Tag: Dubai

Wk 34-26 – Weekly Note

Notes, thoughts and highlights from Week 34, 2026.

22-23 August 2026.
Starbucks, Versova.

This is the first post on a new laptop. I will talk about the laptop in detail in a bit.

The last week has been, well, a blur. I dont recall where time went. I had the same routine – wake up, goto Starbucks, come back home, eat, sleep, while time etc.

One of the days I couldn’t sleep. I dont know why. And that day I sort of didnt do much. And then the regular life and cadence.

So that.

Ok, I dont know what else to write here. Lets get to the notes bit.

Track of the week has to be this.

Lets go…

Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the week gone by.

1/ Update on the August Plan

I had decided that in August I will do the following…

  1. Work more on WeAreC4E.com. Make it into a lead magnet for event piece for C4E.
  2. I am thinking of shipping the CRM tool to the world. I find value in it. Let’s see if others will find value as well. So, I will make a landing page and will try to give demo to people and sell them a subscription. In case you want to buy, am selling it for $99 a year.
  3. Make Book 2 shippable. It’s almost ready. Just that I need to make a pass thru it.
  4. Operate in Eco Mode. And as a part of that, use cash as much as I can (against digital payments). Unless absolutely necessary. I want to add friction to the money spending thing.

I am glad to report that I have progress on 1 and 4. I couldnt push the CRM as much as I would have liked but that’s ok. You do some, you miss some. Last week, I had worked on 1, 2 and 4. Book seems out of bound.

PS: despite the Eco Mode, I got a new laptop. More on it shortly.

PPS: I dont have a plan for Sep. I dont plan to make it. Apart from the fact that I will be in Dubai. And in case I am unable to get to Dubai, I will spend Sep in either Goa or Singapore.

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2/ The New Laptop

I have a new M5 Pro. Not Air.

This is a big upgrade from the old M1 that I was running. I got it last night and I can feel the difference already. This is the second large investment I’ve made in myself after Claude happened (the first one is the Max account). And this is the MOST expensive thing that I’ve ever bought for myself.

Many thoughts on this one. Lemme try and articulate…

A – I didnt plan to get this one. Someone on MDI JFK wanted to sell a new laptop for cheap. I thought I would like to get a good bargain. I threw a 20% lesser number at him. And he bit the bullet. So that.

B – Since I’ve got Claude, I have started to feel the need for a faster machine. The M1 I was using was painfully slow. And thus I anyway had to get a new one. Just that I was delaying it for a future time. When I would have had the money. And then I said, fuck it.

C – I know I am in the Eco Mode. But to me, this is a business expense. And for the next 3 years. The last one was with me for almost 18 months. And the one before that was with me for 3 years. So I think we will be ok.

D – this is my first pro in years. I dont like the bulkiness of it. But I will make do with what I have.

And if you are reading this, please poing gaps in my thinking.

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3/ Storyhunt

As part of my ghostwriting practise, Claude helped me come up with an idea to run a competition to uncover stories from diaspora.

And it came up with Storyhunt edition 1. In words of Claude,

Storyhunt is a public call for hidden stories from the Indian diaspora, compiled into a book. Submission form lives on sgwashere.com at /storyhunt/.

The idea is simple. If you are from the South Asian region and you live away from here and there’s a story worth telling, you must find a way to tell that. You may submit here.

PS: I am thinking, if this goes well, I will make it an annual thing. It gives me opportunity to talk to people, know more about them and write!

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4/ Writing

Since Claude happened, I havent written a lot. And I dont like it. And I want to get back to it. Starting coming week. I mean this week is almost over. I am thinking I will start writing about things that I deeply care about. Things like living a deliberate life, not chasing the rat race, finding a way to push things and seeing how the outcomes arrive at you.

Plus I want to use writing to help me get ahead with work and all. Think of it as “voice” of the founder. Just that I dont know what is it that I am founding 😀

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5/ Rejections at 66MGR and Yellow

The two current opportunities that I think are venture scale, 66MGRoad and Yellow, both got multiple rejections from multiple accelerators. Which is ok. The point of this rejection is that we’ve not been able to communicate the story well. For someone who calls himself a writer, this is not the best case scenario. I will push harder on this.

The other thing I realised is that my casualness while talking to people puts people off. And while this is a personality change, I think its one that I would like to make. You know, a strong opinion but loosely held.

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6/ Spotlight Session

Along with Harshit Gupta, we did a Spotlight session on Saturday. Here is the event page.

I loved the fact that there are 20 people who came from as far as Mira Road and I dont know where all to nerd about a language. And were immersed in a conversation about words and nuances. The fact that I was able to put this together is my biggest win.

I must do more of these.

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7/ AMFIs annual report

The rare post about work.

I think this is the third year in the running that C4E has designed AMFI’s annual report. And each year we’ve set the standards higher than the last. Incredibly proud of what my people are able to pick up when left to themselves.

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8/ Lessons from Suraj Kaeley

I first met Suraj when I was working on Meru.

Neither of us is associated with Meru at this time but we’ve stayed in touch. And he asked if we could meet. I was ofc not keen (I didnt want to travel all the way and I know that I cant add any value to his life – he’s a senior and knows a lot) but he persisted and we met.

And I realised my folly immediately. I must make it a point to meet more people. All the online interactions and remote work is ok but real magic happens when you shake hands. At least for the next few months.

So back to Suraj. A tiny, one-hour interaction with him taught me so many lessons. Here’s the list.

A – Play to Win (or Play to Play).
Suraj recommended the book, Play to Win. While there is a lot to compress, I think, for me, the biggest lesson was that you need to play to win. I tend to play to play. I often use Joker’s dialogue – “am a dog chasing cars”. Need to fix that.

And ofc, every rich person I know, plays to win. Every athlete plays to win. My friends who’re the most successful, play to win.

Suraj then gave an example from his book writing journey about how he’s implementing the play to win principles in his work.

Within this, the other lesson I got was to find a way to get to a maxima with your projects and ideas and chase that metric. This is one of those lessons that I keep getting from all people I know and I keep forgetting. I am glad Suraj reminded me of this.

B – Value of handshake.
Suraj mentioned that he makes it a point to shake hands in real life. This is counter-intuitive to how I live and run. I think there’s a deeper lesson here.

PS: I went all the way to meet a friend who was exhibiting at an expo to shake his hand and came back.

C – Investing in People
This I’ve done a lot. So am ok on this. And I dont want to spill more ink on this. If I can push you more, please read 1000 true fans.

D – Follow up
On sales, he told me that most people lose deals cos they dont follow up. And I realised, am the same. A client says no, I move on. He said, go back to that client, ask them things, listen. Nothing new but I realised I wasnt doing it.

So that!

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9/ Other Notes and Links

Some notes and thoughts. In no order…

  • My initial euphoria over Claude is done. This means that I am not hunting for ideas to make revenue with. I dont have any at this time. But I am sure I will find some.
  • I gave gyaan to a few people this week – two founders of a women-first startup, a singer who’s trying to break out from the mold, a person whos lost her parents in COVID-19 and yet to come out of it. All these three conversations made me realise that I love it when am able to show path to people. I just hope I can do this with more.
  • I made a broadcast list on WA where I would over-share things that I should ideally talk to close friends on. But since my laziness is legendary, I’ve made a broadcast group. In case you’d like to be added to it, lemme know.

Guess this is it.

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📷 Photos from the week gone by

Some photos. As always, if you ask for those, you will get. And you miss 100% of the shots you dont take.

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📈 The trackers of life

This wasnt a good week for trackers. So while I will reproduce them here, you will see a lot of misses.

This is the daily one. I know a lot of misses.

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And this is the mood tracker that I maintain when I get the opportunity. I love that I have many greens and few reds. Shows that I have chosen to accept what comes my way.

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What do you see in it?

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🏃‍➡️ Health

I must pat on the back for the small win that I now do I pushups almost everyday. And just yesterday, I did 10 pushups on the trot. My posture is shit but I can do 10. Yay!

Ofc the target is 100 pushups. Lets see when I reach there.

Brb, doing pushups and coming back.
Ok did 10.

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✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In 2026, I plan to do three things.

  • Book2
  • Human Flag Pole
  • Save a million dollars

Book2 / Caravan Serai.
No movement this week again.

Human Flag Pole.
This week I walked more. And I reached up to a point that I could do 10 pushups on the trot. Lets see if I can continue with 10 for the next few days. I want to reach till 100.

Save a million dollars.
No action to report.

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📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

So, this year, I want to track the following…

  1. Health. Sleep, food, movement. Was better than the last week.
  2. C4E / Work. Pick a thing to apply myself to. Still dont know what to apply myself to. I have been shuttling between 66MGRoad and Atlas Fractional.
  3. Brand SG / Distribution. A lot of thinking but no action TBH. I have trained a Claude skill on it. Lets see what it creates for me.
  4. People. No action.
  5. Book2. Nothing this week.
  6. Shauk. Did a Spotlight Session with Harshit. Must do more of these sessions.

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🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?

Skip.

I didnt have any other word to think of. The week went past and apart from Harshit’s show, each thing was like a skip thing for me. So that.

The other words for this year have been: Routine (yeah same), Routine, Getting Back, Freedom, People, Motion, Show, Flow, Excitement, Embarrassment, Blur, Whiling, Movement, Activity, Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime, Same, Drift, Routine.

Over and out.
Until next Friday.
SG

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions from 2026 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (missed), 26, 27, 28, 29 (missed these three), 30, 31, 32, 33 (missed)

PPS: Please do point typos.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.

Wk 31-26 – Weekly Note

Notes and reflections from Week 31 of 2026.

2 Aug 2026.
Seema’s Starbucks.
I’ve been coming here everyday for the last week or so. Some normality has come back to life. I think as much as I like being a nomad, I also like the idea of being tethered at one place and living a boring life of routine. Talk of weirdness. Lol!

PS: Pradeep asked me what do I mean by “fix life”. This normality of having a routine is a component in fix life.

Ok, so a lot to talk about.
Took much action over the last few days and I feel like dumping things somewhere. I mean I am dumping those onto my Roam and notes and all that but I still want to capture those.

Lessgo…

Oh, the song of the week is this.

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Highlights, reflections, updates, notes and thoughts from the week gone by.

1/ A month in Dubai

I’ve decided that I will go live in Dubai for the month of Sep. It’s my 2131231th attempt to go build a life outside India. Let’s see if I am able to make it work this time.

While I am there for this tiny window, I will see if I can shift my personality to live in a place like Dubai where people expect everything to be polished and all that. Like I said, I am not sure and I will never find out till I actually do the hard thing.

Oh, and more than just the shift, I need to also think what I can apply myself to. Agency, AI transformation, 66MGRoad, Yellow, Writing, Or anything else. And if nothing else, a podcast 😀

PS: While editing this, Claude told me to build a clone of FlexingIt for Dubai market. Lol, so many ideas. So less time. Such easy desk execution now. What does a man do!

PPS: As I write this, there are news that the conflict is escalating and that means all my investments and plans will go down the drain. I remain an optimistic and I hope we would find some resolution soon.

PPPS: As I edit this, there are talks of de-escalation. Optimism Pro Max.

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2/ The August Plan

While September is Dubai (and thus things around there), here’s my plan for August…

  1. Work more on WeAreC4E.com. Make it into a lead magnet for event piece for C4E.
  2. I am thinking of shipping the CRM tool to the world. I find value in it. Let’s see if others will find value as well. So, I will make a landing page and will try to give demo to people and sell them a subscription. In case you want to buy, am selling it for $99 a year.
  3. Make Book 2 shippable. It’s almost ready. Just that I need to make a pass thru it.
  4. Operate in Eco Mode. And as a part of that, use cash as much as I can (against digital payments). Unless absolutely necessary. I want to add friction to the money spending thing.

I will add more as they come.

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3/ Udipt and Himanshu

On 66MGRoad, these two boys are helping me move things. And I’ve been proven very wrong by these guys at a lot of places. I want to make a list but I think that is beyond this blog. At this time, I merely want to acknowledge and document that I was wrong.

Also they taught me the value of doing things with Brute Force. And reminding me of PG’s do things thats dont scale.

Thank you, boys.

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4/ Eco Mode

I have activated Eco Mode in life.

This meant that I’ve cut EACH expense that is not required. This means, I have expensive memberships and I will downgrade on things where am paying to get special access (you know, lounges, clubs etc). I am also more mindful and I am eating at home. And I am increasingly tempering my spends at Starbucks. Irony, I am sipping onto a 400 bucks coffee while I write this.

Among these, the one that hurt the most was cancelling AMEX. Couple of reasons TBH.

A, I spend about 75K on it per year, just to get access to the card. I can get Claude for that much ;P. The add ons they offer dont really add a lot. I dont think I’ve used any of their additional services. I will find out ;P

B, Over time the service had really degraded. Like one time I didnt have my card on me and they denied me access to their otherwise empty lounge.

I know it will be tough to get this again. But I had to get it as an ego thing. I got it. And they were not able to offer me enough value to retain them when the times turn bad for me. Compare this to Claude. I am thinking of getting an even higher tier than that 200 USD Max!

Oh, this is true for people and relationships too. I’ve often see myself getting cut when I stop offering value. In fact, I’ve been cut even when I was valuable. Lol!

PS: like I said above, I will use as much cash as I can in all of August, to know and see how am I spending.

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5/ Previous Weekly Reviews

I dont know why but I was seeing older posts on these weekly reiews.

And I realized that they were more layered, nuanced and revealed more about my thinking and were not merely reporting. I think since I got busier I started to cut corners. Starting with this one, I will get back to more verbose, more long-form notes where I talk about a lot more than mere reports.

Lemme know what you think.

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6/ Ideal End State

I met Dr H this week. She asked me what do I really want from life and in life. And while elaborating on it, she asked me if it was a lavish home, people, money, power or something else. And when she further elaborated it, I realised it was something VERY similar to Kevin’s Ideal End State.

Made me think.

And here’s my articulation of how I want my life to be. PS: Note 2 self – my more private ideal end state document is here.

My answer will always start from the Kabir couplet.

Sai itna dijiye, jaame kutumb samaay,
main bhookha naa rahoon, sadhu na bhookha jaaye

And if I were to tangibalise it, I would say,

  1. Enough to not think about spending money. I anyway don’t splurge. I spend on mid-level comforts (business class travel etc). I think I would glad if this number is in high three-digit USD millions.
  2. Enough to support friends, family and acquaintances with things that they need. Need. Not want.
  3. Live without needless drama. In a place that gives me AC (or is cold without AC). I dont know what this location could be.
  4. Some work that allows me to travel the world and meet people. And with time, people who are at the top of their games. I remember Chamath or someone mentioned that the world is run by 150 people. I dont want to run the world would but I would love to know some of those.
  5. Support and be a patron to people who’re pushing the baton with art, music, entertainment, films etc.

Of course there is more. The private link above has a longer list.

What do YOU really want?
What’s your ideal end state?

PS: An argument against this ideal end state is that I want to enjoy the journey and not work towards a destination. And while I do things that take me close to my ideal end state, I want to continue to optimise for day to day joy.

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7/ Lessons from HelioCoach

I’ve never talked about this our loud but here I am.

For context, I pulled together a team of friends and well-wishers and built a consumer mobile app for supplementation compliance. You may see it at heliocoach.com.

Of course the market is crowded but I thought I could find a place and build a business. We wanted to get just about a few hundred dollars each month and that would have made us enough to keep the team going. You know, Ramen money!

We did each thing that all the startup gurus say — content, ebook, influencers, founder branding etc etc. And yet we were unable to make any dent anywhere.

Of course, I take it in the stride. And I did get something from it.

Here’s a list…

  1. Aarya
  2. Confidence that any app can be made using Claude. I am using that confidence to build 66MGRoad now. And Chandni and Aarya are now building Yellow.
  3. Lessons on importance of distribution. This has been on my radar for like decades but I havent moved my ass on it.
  4. Awareness that I am unable to push people I love. As the originator of idea and “leader” of the team that was working on this idea, I take all the blame for the non-success of the app. And I learnt that unless I push, I wont be able to take things far. This is something that Nakul also mentioned. That unless you are a gunda in your team, you wont be able to move things forward.

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8/ Nims. And Mt Everest

The mountains took Nimsdai away. I am sad about it and my thoughts are with his family. This tweet from Barsha expresses the agony and anguish that I feel in words far better than me.

Also, lemme talk about something else here. Lemme make this about me.

When I was young (around 2013 or 14), I read somewhere that years are long and decades are short. And at that time I made a promise to myself and the world. That I will do three things – make a billion dollars, impact a billion lives and climb Mt Everest. And I will take 10 years to do that. This 10-year deadline expired on Jan 1, 2026. And ofc, I didnt do any of these three. While I am hopeful that I will do the first two, I’ve given up on Mt Everest.

Many reasons. Lemme try to articulate.

a/ I dont have it in me. It’s plain simple acceptance of defeat and humbling down that comes with it.

b/ I did go to the Everest base camp (in 2021) and I sort of understood that it’s not for me and thus worth the effort. This could be my justification-brain talking here but a shot at Everest would have taken me a few years of all-in training and a lot of money. I know there are serious hobbyists who’ve done it. But I am not like them. I am easily distracted and have way too many interests to go all-in into one of those.

So, I gave up.

Mind you – this could be my defeat talking. So read with that bias please.

c/ I realised that Everest was a bragging conversation more than anything else. I come from Delhi and Haryana and like most people from there, I love to talk. And this means that I would have spoken it out loud in some conversation. So, that!

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9/ Rant on Reading

I grew up with comic books and novels (my father used to read potboilers from Surendra Mohan Pathak and all) and then once I went to MBA, I got to read more. And with time reading habits evolved. Till the last few years. When my reading habits changed.

I stopped reading books unless they were recommended by a lot of people I respect.

Most of my reading then became blogs, newsletters and all that. And then that stopped too. Not because there was so much to read but because I found “better” way to read. By seeing videos, talking to people and tinkering and all that. And for my use case, this works well. So I never picked books again.

Plus I’ve been distracted a lot. I have immense respect for people who’re able to do things while battling personal things. I can either keep the kitchen running for myself. Or I can think deep about things. Lately i’ve become acquainted with a young woman, Drishti. She does brilliant work at work and for her personal projects. I dont know how she gets the time. Or find the energy. Or may be its easy once you have a job that gives you a fixed fee for a fixed time you rent there. There are times when I regret my decision to not take a job and use my non work time to meander. But then I think about how we as humans weren’t really supposed to take jobs and all that. It’s just a construct to keep the fire burning.

Ok am rambling. Moving on.

PS: This means that my reading list and the TIL group that I run is dying a slow death. I am just glad that Pradeep keeps me posted on important things around the internet!

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10/ Claude

While I was doing an edit pass, I realised that I hadnt talked baout Claude. And I must! After all, thats where I spend a lot of my time and attention. I have nothing specific to write this week. My tokens got Maxxed on a Tuesday or something (reset happens on Thursday) and I felt like one arm has been taken away from me 🙁

And since it came back on a Thursday, am back on it with a vengeance! Yay!

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📷 Photos from the week gone by

Available on request :D.

But I have to place this here.

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📈 Trackers…

Here are one.

Love that there’s good recovery (I suspect Whoop is misfiring), green on emotions and about 6-7 hours of sleep on an average.

Also notice the pushups row. I do sets of 5 thru the day. Aim is to get to 100 pushups in a day (through the day) and then grow sets to 10 and then more.

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✅ Action on LARGE objectives for the year

In 2026, I plan to do three things.

  • Book2
  • Human Flag Pole
  • Save a million dollars

Book2 / Caravan Serai.
No movement this week. I will pick this in August.

Human Flag Pole.
I’ve started with push-ups. Its nothing tbh but some action for sure.

Save a million dollars.
No action to report.

📌 So, what did I get done last few weeks? And what will I do next week?

This is a one-line report on progress I made on various things that are important to me. I will only talk about things that I got done. Shipped. Not WIP.

So, this year, I want to track the following…

  1. Health. Sleep, food, movement. Bad. Many weeks running.
  2. C4E / Work. Pick a thing to apply myself to. Reworked on C4E website. Added some content. Made some progress on 66MGR.
  3. Brand SG / Distribution. No action TBH.
  4. People. No action.
  5. Book2. Nothing this week.
  6. Shauk. Again, nothing.

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🏃‍➡️ Health

No large actions apart from eating first meal post 12, taking supplements on time (Just popped the Vit D 60000 IU tab), some pushups. Which is a LOT tbh, compared to what I am typically on.

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⏲️ Reminders from last few days

Thanks to Claude and sgTasks, I dont forget things. However like most things that you stop thinking about, often they become blind spots and you dont even think about those. And I’ve found that thinking about things in the liminal often gives you great clarity.

So, I shall write those here in a list.

  1. Fix my linkedin
  2. Get a better CA for C4E
  3. Fix the voice guide on my AI tools
  4. 66MGR Ops things
  5. Close edits on wearec4e.com

Eventually this list will get longer. But at least it’s a start.

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🗓️ So, one thing that defines the past week?

Routine.

The other words for this year have been: Getting Back, Freedom, People, Motion, Show, Flow, Excitement, Embarrassment, Blur, Whiling, Movement, Activity, Regular, Easy, Journey, Downtime, Same, Drift.

So that.
Over and out.
Until next Friday.
SG

Oh, and this too shall pass.

PS: This series of posts is inspired by Thej and his weekly notes. Previous editions from 2026 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (missed these three), 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 (missed), 26, 27, 28, 29 (missed these three), 30

PPS: Please do point typos.

PPPS: In case you see me being inconsistent in anything – work, writing, reviews etc, PLEASE do point out.