There is a guilt that accompanies unread books, articles and blog posts. But there is a special anxiety reserved for unread lists of unread things. My reading list had become a totem of imagined wisdom. A shrine to the person I would be, if only I read everything on it.
When I deleted that list, I lost nothing real. I know what I want to read. I know the shape of my attention. I do not need a 7,000-item database to prove that I have taste or ambition.
There’s one quote in the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals that sums it up for me. “It isn’t really the thought that counts, but the effort — which is to say, the inconvenience. When you render the process more convenient, you drain it of its meaning.”
I don’t always agree with author Oliver Burkeman about this. I find no meaning in toiling over hand-washing dishes, and am eternally grateful to the inventor of the dishwasher. But as it pertains to Big Tech’s never-ending quest to simplify writing with AI, I wholly agree that the struggle is what makes the process worth anything.
I personally abandoned digital for tracking my projects and tasks because I can think of infinity things I would like to create and get done! My imagination is THAT good and ambitious! Thank goodness for paper, which forces me to edit, thank goodness for the friction involved in recording and transferring thoughts and ideas. It keeps me semi-reality-based.
📺 Dept. Q, Season 1 (2025) was as good as a Netflix show gets. Which is to say, not exactly to the level of Slow Horses (Apple TV+) and certainly not Mare of Easttown (HBO), but with a cast that good I had to give it a pass for the occasional plot hole and choppy pacing.
This past June was my 15th anniversary of being a resident alien in the US, and just yesterday I have completed my longest trip to Europe since my move: eight whole weeks. Here are a few things that I missed during my (working) vacation:
There is more, of course, just not top of mind right now. And I could have written the counter post about things available in Europe and not in the US but for the most part people in Europe do know how well they have it in those regards (better tipping culture, fewer shootings, more walkable neighborhoods, saner size of cars, etc.) and they are happy to rub it in the Americans' faces during online interactions so there is no point in bringing it to anyone’s attention.
✈️ Travel day today, from Serbia to the US of A. From an authoritarian regime in its terminal stages to one that is just starting out.
Regardless, after 7 weeks away and living out of suitcases we can’t wait to go back home.
🍿 Black Bag (2025) was a breath of fresh air: sleek, well-written, well-acted, well-executed, vintage Soderbergh.
This week was a good one for learning about new apps:
On the topic of apps, here are some fairly new ones (i.e. I have been using them for less than 5 years) that are passing the test of time, with honors:
And the apps that make me stick to the Mac even though I entertain from time to time the possibility of switching over to Linux:
As much as I like the Mac hardware and the sleek aluminum esthetics, it is the software listed above that keeps me in the ecosystem. None of it is made by Apple.
What I found at this newsstand in Serbia did not give me hope for the future:
Robert Caro’s books are about formidable, single-mindedly devoted characters with storybook life arcs. It may be the case, then, that the only person who could write the biography of Robert Caro is the man himself.
Happy reading.
The FT Editorial board says it’s time to stop indulging Serbia’s authoritarian president:
America seems to have left the Balkan pitch for now. But the UK and the EU have not. They should act and use their economic leverage. If they do not and Serbia heads further down the authoritarian path, it will be not just Vučić but also his gaze-averting western backers who are to blame.
“Economic leverage” sounds suspiciously like sanctions, which would be the exact wrong move to take and would only strengthen the president’s hand. Just ghost him — it would infuriate his small narcissistic mind.
Alex Tabarrok wrote a brief comment on why America always wins in the global superpower game:
Double down on immigration, entrepreneurship, innovation, building for tomorrow, free markets, free speech and individualism and America will take all new competitors as it has taken all comers in the past.
Funny how each and every of these reasons of America’s dominance is not only under threat — they always have been — but is being actively dismantled by the state itself. This time may truly be different.