light & dark

There are many things keeping you poor. I've talked about spending habits , but there is another thing specially prevalent in the today's society: betting on a windfall. A windfall  (n.) is defined as a large sum of money received. This could come in many forms: bonus pay, inheritance, or more commonly, lottery winnings. Windfalls are like checkpoints in life; they give you a chance to forget about bills and enjoy life, even for a moment. I remember my earliest windfall: my Christmas bonus check. It was a check on top of my salary, and for the month I received three times what I normally got. I was elated, and before I even got the chance to deposit the check, I was already dreaming up all the things I would buy with the money. A new phone? A new computer? Of course I'd be stopping by Starbucks and treating my family to expensive restaurants. A few weeks later, I was back keeping just above my maintaining balance and waiting for the next paycheck to arrive. What happened ...

I am baffled by how people react when I mention the idea of saving. It's always responded with resistance, as if the systems in place have been designed exclusively for people not to save. People will almost always say: "Yeah, I should save but..." I have bills to pay. I have too much debt. I can't afford to. Or some variation of those excuses. But what I've learned years ago, is that if you have money to spend, then you have money to save. Photo by Emil Kalibradov on Unsplash It was years ago, I was sitting outside my managers office with a folded letter on hand, anxious and second guessing my decision. It was a spontaneous decision, something which I made the night before; but I decided that I finally had enough. I have been working too much, taking in too much responsibility, and for sure wasn't getting paid enough. During that time I was neck deep in car loans, I had about €1,000 in my bank account which was about to get a lot smaller because rent was due...

I woke up with a sense of guilt. “I should be writing/reading/doing…” and all these things are in my notebook. Goals, objectives, to make me feel productive. But for some reason, motivation is absent, and all the momentum I built up in the past few days are just gone. The aftermath is excuses. “I have work in a few hours” or “I can always do things tomorrow” The fallout is, not failure surprisingly, but stagnation. I am the same person I was yesterday. And if I keep this up, tomorrow will be the same story. I started this blog again because I wanted to keep up with the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. That when we moved cities, I will work on the things that held me back from my dreams and be better. I have made progress for sure, but the creative goals are still unchecked. I wanted to learn the harmonica. It's an instrument I bought years ago and have only played once. I have 3 graphic novel ideas that I have yet to write or draw. I have a screenplay th...

I was talking to someone at work about housing, and we discussed if buying a house is worth it. In Finland, housing prices are all over the place but you can expect to pay up to €40,000 for a right of occupancy license or up to €100,000 for full ownership. And I'm talking about an apartment complex, not a house. Houses vary in prices, but factoring what you expect about housing, then the idea of  worth it  changes depending on those expectations. What is a house to you? What does it mean? Or represent? Image by M from Pixabay The discussion started with maintenance fees. If you buy an apartment for around €100k, why is the maintenance fee so high? I looked at the listing, it totaled to around €500 per month. I thought it was a good deal, invest 100k on an appreciating market and your housing expense is halved. He argued however, if he had 40k, he might as well just play the stock market and grow his money. He can just work extra shifts to pay for the extra €300 instead of sav...

Among the literature I’ve read over the years, one writer I keep coming back to is Epictetus . He’s one of the few Stoic voices I return to often — second only to Marcus Aurelius. And it’s all because of a question he asked — one I’ve sadly repeatedly failed to fulfill: “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best of yourself?” Image by Christian Bueltemann from Pixabay Because really, what are we waiting for? Why delay our own destiny? I catch myself making excuses all the time. I know I should be working out, but I’ll say I’m too tired. I should finish my coding project, but my colony in Oxygen Not Included just needs a few more cycles to become self-sufficient. Still, I try to take things one step at a time. One goal at a time. Right now, it’s growing my wealth. I used to save obsessively, but I learned that years of frugality mean little if inflation quietly eats away at my savings. So I started investing — and now I’m up 7%, on track to close the year ...

I had a very tense conversation with someone and it was very odd. He was disagreeing with me. Emotions were very tense, I was getting angry, I wasn't making my case because I was completely disarmed by conversing with someone who didn't just shut up when they didn't have the same opinion with me. “Don't be offended” I reminded myself. The entire interaction ended with us talking about other things, only for us to be at completely opposite ends of another topic moments later. And I reflected on this interaction, I came to realize how terrible the internet has ruined discourse. I would be on chat with my friends, only for topics to become divisive and then silence. The  seen  message pops up and everybody turn into ghosts. Nobody wanted to stir the pot, argue, make valid points and come out learning more going out of the conversation than when they came in. Now we walk on egg shells. We are careful of how we phrase our discussions, we try not to make anyone uncomfortable,...

I don’t usually appreciate online social movements because they rarely make a real impact. Most of them are just trends for clout — they burn bright for a week, help no one, then fade into obscurity. But when I came across the Buy Nothing Rebellion , my interest was actually piqued. The idea’s simple: stop spending money for no good reason. You’re broke and have no savings because you spend too much. That’s it. I’ve been practicing this mindset for a few years now, and it all started when I realized something — at some point, we all hit a wall of hedonistic saturation. When that happens, we either keep escalating our lifestyle or decide we’ve had enough. I reached that point after buying every material thing I’d ever wanted. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay Let me show you a Keep Notes I wrote in 2018. I even thought about buying a Miata at the time, but there wasn’t any parking space available at my apartment building. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t go through with it, even though...

I don't read a lot of Stephen King. Which in turn means I don't watch a lot of adaptations of Stephen King. But I watched the Long Walk recently, and I am reminded of why dissent is necessary, and why any ideology that divides people will only lead to chaos. It's a tale as old as time. The nobles declare they have  divine right  and would hold themselves as superior to the common man. I am better than you, I get the nice things, you work to make sure I get those things. The have's versus the have-nots. Those who have oppress the have-nots. The capitalist expect you to make the products, to work the 14-hour shifts, to care for the sick and elderly, while they take it all in. They ride their expensive cars, only for the minimum wage earner fills their tank. They order their expensive steak, and yell at the minimum wage earner because it wasn't rare enough. Image by biancamentil from Pixabay Late stage capitalism sees this divide grow even more, to the point that dyst...

I’ve started to think that all these things people do to “better themselves” are really just a form of self-directed gaslighting. I remember years ago when I first discovered Brilliant — that app that’s supposed to make learning science fun and interactive. Cool graphics, bite-sized lessons, a slick design — it totally pulled me in. I even tried the free trial because I’ve always wanted to learn more about physics. But honestly, it just started feeling like a job. The constant login streaks, daily reminders, and gamified progress bars sucked the fun out of it.     Image by Ekaterina from Pixabay A few days later, I picked up a copy of A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking for about, ₱800. The first few chapters instantly took me back to what I learned in Physics 101. That book’s mine forever — no subscriptions, no notifications, no gimmicks. Now take my Finnish friends as an example. They downloaded Duolingo to learn Swedish or English, but years later, they still can’t ...

I tried an experiment recently. I started avoiding my phone for a few months now. This simply meant leaving it on some surface somewhere in the house, and I would ignore it for the entire day. What did this accomplish? Nothing much, my day to day isn't completely affected, but I noticed that if I do have my phone, I would do either: doom scroll on Instagram or play Sudoku. The latter isn't anything to write home about, people have been playing crosswords and this includes sudoku for decades. But doom-scrolling is worse. Image by Luisella Planeta LOVE PEACE 💛💙 from Pixabay My Instagram feed is either food recipes, workout videos, half naked women advertising gooners to their OnlyFans or the news. I hardly make the recipes I find, I only do one kind of workout, and I never bought anyone's OF because porn is free. And much like the former statement, the latter is the worse. The internet is making it very difficult to have peace of mind. The War in Gaza and Ukraine, the subs...

Nestlé got a new CEO and for some fucking reason the first thing he does is start firing 16,000 employees. The stock market is in an uproar as Nestlé stock surges 7% with investors optimistic about the aggressive approach the new CEO has with an emphasis on growth. [ link ] Guess who isn't optimistic? The 16,000 people who are about to lose their jobs because some shithead wants number to go up.   Image by Sofia Terzoni from Pixabay   Phillip Navratil said: “We are fostering a culture that embraces a performance mindset, that does not accept losing market share, and where winning is rewarded… The world is changing, and Nestle needs to change faster.” I am baffled by how indifferent these rich fucks are with the common man that when talking about growth, it's never pay our workers more or improve our products to be better and cheaper. It's all about pleasing the venture capitalist, the investors, the stockholders who don't contribute to the market. They don't build ...

I'm reading more books lately. Not that I am reading more, I have several on my night stand that I re-read along with the things I have in my bag and phone. But I mean, I am reading more books. Not just the books I like re-reading, but I feel like I need to expand my horizon again. I have been in a rut in terms of the type of information I absorbed, that I boxed myself in into a strange echo chamber, which I feel makes me ignorant of so many things. I would like to believe I am an expert of some things. At this point, I can give a lecture on Stoic Philosophy, but being knowledgeable in one thing does not make me an expert on all things. This is a fact that most people need to take into consideration when quoting Jordan Peterson or Elon Musk for example. Sure, they can say some very profound things, but a broken clock is right at least twice in a day. My point is, introspection led me to conclude that I need to read more. I have been ranting on about finance recently, especially as ...

I was mulling over how to write about smarter spending, I came to think about “positivity” and how just looking at the bright side makes us blind. So we are talking about this today. “It will all work out”, “Just pray, and it will all be well”, “You can smile through your troubles” These are all well and good. Some people need to be more positive, but you can be too positive. Image by Kari Shea from Pixabay The first iteration of this blog was from my college years, the name of the blog was: “the lighter/darker side”. It was from a song by Christian Bautista whose message was about accepting someone for the good and bad, the lighter side — and the darker side. This came to shape my world view for years to come, I tried to remind myself that it's not all bad, sometimes things are good. But people like to only look at the lighter side, it's a typical Filipino trait. I have come to learn over the years that this is silly. If you have a gunshot wound, would it help to think posit...

I am confident in the claim that people who overspend have a skill issue . Using money properly to buy and save requires some thinking and experience, and therefore is a skill. The trip to the store or just basically browsing online for stuff means you have to engage in several mental activities with the goal of coming out in a state of parity between you and the merchant. You should not spend more than you need, nor should you spend less to save, only for you to still come home with shit. It's like mana in magic the gathering, some people tap out only to be left with nothing in crucial post turn actions; or not use their mana at all for a better situation later only for them to miss it all together. Resource management is a crucial life skill, and money is one of those resources I think people should know using. Now, I was thinking about this yesterday, but I only really formed the thought today. So, how do you get better at spending? Image by Andrew Khoroshavin from Pixabay Im...