2026-03-19 23:38:00
Sometimes, I think of the countless days I was certain I wouldn't survive. Someone once shared, from their notes app, a method for the unsurvivable periods: write them down. The idea is that, when the next hard period arrives (and it does arrive) you'll have evidence, a list of things you were sure were going to kill you but didn't. Mine looks something like this:
A forced gap year from attending university due to financial struggles
A fallout with a dear friend
Second year of engineering school
That one severe depressive episode from early 2024
Living in a foreign country with an expired visa
I'm currently tackling unemployment as a recent graduate, and it's been feeling like the end of the world. Everyday, I panic I'm never surviving this! I've never experienced something so bad! - But I did. I have a list with proof that, every single time, I made it to the other side of something I was convinced was going to be the end of me. So, think of all the times you thought you wouldn't survive, and think of all the times you will.
2026-03-19 23:37:00
From Nikhil Stop loving yourself:
The pop psychology of today has conditioned us to believe that we should always love ourselves. But what if we are mediocre? If we keep celebrating ourselves without confronting that mediocrity — loving ourselves unconditionally regardless — we will never improve.
So you need a measure of self-loathing.
Echoes of my past self. Pop psychology, they argue — correctly — has assembled a self-esteem industrial complex that mistakes stillness for peace. Affirm yourself. Celebrate yourself. Accept yourself exactly as you are, in this chair, with this coffee, in this mediocrity you've been marinating in since the third time you told yourself you'd start on Monday.
They're not wrong about the rot. They're wrong about the antidote.
The voice that tells you you're mediocre doesn't arrive in thunder. It doesn't announce itself. It speaks in should — that small, damp, load-bearing word that props up every unfinished project and unstarted morning.
You should be further along
You should weigh less
You should earn more
You should want the correct things
You should with greater efficiency
Let us name it: "should" is an endless hallway in a house filled with termites.
Self-loathing speaks exclusively in should. It is the should-generation engine, running constantly in the background, consuming whatever fuel is nearest — your ambitions, your afternoons, your capacity to sit still without flinching. Self-loathing would have kept me on the couch in the precise posture of a man explaining, at length, why starting tomorrow made more structural sense. What moved me was something quieter and stranger. Closer to curiosity. What, exactly, can this thing do?
That's the unnamed third option.
Loving something does not require unconditional surrender to its current form. This is the thing the pop psychologists and the self-flagellants are both missing, from opposite directions. I love this body and I have spent twenty years making it do increasingly unreasonable things. I love this mind and I quarrel with it constantly, the way you quarrel with someone whose judgment you respect and whose blind spots you can map from memory. I love the people closest to me and I want tremendous, specific, almost embarrassing things for them — not because they are lacking but because I can see the shape of what they're becoming and I want to be present for more of it.
That wanting — toward something, not away from something — is the gear that slips in both halves of this argument. Self-loathing is motion powered by lack.
It burns dirty, and it burns the operator, and eventually you look up and realize the destination was just a different room in the same building where you started hating yourself.
2026-03-19 23:31:09
Preface: This text was written more as a note than an article. It's closer to a rant than a thought out and planned text, and should be read as such.
I've never lived in the US, yet I somehow feel as if my life has been shaped by them. Both through export of technology, and globalisation and export of culture. I also come from a NATO country1 which to this day continues to repeat the mantra "the US are our main guarantee for our security", regardless of if we're under threat or not and regardless of to what degree the US respects international law2.
My peers used to with make jokes about Alabamas incest (they still do), or say that things are from Ohio when they are bad3. Discuss local state-level laws in the US, talk about US state-level politicians, or "dig deep" into the people campaigning to become US mayoral or presidential candidates. Talk as if they understand the difference between US citizens preference between Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders. In a vacuum, none of this is bad. What irritates me is that it's always the US, and pretty much never outside 'the West'4.
Today I've been diging for more good sites to read. I want to read more of the American point of view - not just the US, the entire continent. I want to hear more from African scholars and journalists - in just 3 hours, Tshepo Madlingozi almost flipped my understanding of human rights on it's head and vastly expanded my world view on racism and decoloniality. Nkhata Murungi did the same. I want to read perspectives from people in Asia, in Eastern Europe, wherever they may be.
I want to discover more independent blogs from other places. Quickly running through the trending page (archived), it took me opening 8 pages to find someone who states that they live outside of the West (2 US, 3 EU-West, 2 w/o statement, 1 East Asia). A total of 3 blogs stated that they live outside the West5 Naturally, this is a very surface level excercise and shouldn't be read too much into. It oversimplifies someones experience down to where they live, and doesn't account for immigration and multiculturalism6. It's also anecdoctic and based on a single sample. Regardless, I think there is some value to pointing this pattern out.
I'm tired of only reading about Western of different wars and injustices far away from these areas - how are you supposed to actually know about a conflict that you physically cannot experience? How are you supposed to be 'intelligent' and 'reflected' on 'Middle-Eastern culture' (as if that's just one thing) if you've never visited the place, never spoken any of the languages, let alone visited an emmigrants house in your own country? 7
I enjoy reading from the EFF. I enjoy the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet. I used to love 404media and still enjoy poking my head in there every now and then8. I like noyb, I like the videos of Tantacrul and Hazel Thayes, I dig ava's blog, and an unfathomable amount of other authors, creators, and publications I'd love to name. But it's all western, every, single, time. It's not a criticism of any of these creators. It's an observation of a pattern that I hope will change.
There are so many great voices and creators out there who we rarely get to see. Creators not in need of the representation we always talk about, but of the presentation they deserve - they don't need us to repeat what they're saying, they should get to say it themselves; I'm not looking for yet another US-owned newspaper reporting on Iran.
Going forward, I hope to discover more creators from all over the world. This is my rant about currently not doing so.910
PS: Do let me know if you have any recommendations for what to read and where to find things.
Footnotes
I'm from Norway, but on exchange in Brazil↩
Zero.↩
Thankful that this stopped a few years ago↩
Which includes Australia for some reason, even though it's typically drawn furthest to the east? Anyways, US, Western Europe & Scandinavia, sometimes Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For the record, the US is always dominant here, with specific cases of Norwegian Instagram-stories going "if you don't think [highly regressive law change wrt womens rights] in [state in US] is the most important thing in the world right now, you should unfollow this profile" (I don't remember the specifics). It's good to see international solidarity across borders, and I'm happy see attention being brought to this. I just wish even as little as 10% of the same attention was brought elsewhere as well.↩
The full tally from the 20 posts on the front page is 7 living in US, 4 in Western Europe, 5 unstated, and 3 outside of US&W-E for a total of 19 blogs. 2 of the posts were by Robert Birming in Sweden.↩
Even the descriptor "white" is an oversimplification. It does not account from where in the world, for socio-economic status, for level of education, nor for other aspects of your background (ie. the rapper Logic). White people are born in Brazil, South-Africa, Canada, Germany, Ukraine, New-Zealand and more.↩
A quick note on why background is important: Even just the concept of human rights are somewhat western, and it's a fallacy to think that this was something agreed upon by all countries in an equal manner - it's based on a western individualistic thought-pattern (I think therefore I am - we are defined as individuals. this also implies you don't think, therefore you are not, very much used to justify white mans burden etc). in opposition to ie. ubuntu (I am because you are. you are, therefore I am. This points to the understanding of the human as a whole and part of a society. "You" is also not limited to humans; it can also mean a cat, a grasshopper, a tree, a house, or the environment as a whole. We are defined by co-existence with eachother). Having a right to a good environment assumes a separation between the right-holder and the environment.↩
It gets tiring to read all the time...↩
A final note: This rant has only been made possible by being so lucky that I got to experience it through aforementioned doctors Tshepo Madlingozi and Nkhata Murungi. I'm thankful for this. As I improve my language skills here in Brazil more, I will also start reading more Brazilian newspapers.↩
A second final note: Make friends from other countries, from other continents, and from completely different parts of the world. Talk politics with them. If you live in NATO, get a perspective from outside and vice-versa. Seek to understand. Be critical of not only other governments and thought-patterns, but also your own.↩
2026-03-19 21:59:10
I just want to take a quick moment to celebrate my completion of moving my blog over from Stomod to Bear.
While I also really enjoyed Stomod, it looks like the project is no longer quite up to date. After a little bit of research, I found Bear and decided to go all in.
I've officially moved all my previous posts, created the About, Now and Projects pages and added my custom domain (never seen such a fast DNS record update btw, it usually takes way longer to be reflected).
Ready to blog again whenever I feel like it ❤️
I might write more short-form content especially since I have recently deleted my Bluesky account, yet still find myself wanting to share quick thoughts. We'll see.
Alright, gotta go for now - have a great week!
2026-03-19 20:40:00
From 15th February to 17th March, we hosted the first Grizzly Gazette Creation Festival! People were free to create anything for the platform and its users, like code snippets, themes, buttons, banners, other art, fiction, poetry and more.
We got 13 people's submissions (that we know of!), and some even submitted multiple things; so let's look at them!
We had a lot of cool art entries!
Sylvia made amazing Pixel Bears for the users of the platform, and it even led to others creating some for each other via her template!
Other than that, we got a variety of buttons and other things to put on your blog. We got very cool ones by Vick that are very high quality and cover a wide variety of topics, like using no JavaScript, using no cookies, having used no AI/not supporting bots, Mastodon, LibreWolf and support for EU purchases, and another post that also features pixel art icons.
At last, we also got Ava with some Bearblog buttons and a banner/forum signature!
Futureperfect graced us with a nice song called Bear-ly Awake that's calm and optimistic.
Thoughtspiral wrote us a poem about oversharing!
We got quite a few code-based submissions. Robert Birming submitted a lot, like his way to display your blog age, and the Grizzly Theme! Angrybunnyman made a stamp/seal code snippet that you can set at the end of each of your posts to sign them.
We got also got a theme from Usamainsights and Loreleice provided code on how to make hoverable table rows! Pseudosingleton adjusted some of Robert Birming's Bearhug theme features to use Markdown instead of HTML in case that's more your drift.
Suliman kindly shared his theme code as well, and Kami made a bookmarklet that lets you edit your blog posts as you visit them.
Ready for a word search? Dabi made one about blogging. Can you spot all the words? If you're up for more games, why don't you try the Solo Journaling Adventures, which is, as the name says, a solo journaling RPG?
Thank you all for participating, and we hope to do this again some time!
2026-03-19 17:17:00
I was recently asked on a podcast what my biggest game-changer was, whether it be a habit, way of thinking, purchase, or change of context. I didn't need to fish around for an answer, since I already know my biggest game-changer: becoming a day person.
By this I mean I operate within daylight hours, getting up early, making good coffee and watching the sunrise with Emma. There’s something grounding about witnessing both the start and the end of the light; it makes me feel in tune with this natural cycle1.
I used to be someone who stayed up late and slept through most of the morning. It's only been the last 5 years that I've consistently gotten out of bed early.
I wake up naturally around 6am, hand grind some coffee while I'm still a bit muzzy and then, once the pour-over is blooming, wake Emma up to watch the sun rise over Cape Town while the air is still crisp and cool, and cars haven't ruined the soundscape and air quality. We sit and enjoy the coffee and view, generally in silence at first then check in with each other, ask about the day, and just enjoy the quality time together.
Having the mornings available is delightful since most people aren't awake yet, which makes it feel like a secret, special pocket in which to operate. I like to take my time getting into the day. I don't need to rush and instead have a gentle start, which puts me in a good mood. I think rushing in the morning is one of the more stressful things that I'm happy to leave behind. It takes me about an hour from waking up to leaving for the gym or a trail run—living in Cape Town comes with mountain perks you see.
I like to exercise in the morning because there are fewer commitments and plans that can derail me. The morning belongs to me, and I can do with it as I please. After exercise I shower, make a tasty breakfast, clean the kitchen, then get into work for the morning.
I tend to not open emails until after lunch so that my morning can be used for focussed work, one task at a time, no distractions. After lunch (and usually a nap) I dig into emails, admin, and other tasks that need tending to. This causes the rest of the day to get quite messy and unfocussed, but that's okay because if my morning goes right (and it usually does) then all the important things are already done.
I usually close my laptop around 3 or 4 and enjoy the rest of the afternoon in whichever way I see fit. Conveniently, around 8:30 or 9 I start getting tired since I've been awake for 15 hours already. I don't have any bright overhead lights on in the evenings, and the apartment has a nice warm glow which signals to my body that it's time to start winding down. And because I keep "regular business hours" my mind isn't overactive in the evening (it helps that I'm not on my phone). We're generally in bed by 9:15 and after about half an hour of reading (currently Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett) I'm fast asleep.
This sounds early to some, but the tradeoff is worth it. Generally the activities past 10pm involve watching series or going to a bar, neither of which I'm particularly attached to. I know Europeans like to eat dinner late at night, but luckily that's not the culture here, with South Africans having the earliest bedtimes in the world2.
That isn't to say that I don't stay up late on occasion. I like to socialise over late dinners, go to music festivals, the cinema, and also get dragged to the theatre on occasion. It's just that these are exceptions, with the downside being that even when I'm out until 1am I still wake up naturally at 6. This is what naps are made for.
I'm not suggesting everyone make the switch to being daytime people (I like having them to myself, thank you very much). Experiment and do what feels best for you. This is just something that had an outsized positive impact on me, and I suspect there are many other people who would enjoy mornings if they gave them a proper chance.
--
Opinion: Research about "morning larks and night owls" tends to be a bit muddy and suggests that people can't make the switch due to genetics. In a research setting I'm sure it's pretty difficult to make the switch in X number of weeks, but the research tends to ignore that people make the switch all the time. It also ignores that historically humans have by-and-large been day-time creatures, since artificial lighting (including fire) is a fairly recent invention in evolutionary time, and we have pretty terrible night vision. All of the great apes being diurnal too suggests that we are too.↩