Bram Esposito

Category: life

  • An update on my writing ambitions

    It’s been a long time since I last posted to this blog. 

    Although I often thought about posting, I have not come around to it. And that got me thinking about what stops me from posting. 

    These are a few topics that came up:

    1. Stage freight
      I’m very aware of the fact that I’m publishing my thoughts. 20 years ago I was less hesitant to post. Times have changed, and in the era of social media it became clear that sharing things online is not without consequences. 
      I often wonder: who’s waiting for this photo, this remark, this post. Isn’t my writing pretentious, am I being well-informed. How is my language, how do I express myself. 
    2. Time
      A lot has happened in the last months. A lot that could serve as inspiration for writing actually. I’ve read a lot of good things, had good conversations. And while I’d love to share more of what keeps me busy, at most times I don’t feel the energy to keep myself focused on writing. I would write a quick draft, think ambitious thoughts and then never return to it. Or while writing, start to feel kind of bored and want to stand up and walk away from it. It’s some kind of performance anxiety or fear of the unknown. Will I finally be able to break through and publish something?
    3. Intention
      And while we’re on the topic of time: while my inner dialogue is writing page-long pieces during the day, in the evening I’m way too often doomscrolling Reddit or Mastodon. Not a single synaps is launching the suggestion to start to write. 
      After forcing myself to observe this behaviour,  I realise I’m often led by impulse instead of intention.  
      It’s motivating that just having the intention to write can already lead to these insights. 
    4. I am a project starter
      Not a project finisher. Apparently. 
      It’s with a reluctance that I admit it. But I have to be honest with myself. And knowing this, I might actually be able to focus on finishing things instead of jumping on the new interesting adventure.  

    This post has gotten quite personal. And that’s exactly why I wanted to write in 2025. To bring clarity in cloudy thoughts. Observe things and give direction.

    If I succeed once this year, I’ll consider it a success 😉. 

  • It’s been a while

    Almost 2 months without writing. Two months filled to the brim with work and non-work related stuff.

    2025 is an exceptionally good, but also demanding year for us. Like annual rings on a tree, this year will be an extra wide ring, as a sign of exceptional growth.

    Genrative Art of annual rings by Ahmad Moussa
    Image from https://www.gorillasun.de/blog/radial-perlin-noise-and-generative-tree-rings/

  • Thrifted clamps

    Thrifted these 3 clamps this week for € 1,20 each. I will be clamping all the things from now on!

  • meet Ruby

    Ruby, our cat

    meet Ruby

  • Exploring some new city neighbourhoods

    Exploring some new city neighbourhoods

  • The last weeks, I’ve been overwhelmed by work, so no time to work on the blog or write posts. Also a bit depressed by the state of the world. And some family troubles that need time and attention.

    Here’s to a positive outcome for all of this.

  • I imported my Instagram archive

    Quite a bumpy road and it took way more time than I planned, but now I have my full Instagram archive on this blog. I do not care very much about my Facebook or Twitter history, but I’m really attached to these images, that take me back to earlier years.

    The content is mine now, and I’m going to spend some time to clean things up and make the browsing more pleasant.

    Take a look

  • On post length

    Social media got me spoiled. I’m used to reading short bursts of less than 200 characters.

    When finding longer pieces that I want to read, I fall into the trap that most people will likely recognise: file it away for later, which means “never read it”. Browser bookmarks, del.icio.us, pinboard1 and now Notion haven’t saved me from this behaviour2.

    For me, the sweet spot in post length seems to be somewhere around a hundred words or less, see for example Manton Reece‘s posts, that I find comfortable to read.

    Writing something in under a hundred words is less easy than it looks though.

    1. Sadly, Maciej Cegłowski appears to be a dreadful person ↩︎
    2. There is something that I want to try with this blog related to bookmarking though. ↩︎

  • a new theme for 2025: the year of writing

    I’m sitting down to reflect and wrap up my thoughts about the year that has passed and the year that comes up.

    Theme system

    In the last years, I have started to adopt the theme system that CGP Grey and Mike Hurley came up with. It’s a system that focuses on your intentions and motivations rather than hard goals like new year resolutions. They discuss it frequently on their Cortex podcast.

    2024: the year of balance

    Last yearI focused on finding balance in both my personal life as professionally. The work-life balance is maybe most famous and impactful, and that was no different for me in 2024. I had a startup becoming a scale-up on the one side, and a lovely family with kids reaching puberty on the other hand. Finding time for friendship on top of that has always been a challenge for me.

    While work is often about hard results, I’m happy to be able to look back and see how I was able to connect with the people I work with as well. I’m very grateful to be surrounded by people that value that maybe even more than I do. I sure hope this is something I can keep for the future.

    Although I often felt too tired, friends kept coming back and we had lots of fun, concerts, camping, travelling, running together, it was wonderful. I’m planning to show up more and in better shape. I owe you.

    A new start in 2025

    Since 2024 gave me a lot of balls to juggle, I plan to bring some direction to my activities now. And I believe the best way to do that is by starting to write my thoughts down on a regular basis. Just like starting to run regularly has brought me more than I could have imagined, I expect that writing will do the same.

    First of all I, hope to get better at it. Finding the right words, ironing out complex sentence structures and cloudy thoughts. I’m sorry I subjecting you to the current quality of my writing, and I plan to get better at it. I’m looking at chatgpt1 and native speaking friends to help me learn here.

    I believe writing also helps to sort out your thoughts. And I hope sorted thoughts will make it easier for me to reach results and find focus in the things I’m getting into.

    So I plan to practice writing in 2025. I’m curious where it will lead me.

    1. this post is written without using AI ↩︎

  • 2024 was a good year for running

    Screenshot of Strava Yearly distance goal, showing I ran 2235,0 km in 2024

    I ran 2235,0 km in 2024. I’m pretty proud about that.

    I mostly run alone and take the time to reflect and structure my thoughts. I also find it the ideal moment to listen to podcasts. Early in the year, my friend David convinced me to run with a small group, and I learned to appreciate having a conversation while running.

    2024 also had me running my first race: the Antwerp Half Marathon on October 20th. It was an experience. Running a race with 14000 other people is more like running on a music festival. More attention goes to avoiding other people and maintaining your own pace. I believe I did a good job.

    Right now, I’m still recovering from a painful foot and leg. It’s getting better but these has been a few difficult weeks at the end of the year. I’m wearing arch supports now during the day, but not yet while running to avoid blisters.

    Let’s see if I can go over 2500 km in 2025. And who knows, maybe I even get to run a full Marathon?