This is an archive version of my newsletter. It was sent on the 8th of November, 2022. If you’d like to receive this kind of email as well, you can sign up here.
Summer is the season in which everything dies under the scorching sun. Nothing productive ever happens in the middle months of the year. No plants can grow. Nothing flourishes. It must therefore not come as a surprise that I’ve not sent an email to you in these months. I have also hardly read any books in that time and I did a minimal amount of sporting. And I have the data to back it up.
My ‘fitness’-level according to Strava. As you can see, the summer months killed my fitness.
My 2022 reading journey according to Storygraph. It’s clear that the middle months May/June/July were not very productive…
The summer is just a hellish season.
But fortunately that time is behind us know, and we can start doing cool and interesting stuff again. In order to do so, I’ve come up with a new sort of structure for these emails. In every email I will share with you one piece of information per category.
- Thought (something I have thought about recently)
- Art (something I have created / seen recently)
- Quote (a cool sentence I have read somewhere recently)
- Sport (sharing stats/reflections of my recent training)
- Picture (a picture I took recently)
So… let’s just start with that!
1. Thought
Traditions, rituals, and community are limiting our freedom.
This might not seem like a very thought-provoking idea. I think everyone is aware of it. But when I was reading this book about Spinoza, the true gravity of that statement really dawned on me. I have written an article on the blog about this book and about Spinoza. About how he really opened my eyes with his thinking about God, solitude, and community. Heck, I even dare to say that he got me questioning my religion….
2. Art
I’ve been working on a tree ring algorithm. It generates a slightly different (randomised) picture of a cross-section of a tree every time I run it. It’s not finished yet, but here are some examples of outputs I’ve generated so far.
My next step is to add v-markings at random places in the images, to indicate where branches may have been.
I have also downloaded some books about dendrochronology, which is the study of tree-ring-dating. A fascinating field of study that can tell us a lot about the climate on earth thousands of years ago! I think reading these books will help me improve this algorithm even more.
3. Quote
Because someone who never does truly nothing at all is not a free man in my eyes
Cicero, De Oratore 2-24
I could not have said it any better, Cicero. You are a man of my heart.
4. Sport
In September and October I’ve finished two races. Both of them trail runs. They were my first official trail runs ever, and I have to say: I really loved them! Very adventurous and technical. Very cool 🙂
- The Victoria Line trail run (19K, 497M elevation)
- Comino trail run (8K, 157M elevation)
I ran the Victoria Lines together with my sister Wies, she flew all the way to Malta for this run! It was awesome! And as you could’ve seen in the Strava graph at the top of this email, my fitness has significantly improved over these last two months because I was training for these two races. So that’s cool as well.
5. Picture
True story. I was very much off-my-tits when I was walking into this nightclub. And in some magical way, this book found its way into my hands. I started reading the book in the nightclub. The constantly changing disco light colours and interesting sounds in the background made it a very interesting experience…
I decided to take the book home. The title was ‘The Walking Stick’ (by Wiston Graham), so I was under the impression it would be a book about a stick that could walk.
Very cool concept.
When I was sober again, I realised it was a book about a girl with polio… But I still very much enjoyed reading the book 🙂 + it’s a fun story of how I obtained it.
PS I will return it next week 🙂