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AlmostRational
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Now.

A snapshot of what is occupying my mind, my desk, and my playlists at this particular moment. Inspired by the /now movement.

Last updated 11 April 2026

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Reading

The Sociological Imagination — C. Wright Mills

Mills argues that the personal is always political and the political is always personal. That biography and history are the same conversation. Reading it and finding it everywhere: in the articles I write, in the way organisations treat people, in why individuals blame themselves for structural failures. A 1959 book that reads like it was written last Tuesday.

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Writing

Case studies of how systems fail people

Less interested in abstract theory right now. More interested in the specific: one person, one organisation, three years, a cancelled flight, a WhatsApp message that crossed a line. The case study format forces precision. You cannot hide behind generalisations when you are writing about a real person's real choices.

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Obsessing Over

The gap between how organisations present themselves and what they actually do

Every company has values on the wall. Very few of them survive contact with a real decision. I keep thinking about the distance between the mission statement and the manager who turned aggressive when asked to reduce a notice period. That gap is where most of the actual psychology lives.

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Thinking About

Why smart people absorb more punishment than they should

The B-school graduate who serves sixty days of notice under hostility. The person who goes back to the office from the airport. Intelligence does not protect you from exploitation. Sometimes it makes you better at rationalising why you should stay. I want to understand why that is.

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Listening

Nothing consistent. Silence, mostly.

The kind of writing I am doing right now needs quiet. Background music breaks concentration. Podcasts are someone else's thinking inserted into the space where yours should be. Silence is underrated as a creative input.

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Feeling

Impatient with comfortable explanations

There is a version of every difficult thing that has been sanded down until it no longer cuts anyone. The therapy-speak version. The LinkedIn version. The 'both sides' version. I am less and less interested in that version. More interested in the one that is accurate even when accurate is uncomfortable.

This page updates whenever something shifts: a new obsession, a book finished, a direction changed.