Last week, I was sitting in the dimly lit bar of a hostel in Amsterdam, where I nursed a tulip-shaped glass of IPA, feeling thrilled to write. It was a child-like thrill, the type that rushes through your body right before ripping open a giant birthday present. And so, like unwrapping a present, I opened up my laptop, created a new document, and found... ...nothing. Suddenly, I stared at an aggressively blinking cursor on a blank laptop screen. It occurred to me that, surely, no one would...
4 months ago • 6 min read
Hi, my name is Stephan, and I’m an amateur. No, I’m not having yet another existential quarter-life crisis. I’m actually doing better than ever, creatively speaking. And here’s why. For well over three years (!), this newsletter was called Thoughtful Thursday. There are several reasons I baptized my literary baby like this. First, I wanted the name to sound smart (duh). Second, I wanted it to be an alliteration (ostensibly, a modern writer’s favorite stylistic device). But, of course, these...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there, Before we dive into today's piece, two housekeeping notes: This newsletter will take on a different format soon. It'll contain less polish and more process. (I suppose you'll understand why by the end of this email.) I updated my website. You can check it out here. What both of these changes have in common (and really, what all the changes I've ever made to my writing platform share) is that they point toward two ideals: freedom and simplicity.Freedom, as in: I can express myself...
5 months ago • 8 min read
Hey there, I haven't sent out an email like this in a very long time (you'll understand why by the end of this piece), but it feels great to be back. I hope the feeling is mutual. That aside, if you're new to this newsletter and wondering who I am and what I write about, feel free to check out the stuff on my website or my blog on Medium. Let's jump straight in. The movie line that cured my overexertion I recently had a sluggish night, which was actually the result of a disappointing week,...
8 months ago • 6 min read
Hey there, I hope the year has kicked off nicely for you. January is almost over -- how have you been? Are you following any New Year’s resolutions? If you've been reading my writings for some time, you might know I'm not the biggest fan of resolutions. The last time I ambitiously set them was in 2021. At the time, I wanted to practice yoga, meditate, and journal. Every day. I think I managed to reach a spectacular streak of 21 days. Then, I got so frustrated by the pressure I had exerted on...
12 months ago • 8 min read
Hey there, In the last issue, I talked about my (non-)lonely experience of going to the cinema alone. Today's piece is going to be about the movie I watched that day. Or rather, the movie's core theme: death. Hooray! Honestly, even long before the movie, the thought of death had been lingering in my mind like spiders in a basement: sneaky and, upon discovery, scary. But the thing is, I find it impossible to think too little about death. Most of the time, we're merely thinking about it in the...
about 1 year ago • 8 min read
Hey there, Last night, I went to the cinema alone to see a movie about death. I know, I know, what a grim way to start this piece. Boo! Bombard him with tomatoes! Tie his hands before he writes more gloomy stuff! And yet, this venture tied together two ideas that have been ricocheting through my skull lately. Here's the first of those ideas. It's about loneliness. The next one is about death and will follow next week or so. And no, it's not all doom and gloom. The great thing about walking...
about 1 year ago • 3 min read
Hey there, whenever I get stuck in a rut, feel overwhelmed, or don't know what to do -- in other terms, when life gets difficult -- I've found that overwhelmingly often, the answer is simply to meditate. Which is to say, cutting the outside noise and listening to my inner turmoils. Which is to say, seeing things as they actually are. Which is to say, returning to the present moment. Meditation solves almost everything. It's a frustrating realization. Not just because meditation -- the simple...
about 1 year ago • 4 min read
Hey there, I've been procrastinating on this newsletter for weeks. Not because I ran out of ideas or didn't enjoy writing. No -- it was more because my perceived speed of life had accelerated like an illegally tuned drag race car. On Thursday nights, I would sit at my desk and think, "Eh, I'll write it next Thursday" -- but before I knew it, the next Thursday would roll around, and the next, and the next. But, at last, here I am, breaking the cycle by writing this on a Friday. Ha, take that,...
over 1 year ago • 5 min read