Status Quo
It is that way because we choose it to be.
Unlearning — Kunal Gupta
Weekly essays on life, work, and the experiments in between.
Latest posts
Expiry
Somewhere around four in the morning, I woke up in
One Spoon
The same jar, three different desserts
The Table
Chasing the best view
Empty Spaces
Taking time to think
The Longest Hour
The deciding took a second. The leaving took an hour.
Cute Cafe
The whole day is a forward lean
Lifejacket
He had been begging to go to the pool, and
Play
We had just finished dinner.
Stubborn
I often forget how much my physical environment shapes my
Permission
We were at a dinner party last week in Lisbon
Underground
The Lisbon I knew was never the whole picture
Size of my room
Mistaking familiarity for the full picture
The Checklist
Reasons not to commit
Creator's Mind
What I needed help to see
Thirteen Million
The contribution was the connection
The Call
The right to annoy her kids
Plus One
Curiosity doesn't always read the script
Unwritten Rules
A blank wall invites chaos.
Tested
I had been studying with an intensity I hadn't felt in a long time.
Business Card
The card hadn't aged a single day.
Gravity
Some connections don't need maintenance.
Two Sides
The impatience was mine. The urgency was manufactured.
Two Bathrooms
The things we optimize away are often the things we can't get back on purpose.
Nostalgia
I wanted to return to who I was, but nostalgia only showed me who I've become.
The Concert
I discovered that presence doesn't need perfect conditions when I found myself meditating in chaos.
The Symphony of Life
I started noticing how different activities either activated or soothed the background hum of my nervous system.
Postcard
I forget that what others see as extraordinary has become the unremarkable backdrop of my daily life.
Cloudy Skies
Some thoughts need to move through me without landing anywhere at all.
The Great Reset
I stopped trying to solve everything and found that the weight simply lifted on its own.
How to Notice an Hour
The Word That Works for Me
A must-have ritual to start each year
One Question
I keep asking others the question I'm afraid to answer myself.
How to Reset
A pause so I can decide if I want to make any turns.
How to Fail
I learned that getting things wrong didn't mean I was wrong.
How to Enjoy
I was pulled into the momentum of shared movement.
How to Two For One
Disagreement and misunderstanding are built into the structure of relationships.
How to Relax
Parking in Lisbon is a particular kind of stress.
How to Play
The surprising joy in caring about something that didn't matter at all.
How to Stop
Momentum doesn’t care about the source, it just wants to keep going.
How to Time Travel
I hadn’t gained an hour, I had simply noticed one.
How to Diwali
Repeated gestures, not of productivity, but of presence.
How to Dubai
Sometimes the future is already here.
How to White Pajamas
There was a tenderness I didn’t realize I had been craving.
How to Action
I used to think an action was enough.
How to Stretch
I used to think growth was about getting stronger, faster, better.
How to Listen
What gives energy today might ask for it tomorrow.
How to Unpattern
Environments have a silent authority.
How to AI
The pull to return to what is known can be strong.
How to Unplan
There’s something seductive about having a plan.