These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Fifteen years since I’d read Any Human Heart, just read it a second time. Phenomenal. Reminds me of the beauty and tragedy of a human life. From true love and the company of a king, to heartbreaking losses and a dog food diet. We all know our final destination, but the stops along the way are a mystery.
2
2003, working at a department store, clearing out an old storage room into a skip. A couple of Travellers came along, asked if they could forage in the skip. I didn’t want to say no. They were grateful. “Costs nothin to be nice,” one of them said. Those words ringing in my head today, as they often do.
3
Tired body. Excited mind. Beautiful morning. Long list. Vibe coding. Egg yolks. Underground parking. River Wild. Cold calls. Nice people. Rude people. Video requests. Chunk of chicken. Follow ups. Mental breakdown. Weird zucchini. Three recordings. Basketball tonight.
4
Always felt people from former colonial powers – eg. England, the Netherlands – were more likely to have a sense of entitlement, sometimes healthy, sometimes not. But Spain was one of the biggest colonizers of them all, and most Spanish people don’t exude entitlement. Maybe because of Franco?
5
Lots of cold calls this week, US market. Another European-born business-owner responded well today. Definitely a pattern at this point. Something about my voice that resonates with them. Outsider recognising outsider, perhaps. I wonder if I could just call that demographic.
6
I don’t write books, but feeling these words from Edward Abbey…
Between books I take vacations that tend to linger on for months. Indolence-and-melancholy then becomes my major vice, until I get back to work. A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed. Or so it is with me.
7
Sales is an essential part of any business, but I’m not a natural sales guy. My old affiliate business was perfect in that sense. I wasn’t trying to sell anything, didn’t have to. Just wrote honest reviews and hit publish. Affiliate marketing still works, but mostly in video format now.
8
Sometimes I’ll think of some random mad thing I did on my round-the-world trip and shake my head, hardly believing it was real. Like riding a motorcycle from Kathmandu to Pokhara for hiking and paragliding and other adventures. I remember sitting alone in a cafe there one morning after little sleep, feeling extremely content.
9
Fed last month’s Momentos into Claude and asked it to assess the writer’s state of mind…
A disciplined, productive, and grateful man with a quiet melancholy running underneath. He’s strikingly self-aware—naming his anxiety, managing it deliberately—and preoccupied with mortality, luck, and legacy. Despite real contentment in his work and routines, there’s a wistful, slightly lonely undercurrent he’s honest enough to keep recording.
10
Reading about some young Canadian dude imprisoned in Tbilisi. He was arrested at the airport because he had his ADHD meds but no prescription. He’s been held for weeks, awaiting a court date, could face up to twenty years in prison. That kind of shit really bugs me, the unfairness of it.
11
Took forever to build a beautiful website 25 years ago. Even 5 years ago. So much time spent crafting, polishing, testing, troubleshooting. Now with AI you can have something beautiful, functional and flawless within an hour. I find it exciting, scary, and a little sad.
12
Walking by the river. There’s fluff in the air. I learn later it’s likely from a poplar. Most trees are both male and female, but poplars are one or the other. A male produces pollen, the wind blows that to ovules on a female. Fertilized ovules become seeds, which grow fluff and again take to the wind. All that fluff is sexy stuff.
13
Words from Leo Tolstoy…
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor – such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps – what more can the heart of a man desire?
14
Seeing NYC going nuts after the Knicks won it all for the first time in 53 years. Very few championships are so special for a city. Brings me back to 2010 in New Orleans, watching the Saints win the Super Bowl. Stepped out of the Rendezvous after, saw people dancing atop cars and buses, everyone bursting with joy.
15
Came across a beautiful song from 1979. Never heard it before. Hadn’t heard of the singer either, Randy VanWarmer, died of leukemia in 2004. That’s the romantic thing about art, how it can long outlive the artist, reach and move people decades (or even centuries) later.
16
A friend’s dog died today. Reminded me of the dog I had growing up. A brown terrier. Got him as a pup and he puked on the drive home. We used to go on big hikes across the hills and fields, exploring the countryside, him mad for rabbits. He died when I was 22, away in America. Never got to say goodbye.
17
This quote from Aftersun captures how I feel about Ireland…
And there’s this feeling, once you leave where you’re from, like, where you grew up, that, um, you don’t totally belong there again. Not really. But Edinburgh was never… never felt like I really did belong there.
18
The night is darkest just before dawn. A comforting thought, but completely untrue. Before dawn is when the sun is right below the horizon. It’s much darker around midnight, the midpoint between sunset and sunrise. This holds up better: the night is coldest just before dawn.
19
I sometimes worry about not getting great results for clients. Then I imagine being a doctor, a specialist cancer doctor. Charging way more, stakes way higher. And most likely the patient will die no matter what. Worst case scenario for me, my clients feel like they didn’t quite get their money’s worth.
20
In 1988, Marina Abramović and her partner Ulay broke up by starting at opposite ends of the Great Wall of China, walking 2500km to meet in the middle, and saying goodbye. Sometimes I think every relationship is like that. We each walk our own path, meet people along the way, and eventually say goodbye.
21
I was once an extremely shy teen, especially with women. Worked hard and became a confident man who got to experience many a fun dating adventure. Good to remind myself of that when I’m struggling to learn something new, be someone better. I’ve transformed before. I can transform again.
22
Richard Feynman said in a speech eight years before I was born…
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.
Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve heard that quote. I’m still very good at fooling myself.
23
Night of Sant Joan. In Andorra they celebrate the summer solstice by gathering around a massive bonfire and setting off a bunch of fireworks. Last year they were blaring music until 2am. This year it’s pretty much done by midnight. But I’m up late anyway.
24
I ran the Dublin marathon when I was 21, more than half my life ago. Finished in 3:41. The last few miles were hell. Photo right after the finish line, looking like death. My lower back was killing me, had to lie down for a while. Vowed I’d never run another one. But now I kinda want to.
25
Makes me sad how memories fade. Been to Japan twice in my life, last time eight years ago. But those memories are beginning to fade. Eventually they’ll be barely a wisp. But there is an upside. Books and movies I haven’t consumed for many years feel almost new, surprising even.
26
Sometimes I go back and read my old blog posts. Younger me has some good reminders. Like these words I wrote 15 years ago…
I’m a big believer in allowing myself to go too far to see how far I can go… Consider whatever it is you’re working on. Where can you go overboard? Intentionally push it a little too far and see if that line is where you think it is.
27
The old riddle: if you replace the handle and the head of a broom, is it still the same broom? I wonder about this with humanity. Nobody alive now was alive in 1908. Are we still the same broom?
28
Been increasing the weights in my daily workouts. Had kept them steady for a couple of years, just maintaining, never gaining. Seems silly now. I show up and do the exercises every day anyway. Putting in the time is never my problem. It’s making the most of that time, using it most effectively. Can take me a while to get wise.
29
I use AI to build awesome websites for clients. Definitely helps that I have a web design and SEO background. But eventually that won’t matter. AI tools will get so good that the client will be able to speak an awesome website into existence from their phone. This shit is moving fast.
30
I can see the full moon rise from my window, peeking out between the trees before taking over the sky. Ancient cultures looked at the dark patches on the moon and saw the image of a rabbit. China 2000 years ago. The Aztecs 500 years ago. I don’t quite see it.