Reading · Caffeine Tangent

Week 12 began with illness. Nothing dramatic, just enough to force a change of pace. I’m slowly learning that when my body asks me to slow down, the answer isn’t to stop entirely, but to adjust. To change tact.

So Monday became something else. I spent some time exploring Ollama and OpenClaw for the first time. The purpose was twofold: curiosity, and the AI policy I’m helping to co-curate.

Later, I found myself in the local library. The plan was simple: pick up a few books for the Easter break. It’s an increasingly fragile space, with promises of cuts and relocation, but still full of life and an essential hub of the community. I left with books that promised a slower pace. In reality, I started Bob Mortimer’s The Long Shoe that evening and read most of it within days. It turns out that some plans are provisional.

I’m getting better at shifting my pace when energy is low, and it’s making a positive difference more quickly. I might still be recovering, but I’m active and productive in a different way.

At some point in the week, I began looking backwards. Hopefully reader, you’ll have realised this is what happens regularly in an attempt to self-improve. I revisited a run of weeknotes from last year, weeks 24 to 26, and decided to do a quick values review. At the time, I’d written them as statements, so please indulge and forgive me for a moment:

I practice generous service.
I am committed to empowering others.
I prioritise authentic relationships.
I seek restoration through nature.
I cultivate self-awareness through reflection.

They still felt broadly true, but also slightly off. They sounded like I was preparing for a job interview - a bit too performative, perhaps. There was too much about what I do, and not quite enough about how I decide.

Looking again, and with almost a year of distance, I realised those ideas had sharpened into something simpler:

empowerment over control
~~generous~~ discerning service
justice
authentic partnerships
presence
self awareness
curiosity

My values had shifted slightly. Previously it was about intention, now (I hope) it’s about how I orient myself in all sectors of my life. It felt like stripping things back a little, removing some of the baggage I’d been building around them. They’re not finished, but they feel another step closer.

That process has been shaped - in part - by what I’ve been reading or at the very least orbiting. I’ve made a note to spend more time with authors such as Rebecca Solnit, David Whyte and Matthew Crawford. They feel like a set of voices worth sitting with, rather than skimming past.

Alongside that, I’ve curated an area where I can disconnect from the internal noise created by work, loading up the Snowsky MP3 player with episodes of Welcome to Night Vale - which I was happily surprised to find is still being produced - and Kermode and Mayo’s Take, both familiar rhythms that rarely venture into work topics. Ross also pointed me towards Joanna Newsom’s Divers, after he read the previous weeknote. Another angle to follow, perhaps!

Week 13 shifted things slightly.

I had a scheduled meeting with a company I’d agreed to support as an ambassador. It’s a product I genuinely value, which made what followed more uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been. The structure they outlined - a monthly schedule of posts, predefined topics - left me feeling less like a collaborator and more like a channel. It didn’t quite sit with the shift towards authenticity and curiosity I’d been reflecting on.

There was also a slightly awkward moment with the mentor assigned to me, who commented in the group chat that there had been ‘nothing but tumbleweed’ from me since our last meeting. It landed poorly. Perhaps unfairly so, but enough to make me pause.

Two questions surfaced quickly:

Why am I doing this?
What is the role of the mentor here?

It seemed, at least in that moment, that the expectation was for me to initiate, to drive, to keep things moving. That may be a misreading. Or it may be familiar.

I found myself thinking back to a similar experience during the Google Innovator Programme a few years ago, where my assigned mentor always seemed too busy to offer much support. Twice isn’t quite a pattern, but it’s enough to make me wonder whether I’m missing something - or just getting unlucky.

At work too, there were moments where I found myself hesitating at the staffroom door. Not out of reluctance, exactly, but uncertainty around our current restructuring. What do you say to your colleagues? How do you enter those spaces?

In the end, it felt more important to be present than to be certain. To listen, rather than to fix. So I went in anyway.

Weeknote 12+13/2026: We build castles with our baggage

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