the fabric of existence

· 2 min read

In the heart of bustling Kabul, amidst the rushing crowds and perfume-spice infused air, at the very end of the winding alleyways, invisible and unreachable to those who look for it, sits an elderly woman.

She takes a sip of her tea and rummages around for her tools. The scent of cardamom tea mingling with warm wool and dried jasmine. Her gentle hands wrapped in wrinkles of whispered stories. She begins to hum quietly. Preparing. Preparing to stitch the fabric of existence.

Yours. Yes yours.

She plunges her hand into the patterned basket full of fibres and thread, pausing momentarily to ponder, yes, this is the one. The one she’ll use today. She inspects the thread, nimbly passing it through the needle and begins to weave.

You’re the thread of course. The central thread, the essence of it all. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

As she makes the first pass, you’re plunged into it. Speedily you criss cross through the ocean of fabric, winding and colliding with the neighbouring threads, interleaving and intertwining through it. Speed is the directive. You need to reach the end, a straight line. You fight and struggle, coming dangerously close to wearing thin, to being lost in it all and just when you’ve reached the end of your tether, there’s a pause.

You look around. You’re enmeshed. The threads either side of you, touching, holding, supporting. Each point of contact, a memory, a story, a blessing. Some a chance encounter, a fleeting whisper, others a longer embrace, but all connected. The perspective widens, and the tapestry sings. It echoes in an infinity of colour, the threads patterning the fabric in a radiant iridescence.

A wave in an ocean. A grain of sand on the beach. A thread in the fabric of existence.

The old lady flashes a subtle smile, as she reaches for the next thread. The central thread. The most important one of them all.

continuing learning as an adult

· 2 min read

As I enter into my 30’s, it becomes abundantly clear who is curious, enthusiastic and still fascinated by life… and who is not.

Some people seem to stop learning after formal education ends. They settle into routines, consume the same content as everyone else, repeat the same conversations. Hold onto fixed opinions and beliefs.

Others remain vibrant—always exploring, connecting ideas, animated by new discoveries.

Here is a reminder for me on how to be in the latter group.

  1. Write daily about anything and everything that fascinates you. Writing is just thought manipulation. Being able to string together thoughts into a coherent narrative or logical structure is an essential skill

  2. Read daily. Read widely. Look for clues in everything. Consume ‘good art’ whether that’s literary fiction, longform essays, or films that challenge you.

  3. Recall or summarise. Reading is not enough. You need to process it, either by summarising it in your own words or expanding on it. You can be even more systematic and put everything into a spaced repetition system like Anki 1

  4. Talk about the topics you read about with other people. In conversation, you’re forced to explain topics using your own understanding. You can also be challenged if you decide to hold an opinion.

  5. Use LLM’s. They are excellent for bouncing off ideas, asking for criticism, blind spots etc. 2 You have PhD level intelligence in your pocket.

  6. Build something with what you learn. Code a project, write an essay, create art, cook an ambitious meal. Application reveals gaps in understanding that passive consumption never will.

Staying curious isn’t about having more time or being smarter.

It’s about having a practice.

  1. But that is for mega nerds and is incredibly dry. Medical school destroyed any romantic notions I have about anki ↩︎

  2. I’ve linked Claude to my ‘obsidian’ database using MCP. ↩︎

returning to blogging

· 2 min read

I recently listened to an interview with Tyler Cowen and Rick Rubin, on the Tetragrammaton podcast. 1

He mentioned the difference between Substack and Blogging. Substack is better for long form essays of 1000-2000+ words that gets emailed out to people.

Blogging on the other hand, is much better for shorter posts.

Cowen mentions he treats his blog as a journal writing about everything and anything that he wants to explore further.

I see the value in this. Shorter form posts remove the barrier or anxiety of trying to write a coherent 2000 word piece. You’re free to think in public, play with half baked ideas and posit questions without answers. You can post links, threads, ideas much more frequently.

So this is what I’m going to do moving forward.

What’s important for me is to keep a practice of writing and reading going. Deleting social media (particularly Twitter) has helped with this.

Every Saturday morning, I’ve been going to the Waterstones in Bloomsbury and reading long form journalism (The London/New York Review of Books, The Economist etc).

I even downloaded an RSS reader, and am immersed in my favourite blogs once again.

All of this, has made me want to write and blog more - both publicly and privately. And I’m much better off for it.

  1. I was happy to learn that if Tyler Cowen were to live anywhere, he would pick London. ↩︎