note

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I have this #kvetch with messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, or whatever new messaging is out there.

When someone from my kid's school group messages me, they see the same name and profile photo as my old work colleagues do. Same as my book club friends. Same as people in my PKM communities who only know me as someone obsessed with note-taking systems.

In real life, I'm a slightly different version of myself in each of these spaces. Different contexts, different modes. I don't talk about Zettelkasten methods in my kid's school meetings. I don't use the same tone with former coworkers as I do with people I knew in college.

But messaging apps don't get this. They give you one name, one photo, one bio, and that's your identity everywhere inside the app. You can have different profile photos in each app, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Discord sort of tries—you can set nicknames per server and change your avatar. But your username still percolates through. Slack's slightly better, lets you customize per workspace, but then you're locked into that same identity in every channel, whether you're in #random or #doc-ops.

What I actually want: let me define who I am per group. Different name, different photo, maybe even a different bio or contact info depending on the context. Let me be "Xavier (Max's dad)" in the school chat and "Xavier" in another and "that person who won't shut up about Obsidian" in a third.

I contain multitudes, as Whitman said. So why can't my messaging apps?

article

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This morning, I wasn’t in the mood to write. Instead, I found myself spelunking through an old external drive, hunting for something specific: some old writings from nearly 25 years ago, little fragments of who I used to be.

And then, a folder titled Arena caught my eye. Teenage-me thought calling it “Games” lacked sufficient gravitas. I opened it, and there it was: my collection of favorite games — Age of Empires.

In a flash, I was back there again. I remembered my first encounter with The Rise of Rome, its demo tucked into an issue of Chip magazine1, the monthly bible for computer geeks like me in the late nineties.

The demo was a hard nut to crack. There was no Save option. Quit, and you had to restart from the beginning. It featured the First Punic War campaign: three missions, Carthage against Rome.

I spent hours wrestling with that campaign in a single stretch. It was then, though I didn’t have the language for it, that I stumbled into a flow state. I didn’t know the term yet, but I knew the feeling.

I can still feel the urgency, the way my pulse quickened as though history itself depended on me.2 The music wasn’t just background; it was the pulse of the game3, the rhythm that carried me forward.4

We all experience flow in different parts of our lives: that intense focus when we’re deep in a piece of work, the way pages turn themselves late at night, or the quiet, almost automatic shifts of gears on a long drive with music and conversation in the background.

Today, decades later, I slipped back into the game and into that same deep focus, where time stretches and the world shrinks to the size of a screen.

When I finally closed the game, I wondered if we can step into flow at will. Could we slip into that blessed state as easily as opening an application? I doubt it. Most days, we live in the noise, catching only glimpses of that quiet current.

So I returned to the distractions of daily life, grateful for a few hours when time disappeared, when I was that boy again trying to save Carthage one more time.

  1. Chip eventually closed shop and morphed into Digit.  ↩

  2. Maybe this is where my love for historical fiction began.  ↩

  3. The sound designers of the game talk about the music of the game at The Life & Times of Video Games podcast episode.  ↩

  4. I still listen to the Age of Empires soundtrack when I need a boost of flow.  ↩

photo

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Two Drivers
Two Drivers

My navigator got fed up with traffic and decided to drive virtually.

article

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I closed my laptop, walked a dozen steps, and plopped myself on the bed, when the words “I'm a big, big girl in a small, small world” appeared in my head, complete with a piano soundtrack. I didn’t know the artist, but a quick search led me to the song (earworm::Big Big World by Emilia) on YouTube. What amazes me is that I remembered the exact tune, the lyrics—everything was perfect in my memory.

A twinge of curiosity tugged at the edges of my thoughts. When had I last heard this song? I was confident I hadn’t heard it in the last decade—yet Last.fm told me otherwise: July 3, 2023. Hmm… Months had passed. What caused this song to resurface now, of all the countless tracks I’ve heard since then? And why now? I tried retracing my path through my thoughts. The thread vanished somewhere in the labyrinth of memory, a Theseus without Ariadne to guide me.

An hour later, I still didn’t know why the song sprang to life. I smiled, letting it be what it was: a fleeting, playful proof that thought and memory are never entirely ours to command. Maybe an errant misfiring synapse. Yet a reminder too, of some strange delights hidden in the quiet flicker of memory.

watch

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Superman | 🔗 imdb.com |
Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the human way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.

Machine tags 🏷️: movie:imdb=tt5950044, movie:series=Superman, movie:genre=superheroes

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I think this movie was about Superman teaching us how to be a better human.

I liked the way they assumed that everyone was familiar with the DC canon, though I had to pause every few scenes to explain the lore and easter eggs to Max.

I hope this fares as a better reboot to the DCU than the DCEU one.

article

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Last Saturday night, Max and I were watching a movie. It was already a bit past 10:45 when we started the movie. We were shifting between watching on TV or the laptop. We snuggled up on his bed with pillows piled up, snugly ensconced in blankets and began watching.

As the movie played on, we talked about scenes, characters, and dialogues. I pointed out the lore and he asked questions or asked to rewind to watch a missed scene or two.

About midway through the movie, I noticed his breathing pattern had changed — deepened. He had fallen asleep. I called out his name to verify that he was fast asleep. I slowly extricated myself from the intertwined blankets and proceeded to arrange the bedding around him when he woke up.

He wanted to continue the movie which I refused as he was sleepy and groggy. I told him we could watch the rest of the movie later. As I was tucking him in, he said, "Sorry pa" and "Good night," and fell asleep.

As I returned to my bed, his words were still on my mind, 'Sorry pa'. And it took a long time for me to fall asleep as I kept on thinking about it.

Was he sad because he fell asleep or was he sorry that we couldn't have the father-son bonding time?

Countless other thoughts kept circulating in my mind. I ran through all of our interactions throughout the day — words of praise (He had yet again got 97% in his music theory), words of frustration (at each other), words of advice, words about word origins (we had a discussion on why science usually uses precise terminologies to mean something) — and words unsaid.

The next day at church, we're sitting together and I asked him why he said sorry the previous night. He was embarrassed and said it was something he doesn't remember saying. As he turned away after complaining about his too-tight shirt, I remembered a poem by Wordsworth about fathers and sons: "O dearest, dearest boy! my heart / For better lore would seldom yearn, / Could I but teach the hundredth part / Of what from thee I learn."

read

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The Reluctant Dungeon by Lise Eclaire
After getting reincarnated as a dungeon, Theodor thought he’d finally get some rest and relaxation. That changed when a bumbling old hero stumbled into him and died, making Theodor the target of adventurers everywhere.
Masquerading as a house in the small town of Rosewind, Theo must now do whatever it takes to remain unnoticed… even if it means creating an avatar to interact with people or go on a mission set by the annoying Earl Rosewind!

Machine tags 🏷️: book:genre=litrpg, book:series=The Reluctant Dungeon, book:isbn=9798296552778

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I picked this up solely because of the cover. And it was a good choice. It was funny and an interesting take in the litrpg genre.

Might recommend this to Max.