prelude

“Dearest, I beg of you, sleep properly and go for walks.”

— The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1912

The first time I ended up in the emergency room, I was seven. I had the most excruciating stomachache and I was convinced that I was dying. I told my parents such five times, and them, being adults, told me that I was not dying, I probably just had appendicitis. Either way, an ambulance was called, and I sped my way to the hospital while sobbing and clutching my stomach. After ruling out appendicitis and an hour of me waiting on a hard hospital bed with a IV drip, the doctor ordered a blood test and an endoscopy.

For those of you who are not familiar, an endoscopy is when a tube with a camera is inserted down your esophagus and into your stomach to examine the organ. According to the results, I had multiple stomach ulcers and the doctor was going to run a biopsy for potential cancerous cells. “Stomach cancer is very rare in children, but so are ulcers like these,” he explained, and for a week, I lived in complete terror. The results were more confusing to the doctor than me, I think. The ulcers were all stress induced, and it made no sense for a child my age to be under this much stress.

I think I’ve always been full of stress, in flight or fight mode from sunrise to sunset. Maybe it’s from my perfectionist tendencies, or maybe it’s from my stubbornness to give up even a single thing in my life even when I physically feel it wreaking havoc on my nervous system. The stress lives in my body, dormant at times and terrifyingly alive at others. It’s not longer just in my brain but my brain shares space with the stress, maybe even pays rent to the feeling. I was convinced for so long that living like this was normal, worrying about every hypothetical and having fifteen backup plans in all situations. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that the way to prevent myself from experiencing further stress was planning everything down to the second and being in control of everything—but the anticipatory stress simply turned into real anxiety that would burrow into my skin.

The hospital visit when I was seven began a very long, very tedious, very painful ordeal with recurring, stress induced ulcers. It usually happens every two years—when they come back, I’ll feel extremely nauseous for a week or two, start experiencing insomnia after that, and then finally, end up in the hospital after the pain paralyzes me, delirious and in agony. The routine has become a part of my life for me, almost too predictable in a way. I’ll have an endoscopy, the doctor will tell me I have multiple ulcers, test me for cancer and H. pylori, and when both come out negative after a week of nail biting anxiety, they’ll tell me that it’s all stress induced. I’ll be advised to be ‘under less stress’, and then I’ll ask how? and nobody will have an answer for me.

Last year, I was sick so many times that I felt hopeless and genuinely insane during some parts of the year. It wasn’t just constant stomachaches, but lengthy durations of extreme fatigue, heart palpitations, and a plethora of other symptoms. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a state of panic, terrified of something, not really sure if it was anything, but something. My nervous system wouldn’t ever calm down and the constant white noise of anxiety in my brain wouldn’t shut up either. For me, the stress wasn’t just in my brain but coiled in every cell, every nerve, and it felt terminal and incurable. It’s probably survival mode born of definitely diagnosable anxiety, and I wasn’t (and still not am) sure of how to slow down.

Stress had lived inside me for so long that it had taken over my body and I was simply an unwilling participant; it had transformed from stress to anxiety to something big and dark that loomed over my shoulder and became a weight on my back. Anxiety medication would of course help in some part, but I knew that something had to be done on my part as well. I knew I needed to slow down, to rid of my habit of trying to live forty eight hours in twenty four, to maybe alter my stubbornness that put ambition and productivity above all else.

I decided to take things step by step and to clear my head first, to push past the dense forest of hopelessness first because what was I going to do if I couldn’t stand being in my own head? Something I’ve always done when I need to think about something and hear my thoughts clearly is go on a walk—so that’s what I did. In A Philosophy of Walking, Fréderic Gros writes, “Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. […] When you are walking, there is only one sort of performance that counts: the brilliance of a sky, the splendor of the landscape. Walking is not a sport.”

From my 2024 essay, “the case for a long walk”

There is something about the act of walking that quiets down all the extraneous murmurs in your brain, and everything suddenly morphs into clear cut clarity. It’s not a miracle cure, but it sometimes is the only thing that works and allows you to see your life at a distance. You can’t see the full panoramic view of a meandering river if you are sitting closely on its banks.

Why does walking feel like the best prescription to any sort of distress? It grounds you in a physical way, I think, feeling your feet literally touching the pavement with every beat of your heart. In that moment, you become something bigger, a part of every sprawling nature landscape. Something in your life that felt so overwhelming suddenly feels small in comparison to the sheer magnitude of the world around you. And in the open solitude, the frequency of your thoughts begin to change, and something that didn’t make sense, the gray areas clouding your head, presents itself with an answer in startling technicolor.

Walking to ruminate is not a new concept at all; in fact, it is perhaps one of the oldest philosophical exercises in the world. Authors have written about this again and again throughout centuries. Almost every one of Jane Austen’s characters reaches an epiphany while taking a walk. One of my favorite depictions of a good walk is in Mrs. Dalloway, in which Clarissa, the protagonist, takes a walk through 1925 London, in preparation for a party. During the walk, the city comes alive, an immortalization of how different a metropolis can be almost exactly a century again. We delve into Clarissa’s thoughts, the past and present of her life folding dimensions into one single plane. The act of walking in itself translates to a type of modernist stream of consciousness.

As a (mild…ish) control freak, there is something glorious about how walking is the only form of locomotion where I can fully be in control. I can adjust my pace and walk for hours upon hours. Automobiles, whether that’s a personal car or public transportation, is a passive form of moving. There are so many external circumstances at hand, and you will never be able to be in full control of the way in which you move. Even running, which is the same feedback loop as walking but just at a higher frequency, is not entirely within my control because intense exercise tires bodies out faster.

That being said, there is still a case to be made for running, but within the bigger context of routines. Almost every morning for the last two years, I’ve been going on a morning run for approximately four or five kilometers. I live by the beach, and there’s a picturesque little path that winds around it. It’s one of the parts of my morning routine that I cherish the most, and one of the reasons why I sorely missed being back at home when I was traveling last month. When you get into the habit of a good routine, there’s a certain addiction to the groundedness of it. That despite whatever is going on in your life, there are these series of constants you can stick to, rinse and repeat, no matter what. I especially feel this way about morning routines, because I’m a corny believer in the theory that the way you spend a morning defines your entire day.

Walking is one of the oldest things we know how to do, both as individuals and as a human race. The act of walking, as locomotion, precedes humanity, actually. Bipedalism developed in human ancestors dating back to six, seven million years ago. Before our ancestors developed language and fire and civilization, they walked. The simple motion of putting one foot in front of the other without bending our spine, having two legs and two arms instead of four legs, gave humans and our ancestors a unique sort of autonomy that led to change after change—me writing this post on my laptop and you reading it in your email inbox or Substack site.

This was the first measure in learning how to slow down. Putting my phone on airplane mode for a bit and going on a long, beachside walk in the morning. While slowing down literally means slowing down, it also means being intentional and conscious of my actions and what I’m choosing to say or hear. For me, a walk, especially a morning walk, goes such a long way to reduce stress. Multiple scientific studies back this up, results pointing to the suggestion that “nature-based walking interventions can indeed improve adults’ moods, sense of optimism, mental well-being, and nature connectedness. They simultaneously mitigate stress, anxiety, and negative rumination.” It makes sense. Walking, or any physical exercise releases endorphins, which increases blood flow to your brain and reduces cortisol levels.

All physical exercise is beneficial to one’s physical and mental health, but walking requires such low energy and effort that it’s slow, in a good way. The activity makes you a part of something bigger, of the landscape around you. Putting one foot in front of the other feels conscious and purposeful and not rushed at all. Your legs become a part of the ground below you and your surroundings absorb your vision. The focus on walking mitigates any worry or distress as a priority in the brain. The small habit of going on a morning walk is also a way of building consistency, which allows for the feeling of accomplishment that could lead to other good habits as well.

The second small measure I decided to take is listening to a full album from start to finish, no shuffle or skips on these walks. Since last year, I’ve been making a conscious effort to be mindful in the way I consume media (as you can probably tell by my Substack archive, although I really dislike that phrase). I had a realization about a year and a half back, mid Twitter-doomscroll, that flicking through short form media and text have started to affect the way I think, or even do anything. It’s not even the issue of my attention span frying and singeing by the minute, which is of course, a problem by default, but rather the way my brain processes any sort of information that enters my consciousness. It’s become too surface level, too superficial. In other words, in my mind, the curtains have started to just be blue.

Instead of throwing on a playlist when I go on walks, I listen to one full album, new or old. A good album is a piece of art, architectural blueprints for a pretty house—the order of the tracks are purposeful and full of artistic intent. It is a sequence and a journey, much like a series of paintings, or a five story arc from a good narrative. From my habit of making a playlist for every occasion and mood, listening to a full album has been a big shift in how I view music and art as a whole. You spend a bit more time and intentionality with the artist, and in return, you see the full shape and feeling of its original message. Through listening to the full album, you are allowing the artist to finish their thoughts, placing songs in context in tandem with each other.

To accommodate this new habit, one of the biggest and best changes I made at the end of last year was getting an Apple Music subscription. I do still make playlists on Spotify, but most of my daily listening is now on Apple Music. I did this for two reasons: 1) I wanted to focus on only listening to an album at a time, all tracks in order, and 2) I really liked the album suggestion feature (instead of song suggestions like Spotify). Also, the sound quality sounds much better in my opinion. I try to listen to one full album whenever I go on a morning walk, which is around five times a week. If I really enjoy the album, I’ll pin it and listen to it more throughout the days. At the end of the month, I’ll unpin all of my albums so I have room for new ones to really love next month, as the application only allows you to pin six at a time.

Morning walks and full albums definitely have not completely eased my stress and anxiety, but they have allowed me some breathing room, a semblance of peace even for a bit. In the open air, my stress is no longer confined to my body and four walls, and dissipates into the landscape. My thoughts about the past and worries about the future, revisionist history and hypotheticals ad nauseam, subside a bit. I’m walking. Enjoying music. Present tense. Everything else around me is in present tense too, the people walking besides me, the trees rustling in the wind, the ocean waves. It reminds me that I am a part of something bigger than my worries, something bigger than my stress, the breadth and depth of the sea and the height of the sky.

(a list of my perfect, no skip albums you should listen to will be posted as next week’s postcard!)

interlude i: what i read this week

I reread A Philosophy of Walking by Frederic Gros and Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit, both fantastic books that detail the history behind walking as a philosophical practice. There’s a lot of overlap in the books in a way that it feels like reading one big book with different essays and perspectives. I highly recommend reading both books as a pairing. I’m now making my way through the Neopolitan Quartet (finally). This has been on my to-read list forever and I think I made it halfway through the first book back in 2022 until I pulled three all nighters at work and ended up moving onto another book after (it was rereading The Infernal Devices). I want to write an essay on the quartet when I finally finish, so I’ll reserve all of my comments for later. But so far, it’s incredible.

Here are some articles to read this week:

• The Grammar of a God-Ocean by Eli K P William
  To truly explore alien languages, linguists must open themselves to the maximum conceivable degree of cosmic otherness.

• Feminize Your Canon: Forough Farrokhzad by Joanna Scutts
  “In 1954, a nineteen-year-old poet walked unannounced into the office of the literary editor of Roshanfekr (The Intellectual), one of Iran’s most prestigious magazines. Her fingers were stained with green ink, and she trembled with nerves as she handed over three poems. One of them, the twelve-line “Sin,” described in explicit detail her affair with the magazine’s editor in chief.”

• The Profession That Does Not Exist
  Writing won’t make you a living.

• Portrait of my Father by Ali Smith
  ‘When people are dead, graves aren’t where to find them. They’re in the wind, the grass.’

• The Divine Comedy of Roman Emperors’ Last Words by Mary Beard
  In the end, godlike aspirations often met with all too human final moments.

• The House is a Work of Art by Andrew Deming
  Frank Lloyd Wright exalted the individual and made ordinary life beautiful. But his life was marked by scandal and grief.

I include more articles in my weekly syllabus posts that include one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. Here is what I am planning on reading and watching this week:

interlude ii: what i watched this week(ish)

Here’s a list of movies I’ve watched since the last time I wrote a postcard (a month ago ish). The ones I like/recommend are bolded: The Nice Guys, The Big Lebowski, The Devil Wears Prada (rewatch), Crazy Stupid Love (rewatch), Wings of Desire, Hamnet, Sometimes I Think About Dying, Peppermint Soda, Sorry Baby.

Some video essays I watched: why modern life is designed to keep you anxious, a brief history of gemstone amulets, the problem with making wuthering heights beautiful.

postlude

things i love: sleep. i haven’t slept for more than three hours in weeks. i want to sleep. this is me speaking it into existence. please.

Note: please be patient with me for a bit because i’m still super sick. also, my subscription is currently at $5 for a bit (as opposed to my usual $7)!

For those who have been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I’ve been putting out a weekly syllabus with one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. Here is what I am planning on reading and watching this week.

While these is a ‘weekly syllabus’, feel free to do these over the course of two weeks or even a month, depending on how much free time you have! Since I’m just freelancing these days, I have plenty of time on my hands thus the large quantity of stuff (also, I just want to make sure all paid subscribers are getting their money’s worth!)

For articles, I’ve attached links that allow you to read every article for free in full.

album of the week

books

Main focus: I’ve picked three books I want to read in the next week or so from the International Booker Prize longlist. I know that the shortlist is out, but I like to try reading all of the books (especially because the longlist has two authors I already love). Also coincidentally all books by women, which is what I’ve been focusing on for the last two months.

(you can check out this post from August for recommendations)

Read more

Also, it’s my birthday month, which means I get a bit more introspective and a bit sadder. Journal prompts reflect that accordingly, with lots of long questions that will help you in having a thoughtful (or miserable, I guess) morning.

Scheduled this for 10:30pm my time because I am (unfortunately) still at the hospital so I hope this doesn’t glitch and post properly… I realized that many of you don’t know what my journal prompts look like, so here is a partially free post!

april journal prompts

1. monthly intentions

2. write out your morning and night routine. what works? what do you want to switch out? are there any non negotiables or

3. list of books you want to read in April

4. list of movies you want to watch in April

5. weekly intentions & big to do list

6. what is something you are ready to let go of from the past few years? maybe it’s a hobby you’ve outgrown, a frequent part of your day, or even a part of yourself that doesn’t serve you anymore

7. think about your screen time and your relationship with technology. do you like how you use your phone and laptop? what could change, whether that be about when or how you use it?

8. high cortisol levels, which is very common in twenty something year olds, occur when the body produces too much stress hormones. it can lead to serious health problems. write a list of practices you can immediately implement in your life to ‘un-rush’ it, to slow down a bit

9. current list of favorites and obsessions. what books and movies are you returning to for the season? what are some things on your wishlist you’re considering buying? is there a specific quote, painting, or even font that you are obsessed with?

Read more

Note: ended up in the hospital again but i’m back! please be patient with me for a bit because i’m super sick. also, my subscription is currently at $5 for a bit (as opposed to my usual $7)!

For those who have been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I’ve been putting out a weekly syllabus with one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. Happy spring! Here is what I am planning on reading and watching this week.

While these is a ‘weekly syllabus’, feel free to do these over the course of two weeks or even a month, depending on how much free time you have! Since I’m just freelancing these days, I have plenty of time on my hands thus the large quantity of stuff (also, I just want to make sure all paid subscribers are getting their money’s worth!)

For articles, I’ve attached links that allow you to read every article for free in full.

album of the week

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: Women’s history month continues (ends in three days but every month should be women’s history month), so I want to spotlight one memoir I’ve already read and loved, and two other memoirs that I’ve been meaning to get around to reading.

(you can check out this post from August for recommendations)

Read more

Note: my subscription is currently at $5 for a bit (as opposed to my usual $7)!

For those who have been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I’ve been putting out a weekly syllabus with one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. Happy spring! Here is what I am planning on reading and watching this week.

While these is a ‘weekly syllabus’, feel free to do these over the course of two weeks or even a month, depending on how much free time you have! Since I’m just freelancing these days, I have plenty of time on my hands thus the large quantity of stuff (also, I just want to make sure all paid subscribers are getting their money’s worth!)

For articles (and there are a lot of them in this syllabus), I’ve attached links that allow you to read every article for free in full.

album of the week

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: International women’s day is today, which means this week’s focus is women in translation. I’ve been reading some brilliant translated literature lately (thanks to NYRB classics and various independent publishers). This week is all about highlighting and doing a deep dive into some brilliant female writers from non-English speaking countries and their equally brilliant translators that transform works of art into a digestible English format for us; this allows us to read about cultures and experience the English language and syntax in a way that is slightly different from books typically written in English (this is why I argue that translations are so important, because they need to be able to capture the nuance and tone of the language it is written in, before translating it to English).

(you can check out this post from August for recommendations)

Read more

prelude

here's to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap
and to your(in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and

let must or if be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel(but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon

— here’s to opening and upwards by e.e. cummings

The thing about spring is that you’re never aware of its arrival; it is only when you’re in the heart of a picturesque flower field, or hear songbirds at your windowpane, or when the sunlight feels less ephemeral and more eternal, that you realize the permafrost sadness of winter has finally thawed. Suddenly, you have eight months of being alive again, until the blue gray melancholy seeps into your bones, casting shadows that are almost as long as the endless days in which the sun dips below the horizon as early as four in the afternoon.

Winter, by contrast, is marked by its colorlessness, from the gray nights to the blinding white glare of the snow. It forces you to retreat inwards, seeking a semblance of life from within. It’s selfish in that regard, the cold and darkness will puppeteer you into wallowing, stretching moments into millennia between each second. I think that’s why the incandescence of spring has always felt too brief for me, especially because I rarely recognize springtime until it’s five months into the year and the hourglass is nearly empty by the time I am done dealing with winter’s stubborn aftereffects. A signifier that I have come out of my winter hibernation is when I turn my thoughts inside out and start thinking about the people around me—what I mean to them, and what they mean to me in return.

Spring is thus the most reflective and romantic time of the year to me and is of course, my favorite season. My explanation behind this is what my baby sister calls the ‘Goldilocks theory’, because winter is too cold, summer is too hot, and fall gets a bit too cozy for me. The pre summer warmth filtering in through my windows finally wakes me up from my bona fide winter hibernation, and I I finally creep out of my hermit shell just as winter removes its stubborn clutch on the Northern Hemisphere. My March is always morning runs and weekend brunches with friends, in tandem with early sunrises and nature reawakening in pastel brushstrokes.

I keep myself busy because sometimes that is the only way to shed seasonal depression and winter blues. Sometimes, the feeling lingers all the way into May, which feels like something bitter leaving a bad aftertaste in my mouth. This is the first spring where I don’t have a 9-6 corporate job anymore (because I quit, good riddance), and I am working a smattering of freelance jobs and working on my book. I get to schedule my own day and have more free time than I have had in the last three years, where working overtime so much genuinely landed me in the hospital. It’s disorienting and exciting, which mirrors how I feel about spring exactly.

Most of the things I am looking forward to this season is just resetting my life and recovering from what I genuinely think is the worst year of my life. I want to rewire my body not to be anxious every time it feels like my heart beats weird, and not feel physically winded from just getting up in the morning. My body’s adapted to a system of constantly being on high alert, and it’s so exhausting. Focusing on my health is the most imperative thing on the agenda—eating properly, getting movement in properly, sleeping properly.

Moreover, just reading and watching and listening to things that keep my brain alive and keep my will to live going, as well. The adjectives that I am focusing on for this season’s reads and watches are: introspective without being too bleak, warm, beautiful prose and cinematography, meditative, and self-help-y in a non actual-self-help way. Here’s the mini guide!

LISTENS //

I gravitate towards light and airy songs, or songs that feel like they’re on the precipice of becoming a true and blue summer hit. Music that sounds beautiful and optimistic and sunny in the first few hours the sun is up. Anything that I can turn on while having the window open at 8 in the morning, the spring breeze settling in. Here is a seasonal playlist I’ve been adding songs to since 2021:

I used to live at my grandparents’ house when I was very small, and my grandpa used to turn on classical music early in the morning with the windows open. Many of my earliest memories include sleepily sitting on the couch bright and early, watching the trees outside and the curtains inside dance around in the breeze as the orchestral music drifted in and out of my ears. A few years ago, I asked my grandpa for the CD and compiled the list of pieces on the disc. It’s still a perfect morning soundtrack. It also sounds like falling in love. Something peaceful, something wistful. The first piece from the playlist below is probably my favorite piece ever.

Last week, at the nadir of my depressive episode, I asked my best friend how I can stay afloat. She told me, with the most love in the world, that I need to stop listening to sad music with sad instrumentals (which is, unfortunately, 90% of my saved songs). This is a playlist I love to leave on in the background in during spring and early summer afternoons because it’s mellow and idle enough to keep my mood stable.

This playlist is my family favorite, a.k.a what my parents request that I put on the living room speakers on a weekend morning. You can never go wrong with a beautiful jazzy track most that are from decades ago and still remain stunning and timeless.

And lastly, in an attempt to over-romanticize my life this season so I can overcorrect it back to some semblance of normalcy, here is my most coveted early 2000s movie playlist. The Devil Wears Prada opening montage and the motorcycle scene from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days go triple platinum every spring in my bedroom, as they should in yours as well.

READS //

Anything Austen…but you already knew that. For spring reads, I focus on anything that feels light and is best to read during a picnic or day outside, drenched in sunlight. Nothing too dark or atmospheric—any classics on provincial life, slice-of-life contemporary fiction, and children’s classics are on my priority reading list during springtime. My birthday falls in spring, so I also gravitate towards meditative nonfiction books that hopefully contribute to and even change the way I see the world because every good book should do that just a little bit.

My weekly syllabus for last week generalizes the sort of books I like to read during this season, minus the regency era classics. I always do a mix of reads and rereads, so here are is my to-read list of books I have not read before.

I’ve been meaning to read Laurie Colwin because loves her, and I blindly trust anything Emma recommends to me (because we have the exact same taste in books). I’m also making my way through all the Toni Morrisons I have on my shelf, and I feel the same way about her that I do about Jane Austen, in that I want to read all of her books expeditiously because they are excellent but I’m also terrified to finish them all (which is why I haven’t started Sanditon and only will do so on my deathbed). I’ve heard incredible things about Lost Lambs, The Book of Goose, and Pond as well. I really enjoyed Checkout 19 by Claire Louise Bennett, so I hope I enjoy Pond too.

My reread list is boring and the same old books repeated into oblivion if you’ve been subscribed to me for long enough. If you’re a new subscriber, I’m sure you’ll get bored of me talking about them after a while. Wallpapering the first row with my three springtime Austens: Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion. I urge you to read Persuasion in the third week of March on a particularly foggy and overcast day. Pride and Prejudice should be read in April when the sun feels like a more permanent fixture in the sky. Emma should be read in May when the mild weather gives you confidence that you can tackle a large book at the outdoor seating of a coffeeshop. I read Beautiful World, Where Are You with every single year (four years and running…I think) in the space between her birthday (January 1) and mine (April 20),and this is my very public proposal for that to be early April this year. Anne of Green Gables and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn both altered my perception of life in little ways at different ages, so I want to revisit them as well.

WATCHES //

I’m in no way special or unique when I talk about how much I love watching rom coms or New Girl in the spring time, and I do every year. This year, I want to change that a bit—shedding the thought that spring should only be about pastel hues and lightheartedness. I watched La Chimera last spring and rewatched Petit Maman and loved both—I want to focus on quiet (ish) and reflective movies that are good to put on while winding down for the night.

Here is a list of movies I want to watch or rewatch this spring. You can find the Letterboxd list link here.

interlude i: what i read this week

I finished Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit, which is essentially a meditation and philosophy of walking. I read A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros last year around this time, which was a similar book (I just love any literature about walking and nature and philosophy all in one). Both books speak about walking as not only physical exercise, but a cultural, religious, and political practice. Walking, although not as autonomic as breathing, is a bodily rhythm and alignment in itself. There is something about the act of walking that quiets down all the extraneous murmurs in your brain, and everything suddenly morphs into clear cut clarity. It’s not a miracle cure, but it sometimes is the only thing that works and allows you to see your life at a distance. You can’t see the full panoramic view of a meandering river if you are sitting closely on its banks.

I love reading about things I love doing, which leads me to my second read: I’ve also been reading The Possessed by Elif Batuman, which is part literary criticism and part travel memoir about Batuman’s experience reading Russian classics.

Here are five articles you should read this week:

1. How Jane Austen Pulled It Off: On Emma
   “The pleasure of rereading Emma lies partly in seeing how Austen pulled it off—the red herrings and double entendres that mislead both Emma and the reader about what is really going on.”

2. Just a Pale Blue Dot
   When we see the Earth as ‘a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ what do we learn about human significance?

3. The Darkness from the Darkness
   Pain and passion in the limbo of suffering.

4. Making Food Out of Thin Air
   On the outskirts of Helsinki, a pioneering factory is harvesting natural, scalable proteins all from fermented bacteria. Could this be the future of food?

5. What Perfumes Reveals to Us About Power
   And the olfactory ethics of nostalgia.

I include more articles in my weekly syllabus posts. Here is my most recent one, which is very on theme for this specific post as well

interlude ii: what i watched this week

I watched Synecdoche, New York a few days ago, and it confused and gutted me at the same time. It tells the story of Caden Cotard, who has a debilitating unspecified chronic illness who decides to recreate a replica of New York as he sees it for a play. As his own life diminishes and his illness eats away at him and his sense of reality, the play set grows and grows until the two are no longer distinguishable. I’m still deeply confused and will continue to be confused until a few rewatches, I’m sure. I’ve been thinking a lot about derealization and feeling like the head you live in isn’t a true way to see the world, and I think the movie conveys that beautifully. In Caden’s head, real life and art mix, alchemizing into a sort of purgatory. In the movie, time is too malleable and it portrays this desperate want to connect to those around us and the subsequent exhaustion that comes with it through the main character. All I could think about was the monologue from Shakespeare’s As You Like It that begins with “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women are merely players”.

I also watched The Muppets Take Manhattan while extremely sick and slightly loopy from pain meds, and that was the perfect way to watch it. I love Muppets and I love Kermit in particular. I’m glad he believed in himself in the end because I always believe in him.

I’ve also been watching a smattering of New Girl episodes (mostly from season four, including Background Check and Goldmine arguably two of the best episodes). I’m always so pleasantly surprised at how well the show ages. Nick anxiously sweating his pits out while singing Landslide will always be endearing to me.

postlude

things i love: chicken noodle soup, early sunrises, mango mochi, celine’s dans paris perfume, my penguin jellycat keychain, paintings of houses, anecdotal essay collections, milky blue caremelo tea from mariage freres, kiss all the time disco occasionally.

Note: my subscription is currently at $5 until the end of the month / early March (as opposed to my usual $7)!

For those who have been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I’ve been putting out a weekly syllabus with one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. Happy spring! Here is what I am planning on reading and watching this week.

While these is a ‘weekly syllabus’, feel free to do these over the course of two weeks or even a month, depending on how much free time you have! Since I’m just freelancing these days, I have plenty of time on my hands thus the large quantity of stuff (also, I just want to make sure all paid subscribers are getting their money’s worth!)

For articles (and there are a lot of them in this syllabus), I’ve attached links that allow you to read every article for free in full.

album of the week

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: March means spring, and spring means my favorite season. This week, I’m planning on reading and watching material that feels like early spring—the thaw of winter and the sense of renewal. Here are three short books I haven’t read that feel like spring to me—one for introspection, one to supplement the philosophy behind morning walks, and one about nature.

Jane Austen week coming super soon.

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Tried to make the journal prompts a bit different this time, with more open ended reflective questions and also some organization tasks (because spring cleaning & spring reset is upon us). Hope you enjoy!

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Note: my subscription is currently at $5 until the end of the month / early March (as opposed to my usual $7)!

For those who have been subscribed to me for a while, you know that I’ve been putting out a weekly syllabus with one or two themes and books, essays, scholarly articles, movies, and video essays to correspond to said theme. My two goals for this year are to learn more about art history and wine because I always feel like I know enough, and then something else reminds me that I don’t. Here is a syllabus of me trying to follow through with my first goal.

album of the week

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: My main goal this spring is to get through The Story of Art by E.H Gombrich (syllabus breakdown for this coming really soon) and then the Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel. Before I start, however, there are a few books I want to visit or revisit as prerequisites because I think it allows me to think about art as a whole rather than specific movements or artists, including Calvino’s Invisible Cities, which I think is a feat of artistic imagination.

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NOTE: If you are a paid subscriber, please DM me on Substack or Instagram and I will extend your paid subscription by three months. Please don’t hesitate to reach out, even if you cancelled your subscription in the last two months! In consideration of my absence, I’ve also lowered my subscription price to $5 this month.

a brief note on 2026 resolutions for this substack:

Happy Lunar New Year! Traditionally, this was the new year celebrated in Korean (and many other Asian) cultures before the Gregorian calendar’s January first. As someone who missed the mark on starting the year off on a good note and felt like I was carrying the burden and stress from last year, this is a good starting point for me.

In celebration of that and the theme of a fresh start, I am making this post a free postcard for the time being. I was a serial bullet journal user and always enjoyed being creative with it back when I was in school, but gave it up for a daily journal diary and a store bought planner when I started my job. Recently, I’ve been adding more fun pages into my journal in between my daily pages for nostalgia’s sake, and I thought I’d share some with you!

For updates, as I mentioned in this month’s journal prompts post, I’ve had a bit of a year. I finally caught up with one of my friends for the first time in months yesterday, and that’s what she said when I was done filling her in: “you’ve had a year”. I am still kind of going through the thick of it, but one thing I am focusing on is my attempt to make Substack fun and less scary for me again so I can use this as something to destress with. I didn’t really make resolutions this year, but I really want to start posting casual, shorter posts on my Substack this year like I used to do back when I didn’t really have a large subscriber count. To be really honest, I think the larger my newsletter got, the more I felt pressured that I had to have very complete and thorough posts, and I think I increasingly became anxious every time posted.

All in all, I’m trying to make my Substack more approachable (for myself) so I can post frequently without as much pressure. This way, I can definitely post more free content as well. I know that I haven’t really been writing my weekly postcards lately—while that’s mostly because I had to prioritize paid posts since I have been having a pretty continuously rough time since maybe last January, I started this newsletter because of those weekly postcards. So I’m rerouting!

Here are some things that you can start expecting through the spring season, divided into free tier and paid tiers:

free tier:

• a postcard every two weeks with the usual format—a short essay, ten articles to read, updates on what I read + watched, and also a painting I liked that week.

• an occasional post of something I think is important enough that it needs to be a public post (for example).

paid tier:

• weekly syllabus

• monthly journal prompts

• monthly wrap ups of favorites & safari tabs (you can see this one I did from last April)

• my how to get smart again series posts

• deep dive essays into books, paintings, authors, movies, and various specific topics.

• chapter by chapter recaps of big nonfiction books, especially in history and art history (this is a big big big new years resolution for me)—starting with E.H Gombrich’s The Story of Art.

• media collections of very specific moods and feelings

• recommendations on books, films, and art

• list of favorites and just lists in general

pages to add to your journal:

(also, check out my ‘for a better life’ tag for a collection of posts I think have upgraded the quality of my life ever since writing them)

1. scrapbook of labels of teas you enjoyed

2. dopamine menu of things to do when you’re stressed

3. your perfume notes (top, middle, base) — link to a guide to get you started if you’re unsure about what that means.

4. receipts from good restaurants you’ve visited

5. mind map of everything on your mind

6. isbn numbers of specific book editions you want

7. ins & outs for each season

8. book starter pack for favorite hyper specific moods

9. art that inspired you that week / month (inspired by Rama Duwaji’s monthly Instagram posts)

10. seasonal produce

11. morning playlist

12. fruit stickers from the fruit you’ve eaten

13. weekly dream log

14. current hyperfixation recipe

15. movie ticket page

16. literal envelope with a letter to yourself

17. polaroids / photobooth pictures

18. bucket list

19. favorite episodes of a tv show you’re binging

20. movie watchlist

21. to read list

22. series watchlist

23. a full page of a single quote that’s been resonating with you

24. list of favorite articles from that month

25. headlines from that week / month

26. habit check in

27. cool vocabulary glossary

28. small moments you want to immortalize

29. about me page (favorite books, movies, songs, artists, paintings)

30. mood tracker

31. favorite albums at the moment

32. wishlist

33. sleep tracker

34. water tracker

35. random ephemera you want to keep

36. one paragraph book reviews of the books you read that week

37. rabbit holes of topics you’d like to remember and research

38. ten new vocabulary words of a language you’re learning

39. twice a year, divide the page into six squares - and write down five things you’re proud of at the end of each month

40. everything you’re enjoying at the moment

41. perfume wishlist

42. permanent pantry restock items

43. weekly reset routine

44. boarding passes from places you traveled to

45. ongoing list of lyrics that resonate

46. workout tracker

47. envelope of favorite postcards collected

48. holiday gift ideas

49. packing list for travel

50. subscription tracker

I’m so deeply sorry for the late prompts and lack of posts. I thought I turned off paid subscriptions but it’s just come to my attention today via a message from a subscriber that payments were still going through. I’m so sorry!!

Not to get into too much personal detail, but to roughly sum up the reason for my absence, I had an unimaginably terrible two months. While traveling away from home, I was blindsided by a lot of life changing health problems—which led to unmanageable anxiety spiraling into a pretty deep depressive episode.

If you are a paid subscriber, please DM me on Substack or Instagram and I will comp you three months of paid posts. I’ll be posting backlogged posts throughout this month pretty regularly so please don’t hesitate to reach out so I can comp you (even if you cancelled your subscription)! In consideration of my absence, I’ve also lowered my subscription price to $5 this month.

I’ll be posting a postcard for things I am changing + implementing on my Substack in 2026 going forward because I have big plans.

Expect an updated guide to journaling in a bit, but for the meantime, here is a guide I did on journaling a year ago:

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december journal prompts

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Just a note: I have a 20% discount running until the end of November if you subscribe through this link! If you also love reading, watching movies, and podcasts / video essays, and also like the idea of having a weekly syllabus delivered to your inbox every Sunday—please consider upgrading! This is an entirely reader supported publication and am so thankful for your support. (Might extend this for a week as an apology for the late post!!)

A bit of a short syllabus, as there are only four days left in the week. I have been out with the flu. I caught it on Saturday, and I’ve spent the last five days holed up in my room, bedridden, hacking up both lungs. I’ve told my friends that I now know how Edward Cullen felt during the 1917 Spanish Influenza before Carlisle turned him into a vampire. I feel like a Victorian orphan ridden with tuberculosis. I’ve been running a 102 degrees fever for four days, and I’ve also lost my voice. This is probably the sickest I’ve been!! Be careful of the flu strain this year!! It is no joke!! All I’ve been left with is my stellar ability to lay in bed and lament about it.

Anyway, the usual intro:

I have way more free time on my hands these days, so in my continued attempt to fix my attention span and gradual short form content induced brain-rot (and hopefully distract my brain which always spirals when I have any sort of free-thinking time during a depressive episode), I thought I’d plan a weekly syllabus. Here’s a collection of books, essays, podcasts, movies, video essays, and online lectures I’m interested in looking at this week, along with a recap of last week’s syllabus! I planned this thematically by each category.

For this week, I’m focusing entirely on anything related to Gothic literature and art. This includes literature, philosophy of the sublime, romanticism, and Gothic architecture.

album of the week

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: I’m sick, so I wanted to reread some books that bring me the comfort of familiarity. In tandem with the last stretch of autumn season, I chose Northanger Abbey (an underrated Austen) and Autumn by Ali Smith. Both books are autumnal in different ways, and it’s going to be lovely to close out the season with these two books.

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Just a note: I have a 20% discount running until the end of November if you subscribe through this link! If you also love reading, watching movies, and podcasts / video essays, and also like the idea of having a weekly syllabus delivered to your inbox every Sunday—please consider upgrading! This is an entirely reader supported publication and am so thankful for your support.

I have way more free time on my hands these days, so in my continued attempt to fix my attention span and gradual short form content induced brain-rot (and hopefully distract my brain which always spirals when I have any sort of free-thinking time during a depressive episode), I thought I’d plan a weekly syllabus. Here’s a collection of books, essays, podcasts, movies, video essays, and online lectures I’m interested in looking at this week, along with a recap of last week’s syllabus! I planned this thematically by each category.

For this week, I’m focusing entirely on anything related to Gothic literature and art. This includes literature, philosophy of the sublime, romanticism, and Gothic architecture.

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: It’s my one fat nonfiction book of the month week. One of my favorite things to read are very long, dense nonfiction books that feel like brain food. I call this specific genre ‘fat nonfic brain food’, and the requirements are that the book has to be 1) over 400 pages, 2) really dense, and 3) has to make you feel like you need to get out a notebook to take notes because you want to retain the information (and you should!). For November, I chose SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard, which was recommended to me by my best friend , who is a nonfiction connoisseur. She made an introduction to nonfiction syllabus for me back in the summer, which you can check out below:

I feel like I have a month every year where I am kind of obsessed with Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece, which of course, you can guess is from my deep Percy Jackson obsession dating back to 2009. That one trend last year where you had to talk about your “Roman Empire”—sometimes my Roman Empire is the Roman Empire, and this is that month in 2025. Humor me and read along! Will hopefully be posting some notes and thoughts soon.

As always, one book this week means a bunch of essays and articles related to Ancient Rome in the next section!

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A bit late, but better late than never! I’ve been a bit sick this month but am feeling better, so weekly syllabus posts will be posted every Sunday morning EST as per usual from now on after this one.

Just a note: I have a 20% discount running until the end of November if you subscribe through this link! If you also love reading, watching movies, and podcasts / video essays, and also like the idea of having a weekly syllabus delivered to your inbox every Sunday—please consider upgrading! This is an entirely reader supported publication and am so thankful for your support.

I have way more free time on my hands these days, so in my continued attempt to fix my attention span and gradual short form content induced brain-rot (and hopefully distract my brain which always spirals when I have any sort of free-thinking time during a depressive episode), I thought I’d plan a weekly syllabus. Here’s a collection of books, essays, podcasts, movies, video essays, and online lectures I’m interested in looking at this week, along with a recap of last week’s syllabus! I planned this thematically by each category.

For this week, I’m focusing entirely on anything related to Gothic literature and art. This includes literature, philosophy of the sublime, romanticism, and Gothic architecture.

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: Gothic horror written by women. I’ve been writing a post on an introduction to the gothic genre, and I reread Frankenstein yesterday. I chose three books to reread that I already enjoyed. Here is what is possibly my favorite opening paragraph of all time, from Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

“My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death- cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.”

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I always like to start off by answering a prompt and then write my journal pages of whatever is on my mind that day. The answers don’t have to be long (mine are usually half a page), but I really love it because it gets me thinking and organizes my mind. I wanted to start sharing my daily prompts at the beginning of every month!

november journal prompts

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Weekly syllabus posts are back! I tried it out for a month in September and a lot of you requested that I do these consistently, so here is my plan for this week.

I have way more free time on my hands these days, so in my continued attempt to fix my attention span and gradual short form content induced brain-rot (and hopefully distract my brain which always spirals when I have any sort of free-thinking time during a depressive episode), I thought I’d plan a weekly syllabus. Here’s a collection of books, essays, podcasts, movies, video essays, and online lectures I’m interested in looking at this week, along with a recap of last week’s syllabus! I planned this thematically by each category.

Also, I have a special introduction/guide/syllabus to gothic fiction coming later this week so stay tuned for that!

playlist of the week

books

Main focus: Shakespearean tragedies. I reread Hamlet a week ago and realized how much I missed Shakespeare. Here is what I wrote in my syllabus example in my most recent post about tragedies written during this time:

“Elizabethan tragedies are slightly different than Greek/Aristotelian tragedies, which includes the five traits a tragic hero must have: being of noble birth, hamartia (having a fatal flaw), peripetia (a reversal of fortune), anagnorisis (tragic recognition), and catharsis. Two examples of this are Oedipus Rex and Medea. Elizabethan approaches to tragedies slightly different in that the downfall of the tragic hero is usually entirely contingent upon the hero’s fatal flaw. There is no chorus or an impartial moral body to move the narrative along.

Moreover, Shakespeare puts more of a focus on the tragic hero’s free will than Greek tragedies, in which the reversal of fortune mostly rely on the gods. While Shakespearean tragedies often include some sort of prophecy (the witches in Macbeth, for example), it is not as clear cut of whether or not it is fate or some sort of confirmation bias.”

The following reads are all rereads, but I wanted to read them back to back in this exact order (because I’ve never done this before). The plays are pretty easy to get through once you get the hang of Shakespeare’s language and rhythm. All of the four plays below are tragedies in their own way, with all of them being ‘fictional’ other than Richard III (which is a part of Shakespeare’s second tetralogy). You can see the difference in the complexities of the antihero/villain/tragic hero while making distinctions between the three, as his tragedies include one of the three as the main character.

One tip I’d advise to look out for is think about what Shakespeare is trying to say about performance and art in general and look at what is said in a speech that people can hear versus in an aside. It’s always fun differentiating this play by play.

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I’m not really a summer person, as you can tell in my summer rainstorm essentials post (this post’s greener sister!), but I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the bone grabbing chill of the winter. I actually dread it so much—the new year starting in January, the longest month of the year, seems like some cosmic joke. The weather cooling down every late October is exciting because I get to wear all of my favorite transitional light jackets and cozy up in bed with Shirley Jackson books at night, but the threat of the miserable months to come, Looms Large above my head.

Here is everything I reach for as soon as the sun starts setting at 4pm (diabolical of the sun, if you ask me)—including books, albums, movies, perfumes, clothes, tea, candles, skincare, and more small trinkets that make my life better. Long post ahead!

books

(I’ve talked about all of these books before, so I’ll just make a list for the sake of saving space and keeping the post concise, but you can find all of my reviews with the search button!)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield

Her Bodies and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

The Girls by John Bowen

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ladies of the Rachmanioff Eyes by Henry Van Dyke

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Don’t Look Now by Daphne Du Maurier

Autumn by Ali Smith

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Ghosts by Edith Wharton

Bluets by Maggie Nelson

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson

Immortality by Milan Kundera

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offhill

My Work by Olga Ravn

tea & coffee

milky blue caramelo tea from Mariage Freres

vanilla bourbon tea from TWG

pecan flavored coffee beans from The Coffee Exchange

hot apple cider tea from The Republic of Teas

rooibos orange tea from Teakanne

vanilla chai tea from Bigelow

new york breakfast tea from TWG

caramelo morning coffee from Bacha Coffee

giant steps coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee

movies

House of Hummingbird

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Gone Girl

Loving Vincent

Little Women

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Columbus

Mistress America

The Double

The Quiet Girl

Certain Women

Yi Yi

Sabrina

C’mon C’mon

Before Trilogy

In the Mood for Love

Anatomy of a Fall

home & candles

noistier candle from Diptyque

sunrise alarm clock from Lumie

handmade mug from Etsy

choco marscapone candle from Byredo

bunny from Jellycat (mine is called maisie)

classic percale hardcore sheet bundle from Brooklinen

Brooklinen bedding was the one splurge I made with all of my tutoring money back in college, and I have never once regretted or disliked it. The bedding is 100% cotton and has that crisp white hotel room feel, which makes me so excited to go to bed in the evenings. I own their bedding in all white just because I have so much going on in my room with my books and trinkets. Here is the link to my bedding set!

This post is sponsored by Brooklinen, which is the first brand I’ve ever worked with (for anyone who’s been subscribed to my Substack / following me on Instagram for some time, you’ll know that I have never taken a brand deal before, so this is how you know that I really love the brand). You can get 15% off your first order, no link needed!

perfumes

chai epice from Le Monde Gourmand

black tie from Celine

super cedar from Byredo

tihota from Indult

lait et chocolat from Chaubaud

almond from Caswell Massey

by the fireplace by Replica

clothing

pound alpaca sweater from Nothing Written

thermal pro mockneck hi-hip zip-up from Aritzia

lil doozy fray jeans from Mother

reversible opal puffer from Damson Madder

heat tech from Uniqlo

aretha jumper from Sezane

albums

(full postcard on this coming soon)

For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver

songs by Adrienne Lenker

End of the World by Searows

So Tonight That I Might See by Mazzy Star

Illinois by Sufjan Stevens

Already, Always by Bess Atwell

Unsent Letters by Lucy Blue

Emily Alone by Florist

evermore by Taylor Swift

Forever is a Feeling by Lucy Dacus

Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys

A Quiet and Harmless Living by Matt Maeson

Better Oblivion Community Center by Connor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers

First Two Pages of Frankenstein by The National

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

Like a Damn Dog by Sarah and the Sundays

skincare + bodycare

atobarrier cream from Aestura

advanced night repair serum from Estee Lauder

cicalfate repair cream from Avene

crème de corps body lotion from Kiehl’s

almond shower body oil from L’occitaine

overnight collagen mask from Biodance

healing ointment from Aquaphor

base prep serum from Yunjac

There’s an empathy deficit in the world, and everyone seems desensitized to everything. I know that may be completely unrelated to the title of this post, but empathy and reading are inextricable.

Why is reading such an important activity? And how can you be a better reader? I read because I love reading, but I also read to continuously hold myself accountable in broadening my perspectives and understanding of the world and not allowing myself to ever become narrow minded or grossly individualistic. I’ve written time and again on the importance of reading—how it’s essentially food and nutrients for your brain, and it’s a surefire way to develop and hone your critical thinking skills. With better critical thinking skills comes a deeper sense of empathy and understanding for the world and its people, which is possibly the most crucial thing to have right now in 2025.

A noticeable and tragic trend is that there seems to be an exponential decline in human decency. I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly when this started because it can’t have been that bad forever. Maybe it’s because nothing feels real anymore. Creative media made completely by generative AI is rampant, everything is online first and offline second, and my first means of communicating with a friend is through a text rather than even a call. Algorithms on social media feeds only regurgitate posts making the same point as you, endless cycles of self confirmation biases that leads to a skewed view of the world. The internet seems like one big cesspool of every user practicing the law of schrodinger’s douchebag because one is apparently allowed to make awful statements if they’re ‘just kidding’ or ‘using dark humor’. Everyone alive right now is stuck in the same room together on the internet, losing sanity, and of course, empathy and compassion are the first qualities to go.

We’ve reached debilitating levels of instant gratification and dopamine rushes as a society, and no one is willing to detox. Detoxing isn’t anything drastic; it doesn’t mean throwing your phone in the ocean and going off grid. Nor does it mean deleting all of your social media accounts. It means not asking for relationship advice from ChatGPT. It means opening an actual good book instead of scrolling short form content filled with summaries primed for ten second videos. It means trusting your brain enough, being thorough and careful enough with forming your own opinions over trusting strangers’ opinions on a tweet. The need for an immediate answer to everything, whether right or wrong, has bled out the shades of gray on every spectrum, I think. Everything feels rudimentary, bereft of nuance, sitting on a black and white binary.

I truly do think one of the best remedies for this is allowing ourselves to use our brains again and developing and honing critical thinking skills. Confining all activities requiring thinking to a social media feed or Google AI or ChatGPT, all three of which are atrociously biased, holding everyone caged in solipsism, which leads to a lack of empathy and self awareness. I think the easiest and most simple way of getting all of these important qualities back is just reading, and reading better. While my love for reading has not changed since I could understand words on a page, the way I process and analyze books has. Of course, this is through many years of English classes, reading books of varying levels of difficulty, and just growing up in general, but there are things that I have actively started implementing as well.

table of contents:

1. things to implement to be a better reader

2. making a reading syllabus (with two examples)

3. my method of finding good quality books and essay articles

4. tips on annotating and taking notes

5. a list of books & essays that transformed my way of thinking

[this is a supplement post for my how to get smart again series for paid subscribers—check out the upcoming posts here. if you think this is something you’d enjoy, please consider upgrading your subscription! you can check out the weekly syllabus posts and the first six parts here]

1. things to implement to be a better reader

- Actively want to learn new information. A book, or the experience of reading a book, purely depends on the way you approach the material. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to keep your eyes open for new things. In fiction, this could include but not be limited to: vocabulary, sentences you really like, metaphors, and specific subgenres. In nonfiction, this could be a historical period or event briefly mentioned in the introduction of an essay, a person you want to do a deep dive into. You should always keep a small notebook with you at all times to write down these new things, and you should also try writing mini research essays.

- Find themes that group books together. I’ve started making various syllabi, especially for reading. I find that doing so helps me find connections and themes within literature, and reading these books offers a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of a certain idea or concept. I like taking a week or two to think of a theme and read various books that correlate to it. This should not only be limited to books, but you should incoropate I’ve briefly stated how I find common themes to make a syllabus and some short examples to get you started in the section below!

- Read a wide range of texts. Your body is only as good as the nutrients you put into it, right? Same goes for your brain. If you constantly feed it mindless short form content, the capacity of your brain and attention span will be confined to the ten seconds you allow for it to have before moving on. If you read books that don’t let you sit with it and inspect between the lines, you’ll be bereft of the ability. If you only consume one sort of genre or text type (whether it just be thrillers or romance, or just fiction), it’ll be the same as someone who just eats fruits or a one food diet. I think it’s totally fine if you venture outside of your comfort zone and decide something is not for you, but don’t pigeonhole yourself to just one thing!

Additionally, always remember that books aren’t the only way you can read, and thinking so creates a narrow mindset. The ways in which you can be a reader is everywhere—in articles on the internet, magazines at your local bookstore, even on labels on food jars. Some of the best things I’ve read are essays on the internet or a poem in a magazine.

- Consistency is key. I’ve realized that I read the most books and digest them the best when I incorporate reading into my routine. Every morning, I make sure to read for half an hour as soon as I open my eyes before doing anything (especially checking my phone), and I read for an hour before going to bed. Reading in small chunks builds up, and I always end up reading at least two books every single week (that’s around a hundred books a year—of course, if the book is lengthy or dense, I take longer).

- Annotate, make notes. One of the most important things about reading is actively engaging with the pages. There is really no ‘right way’ to analyze, but here are some things I pay attention to: further implications of actions, characterizations, interactions, tone, literary devices, references to other things (historical events, cultural references, etc), and anything that I think is done on purpose. I write more about annotating tips in the fourth section of this post.

- Discuss books. I always think one of the best yet dismissed ways of bettering yourself intellectually is simply talking about a book with someone, or even sending an essay article to a friend and talking about it. Reading stops becoming a passive activity when you share thoughts about it with someone else, because you’re learning something that you cannot get by just engaging with the text and your own thoughts. This is why I often read a book with someone because there’s nothing I love more than rambling about something that I love.

- Keep a reading journal. I’ve kept reading journals ever since I was a kid to write down quotes, thoughts, and brief analyses of parts I think are worth remembering in a book. I free write any thoughts I have about a book immediately upon completion. I do not attempt to make this sound intelligent or philosophically profound—I try to write exactly what I think the moment I finish it. I think the first hour after finishing a book is the most important as its content or events are the most crucial. This is always handwritten; my main purpose for writing these book reviews in the first place is to get into the habit of thinking about what I just read, so handwriting it makes the most sense. These reviews range from one page to sometimes nine or ten.

2. how to make a reading syllabus

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Here is a journaling guide to get you started!

october journal prompts

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