Minimalism is the pursuit of removing possessions, activities, and relationships that make life harder to enjoy. The pursuit of happiness through intentional removal, rather than the continued ‘more, more, more’ of consumer culture. I recently participated in the minimalist game, a 30 day challenge to remove material possessions from your life. On the first day, you get rid of one thing. The second day, you get rid of two things… etc....
I’ve read a lot of year in review posts this January and I’m always intrigued, despite the cliche nature of them. In particular, I enjoy the comparisons bloggers make across multiple years, and the introspection that comes along with that. I often find that keeping a list of things I’ve accomplished is a little bit inspiring, because it’s often a lot more than I remember. Below is a list of activities I enjoyed in 2015, most of which I hope to continue doing in 2016....
One of the things I’d like improve in 2016 is my knowledge of software engineering design patterns, with a particular emphasis on iOS. I’ll be posting a quick summary of each one I stumble across on the blog so that my future self can find things again easily. Today’s pattern is called ‘The Builder’. The intent of the pattern is to make it easy to create objects with a lot of initial configurations, without bloating your code with a bunch of long initializers....
46 book in 52 weeks, just 4 shy of my goal of 50! Despite coming up just short, I think 2015 was one of the most thoughtful and well rounded years of reading I’ve ever had. I still read an outsized proportion of sci-fi and fantasy books; however I also read more non-fiction (thanks largely in part to Mandy and Stephan). Here is the rundown of my favorite books I read in 2015:...
During our pre bedtime snack (an essential meal of the day) my girlfriend posed the question, “I wonder what I’ll be zealous about when I get old?”. The context came from a conversation about the incredible fan powers of one of her family members, and how it seems like elderly people are more zealous about a specific thing than others. Perhaps the zealous nature of their focus comes from no longer having a job to give them purpose, but I think the question is a fascinating one to ponder for people of any age....