I share a lot of travel stories, and so I should make it known that behind the scenes of just about every trip I’ve taken lately is something that did not go at all according to plan.
My trip to Burundi was nearly derailed because back when I went, they required a negative covid test 48 hours before arrival… but the journey there is 36 hours, and when you add sleep time, I just had to take a chance flight to New York hoping the results came in while on the first leg of my flight.
I laid out an ambitious itinerary for my Ethiopia visit. Everything happened, except in the reverse order I planned. A death in one of the sites we planned to film meant we had to do everything backwards.
I’m also more conscious now of how much energy these trips take and realize that planning a buffer day to rest and feel alive again before diving in is a necessity.
One of the skills I value, not just out of travel but out of life, is adaptability. I’ve had a number of unexpected things happen in life that derailed expectations, and I wonder if that’s why I’m drawn to things like improv or even Chopped. Looking at a basket of weird ingredients and thinking, let’s see what we can make out of this resonates at some deep level.
These days, I go into trips realizing that every plan can go awry, but in spite of that, it’s still helpful to make the plans. Valuable. Make them down to every last detail, then hold them loosely. Somehow, that’s what works best.
The Morning Chai
This year, I got to enjoy my coffee in Ethiopia and my chai in India. I’m spoiled when it comes to caffeine.
Everything about the chai stands in Kolkata fascinated me.
Chai came served in thin clay cups that almost looked like mini-flower pots. These were disposable and would be tossed into the street afterwards, to be trampled and pulverized by cars, rickshaws, and feet by the end of the day. Since it was clay, it’s not as wasteful as most disposables… but I guess it still takes effort and energy to make the millions of these that get used any given week.
Chai Pulls
I loved watching the chai makers at work. Of course the highlight of watching anybody prepare a batch is the chai pull, when the liquid would be sent between pots being poured from up high. It looks at first like the chaiwala is being extra… except nothing about their stands is extra. The real practical thing they’re doing is aerating the tea.
And it pays off.
The foamy creaminess of a legit Kolkata chai is unlike anything else.
Some Remedies for Time Anxiety
Time anxiety is no joke! It takes many forms but often it’s the invasive panic that time is running out and you should be doing something differently with that in mind. It’s something I experience pretty often. I’ve often felt like for some reason, the days pass by more quickly for me than for most people, and that legitimately freaks me out.
I suspect I’m not the only one. In fact, I’m pretty confident about that because when I spoke about time anxiety at Truth in Comedy the other month, so many people came up to me afterwards to let me know how much they related to me sharing about my experience with time anxiety. It’s something that can be difficult to put into words, which is why I suspect we don’t talk about it more.
“One of the great ironies of a bucket list is that we make them because we know our lives are finite. But when our lists include all seven wonders of the world, all versions of that list, and all 197 countries… maybe we’re kidding ourselves. Making ourselves feel some sensation of immortality if the things we can do are endless.”
Sharing my whole storytelling performance from Truth in Comedy a couple months ago. This was a great night!
That said, here are some ideas, thoughts, and practices that have helped me cope with the experience.
“The secret of life is to enjoy the passing of time.”
This James Taylor quote helps me realize that the passage of time is what makes it enjoyable.
Life is a bit like music. Any individual note by itself is just a sound. It’s the movement from one note to the next, then the one after that creates a song.
Likewise, life becomes an unfolding story when you let one moment set up the next one and the next.
The beauty of seeing my kids grow up comes from seeing them leave behind younger stages. The beauty of my biggest accomplishments comes from the struggle at the start.
Yes, it’s sad that the passing of time has forced me to say goodbye to all of my grandparents, to older relatives, to role models, and to friends who’ve passed too soon. But it’s also introduced me to my children, my nephews, and new friends.
I’ve come to really love stories told at an epic time scale, like Boyhood, East of Eden, Pachinko, or Demon Copperhead because when viewed in full, even a very difficult life can start to look very beautiful when you take the big picture look at it.
Drinking in what’s in front of me.
Time seems to run faster when your head is down. Maybe Ferris Bueller’s advice shouldn’t be devalued for its simplicity. Look around once in a while. Or pretty often.
On those days where I simply try to blitz through as many activities as possible in as little time as possible, I always arrive at the end wondering where it all went. I don’t want this to be true of life as a whole, so I try to minimize the amount of days like this.
I actually start out a good number of mornings simply trying to meditate a little bit on the fleeting nature of the day, the things I’ll miss from this era of life when it’s all done, and the gift of the day.
There’s a fine line between contemplating impermanence and obsessing over it, but I’ve found that keeping enough of it in sight is most helpful. If nothing else, it helps redirect thought away from worrying over things that aren’t ultimately important and instead prioritize what matters.
Accepting it.
“The time will pass either way.”
I heard someone say this phrase helped them overcome a barrier to starting a project that seemed dauntingly long. It can also be a mantra to counter time anxiety.
I think the key to dealing with time anxiety isn’t so much curing it or making it go away as it is learning to accept it and integrate all of the helpful things it could bring while minimizing its disruptiveness.
It’s hard to mention this without shouting out one of the most helpful resources I’ve found related to this, which is Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. That book very eloquently calls out all the ways we often fall for mental illusions that we can somehow beat the passing of time and thus our own mortality. It’s kind of an anti-productivity book disguised as a productivity book you often see at airport bookstores.
Refuse to live in a rush.
One of my favorite paradoxical experiences with travel is what happens when you visit many African, Mediterranean, Latin, or Island cultures (and many others!) People aren’t so beholden to the clock. Instead of acting like they’re always late or that they’ve always got to keep an eye on time, they move at a more relaxed pace. It’s like they’ve got an abundance of time.
The funny thing is, they end up being right! As they move slower, time seems to do the same. The days pass slower in Costa Rica, the Philippines, Portugal, Uganda, and so on.
The “one more time” mental exercise
There’s a thought experiment I’m fond of.
You imagine that you lived out your life, reached the very end, wound up in Heaven and get told that there’s some more paperwork to process. Before you get in, you can sit in some waiting room, where there’s just a bunch of old magazines, or you can relive a day in your life. You can’t change anything. Just relive it and enjoy the experience.
Then you pretend this is that day.
You’d look at everything different, huh? You can mix this experiment up several ways. Imagine what today will look like in your memory fifteen years from now, with the lens of nostalgia applied. Just remember that it all ends up something you can look back on one day.
The Art of Adda
“Adda” is a beloved pastime in the city of Kolkata. I’m not sure how to best translate the word, except to say that it’s something along the lines of “hangout,” “chit-chat,” “discussion,” “meet-up…” and yet all those definitions don’t quite capture it.
Kolkata has long been a city that celebrates intellectualism, philosophy, and literature, and to having regular gatherings of close friends to discuss recent reads, philosophical ideas, current events, personal lives, and all that is part of the city’s DNA.
It’s a practice that has led to a lot of social connection in the city, and is probably a contributor to its reputation for happiness. One of the biggest predictors of happiness is having people you regularly spend time with. It adds up. Not gonna lie, I’m pretty jealous of Kolkata for having this pastime.
Hayao Miyazaki
I got a late start on the Ghibli movies I’ve been playing catch up on over the past few years, but I’ve come to really appreciate the non-linear storytelling, the occasional divergence down a path without understanding it, and the spiritual ecology.
Should you do a "One-thing-a-day" project?
A "One-thing-a-day" project is all about showing up
On January 1, 2010, I started a little project of documenting life through taking a photo every day. Quality camera phones were barely a thing back then. But I started and didn’t really stop. In the middle of last year I took my 5,000th photo.
As a result I’m a pretty big believer in the rewards of having the sort of project that involves showing up to do your thing everyday. A photo. A doodle. A few lyrics. What have you.
Having the sort of project that asks you to show up, regardless of what kind of day you’re having can help you quickly build up a body of work while developing serious creative muscle.
That said, I’ve learned that there’s also a benefit to giving yourself some space from the work and forcing yourself to produce isn’t always the healthiest.
How do you know if you’re in a spot where this sort of project will serve you well?
tHIS IS THE LATEST TOPIC ON CREATIVE CHANGEMAKER
Consider a daily project if the idea you have is a simple one.
Part of why I’ve been able to take a photo every day for over 14 years is that an individual photo typically doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. If I was trying to make a video everyday, I doubt I’d still be at it. That might work as a 30 day project.
Keep the ambitions in check. Remember, things that aren’t so impressive over one day look a lot more impressive when strung together for a year.
If your creative work tends to revolve around larger works, like a song, maybe try a song a week? Or break it up into something like 8 lines of lyrics or a new riff every day.
You want to elevate your C game.
Good athletes and performers bring a good A game. Great ones elevate their C game to the level of most people’s A game.
Yeah, in theory it’d be great to always have your A game, but that’s not life. All kinds of variables that means you won’t always have it. But if you want a C game strong enough to still be valuable the best way to do that is with a bunch of reps.
Improv has been my greatest teacher of that this year. I’m not always my sharpest week after week, but consistency has made me a lot less worried about those down weeks.
Consider a daily project if you’re looking to build up a body of work.
Perhaps you’re a little newer to your craft. Or maybe you’ve just never had the focus to assemble portfolio of sorts that you can use to promote yourself to others you want to work with.
Either way, having a few of those pieces emerge out of a something-of-the-day project seems very likely. If you show up to something every day, every now and then you’ll hit some gems you’re proud of that you want to keep coming back to.
Some of my favorite photos from this 365 project? I’ve had those printed again and again.
Consider a daily project if you struggle with perfectionism.
If you sometimes let perfect be the enemy of good, or better yet, the enemy of done, you’re not alone. It’s a common hurdle. But building the muscle memory for just showing up really pays off.
It’s a bit like Lorne Michaels’ famous quote about SNL. We don’t go on because we’re ready. We go because it’s 11:30.
This commitment to shipping the work will help numb you to all the second guessing by showing you the reward of having work you can say you’ve brought to the finish line.
Consider a daily project if you’re in a season of newness.
When you’re in a time of novel experiences and new beginnings, your discoveries, observations, and epiphanies will be firing away wildly, sometimes faster than you can process or store these thoughts.
A daily project can give you somewhat of a multidimensional journal to capture what the experience is like through creative work you can always revisit later.
Some of us might need to hear the message to stop forcing ourselves to work like robots in the name of productivity, but others can really benefit from the discipline of a daily practice.
Take a second to think about where on that spectrum you might be this year.
Let me know if you’ve got a 365-day sort of project! Friendly reminder: it’s actually a 366 day year in ‘24!
Time Between Travels
I love big adventures and wild destinations, but these days the thing that’s been filling my bucket the most lately is the ordinary, everyday, quiet side of my life lately.
Except it’s not all that quiet. Pretty loud, actually.
Mango Juice Everyday
You know my secret? Trying to go for a daily swig of mango juice.
Is it the secret to long life? Idk, I’m just in my 30s. The secret to wealth? Nah, if it is, it owes me some.
It’s not even much of a secret. Mango juice is the best and you should have some.
To The Philippines
A year ago, I pulled one of my best crazy-person moves and brought three kids three and under to the other side of the world.
It really did feel like the kids leveled up in their awareness and engagement of the world and the younger ones especially came into their own. Lots of growing up was done that month.
The hope is to have the Philippines be a part of their lives growing up by going back every few years. Can’t wait for the next visit.
2023: The Good Stuff
You know I love a good best of the year list.
At this point I love the grand majority of the movies I see, the books I watch, etc. I probably seem like an easy critic, but my chances to relax in front of a book or screen are so scarce and precious, I mostly pick stuff in pretty confident I’ll appreciate.
MUSIC
Hoping 2024 reignites some new music discovery and my relationship with music. I really value having some tracks that become inseparable from core memories, and I’m racking up the latter these days.That said, here are some 2023 releases I really liked:
🎧 Joy Oladokun - Proof of Life
🎧 Yaeji - With a Hammer
🎧 Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
🎧 Beach Fossils - Bunny
🎧 Arlo Parks - Soft Machine
🎧 Black Pumas - Chronicles of a Diamond
🎧 Jordan Ward - Forward
🎧 The Mountain Goats - Jenny From Thebes
books
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
• Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists by Leah Penniman
• Victory City by Salman Rushdie
MOVIES
1) They Cloned Tyrone
2) Past Lives
3) The Boy and The Heron
4) Rye Lane
5) Joyride
6) Leave The World Behind
7) Polite Society
8) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
9) Elemental
10) Fingernails
MEALS
🏣 Yilma
📍 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
🧆 Tibs & Turbo
Got to try Ethiopia’s party drink- better than expected- along with the local favorite of grilled steak cubes at this Addis Ababa institution.
🏣 Anime
📍 San Diego, CA
🥡 Duck & kimchi fried rice, short rib kare kare, mantou, and wagyu tartare
Followed the hype to this local favorite on two occasions- my birthday and a friend’s bachelor party. A great place to go with good company.
🏣 Marugame Udon
📍 Honolulu, HI
🍜 Katsu Curry Udon Noodles
Tried this udon spot at its Oahu flagship and loved it. Hopefully it translates well when the chain makes its stateside debut in 2024.
🏣 California English
📍 San Diego, California
🫖 Tea Time
Got to enjoy a tea time with Richard Blais at one of his newer restaurants that blends English traditions with Californian taste buds, as the name suggests. Had a great time with the chef.
🏣 Magna Kusina
📍 Portland, Oregon
🍢 Scallop & bistek skewers, ube grasshopper, crushed Japanese cucumber
I had this Filipino spot in Portland bookmarked since it opened and I’m glad I did. Their approach to a cuisine that’s getting more and more popular stood out as unique. Everything we had was a treat.
🏣 Private Dinner for TEDx Speakers
📍 La Jolla, California
🍥 Scallop in poblano pepper crema, coconut panna cotta
This was a dinner prepared by Chef Claudia Sandoval, who was a friend of a fellow TED speaker. The panna cotta was the one that wowed Gordon Ramsay on her MasterChef season and this let me know this would be no ordinary speaking gig.
🏣 Bhola Tea Center
📍 Kolkata, India
☕️ Chai
Between coffee in Ethiopia and chai in India, I am effectively spoiled for caffeine for a while! This busy street side cafe still has me craving chai.
🏣 Sisa
📍 Panglao, Philippines
🍛 Corazon
We ate here practically every night when we were in Bohol. This was our spot! And I’m so glad it was. The dishes hit the exact right note of being true to the culture of origin while still creatively composed.
99.9% of What Happens
One of my biggest lessons from travel comes from seeing people close up in their daily, ordinary lives. I see people talk about improving their farms with compost, putting their kids through school, or helping their neighbors go through hard times. I also see them extend ridiculous amounts of hospitality and often incredible food to a total stranger. Me.
Seeing these ordinary moments unfold in person reminds me that the world is mostly made up of ordinary moments… therefore the world is mostly made up of this quiet simple sweetness that’s easy to forget in the face of ugly headlines.
But things don’t make headlines if they’re normal. Just exceptions.
It's 2024. Here's What's In...
Welcome to 2024! I got to celebrate the way many parent of littles do… by binging on shows and audiobooks in between my kids’ bedtime and my own, making it just across midnight, giving my wife a quick little kiss then promptly passing out.
Might be a while before New Years’ Eve is once again what it used to be, but in spite of that, I really am in one of the most incredible stretches of my life… family life, creativity, travel, career, and so on. I’m trying to savor that and let the year pass slowly in 2024.
Here’s what’s in:
In 2024… allow generous amounts of time to do things.
Last year, I started the habit of being more generous to myself with the amount of time I allotted to get things done.
Can I edit a shortform video in about half an hour? Probably, but if I give myself a full hour to do it, it won’t feel rushed. I’ll enjoy the process WAY more and will probably make a better video. This simple shift takes things from being a chore to being an experience.
On top of that, giving myself a moment in between activities to transition, get in the mood, and remind myself the bigger reasons why I’m doing the thing I’m about to do really improves everything.
In 2024… give stats with the eyeball test.
In baseball, there are some players who certain statistics suggest should be pretty bad, but are absolutely scary to face as an opponent. (See: Kyle Schwarber, WAR/Batting Average)
In reforestation, there are ecologically devastating ways to plant a whole bunch of trees.
In economics, some numbers can suggest mild inflation that just doesn’t match up with people’s pain at the grocery stores.
Numbers are helpful, but don’t forget their limitations.
In 2024… seek community in real life.
I’ve missed this so much.
Seriously, I can’t help but believe pretty strongly that if all the effort people put into building a massive online audience went towards building a strong real-life community, we’d take a huge step towards health.
(Like, seriously. Imagine if all those TikToks and Reels about hooking your audience and mastering the formula for posting frequency were about hosting game nights and book clubs!)
This year, I’ve met way more new people than I have in a long time. Ah, I’ve got a few group texts going now, where invites to nights outs with groups are commonplace. I wish I could say yes to a lot more of them. Still. I’ve managed to get in a lot more quality time with new friends this year and there’s simply no replacement for IRL community.
In 2024… I’m fully embracing audiobooks + drawing.
I’m an audiobook guy now. Didn’t see that coming! But being able to play one while drawing and not having to choose between the two activities when I want to unwind at the end of the day has been wonderful.
I’ve drawn a lot more and read a lot more as a result. The two activities pair so well.
Currently, my favorite recipe is to pair the library up with Everand (the audiobook platform of Scribd. Pretty strong selection!) I discourage Spotfiy for financial reasons while acknowledging I might start a book there in a pinch since Premium gives you 15 hours for free each month.
In 2024… we’re done caring about social media math.
I’ve roughly doubled my follower count last year and had a couple of posts go viral. Whenever that happens, it messes with my notifications for a while and then everything goes back to the way it was.
Social media platforms are hyper-aware of what people are willing to give up for the prospect of being seen, and while it’s hard to totally rebel against the way they’ve impacted the way our world works, we have the power to be more apathetic to their metrics.
The algorithms are too fickle and change too often to even worry about appeasing with every turn. I’m more invested in creating stuff that would be enjoyable offline that I can also release and post there as a bonus. If it does well there too, so be it.
In 2024… I’m aiming to make the most positive assumptions we can.
Whether this is your closest relationship or somebody you find yourself diametrically opposed to, it always serves us all best to make generous assumptions about other people. Give the benefit of the doubt. Allow people to be human. This year will have inevitable drama. Hold your boundaries while allowing everyone else to be a work in progress.
In 2024, I’m all about letting myself produce less work so you can produce deeper work.
I started last year by trying to aggressively cut back on my workload and I don’t regret that at all. This year is starting on a similar note. I’ve already found a way to cut back on my production schedule, and I’m excited for all the extra time that equates to. I’ll bet no one even notices I’m producing less.
It’s kind of funny, because I feel like this is a goal I take on every year, and somehow I keep finding more and more to cut back on. You’d figure mathematically we’d run out at some point, but it hasn’t happened yet, and that keeps giving me more space to take life in full
In 2024, I’m all about emphasizing the immediate benefits of climate action.
So much of climate communications is like, “save the earth now so our kids can even still have an earth.” In reality, so many things we can do right away will have an impact that’s felt right away. Walkable cities that lead to better social lives? Yes. Healthier soil to reduce food insecurity? Better biodiversity? Those are benefits that can be had almost right away.
Dr. Kate Marvel recently wrote a pretty great op-ed in the New York Times about how it’s not just about sounding the alarm bells but that the advocacy, research, and efforts by many over the past several years have paid off significantly. Yes, there’s further work ahead, but not all of that work will involve catastrophizing
In 2024, I want to keep getting back in my body.
After years of spending most of my time engaging the empirical side of my brain, it was really nice to get back into my body in a number of different ways.
I’ve been mid-marathon training right now, and the feeling after a long run is always surprisingly amazing.
This Year I...
From family life to career to travel and creative work, 2023 had some of my biggest wins:
Getting back in my body and running distances again. Tough to find the time for it and took a while to build back the conditioning but happy to be back to double digit distances.
Feeling a sense of community I haven’t really had around me in years!
Diving back into improv for the first time in well over a decade and loving it. Finding ways to grow in the craft, forging some awesome friendships, and regaining an activity that calls for being present.
Connecting my kids with their Filipino roots by going back to the islands earlier in the year, and adding a new Filipino tattoo.
Some major speaking gigs, the big one being my TED Talk in June. But on the other end of the spectrum, things like storytelling with standup at Truth in Comedy, and I love that weird wide range.
Storytelling trips to Ethiopia and Kolkata. Two places I’ve long dreamed of exploring because of all the stories they have to tell and the richness off their cultures. From mud wrestlers to church forests, I’m really happy with the creative work I get to put out.
Most of all, though, I love the little life at home I’ve gotten to build with Deanna and our three. The days aren’t easy, but we’ve made it to the other side of two and our lives are so full.
2023 Highlights
In a weird hypothetical situation where I get to Heaven and they’re all like, “due to clerical error, we gotta have you relive one year on Earth before letting you in. You won’t change anything, just relive it. What year do you want to choose?”
I might have to go with 2023.
Rationally speaking, I’d want a year where all my kids are around, which really narrows it down to just the past two years, but that aside, I think my life has felt more complete and abundant throughout the course of this year than at any other point.
I’ve gotten to talk about climate on the TED stage, then play a dracula dad on an improv stage so I don’t take myself too seriously. I’ve gotten to drink chai in India and coffee in Ethiopia, while also loving domestic adventures like taking my daughter to a cat cafe. I’ve planned camping trips and bachelor parties and explainer videos and school lunches.
Last year was a year of chaotic good.
This year was all about balance and completeness.
Our Identities Are Diverse
So many of us feel a pressure to attach our identities to one single facet. In the U.S., that’s most often a job title. But it can also be things like a personality trait, a skill we’ve honed really well, or a role like parenthood.
I love being a dad. I love my work and all that I do. But I’ve learned that your person is a bit like a garden. It benefits from having diverse components that support one another.
The City of Joy
Kolkata’s nickname is the City of Joy. When I first heard that, I thought, if it lives up to that name, it’s got to be an amazing place.
Kolkata was amazing.
And I learned about the origin of the nickname.
City of Joy was the name of a book set in Kolkata, written by Dominique LaPierre. That book is mostly set in the slum of Anand Nagar, a name that literally translates to ‘place of joy.’ The book focuses on how the people living in the slum, despite the many hardships of life in poverty, still manage to find life worth living and experience happiness.
I often think the trope of “oh they’re so poor, but they’re actually happy” can be harmful. It can get us to romanticize poverty rather than addressing its root causes.
But, especially at the time the book was written, I could see it being helpful to push back on the conflation of material wealth with happiness.
Travel Isn't Escape
The words travel and escape are so often paired together, and yeah, travel can easily be a form of escapism.
But when you interact with enough people from different places who live totally different lives just based on the circumstances of their birth, you start to realize that setting up camp in one corner of the globe and thinking of the way things happen in that corner as “normal” and everything else as different, it occurs to you that this is its own form of escaping reality.
A Visit to Banojibi
Yes, climate vulnerability is a severe issue in Bangladesh, but I was told it had so many good examples of climate adaptation that it could be a leading example of environmental resilience to the rest of the world.
Up close, that looked like eco-villages like Banojibi taking a grassroots approach to implementing solutions among the locals in very innovative ways.
The Most Difficult Jobs
Bricklayers who worked fourteen hour shifts in the Bengali heat, inhaling the dust from their construction.
Shiploaders who carried two hundred loads of coal and other materials overhead across planks from cargo ships to shores, over and over.
Metalworkers in alleyways who worked without proper protective gear to take apart the scraps of old ships.
In one square mile of Dhaka I saw all of the most difficult, laborious, and underpaid jobs being worked by climate migrants. Obviously, they wound up in this position because of one unfair systemic problem stacked on top of another.
When you see the effects of hyper consumption and a climate crisis firsthand like that, it makes you wish a direct response was a little bit more within reach. But truly, the only sustainable solution was to go upstream. To look at the root causes, and work from there. In the meantime, the best immediate action someone could take was simply deciding to take a posture of listening to their stories and perspectives.