Not until much later in life, sadly, did I realize I was pretty lucky to get hot prepared meals on my plate at least four days a week. My mother, likely influenced by her parents' sensibilities, actively discouraged us from eating cold or lukewarm food.

But it's clear to me, from people who weren't that lucky, that any positive physiological and psychological effects of food temperature are a product of experience. People will happily consume a lukewarm pizza napulitana because that's what they've grown up eating (notwithstanding, the people growing up eating pizza napulitana absolutely fuck).

So that's me now, imploring you to heat up that food that you ordered an hour ago or prepared midday. I'm confident that the additional ten minutes spent transferring the food out of white plastic containers, understanding how it's cooked and then applying that knowledge to heat it back up again will elevate the experience beyond the usual outside-food self-pity. You are now a better person because you systematically reheated your food before consumption, not because you avoided ordering it in the first place.

This table is a small starter kit to help you build an intuition for reheating. Foods that lose their fundamental textural quality in transit or foods that are initially deconstructed but served together should be avoided for delivery.

Happy eating.

But just front-loading isn’t enough. I like to front-load and push hard to get a first cut well ahead of my own rational expectations.

It’s not just about horizontal slices, spikes, or underpromising and overdelivering — though it is some of that too. A temporal philosophy, to create space and iterate organically, not just workflows.

Difficult, nebulous work doesn’t fit neatly into two-week iterations, and forcing it to often leads to mediocrity disguised as progress.

I find myself earning eventual spontaneity through disciplined front-loading.

Figuring out what that means takes a long time and we’ll get it wrong many times. Maybe we’ll never get it completely right.

The very first service, is to yourself. If you are sick, broken, mentally unstable, financially unstable, physically unstable, or stuck in a war or a ditch… you don't get to help anyone.

Help yourself first. But do it so you are in a position to help others.

§

Yes, this sounds like a flight announcement.

The tap is far too sensitive and it keeps switching over to erase-mode as I readjust the pencil in my hand (a very normal thing to do).

I've been trying to get used to it for months, but no cigar.

I have now turned it off. It's simpler and more reliable to tap on the erase button on the app itself (for example, in Notability).

Why is there no 3-tap or a control for tap sensitivity?

Or better yet, an erase button!

Despite all my mental might, I was unable to suppress walking the skill-spectrum of driving and its perception of adulthood and the associated ego that it carried along.

The spectrum goes roughly like this –

I can drive now, but I kind of suck and I keep stalling.

↓

I'm a little better, but I find it hard to drive bumper-to-bumper in Indian traffic.

↓

I still require people in the car to be quiet because I absolutely cannot chitter-chatter whilst concentrating.

↓

I can take you anywhere in the city, but it still feels like a bit of a drag.

↓

It has stopped taking a toll on me, it’s essentially second nature.

↓

I can go outside my home-base, wherever you please.

↓

I'm now a capital-A-dult and driving a car is just another limb for me. I have absolutely no fear driving in India-like countries.

↓

I can drive pretty much anywhere in the world.

I really wish I did not have access to this section of consciousness in my life.