Into the Hideout

The Hideout 🏡

This is one of my favorite times of the year. It’s restful, reflective, and energizing in its own unique way. It’s a time to take stock of what’s happened in the past year and set some goals for the year to come.

I imagine it as my hideout, an escape from the external, into the world within. I’ll emerge from the hideout with my next newsletter – my 2022 year in review!

Feeds and RSS: My New Content Diet 📢

For a long time, I’ve been trying to figure out a mindful way to consume the content I value on the internet, without getting sucked into some social media algorithm or venturing into some nasty conversations filled with hate, blame, and vitriol.

I think I found my solution. It’s a technology called RSS, and it’s been around for a while. (If you are totally confused about what this is, this website has a good primer.)

My reader of choice is Feedbin, an indie product that’s coincidentally written in Ruby on Rails.

With this shift, I’ve done some major housekeeping:

• Deleted Twitter off my phone (since I follow select people’s Twitter feeds on Feedbin)
• Unsubscribed from all my newsletters with my personal email (Feedbin gives you an email address to route your newsletter content directly to Feedbin)
• Started to keep track of all the blogs I enjoy reading without having to check their home pages

I’m only a few weeks into using Feedbin, and it’s been awesome so far.

The Spoonful 🥄

I’m doing a scary thing and sharing some deets about a blog I’m starting that’s definitely not ready to be viewed by anyone, but hey, that’s what this letter is for.

The Spoonful is my space online to write about the intersection of technology, mindfulness and thought. Anything from poetry written in code, technology tutorials, and voicing my opinion on anything else tech/mindfulness/personal finance-adjacent could show up.

Over time, I will naturally narrow my niche and the blog will evolve. I’m very much in the creative building process, and that’s a whole lot of fun. I’ll occasionally link to some posts in this newsletter as they get published!

What I’m Playing + Reading 👾📚

With a retreat into the hideout, I’ve given myself permission to learn, read, and play.

🎮 Hades

This roguelike game based on Greek mythology might be one of my favorite games, ever. I can only compare it to a mixture of Kingdom Hearts and Binding of Isaac. If you’ve talked to me about my favorite games before, you’ll know that this is high praise.

Allow me a moment to rave about this game for a minute.

• The game has unmatched attention to detail. The narrative, character design, voice acting, music, landscapes, world-building, pacing – you name it. It feels utterly perfect.
• I love how it starts with a deceptively simple framework. You feel like a badass, right away. And then… a couple of hours in, you realize there’s more and more and more, and that you’re barely scratching the surface of what Hades has to offer.
• Ultimately, Hades is a work of art. And it’s made me feel more excited about playing it than a game has in a very long time.

I’ve convinced my brother to buy it and we’re having a great time discussing how far we’ve gotten. 😁

📖 The Bully Pulpit

• I’ve started reading a long but beautifully written biography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. Teddy Roosevelt has been an inspirational figure to me for a while, and I’m excited to learn more about his life, attitude, positions, and decisions.
• Doris Kearns Goodwin is the author, and I’ve been a big fan of hers, ever since I read Team of Rivals (about Abraham Lincoln), a couple of years ago.
• I was partially inspired to read this book after resonating with the idea that biographies are inherently better than self-help books

📖 Sacred Economics

• This was recommended to me by a friend and mentor of mine, and while I’m only two chapters in, I’m loving it so far. This is a wonderful time of year to dig into the meaning behind money, wealth, transactionality, and the ways we can make exchange sacred.

A Question for you ❓

What are you up to this break? Reading/watching/playing anything fun? Do you have plans to reflect on 2022 and look forward to 2023?