Annual reflections 2022

Purpose – “Lost and found”

Finding always takes one of two forms. The first is recovery: we can find something we previously lost. The second is discovery: we can find something we’ve never seen before. Recovery essentially reverses the impact of loss. It is a return to the status quo, a restoration of the order of our world. Discovery, by contrast, changes our world. Instead of giving something back to us, it gives us something new. 

In 2022 I first left a job, to then embark on another professional journey – with a hiatus in between. Throughout an unplanned transition, I begrudgingly embraced an uncomfortable moodiness. Many factors made this change emotionally taxing, but one realization above others made it bearable: an irreversibly lost excitement as a consequence of a lousy culture fit, and the bizarre foreignness of not belonging.

This epiphany triggered a domino of deep scrutiny of a passively absorbed Silicon Valley ethos. Things like the fundamentalism of hustle culture built on the Machiavellian principles of hyperscaling, and the pathetic hagiography of successful founders. All deadweight. While grateful for previous professional experiences in tech, none of these traits mirror who I am any longer. Molting the layers of a petite drama provided closure to a micro loss, and comfort for a vulnerable, full recovery.

Much as small losses like these make us invoke things like fate, karma, destiny, and God, we are most drawn to similar explanations when subsequent discoveries emerge from a left field. The more wildly improbable some welcomed development is, the more it feels like meant to be. Confronted with an unsurprising find, we also feel confronted with the governing forces of the universe, the same that inform the working principles of quantum computing – a novel, exhilarating area of interest in my professional journey. 

The broader field of quantum mechanics’ philosophical and scientific seductiveness is hard to resist. Nature operates according to quantum principles that boggle our poor ape brains. Randomness and uncertainty rule, causes are not guaranteed to be linked to effects, and an electron or other subatomic entity can be everywhere or nowhere, a wave or a particle until someone measures it. Most of the future science and technological developments, as well as the universe itself, run on quantum weirdness. 

So it doesn’t matter whether I believe that this same universe blessed me with this opportunity or that in a stochastic world, very unlikely odds have broken in my favor. What matters is that by learning and contributing in this field, I feel a renewed joy of being let in on a private secret, as if someone reserved me a front-row seat at a special show. I have returned, finally, to the familiar joys of uncharted explorations. 

Growth – “Analog baths”

In 2022 I made the conscious decision to drift away from certain habits and pastimes that no longer brought me joy or have become too difficult to maintain. Long before the present anxieties of modern times, filled with distraction and productivity hacks that thwart our capacity for presence, Bertrand Russel wrote: “we have come to know, or rather to believe, that boredom is not part of the natural lot of man, but can be avoided by a sufficiently vigorous pursuit of excitement.” I came to realize how many little habits were threatening my ability to do nothing, all alone, by myself. 

Twitter was one of my sufficiently vigorous pursuits of excitement. It used to punctuate my work breaks and Uber rides until it robbed me of my early morning solitude and my prime bedtime. I mindlessly believed it was acceptable for me to check it from time to time, partly because it’s the only social media platform I use and partly because – like every unconscious addict – I thought I could control my own instincts. Even after factoring in a few wholesome connections and some educational threads, Twitter’s low signal-to-noise ratio and cognitive stress made it a no-brainer to quit.  

With a newfound sense of presence, I learned to elevate my days with a range of meditative activities, such as taking breaks to sit and reflect, journaling next to a warm beverage, finding solace in nature while reading or sketching, and marveling at the simple beauty of things like the vibrant colors of tomatoes at the farmer's market. The Amélie Poulain-esque style of some of these new behaviors almost embarrasses me, but I accepted that I can stay afloat in a deeply interconnected world only with frequent ‘analog baths’.

I also stopped using goals and turned to paper notebooks instead. My "Notion operating system" — a kaleidoscopic concoction of notes, links, lists, and documents whose chaos was ironically intended to provide order – fell apart and I never pieced it back together. The part of me that refused to fix it also silently rebelled against the hyper-structured, measurable, and tracked world I caged myself in. I decided to focus more on systems — continuous guardrails that shape my daily habits and keep me on track — rather than discrete goals. I see the value in both and want to find a balance between the two. 

Finally, I allowed myself to publish essays less frequently and recognized that I still need to find my own voice to improve the quality of my writing. While this newsletter does not have a clear audience-market fit and is more of a collection of things I find interesting, I find contentment in the exploration of its identity and do not feel the need to intentionally grow my reach to a larger audience. I confess I am quite fulfilled with a slow, undemanding pace.

Finances – “Mistakes of omission”

I learned much about my financial management skills through mistakes of omission. I haven't been intentional enough about building wealth in recent years while relying too heavily on my savings. As a result, I felt unprepared for the changing macro environment at the beginning of the year and didn't have a solid long-term plan for my investments. 

To top this off, I navigated an unplanned period between jobs where I relied on my previously accumulated savings. This caused me a lot of emotional discomforts, and forced me to confront the reality that I traded too much of my future financial independence for past and present experiences. Some lessons have to be lived before they can be fully understood, I guess. We are all victims, in different ways, of that truth. 

In 2023, I plan to become more deliberate about my savings goals and investment strategy, with a focus and intention toward capital allocation for the long term. Financial success is not hard science, but a soft skill where how I behave is more important than what I know. Emotional control is more important here than financial knowledge. This one, like most soft skills, can be greatly underappreciated.

Many economists suggest that individual investment decisions depend heavily on personal history. Not intelligence, education, or sophistication. Just the dumb luck of when and where you were born. That kind of thing affected the financial opportunities I came across (or lack thereof) and my inconsistency toward downside risk protection. But I don’t want my biography to become my financial identity. 

I know what to make of this. Part of me wants to dwell in self-critique, fiercely, about my mistakes. Part of me wants to understand and act accordingly. Hence, this year I am determined on sticking to my monthly review of expenses and investments with an 80/20 approach to avoid drowning in details. Ultimately, I want money to work for me, not the other way around. I am interested in progressively reducing my reliance on my primary income while still being able to afford a few bold, infrequent luxuries. Intention and self-awareness will help me tell risks apart from rewards because sometimes the line between ‘inspiringly bold’ and ‘foolishly reckless’ can be a millimeter thick and only visible in hindsight. 

Wellbeing – “What I already have”

Across most of the areas I segment these reviews into, my present and future focus is generally on obtaining something, not sustaining the status quo. The implication is that my contentment is almost never a static state – with nothing much to be said about it – and that any form of centeredness, once found, becomes boring, or worse, something I am unable to appreciate for what is it, instead of what I believe it will become. As I learned for the first time, it is, in fact, perfectly possible to desire what I already have. 

It took me a couple of minor scares to fully realize that and served as a reminder to take better care of myself. Bad weightlifting form resulted in a period of intense back pain, which resolved with the help of an expert chiropractor and a sleek standing desk. About the time I upgraded my home working station! I also had a short bout with Covid and, oddly enough, a melatonin-induced intoxication that left me bedridden for a few consecutive days. It’s been years since I haven’t been as sick! 

These experiences served as reminders that I truly need to prioritize my health, make conscious efforts to stretch more, stand while working as much as possible, drink more water, and prioritize sleep. On this note, I tried to be more consistent with my bedtime routine, turning off all tech at 8:30 pm and reading by candlelight to wind down before sleep. I now leave a short stack of books I love on my nightstand as a visual cue to one of my favorite moments of the day. 

Sleep restores energy, and more physical vigor fuels my desire to be active. Crossfit training has been a highlight of my year, as I have evolved to appreciate the intensity of the practice. It is my second year of consistent training, and it has brought a sense of accomplishment from overcoming small daily challenges, as well as a feeling of belonging to a community, both in Lisbon and New York City. 

I have learned more complex gymnastic movements, like ring muscle-ups, while still actively working on others. Good nutrition and sleep have significantly improved my training and allowed me to feel more at ease during workouts, rather than gasping for air by the end of sessions. In 2023, I want to test myself at the Crossfit Games all while approaching this challenge with an adequate level of scaling. My only objective here is to complete the competition within the limits of my amateur skillset. It feels good to accomplish something athletic at my age and a bit strange to train with such intensity now that I am not as young anymore. I am grateful for the structure Crossfit brings to my daily schedule.

Conversely, my nutritional habits have ebbed and flowed. One of the major changes I made was quitting my vegan diet after a full year of experimentation. I concluded that this lifestyle was not sustainable, due to logistical challenges such as socializing around (mostly Italian) meals and grocery shopping at the meat-heavy “Pingo Doce” in Lisbon. I reverted back to familiar cuts of lean meat while keeping an eye on my overall caloric intake. Quite expectedly, I also gained a significant amount of weight. While I am not unhappy with my current physical shape, it has been an adjustment to fill in my clothes and to…well, just occupy more physical space. I have been adding looser fits to my wardrobe and adapting my sense of style to prioritize comfort. They seemed small feats at first, but those tweaks have made a huge difference in my confidence level.

When it comes to nutrition, I applied a similar level of sureness in my decision to quit alcohol, more than two years ago. I couldn't be happier with it. It generated the necessary leverage to mindlessly address a series of other lifestyle decisions – not staying out late or partying (almost never), not socializing at bars, and not ever feeling sluggish on the weekends or craving alcohol to wind down at the end of a long work day. It simply doesn't play a role in my life anymore. Even more so, I've noticed that more and more people are growing in their acceptance of similar decisions without criticizing it or invading other people’s spaces with long lines of questions. It's not that other people’s opinions would have changed my mind about it, but it's meaningful that my social environment makes it even easier to continue on my alcohol-free journey.

Finally, I attempted – and failed – to give up caffeine for a few months. While I didn't need the drink for energy, I genuinely missed the ritual of a cup of coffee at the end of a meal or to break up conversations and work sessions. Although I enjoyed the way being caffeine-free made me feel, I also had to drink more water to compensate for hydration, which became a positive habit. As a result, I now limit myself to just two cups of coffee daily and am more mindful of my caffeine intake.

These health and well-being recounts seem such boring, banal areas of my life to write about. Unless something unexpected or tragic happens, new or continued initiatives sometimes sound so dull and or even dreadful, characterized by such long feedback loops that make me question the validity of venturing to such great lengths. But such is the essence of a requited gratitude – the luckiest of all conditions: to wish only for who I already am, and the precious gift of a healthy body I already possess. 

Relationships – “Third things”

“The encounter between two differences is an event,” French philosopher Alain Badiou wrote in a treatise on why we fall and how we stay in love. “On the basis of this event, love can start and flourish”. In 2022, I embraced this kind of love with K. – the one that blooms between the mundane and the magical, whose daredevilry is punctuated by the dailiness that allows any durational love to endure the test of time. 

K. and I have now been dating for a little over a year and inhabited the double oddity of the frequent shuttling between Brooklyn and Lisbon. If one were to ask, “Which moments were the best, of your still gestating life together?”, we could probably agree on an answer: “the ones we remember least.” 

There have been mild sorrows – canceled flights, red eyes, a couple of animated disagreements between us – and there have been also moments of intoxicating adventure – driving through the French sunflower fields, hiking in the Olympic Forest, and skiing in the Dolomites. Yet, I think the best moments of our shared journey were the quiet, repeated days of work in our apartments. Friends would ask “What did you guys do the last time you were in NYC? What have you done as she was with you in Lisbon?” 

What we did: I would get up early to get my workout done, then I bring K. a latte with four Splendas in bed right before she would get ready for a long walk. I would journal as she walks out. On her walk, she would text me things she can’t stop thinking about because they seem urgent, important, or neither. An extra roll of paper towel, that clove of garlic we need for the tomato salad, a picture of the ivy on a brownstone facade: as different as these are, they seem – and are! – fundamental elements to the problem of how to live, and love someone. Their absence, or presence, communicates some urgency about being here, and how to do it well. For one hundred and fifty days we inhabited the same day’s adventurous routine. What we did: love. 

We did not spend our days gazing into each other’s eyes. We did that gazing when we made love, deliberate on shared food orders or when one of us was in trouble. Most of the time our gazes met and entwined as they looked at a third thing. I believe third things are essential to relationships, objects or practices or habits or arts or institutions or games, or human beings that provide a site of joint rapture or contentment. Each member of a couple is separate, and we come together with double intention. ARTECHOUSE has been a third thing, or her friend Derek, or “Afterlife” by Ricky Gervais, or the Sunday’s farmers’ market.

Third things, rather than being an extraneous adornment of the relationship, are a central form of our companionship. While they are indispensable, they are not irreplaceable — it doesn’t so much matter what the thing is, only that it is. The trail of any long-term partnership is disseminated with breadcrumbs of ‘third things’, along with the occasional bickering bear trap. I used to be bad at detecting those. 

Like many, the experience of disagreement with a romantic partner used to exasperate me, until I realized what an immensely insightful exploration of differences it can be. Disagreements can illuminate the very core of underlying commonalities of the human experience, in a modern culture of divisive otherness. Only by acknowledging the multiplicity of our identity, we can begin to simultaneously own our uniqueness and fully inhabit our ties to our fellow human beings. 

Each individual’s identity is made up of a number of elements and these are clearly not restricted to the particulars set down in official records. All components of personality — “genes of the soul” – are not innate. While each of these elements may be found separately in many individuals, the same combination of them is never encountered in different people, and it’s this that gives K. individual richness and value and makes her unique and irreplaceable to me. 

Like many religious ideals, however, the truest appreciation of differences is still largely aspirational when it comes to my friendships though. In practice, I conceded to the psychological price of interpersonal differences. Unreturned phone calls, flakiness, and logistics that are too complicated or not at all, in which case trigger me even more. Any loss of resources, whether time, money or emotional energy, no matter how minor, caused a small crisis with some friends. Those crises weren’t triggered by a problem of commission, but by one of omission: the voluntary or involuntary withdrawal of someone provoked my own tortoiseshell retreat. In the micro-drama of loss, I have been both victim and villain. This is unfortunate for my ego, plus various other parts of myself. At best, such losses left me feeling cleansed. At worst, anguished. Losing friendships makes me feel lousy about myself. 

It is likely this harsh corrective sense of becoming more competent at nurturing the few relationships that makes me want to reduce, as much as possible, the unavoidable reality of distance from my family As my mother ages and my niece learns how to walk, I am forced to confront the lower and upper bounds of existence. The baffling, maddening, heartbreaking fact that something that was just here, all of a sudden can be changed, or just be gone. 

I have sometimes thought that my mother’s lifelong habit of dramatizing things became my childhood ‘Italian opera’ that shaped my ebullience. Or that my sister's Milanese suburban life ignited, as a form of silent rebellion, an even greater lust for my global escapades. But, as I discover again and again these days, especially while playing Dixit with them in my childhood home’s living room, my biography is not my identity. I am glad, unequivocally, that all of us are out of any kind of pain, and able to enjoy life. Way down to the core of selfhood, where emotions begin, it is impossible for me to offer more gratitude than that, or to pretend I don’t wish my family – my loving, adoring, stoic, and a bit comical family – to be always forever there, a short weekend flight away.

Environment – “A remarkable solitude”

I spent most of this year divided between Lisbon and Brooklyn. Despite the dense traveling schedule, I learned to find amusement in the comical opposition between such diverse cities. Lisbon offers such a peaceful, blissed environment. I am grateful for the composure its slowness introduced in my life. However, I don't see myself living there long-term. I crave a more dynamic location and the opportunity to socialize with a more diverse crowd. 

Over the past year, Lisbon has also become increasingly overcrowded with tourists. While I relate to its dominant Southern European culture, it’s the diversity that ignites sparks in my soul, not familiarity. I also struggled to build a stable, rich community there. I have been telling myself I don’t want to invest my time in cultivating relationships with transient expats, despite or because I imagine some of them, too, may feel similarly about my travels. 

Yet not all broken things need immediate fixing. I fill this partial social void in Lisbon with the quiet dedication to my apartment. I have developed a new appreciation for art, and for building a warm living space for my healthy solitude – a remarkable gift because solitude itself is remarkable, a fact that is impossible to notice if only distractions leave us alone for long enough.