CC: 2 — Big Life Update Reveal

Hi buds —

Welcome back to C’mon C’mon! I’m Ratik and BOY has it been a busy month.

A few readers replied to the previous issue of the newsletter. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words. I hear you, I see you. I just couldn’t get back to you. In the rush of getting the first issue out, I forgot to toggle a particular setting in my newslettering software. This made the newsletter go out from an email alias rather than my actual email. As a result, I did see each of your messages but had no way to actually reply back. I’ve patched this up now and things should work as expected. Hit reply and let’s find out!

Life Update

The Big Update from last month is that I started a new job! I’ve joined Kagi on a full-time basis. It took only ~eighteen fricken months to find a job I like, send in an application for it, hear back (ANNOYINGLY rare), interview, and finally get in. What a ride. 0/10 wouldn’t recommend.

I’m quite excited to be a Kagian. Kagi is a public benefit corporation focussed on building ad-free, privacy-focused products. Their flagship offering is a search engine, which is accompanied by other products to help you browse the web, translate, consume the news, etc. All of Kagi's products have user privacy and safety at the center.

I strongly identify with Kagi's ethos of building more humane technology. We have a lot of cool stuff being built internally, which I'm excited to put out into the universe.

As is tradition for me, I published a little blog post talking more about my motivation behind choosing Kagi as the next stop on Career Express. You can read it here.

Human Loops

This past month has flown by. Starting the new job introduced a lot of new stimuli into my life, leading to many thoughts and feelings. One such thought I've been mulling over is what I now recognize as one of my human loops.

Imagine a video game you've played in your life. Any game will do. A video game can be thought of as a never-ending cycle. The game constantly checks for the player's input (like a button press) and updates the game's world based on those inputs. This continuous cycle, running behind the scenes, is called the game loop. I think humans also have loops in our minds that make us who we are. Some loops are good, while others can be bad.

A loop I often find myself in goes like this:

1. Overworking at my job (out of enjoyment)

2. Tired at the end of the day

3. No time spent on things I actually want to do (hobbies, my own projects)

4. Dialing back work by settings boundaries

5. Progress at work slowing down

6. Missing enjoyment from work

7. Back to 1

I've been stuck in this loop for the past month. Initially, I told myself to be present-focussed and allow things to take their natural course. This quickly got out of hand. I was ending workdays feeling exhausted, with no energy left for activities that help me recharge. As a result, I would start the next workday feeling drained. Ugh.

I'm trying to get out this loop by tracking the time I spend working. I'm using an app called Balance to help me do this. Balance lets me "clock-into" work by pressing a button and runs in the background throughout the day. I check the timer on it periodically and stop working around the eight hour mark. So far, this has been helpful. My hunch is that I will eventually settle into a rhythm at work and won't need an app to help me. In the interim, this system works.

No Pain, No Gain?

Speaking of hobbies, I'm trying very hard to make writing one. Writing doesn't come naturally to me. It just always ends up being a huge undertaking. I've heard prolific writers call the act of writing a visceral experience. I relate to that. When I write, it feels like I'm clawing things from the depths of my mind and soul. It is so hard to articulate fleeting thoughts and shape them into something clear on the page.

I've been trying two things to aid my writing process. First: I've disabled all AI-assisted writing tools from my Mac. I am a heavy Raycast user. One of the features Raycast provides is quick access to AI commands through shortcuts on your computer. One such shortcut is called 'improve writing'. This shortcut lets you select any piece of text, hit a keyboard shortcut, and BOOM — it improves it for you using AI. Objectively, this is great user experience design. Subjectively, however, this feature became a bad habit for me. The ease of use led me to using this feature way too much. Giving this writing hack to someone learning to get better at writing is a recipe for disaster. I kid you not, there were times when I would put down mere words in a document without any sentence structure and then tell AI to improve the writing. Crazy. I'm glad I caught onto this behavior and turned this feature off. The result is that writing is painful again, and perhaps it should be?

Second: distractions are the bane of sustained writing sessions. My most productive writing occurs when I am alone, late into the night. The peace and quiet allow me to zone in on the writing process. To eliminate distractions, I am working on creating an iPad-only writing workflow. The iPad is more limiting than a Mac. Multitasking is much harder, so I am less likely to open YouTube and get distracted on an iPad compared to a Mac. A few weeks ago, I modified my Happy Hacking Keyboards (HHKB) to be Bluetooth-enabled using the Yang BLE mod. These keyboards are typically wired, but I found a supplier in China who makes Bluetooth microcontrollers for HHKBs. I ordered one, bought a battery locally, and voilà — my HHKB and iPad workflow is ready. It works like a charm! Modding tech gives me such a kick. Oof.

Magical Bean Juice

I enjoy having rituals that mark the start of a new season. Winter's ritual is reading in the sun. Summer's ritual for the last few years has been switching my daily coffee from a hot latte to an iced latte. However, this year, that changed.

After months of contemplating, I finally decided to get a Hario V60 for making pour-over coffee this year. I had resisted this for many years. I live with a rare condition called SMA, which affects my muscle strength. So, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to lift a heavy kettle and pour water with precision into a V60. I decided to take the plunge anyway. What’s the worst that could happen? Once all the equipment arrived, as expected, it took me some time to develop a process that worked for me. I encountered two challenges.

First, I needed to figure out a way to hold the kettle in a way that worked for me. For most people, lifting a kettle and pouring is a simple task. I attempted to do this but quickly realized it wouldn't work for me due to my arm strength. Instead, I followed my natural instinct of pouring with my right arm while supporting the (hot) kettle using a towel in my left hand.

The second challenge was the height of my table. The setup for brewing a pour-over has a certain height. When placed on a table, it becomes even taller. Pouring from a kettle with precision at an uncomfortable height while sitting in a wheelchair proved to be quite difficult. My current solution to this problem is using two different surfaces for brewing coffee. I begin at my coffee station, where I grind the beans, and then move to a lower surface for brewing. Although this method leaves my space a bit messy, the delicious coffee makes it worthwhile.

Once I sorted out my process, I began focusing on the actual recipe for brewing coffee. It took me almost the entire summer, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I brewed some excellent cups this past week.

I've also been using AI to help me get better at pouring. After each brew, I share images with ChatGPT and ask it to analyze my coffee bed and offer tips. Quite fun!

At one point, I asked about pouring technique and it was VERY eager to generate an image for me to put its point across.

We are living in wild, wild times, folks.

Making Mundane Photos

After a short break, I'm gradually getting back into photography. I had paused because I felt I had nothing interesting to capture. I don't go out that much and spend most of my time at home. There's only so much you can shoot within the same space.

My friend Arun has recently dived deep into the world of photography. He shares his work in a group chat we are part of, and it's been wonderful to see the progress and improvement in his craft. Many of his photos capture how light interacts with objects in his home or the places he visits. Seeing this was just the motivation I needed to get out of my slump. I'm trying to embody his spirit more to take photos of random bits and bobs around the house. I also plan on carrying my camera out with me more so I can get some diversity of locations to play around with.

For additional motivation, I'm consuming a lot more photography YouTube. The quality of videos people produce on there is just so good. A few channels I've been enjoying are: Roman Fox, Chris Orange, Tom Humble, and of course the fantastic Faizal Westcott.

I'm also back consuming and posting on Glass. Arun's on Glass too. Check his work out :)

That was all I had for this month! Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end.

Monsoons are in full swing here in North India. Winter is coming. I'll soon be sitting in the sun and reading books that have been queuing up. Iced coffee will get replaced with lattes and cappuccinos. Time keeps going on and on and on and on, and so should you.

See you next month! Until then…

C'mon C'mon,

R