dear friends of the web,

last thursday I took a visiting tango friend to the prince islands via a 1 hour ferry ride from Istanbul, where we had a small adventure scrambling down a dirt hill, and were rewarded with a secluded, rocky beach, and clear waters, all to ourselves.

that was fun, except that I woke up the following week with a gradual unveiling of intensely itchy bug bites all over my body, perhaps fifty in total. my left arm looks as if three ants had a picnic lunch crawling all over it. each bug bite has its own lifecycle and peak of itchiness, but my body only revealed 5-10 bites at a time, slowly, over the course of a week.

it makes me think about the innate rhythms of the body, and nature, and the difference between initial activation vs. delayed release. there is definitely some creative wisdom here.

was the adventure worth 50 bites? I’m not sure.

~

🍊 this week: I talk about the internet as creative practice on my podcast, share a stone dial I made for my morning ritual, and notes on time from my archives.

🎙️ the internet as a creative practice

on inhabiting yourself on the internet, by relating to it as a public vessel for your ongoing self, in all your creative expressions.

this is an audio expansion of an original post I wrote, a few months ago.

LISTEN ON APPLE | LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

the internet as a creative practice — kening zhu

on inhabiting yourself on the internet

💎 my morning ritual stone dial

a new invention that I use everyday. after practicing a morning ritual for 9 years, I finally figured out a tactile system to hold it.

my morning ritual stone dial — kening zhu

a tactile system to hold evolving routines

🔮 messages from the archives

the internet as a creative practice

the seed that inspired this week’s podcast

the internet as a creative practice — kening zhu

a philosophy for how I create and share everyday

moon shaped time cards

a set of cards to represent time

moon shaped time cards — kening zhu

a poetic tool for parceling time

a manual stone clock

a poetic experiment from dark days

a manual stone clock — kening zhu

how i keep track of time these days

time flow for creative work

on letting go of over-planning and time scarcity

time management for creatives: how to stop overplanning — kening zhu

a radical approach to time management for creatives -- on letting go of overplanning to live in the creative flow.

deep time vs. linear time

clock time vs. deep time.

📝 notes (what's rolling around my head)

• the distinction between 3 rhythms: (1) being inspired by an idea, (2) executing and producing it, and (3) sharing it with the world. each rhythm has its own energy cycles and patterns, and don’t always harmonize with one another. we aim to be consistent with sharing, but inspiration/execution is rarely consistent. which rhythm do you put your energy into prioritizing? how do you balance between them?

• being bored with my hyper focus: podcasting is a new creative medium for me, and one that’s been a total, high-effort black time hole. I spent last week recording 4 podcast episodes, only to find that my microphone wasn’t connected. I did it again this week, and edited them, painstakingly trying to distill and cut down on unnecessary verbage (call me a little obsessive-meticulous), but ended the week feeling very grumpy at how long it’s taking me to edit audio, and totally bored by hearing myself talk. this tells me two things (1) my podcasting sprints need to be ~2-3 days, MAX, and (2) I need to find a new process that allows for all three: spontaneous speaking + distillation of ideas + simplicity of editing.

• writing & drawing in notebooks: I used to be a 100% handmade, hand-painted kind of girl back in 2019. but then when I started traveling, I bought an iPad and moved my entire creative life to digital. while digital has given me immense speed and power, and my myriad of digital vessels — Procreate, Obsidian, Ulysses, Notion, Figma — are all crowded, rich places. but recently, I’ve been craving an analog sketchbook practice again, and have been wanting to write more longhand. I have two notebooks for these purposes, and I intend on filling them to the brim.

🍄 inspiration log

• listened to: “The Victim” by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki va The Paris Review podcast while I was making this recipe for turkish-style green beans. an old-fashioned kind of kinky Japanese tattoo love story. the narration is spectacular.

• listened to: this Mubi interview with Park Chan-wook on DECISION TO LEAVE. an intense movie that I know I’ll rewatch.

• intrigued by: this 1922 book, “Mazes and Labyrinths” by W.H. Matthews - which you can read for free, via the public domain library.

• reading: Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao my aunt compared my life to hers, of vagabonding around the world. reading this is half pleasure, half research. I’ve been thinking about ways to tell the story, and more so on what is the story I want to tell. something about restlessness, and living a life that is unimaginable to my ancestors.

  
  

🌸 goodbye for now...

until next week, my friends.

wishing you secret adventures,

🪼 kening

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🗺️ this is guide.notes 43, a weekly letter on creative alchemy.

🍃 find me on my podcast: botanical studies of internet magic.

🪷 explore working with me via my 1:1 containers: advising, mentorships, and creation services.

💧 send me a gift. water my world.