yesterday, i was considering taking some time off to review the year and make some plans for 2025. then, i received an email from david spink, one of my favorite weekly newsletters, where he discussed this almost mythical "new year's resolution" and how to go about it differently this time.

i found it both very resonating and quite eye-opening. in the email, he shares a free notion documentation to follow through and start warming up for the new year. he said this exercise takes a couple of weeks, so i've already started with the first chapter: reviewing the year.

the main difference is that we tend to go for the things that are far outside of us (based on who we are currently), and then we make sure to harass ourselves constantly to go get them and judge ourselves at the end of the year on how well we match with what we set out to do.

in his version, he says that instead of trying to expand through outward goals - which usually stem from satisfying those nasty emotional wounds such as not being enough, not feeling belong, and so on. he says start with getting to know where you're at by discovering your essence, who you are as much as you can, and from there, ascend above through expansion *

in short, it's all about choosing between becoming first and then having it vs going for "having it" first, then finding out, to your surprise, who the hell you became during the process! which is a whole other topic of discussion :)

dark academia is known as a subculture where a dark, nostalgic aesthetic blends with deep intellectual curiosity. gothic architecture, old libraries, worn leather-bound books, rain-darkened university corridors, and a melancholic mood are its cornerstones. (see: harry potter)

everything from ancient greek philosophy to classic literature, art, and history is open to deep exploration. but this journey isn't just about knowledge; it's also about confronting the darker, more complex parts of oneself.

it promotes the idea that education is about inner enlightenment rather than superficial success. it offers a world filled with the scent of coffee, cold stone buildings, poems written in dim light, and sleepless nights spent chasing unfamiliar words. alongside the romantic glorification of knowledge, themes like death, loss, and loneliness lurk in its shadows.

in the end, dark academia is shaped not just by old books and classical music but by the desire to explore the endless depths within. in a way, it's as much about the passion for knowledge as it is about the art of bearing the weight that comes with it.

it's an incredibly educational show. there are many lessons to take away for both kids and adults.

--spoiler--
as mentioned above, the series features many strong female characters. take 'katara,' for instance. she's one of the strongest characters, not just among the women but in the entire show. toward the end of the first season, our heroes travel to the northern water tribe to learn from the great waterbending masters there. but as soon as they arrive, they encounter a backward mindset.

the male masters refuse to teach katara because she's a girl. according to their system, girls can only use waterbending for healing. katara can't stand such a senseless and primitive view, so she stands up to the system on her own, and she's not afraid to challenge one of the tribe's most talented waterbending masters in the process.

the show also doesn't engage in shallow political correctness by just writing strong female characters for the sake of it. for example, through 'azula,' it presents a brilliant female villain, a character type we're only just starting to see these days. it shatters the ridiculously naive idea that 'if women ruled the world, everything would be sunshine and rainbows.' the show bluntly tells us, 'whether you're a man or a woman, unchecked power will eventually corrupt you.' when you think you've got everything under control, all you'll really have is loneliness, with nothing but your insatiable ego and ambitions by your side.

through 'sokka,' the show praises logic and science. in one episode, our heroes come across a village where everyone believes whatever the local fortune-teller says. even though the nearby volcano is showing signs of erupting, no one believes it because the fortune-teller said nothing bad will happen this year. but in the end, they see that sokka's rational warnings were right. with aang's help, the village is saved from being buried under volcanic ash.

'toph' teaches us that our limitations don't have to hold us back. as a blind earthbender, she's incredibly strong in every sense. the fact that she can't see doesn't stop her from becoming the only living metalbender. she's an amazing character who even makes fun of her blindness and is totally at peace with her 'disability.'

'zuko' shows us that we can change. he teaches us that we can't betray evil; we can only fight against it. zuko's transformation isn't a betrayal, it's a redemption. by changing, he saves not just the fire nation but the entire world. his journey is one of the deepest in tv history.

and then we meet one of the greatest characters in tv history, zuko's uncle, iroh. he could command armies, yet his favorite thing in the world is simply making tea. he reminds us that power and authority are overrated lies. to him, nothing compares to the joy of a good cup of tea. he's a man with a heart so big he helps everyone but couldn't save his own son. he holds no one responsible for his son's death, and he bears no grudges. he mourns at his son's grave with a deep, quiet sorrow.

and then we come to our avatar, aang. what can be said about him? despite his extraordinary power, he never uses it for evil. he could make the world bow before him, but that means nothing to him. his purpose is different. he chooses to be with his loved ones over ruling the world.

what makes him happiest is dancing wildly. what makes him laugh is sokka's terrible jokes. what fascinates him in this world is katara, and what matters most to him is soaring freely in the sky on appa. when he faces his greatest enemy, his only concern isn't whether he can defeat him but that he doesn't want to have to kill him. that's all that worries him. even if his enemy is a villain sworn to bring evil to the entire world, aang chooses to preserve life, not take it.
--spoiler--

avatar is an amazing animated series that can make you laugh out loud, move you deeply, and keep you excited at all times. on top of everything, it's such a well-made show that it's one of the few you can watch with your child without getting bored. it's not easy to appeal to people of all ages and genders. so no amount of praise for this series will ever be enough.

i'm not the kind of person who complains about everything, but here i am! this happened a while ago when i went to see dune 2. the cinema was crowded, and we all settled into our seats, waiting for the movie to start. on the right side of my seat, a woman was sitting alone. then a lovely young couple walked in and sat on my other side, each holding an xl popcorn. while they walked, the smell spread all around and it was tempting, and i thought about getting one for myself.

the moment they sat down, immediately started pouring popcorn into each other's mouths, completely unaware of the enormous amount of noise they were making. since the movie hadn't started yet, i was holding onto the hope that the noise would be drowned out once it did. wrong! they were right next to me, and somehow, they had a magical popcorn that never seemed to run out, no matter how much they kept chewing, nonstop, full speed. the lone woman i mentioned earlier couldn't take it anymore and left within the first 15 minutes.

in the end, i left the movie regretting that i hadn't just watched it at home, where i could eat my own popcorn at a fraction of the cost and in peace. is this newly developed intolerance toward people, especially when we're alone, about being jealous of couples in a masked way, or is it a legitimate complaint?

on the one hand, i want to see movies on that gigantic screen with epic sound systems, but on the other, i love my cozy place at home where i watch movies, usually by myself, without being disrupted by strangers' behaviors.

maybe the middle ground is the way to go; just see movies during off-hours on weekdays to get the best of both worlds.

can i buy some chestnuts for 10 dollars?
sure, here you go.
how much?
10 dollars.
thanks, have a good night.

these noise-cancelling headphones i bought myself as a birthday gift are seriously top-tier in their league. i was totally torn between the sony wh-1000mx3 and these, i watched so many review videos it was crazy. and here's the breakdown i got from those videos: both headphones are neck and neck in music quality, sony's got a slight edge in noise cancellation, but bose wins hands down on comfort. since i'm all about comfort, i went with bose.

when my bose 35 ii arrived, the first thing i did was spend hours listening to pink floyd's discovery box set. it took me a few days to recover; my dreams were filled with these wild, crazy colors. it didn't just let me listen to the music; it showed it to me in colors too.

i've been using them for about a year now, and i'm like, every single cent i spent was totally worth it. i'm loving these headphones so much.

"i don't know where we are going but i know exactly how to get there."

this quote made me stop and ask the most important question one can ask; "who talks like that!" and i'm happy to report that i'm satisfied with what i've found. quite an interesting guy (see: boyd varty interview)

something i've been experimenting with for quite a while and coming up with the same conclusion. let's say i'm listening to new music to find some gems, yet as expected, i keep coming across a lot of shitty ones * and the more i keep going, the more lower-quality music, based on my taste buds, comes out.

and i just stop the discovery mode when hitting absolute rock bottom. then after i give myself some time to recover, something interesting happens as i get back to listening to one of those songs that made me think "meh" before; suddenly, after being exposed to truly horrible ones, somehow starts to sound actually good! and even i catch myself enjoying them and saving them on my playlist!

i don't think this only applies to music but to all areas of our lives. the thing is, i can't even comprehend how much shit is going through us without being noticed and falling into the acceptable box out of this extremely dangerous thing called comparison that is happening at the back of our heads non-stop, subconsciously, based on what's available to us at the given moment. and that's quite scary.

yet another new experience has just been announced, called "train for gladiator ii glory." among all the other icons, this one is arguably the most iconic. it's set to take place in the actual colosseum in rome, and they've shared a bit about it on their site. it will feature real gladiator fighting. *

i'm not sure if they'll be choosing actual fighters for this, if not, it might be boring to watch. and will there even be a mass audience allowed to attend? so many questions... it's happening on november 27th, so i guess we'll just have to wait and see.

what i like about this entire icon series is how airbnb focuses on individual experiences rather than trying to cater to everyone, yet still manages to capture the attention of a large audience.

there's a lot of heated debate about whether something like this should even be allowed, but honestly, amidst all the crazy, bad things happening in the world, why not let a crazy good thing like this happen? can't we just enjoy something, even for a little while?

aaand here's their promise: (i'm sold!)
"you will feel the adrenaline rush, the sand between your fingers, and the weight of your armor. you will hear the echoes of gladiators past in the colosseum's catacombs and the unmistakable clank of steel in its arena. you will see the moon's reflection off the travertine stone through the sweat dripping down your face. you will become a gladiator."

a renaissance man, fun, intellectual, nerd, multicultural, and genuinely good person; at least this is how i see him. as someone who is a regular reader of his essays, i can say his ideas, insights, and overall demeanor in both professional and everyday life make him a role model worth emulating. his education is equally extraordinary (as mentioned above).

in a y combinator interview, he mentioned how, while working on the website they later sold to yahoo, he and his friend stumbled into the dark web out of curiosity. if i remember correctly, they were at harvard's library when the fbi detained them. during the interrogation, his friend explained, 'we were just curious to see what's going on there.' after a long questioning session, they were placed under fbi surveillance for a while. classic hacker stuff, right?!

oh, and here's a photo of him (he's the second from the left).

when sherlock holmes stories were first published, the street numbers on baker street only went up to 100. sir arthur conan doyle deliberately chose a fictional door number to avoid disrupting anyone's real-life residence with the immense popularity of his stories.

the road that now includes 221b baker street, located north of marylebone road near regent's park, was actually called upper baker street during conan doyle's lifetime. in his earliest writing, conan doyle placed sherlock holmes' home on upper baker street, explaining it with, "if i had a house in mind, that's where it would be."

later on, nigel morland, a british crime writer, claimed that conan doyle, later in life, pinpointed the intersection of baker street and george street, about 500 meters south of marylebone road, as the true location of 221b.

today, this address is home to the sherlock holmes museum, which still receives letters addressed to sherlock holmes from fans all over the world.

being caught between the "need" to fit into the life around us, (avoiding exclusion), and this surmountable "desire" to stay true to our essence gnawing at us inside is, i think one of the biggest problems we face. basically, what we want is at odds with what we need, rather than being complementary.

plus, this exclusion is serious and can be more devastating than a child being left out of a game. hence, we live in this strange `cancel culture `where exclusion is announced to everyone and their granny.

yet, the silent destruction happening within a person who cannot live authentically goes completely unnoticed, thus receiving no attention because it is invisible. it's a game we all know, but one we collectively agree to play in order to maintain our societal sanity at the detriment of our individual mental health.

so the question becomes the reverse: what are the biggest problems humans are having with modernity?

lost was the show that kick-started an interest in me to tell stories. it taught me it doesn't matter how cliche your storyline is; if you can tell it well and keep things interesting, you can make everyone glued to their screen. (come on guys, it wasn't just the mystery that kept us begging for the next episode; there was more to it!)

it's like lost opened a new era for tv series back then and had a major influence on what kind of content people wanted: well thought out, full of intricacy, super detailed, nuanced, and featuring interesting, complex characters. i believe american tv series experienced its peak during this decade.

so this was my introduction to great storytelling, and from there, i kept binge-watching a lot of series and stumbled upon some epic ones along the way (see: house md), (see: breaking bad), (see: mad men), (see: how i met your mother), (see: house of cards), and a whole bunch more...

all this subconscious education from the very best led me to write my own short stories, which i published on some websites. to my delight, i received some great feedback. nowadays, however, i don't write fiction; though it cracked open the writer within me. kudos to you lost :)

here i am, writing this entry with teary eyes in the early morning because of this game. i was already loaded with unnecessary emotions tonight. i figured i'd log into the game, do some random quest or whatever, just to distract my mind.

i was rescuing this guy from the dungeons during a mission. after saving him, i noticed there were other prisoners in the same dungeon. since i had rescued him in some random castle in the middle of nowhere, i thought i might as well save the others too. so i killed everyone in the castle, thinking "who's gonna feed these guys anyway?" then i unlocked all the cells, and they scattered everywhere.

i turned around and saw this nord guy - looked kinda scruffy but decent. i'd thrown some useless clothes from my inventory on the ground. suddenly, this dude jumps in front of me and says something like, "bro, sorry. if those clothes aren't important, could i take them? my stuff is a mess."

the screen gave me two dialogue options: "don't you dare touch my stuff" and "sure, bro. no problem." i let him take the clothes, and i swear his eyes just lit up. he immediately bent down, picked up all those crappy clothes i'd thrown away, put them on, and looked totally happy.

i saved the game and quit immediately. damn poverty, man.

such creative work from airbnb, absolutely loved them all! you can see all those icons on their homepage * basically they are custom designed places to stay to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

my favorite one is edna's house from the incredibles. the following image and its commentary, which is coming directly from the mouth of edna mode, made me laugh hard :)

image

"you might recognize that mural on the wall. it was a gift from a super whose supersuit i designed. he goes by the chiseler. exceptionally talented."

the only down part is they were only available for a very limited time, not sure why was that. they must have spent an astronomic number on those designs, to only shut them down after a month? that's crazy.