062019: Take Yourself With You

Me being happy in Vienna

(Picture of me being happy in Vienna a couple of weeks ago)

It’s 9.30pm and 21°C outside, which is quite nice. I am sitting on my sofa while typing this; after I spent 50 per cent of the weekend sick in bed, another 25 per cent with friends, and the remaining 25 per cent with myself, which I’ve been enjoying a lot lately.

So what has been happening?! I admire people who manage to send out newsletters on a very regular basis, but I am not one of them. That’s actually good for you, because I guess I am not the only one with tons of unread newsletters in my inbox, which I’d LIKE to read but eventually just mark as read because there is so much other stuff to read and see and do.

In general: I’ve learned a lot about what kind of person I am and what I am not, and accepting both has been a big relief recently. I am not a travel-person, for example, at least not right now, and that’s okay. I am, however, a picky eater, and that’s okay too. I’ve spent years trying not to be one; trying to like everything, but you know what: Liking everything is ~not joyful~ at all. Being at ease with the things you can and cannot fulfill is fantastic, and it makes coping with life so much easier. Cool that I only needed 27 years to figure that out.

Sitting here, on a Sunday night, with a cold soda and an uncomfortably warm laptop on my lap, made me remember my last summer: I’ve spent it completely inside, writing my thesis, letting the warm days pass by. I am not a lake person, or a picknick person, but I definitely am a summer person. I am looking forward to making it count (a bit more) this year.

Hard facts to add some links to this letter: We’ve polished Zeit Online a little bit (as in: we removed the sidebar, and made everything a bit nicer and bigger and better). When I showed the designs to readers, no one noticed a difference, and that was okay. I wasn’t trying to design something new; I just wanted to improve the existing thing, and as Lucius Burckhardt taught me: Good Design is invisible. (Bitter pill to swallow at first, admittedly.)

I’ve also been blogging (yes, I still do that occasionally): I drew manspreaders I saw on the train, I cycled behind a woman with a carpet beater, and I drew a selfie of me on my therapist’s sofa. I generally try to draw more on my instagram.

Even during summer, sofas seem to be my happy place. Nothing wrong with that! That’s why I’m sending you kindest regards from between these pillows here right now, and kindly ask you to stay cool and use sunscreen during the next days.

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