It had been four days.

At first, I didn't really mind it. It was actually a nice song, even if it was in a language I barely understood. You'd think that would make it easier to ignore, but for some stupid reason, it did the opposite. I wanted to understand it.

So I started learning it.

Not entirely because of the song, or at least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Learning Spanish had been somewhere on my imaginary list of things I'd eventually do anyway.

Learn another language.

Travel more.

Run consistently.

Become one of those people who folds their clothes immediately after doing laundry.

You know, impossible things.

But then I heard the song, and suddenly Spanish moved much higher on the list.

I started with a few words, then sentences, then questions. I could understand little pieces, though I still had to translate most of them first. There was something satisfying about hearing something that would've sounded like noise a few weeks earlier and suddenly realizing that I knew what it meant, or at least maybe parts of it.

The problem was that somewhere along the way, I became a little too fond of the song itself.

And then, for reasons that are probably better left unexplained, I decided I needed to learn how to stop listening to it.

Friday​

I tried working that morning, but I couldn't really concentrate. I tried watching something, ate something, scrolled through whatever was on my phone, and basically did everything except the things I was actually supposed to be doing.

Eventually, I opened Spotify.

There it was. The song.

I stared at it for a few seconds and told myself not to play it. Then I played it anyway.

Fuckin hell.

I listened for a while before stopping it somewhere in the middle. That had become one of my strange little rules. If I couldn't stop myself from playing the song, at least I wouldn't finish it.

I'm not sure what exactly that was supposed to accomplish.

Maybe stopping halfway somehow counted as progress. Maybe I was trying to prove to myself that I still had some control over it.

Either way, a few minutes after closing Spotify, the song started playing in my head again.

Fuckin hell.

So at around 11:00 AM, I grabbed my bike.

I didn't have a destination, which is generally a terrible way to begin what would eventually become a ten-hour bike ride. I just knew I wanted to go somewhere. Anywhere, really.

There's something useful about cycling when your brain refuses to shut up. Your body eventually becomes too occupied with keeping you alive to entertain whatever nonsense is happening inside your head.

Watch the road.

Avoid the car.

Change gears.

Drink water.

Don't hit the old man.

Why is this guy even walking in the bicycle lane?

For a while, it worked.

The song disappeared.

So I kept going.

I wasn't really keeping track of where I was headed. I followed familiar cycling paths at first, then roads I'd only ridden a few times, and eventually places where I had to keep checking the map because I wasn't completely sure where I'd end up.

It was hot. Really hot. Like searing hot.

This was Singapore, around noon, and for some reason I'd decided that this was the perfect time to conduct whatever psychological experiment I was apparently conducting on myself.

I stopped somewhere along the way to drink some water and checked my phone. Spotify was still sitting there, obviously, and for a second I considered opening it.

Nope.

I knew exactly what would happen.

Pandora's box could stay closed for another hour.

I put the phone back in my pocket and got on the bike.

That one counted as a win.

By early afternoon, I had made it somewhere along the coast. The sea was ridiculously blue that day, and there were families everywhere.

Kids running around.

Cyclists passing each other

People sitting on benches underneath the trees.

Normal human beings who apparently understood that you're supposed to relax when you go to the beach.

At one point, I passed a kid building a big sandcastle. It was actually impressive. The kid had built walls around it, a few pointed towers, and one taller tower sticking out in the middle. I don't know how long he'd been working on it, but against the blue water behind it, the whole thing looked almost too perfect for a random afternoon at the beach.

For a few seconds, it might've been the happiest place on Earth.

I kept cycling, still looking around more than I probably should have been, when some kid in a Mickey Mouse shirt wandered into the cycling lane. His father pulled him back just before I reached them.

Even Mickey was apparently trying to kill me that afternoon.

I laughed at the idea and rode on.

That's basically how the afternoon went. Every now and then, something completely ordinary would remind me of the song.

A word on a sign.

Something somebody was wearing.

A stupid joke I'd remembered.

Sometimes absolutely nothing at all.

There didn't even need to be a reason.

The song would simply decide it was time to play again inside my head.

And every time it did, I pedaled a little farther.

Somewhere along the coast, I passed a couple of workers unloading crates of bottled water from a truck. There were dozens of them stacked beside the road.

For some reason, I looked at all those bottles and thought, that's a lot of things to keep sealed.

Hopefully nobody planned on dumping them into the Pacific.

Anyway.

I kept cycling.

At some point, probably after crossing into the second town, I started wondering what exactly I was doing.

There is a word people like to use when you can't stop thinking about something.

Obsession.

I've never liked that word.

Maybe because it sounds like you've surrendered control. Maybe because it makes affection sound like a disease. Or maybe because there isn't really a clean word for that strange distance between liking something and realizing you've become far more attached to it than you ever intended.

I don't know.

Maybe that's why I was out there in the first place. A little distance couldn't hurt.

I preferred detachment.

That sounded healthier.

More mature.

Very psychological.

Apparently the way to achieve that was by cycling across the island under the midday sun until my skin started cooking.

Extremely healthy behavior.

So I kept going.

By late afternoon, I had crossed two towns and was well into another. I don't remember exactly when my legs started complaining. Probably several hours before I actually decided to listen to them.

At around 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM, I finally stopped at a coffee shop.

I needed caffeine. Or sugar. Or intravenous fluids.

Anything, really.

I parked the bike outside and walked in. The place was busy, but not packed. There were people working on laptops, a few groups talking over coffee, and some people sitting outside at the al fresco tables despite the fact that air-conditioning existed approximately ten feet behind them.

I ordered one coffee.

While waiting, I moved toward the other end of the counter where drinks were being handed out. I glanced around mostly because I had nothing else to do, and that's when I noticed this giant board hanging on one of the walls.

It was covered in photographs and handwritten notes.

I walked closer.

Some of them looked like reviews. Others were random messages people had left behind. There were birthday greetings, thank-yous, jokes, little drawings, and notes obviously written for people who weren't there.

Some were messages for friends.

Some were for family.

Some were clearly for people they loved.

There were inside jokes that probably meant absolutely nothing to anyone except two people somewhere in the world.

I spent a few minutes reading them.

Near one corner of the board was a small holder with blank pieces of paper in different colors and sizes. There was a marker beside it.

And the song started playing inside my head again.

Fuckin hell.

“One coffee for Chiz.”

Right. Reality.

I collected my coffee and went outside. There were a few empty tables in the al fresco area, so I picked one and sat down.

In front of me was a cup of coffee.

And a marker.

And a small piece of paper.

I sat there for a while.

The song was still playing, although it wasn't as loud anymore. Maybe the cycling had worked. Or maybe my brain was simply too tired to keep the volume up.

And for reasons that made perfect sense to me at that particular moment, I started wondering how far a cup of coffee could travel before it gets cold.

Across a city?

Across a country?

Across the Pacific?

Eleven time zones, perhaps.

That would be a pretty stupid journey for a cup of coffee.

It would definitely be cold by the time it arrived.

I laughed at the thought.

Then I drank it myself.

Roads Ran Out​

I could have gone home after that.

Actually, I probably should have.

It was already late afternoon, I'd been cycling for hours, and whatever energy the coffee gave me was mostly being spent convincing my legs that we weren't done yet.

But going home meant stopping. And stopping meant silence.

And silence had been dangerous lately because silence was usually when the song became loudest.

So I got back on the bike.

The afternoon slowly turned into evening. The heat became a little more tolerable, buildings started lighting up, and the crowds changed. People were heading home from work while I was apparently trying to determine how many kilometers were required to achieve emotional enlightenment.

I still didn't have an answer.

At one point, I stopped somewhere I hadn't planned to stop and bought something to eat. I remember looking at the menu for longer than necessary.

One of the sandwiches was from a brand called Andes.

I stared at it for a few seconds longer than anybody reasonably should.

Then I ordered something else.

No particular reason.

And continued cycling.

Then I continued.

There were moments when I actually forgot about the song completely.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Maybe longer.

Those were the good parts.

I'd notice the road, the wind, the lights, whatever was playing around me. I'd start thinking about work or something I needed to do the next day.

Then I'd realize I hadn't thought about the song.

Which, naturally, made me think about the song.

Brilliant.

I crossed another town.

Then another stretch of road.

By then, my legs had stopped negotiating with me. My calves had been complaining for a while, and I was doing my best to ignore them.

Still, I kept going.

I think part of me believed there had to be some magical distance where memory stopped having jurisdiction.

Ten kilometers.

Twenty.

Fifty.

A hundred.

Across an ocean, perhaps.

But apparently the human brain doesn't give a shit about geography.

By around 9:00 PM, the road finally ran out.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

There was nowhere useful left for me to go.

I stood there with the bike for a while, staring ahead.

Well, Fuck.

If that road had continued, I honestly think I would've continued too.

Maybe until midnight.

Maybe until Saturday.

Maybe until Sunday.

Maybe until I accidentally found my way to the Pacific.

I don't know.

Eventually, I turned around.

Bus Stops​

When I finally got home, everything hurt.

My legs hurt. My back hurt. My shoulders hurt. My face hurt. My head hurt. Even parts of my body I wasn't aware participated in cycling had apparently filed complaints.

I showered, changed clothes, and eventually ended up lying flat on the floor of my room.

Not the bed.

The floor.

Don't ask.

For a while, I just stared at the ceiling.

The room was quiet.

And strangely, so was my head.

I remember thinking that maybe I'd done it. Maybe it had actually worked.

For several hours during the ride, the song had become quieter. There had even been stretches when I didn't hear it at all.

Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe the next day would be better still.

Maybe eventually it would just become one of those songs I knew by heart but didn't feel the need to play anymore.

I closed my eyes.

Then the song started playing again.

Loud.

Much louder than before.

Fuckin hell.

It felt like it was coming from everywhere.

The walls, the ceiling, the air-conditioner, underneath the door.

Every stupid little corner of the room seemed to know the melody.

I rolled over.

Still there.

I picked up my phone.

Spotify. Don't.

I put it down.

A few minutes later, I picked it up again.

Spotify. Please don't.

Eventually, I couldn't stand being in the room anymore.

So I left.

I decided I'd sleep somewhere else that night.

I packed a few things into a bag, walked outside, and got on a bus. I sat beside the window and watched the city pass by in streaks of white and yellow light.

But the song followed me.

Of course it did.

Somewhere between one bus stop and another, the song became so loud in my head that I finally stopped fighting it.

I was tired. Really fucking tired.

I just want to let go. Please.

So I just sat there and listened.

There are things you can run from, and apparently there are things you can cycle from too. But there are also things that will happily cross several towns with you, sit beside you on the bus, and follow you into whatever room you choose to sleep in that night.

Somewhere on that bus, I started wondering whether I had misunderstood what I was trying to do.

Maybe I didn't need to outrun the song.

Maybe I just needed to accept that I might never hear it again.

Four Days Later​

I got sick. Of course I did.

Ten hours cycling under the sun apparently has consequences.

Who knew?

My arms were badly sunburned, my face looked ridiculous, and then came the cough and the flu. For several days, I mostly stayed inside feeling sorry for myself and reconsidering every decision I'd made since approximately birth.

But something strange happened while I was sick.

The song became quieter.

It was still there when I woke up. Mornings were usually the worst.

There would be those few seconds after opening my eyes when my brain hadn't fully woken up yet. Everything would be quiet.

Then I'd remember.

And there it was. The song.

Sometimes I'd reach for my phone, open Spotify, find that song , and play it.

At first, I'd listen to almost all of it before stopping.

Then half.

Then less.

There were still days when I'd lose the argument with myself and let the whole thing play.

Fine. Start again tomorrow.

Eventually, stopping halfway didn't feel like some enormous act of self-control anymore. I could hear the beginning and decide I didn't need the rest.

Then there was one morning when I didn't play it at all.

And one afternoon, sometime around lunch, I suddenly realized something.

The song hadn't played in my head that day either.

Not once.

I actually laughed.

Because naturally, noticing that I hadn't thought about the song immediately made me think about the song.

Brilliant.

But something had changed.

It felt farther away, like music coming from another apartment. You can still hear it if you stop everything and concentrate, but you don't have to.

For the first time, I understood that maybe forgetting had never been the point.

There are songs you forget because they weren't particularly important.

And then there are songs you remember perfectly but eventually stop needing to play.

Maybe detachment wasn't deleting something from your head.

Still Playing​

I got back on the bike a few days later.

Not another ten-hour ride.

I'm stupid, but apparently capable of limited learning.

My skin was still recovering, so I waited until later in the day. The weather was better, and this time I actually had some idea where I was going.

I put my earphones on and opened Spotify.

For a second, I saw the song sitting there.

I ignored it.

Instead, I picked something else.

Something familiar.

Something safe.

Then I started cycling.

A few songs passed while I rode. Then another. Then another.

I wasn't really paying attention to what Spotify was choosing anymore. I was thinking about the road, watching people pass, wondering what I'd eat later.

Normal things.

And eventually Spotify did what Spotify does.

The song came on.

That song.

For a second, my fingers instinctively moved to skip.

Then I stopped.

I let it play.

The road stretched ahead of me. Trees on one side, glimpses of the sea through them, cyclists occasionally passing in the opposite direction.

And there it was again.

The same song I'd spent days trying not to hear. The same one I'd carried across several towns. The same one that had followed me into a coffee shop, onto a bus, into another room, and somehow across an ocean it had never actually crossed.

It sounded different.

Or maybe I did.

I thought about skipping it, but I didn't.

So I just kept cycling and let it play.

I still didn't understand every word.

But I understood more than I did before.

"There are many rooms in my Father's house. I am going to prepare a place for you." - Jesus

July 2025.

I was in Thailand with my wife. We had been occupied most of that day and hadn't really checked our phones.

Around 11 PM, we managed to get some free time and finally looked at our phones.

There were dozens of missed calls from my brother in Canada, from my family in the Philippines, and from my brother-in-law in Singapore. Different people, different places, but all of them were saying the same thing.

Karen might not have long.

I don't really remember the rest of that night properly. There are pieces of it that I can still recall, but everything else feels blurred together.

I remember arguing with my wife over something. Some disagreements over something, or maybe a lot, I don't know. I remember her telling me she was searching for flights back to Singapore, only to find out that the earliest one we could get was around 5 AM the next morning.

So I told my family.

Five in the morning. That's the earliest flight we could get.

Then I tried to at least do some work.

I opened my laptop and stared at whatever was on the screen. I probably answered something or joined a meeting. I think I typed a few emails, maybe I replied to someone.

Honestly, I don't remember.

My body was in Thailand, my laptop was in front of me, but my mind kept circling back to the same thought, like it was trying to find a way to tell me, like, I shouldn't be here.

Not tonight. Not now.

Twinful​

I have a twin sister.

Karen and I were born together. I was technically older, by around 40 minutes maybe, which I sometimes used as enough justification to pretend I had some sort of older-brother authority over her.

But in reality, I didn't.

Growing up, though, we had this strange connection. I don't know if I'd actually call it telepathy because that sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but there were moments when it felt like our minds somehow knew what the other was thinking without either of us having to say anything.

Back in college, there was this one night when she went drinking with her friends. All girls.

And yes, one of them was my ex. Let's just call her the Joyful Mystery. She was actually one of my sister's best friends. It's complicated, really. Don't ask.

Anyway, I tried to call them since it was already late and our mother will be coming home soon, but I couldn't reach them.

I'm not exactly the greatest brother in the world. I'm far from being a role model, I've made plenty of stupid decisions myself, and again, I was only 40 minutes older than Karen.

But I was protective of her.

I just wasn't very good at showing it.

So I went looking for them.

Fortunately, I also drank a lot back in college, which meant I had some useful knowledge about where drunk college kids usually went before heading home.

There were these places where we'd eat something hot and sober up enough that our parents wouldn't immediately know what we'd been doing all night. Usually lugawans (places serving lugaw, arroz caldo, rice porridge, things like that.)

I checked one. Nothing.

Then I went to another. And there they were.

My sister, her friends, the Joyful Mystery (we weren't really dating yet at that time).

All alive, all drunk.

Of course, I didn't walk in like some amazing brother who had checked multiple streets and hangouts looking for a missing sister.

I just approached them, waited for them to finish eating, and then Karen and I went back to our condo.

We barely spoke on the way home. I could tell she was mad, or maybe embarrassed, or maybe worried that I was going to tell our mother.

When we reached the condo, we separated and went to our own beds.

We never talked about that night again.

We talked about a lot of things, but somehow there were still plenty of things we never really needed to talk about.

Back when we were living in Antipolo, (around 2007 or so?), I had my own room. Her room was beside mine, but sometimes she'd use mine whenever I was in Manila.

One afternoon, I came home and immediately got scolded by our tita.

She had found an ashtray inside my room. Cigarette butts, ashes. and everything.

What followed was probably an hour or two of being lectured about smoking at a young age, bad influences, bad decisions, destroying my future, and whatever other terrible life choices apparently started with that ashtray.

I was pissed the whole time.

I didn't own an ashtray. I didn't even fucking smoke.

After that day, I never saw another cigarette butt in my room. I never smelled smoke there again either.

I didn't really talked about it with my sister.

Maybe there just wasn't a natural way to bring it up, or maybe neither of us knew how.

So I let it go. or maybe I simply forgot about it.

There were a lot of things like that between us, no discussions on some things, just silent understanding.

That also included the Joyful Mystery, which was one of her best friends.

She had become a mother at a young age and already had a son, and honestly, I don't think Karen ever fully liked the idea of us being together.

She never directly told me not to date her friend. She never really said anything at all.

Maybe she didn't want me dating her friend. Maybe she didn't want her friend dating me. Or maybe she knew both of us well enough to realize that putting the two together was probably a stupid fucking idea.

I think it was 2013, when Joyful Mystery and I went to our place.

We weren't doing anything. We were literally just sitting at the dining table when Karen opened the door, and she saw the two of us.

Then she immediately closed the door again and walked away so fast that my brain went into full panic mode.

I left the Joyful Mystery sitting there and chased after my sister, and weirdly enough, I didn't know why I was panicking.

Was Karen angry? Also no idea.

Maybe she wasn't even angry. Maybe I just assumed she was.

Well, that was the incident. The first and the last.

And naturally, because apparently this was how Karen and I handled half of our problems, we never really talked about it afterward.

It's funny.

You can grow up beside someone, share a birthday, share parents, childhood memories, friends, secrets, and the same fucking womb.

And still somehow be terrible at communicating.

Maybe we always assumed there would be more time to talk about things later.

One hour​

Past 9 AM, Changi Airport.

Our plane had just landed back in Singapore.

I was asleep when the tires hit the runway. The screech of rubber against concrete woke me up, and for a few seconds, my brain hadn't fully caught up with where I was yet.

I opened my eyes and looked at my wife sitting beside me at the window seat.

She was staring at her phone.

There was something wrong with her face. Not physically, just the expression. I think she was still upset about the fight, or maybe she was still processing. I couldn't read it.

Then she looked at me.

"Karen is gone."

My brain didn't register it. Not immediately.

She kept talking about my brother calling, my mother, my tita, people trying to reach us.

But I wasn't really hearing any of the the words.

It felt like somebody had suddenly lowered the volume on the entire plane.

I took out my phone and called my brother-in-law.

He answered, struggling to speak. Then somehow he got the words out.

Karen had stopped breathing.

And suddenly my brain caught up.

It felt like being hit by something massive.

A truck, a wall, a bird, an airplane. I don't know.

We got off the plane, collected our small luggage, and booked a ride straight to Singapore General Hospital.

When we arrived, we rushed inside.

Outside Karen's ward, my mother and tita were sitting on the metal seats. Their eyes were swollen and their faces looked exhausted. My wife and I went inside.

Karen's bed was at the far end of the ward, hidden behind a thick green curtain. My brother-in-law saw us, walked over, and the three of us stepped through it together.

And there she was. Karen.

The first thought that came into my head was incredibly stupid.

This is the first dead body I've ever seen.

I've seen dead bodies in movies, TV shows, documentaries. You see them enough times that the image itself becomes familiar, somehow.

A person lying still. Eyes closed. No movement.

I think I've seen it before in real life too, but I don't remember it.

But this was different, because this wasn't some person or some stranger.

Our mother used to tell us that we shared the same "bed" inside her womb.

Nine months together before either of us even saw the world.

Born on the same day, in the same place, forty minutes apart.

Technically, we entered this world together. I had never really thought about what that meant.

Maybe somewhere in some stupid corner of my mind, I assumed we'd also leave it around the same time.

Not exactly together, but close enough.

Both of us arguing about whose memory was worse.. Something like that.

Instead, there she was. She was my better half, literally my other half. Prenatally.

Everyone was crying. My wife. My mother. My tita. My brother-in-law.

He told us Karen had tried to stay awake despite struggling to breathe. They probably already knew where everything was heading. They probably knew they were watching the finish line approaching.

And we were late, by around one hour.

We crossed countries and flew back as fast as we could, and still missed her by sixty minutes.

Really fucking great, Jesus.

I don't know who I was angry at.

Myself? The airline? Thailand? Cancer? God? Myself? Time? Myself?

Probably all of them. Maybe none of them. I don't know.

The empty space​

Eventually, the nurses took Karen's body away.

My brother-in-law went with them, while the rest of us went back to our places.

Because apparently when someone dies, the world cannot stop, which is really one of the strangest parts.

There are still stuff to do, calls to make, schedules to arrange, funeral preparations, people asking questions, and people waiting for answers.

Life continues doing all these completely ordinary things while yours feels like it just got split in half.

The funeral would be held at the void deck, which is what they call the open ground-floor area beneath their apartment block.

I've walked past countless funerals at void decks around Singapore.

You see the tables, plastic chairs, curtains, people sitting quietly, a casket somewhere inside. Sometimes there's music. Sometimes prayers.

And most of the time, when you pass by one, you just keep walking, Because it isn't your funeral.

It isn't your family. You're just somebody passing by. An outsider looking in.

This time, I have to walk inside. And not just for somebody I knew.

Really fuckin great, Jesus.

On the first day of the funeral, I still had work. My family tried to understand.

I hadn't told my team at work what was happening before that. That day, I finally told them I wouldn't be able to attend toward the end of the week because that would be my sister's burial.

I think they were supportive and understanding. I really can't recall. Maybe I didn't care to remember.

On the other hand, my wife was upset with me. Maybe angry. I think we fought because I was still working while my sister's body was at the hospital being prepared for the funeral. I honestly don't remember exactly what we said, or what I said.

I barely remember that entire week.

Those days feel like someone recorded everything, deleted random parts, then stitched whatever was left back together.

That night, I went downstairs to the void deck.

Nobody was there yet, but everything had already been prepared.

Tables and chairs were arranged neatly. At the front was a cross with Jesus looking down from it, and beneath it was a space where Karen's casket would go. body would be brought here the next day, and the funeral would begin.

But that night, it was just an empty space. I sat at one of the tables facing it.

Just me. And that empty space.

I don't know how long I sat there.

Maybe I was waiting for something.

Maybe I wanted someone to walk in and tell me I was at the wrong place. Maybe I wanted to wake up, but I wasn't even fucking asleep. Maybe I fucking hate this empty space.

Eventually, I stopped looking. I closed my eyes and put both hands over my face, and just stayed like that.

There are moments when your body seems to understand something before your mind does.

Your brain keeps trying to negotiate.

Maybe this. Maybe that. Maybe somehow.

But your body has already surrendered to the truth.

Twinless​

The last day came.

We were at the church, with Karen's casket brought to the front. A priest came in and started the Mass.

I appreciated my brother-in-law's family being there. I don't think some of them were Catholic. Maybe none of them were.

It didn't matter.

They came. They sat with us, stood when everyone stood, and stayed.

After Mass, we followed the casket outside as it was brought toward the vehicle that would take her to the crematorium.

Our family and my brother-in-law's family boarded a bus they had rented.

After an hour or so on the road, we arrived at the crematorium.

We entered the observation room, where a large glass window overlooked the floor below.

Then Karen appeared. Or rather, her casket did.

It slowly moved across the floor while music played in the background.

I watched it travel toward another room, where the furnace was.

The room where the wood, fabric, flowers, and the body would disappear into heat.

That's when something finally clicked.

Not at the hospital.

Not when my wife told me on the plane.

Not when I saw her at the ward.

Not when I saw her inside the casket.

Not even during Mass.

There.

Watching that casket slowly move away from us.

There was no negotiating with that image anymore.

No maybe.

No later.

No more unfinished conversations.

No more silently understanding each other.

No more getting annoyed and deciding we'd deal with it some other day.

No more other day.

For almost my entire life, the word twin meant there were two of us.

It wasn't something I thought about.

You don't think about having two hands until one of them is gone.

Some things are simply there.

Permanent.

Built into the structure of your world. She was like that.

I had never existed in a world without a twin.

It felt like a stupid thing to think about at the time, but the truth was, I had never really imagined a world where there was only one of us.

Even before I had memories, she was already there.

Before we had names.

Before either of us had seen our mother.

Before light.

Before sound.

Before the first breath.

There were two of us.

We were twinful.

Then that casket disappeared into the room.

And suddenly there's just one.

Twinless.

I don't know if there's supposed to be some grand lesson at the end of something like this.

Maybe an older version of me would have tried to find one.

Build character.

Become stronger.

Change your perspective.

Some poetic bullshit like that.

But cancer doesn't always leave you with wisdom.

Sometimes it just takes someone.

Sometimes it leaves an empty chair, an unused pair of glasses, a birthday that now belongs to only one living person, and photographs that suddenly become more valuable because there will never be another new one.

Sometimes it leaves a twin staring at the word twin and wondering whether he still gets to use it.

Am I still a twin if the other one is gone? I don't know.

A fucking stupid, fucking selfish thought.

People say someone lives on through memories.

Maybe that's true. I have plenty.

Arguments we never started.

Arguments we never finished.

Things we understood without saying anything.

Forty minutes.

And one hour too late.

I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with all that information.

Maybe nothing.

Maybe you don't "move on" from some people. Maybe you just keep moving while carrying the space they used to occupy.

And every now and then, you look at that empty chair at living room, expecting them to still be there.

For more than three decades, somewhere on Earth, I knew there was another person carrying the same birthday, the same childhood, the same parents, and pieces of the same story.

Then cancer decided there should only be one of us.

So yeah.

Fuck you, Cancer.

This was a draft I've written sometime ago, probably around December 2021.

Whenever I have a bad day, or something shitty happens and everything just refuses to go the way I planned, I usually resort to one of two things.

I either go outside and run until I completely lose myself in the moment, or I sit down and write whatever's going through my head.

Unfortunately, there's a storm expected to make landfall in our area, and I didn't exactly want to end up stranded somewhere once the heavy rain started pouring.

I did manage to do some rope skipping in the pool area in my building earlier.

And while I was balancing myself between steps, my mind somehow decided to play a continuous slideshow of everything that happened during the past six months.

As with every start of a new year, we tend to be optimistic that the next 365 days will bring something better.

At least, that's how I imagined 2021 would be.

I wasn't expecting everything to suddenly return to normal, of course. We were still in the middle of a pandemic, and going outside without masks was still pretty far from reality.

Countries had started opening up and easing some restrictions as vaccines were being rolled out, although there were still plenty of limitations everywhere.

People were getting vaccinated here too, just at a much slower pace, with priority being given to those who needed it most.

No complaints from me there.

We were able to register for vaccination through our local government, so all we really had to do was wait until our turn came.

Anyway.

Going back.

I finished my first #100DaysOfCode Challenge on February 14.

Feeling victorious, I decided to immediately start another round.

The next day became Day 1 again.

Then Day 2.

Day 3.

There were some bumps along the way, but I kept going. Then someone reached out to me about an opportunity for a new role at their company. I wasn't really serious about moving at the time, but I figured there was no harm in entertaining it.

A recruiter called me and we went through a short screening.

I wasn't really prepared, so I probably missed a few important points that I should've mentioned.

They never called back after that.

And honestly, I was still fine with it because two more companies reached out shortly afterward.

I didn't admit it at the time, but those calls definitely fed my ego a little.

I knew they were probably looking for someone with a lot more experience, and I still saw myself as somewhere around the middle of the talent spectrum.

I've learned a lot from working across different industries during the past five years, but I also know I'm still a long way from being an expert.

Still, I decided to take my chances.

I went through the phone screenings, revamped my profile, updated everything, and started submitting applications.

Then I got hooked on all the after-work meetings and interviews with different prospects.

Eventually, I stopped my #100DaysChallenge and focused on those meetings instead.

The Two Almosts​

I got pretty far in the process with two different companies.

One role focused on infrastructure automation using AWS.

The other was a Docker and Kubernetes support role.

Both looked promising.

Both showed interest.

I carefully weighed my chances with each one, and after several conversations with my wife, I decided I was ready to step out and move on to something new.

At that point, there was really only one thing left to do. Wait.

So I waited.

Then a week passed.

The support role finally sent an offer.

Unfortunately, the offer was lower than what I expected, and I didn't want to leave the opportunity I already had in my current job just to move somewhere else for almost the same deal.

I had good conversations with three different team leads, and they gave me the impression that they genuinely wanted me to join.

Unfortunately, the recruiter eventually came back and told me that they would no longer be proceeding with my application.

That one hurt a little.

Of course, I understand that a company has every right to reconsider if they no longer think the move makes sense for them.

I raised my concern with the person I'd been coordinating with for more than a month, but I already had a feeling that it was the end of the line.

So I thanked her for all the help she'd given me and moved on.

Besides, I still had one more opportunity waiting.

Or at least, I thought I did.

The second one dragged on for almost two months and involved a lot of follow-ups.

Every time I checked, I was told that management was still reviewing everything.

So I waited. And waited.

By this point, I had already stopped entertaining other potential employers because I had pretty much locked myself onto this one opportunity.

I knew I shouldn't make plans around a decision that could still change.

But I felt good about how the technical panel interview went.

Three weeks became five.

Five became seven.

On the eighth week, I reached out to my friend who worked there and had referred me for the role.

I asked if he had heard anything from the recruiter.

He got the exact same response I'd been getting.

Then the following week, he messaged me.

The recruiter had decided to put my profile on hold for now.

That one really felt devastating.

With both opportunities gone, I was back at square one.

I've experienced a lot of rejections before.

And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

I've probably spent hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hours going through applications and interviews since graduating from college.

But these two?

Damn.

They felt different.

Stand up five​

I tried going back to my normal day-to-day routine.

I'll admit that it wasn't easy getting those two could-have-beens out of my system.

Then I got sick.

Twice.

I was losing a lot of fluids and became so weak that I could barely function for almost a week each time.

I didn't want to think too much about it because I eventually recovered after taking medication, but during those two periods, I spent most of my time lying in bed.

No running.

No workouts.

Nothing.

My body was basically on downtime.

I eventually recovered physically.

The anxiety bubbling underneath everything, though?

That didn't disappear quite as easily.

Stand up six​

Eventually, another call came in.

And this time, I took home the gold.

There was still a lot of back-and-forth thinking before I finally told my teams at my current job that I'd be stepping out and heading in a different direction.

Everyone was incredibly kind about it.

My teammates and team leads were warm, generous, and supportive.

Honestly, if it were possible, I probably would've brought some of my teammates with me.

Change is hard.

Change is uncomfortable.

But sometimes, change is necessary if you want to grow.

Stand up seven​

A few days before my final week at work, I got sick again.

This time, it was my eyes.

I won't go too much into the details, but it took a pretty serious toll on my productivity.

Around the same time, I tried restarting my #100DaysOfCode Challenge again.

And once again, I had to abandon it because I was simply too disoriented with everything happening around me.

Then, as if life hadn't already thrown enough at us, my wife was diagnosed with nodules in two different parts of her body.

Naturally, we were worried.

We were hoping the doctor would simply advise us to monitor them for now or prescribe some medication.

Instead, we were told that the lumps needed to be removed.

What followed was an entire afternoon of rushing from one place to another to get laboratory tests done and submit all the necessary documents.

The following day, we found ourselves inside a hospital room.

Fortunately, our health card covered the expenses.

At that point, the only thing we really had to worry about was how the surgery would go.

Stand up eight​

It's been almost four days since we left the hospital and came back home.

My wife is much stronger now, although her stitches are still healing.

My eyes are recovering too.

If the weather cooperates, I might finally try running again tomorrow morning.

And somewhere in the middle of everything that happened, I also managed to pass the AWS SysOps Associate certification exam.

I'm now on Day 3 at my new job.

Six months ago, I probably wouldn't have believed anyone who told me this was how my first week at a new company would look.

Starting a new job while being completely occupied with things happening at home.

I've always told myself that whenever I enter a new environment, I want to give it my full and undivided attention.

Well.

So much for that plan.

As much as it sucked to have the previous months throw one blow after another, I can't really say they were the worst days of our lives.

We've been through worse.

We definitely took a beating, though.

But we got through it, didn't we?

Man, those speed bumps forced me to slow down more times than I wanted.

Sometimes you don't really get a choice.

You slow down.

You regroup.

You refuel.

You catch your breath.

Whatever verb you want to use.

And strangely enough, sometimes the universe does seem to lend a hand when everything starts feeling too difficult to carry.

I don't expect things to suddenly become smooth sailing from here.

They probably won't.

What I do know is that I'll try to solve whatever can be solved.

Take the losses when needed.

Take the hits.

And then stand up.

At eight.

At nine.

Or at a hundred.

As many times as it takes.

If you've read up to this point, I'd like to give my utmost thanks.

I know this is usually an avenue for all things technical, but I just thought I'd share a side of myself that isn't only about work, studying, certifications, or programming.

Sometimes, there's also everything happening in between.

Draft from November 2021.

"And that, I think, is the real shift in thinking: When you shift from being a learner to a problem-solver.*

I realized that once you've finished a course, learned the basics, and started working on actual projects, you rarely go back and re-watch an entire section of the course just because it happens to be related to whatever issue you're troubleshooting.

Instead, you usually do one of two things.

You either:

a. Go through your own notes or documentation to see if you've encountered the problem before, assuming you trust your documentation enough, or

b. Take the much easier and quicker route and Google it, search Stack Overflow, or look for a similar use case on YouTube.

So I think structured courses are really useful during the discovery stage.

They introduce you to the technology, explain the terminology, show you how things are connected, and give you some idea of what you're actually dealing with.

But once you're trying to use that technology to solve your own problems, things become different.

At that point, instinct usually kicks in.

You Google the error and hope somebody has already asked the exact same question on Stack Overflow.

Or maybe someone uploaded a 12-minute YouTube video three years ago that somehow solves your exact problem.

Another thing I've noticed is that courses can become outdated pretty quickly, especially when technologies move at a really, really fast pace.

AWS Cloud computing examples come to mind (you can skip the list below if you don't care about the details):

1. One day, EC2 limits are described in terms of a fixed number of instances per region.
2. Later, the limits are based on the number of vCPUs you're allowed to run.
3. One day, ZooKeeper is an important piece of the architecture you're studying.
4. Later, newer versions of the technology start moving away from it entirely.

Sometimes the change is significant.

Sometimes it's just a button that moved somewhere else in the UI.

But when you add all those small changes together with everything else you're already trying to learn, they start becoming pretty significant.

One day, you might have several weeks to play around with this fascinating new technology you've just discovered.

Then tomorrow, someone tells you that you have two weeks to understand it and come up with a bare-minimum usable solution.

So yeah.

Things change pretty quickly.

I guess my point is that it took me almost four years, and honestly I'm still working on it, to shift away from the structured, college-style way of learning and adapt more to how knowledge is acquired in the actual industry.

When I say college-style learning, I mean the kind where you have a clear outline of what you're supposed to follow.

You start with the baby steps.

Maybe you fire up your first terminal.

Then you learn the commands.

Then the concepts get progressively harder.

Eventually, you reach the more complicated parts.

You usually know what you're trying to learn, what the problem is, and what you're expected to accomplish before moving on to the next lesson.

The actual industry doesn't always work like that.

Sometimes you're simply given a list of requirements.

And that's it.

Nobody gives you a neat list of all the technologies you need to learn beforehand.

It's up to you to figure out what tools you need.

Sometimes you aren't even given a clearly defined technical problem.

You have to figure out what questions need to be asked first.

Then you start searching for the answers.

I guess this falls under what people call ill-defined problems, where there isn't always one perfect or unique solution.

During my time at my previous job and now in my current one, I've learned a lot about how solutions are actually pieced together.

You might have help from a vendor.

You might have external professional services working with you.

You might have documentation, architects, engineers, and other teams involved.

But eventually you realize that solving problems isn't always as straightforward as it looks from the outside.

Some tasks suddenly become more important than others.

Something from the business side might come up halfway through the sprint.

A requirement changes.

A deadline moves.

A dependency suddenly appears.

And now you have to rethink which of the ten questions sitting in front of you actually needs to be answered first.

So the industry's way of learning can get pretty messy.

You search for whatever you need at that moment.

You try it immediately in your test environment.

If it works, great.

Maybe you start incorporating it piece by piece into your code or configuration.

Then you test it again.

Check the logs.

Run your unit tests.

Run OAT or whatever other validation process you have.

If everything looks good and nothing starts screaming in the logs, maybe it eventually finds its way into production.

Oh, and here's the fun part:

You need to have all of this done in four sprints or less.

No pressure.

Now, situations like this can introduce what we call technical debt.

This usually happens when you choose a quicker or easier solution today, knowing that you'll probably have to revisit or improve it later.

Is technical debt bad?

Yes.

No.

I don't know.

I guess the real answer is: It depends.

Sometimes you simply can't make something perfect.

Your solution might depend on a platform managed by another team.

A new version might change how your code behaves.

Another system could be updated.

Requirements could change again.

There will always be factors outside your control.

And sometimes getting a working solution out there lets you learn something that you would've never discovered by spending another month trying to make everything perfect.

The faster something fails in a controlled environment, the faster you can understand why it failed and improve it.

So in a strange way, we're constantly trying to find ways to break things safely so we can figure out how to make them better.

Wait. Where was I?​

Oh, right.

A shift in thinking.

I guess I've spent all this time trying to explain how structured learning differs from learning when you're already trying to solve a real problem.

So, should I stop taking courses and just focus on projects?​

No.

If something is completely new to you, you still need some sort of foundation.

And that's what courses are really good at.

They give you the basic tools that you might need later.

They show you what's possible.

They introduce you to the terminology.

They give you enough knowledge to at least know what to search for when everything eventually breaks.

Then, somewhere along the way, you start using those tools to answer your own questions.

Sometimes you'll keep using them.

Sometimes you'll realize that the tool you learned isn't actually the best one for the problem sitting in front of you.

So you drop it and learn another one.

And that's fine.

I am still confused​

Well, you're not alone.

I still haven't figured all of this out either.

I still have a ridiculous number of courses sitting on my laptop that I haven't finished yet.

And since time is a limited commodity, I've slowly developed my own strategy for learning things and actually applying them.

If my goal is to take a certification exam, I usually go through the course, do the labs, write down notes, and then prepare using practice exams.

Once I pass the exam?

I delete the course.

Yep.

No hesitation.

At that point, I know I'm probably not going to sit down and re-watch the whole thing again.

If I eventually need to use the technology for a project and I run into an issue, chances are I'll just search for the exact problem anyway.

And honestly, I like it better that way.

Instead of going back through hours of videos, I can search for exactly what I need.

Kind of like picking apples.

You grab the ones you need and leave the rest of the tree alone.

The important part is that during the discovery and review stage, I used the course to build some sort of foundation.

I learned enough to know the terminology.

I learned enough to understand the basic concepts.

And hopefully, I learned enough to recognize what I don't know.

Then comes the application stage.

That's when I start relying more on my own tools.

My notes.

Documentation.

Experiments.

And, of course, my Google-fu.

Currently, I'm preparing to take the RHCSA next year.

So by then, I'm expecting most of the RHEL-related courses sitting on my hard drive to be completely gone.

By deleting them, I'm also forcing myself to think on my own instead of constantly going back and copying the exact steps an instructor followed.

If I want to remember how I did a lab, I check my notes.

If it's not in my notes, there's a good chance it's somewhere in the official documentation.

And if it's not there?

Well.

Google probably knows somebody who knows.

Okay, I think I got it.​

If you did, then you're probably already one step ahead of me.

Again, I don't have all the answers.

Half the time, I don't even know what the right questions are yet.

But I expect to figure out more as I keep going.

I'll do more labs.

I'll break more code.

I'll tail more logs.

I'll try solutions that don't work.

I'll eventually find ones that do.

Then I'll document what happened so maybe I don't have to suffer through the exact same problem twice.

And somewhere along that process, something changes.

You stop just asking: "What should I learn next?"

And you start asking: "What do I need to solve this?"

That, I think, is the real shift in thinking.

When you shift from being a learner to being a problem-solver.

And maybe, after you've solved enough problems, you eventually move into another kind of learning altogether:

Passing what you've learned on to someone else.

Book 1 of 2024

Well, this is technically the third book I've finished since January.

I wrapped this one up around mid-February, but I only recently decided to start keeping track of my reads just to see how many I can actually finish before the year ends.

The biggest takeaway for me:

Even the most ordinary thing can turn into something deep, almost meditative, if you stick with it long enough.

Running sounds simple.

You put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

But do it consistently for years and it becomes more than just exercise. It becomes routine, discipline, solitude, reflection, and sometimes a way of understanding yourself a little better.

And I think that applies to a lot of things.

Writing.

Learning.

Work.

Anything that requires you to show up again and again, even on days when nothing particularly exciting happens.

Not everything has to feel profound while you're doing it.

Sometimes the meaning only shows up after you've done the ordinary thing long enough to look back and realize how much it changed you.

Keep moving.

The distance adds up.

Book 2 of 2024

Lots of really good advice in this one, but the idea that stuck with me most was this:

“Follow your passion” can actually be pretty bad career advice.

Not because passion is useless, but because at the start of a career, most of us don't really know yet what kind of work will give us the most satisfaction, freedom, or control.

Sometimes passion doesn't come first.

Sometimes competence does.

The book talks about shifting from a passion mindset to a craftsman mindset.

The passion mindset asks: What can the world offer me?

The craftsman mindset asks: What can I offer the world?

That difference sounds small, but it changes how you approach work.

Instead of constantly asking whether you've already found the perfect job, the perfect field, or the thing you're “meant” to do, you focus first on becoming really good at something valuable.

Explore different things, even interests that seem indirect or unrelated.

Stretch your abilities beyond what already feels comfortable.

And don't just play around with your craft.

Practice it.

Deliberately.

Push against the areas where you're still weak.

At the beginning of any career, it's difficult to draw a straight line toward the work that will eventually give you the most satisfaction and control. Most of the time, you only figure that out by trying things, developing skills, and paying attention to where those skills start opening doors.

And somewhere along the way, you might not even notice how much better you've become.

But other people will.

Maybe that's the point.

Don't wait until you magically discover something you're passionate about before you start getting good.

Get good at something worth doing.

Passion might catch up later.

Stepping away from work during the holidays gave me the breathing room to actually sit down and look back at the past year.

With every distance covered, I ended up learning a lot about myself.

Out on the pavement, with nothing but your own pacing and breath, things tend to get pretty clear.

The tally for the year:

• Five half marathons (21km)
• One full marathon (42km)
• Countless early mornings and long stretches of road

Here is to 2024.

May we all embrace both the uncertainty and the joy of the road that lies ahead.

Back in 2017, I told myself that someday I would run SCSM. It was right there on my bucket list of races to tick off.

Today, I finally ran the streets of Singapore and crossed two finish lines back-to-back—yesterday being the first.

My knees definitely took a beating and got pushed to their absolute limits. Ha!

Time for some long, well-deserved recovery sleep.

Next year, no half measures. We go for the full 42.

Majulah Singapura!

“Catalog the past, map out the future. Don't settle for a job or a profession. Seek a calling, even if you don't know what it means. The fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you've ever felt.”

Finished the audiobook for the third time.

The first was back in 2017, then again in 2019. After a couple of years mostly focused on work, staying at home, and just trying to manage life as it came, I finally played this gem again.

Noice.

What I like about Shoe Dog is that the story never really feels like some perfectly calculated path toward success.

A lot of it is uncertainty.

Bad decisions.

Cash problems.

People taking chances on ideas that could have easily failed.

Plans changing because reality had other ideas.

And yet, they kept moving.

I think that's what stayed with me this time around.

Regardless of whether the scales are tipping in your favor, you still have to work with whatever is in front of you.

The resources you have.

The people willing to help.

The mistakes you've already made.

The opportunities that somehow survived all of those mistakes.

You don't always get ideal conditions before starting something.

Sometimes you just start, adjust along the way, take the hits, and figure out the next move when you get there.

Maybe the path becomes clearer later.

Maybe it doesn't.

Either way, you keep moving.

In short:

Just do it.

“I’m smart enough now to know I’m stupid. That’s progress.”

I will skip the heavy plot twists because going into this one blind is half the fun.

It starts with a guy named "Ryland Grace" waking up with total amnesia on a spaceship, completely unsure of his own name, let alone why he is floating through deep space.

Gradually, through flashbacks and frantic experiments, he pieces together a horrifying reality.

• A spaceborne microbe is eating the sun
• Earth is freezing
• He was sent on a one-way mission to find out why one single star is immune

If you loved The Martian, this takes that exact same formula and actually cranks it up.

Except this time, he is not entirely alone.

EDIT: I also just realized something.

The ship is called Hail Mary.

The guy's name is Grace.

So, it's technically, Hail Mary, full of grace.

"I'm pretty much fucked. That is my considered opinion."

I feel like returning to this one book is always a blast.

If you have only seen the movie, you already know the setup where astronaut Mark Watney gets left behind on Mars after a dust storm forces an emergency evacuation.

What the movie trims down, though, is just how much math, engineering, and duct tape goes into surviving on a dead planet. Almost the entire book is made up of Mark's mission logs, detailing how he handles daily crises:

1. Fixing sudden oxygen leaks.
2. Clearing solar panels covered in fine dust.
3. Driving across kilometers of wasteland in a rover that constantly breaks down.

The thing I like about this, is that, Mark does not sit around despairing.

He swears, figures out the physics, and starts working the problem.

And I pretty much relate to that.

All in all, this book is a goldmine of ideas on learning, practice, and improving at something over time.

It also strongly supports the idea of having a growth mindset.

We may all start with different talents, abilities, and advantages, but we are not completely defined by them.

You can learn just enough to do what the job requires.

Or you can keep pushing further.

Practice deliberately.

Work on the parts you're bad at.

Stretch beyond what already feels comfortable.

And, given enough time and the right kind of practice, move closer and closer to mastery.

Talent may give you a starting point.

It doesn't have to decide where you finish.

Third time finishing this audiobook.

The first time was right out of college. The second was about a year later. And the third was just last week.

What struck me this time, and what I find pretty amazing, is how much my perspective toward the book has changed over the years.

The book itself stayed the same.

I didn't.

The first time I listened to it, a lot of the stories just sounded intense, impressive, and maybe even a little distant from where I was in life. Years later, some of the same parts started to make more sense because I had gone through more work, more uncertainty, more bad decisions, more pressure, and more moments where there really wasn't an obvious answer.

I think that's one of the best things about revisiting a book like this. Sometimes you don't really "outgrow" it. You just finally catch up to parts of it.

Best takeaway?

Ask the really good questions.

And how do you learn to ask really good questions?

By asking a lot of bad ones first.

By being wrong.

By missing things.

By asking something obvious.

By realizing afterward that you should've asked something else entirely.

Eventually, you get better at knowing which questions actually matter.

And yes, sometimes a whole shitload of courage really can clear paths and move mountains.

“Curiosity is the ultimate proof of a mature craftsman. Understanding that change is good. Knowing that discovering you are wrong means growth.”

One of the things I liked about this book is how much it shows that creative work is rarely a straight line.

Games, like most things worth building, go through revisions, wrong assumptions, failed ideas, changing directions, and plenty of moments where someone has to admit:

Yeah, this isn't working.

And I think that takes a certain kind of maturity.

Not just being good at what you do, but staying curious enough to question what you already know.

Being willing to change your mind.

Being comfortable with finding out that your first idea was wrong.

Because being wrong doesn't always mean you failed.

Sometimes it just means you've learned enough to see the problem differently.

And yes, after finishing this, I somehow ended up appreciating the Avatar universe even more.

Oel ngati kameie.

To be a generalist or a specialist?

I used to think you eventually had to pick one.

But after reading Range by David Epstein, I think the more interesting answer is that maybe you don't have to rush into choosing at all.

Explore different domains.

Be curious about things outside your usual lane.

Try something, leave it, come back to it years later, and sometimes you'll be surprised by how useful those seemingly unrelated experiences become.

And when you do find something that really catches your interest, go deep.

Learn the stack.

Understand how things work underneath.

Get good enough at it that you can actually build, break, fix, and explain things.

But you also don't have to spend your entire life with your foot pressed against the gas.

Sometimes you can slow down.

Coast for a while.

Look around.

Try something else.

Then come back with a different perspective.

Maybe being a generalist and being a specialist aren't really opposites. You can explore broadly while still developing depth in the things that matter to you.

And as the world around you changes, some of what you know will become useful, some will become outdated, and some things you'll have to rethink completely.

Learn.

Unlearn.

Then learn again.

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.”

Done with another re-read!

What I like about this book is that it makes learning feel less intimidating.

You don't have to become an expert right away.

You don't need to know everything before you start.

You just need to break the skill down, focus on what matters most, and spend enough deliberate time getting past that awkward stage where everything still feels unfamiliar.

That idea alone is pretty useful.

A lot of the time, we make learning harder than it needs to be because we look at the whole mountain instead of the next few steps.

Define what you actually want to learn.

Figure out the most important parts.

Practice those first.

Then keep going.

Simple in theory.

Still takes effort in practice.

But definitely easier than telling yourself you need to master everything before you can even begin.

Might go for The Martian next.

Key takeaways:

1. How you do anything is how you do everything.
2. The impediment to action advances action.
3. What stands in the way becomes the way.

It’s been about two years since I last picked up something non-technical, so this was a nice change of pace.

What I liked most is how simple the central idea is.

You don’t always get to remove the obstacle.

Sometimes you have to work with it.

A setback can force you to slow down, rethink your approach, or find a route you probably wouldn’t have considered if everything had gone smoothly.

That doesn’t mean every problem is secretly a blessing.

Sometimes a problem is just a problem.

But your response to it still matters.

You can spend all your energy wishing the situation were different, or you can start asking what can actually be done with what’s in front of you.

And maybe that’s where progress starts.

Anyway, good to be reading outside the technical stuff again.

Now, onto the next!