/then - update from 23.4.2026

While contemplating my approach to political engagement after a discussion with some party comrades, I found myself mapping our disagreement onto philosophical debates fron Ancient Greece. I've always been fond of Epicureanism as an attitude for times of crisis, or for life in general, and kind of disliked Stoicism due to its (in my opinion) unnecessary embrace of hardship and its tendency to drift to a "centrist dad" stereotype. And while trying to apply these philosophical positions to modern leftist discourse and attitudes, I added another axis of opposing positions, Platonic vs Aristotelian (Plato-gang here, with all the apparent contradictions it might have to Epicureanism, not unresolvable IMO), and decided to gamify my inner debate into a political compass like quiz that will position the quiz taker into a grid made of the 2 abovementioned axes. I had to resort to LLMs to craft the questions unfortunately, also because my party comrades are generally uninterested in discussing ancient philosophy, a thing that I really hate about them because it looks like a general consensus that someone put into their brains, which also aligns with some other positions that I'm really not inclined to agree on—, oh well, let's not rant about it here.

There are other fun things happening around the party. I started building an inner tool that will be used coordinate the next campaign and the territorial organization more generally. It's an interesting dashboard project that looks challanging enough to kindle my interest and also useful in its application. Will devote some of my newly expanded free time to it.

Two weeks ago I was in The Hague for Rewire festival. It was really esthetically pleasing and a musically engaging experience. Had the chance to listen to Oneohtrix Point Never in a visually stunning performance, Los Thuthanaka with their trance-inducing indigenous beats and distorted electronic samples, and many other exceptional artists in the span of 2 days. A bit overwhelming but very pleasing.

And quite inspiring as well. One consequence of listening to quality music in that context was that I got motivated to play some music myself. I'm starting a new project with my buddy Olsi, who's a great musician and a pioneer of modular synthesizers in our little local scene, and we'll be performing in about a month for an art exhibition at a cultural venue in Tirana. More details soon to be announced.

That's about it for today. The weather is so nice that I might take the day off and wander in the park, read a book, take my time. Wishing you find your peace as well, dear reader!

Previous update: 23.3.2026