Jake Welch @jakewelch
Leave me a note ⤑ ourworldoftext.com/jakewelch
◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇──◆──◇
1 December 2025
Back to the old laptop, back to work after the long holiday weekend, which was weirdly uneventful and lazy, too lazy... I need to go on a walk in the park and get out of the house.
I awoke to a generally anxious buzz in the air this morning. Things to do, things to catch up on, things to follow-up on, things to start–all on top of the residual compounding stresses of life.
!!Mental note to start going full-steam ahead on Christmas shopping!!
I'm terrible at letting gift-giving days sneak up on me, I always end up in a rush to find a gift for those I love. It's terrible and not very thoughtful of me, but it's not something that comes very naturally to me.
...
In other news, I just heard a lovely blue jay call out the kitchen window (one of their nicer ones). A welcome sound when bird calls become scarce in the wintertime. I miss their songs!
view the source
True goodness is like water.
- Bringing benefit and giving life to the 10,000 things.
- It doesn’t compete but like the Tao
- Immediately flows to the lowest place.
- Everyone else always wants to be first
- But the wise only want to be last,
- To live on solid ground,
- To think deeply,
- To be gentle and kind,
- To speak with honesty,
- To govern with peace and order,
- To work with skill,
- To act at only the best time
things i thought i'd miss, but i don't
- television
- microwave
- washer/dryer
- car
- religion
- dish washer
- closets
things i didn't think i'd miss, but i do
- school
- family
- desk
- job
- mountains
ways i stay grounded
- keep a morning routine
- read difficult yet rewarding novels
- avoid algorithms
- sacrifice comfort
- write out observations
- consider how things are connected
- notice how big and open the sky is
- relinquish all hate
- seek to understand everyone with compassion
- embrace silence
- honor things made with skill and craft
- allow troubles to flow over me like water
5 favorite things
- human connection
- figuring out how things work
- self-actualization through learning
- feeling zen
- ? – still deciding...
words I learned while reading and have started noticing
- Pugnacious
- Pedulant
- Gerrulous
- Highfalutin
- Taciturn
- Fastidious
- Magnanimous/magnanimy
books that changed my perspective on something
- My Struggle: Book 1 by Karl Ove Knausgaard –– on family and death
- The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner –– on how to appraoch recording ephemeral thought patterns
- The Stranger by Albert Camus –– on being impartial
- Swann's Way by Marcel Proust –– on memory and noticing beauty
- Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. –– on the effects WW2 still has on us
- If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino –– on storytelling