avoids the tower by never climbing it.

He is the child of aftermath. Too late for the feast, too early for the reckoning. He wasn’t handed a torch—he scavenged it.

But he burns no less brightly for that. And while others shout from stages or scroll their lives away, he watches— —not detached, but discerning.

He is the voice that says: Don’t build that way again. I’ve seen what happens when it falls.

He is not waiting to be saved. He is waiting to be asked.

He steps into the spotlight wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses, radiating warmth, power, and charm. You feel like he knows something. You feel like he has something. You feel like maybe, if you just follow him, you could have it too.

The Consuming King rose with the Boomers—children of postwar victory, apostles of expansion, believers in destiny. The world grew bigger for them: more suburbs, more jobs, more airtime, more everything. They were promised the sun—and believed, deeply, that wanting it was right.

He rules the realm of having.

His light:

• The evangelist of possibility.
• He believes in the good life, and works hard to build it.
• He inspires dreams of abundance—homes, cars, love, legacy.
• He can sell the sun and make it real.

His shadow:

• A master of appetite without end.
• He mistakes accumulation for meaning.
• He builds temples to the self while denying the cost.
• He deflects accountability with charm and nostalgia.

His kingdom is bright, but hot. He doesn’t see the forest fire through the dazzle of fireworks.

He is both rebel and ruler. He marched in protest and then bought the land. He said, You can be anything, and meant it—but often only for people like him.

And now, The Consuming King faces the twilight of his reign. The party he threw lit up the world. The hangover belongs to those who come after.

But still: he holds the torch. And maybe, just maybe, he can learn to pass it without burning the hands that reach for it.

Who of us can live with unquenchable flames? —The one who walks in continual righteousness.

ISAIAH:

Woe to you, you destroyer who has not been destroyed; You betrayer who has not been betrayed! When you finish destroying, you will be destroyed. When you finish betraying, you will be betrayed.

O Jehovah, show us favor. Our hope is in you. Become our arm every morning, Yes, our salvation in the time of distress.

At the sound of turmoil peoples flee. When you rise up, nations scatter.

As the voracious locusts gather, so your spoil will be gathered; People will rush on it like swarms of locusts.

Jehovah will be exalted, For he resides in the heights above. He will fill Zion with justice and righteousness.

He is the stability of your times; An abundance of salvation, wisdom, knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah —This is his treasure.

Look! Their heroes cry out in the street; The messengers of peace weep bitterly.

The highways are deserted; There is no one traveling on the pathways. He has broken the covenant; He has rejected the cities; He shows no regard for mortal man.

The land mourns and withers away. Lebanon is ashamed; it has decayed. Sharon has become like the desert, And Bashan and Carmel shake off their leaves.

JEHOVAH:

“Now I will rise up, Now I will exalt myself; Now I will magnify myself.

You conceive dried grass and give birth to stubble. Your own spirit will consume you like a fire.

And peoples will become as the burnings of lime. As thorns cut down, they will be set ablaze with fire.

You who are far away, listen to what I will do! And you who are nearby, acknowledge my might!”

ISAIAH:

The sinners in Zion are in dread; Trembling has seized the apostates: ‘Who of us can live where there is a consuming fire? Who of us can live with unquenchable flames?’

The one who walks in continual righteousness, Who speaks what is upright, Who rejects dishonest, fraudulent gain, Whose hands refuse a bribe rather than grabbing it, Who closes his ear to talk of bloodshed, And who shuts his eyes to avoid seeing what is bad

—He will reside in the heights; His secure refuge will be in rocky strongholds, His bread will be provided, And his water supply will never fail.

Your eyes will behold a king in his splendor; They will see a land far away.

In your heart you will recall the terror: “Where is the secretary? Where is the one who weighed out the tribute? Where is the one who counted the towers?”

You will no more see the insolent people, A people whose language is too obscure to comprehend, Whose stammering tongue you cannot understand.

Behold Zion, the city of our festivals! Your eyes will see Jerusalem as a tranquil dwelling place, A tent that will not be moved. Never will its tent pins be pulled out, And none of its ropes will be torn apart.

But there the Majestic One, Jehovah, Will be for us a region of rivers, of wide canals, Where no galley fleet will go And no majestic ships will pass by.

For Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King; He is the One who will save us.

Your ropes will hang loose; They cannot hold up the mast nor spread the sail. At that time an abundance of spoil will be divided up; Even the lame will take much plunder.

And no resident will say: “I am sick.” The people dwelling in the land will be pardoned for their error.

ISAIAH 34

ISAIAH:

Come close to hear, you nations, And pay attention, you peoples. Let the earth and that which fills it listen, The land and all its produce.

For Jehovah’s indignation is against all the nations, And his wrath is against all their army. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them to the slaughter.

Their slain will be thrown out, And the stench of their carcasses will ascend; The mountains will melt because of their blood.

All the army of the heavens will rot away, And the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll. All their army will wither away, As a withered leaf falls from the vine And a shriveled fig from the fig tree.

JEHOVAH:

“For in the heavens my sword will be drenched. It will descend on Edom in judgment, On the people whom I devoted to destruction.

Jehovah has a sword; it will be covered with blood. It will be covered with the fat, With the blood of young rams and goats, With the kidney fat of rams. For Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozrah, A great slaughter in the land of Edom.

The wild bulls will go down with them, The young bulls with the powerful ones. Their land will be drenched in blood, And their dust will be soaked with fat.”

ISAIAH:

For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, A year of retribution for the legal case over Zion.

Her streams will be changed into pitch, And her dust into sulfur, And her land will become like burning pitch.

By night or by day it will not be extinguished; Its smoke will keep ascending forever. From generation to generation she will remain devastated; No one will pass through her forever and ever.

The pelican and the porcupine will possess her, And long-eared owls and ravens will reside in her. He will stretch out over her the measuring line of emptiness And the plumb line of desolation.

None of her nobles will be called to the kingship, And all her princes will come to nothing.

Thorns will grow in her fortified towers, Nettles and thorny weeds in her fortresses. She will become a lair of jackals, An enclosure for ostriches.

Desert creatures will meet up with howling animals, And the wild goat will call to its companion. Yes, there the nightjar will settle and find a place of rest.

There the arrow snake will make its nest and lay eggs, And it will hatch them and gather them in its shadow. Yes, there the kites will gather, each one with her mate.

Search in the book of Jehovah and read it out loud: Not one of them will be missing; None of them will be lacking a mate, For it is the mouth of Jehovah that has given the order, And it is his spirit that has gathered them together.

He is the One who has cast the lot for them, And his own hand has measured out their assigned place. They will possess it for all time; They will reside in it throughout all generations.

ISAIAH 35

ISAIAH:

The wilderness and the parched land will exult, And the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron.

Without fail it will blossom; It will rejoice and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, The splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. They will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the knees that are shaking.

Say to those who are anxious at heart: “Be strong. Do not be afraid. Look! Your own God will come with vengeance, God will come with retribution. He will come and save you.”

At that time the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.

At that time the lame will leap like the deer, And the tongue of the speechless will shout for joy. For waters will burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert plain.

The heat-parched ground will become a reedy pool, And the thirsty ground springs of water. In the lairs where jackals rested, There will be green grass and reeds and papyrus.

And a highway will be there, Yes, a way called the Way of Holiness. The unclean one will not travel on it. It is reserved for the one walking on the way; No one foolish will stray onto it.

No lion will be there, And no vicious wild beasts will come on it. They will not be found there; Only the repurchased ones will walk there.

Those redeemed by Jehovah will return and come to Zion with a joyful cry. Unending joy will crown their heads. Exultation and rejoicing will be theirs, And grief and sighing will flee away.

This is the last of the #JujuAwards2025! And of course I save the best for last with #BookOfTheYear.

I read a fair bit this year, despite being busy exploring Australia, studying, hitting the gym again, etc. (Yeah, turns out it wasn't a sustainable lifestyle!) I decided to read more essays and also more short stories. When you like sci-fi, short stories are a very good choice as they bring plenty of ideas in a concentrate amount of pages.

Here are the nominees.

Free by Lea Ypi

In this memoir, the author revisits her childhood in Albania, from dictatorship to democracy, to civil war. There is a lot of humour, notably when the author, who was exposed to propaganda until her teens, discovers her parents used to be bourgeois.

The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary by Ken Liu

In this novella, a scientist invents a machine that allows to see the past. He gives access to descendants of victims of atrocities committed in Unit 731 during the Second World War, who witness the horror, which triggers important questions.

Clarkesworld Magazine 223, edited by Neil Clarke

My first edition of Clarkesworld, a magazine of short speculative fiction stories, and I wasn't disappointed. I especially liked Thomas Ha's story, In My Country, which is shortlisted by the serial for best story of the year.

The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas

An essay from the US written before the 2024 election about how, for the progressive side, to win over the other side. Some interesting insights, notably the method of deep canvassing.

Cyberpunk by Asma Mhalla

A book written by a French essayist after the 2024 US election about the technological dystopia that we might already be living in. Of course it's highly topical but the writing is also witty.

There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm

A sci-fi horror novel from Britain in which agents fight an impossible battle against an enemy that cannot, or actually, must not be remembered.

And the winner is… Clarkesworld Magazine 223! Reminder to support short speculative fiction. And now back onto reviews :)

#JujuAwards #BestOf2025

There are so many different things I need to do for this house and I’m honestly so overwhelmed with it. I haven’t been keeping to my habits either like reading which I want to fix.

HAMNET_REVIEW

We seem to be living through an unexpected renaissance of literary classics on screen: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and now Hamnet. Watching this film reminded me why I fell in love with cinema and theatre in the first place, long before I shifted my studies toward communications. It’s worth noting that Hamnet is directed by Chloé Zhao, one of only three women ever to win the Oscar for Best Director, and adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, itself a reimagining of the few biographical traces left from Shakespeare at the time he wrote what may be his greatest tragedy, Hamlet. Yet the film wisely avoids centering Shakespeare, instead it turns its gaze toward his wife, Agnes/Anne Hathaway.

But what struck me most goes beyond literary adaptation. While sometimes it truly feels to me as though we’re witnessing a slow disintegration of the world around us. Modern forms of fascism thrive on indifference: political, social, emotional. They depend on people who no longer allow themselves to be affected, who shrink their circuits of feeling until nothing truly touches them. In that sense, Hamnet hit me hard. I cried more than once, especially during the final ten minutes, and the heavy silence in the theater mixed with sobs told me I wasn’t the only one. Those closing moments are, for me, the film’s true peak, not because they offer catharsis, but because they recontextualize everything that came before. They open a space to consider the many ways we move through grief, love, and the lingering echoes of emotion, here retracted as the loss of a family member, and how art in any matrix can truly heal us, as individuals, but perhaps more importantly us in the broader sense, as a collective.

For sure not an awards‑bait kind of movie, it’s far too sincere for that. Thoughtfully directed and quietly devastating, Hamnet draws its power from restraint, mythic resonance, and a final act that stays with you long after the credits fade. It reminded me of the simple, human act of telling and listening to stories, and how narrative is one of the ways we reorganize ourselves, rebuild connection, and resist fragmentation. In moments when the world feels like it’s coming apart, investing in a good story might be one of the few things that still holds us together.

/feb26

Freundinnen & Freunde der Weisheit! Wer kennt das nicht, endloses Sitzen am Schreibtisch. Wir alle wissen, dass das nicht gesund ist. Aber was können wir dagegen tun? In der sechsten Ausgabe des Newsletters beleuchte ich genau diese Frage.

Langes Sitzen gilt heute als eigenständiger Risikofaktor für ernsthafte Gesundheitsprobleme – auch bei Menschen, die täglich Sport treiben. Wer über acht Stunden sitzt, schadet langfristig Herz, Kreislauf und Stoffwechsel. Die gute Nachricht: Bereits kurze, regelmässige Bewegungspausen können diesen negativen Effekten entgegenwirken. Studien zeigen, dass sogenannte „Active Breaks“ oder „Exercise Snacks“ eine einfache und wirkungsvolle Strategie darstellen, um den Körper auch während langer Sitzphasen aktiv zu halten.

Doch was genau wirkt am besten? Forschende verglichen verschiedene Formen von Bewegung und fanden heraus: Wer alle 45 Minuten drei Minuten spazieren geht oder zehn Kniebeugen macht, verbessert seine Blutzuckerwerte deutlich – und wirksamer als mit einer einzigen halbstündigen Gehpause pro Tag. Entscheidend ist also nicht die Dauer, sondern die Regelmässigkeit der Unterbrechungen. Bewegung in kleinen Dosen, aber in hoher Frequenz, entfaltet eine überraschend grosse Wirkung.

Für den Alltag bedeutet das: Wer im Büro arbeitet oder zu Hause viel sitzt, sollte sich alle 45 bis 60 Minuten bewusst kurz bewegen. Möglich sind Kniebeugen, Treppensteigen, zügiges Gehen auf der Stelle, Ausfallschritte oder ein schneller Gang durch den Flur. Diese Mini-Workouts dauern nur ein bis drei Minuten, lassen sich fast überall umsetzen und benötigen keine Hilfsmittel. Wer solche Pausen konsequent einplant, verbessert nicht nur seine körperliche Verfassung, sondern auch Konzentration und Wohlbefinden – mit minimalem Aufwand, aber maximalem Nutzen.

Denkanstoss zum Wochenbeginn

„Das grösste Vergnügen im Leben besteht darin, Dinge zu tun, die man nach Meinung anderer Leute nicht fertig bringt.“ – Marcel Aymé (1902–1967)

ProductivityPorn-Tipp der Woche: E-Mails gezielt abrufen

Jedes Mal, wenn du eine neue E-Mail liest, bekommst du einen kleinen Dopamin-Kick – und bist abgelenkt. Setze feste Zeiten für das Abrufen deiner E-Mails und arbeite konzentriert in den übrigen Zeiträumen.

Aus dem Archiv: Lernen durch Dialog – Perspektivenaustausch statt Feedback-Frust

Genauso wie in der Arbeitswelt spielt Feedback auch in der Schule und im Studium eine zentrale Rolle. Doch oft ist die Art, wie Feedback vermittelt wird, genauso verbesserungswürdig. Wenn Schülerinnen oder Studenten Feedback als reine Kritik wahrnehmen, können auch sie in eine Art „inneres Kündigen“ verfallen, bei dem sie zwar körperlich anwesend sind, aber emotional längst auf Distanz gegangen sind. Das Ziel sollte jedoch sein, dass Feedback nicht demotiviert, sondern zur Weiterentwicklung anregt – sowohl im Arbeitsleben als auch in der Bildung.

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Vielen Dank, dass Du Dir die Zeit genommen hast, diesen Newsletter zu lesen. Ich hoffe, die Inhalte konnten Dich inspirieren und Dir wertvolle Impulse für Dein (digitales) Leben geben. Bleib neugierig und hinterfrage, was Dir begegnet!

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EpicMind – Weisheiten für das digitale Leben „EpicMind“ (kurz für „Epicurean Mindset“) ist mein Blog und Newsletter, der sich den Themen Lernen, Produktivität, Selbstmanagement und Technologie widmet – alles gewürzt mit einer Prise Philosophie.

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Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet. Das Artikel-Bild wurde mit ChatGPT erstellt und anschliessend nachbearbeitet.

Topic #Newsletter

目が覚めて時計を見ると、まだ早朝の4時だった。 寝ている姿勢の軸がずれているような気がして、背中を少し動かした瞬間、左腕に鈍い痛みが走った。 ああ、寝違えたか、と思ったが、体のコアはまだ半分眠っていて、痛みへの関心は薄かった。

あと2時間もすれば会社に行く準備をしなければならない。 そう思った途端、体中の筋肉と毛穴が一斉に収縮するのを感じた。 当然、髪の毛もその巻き添えを食うわけで、たまったものじゃない。 せっかく前回美容院に行ったとき、「髪の質が良くなってきましたね」と褒められたばかりなのに。

思考はまだ半覚醒のままなのに、そこへストレスが割り込んでくるものだから、体が本格的に拒絶反応を起こし始めているのが分かる。

安全な方向を探して、細胞たちがそれぞれ勝手に逃げ回っているような感覚がある。 だが「安全な場所とはどこだ」と言わんばかりに、みんな好き勝手に動くので、体が変形しているようにすら感じる。 今、体温を測ったら熱があるかもしれない。

こんなことが年に数回ある。 最初はただ辛いだけだと思っていたが、最近は今を生き抜くための、次の体に向けた進化なのではないかと感じている。

つい最近まで二か月ほど在宅勤務を続けていて、エレガントなニットがよく似合っていた。 それなのに「明日からまたしばらく本社に来てくれ」と言われた途端、家にいたい、現状を変えたくないという気持ちが一気に押し寄せた。 本当に会社に行きたくなくて、心にはかなりの負荷がかかっていた。

朝起きてカーテンを開け、コーヒーを淹れ、洗濯をして、ストレッチをして、部屋の温度を整え、自炊をして、好きなソファに座る。 俺はこの空間で仕事がしたいんだ。

しかし、うちの会社は請負の仕事ばかりだから、上司に「来い」と言われれば行かざるを得ない。 今の心身のままでは会社に行く負荷が高すぎるから、細胞たちが化学変化を起こして、少しでも楽にしてやろうと、俺を会社用の体に作り変えてくれているのだろう。

子どもの頃から「手から電気を出したい」と漠然と思っている夢がある。

人間が状況に合わせて進化できるのなら、電気を出さざるを得ない状況を作れば、そのように体も変化していくものではないのか？と考え、大学院では生物物理科に進学した。 ただ、大学院時代に一度研究を試みて以来、科学は「他人に伝えるためのもの」だと感じてしまい、科学的に理解しようという関心は薄れてしまった。 自分だけが辿り着きたい、現実的であり抽象的な場所なのだから、学問にわざわざ落とし込む必要もない、とは思うものの、何かしらのアプローチは必要で、やはりこれは人生の課題だなと思うと同時に、右脳に、普段はしない喝みたいなものを入れた。

そんなことを考えているうちに、「改造が終わったよ」と細胞がシグナルを送ってきたので、布団から起き上がり、会社に行く準備をした。 これまでは自然とスーツを着ていたが、今日は自然と私服を選んだ。 改造されたことが視覚的に分かりやすくて良いねと思いながら、いつかたどり着く場所とはまったく関係のない寄り道として、会社へ向かう事にした。

I try to leave the country once a year or so, and I'm currently in the process of getting in my trip for 2026. I started this post on the plane, continued it on the Tren Maya, and finished it in warm and beautiful Valladolid, Mexico, far from the snow-covered and frozen city of Pittsburgh. As excited as I am to warm up a bit, that's not the primary reason I travel. A lot of my best story ideas have come from visiting new places and experiencing life in a different part of the world. It's also a solid way to break up my routine, which I know I could technically do in Pittsburgh, too, but I'm very bad at veering away from my usual habits when I'm going about my day-to-day life. Jumping on a plane and heading to Mexico or Guatemala—or even just riding the train to Buffalo or Baltimore—is a foolproof way to ease myself out of any ruts I've gotten into. 

I will say, the way that I approach these trips isn't quite the way I think most would go into a vacation. For one thing, I usually don't completely take off work—I tend to drop down to more of a part-time workload, but continuing to work lets me take the kind of longer trips that allow me really sink into a new place. Especially when there's train travel involved, like on this trip, I view those periods as little mini writing retreats, because that environment is one where I find it very easy to get ideas flowing: you're stuck in one place without much to distract you, but there's also something new to see every time you look out the window in need of inspiration. 

But I also think I approach travel with a different mindset than the average non-writer would, and that's something you can do regardless of your employment situation or how long you're traveling. When you look at things the right way, you can find stories and inspiration that you can use to fuel your creativity for long after you're back on familiar turf. This post is both advice for other writers and a reminder to myself as I get ready to see some new places on how to make the most of my time while I wander. 

So how do you travel like a writer? For me, it comes down to 5 main things.

Get off the well-traveled trails

This doesn't mean you have to skip the big attractions. In each town I’m visiting, I'll probably take the expected wander into the central plaza and stare at the Spanish cathedral, like one does in an old Latin American city. But while I’m on that walk, I'm also going to have my eyes open for strange things that snag them, side-streets that look intriguing, or off-the-wall museums that most folks might walk by.

There are two types of places I always seek out when I'm in a new city: cemeteries and public parks. They're not the kinds of attractions that most would add to their itinerary, but they reveal so much about the place you're visiting and are usually among my favorite finds. I also get around on foot when I can, giving me a chance to take in the streets that would blur by from a vehicle. This often leads to discovering street art, statues, and other neat finds that I never would have known were there otherwise. I've even stumbled across festivals or hidden museums a time or two when exploring whatever city I'm in. 

The value of these unexpected finds is two-fold. One, that sense of discovery makes it stick in your brain more because it has emotion attached to it, and for me at least that is exactly the germ I need to turn it into inspiration. It also means you have things to write about that not everyone who visits that city will have seen. That's especially good if you want to write nonfiction like travel writing, but also gives you unique details you can use in fiction and poetry that will make it sound uniquely you, not like something regurgitated off of every travel blog. 

Learn the history

I'm what I'll call a half-spontaneous traveler. I'll plan out the big strokes of the trip like transportation and where I'm staying well in advance. When it comes to the things I see, though, I'll usually have a list of places I want to visit, but I don't go so far as to write out an itinerary. I like to leave myself room for discovery and not go into a place with too many preconceived ideas about it. 

Which might all sound like the opposite of what I'm suggesting in the heading here, but what's glorious about traveling in the 21st century is that the vast majority of us constantly carry a device that can access a significant percentage of accumulated human knowledge. You don't necessarily need to research in advance to get insight into the history of a place, and for me looking it up on the spot, while I'm at the site, often helps me connect that history to what I'm seeing and makes it stick more firmly in my memory. 

The advice I gave above also applies here. Informational signs and plaques are like catnip for me. Any time I see one I’m drawn to it, even when I'm walking around Pittsburgh. You can learn a lot from historical markers, or the signs and explanations posted in museums. If you see a random plaque on the side of an unassuming building, don’t breeze by it—give it a read to see if the building you were about to ignore actually has a fascinating history that will end up being the germ of your next story.

There are a lot of reasons I give this recommendation. For one, it puts what you're seeing in context so you can more fully understand it, and at the same time gain a deeper understanding of the place that you're visiting, which will help you to make it come across as real to the reader. You might also find some stories hiding in that history, or learn about famous figures, historical events, or other things that you want to look into further and use for something you're writing. When you're conducting research—whether before, during, or after your trip—let yourself fall down rabbit holes and go off on tangents, following your interests wherever they lead you. The whole point of traveling is to discover new things, and those new things don't only have to be the ones you physically encounter. 

Carry a notebook

I usually don't journal. I've done it at points in the past, but I tend to drop the habit pretty quickly. That said, whenever I'm traveling, I always make a point of journaling every day. I even type up these journals into a digital file after I get back so that there's no risk of them being lost if the physical copy gets misplaced. I usually do this within a month of getting home, and even with that little time in between the trip and when I'm going back over them, I still inevitably come across a few things I'd already forgotten about. 

That's the main reason I always keep a journal when I'm traveling. There's such an influx of new knowledge and sensory input that my brain just doesn't have space to process all of it before I feed more in, and inevitably some of that info is going to get lost. Keeping a notebook handy and consistently recording what I see, cool things I learn, and other details about the experience I might forget helps me to capture and freeze the ideas so that they're still there when I'm ready to make use of them. 

I suppose the physical notebook isn't a requirement anymore—it's the way I prefer to do things, but you could also use an app on your phone or something similar. The key is to use something that you can have with you while you're actively out exploring, not just after you get back to your hotel room. That lets you capture things as you see and feel them, which is the best way to retain those tangible, distinctive details that will really make the moment come to life if you decide to make use of it in a creative work.

Engage your full senses and attention

When I was in college I had the privilege of studying in Florence for six weeks, and was able to take an in-depth art history class during the session. One point that the instructor would always make as she was leading us around the various museums and landmarks is to not only focus at eye level. She was always directing our eyes up at a frescoed ceiling or down at an interesting paving stone, and her lesson stuck with me well after that trip. Staying too focused on one view of things could mean you miss details that you would've found even cooler.

This same advice goes in a broader sense, too. I try to remind myself when I'm traveling to just stop every once in a while and take everything in—to listen to the sounds, smell the air, feel the energy of the place I'm inhabiting. It's easy when you're traveling to feel like you need to constantly be moving to see everything you want to see, but you don't want to fall into the trap of trying to see so much that you don't end up really seeing any of it. 

Make smart use of your camera

This is another place where my habits are I think a bit different than the typical vacationer's. I often don't take many pictures of the big landmarks. If I want to remember what El Castillo in Chichen Itza looks like, I can find plenty of pictures of it taken by much better photographers than I am. But the internet won't help me remember the funny graffiti somebody scrawled on one of the signs, or that one other tourist wearing the crazy hat—those are the kinds of details I'm most likely to get out the camera for. Again, this isn't saying you can't also take Instagram-worthy pictures of the big sites, but that's another great thing about the modern era of the phone camera. It's not like you have a limited number of shots. You can do both. 

I will add onto this that you don't just have to use your camera to capture sights. If you come across a particularly interesting sign and want to make sure you remember all the details, snap a photo of it. These days, lots of museums and historical sites will use QR codes on the signs to lead you to places where you can learn more info, which can be a shortcut to following that “learn the history” tip I gave above. You can also use the other recording features to get snippets of music or street noise, or capture video to capture the energy of a crowd or the stillness of an empty park.

Of course, you don't want to go overboard. Even the best phone has a finite amount of storage and you don't want to be so intent on documenting everything that you forget to actually experience it. But when you come across one of those things that you want to make sure you remember, take full advantage of the tools at your disposal to give yourself memory triggers you can activate once you get home. 

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#WritingAdvice #DigitalNomads #Worldbuilding