I used to live by my to-do list. There are nights when a simple checked box felt like a small triumph — dishes done, emails sent, a chapter written. But over the years I noticed something odd: the tasks I finished were rarely the ones that opened new doors. They kept the machine running. They...
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Travel
I travel slowly. Not the romantic slow-travel marketing kind that means “stay...
Lifestyle
There was a week a few years ago when I packed a bag, booked a cabin in the...
Travel
I remember a winter evening in Lisbon when a plate of bacalhau com natas felt...
Lifestyle
I’ve moved enough times and walked enough city blocks to know there’s a...
I remember a winter evening in Lisbon when a plate of bacalhau com natas felt less like food and more like memory. It wasn’t the precise recipe that made it belong to that place; it was the light in the kitchen, the bright fennel-scented market...
I’ve moved enough times and walked enough city blocks to know there’s a difference between a neighborhood that is objectively low-risk and one that simply feels safe. Feeling safe is not only about crime statistics; it’s about small rituals,...
I still remember the first time I ducked into a tiny bookshop on a rainy afternoon — the bell over the door, the smell of paper and tea, a cat stretched across a stack of travel guides. It felt like an accidental sanctuary: a place where time...
I learned Bayes' theorem while trying to understand why a headline about a “miracle” health cure would inevitably be followed by a half-dozen articles undermining it a few months later. At first it felt like a neat algebraic trick; after I lived...
I have lost count of the number of times a conversation about the weather has slid, almost imperceptibly, into a debate about climate change. Those moments have taught me more about listening than about lecturing. If you want to explain climate...
I keep a small stack of postcards in a shoebox on a high shelf — edges softened by years of handling, corners rounded by fingers that once folded them into envelopes or stuck them to fridges. They’re not all that special on paper: cheap stock, a...
I used to think ethical travel was a checklist: avoid obvious scams, don’t ride elephants, and book with the “green” company on Instagram. Over years of wandering and getting things wrong, I’ve learned it’s messier. Ethics in travel...
I learned the value of low-tech travel gear halfway up a wet ridge in Galicia, Spain, when my headlamp decided to die and all I had was a handkerchief, some hemp rope, and a stubborn sense of optimism. The headlamp’s battery light had gone from...
I decided to spend a week mostly away from screens to see what would happen to my attention and my sleep. Not an austere retreat—my phone stayed for calls and emergencies—but a deliberate, practical reduction: no social media scrolling, no news...
Every morning, while making coffee, I scroll through headlines the way some people check the weather. "New study shows coffee cuts risk of X by 40%!" the feed proclaims, next to a photo of perfectly steamed foam. My first reaction is curiosity; my...