Burned out from chasing productivity? Me too. Let's build a life designed around joy instead

What happens when you stop postponing life for "someday"? I'm spending my 33rd year running 12 experiments to answer one question: How do you build a state of joy that coexists with the uncertainty of life? This is autoethnographic research—documenting real-time experiments in creative expression, intentional living, and deprogramming from hustle culture. No guru shit, just messy truth from the wilderness.

January is loud. Everyone seems to have a plan, a vision, a glow-up timeline. Meanwhile, I’m sitting with a cup of tea, watching the trees rest, wondering why we expect ourselves to bloom on command.

This is a reflection from the space between endings and beginnings — about pressure, self-trust, and what it means to build a life without forcing clarity before it arrives.

Perfectionism doesn't make you better—it just keeps you stuck. Here's how the 80% rule helped me overcome my creative block and start creating after 10 years of waiting to be "ready."

A reflective essay on how loss became a language of its own — from losing a phone in a Scottish bog to losing jobs and identities years later. A story of creative recovery, writing as an anchor, and learning to live through the in-between.