notes app; all i want for christmas is that liminal space where every day feels like sunday
on planners, recipe channels, farewells for the year and the self-consciousness of personal branding
Hola!
Sav here.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays friends. Hope you, family and friends, have a lovely break season together.
With nearly zero annual leave and partner headed back to our home country, I’m stranded in Australia this Christmas break and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
No thoughts. Head empty. Waking up at any time I want (though inadvertently between 7-8am) and heading straight to a coffee shop, beach or park.
All I want for Christmas is that liminal space between 27-31 December where every day feels like Sunday, proving once again that time is a social construct and this is the way humans should lead their lives; waking with the sun, spending time on something that provides them both short-term fun and long-term joy, and resting with the moon.
I’ll be publishing a 2024 retrospective tomorrow morning sharing my personal thoughts on the year gone past. On societal expectations, on personal betrayal, on leading a life of intentionality. It’s going to be a bit of a heavy one.
So let’s have some light ones here.
A planner in a pear tree
My girlfriend got me a Hobonichi Techo this Christmas! It’s a Japanese-made, multipurpose planner in an A5 size, with monthly/weekly/daily spreads and a bit of a cult following. I’ve always loved the idea of running a planner and perhaps this year is the time I finally get it to work - though ideally, I’d use it more for recordkeeping and journaling (leave day planning to the digital calendar). I read this gift as symbolic of returning to the more articulate, stationery-obsessed self I was at the start of 2024.
Let him cook!!
In the same vein of documentation, I’m thinking about adding a ‘recipe section’ to my Substack given that cooking is something I really like doing, is one of my major time sinks and reckon that I’m not half-bad at it. I’d cater to that audience of kinda-busy but not overwhelmingly busy twenty-year-old schedule who needs a few recipes on hand to keep the lights on or impress a date while being nutritious, delicious and relatively affordable.
The only problem is that I never measure anything. My recipes would go: add a blob of butter, simmer till your inner demons tell you to stop, if the vibes are right - the temperature is too.
little boats of farewell
In a call with Discord friends who I haven’t met in like, forever, I was reminded of the Stand with Ukraine Humble Bundle I purchased in 2022, offering an incredible 2000+ collection of indie, self-made games for a 10 USD pledge of support for Ukraine. The Ukraine Humble Bundle raised a marvelous $6 million dollars in war relief.
Since it seemed fitting to the new year, we downloaded a game called little boats of farewell by npckc, a 10-minute point and click adventure where you collect a paper boat, write down something you want to say farewell to this year, and send it down the River of Goodbyes.
I wrote ‘multitasking’ on my boat.
In my desperate, greedy attempt to do everything - I end up doing everything but not proficiently, reducing my progress and happiness in all of them. It keeps me busy, but busy doesn’t necessarily mean productive or fruitful, and often times, all it does it take me away from the moment.
I don’t want to operate with that mentality going into 2025, giving myself and the people I’m with my full respect and attention.
On that note, making a short visual novel type game doesn’t seem too hard and would be a cute project to try! I’ve already written up my 2024 retrospective, but perhaps by 2025 one can manifest in the form of an interactive novel!
It is no longer enough to be hot and successful
I read a Substack post (which I wish I could pull up) about how some celebrities have literary consultants to tell them what books they should haul around for paparazzi and publication purposes, a concept I had always known from Jack Edward’s celebrity book club series. It is, without a doubt, a play in personal branding.
And the truth is - I do think that way. I’m not impressed by the manager with a great, stable career. I’m not impressed by the A+ student destined for the dean’s list. I am impressed by the A- student who plays basketball on a semi-competitive level. I am impressed by the insurance broker who pursues an acting career on the side. I am impressed by those who lead “ordinary” lives with a splash of something left field, whether it’s an episode of entrepreneurship, call of creativity or obsession with public transport.
Not that I’m a celebrity, but I’m wondering how much my resolution of Substack and online writing is my most recent, subconscious play of ‘something left field’ - a desperate cry of differentiating myself to every other twenty-something analyst on the corporate flywheel; where it’s not enough for me to be traditionally successful, but must also be ‘intelligent’ and ‘have deep thoughts’.
That’s all from me this week. Once again - happy holidays, stay safe and drunk drive responsibly.
☕ Currently visiting: The Dose Cafe, Alexandria
📚 Currently reading: Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
🎶 Currently listening: Gracie Abrams, Zedd, Knock2
