Kunal Gupta's Blog, page 2

How to Road Trip

We didn’t know where we were going.

What we did know was that we had set aside the time. That felt like enough. Not knowing the destination wasn’t a problem—it was, in a quiet way, the point.

A direct flight appeared in our search, from Lisbon to Vienna, Austria. That seemed as good a place to begin as any. A few hours later, we went to the airport.

After landing, we walked across the airport to the car rental counter, picked up the keys, started the engine, and drove.

Not knowing what lay ahead was, at first, disorienting. But as the kilometers passed, it slowly became calming. There was no list of places to see. No pressure to arrive. Just a road, and time, and us.

It was on the highway somewhere in Austria that we noticed it first. During a stretch of traffic, cars ahead of us began to move—not forward, but sideways. The ones in the left lane edged further to the left. Those on the right veered gently toward the shoulder. A corridor began to appear in the middle, empty but deliberate.

It happened again. And then again. Only on the third occasion a few days later did we begin to understand—this was no coincidence. It was a quiet agreement between drivers, built into muscle memory. A space formed intuitively, in anticipation of an emergency vehicle that hadn’t yet arrived. An unspoken collective act of care.

Which is perhaps what made it striking. We hadn’t read about it. It wasn’t in the guidebook. It only became visible by being there, and by paying attention.

That kept happening.

In Slovenia, we stayed at places that weren’t written about, where menus rarely included English and smiles carried most conversations. There were no gift shops or walking tours. But there was an intensity to the hospitality that caught us by surprise—people willing to help, not because they were told to, but because it felt natural.

Everything worked. Parking machines. Public washrooms. Even fountains. Nothing extravagant. Just quietly functional. And when something didn’t work—like the air conditioning in our room—the response we received revealed a different layer of the place.

“The system says it works,” the receptionist insisted. First once, then again. Offers to change rooms were made, and then reversed, based on the unwavering truth of the system's assertion.

When a technician came the following day, he explained the design of the system in exacting detail—how it was intended for perfect conditions, how something small must have failed, how that failure rendered the whole thing helpless. It made me smile.

Somewhere between the unyielding structure of Austria and the soft adaptability of Slovenia, I started to see just how much culture hides in the spaces between events. Not in the postcards or plates of food or museum exhibits, but in everyday assumptions. In what people notice. In what they don’t. In how they respond when a system breaks.

There’s a difference, I've come to learn, between visiting a place and being somewhere.

Travel often encourages the former—moving quickly, collecting sights, capturing proof. But this trip felt like the latter. We didn’t plan our route. We avoided highways. We stopped for any town that looked interesting, walked around until something pulled us in, and stayed longer than we thought we would. The best stops weren’t on any map.

Each day, I limited myself to one hour online, usually in the morning. No email. No stock market. No messages. No social media. But what changed wasn’t how I used my time, it was how my attention softened. Details I normally miss began to land. The color of trees. The tilt of a road sign. The way light falls differently through a mountain valley.

At a small gym, I used equipment I hadn’t seen before. Nothing complicated, just different. I found myself using machines in unfamiliar ways, pulled out of my usual routines. It struck me how habitual even my workouts at my home gym had become. Without realizing it, I was repeating the same motions, day after day. Something about being somewhere new disrupted the cycle. Forced me to pay attention again.

In cities I know well—Lisbon, New York—it can be hard to tell what belongs. What’s made for locals versus what’s made to appear local for someone like me. But in Slovenia, that question didn’t arise. Small towns seemed uninterested in performing for visitors. Things were not what they were designed to seem. They were just… what they were.

Without knowing if we’d continue driving or stay another day, we followed something that had less to do with logic and more to do with feeling. A kind of improvisation. It made things lighter. There was comfort in not knowing what was next.

There’s a spaciousness that comes with the unknown. It doesn’t always feel good. At first, it can feel like floating—but over time, it can begin to feel like freedom. What does it mean to move through a place with no aim, no target, no arrival point? What shows up when there’s nothing to chase?

Perhaps it wasn’t really a road trip at all—it was a permission slip. To pause. To notice. To lean into surprise. To be somewhere, without needing to prove that I had been.

Maybe this is what it means to road trip. Not to get from point A to point B. But to move with presence, to dwell in curiosity, and to allow the road to shape the direction, not just the destination.

I left with no plan. I returned with no souvenirs. But the world felt different. Somehow clearer—not because it had changed, but because I had started to look again.

And that is how I learned to road trip.

How to Bruno Mars

For as long as I can remember, silence has been my default. I’ve spent years seeking it—protecting it—in between conversations, around meetings, after long days. Silence offers space. And I’ve come to appreciate how much happens in that space.

But recently, something shifted. My partner loves music in the way I love quiet. Slowly, the soundtrack of my days changed. I still don’t pay attention to the names of most songs or artists, or even the lyrics. But I recognize what I enjoy. And over time, I began to enjoy Bruno Mars more than others.

Earlier this year, we went to Vegas to see Bruno Mars live. I’ve never been one to follow concerts closely. But something about this experience stayed with me.

The seats were surprisingly comfortable—though almost unnecessary, since we stood for nearly the entire show. The energy was infectious. Everyone was on their feet, moving, singing, letting go. I don’t remember the names of the songs. But I remember the feeling. Which, in the end, feels more important.

Before the show started, something unusual happened. As we entered the venue, they took our phones and locked them in small pouches. Pockets we carried with us, but couldn’t open for the next three or four hours. At first, it felt inconvenient. Disorienting. But then the initial discomfort softened into something else.

It’s one thing to be without a phone. It’s another to be without a phone in a room with tens of thousands of other people who are also without theirs. There was no glow from screens. No arms raised trying to film the stage. Just people. Bodies swaying, voices rising, everyone there.

I noticed something in myself—a flicker of an impulse. There were moments when I wanted to reach for my phone. Not to call anyone. Not even to share. Just to capture. I don’t post on social media, but even so, I quietly thought, “This would be a beautiful moment to record.”

That impulse said something. About how deep the habit runs. About how fast the urge can pull us out of a moment, even just a little, to step outside it and preserve it. And yet, the simple reality of not having the option made everything feel more complete. Nothing to do but enjoy what was unfolding.

After the opening track, he leaned into the mic and sang a song about the phones. About taking them away just for one night. About returning to the good old days, when we danced and laughed without having to hold anything in our hands. There was humor in it. A little teasing. But also something sharper—like we were being offered a glimpse into what we’ve forgotten.

And I thought about how rare this experience has become. Not just being present, but being present together. Most modern concerts are designed with sharing in mind. Other performers, like Taylor Swift, have made it part of their strategy. Phones in the air aren’t a distraction—they’re marketing. The show doesn’t end when the lights go down. It lives on through stories, reels, and FOMO. It’s good for business.

But this wasn't.

There’s something economically irrational for an artist to ask people not to share. And yet, maybe that's why it felt so special. Something about its inaccessibility made it more vivid. Unrepeatable. More real.

Later, at the gym, one of his songs came on again. And suddenly, I wasn’t on a rowing machine—I was back in that theatre. I could see the lights. The way he danced across the stage. The way we danced. Every detail came rushing back, not because I watched a video of it, but because I had lived it fully.

There’s something ironic about that. That not trying to remember might be the best way of remembering. When I’m fully present, not just without technology but without being pulled into thoughts elsewhere, the memory doesn’t fade. It stays. It sinks in deeper. It’s not a photo—I can’t scroll to it—but it’s mine.

What struck me most wasn’t just my own presence, though. It was the presence of everyone else. There’s something profoundly different when an experience is shared by a crowd all focused on the same thing. It felt a little like being in a meditation retreat—or a yoga retreat—where stillness and focus are collective, where silence isn’t lonely but full. But I’ve only ever felt that kind of shared presence in small groups. A dozen people. Maybe a room of fifty. Never in a crowd of thousands.

And now, days and weeks later, what stays with me is exactly what didn’t get captured. What couldn’t be replayed. What couldn’t be posted or liked or remembered externally. It lives quietly inside me. And maybe that’s the whole point.

Sometimes, the most vivid memories don’t come from the moments we hold onto. They come from the ones we fully live.

And that is how I learned to Bruno Mars.

How to Pizzeria

I was sitting at home with no particular plans, my phone buzzing with the usual noise of group chats.

One message caught my eye—photos of cousins from India traveling through Europe. They thought I was still in Australia. I picked up the phone, called them immediately, and said, “I’m coming.” A few days later, I was in Naples, Italy.

They had been to a pizzeria the night before I arrived. “We have to go back,” they said. I didn’t ask questions. We waited in line for over an hour. Apparently, this was one of the original pizza places in Naples. It had no menu. Four types of pizza. That was all.

When we finally walked in, the energy in the room caught me by surprise.

Laughter floated through the air, not from the tables, but from behind the counter. A young woman tossing dough grinned, radiant and generous. A waiter tapped me on the shoulder, laughing, saying something in Italian I couldn’t understand, even with my vague memory of Portuguese. Then an older man shouted something back across the kitchen, and they both burst into laughter.

Something in me paused.

It wasn’t the pizza—though it was, without doubt, the best I’ve tasted. It wasn’t even the company, though being with family again, in a different part of the world, brought a quiet comfort. It was something else.

The waiter—the one who was taking my order, in the middle of what must have been an exhausting shift—was happier than I was. Less tired. More alive. He wasn’t on vacation. He wasn’t traveling. He didn’t have the luxury of leisure time or the novelty of being in a new country. But he was lit up. At ease. Several shades more joyful than me.

And it was contagious. Laughter reached our table in waves. Smiles began to stretch across our faces as we looked around and saw not just good food being served, but good energy being shared, without effort, without reason.

The next morning, while meditating, I could still feel it. That joy hadn’t passed through me—it had stayed. A presence. A warmth. I started asking myself why. What gives that kind of feeling its staying power?

It wasn’t money. It wasn’t time. I have both, and they weren’t what stood out.

I kept returning to the energy of the people working at the pizzeria. There was a kind of satisfaction I sensed in them, the kind that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but can be felt unmistakably. They were really good at what they did. Not just making pizza, but being present, being together, holding a rhythm that made the whole restaurant hum. And they knew it. Not in a prideful way—but in an embodied way. Like a musician who doesn’t need to overplay, or a dancer who doesn’t need to perform. Just in it. For the love of the craft.

I’ve felt that kind of satisfaction before. Moments from the past drifted in—launching a product at a company I once ran, where everything felt aligned; making guacamole one night for friends, having made it hundreds of times before, each step familiar, the balance of lime and heat just right; the end of a long meditation retreat, where the mind is quiet, the body settled, and presence feels deep and effortless.

There’s a particular kind of joy that comes from doing something well. Not perfectly, but wholeheartedly. It’s less about the outcome and more about the grounding that comes with mastery—not a title or a credential, but a knowing in the bones.

That night at the pizzeria was also a reminder of something else. The joy of doing things with others. The staff weren’t just in the same room—they were in rhythm with one another. Laughing across the floor, playing their parts without stepping on each other’s toes. It felt like jazz. Spontaneous but structured. Loose but connected.

In contrast, I spend a lot of my time—with work, with content, with tools—talking to screens. Often alone. It’s easy to forget the lightness of shared space, the subtle joy of small collaboration. Team doesn’t have to mean a big organization. Sometimes it looks like making dinner together, or walking in silence with a friend, or even trading glances with a stranger on the subway—those in-between moments of unspoken human rhythm.

And there was the simplicity of the whole thing. No menu. Four pizzas. A small room with old paint and mismatched tables. Nothing curated for social media. Nothing performed. Just what it was.

I’ve come to appreciate how little it takes to create meaning. A simple ritual, repeated often, held with care. Morning tea. Evening walks. A few deep breaths before bed. When done with attention, these small gestures become more than routine—they become grounding. Like a sacred rhythm without the need for ceremony.

That pizzeria, in all its simplicity, has reframed something for me. For a long time I chased the idea that joy lay just around the bend. More time. More freedom. More clarity. It’s easy to imagine it lives elsewhere—on quiet beaches, in future plans, in someone else’s life. But it rarely arrives in the places the mind expects it to.

That night in Naples reminded me it can be right here. In work done with love. In laughter shared without reason. In something familiar done with care.

Since then, whenever I see a pizza—even a basic slice from the airport food court—I hope to smile. Not because of what it is, but because of what it represents to me. A small, grounded joy. A warmth that doesn’t demand anything. A reminder.

I take that memory as an invitation—to keep finding joy in the ordinary, and to let it spread.

And that is how I learned to pizzeria.

How to Escape Room

The door clicked shut behind us. There was no turning back—not for another hour. The room was quiet, dimly lit, eerily detailed.

That first minute held a kind of stillness I don’t often feel. For the next sixty minutes, I knew where I needed to be. And that, in itself, was rare.

I’ve done dozens of escape rooms over the last ten years. Some more elaborate than others. Some with strangers, some with close friends. But every time, something shifts. For a brief moment, life becomes simpler. The world narrows. There’s a puzzle in front of me. A team around me. A clock above me. And nothing else.

What does it mean to escape? I’ve been thinking about that.

At first glance, stepping into an escape room seems like the very definition of escapism. But the more I sit with it, the more it feels like something else. Something closer to stepping in than stepping out. It’s not an avoidance of life. It’s a clearer version of it. One that moves a little slower, feels a little sharper.

There’s something powerful about choosing to close a door. About leaving the phone outside, the notifications behind. Meetings, errands, messages—all waiting on the other side of the wall. I didn’t need to check anything or be anywhere. I was exactly where I had chosen to be. Locked in, yes. But also free.

It reminded me of that quiet clarity that comes at the start of a meditation retreat. Or the strange calm that settles in during a long-haul flight, thousands of feet above everything that usually feels urgent. Sometimes, escape is a doorway to presence. The more I consciously step out of regular life, the more available I feel to see it again with new eyes.

And then there’s the simplicity. The rules are clear. The boundaries are evident. The goal is singular: get out. So little of modern life is like that. Most days blur with open tabs and half-tasks. Too many choices. In contrast, being in a space with limits—literal walls—creates a kind of permission to focus, to engage fully with what’s in front of me. In paradoxical ways, constraint becomes expansive.

Over the weekend, I found myself caring deeply about a combination lock that guarded a fake treasure chest. I watched the clock count down and recalibrated our efforts with every passing minute. I was probably more competitive than anyone else in the room, reminding people of how much time we had left. It wasn’t about the prize. It was something else entirely: the joy of taking play seriously.

As an adult, spaces to truly play seem to shrink over time. The ones where the stakes are low, but the effort is real. Where silliness and structure coexist. Where there’s space to try, to fumble, to laugh. It feels rare. And regenerative.

What’s even rarer is the chance to collaborate without a formal agenda. Some of the people in the room were close friends I know from professional settings. But in this space, those dynamics disappeared. We weren’t leading anything or managing anyone. We were searching under rugs and tapping on walls, guessing wildly and getting things wrong. It was vulnerable in a way I hadn’t expected. Revealing and familiar at the same time.

There’s an intimacy in being confused together. In pausing to think out loud. In noticing who rushes ahead, who slows down, who steps back. The escape room became a mirror—reflecting small truths about how we each navigate uncertainty. But it also became a container. A reminder that even without knowing, we could move forward.

What surprised me most was how fully I cared about the outcome. Not passively, not as an observer. But as someone in the story. I realize how few experiences offer that now. So much of daily life is performed at a safe distance—watching, scrolling, spectating. Entertainment often leaves nothing required of us. But this asked something.

I found myself admiring the room itself. The clues hidden in plain sight. The props and puzzles and hidden compartments. Someone had imagined all of this. Carefully. Creatively. Not just the story, but how the story would feel. It reminded me of the first time I held a well-designed object and thought about the person who designed it.

And maybe that’s what stayed with me most. Not the puzzles or the locks, but the feeling of stepping into someone else’s imagination. Not observing it, but being enveloped by it. Participating in it. There’s something sacred in that.

Eventually, the door opened, and the hour slipped away. We stepped back into streetlights and mild weather and the weekend’s to-do list. But something lingered.

I don't think of the escape room as an escape from life. I think of it as a small reminder of what life can hold—when attention sharpens, when presence softens, when imagination leads. These qualities aren’t locked behind puzzles. They’re here, scattered quietly across the everyday.

Sometimes the challenge isn’t to find a way out. But to find a way in.

To notice when I’m paying attention. To feel when I’m playing, truly playing. To trust that collaboration can be aimless and meaningful. To remember that uncertainty isn’t always something to fix, but something to feel. And to celebrate the moments, however short, when I step into someone else’s dream—and, for a while, lose track of where mine ends and theirs begins.

The door behind me closed once again, this time without a click.

Not a lock, not a puzzle.

Just a breath.

And that is how I learned to escape room.

How to Coldplay

The sun was still up. The crowd was already here. And yet there was a strange sense of quiet.

Fifty thousand people in a stadium, but something delicate lingered in the air—a shared anticipation. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t rowdy. It was… still. Like the moment before a wave crests. A stillness at the edge of something about to begin.

I haven’t been much of a concert-goer. At least not until recently. But over the past few months, several people had recommended this particular performance. And when the opportunity came to see Coldplay live, I said yes—not out of fandom, but out of curiosity.

Walking through the gates of Stanford Stadium, the energy was nearly tangible. Almost ceremonial. A kind of collective readiness, not just for music, but for mood, for moment.

We found our seats. And then before long, the lights shifted, the first chords struck, and everyone jumped to their feet—where we would stay for the rest of the show. There were lasers. There were wristbands that flickered in perfect sync with the sound. Fireworks erupted behind the stage. It was, in every sense, a spectacle. And yet amid the theatrical, something simple emerged.

I felt present.

Not the kind of presence that tries hard to block out distractions. Not the kind of presence that meditates its way into awareness. This was effortless. It just… was.

I wasn’t thinking about the messages I hadn’t replied to. I wasn’t wondering what time it was. I wasn’t reflecting on who I was supposed to be. I was there—feeling the vibrations underfoot, the cheers overhead, the music weaving through it all. Surrounded by strangers, yet attuned to everything at once.

And I couldn’t help but notice the contrast.

So much of life lately has been lived through a screen. Hours spent behind it, staring into sterile light, much of it in conversation with artificial intelligence. It’s remarkable what these tools can do. How quickly, how accurately, how endlessly.

But not how it feels.

This—this was something else entirely. Something irreducible.

In this past year, I’ve found myself drawn toward more shared experiences—live ones. Whether it was watching tennis at the Australian Open or attending events at the Paris Olympics, I’ve come to realize how little I remember of the specifics. I couldn’t tell you who won a medal. Couldn’t share the final score of the match. I can’t even name the lead singers of Coldplay. Or their songs. Or recite a single lyric.

But I can tell you how I felt.

Surprised. Moved. Light. Alive.

That’s what I’ve remembered from all these moments. Not the facts. Not the who or what or how long. Just the feeling. The texture of emotion that settled into memory long after the event was over.

It reminded me of something I’ve come to believe: that it’s not the content of a moment that makes it meaningful. It’s the emotional imprint it leaves behind.

A conversation with a friend. A bite of something delicious. A sentence in a book that lingers long after the page has turned. A walk in familiar light that somehow looks different on a new day. These small, ordinary things—when felt deeply—become significant. Not because they last. But because they’re felt.

In a world obsessed with permanence, emotion remains beautifully fleeting. Impossible to download, catalog, or summarize. Which may be the point.

There was something ancient in that stadium. Something human. It wasn’t just a band playing songs. It was a sea of people feeling something all at once, without needing to name it. An unrepeatable choreography of sound, light, and shared presence.

That night, I couldn’t take much away with me. I had no setlist. I had no photos. But I had emotion—undeniable and vivid—and that seems to be enough.

And that is how I learned to Coldplay.

How to New York

I was in New York last week for the first time in five years. Before the pandemic, I had lived there—on and off—for nearly a decade. It was the kind of place I kept returning to, in part because it never stopped moving. 

But this time was different. 

I was visiting with my partner, walking the streets I once called home, pointing out buildings I used to live in, cafes I used to frequent, corners where memories once unfolded. The city looked much the same. But I didn’t.

There’s something I’ve always believed about landmarks. They don’t change so that we can see how we have. There’s a quiet generosity in that. When everything around me stays still, I notice the movement within. 

Being back in New York, surrounded by the same skyline, the same subway stations, the same rush of energy, I was confronted with just how much I’ve changed in five years.

New York has always been a mirror for me. 

Not the kind that reflects how I appear, but who I am—or who I was. There’s something about the city that makes it possible to hold many versions of yourself at once. The one who arrived wide-eyed and hopeful. The one who left burnt out and disillusioned. The one who wandered through it in love. The one who tried to belong. It’s a city that doesn’t ask for consistency. Instead, it offers a kind of permission—to become, to reinvent, to try on different selves without explanation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about identity since that trip. About how some places shape us, while others reflect us. And about how rare it is to find a place that does both.

In most environments, we adapt to what surrounds us. We become who we need to be to fit in, to survive, to succeed. But New York feels different. It contains so many possibilities that it doesn’t force a single one. Everyone is becoming someone there, and no one seems to mind who that is.

Still, nostalgia has its edges. Walking through old neighbourhoods brought a mix of comfort and discomfort. I remembered who I was the last time I was there—and what I didn’t yet know. There was a tenderness in those memories, but also a kind of grief. Grief for the version of myself who no longer exists. Gratitude for the one who does.

I noticed something else, too—my knees. Within a day of arriving, they started to ache. Not terribly, just enough to get my attention. I was walking faster than I had in years, the city pulling me into its rhythm. I realized I didn’t want to move that fast anymore. Not just physically, but in other ways too. I no longer feel the need to rush toward achievement, to chase some version of myself I haven’t caught up to yet. The pace that once felt exhilarating now feels exhausting.

There’s something liberating about noticing that shift. It’s easy to mistake change for loss, or to feel nostalgia as something we need to resist. But I’m learning to see it differently. Revisiting old places, or old versions of myself, doesn’t mean trying to reclaim them. Sometimes, it’s just about recognising how far I’ve come—and letting that be enough.

Identity, I’m starting to believe, isn’t fixed. It’s layered. It’s shaped by place and time, by memory and movement. And it’s always in revision. I’m not who I was in New York five years ago. I don’t need to be. But I’m grateful for the chance to remember him—for the way he helped me become who I am now.

Change doesn’t always need a reason. Sometimes, it just needs space. And the right place to reflect it back.

And that is how I learned to New York.

How to Prompt

It happened quietly.

I was sitting with a friend who knows more about finance than anyone I know. The kind of person I used to turn to for questions I didn’t know how to answer. But that day, I didn’t ask. The question was still there, in the back of my mind. I just didn’t feel the need to say it out loud.

That’s when I noticed it.

Lately, I’ve been turning to AI more often than I care to admit. Not for everything—but for a lot of things. Questions about history, science, travel, recipes, taxes, investing. Questions that once lived on the edges of conversations now find their answers in the calm glow of a screen.

There’s something strangely comforting about it. No judgment. No hesitation. No interruption. Just space to ask anything, however naïve or obscure, and to keep going until things make sense.

It’s efficient. It’s convenient. And, if I’m honest, it feels safer than asking a person.

There’s a small shame in admitting that. A quiet embarrassment in realizing I sometimes trust the collective intelligence of the world’s human knowledge trained into a system, more than I trust the opinions of the people I know. Not because the people are wrong. Just because the machine never seems to mind when I ask again, maybe in a different way, trying to see if I get a different answer.

But something else has been happening too—something I didn’t expect.

As AI has taken on the role of explaining the world to me, I’ve found myself asking people fewer questions about what they know and more about how they feel.

I’m no longer as curious about where they went on their last trip, or how they booked their flight, or what restaurant they recommend. I can find that online. What I want to know now is what it felt like to be there. What changed in them. What stayed with them.

There’s a depth in emotion that no dataset can recreate. A texture in lived experience that no algorithm can imitate.

In the past, I may have believed we are logical beings who occasionally feel emotion. I’m not sure I believe that anymore. More and more, it seems to me that we are emotional beings who sometimes use logic to explain what we already feel.

In many of the circles I spend time in—professional, cerebral, head-oriented—so much energy goes into understanding. Into knowledge. Into the mind. It’s all very sharp. But it often feels like something is missing.

What’s missing is the part that doesn’t need to make sense.

The part that simply feels.

A chatbot can tell me what the economic indicators were during a financial crisis. But it cannot tell me what it felt like to lose a job, to call a parent for help, to wake up with dread for six months in a row and still try to smile at work.

A chatbot can give me ten ways to roast a cauliflower, ranked my nutritional value. But it cannot describe the smell in the kitchen, the memory it stirred, the pride in serving it to someone who didn’t expect to be moved by the dinner.

These days, I’m starting to ask different questions to the humans in my life.

Or sometimes, asking no questions at all—and just listening. Waiting for something deeper to emerge. Not the facts of someone’s story, but the feeling that shaped it. The emotion that lingers long after the logic has been explained away.

And in that space, I find inspiration.

That’s the word I chose for this year—inspire. Not to be impressive, but to be moved. To let something stir in me that I didn’t know was possible. And more and more, that stirring comes from presence, not answers.

I still use AI every day. Maybe every few hours. But when I’m with someone, I no longer need them to be informative. I just need them to be human.

And that is how I learned to prompt.

How to Friend

A few weeks ago, I sat down with a friend. I've known them for some time, long enough to notice the patterns in their struggles. 

This particular evening, it was clear they were caught again in a familiar loop. 

Initially, I felt a pang of judgment arise, quietly asking myself, "Is this someone I still want to spend my time with?"

I've long believed we are influenced by the company we keep. It's a quiet belief, not one that demands immediate action, but something I gently hold as true. As I listened to my friend speak, my internal voice started questioning the energy between us. Their challenges were heavy, and in that moment, uninspiring to me. I was unsure if this was a place I wanted to linger.

Yet, as we continued talking, I found my judgment softened, replaced slowly by a quiet curiosity. 

The longer I stayed present, the clearer my friend's world became to me. I asked questions, wanting to understand the "why" beneath the repeating patterns. As their story unfolded, my own past experiences surfaced naturally, echoing in my memory. Soon, I found myself sharing my stories—stories of similar challenges, similar feelings, similar loops I'd known intimately.

As I spoke, an unexpected shift happened in my inner world. 

My judgment quietly turned inward. I recalled moments when I had been caught in the same loops, stuck and unable to break free. There was a flicker of self-criticism, but it quickly gave way to empathy. I genuinely understood my friend's place because I had occupied that very space myself. Compassion replaced curiosity, and soon I was invested in helping, motivated to offer the insights and strategies I wished someone had shared with me earlier.

We spoke deeply, vulnerably, honestly. By the end of the conversation, I felt energized, inspired by what we had uncovered together. What started as a hesitant encounter had transformed into something uplifting, rich with shared understanding.

In the days following, I found myself reflecting on that evening. My initial hesitation about spending time with my friend had been based on criteria that now felt superficial—how successful or positive or inspiring they were. But what I realized clearly was that the true measure of friendship isn’t about who my friends were externally. Instead, it is about who I am when I am with them. Did I like me in their company? Am I proud of how I show up? Am I energized or drained by my own presence?

This simple shift in perspective begins to illuminate many of my interactions. 

Recently, returning to Lisbon and reconnecting with friends I haven't seen since last year, I've been quietly observing myself. How do I feel in their company? How do I show up? How present, curious, and authentic am I? It’s more about me than it is about them, surprisingly.

Friendship is an invitation to vulnerability precisely because the stakes are low. It's not transactional; there's nothing to achieve or prove. Friendship allows me to experiment with showing up fully, expressing myself honestly without the pressures of consequence. In this safe, gentle space, I can see clearly who I become around others. And in many ways, learn about myself, my thoughts and my feelings.

Lately, I've liked that person—the one who listens deeply, who responds with compassion, who shares openly, and who learns eagerly. The judgment I once felt toward others now gently redirects inward as a question: who am I becoming in this moment, in their company?

Friendship is less about choosing who is worth spending my time with and more about noticing how I feel around others. How I choose to show up shapes the space we share. I am gently observing and appreciating who I become when I'm with them.

And that is how I learned to friend.

How to Become

It is Mother’s Day. And it is her birthday. A milestone one.

We are not in the same city. Not even the same country or continent. Yet in some ways, I feel closer to her now than I did when we lived under the same roof.

There is something that distance allows. 

Without the logistics of presence—planning visits, checking in, trading updates—there is space for a different kind of reflection. I’m not thinking about what to gift her, or how to celebrate her. Instead, I find myself thinking about who she is, and how I’ve come to see her more clearly over time.

When I was younger, she was simply “Mom.” 

Constant. Capable. The one who stayed up when I was sick, who planned birthdays, who made sure there was always food in the house and clothes in the closet. Her presence was so reliable that it became invisible. Like light. Like air.

I never thought to ask who she was before all of that. Before she was responsible for anyone but herself. Before she became the person I now know so intimately, but saw only in relation to me.

Over time, that has changed. Slowly, quietly, and without any one defining moment, I began to see her differently. I began to notice the woman behind the role. The quiet strength beneath her gentleness. The decisions she made that I never noticed, and the ones I may never know about. The way she has carried so much, and asked for so little.

There is so much she gave that she never named. So many moments of care that were never called out as love, and yet, that’s exactly what they were. She never told me what she sacrificed. She never asked to be acknowledged. And now, years later, I find myself trying to name what she never pointed to—because it matters more than I knew how to say.

I also see her in unexpected places now. 

In how I move through the world. In how I respond when someone needs comfort. In how I wait before speaking. In how I try, often unconsciously, to create space for those around me. These are not lessons she sat down to teach. And yet, I learned them all the same.

There are moments when I hear her in my voice. Not because I am trying to sound like her. Simply because she is there. I notice her presence in my gestures, in my instincts, in the quiet ways I try to offer care. It’s not mimicry. It’s memory—etched not in thought, but in being.

We haven’t lived near each other in a long time. The frequency of our contact has changed over the years. But her influence hasn’t faded. If anything, it has become more visible, now that I’m far enough away to see the whole shape of it.

Sometimes, distance creates clarity.

I didn’t set out to become like her. I simply grew. And in growing, I discovered that much of who I am was formed by who and how she is. By how she lives. By what she models, even without meaning to. I used to think that gratitude was something I needed to express in words. But now I see that gratitude can also be something I live.

And maybe that is the most honest way to thank her. Not by saying it. But by becoming it.

And that is how I learned to become.

Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Birthday Mom.

How to Blackout

The lights went out.

My partner and I turned to one another, surprised. There was a flicker of excitement in the room, a quiet curiosity for what had just happened. No warning, no explanation—just sudden stillness.

It had happened once before, last summer in Lisbon, on a blistering hot afternoon. That time, the power had returned within twenty minutes. Our building’s generator had come to the rescue, restoring order before disorder had time to settle in.

This time was different. There was no generator. No return.

One hour went by.
Then two.
Then three.

At first, we continued on as usual. Reading the news. Messaging friends. We even called my sister in Canada to say hello. But soon, even those thin threads of connection faded. The cellular network went down. Our phones stopped working altogether.

There we were—overlooking the city of Lisbon, without power, without signal, without sound. The silence outside felt heavier than usual. Not the hush of night, but something unfamiliar. Something that made us pause.

A scene from a Netflix series came to mind. Robert De Niro in a story where a terrorist group orchestrates a one-minute global blackout—and the chaos that follows. The imagination didn't need much fuel to wander. There were echoes of lockdowns, old fears surfacing in new forms. And yet, despite the mind's tendency to forecast disaster, something else was happening, too.

A kind of joy had begun to take root.

With nowhere to go and nothing to do, we turned our attention inward. Not in meditation, not in theory—but in action. We began cleaning. Closets we hadn’t touched in a year were suddenly emptied. Cupboards were sorted. Items we didn’t remember owning found new places or were discarded entirely. It became a spontaneous spring cleaning—a ritual of care, of tending to our space.

We moved food from the fridge to the freezer, hoping to preserve what we could, just in case this stretched into days rather than hours. It felt practical, but also symbolic. Taking care of what we could, while letting go of what we couldn’t control.

Eventually, there was nothing left to clean.

So we sat on the couch.

And we talked.

About the past. About the future. About how we were feeling, really feeling, not just the edited versions we sometimes trade in the midst of daily life. There was a level of presence between us that felt different. Not because we had made time for each other, but because there was no time left to fill. Nothing else called for our attention. No screens. No notifications. No tasks.

My partner said her mind felt more at ease. Lighter. As if something invisible had been lifted. The mental weight of always being connected had dulled so gradually over time, we hadn’t noticed it. Until it was gone.

No information to absorb.
No messages to reply to.
No one was waiting for anything.

Except the person sitting right in front of us.

We found our way to a game we both love—Monopoly Deal, a card game we rarely remember to play, despite how much we enjoy it. Candles were lit as darkness settled in. Our apartment transformed into something quieter, softer.

After nearly ten hours, we found ourselves still on the couch, still side by side, reflecting. It had been a beautiful evening. An unplanned invitation into presence. A reminder of something we had almost forgotten.

We both acknowledged it wouldn’t have felt the same if we were alone. Together, it became something shared. Intimate. Unexpectedly meaningful and memorable.

A part of us didn’t want the blackout to end. But beneath that hope was another truth—what we really wanted was to keep feeling this close, this present, this unencumbered.

We said we’d find ways to carry it forward. To carve out moments like this in our daily life. That was one week ago. Since then, the hours have filled up again. The pace has resumed. The intention, while genuine, has quietly faded.

Many cultures have long embraced their own form of blackout. Whether through rituals, sabbaths, or silent retreats, there is wisdom in choosing disconnection before it is forced upon us. I now understand why.

Disconnection, it turns out, is not the opposite of connection. Sometimes, it is the path to it.

As someone who delights in the new—gadgets, software, AI—I feel no conflict in also loving the moments when all of that slips away. It’s not about turning away from the world, but turning more fully toward it. In its simplest, most immediate form.

And that is how I learned to blackout.

If you are interested in keeping up-to-date on the latest in AI, subscribe now for Pivot 5, my AI newsletter here: pivot5.ai