2025-12-27 02:07:38
I’ve been a little quiet on here (and honestly across most of my socials), because I’ve been attempting to focus more on myself offline. It’s no secret that I’ve been having a hard time the past few months. Even with all my posts about not letting the loss of my job define my worth, I still managed to lose myself somewhere along the way. That part isn’t new though, so I won’t focus on that right now.
Lately I’ve been starting my mornings with a cup of coffee and my journal. There’s just something therapeutic about writing my thoughts out with (my favorite fountain) pen and paper. At times, it just feels like some sort of one sided conversation with myself. Sometimes I even respond in the way I imagine someone who cares about me would (if I’m feeling positive and not cynical that day). Other times, I’m ok with just leting a thought exist, perfectly content with no response at all.
I actually took a few months off from journaling over the summer, and it wasn’t until I picked it back up that I realized how much I missed it. That pause made it clear that the 288 page Hobonichi notebook I started last year was the right choice for me after all. I would’ve definitely failed with having dailies.
Anyways...
I fell into the world of fountain pens, Tomoe River paper, and Hobonichi in late 2024. It began with my first fountain pen, followed by the realization that Moleskine paper no longer worked for me. From there, it was a quick descent down the rabbit hole. I wasn’t ready to commit to an expensive planner (aka Hobonichi Cousin) just yet, so I landed on what felt like the next best thing: a Hobonichi grid notebook. Given my less than stellar history of finishing journals in a reasonable amount of time (my last one took three years) I made myself a deal. If I could finish this notebook by the end of 2025, I would finally allow myself to finally get the Hobonichi Cousin for 2026.
Now that we’re nearing the end of 2025, I’m happy to say I’m down to my last few pages. Although I had those few months skipped, I still somehow made it. I’ve already started my photo a day for this month in my new Hobonichi Cousin (the monthlies started in December), though I still have to wait until January 1st for the dailies.
I tend to decorate my journals as the year unfolds, theming it based on how my year is going. That’s why this new one is completely plain at the moment. Check back at the end of 2026 to see how it turns out. I already can’t wait to see it chonk up.
For now, we’ll just focus on the almost finished 2025 journal.
👈 Left is my current journal, 👉 right is my 2026 journal.
The cover of my November 2024-December 2025 Hobonichi Grid Notebook, and my currently undecorated 2026 Hobonici cousin
I recently just finalized the stickers on the back of my 2025 journal, and already thinking of ways I can make my new one more me.
The side view of my beloved journal, and my soon to be loved journal.
∞ Related: My Moleskine to Hobonichi Notebook Switch
2025-12-27 01:53:00
I released the updated Bearming theme for Bear on December 14, and a lot of things have happened since then. Here’s a small summary of what’s been going on behind the scenes.
The latest theme version, which was just released, is Bearming 3.3. The biggest change is that you now have several new “knobs” to easily personalize the theme to your liking. You can effortlessly change fonts, sizes, add borders, and much more.
Since the release, I’ve also added four new color palettes and 15 new add-ons, and fixed a lot of boring things in the background to make everything play nicely together and add less weight. If you’re curious, you can find all the updates in the changelog.
This is my current setup:
Apart from that, I’ve also played around with the look a bit, adding a header border and tweaking the spacing. I’ll probably keep tinkering, maybe add a footer border too. And yes, I’m fully aware I’m biased, but I really like these new possibilities.
I have a million more ideas for what I want to do, but just like you, I’m limited by this tiny little thing called time. 😊
Maybe you have ideas too? Please let me know. No promises I’ll add them, but I’m open to all suggestions.
Happy blogging, no matter what platform or theme you’re using.
2025-12-25 21:22:00
I haven’t put much thought into Christmas since I moved out of my parents’ home, aside from selfmade Advent calendars.
I’m not a big fan of visiting Christmas markets, as the trinkets there seem useless and overpriced, and most of the (expensive!) food is not something I’ll eat. All the crowds and risks make me uneasy.
I also think Christmas decorations can be quite gaudy and ugly. Dealing with a real tree can be expensive, annoying and wasteful, but the fake tree I have is a pain to set up and leaves an oily film on my hands. Wrapping paper for the gifts seemed wasteful as well, so we often left it in the original cardboard box, or wrapped it in muslin sheets.
This year takes the cake though in how little preparation Christmas got. No tree, no decorations, one or two gifts wrapped, the rest weren’t. The only thing we had going was the calendar, Christmas music, a fancy dinner, and baking cookies.
I thought celebrating such a minimized version of Christmas would be enough and not something that bothers me, but instead it showed me that I need to put in more effort in the years to come.
I needed this experience to realize that I actually like Christmas a little and that an opportunity for joy and whimsy is missing if I don’t participate in some way at least. It’s not that Christmas is a hassle or per se not fun, but instead, there are things I can do and other viewpoints to take that could make it more fun for me. I finally seem to get the point of Christmas aside from gift giving; the point of everything around the actual Christmas Eve.
I used to think “Why put up decorations for a few weeks just to put them away? Why can’t everything just stay the same all year round? What a useless hassle!” but with the years passing and living in the same home, I understand now that you need a bit of change around to not get sick of it all. It also feels better to mark time passing with certain home decor and other changes than to feel it run through your hands while nothing around you really changes. It’s eerie.
I can now appreciate the different year-round festive markers as ways to celebrate and accept time moving forward as the year goes on, instead of living the same way all those months and suddenly feeling surprised that another year ended. The rituals and visual reminders throughout the months help going consciously through the year and savoring the time. Putting the decorations away or rearranging things is like a little conscious goodbye that another piece of the year is over.
I’ve never seen it that way before, and simply thought older people were a little too stuck in traditions and optics in front of neighbors to question the effort they put into decorating for the different seasons, easter, Halloween, Christmas and more. But they were right, and it feels warm and welcoming.
Growing up, all the holiday spirit feels like it materializes around you by itself, but that’s not true. It’s not a natural disaster, it’s people coming together to make it happen and make it special for others.
It’s your family making an effort to decorate the home, to give you an Advent calendar, to fill your Nikolaus boot, take you to a Christmas market and more. It’s your school that decorates and your teachers to bring candy or make crafts for the holidays or other holiday-themed exercises. Your hobby group will likely do some end-of-the-year type celebrations too. The people who buy the craft stuff and decorations, the people who stand in the cold for 10 hours at the market do it so others can just feel like this magically happens and don’t have to think about the logistics.
I somehow missed the point where I realized that it all depended on people giving a damn and putting in the effort to make it happen, and that once you exit all these groups that make an effort and age out of it, you’ll have to go put in the effort yourself.
That’s why Christmas “doesn’t feel as special as it used to”. Because as an adult, it won’t just materialize around you anymore. You have to be the one to motivate yourself to put up the decorations, not just help or admire them; you choose the days to bake, the recipes, the tree. You fill your own Nikolaus boot or sock, so to speak. Christmas gettogethers aren’t just thrust upon you anymore, you either show an interest to attend, or you host and plan accordingly.
A big part of this is also not having guests over that would care, or children to urge you to do all of this. I’m sure if I had a child, I’d go above and beyond to make Christmas special for them year after year, because they’re witnessing it for the first time and deserve happy Christmas childhood memories. And if we hosted a big friend Christmas gettogether, I’m sure I’d feel similarly.
Without that reason, I have to learn to take it seriously by myself and do it for my wife and me, even if it feels unnecessary initially. And I hope once we move closer to friends, maybe we can host some festivities.
I’ll definitely do better next year!
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2025-12-25 14:03:20
It's my brother's birthday.
That's how I've viewed Christmas ever since I learned of his existence over a decade ago. It was unexpected; my adoptive parents had a "feeling" (they knew but never dared to broach the subject) that I was my birth mother's second child, and I thought that was all. So, I was shocked to learn that I have a younger half-brother, too.
Of course, the 25th of December is virtually meaningless in Russia, something that hadn't dawned on me until my early twenties. But I don't care, I still tell people that his birthday is on Christmas. Or maybe Christmas is on his birthday.
Even though we don't share the same father, my brother occupies my headspace just as much as my fully biological sister, whom I met this year. Unfortunately, he could not join her on the trip to Kazakhstan.
He and I started texting only this May. I was warned that he's very, very shy.
He's so bashful that you'd think he's turning 16 instead of 26. We've barely exchanged any messages this year, but I've clung to each one. I saved the video clips of him waving to me because he's too shy to say much to me. I reread snippets of our written correspondences that seem to expire beyond three days yet don't offend me because he's my brother and I imagine how weird it must be for him. He was just a young teenager when he learned that he had not one sister but two. I don't know how I would react to that if I were him.
We don't look super alike, but that only makes me more excited to look at photos of him that I saved on my phone. It's like a challenge to find similarities, which I have eventually found. He looks so much more like his father, my sister repeats. My sister and brother have sometimes been mistaken for a couple in public. I show photos of him to my friends and ask if they think we look similar at all.
Reading the full names of my sister and brother for the first time all those years ago is something that still haunts me. All my life I've been desperate to meet them, to know and live vicariously through them. More so than my birth mother, I must admit.
Sometimes I think about how funny it is that I'm the misfit. The unlucky middle child who had to go away, banished from everyone's memory until our mother confessed. Like my existence deserved a long time-out. Sure, it's unsurprising that a young mother who could hardly afford to keep one child had to surrender the second (me). But then she and my sister's stepfather had my brother. It's hard not to take that personally sometimes. I try not to, especially because his father said he would have been so willing to raise me had he known of me.
Our mother doesn't know why he's so shy, especially because he's so social and extroverted. Maybe it's because he has a different father, she suggests. I don't ask him because I don't want him to feel bad.
I don't ask if it's because of me. I was not second best but third worst. I wonder if he (and my sister) identifies as the kept one and doesn't know how to sit with that.
I don't mind that he's not a big texter given how much my sister and I write to each other. He insists that he'll stop being shy once we eventually meet. For now, he cannot find the words.
I hope we see each other next year, he semi-recently wrote to me.
I'm not optimistic about that.
I wish I could meet my brother and spend his birthday with him. That would be the best Christmas gift.
2025-12-25 03:06:00
My nephew still believes in Santa, and he thinks this mysterious figure is one of the most awesome dudes around.
My sister is doing everything she can to keep that dream alive. She sneaks into his room and rearranges things, pours flour outside his door to make tiny footsteps, puts out a bowl of porridge and makes sure Santa has suddenly eaten it, and leaves small gifts here and there.
There are traces everywhere, but the secret Santa is nowhere to be seen. It's a mystery, and it makes my nephew a bit frustrated. He wants to meet him, or at least catch a glimpse.
So what do you do in the year 2025?
His solution is as genius as it is obvious if you are born into these tech times. A motion-activated camera. This year, the secret Santa Claus fellow won’t stay a mystery for long.
I don’t know how my sister will work it out. All I know is that even Santa is having a hard time surviving in the digital age.
2025-12-24 20:52:00
Almost 2 years, I have deleted all my other accounts and have almost completely stopped using any social media, except for X.
With X, it is truly a platform unlike any other.
Talented, energetic, outstanding, and fascinating people gather here in dense concentration.
They share their lives, work, thoughts, memories, perspectives, and journeys, frequently and relentlessly.
The individuals having the greatest impact, wielding the most influence, and pushing humanity forward are often on X.
They debate, they nitpick, they argue fiercely (sometimes "fight"), they create historic moments, and they grow together.
All of them,
Directly, indirectly, loudly, and even silently as quiet observers.
With Grok, the platform resonates even more powerfully.
I use Grok far more often than I ever imagined I would. Whenever I come across an interesting post, I instinctively turn to Grok to expand it.
Cultural differences?
Language barriers?
Not fully understanding the issue?
Missing the bigger picture?
Context?
Fake news?
Is it real?
What’s the deeper meaning?
What surrounds it?
What’s the underlying foundation?
Everything, around a topic, a post, a debate, an event, a milestone,...
Grok expands it all, weaving in related trends, general news, and diverse angles to create a surprisingly rich and addictive loop of discovery.
Through this X+Grok loop, I stay endlessly curious, like a child, constantly asking questions, thinking deeply, and learning more things that I previously didn’t even know I didn’t know.
That is something no other platform can offer right now.
X and Grok are two steps ahead, and they’ve always stayed two steps ahead.
I hope this remains true for many decades to come.
I offer my deepest thanks, and my deepest appreciation.
It’s truly fortunate that Elon Musk acquired it more than three years ago.
I love X, and I love Grok.
User since 2015, currently have 1 follower (the counter is still wrong even after I removed all followers)