Season 4 Recap

Words and Food and Creative Pursuits

DALL-E: Nasi Lemak in the morning, with tech, books and tea

Sabbatical life is unlike anything I’ve experienced.

I wake up here in Kuala Lumpur without an alarm clock, alarmed to notice that I’m undeniably living a dream. There’s no obligation to be regular about anything at all, except to pray and be grateful. The blank slate I wake up to each day is both a source of giddy joy and tickling worry.

My mind is a fascinatingly adept worry-making-machine. The feeling of freedom is dimmed only by lurking shadows of uncertainty and shadows of monsterous happenings around the world. Sometimes I question what I’m doing. Sometimes I gaze at the streets in wonder. Sometimes I’m daydreaming, living in an imaginary future.

The currency of such a life is resilience and unrelenting optimism.
How lucky I am.
How lucky I am to feel so deeply.

The Recap

The Adventure to Asia

The Adventure to Asia

This season kicked off as we left for Malaysia, and this piece captures, in brief, the story of how the trip came to be, along with my intentions for it. I’m excited to re-read this post in six months and see how it resonates.

Up the Rope Ladder

Up the Rope Ladder

One of the things I’ve been most looking forward to is giving myself the permission, space, and time to read books. This piece is an ode to the craft of reading, and references the fantastic work “How to Read a Book” by Charles Van Doren and Mortimer J. Adler.

Silence, Prayer, and Noise

Silence, Prayer, and Noise

As much as this sabbatical has felt like a dream, I haven’t been unaware of the world’s energetic tremors. I’ve been praying a lot. I’ve felt compelled to write. I’ve felt the call of silence. Since it’s about silence itself, the whole piece is actually ironic, now that I reflect on it. And yet, this is one that was important for my soul to share.

A Corporate Office Nightmare

A Corporate Office Nightmare

This piece was a fun dabble in narrative, based off of a dream I had. I debated fictionalizing it further — I think I know what the dream was getting at, and I could have spelled it out more clearly. I decided against that, in favor of the more ominous narrative, capturing the genuine dream that I experienced. I embellished and invented some detail in the piece, but it largely stands true.

What I’m Eating

Food in Malaysia is sublime. Because we have too many food pictures, I’ve “niched down” and therefore dub this photo: “multicolored piles of rice.”

This section exists thanks to the one and only

Shivank Taksali

.

What I’m Cooking

The kitchen is buzzing. I emerge from my creative moments on this laptop plastered in flour and wearing a broad smile. I’m feeling creatively energized in a way that I haven’t felt in a while.

Here’s just the beginning:

• I made a couple tweaks to Basalt, a little utility website that converts markdown to copy-pasteable text.

• I’ve decided on the organization of a poetry book which I’ll be releasing for free online, and I’m starting to work on how it’s all going to look.

• I’m shipping a little app that’s like a private Twitter.

• And of course, I’ve got a few fun essay ideas churning.

I’ll be writing more about the projects here and on Twitter.

Writing and Friendship

Living abroad has made me even more aware of the power of the internet to connect with others. I’m inspired to share my stories, schedule convos, and hang out in online spaces.

Writing and building has the power to forge friendships. It feels like it’s already starting to happen for me. I’m hoping that it’ll happen a lot more.

I love reading my friends’ writing. If I don’t already follow you, let me know where you hang out online, because I’d like to be there.

Until next time,
Saalik