A Year In Review
Reflections, highlights, and prodromos for the future.
The end of the year is a small, relative death. There’s a sense of closure, but also renewal, as you reflect on what has come to pass and what might be.
While it’s a private vigil that I try to keep during the last couple of days of the year and the first week of the new year, given that this is a public commonplace journal, I’d like to include everyone in my yearly review of this Substack, and if you may, allow me to indulge in self-reflection in relation to it.
Milestone Essays
Older essays are swiftly buried away because that’s the reality of social media. So, here’s a great opportunity for you and me to revisit a handful of posts from 2025 that I think are helpful if you desire to understand the larger context of what I write.
When you have the time, grab some coffee and choose a couple of essays to read.
Against Fear; exploration of its biological manifestation
Investigating how CO2 might be the manifestation of fear itself and how working with it directly has carryover to our emotional world. While this essay is mostly technical in nature, it highlights how the mind and the body are connected every step of the way. Addressing just one aspect of the Self, physical or mental, will inadvertently shut down the other.
Many of my ideas on biology and its connection to the psyche include the assumption that CO2 is a master “parahormone” so it manifests in every interaction between mind and body.
Why so salty, bro?
Instead of viewing emotions as "bad" or things to be solved, it's more useful to view emotions as truth. Or, more accurately, a private truth that reflects reality. Your reality. Ascribing a moral dimension to what you feel is tautological in the sense that you don't choose how you feel but only what you do with what you're feeling.
This is also why I have an issue with both camps of psychology and anti-psychology. Emotions can’t be supplemented away and emotions can’t be engaged just using your intellect.
It's All Levers
This is one of the key essays in understanding where I'm coming from when I write about psychology. The pernicious idea that you can magically change who you are (changing your behavior by changing your behavior) is something that you'll often encounter in pop (and clinical to be frank) psychology. But that's impossible. There's a more effective way to approach behavior.
I finished this essay two hours before I boarded a plane. The previous night, I was visiting friends and I had too much to drink. I knew that for the next couple of weeks I wouldn’t have the opportunity to finish it, so I sat down near my gate and wrote while I was still fighting the “spirits”. It turned out great, for me at least, because I finally articulated a key mechanism in my personal methodology.
You can just do... many things
It's basically a perspective on having agency. Developing agency or changing your behavior consciously is somewhat impossible, in the sense that it's largely a byproduct of varied cognitive arrangements interacting with a particular psychological makeup. Instead, I found the "lever" that can allow one to become polypragmon.
I loved writing this one. The narrative flowed and I was able to express exactly what I was thinking. It’s also why I think I approached a “truth”. Instead of “just doing things” you must do many things!
Strategies to 10x your energy
Many many traits we seek to develop hinge on having excess energy. When you try to make a positive change in your development, lack of said energy will be the first major bottleneck you must squeeze through.
This is the second “paid” essay that I wrote. It’s also the one that had the strongest impact on people who read it, which gave me more confidence in what I’m doing here!
You're 25-35 years old? You're running out of time!
Nietzsche contrasts the well-being as defined by the ignoble and the physiologically weak vs. the well-being as the ability to order oneself with the goal of "werde der du bist" (to become who you are). If your primary purpose is to avoid suffering, you'll commit suicide because, in the process, you're going to avoid everything that could've made that internal order possible.
Admittedly, the most controversial essay I’ve ever written! Mainly because it’s very easy to misinterpret it if you insert your preconceived ideas about the world. But to be fair, I labored to be as clear as possible without losing the poetic undertones I sprinkled throughout the text, and so my skill as a writer did fall short in some places. Not the blackpill you think it is... but the one you need. I reckon that if you keep an open mind, you can understand my perspective here.
Going Forward…
This year has been strange, to say the least. I travelled to a few countries, met some great people, and had a good time. But some of my foundational beliefs about the world started shifting as well. Strong opinions became loose while weaker boundaries became clearer.
There were also some setbacks that challenged my assumptions about myself and my ability to navigate life. Alas, we must keep going forward and taste what’s in the pot.
I want to thank every single one of you for reading my essays. They say a writer doesn’t need an audience but even if that’s true, you guys make the experience that much greater.
In 2026, I want to keep growing my body of work. The intersection of biology, philosophy, and psychology will remain my primary focus but hopefully some of my other threads will be of interest, too.
Some of the essays I want to publish in the next 6 months:
Hyperstimulation and Brainrot.
Spiritual bypassing.
On Sleep.
Return to youth from a Taoist perspective.
Mental movements and shifts in perspective.
And hopefully, other posts that are less structured. Maybe book reviews or diary entries. We’ll see.
(I also want to finish the BreatheLess Walking guide 2.0, which has already taken too much time. So keep an eye out for that as well)
I hope the New Year brings you whatever you need, not what you want :)
In the new year my resolution is to reduce the paralysing information overload.
Gonna only consume content from 3 different sources and you’re gonna be one of them, glad I found your stuff.
Happy new year
Thank you for sharing! I love your work. Happy New Year!