log

can everyone please leave me alone. thanks

ive grown complacent and it shows on our growth chart and on our instagram. no more complacency, we're bringing the fire back and they'll feel it. and this time the fire will be a tamed fire--no jumping the gun. learned, informed. wiser.

https://x.com/arrtnem/status/1956785633839735025 thinking about komune, solid practice--malcolm, mad, etc., quiet power, where i need to go, etc.

im understanding what all of the people in these different worlds want. what are small business founders (pete, luke) motivated by? what are djs (alex, jack anderson) motivated by? what are graphic designers motivated by? what are students motivated by? they all want different things, and i feel like this is all bringing me to some sort of ultimate synthesis. i am in a position where i am aware of so many different class' incentives--that knowledge is powerful, because if you can align all of them, you can create something for super cheap (you don't need as much money if you know someone's deepest desires) and potentially something otherwise impossible (because some of these groups don't want to work with each other because they don't feel heard). i am a connector of these classes

bro i love jenny's blog im so inspired

i have like 93 balls in the air right now its insane

i dont know if this is exceptional or not

the amount of connections im making right now specifically is wild. jek, august lamm, otis from checkpoint.. thats just from today

feels good to have established my "post" here. ppl come to me i dont go anywhere else :^)

i really feel like working w karen is making me a better partner/bf type person. like, if ur working 8 hours w a solid woman a day, it's kinda impossible not to level up and bring that into other parts of my life. K is, as someone once said, a straight chilla. i wonder how one could even make her remotely upset. still need to finish offer letter

bought a kodiak tent today. thinking about how fate (almost wrote transcendent love) led me to find mad. i went looking for her, the way haku and chihiro found reach other.

there's so much to do this week but i am not overwhelmed. the universe is conspiring for my success. somehow i get the feeling that subvert.fm is ngmi. i'm skeptical of co-operative ownership of highly technical things like that. karen really likes it tho, we shall discuss tomorrow. we've achieved most all of her sprint goals already, one week in. i need to make sure that i stay focused on this handoff in the next couple of days. idk when im gonna come back but i know im going to want to stay in LA for as long as possible, maybe even fly to SF, maybe even colorado, but i need to come back and set things in place at home. martin sent me a personal invite to the group show on thursday and i am a little flattered. i might go help them set up on wednesday after going to chauncie's class. no matter how busy i am, i want to be able to help out causes i believe in. there are so many things i want to do at telos, like a rooftop garden, for which we need to figure out a hose situation.

i know my own flaws, namely that i judge too quickly, and i am glad that Laure is breaking my paradigm a little bit. it's honestly pretty nice that she came to work today. last night i was tapping through the gossamer are.na channel and saw that she had posted the disappearance of ritual by byung-chul han, and started reading it while mad dozed off. immediately sent the first two opening pages to karen, knowing that we need to implement more rituals at telos:

"We can define rituals as symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world. They transform being-in-the- world into a being-at-home. They turn the world into a reliable place. They are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable. They even make it accessible, like a house. They structure time, furnish it. In his novel Citadelle, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry describes rituals as temporal techniques of making oneself at home in the world..."

i thought: my physical home right now is so nomadic. i feel transient; i don't spend much time in my actual room, most of my time nowadays is at telos or at mad's or moving between these places. i am peripatetic. and if i am spatially peripatetic, then i must find grounding in my temporal routines; yoga every evening, the same breakfast every morning, lighting incense before working every day, etc. i clock in at 9 and im out at 5. routine, over and over. we wear holes into our clothes and i wear familiarity into my life. so many feelings of damn, it shouldn't have taken me this long to finally reach this: spirited away, byung-chul han, i'm sure there will be others.

i love this little blog.

hojoki was mid

laying on mads tatami. today we finished spirited away after starting it last night. it was a really moving movie, shouldve watched it earlier. in some ways i feel like haku.

what else... things with mad feel like they're getting much better now. im excited to go to LA and eat in n out and drink tulips coffee and drive for 10 hours. im feeling prepared for burning man.

last night the show finally opened and it was a modest success. i was triggered again bc when i arrived after eating dim sum w mad in the city they were still working on taping the seams of one of the exits of the installation. like why do you continue to do pointless things when there are <3 hours left... guys. and then mad washed all of the dishes and swept and what else did you do mad? ok she says idk

ummm oh and on friday night i came over to mads bc a lanternfly (the homie) flew into her room and hid in her air purifier and i came and fished it out and flushed it down the toilet. a real homie who gave me a reason to come over. we went to dimsum palace the morning after and stopped into bake culture and overall it was great.

the biggest upgrade we made to telos yesterday was putting a bench outside the front door. it really takes just a bench guys. the amant book fair across the street probably doubled the amount of people who stopped by, so many sheepishly came to look at the sandwich board and go up the stairs to see what was going on. one of our neighbors stopped by to chat with me and karen and said that he was bothered by the screw sticking out of the bottom of our sign. and that he was glad to see there was a coworking space in the neighborhood. overall a pretty great turnout and event and i took all of today off and so did karen. very happy with how things are going. just four days left where i need to grind and hand things over to karen and then a little bit of a nervous break. we shall see how things go

cool calm collected like a cucumber. baby's first event crisis. dear all delayed till tomorrow 7pm. ez to maintain perspective.

god bless karen's soul

shino and abe are running it down to the wire. frustrated. don't want to work with incompetent people any more. partially on me. trying to be as compassionate as i can, but resenting the fact that there's less than 3 hours till open now and the installation isn't even up on the ceiling yet. i love another 13.

they say write wherever it feels the best so im writing here. SENSE's responsibilities include: moving all furniture outside, ... we should get yuki to help set up for the event if he's willing and able to direct the furniture removal aspect.

i did not sleep that much but i feel energized. it's the testosterone. karen said she's gonna make us pesto pasta after meeting w yuki. that makes me happy. i know who i get the chance to pitch this weekend: LR. i bet i can make him come to the exhibit. i'm excited--there will be people full of good taste there, people i like.

i have a mild crush on changyuchen. also holy shit shashi's art is fire.

ok so listen up the vision is this. we get that 11k coworking revenue and events are already comfortably doing like 10k per month. at that point our expenses are 6500 rent, 6k for both of us (very optimistic, prob more like 5k). that's 18.5k, leaving 2.5k for other expenses. more or less reasonable. if we maintain this 21k MoM revenue for some time, then we are what bitches would call "cruising," and you and i will have the breathing room to figure out what our next steps are. do we add a third and build the team out? do we start dreaming up new verticals? where do we want to go in the future? these are all questions we'll have the breathing room to examine once we hit our current targets. let's do this.

im not gonna lie im so impressed by jenny rn that its making me work harder and harder. girl is LOCKED IN in shenzhen and all she thinks about is her product. that should be me. im locked the fuck in.

need to remember to thank all the people who helped set up for this. im so glad i met william tonight. if otis comes by tomorrow, i think i'll be one step closer to raising 200k by next friday. i really like otis just from his instagramn. he looks so self-actualized and cool and i want to be just like that. i want to level up as a man

inside me there are two wolves:

1. in bed by 11/up at 8/no fap/yoga every day/daily dharma study
2. tweeting on my own silly website at 350am, now i want to respond to all the people waiting for my response, second wind type shit, let's ready jenny's blog, im gonna write out telos vision for karen rn

to do for tomorrow:

• buy gaff tape
• black out windows
• acquire v-flats
• finish wiring webcam system, set up projection
• make a final post/story for last push for attendees
• set up guest book w/ name and emails
• return chairs to mei (ask yuki to help with this)
• clean up roof/indoor area
• venmo request for 56709 - done
• respond to constance
• respond to erika rozo - done
• respond to isabelle from earth dog
• respond to magnetic
• upload dear all, on the website - done

at telos right now helping install. 30 minutes till 3. so much left to do before tomorrow. is this my life now?

went to get drinks with myunghyun, shaxi, ryan (not karen's ryan), noel, joshua, jess, karen at 56709. we made a reservation for a group of 8 at 730pm through haoran and no one showed up till 8; they were texting me if we were coming and i felt really bad. when i walked into the back it was all the same people who were helping staff the 929 party at telos. i need to remember what haoran's partner's name is. it's really cool that i know all these business owners now i fr really enjoy it

then we went to ryan's place and i met his rly cute poodle (kudo) and cat whose name i forgot. they had a puzzle in a puzzle board and karen and i are gonna set up a puzzle board at telos now. i love making this space all mine. all ours, now that there's two of us. i admire my own mindfulness in other people's homes; no one wanted to leave, and i could tell ryan was getting anxious bc he knew his gf wanted to go to bed, so i told everyone to gtfo. it's the worst when i want people to gtfo and they don't. thank u ryan.

i enjoy being designated driver. a few weeks ago i took a big group home from html day. after ryan's place tonight i took home myunghyun and shaxi to bedstuy, then dropped off jess, who continues to be flirty, and then karen. jess and karen gave some really solid advice about my current predicament. i must remember it. "better approximations, add buffer. mcdonalds replay, same $20 back and forth, go get yourself a matcha." thank you my angels.

k set a boundary and said i need to go home and talk to ryan now. before that she offered to come to telos with me to check out how the install was going. i really am quite happy with her, the fact that she would be willing to come with me past midnight. i know it's a function of her living so close, but it's also just her self-motivation... paul or kasper never did this. i really like her and i will try to give her everything she wants. i am loyal to her and she is loyal to me. i really hope this lasts a long time. MAN i really like karen.

i need to calm the fuck down and stop stimulating myself bc i rly think worse when im stressed and i know this by now. i can do absolutely anything i want i have so many resources and also so many people who want to help me. and i also need to continue to confront uncomfy feeling inside and staring it in the eyes and breathing with it. i have great taste and people want to give me their money and time. my friends are talented and support me. my parents love me. i am already set for life what more could i ask for. i am eating a fantuan at apous drinking abena and going to make up with jenny. karen is goated and telos is swag. earth dog and magnetic and kenneth/avi and constance are knocking down my door to give me thousands to have parties. what the fuck soran. why are you so not chill. chill. karen just told me i'm actually quite good at being not chill in a chill way. yanick has told me the same thing before. like. how do they perceive me as chill when i'm so NOT CHILL.

i realize now. how tf can i be a stable force for anyone else when my life is so unstable. like i started this thing in may 2024 and its august 2025. i should know that i wont have capacity to chill until like may 2026. or at the very least until october 15, 2025, which is the deadline i set for myself to evaluate if this is going well enough for me to continue. i've given up so much for this and i keep delaying happiness now for gratification later. that's literally the job of any founder or business owner. the payoff is coming in the form of a stable self-owned business at 26 years old. like i fucking got this. i will be chilling real soon. chill soran. thinking about rue's bf and how he said budanxin is all you can ask for in terms of his own coffee shop. that's totally correct.

you can't resent a billionaire for being busy. abe burned his foot today. it was a perfect day at telos. made mentaiko with yuki. julie, aidan, tedi, chloe karen did a wonderful job chatting with him about his event while i wahed the dishes. i'll be on my way to BRC when it's happening. the email she sent to him in preparation for our meeting on friday is simply chefs kiss. i feel like i am in good hands without having to be reassured.

i woke up this morning and wrote a note down in my notes app about how i must remind myself of mad's tenderness and then i fell back asleep. she truly is the most tender girl and i endeavor to take care of her. i aspire to re-earn her trust in me, if not men in general.

i must remind myself of her tenderness.

one of the roughest weekends in recent memory. i don't think mad and i are going to work out at this point (key word "at this point"). it's gotten to the point where i've basically just given up, which is a great place to be. the squeeze, as pema chodron would call it. now we just wait and see what happens.

i havent felt this sad in a while--so sadi even texted michael asking to get dinner with him and lulu bc i couldnt be alone. i was so tired the day of the not that queer screening. the combo of sleep deprivation + sadness over mad became intolerable. i woke up yesterday feeling the same and decided i really needed to do something about it, create some movement, in my life, so i made a snap decision to go to magazzino.

here are some things i thought about while walking around, transferred from my handwritten notes on the magazzino pamphlet.

personal

• may the whole world get to see m's brightness. what is her take on jealousy? i was thinking about cs lewis and that quote about sharing your friends. you don't lose them, you actually gain a side of them you wouldn't normally get to see. but i don't think this really applies in romantic settings. time is limited
• feeling like damn my nervous system is regulated looking at this green stuff. cried in car on the way here. had a rly rough evening. im now microdosing vacation.
• always tell employees: "go take some time off, totally disconnect"

telos

• space: use pipe cutter for blackout curtain pipes
• hose attachment for sink? how do architects find contractors?
• dream contractor would be able to help me w: Modine, HVAC, windows, skylights, roof reinforcement
• coworking: work amidst art.
• schedule for this upcoming weekend: be at the reception, take saturday off, sunday on (bc of the concert)
• art can be a form of immortalization: as is the case for Dia, and also Shino's cassette project
• observing a connection between Japan/Italy: mentaiko pasta, itameshi, Yoichi Ohira, Shino (a designer + curator + artist).
• shino is a bit "sprite" like
• art as a form of connection, rejuvenation, revitalization. Amant revitalized East Williamsburg by establishing a presence there (via millions in investment). But here, by "rejuvenation," I mostly have in mind my experiences w/ Dia, and now with Magazzino too. Every time I go out and see art, I feel alive again, like there is freshness and room to breathe. Life can so often beat me down, and art lifts me up again
• "The installation consists of debris netting ____ on to electrical conduit, material choices that bring the grittiness of the surrounding East Williamsburg neighborhood inside."
• intimacy--the exhibition feels like a womb, you are forced to sit close together w other participants, shoes off. but also there's the intimacy of viewing Shino's relationships. There's something voyeuristic about it.
• "Out of a desire to stop time...." Thus begins artist Shino Matsuura's description of her nomadic art project and exhibition "Dear All,".
• Art as a form of immortalization: the lineage traces from cave paintings to those canonized in Dia:Beacon, and now, finally, those lucky enough to receive an empty cassette case from Shino.

i have created enough content for years. i want to revisit everything i've done and produced in the last 10 or so years, when i really began to take shape... all the translations i produced, my college writing, essays at ssp, old photos... there's so much about my old self to understand, patterns to unearth. i know there are interesting things there and i yearn for the time to digest. i wrote down at bm last year that in the default world theres so much going on and close to 0 reflection time, and then at bm reflection is commensurate to the amount of input... i feel like i need to just go away for a while and make sense of everything i have done. i need a two to three month long break to step back and see what i've created and who i am now... it's a shame i don't have friends from 10 years ago who know who i am now: a durational friend, someone who has seen me through the entire arc who is discerning as well, a ri of sorts... every time i read my past journals i marvel at how i was thinking about the same things i am now, not much has changed really.

i want out of this pain cycle so badly, it's happening again. i don't know if it's just 'hang out all the time' to withdrawal symptoms or if it's something else but i keep coming back to the thought that i want my ride or die and i just KNOW that it will happen AND that right now i am my own rock.

oh wow it just self-liberated in like 2 seconds ok we're good now lmao

i cant stop listening to no one noticed by the marias. it came on randomly in the morning today or yesterday. its so perfect for right now and i want to cover it and overlay it on travel vlog of me and veronika

this is it, there's no dress rehearsal... tomorrow we do it again.

its 1am, i am sitting in the passenger seat of my car, parked out front of telos, waiting for the event to end so that i can lock up and go home and sleep. it's going quite well, i'm happy about it. we got paid out. first drag show at telos ever and the first one i've ever attended. i can see why people like it, there's so much money and power play involved. so many dollar bills on the floor. not the rowdiest crowd either right now. i also got to meet the owner of wenwen and 886, and his wife(?) mei, and i feel like i'm making so many important connections. often i think about how, despite all my misgivings about telos, i have made so many good connections and relationships that were probably worth the time/energy/money i've put into it. i have proven myself in a way, and that won't go away ever. to name just a few who come to mind right now, there's the whole komune crew, and now 929, much of the pop-up food scene in new york, and then jenny8 reached out... that's all that comes to mind right now.

today i paid karen on the spot so that we can start work immediately on monday. as i said to her, it's a shot in the dark, and i hope it goes well. i need to make sure i allot some time to finish her offer letter and focus on who i can raise from in the next 10 days... this is going to be a sprint before burning man.

i just started this blog but i'm inspired by jenny and i want to create a vercel app where i can just tell telegram my stupidass thoughts and it'll upload them direct to this site for me. its currently 126, let me see how long that takes me to set up using claude...

momentum breeds momentum.

so much suffering

writing from: telos.haus

feeling the heaviness of mad's departure today, and last night. she cried for a while last night and i wasn't able to be there for her because i was caught in the weight of my own samsara. i know the end played in my head all morning. we woke up and it was there; "i'm doing it," she said. "last day. i'm leaving this room. i'm leaving this city and the people in it."

she emphasized how logical the decision she is making is. she's reiterated it so many times: because it is such a strong "logical deduction," it's irrefutable in a way.

1. i don't want to work in tech / stare at a screen
2. new york is expensive if i don't work in tech
3. hence i must leave new york
4. there are things i want to do in asia

it's like a replay of last year all over again. 2024: m departs without a set return date, doing what she needs to do. 2025: a different m departs, no return date, doing what she needs to do. nothing has changed and yet everything has changed; i know the end, and i know what the thousands of exploding little lights above the man last year meant to me. she doesn't know yet what i wrote at the temple--i'm looking forward to telling her, as i was thinking about it yesterday but knew that it wouldn't make sense to explain now--and she doesn't know yet how much it means to me that she's coming this year. i was thinking about how i wanted to fly out m&c in the middle of the burn, on monday or tuesday...

i know that this is where i will be for the forseeable future: sitting in this warehouse. i have no hope that anything will change, that things will get better somehow, that i will be able to travel freely... what i am doing now is simply what i need to do. in about an hour and a half i'll be sharing an offer with karen and i hope that we will be able to find a solution that works.

i'm beginning to feel burnout creeping in again, too many events happening this weekend that i'm not crazy crazy about. but i can't be crazy about everything. tonight at least i'll have a team of 2 helping me, joshua and hanlu... i know it will go fine. i'm proud that i now have systems priced properly so that i don't have to be incredibly stressed at events. paying PAs and setting expectations with security is already quite good compared to where i was at last year.

now that my tumblr is linked on this site, it's funny to revisit it, think about what other people might think of it, and also to see that it was once called 'fernweh', and that the favicon is a koala.... again, nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. i still love koalas, but i no longer long for something else, i have created my own little artistic practice here, at 303 ten eyck st, and i can say or do whatever i want.