The State of Nats #6: Micro thoughts from the week
[Week of June 18, 2025]
Data
Books read: 1
Blinkit orders: 4
Chicken liver servings: 2
Matcha drinks made: 5
We know this was a grim week
The world is burning and everything is horrible.
I did not meet my Hobonichi journals this week.
Rh took Ru and I to a coffee shop. Then proceeded to manipulate us into agreeing with her choice of a lunch spot. Ethics violated in daylight.
I made matcha 5 times this week, using the full method. I followed each step, and relished the process. It is akin to the pleasure of detailed coffee making; There is harmony in the process, and joy in the leisure time spent to achieve a single cup of a drink.
I realised without social media on the phone, it is really a search engine device and not much else at all.
I hung out with my landlord and friend Pat and he brought me the spiciest and yummiest prawn curry.
To soothe myself on after two over stimulated days, I spent two hours in the kitchen slowly prepping and cooking Xian Bing (Chinese style crispy meat pies). Ru made an delicious dipping sauce for it, which was ponzu, fish sauce, soy sauce and dash of kewpie mayonnaise with our spiciest chilli oil, the one we keep reserved for house defence.
Someone walked out to my car which was parked in a permitted spot, and released all the air from the tyres. Instead of hiding, he came out to claim his glorious insult to outsiders (me).
I sold an old iPad to someone who was very happy to buy it. I took Ru along as a body guard. We returned home with phone numbers and friendship promises.
What is the metric of a successful life? Is it money? Is it time? Is a person reaching 110 years of age as successful as a millionaire? Is it friends? Is it family? Is it sleeping with a smile on your face? Is it waking up to joyful chirping? Is it a yacht? I have questions.
I feel guilty about playing on my playstation and I need to fix that.
📜
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced."
― Soren Kierkegaard
"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”
― Albert Camus
"If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
🛌 Sleep was harder this week
I relied on supercut videos of Brooklyn Nine Nine and Supernatural episodes to fall asleep to.
Culture Consumed
Death's End by Liu Cixin was the book I finished this week. I had a voracious appetite for this. The imagination is outstanding. The feeling of doom, the sense of variable gravity under my feet, all too real. Normally finishing a series can feel like a goodbye, but I believe this is saying hello to a new friend, a whole new story now complete. But because it is science fiction, and based on Earth's future, two days after I finished it were spent in my existentialism fever. I am in it today, but I might surface tomorrow.
I went for a 10:30 PM show with Rh and Ru for Materialists. My inner thoughts need more baking but on the surface I see a lot of value in what the movie has to say and I think it was a good one.
Rh sent me a video of Lou Wall who talks about the craziest Facebook Marketplace story. I have watched it enough to know it beat by beat.
Have a matcha week,
Nats