Welcome to this edition of my monthly recollection of somewhat everything that I am reading, watching or listening to, among other things that are happening around me.
You can find other editions of this series here on the blog or subscribe to get a copy each time I publish a new edition.
On Death
I was taking a nap one afternoon when my phone rang, all it said was, “Aunt is dead”. The call ended. I didn’t know what to do nor what to say. I stared on then buried myself in bed for about an hour until I couldn’t.
Auntie was sixty-two, she’d been battling illness for quite some time and then she was diagnosed with cancer a couple of months before she died. I had known her all my life. She was always with us, she probably knew more about my life growing up more than I did and now she’s gone. Her and mom were always together, up until the end.
To everyone who was with aunt in one way or the other, I’d like to say thank you. Mom, in a special way, thank you for everything, thank you for not giving up, I know it’s been tough but you’re resilient and everything will be alright
Auntie Moja, thank you for the great memories, thanks for hanging with us and mom, thanks for being a pillar of strength. We miss you
It’s hard to describe the feeling but even harder to come to the realisation that aunt’s gone, forever. I don’t think I have the right words this time around but I had to write this somewhere.
Listening
I came across Lenny’s Podcast on twitter, now X after the episode on Netflix’s culture of excellence went viral. It’s been such a gem and I have been listening to it ever since. The episode on The GitLab Way is still one of my favorites, I find it quite interesting how transparent GitLab is and I now find myself watching their public sessions on their YouTube channel.
The Rework Podcast has quickly become one of my favourite podcasts lately. I love how the episodes are largely below the one hour mark which makes it easy to listen even when you don’t have as much free time within your day. It’s really inspiring listening Jason and David talk about their approach to decision making, how they’ve built products in the past and how they work over at 37signals.
This is one of the podcasts that has been on my list for such a long time ever since I came across Rework so I’m glad I finally started listening to it.
Reading & Writing
I am trying to read the entire Bible in one year. I am currently reading ( listening to ) the book of Numbers, which is not where I wanted to be at this stage of the year but I procrastinated a lot in the beginning. I hope I can cover a substantial portion and complete it this year but I hope I can remind myself that this is a marathon and not a sprint, that it’s not only about reading but also meditating and understanding the word.
Manuel’s People and Blogs newsletter has been my go to each Friday. Reading about how people approach writing and the reason behind their blogs has been such a huge source of inspiration. He’s also got a large collection of interesting articles and his blog design is awesome.
Greg Gilbert has a new series called Papa Notes, a newsletter to help you be a great dad. I think it’s genius and Greg is such an awesome creator, I really admire his work and writing.
I have followed Rahul Chowdhury on twitter for quite sometime, he has shared a bunch of very useful tips and even inspired me to create an Umami analytics widget. I decided to check out Hurly, where he writes everything on culture, money, workflow, AI Tools and so much more. It has been a really great use of my time reading and learning from him.
The Mere Civilian has always been a personal favourite, he recently redesigned his site but I miss the minimalistic design, I also discovered he’s got another blog where he posts free-form articles.
I have spent a considerable amount of time reading, going back and forth collecting ideas and inspiration from these creators and their work. I give a lot of credit to them.
Watching
I have largely been watching a bunch of random Youtube videos on living off grid, construction projects and cars.
I have quickly fallen in love the Ambition Strikes channel, I love how Riley and Courtney complement each other. I’ve binge watched almost all the videos in the past year and I feel so motivated but mostly inspired to take on a couple of DIY Projects.
Zack’s bunker project has taken shape over the past couple of months, I can’t believe you can do this in your backyard. I’m looking forward to the next couple of videos.
I came across the WHAT’S INSIDE? FAMILY channel from one of Zack’s videos. He made such a touching video, where he ran a campaign and managed to build a School in Kenya as a gift to Zack. That’s some real bromance there, love to see it. I’ve also learned a bit of golf just from watching the TopGolf playlist.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching Daniel Riley’s videos, the Electric Boston Whaler series has been my favorite so far and I think it has made me fall in love with boats.
Sometimes sitting and spending time doing nothing other than watch these videos can seem counterproductive but it personally sparks a lot of curiosity and pushes me to learn a bunch of things. Massive shout out to all the creators making really dope content.
Miscellaneous
I made a YouTube short. It’s a pretty simple short video where i try to depict how my Mondays normally look like. I am not the biggest fan of short form content but I learned quite a lot about editing and filming in general. This little experiment taught me so much more than I’d expected to learn. I also think it’s easier to get started with shorts than long form videos. Please let me know what you think of it, where I can improve and if you have any ideas I can explore. Please subscribe while at it.
Anthropic’s Claude got me building side projects again. I’d like to think of it like a virtual cofounder and it’s been amazing so far. When Rahul mentioned it, I figured that it was a tool worth trying out and I have not been disappointed. I use Claude to brainstorm ideas, write code and fix stuff that I’ve probably broken.
Conclusion
I am happy I started reading and writing again. I’m not sure why I stopped, I’ll probably put the blame on the large piles of work even when that’s not particularly true. I’ll try and write more consistently moving forward.
This edition was honestly quite a difficult one to write. I didn’t have the right words for it and it feels criminal moving on with life as normal without my aunt.
July was one for the ages, I hope you had somewhat a more interesting month. Cheers!