Bonjour! Welcome to dispatch #4. • Paris I spent almost two weeks in Paris at the beginning of February and wrote a short post about my time there. It includes hotel and coffee shops recommendations as well as lots of photos. Copy Copy is the core of a user interface and yet, it’s almost always an afterthought. Every company struggles ...

Hi friend, Welcome to dispatch #3. Hope you had a good start to the new year :) ~ Winter in Providence I'm still enjoying the cold walks (and hoping that local shops keep the Christmas decorations up for just a little bit longer). Reminiscing Berlin ... So I made a short post about my trip there. It's mostly pictures and coffee shop re...

Hello hello Welcome to dispatch #2. ~ Walking in the cold There's something special about it. It's so refreshing and mind-clearing. Christmas lights somehow make you feel warmer. Your favorite podcast makes the miles fly by. Or maybe you get lost in a conversation with your favorite person. Your face gets a free cryotherapy session. Pe...

Hello friend, welcome to my first dispatch :) ~ Walking around Providence A few photos from the last warm fall night (it conveniently fell on #halloweekend). Here's the iconic Westminster Street: And here's the coziest nook of the Jewelry District (about ~5 min walk from the Westminster St pictured above): Fun fact: this area used to b...

Hello friend, You’re receiving this email because you subscribed to my HEY blog :) While I used to post there, I never sent out my posts via email (until, well, today). I have since moved my whatever-comes-to-my-mind writing to my website, and I let this HEY space sit dormant for over a year. I will now be reviving it as a way to share...

can't live in a polluted world. noise, visual short-term

Excess, middlemen, bureaucracy. See it, recognize it, question it, go against it, revoke it. What a waste of life, otherwise. Lack of taste brings the taste. Lack of meaningless words creates space for results. One’s true place one can feel if one allows to… It’s that simple, which makes it not so.

partly by necessity, partly by choice devoid of taste, somehow richer with restraints, somehow freer i’m more aware and that what I’ll remember as I die

There are two ways to live in the present. One is with disregard, ignorance, and fear. Going around in a rush, reaching for the short-term gain, to be felt here and now. With complete disdain for the process, let alone appreciation of the tiniest details. Another one is with respect. With focus. With realization that all you really hav...

Our ability to talk, analyze, and plan can be a disadvantage. It’s too easy to take it too far. We get carried away in the wrong direction, trying to iron out the nitty-gritty details of hypothetical problems. Once we start working, we realize that we never even come close to those “problems”. The flow of work resolves them organically...

There’s distance between stimulus and response. Often that distance is zero. Often I go straight to the response, without realizing what I am responding to, without realizing that I am, in fact, responding. It’s not a problem, as long as the response is the correct one. But what if it’s not? Then it’s time to pause. The pause is the di...

… is to do your best, whatever it is you’re doing, at the very moment you’re doing it. With focus and respect. With concentration, awareness, acknowledgement. With acceptance of who you’re, at that very moment. And no matter where you are, no matter the circumstances. That’s the simple part. The hard part is to figure out what is worth...

Sometimes we add things when we should remove them and remove things when we should add them. Example 1: Adding instead of removing We add more lanes to the roads, thinking it’ll solve the traffic issue. It does for a few weeks or maybe months. And then it goes back to the previous state. This phenomenon is known as induced demand or B...

If you have a week to go anywhere, it’s tempting to hit as many places as possible. Check, check, check. Off the bucket list. It looks great on paper. But what happens to and in your head? If you’re anything like me, you easily get overwhelmed. You need to spend at least 2 or 3 days in a new place to start making sense of things. And t...

Tickets, stickers, business cards, post cards, drawings, notes, photos, chocolate wrappers, coffee cup sleeves. Maybe they have sentimental value, maybe they have good design. Things worthy holding on to. Things that become even more meaningful with time. Keep them, organize them. The process of organizing itself is meditation, reflect...

It’s like an obstacle course. You jump over ads in your feed. You jump over ads in your stories. You go search for a friend and the explore page attacks you with random stuff. You constantly, consciously tell yourself where to look, what to read, what to ignore. It's draining, mentally and physically. Seeing friends' pictures is heartw...

I made a twitter account a few months ago. I made it because I wanted to follow a few people I admire, mostly in the urban planning field. Big mistake. First, I expected that I would only see their posts in my 'feed'. How naïve. If you follow x, you may want to follow y... See this post because it's also about urban planning No, no, no...

Night, avenue, lamp, apothecary Meaningless and obscure light. Live as little as a quarter of a century - All will remain. And no way out. Die - begin anew It will repeat, like in old times. Night, the glacial ripple of a canal, Apothecary, avenue, and light. — My translation of Aleksandr Blok’s poem

Light, wind, rubber, field. It's meaningless to be elsewhere. It's meaningless to leave this place, Because my happiness is here. Cold, metal, stairs, clock. It's pleasant to feel this pain, It's pleasant to know I can, Because without it I'm just nothing. Darkness, moon, fake grass, and music. You lead me where I can be. You lead me w...

At any point of your life, aim to be a beginner in something. The moment you get comfortable with it, try something else. Repeat. Aside from learning tons of new things, you’ll also learn patience. Each time you go through this cycle, you’ll have a clearer understanding that a beginner stage is just a stage. And if you could get throug...

Between humbleness and humiliation. Being who you are, not underselling, not overselling. A good way to test is to write about yourself and then show it to a friend. They’ll tell you if you’re pushing too much or not enough.

The systems we set discourage us from revising our work and improving. They also draw a hard line between creation and revision. Example 1 - high school writing You write a paper, hand it in, done. Maybe you revise it. (For extra credit). If you revise it, you probably already have that next assignment hanging over you. So revision bec...

You are a professional. So act like one. Set standards for yourself, adhere to them. If you find yourself around people that accept subpar quality as a given, don’t fall into that trap. You have standards, that should be your guide. Don’t copy others when it compromises who you are. But copy those who inspire you. When in doubt, ask yo...

Emphasis on “an”. Wake up, go to the gym, walk to Seven Stars. Get a coffee, jot down some thoughts. Go back home, clean the apartment while listening to Tim Ferriss podcast. Cloudy, gloomy, quiet morning. Perfection.

Practice the foundations. Always. Not only when you're a beginner. At some point, foundations will become easy. That's great - it means you're getting stronger. Still, keep on polishing those foundations. Of course, practice more advanced stuff too but don't let go of the basics. Because there will be another point when foundations bec...

I love Mondays. A rainy Monday after a sun-filled weekend. It’s resetting. It makes it easier to concentrate. I love a good routine to go back to. It also makes it easier to concentrate. It opens up space for creativity. A work out in the morning, a coffee after, a walk, and then work, work, work. May everyone love their Mondays. 💙

I hate restaurants It’s mostly the uncertainty. I like to know what’s going on on my plate, all the ingredients, weights, macros. I love food as is - no extra oils, sauces and other frippery.* At restaurants, you just don’t know. Sometimes you ask for the dressing on the side and they bring you EXTRA dressing on the side. Sometimes the...

“If you like the painting, don’t get to know the painter.” ... I think it goes something like that. Sometimes it’s true. Sometimes the painter is a douchebag. Or not. Sometimes you stand next to them, but don’t want to say anything. It doesn’t feel like the right time. Or you don’t want to interrupt them. Let them live the normal life....

You are free to go whenever and wherever you are. Most of the time, people don't care if you leave. Some of the time, even if they do care, they'll forget about you in a couple of weeks. Life moves on, things keep on happening. When you leave, a place doesn't remain in a vacuum. The time is still ticking. It's very rare for your absenc...

I had never been a competitive person. Not only I have zero desire to be the top in —whatever—, I also find competition to be distracting from one’s physical and mental self. Competing implies that you’re devoting as much self to it as possible. Everything you do is a supplement to that one goal. That’s just too much unnecessary pressu...