A bunch of stuff I wrote on my garbage blog

Something different this week

Hey, no Five Slices this week. I’m taking a break for a bit to write some longer essays and figure out what I can do differently to keep this fun for me. Why just write something for the sake of it? But in the meantime, I’ve been writing a lot on my garbage blog. I don’t mean it’s garbage in a bad way. I’m calling it garbage with affection – I don’t think of that blog as part of my identity, so I write more spontaneously and freely there. It’s like my rough notebook. This is what it looks like:

It’s like the un-sober younger brother of this blog, to borrow a phrase from my friend. Think of it as all the stuff I’d tell a friend if I called them up at 12 at night and talked till 3. So I’m just going to drop some of those articles here, which you can check out.

If you like this kind of stuff and want me to sign you up for that blog, reply “Yes” to this e-mail or drop a yes in the comments.

Here’s my top 5 articles on that blog in increasing order of favorite-ness:

1. Crying for a Broken Tolstoy: Leo Tolstoy underwent a spiritual transformation after writing his best novels, and he became a better man, but a worse writer. Some thoughts on why.

2. Akira Kurosawa and Single Sitting Disease: I don’t complete writing anything unless I finish it in a single sitting. This is Akira Kurosawa (Famous Japanese Director who made the Seven Samurai)’s advice on how to get over it.

3. A richer life needs more context: I’m finding more satisfaction in bigger books and deeper relationships. Some thoughts on why that’s the case.

4. Sacred dreams are scary to touch: Just re-read The Great Gatsby which I loved. It gave me some ideas about why I keep postponing doing the things that matter to me the most, love vs limerence, etc.

5. Who is the real me? It feels like there’s always a tug-of-war in me between two selves who have completely different priorities and natures. This is probably my favorite piece because it’s completely unhinged, lacks any structure, and has way more jokes.

Oh, I also translated a short story I like from Tamil to English. If you like “A hunger artist” by Kafka, you might like this translation: Tiger Artist by Ashokamitran.

I’ll see you next week, eager to know which one of these you liked the most.

Bye bye.