Recent content in Posts on nori parelius
Susanna Clarke’s (debut!) novel Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is delightful, magical, and very difficult to describe. 
 It’s a book about a pair of magicians trying to return magic to an early 1800s alternative-universe England. It’s half historical fantasy, half Gothic novel with Jane Austen vibes, half magical realism (I know it’s too many halves, but that book is…
I wanted to write and read and make music and dance and exercise and go on walks and and and… Yet, every evening, I was finding myself in the familiar situation of not having done any of what I wanted to do… 
 A few months ago, I found myself writing in my journal that I finally felt healthy and like myself again. I noticed that after 18 months of slow, up-and-down recovery from…
It’s eloquent, but it routinely confidently makes things up to fill in the gaps, has no sense of right and wrong and tends to get fixated on things. ChatGPT? Yes – and the left hemisphere. 
 But first things first: 
 What is the left hemisphere like? 
 Left-brain vs right-brain differences are a topic so full of myths and misconceptions that most serious scholars refuse to…
After tossing away my Zettelkasten, I was still left with the task of thinking (and hanging onto my thoughts) in this noisy world. Fortunately, I got some unexpected help. 
 The article about my break-up with ZK prompted an unusual number of responses. Among others, I was contacted by THE Sascha Fast himself from zettelkasten.de , and offered a coaching session. As done as I felt with the…
When I first heard about the Zettelkasten (ZK) method, it seemed like the Holy Grail of note-taking. (And I happen to be the kind of person to get excited about that.) One place to put all my thoughts, all my ideas, all the things I am learning and would wish to remember? One place to always find them? One place to bring them all… and in the darkness bind them ? I mean: bring them all…
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with my phone and I know I am not the only one. Just like most people, I spend more time on my phone than I would want to, all the while feeling that I have too little time for other things in my life. And I don’t even feel better when I emerge from my phone dives. For the longest time, I thought this was a `it’s-not-you-it’s-me’…
It’s easy to think that discipline, consistency and pushing yourself are the only way to fulfil your dreams. But what if you find that, instead of crushing your goals, you are only crushing yourself? 
 What if I don’t want to go hard? 
 I was talking to a few friends the other day, and the conversation turned to exercise. The idea seemed to be that you should do what you hate.…

 “I Dig a Pygmy” by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids. Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats. 
 
 John Lennon on “Two of Us” 
 
 
 My husband and I have been watching The Beatles: Get Back documentary and it made me think a lot about creativity, art and authenticity. 
 I love The Beatles. Every time I hear the opening chord of the Hard…
One of the staples of bullet journalling are habit trackers. There is just something so satisfying about ticking off a box at the end of the day and looking at that unbroken streak of your new (or old) habit. And as they say, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. Habit trackers seem like the perfect solution for when you want to build or maintain a habit. Yet, they stopped working…
I haven’t been feeling like myself for the last 5 months. Actually, that is a bit of an understatement. I have been so absolutely, utterly exhausted that it affected everything. I had to slow down considerably in all areas of my life. Work, hobbies, house chores, everything. There was no chance in hell I could attempt something like exercise. Just getting through a normal day would leave me…
As a civilisation, we seem to be painfully aware of all the shortcomings in our contact with nature. Stories about all we have destroyed, and where we have failed, permeate our culture. Truth is, we don’t even believe anymore that we could do any good. Most of us feel like the best thing we could do for nature, is to leave it alone. But that kind of thinking is wrong. And dangerous. 
…
We live in the age of social media. So much of our interactions, information sharing, news acquiring and entertainment happens there. Yet many of us have a somewhat (or very) mixed relationship with them. And rightly so. When you think about it, it is the strangest thing. We go there to see things we (mostly) didn’t choose ourselves, served to us in small bite-sized bits: – an…
Update : Here you can read how I abandoned Zettelkasten about a year after I wrote this post 
 It is almost a tradition for people who get hooked on Zettelkasten to write a blog post about it. After using it for a year, I think it is about time I followed this tradition and added my experiences. 
 I have always been a note-taker. I feel a strong urge to capture thoughts, events and ideas…
I believe this is my fifth(?!) attempt at blogging in the last 12 years. Some of those blogs were very short-lived, some survived for longer. None of the previous four are out there anymore. I had my reasons for starting each of the blogs, but it wasn’t something I thought about much, not something that was clear in my mind. As I was starting yet another blog (this one), I decided to be a…
Humans are probably the only creatures in the world that are confused about what they should be eating. 
 Pandas eat bambus, koalas eucalyptys. Cows eat grasses and wolves eat meat. Most animals have a very limited menu. Yet humans are trying to eat “a varied diet”, to “eat the rainbow”. Something that wouldn’t make sense for most animals on Earth. 
 What are…
I have been struggling with sugar addiction for years. It took its toll on both my physical and mental health long before I even knew I had it and I have been fighting it ever since I recognized its ugly face. And just like it tends to be with addictions, it was a very tough battle, and I wasn’t always winning. I was ready to fight for the rest of my life, but now I think I might not have…
There are probably several magical ingredients in the soup of humanity that make us who we are; like big brains, opposable thumbs and a tendency to cooperate. And among these, we can definitely list our gait too. 
 The way we humans walk is unique in the natural world. Moving around on two legs freed up those opposable thumbs for other purposes, allowed us to throw things, carry things and use…
Hello, my name is Nori, and I am an addict. 
 For the longest time, I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I thought I was in control. I thought I was “moderating”, whatever that might mean. But in truth I was moderating myself to a serving of my drug of choice dozens of times every day. Simply because I wouldn’t feel good without it. Simply because I wanted it. A lot.…
I have recently finished reading Malcolm Kendrick’s books The Great Cholesterol Con and The Clot Thickens and it was a treat. It was insightful, captivating and so very funny, just dripping with dry, British humour. And with frustration. A LOT of frustration. 
 What causes heart disease? 
 The cholesterol hypothesis 
 He is on a mission to tell people that the cholesterol…
I really really tried to start an online business, but it was just an endless struggle. I just couldn’t get myself to do the things and I couldn’t get it right. And so I finally stopped. It was a relief and a disappointment at the same time. And it actually took me close to a year to figure out what went “wrong”, and why it’s for the best. 
 If you are looking for…
I don’t eat a “varied and balanced diet” anymore. I don’t do five a day. There is no rainbow on my plate. And no holy (whole) grains. Zero fibre, actually. On the other hand, I eat lots of saturated fat, cholesterol and salt. 
 I eat meat, eggs, fish, salt and water. And that’s pretty much it 99% of the time. 
 And believe it or not I have never felt better. 
 How did I get here?…
Disconnected and dysfunctional 
 I used to be a nerdy little bookworm as a kid and as a teenager. And honestly a bit of a couch potato. If I could sit in a comfy armchair with a book, I would sit in a comfy armchair with a book. 
 I also used to be a “good girl”. Doing what I was expected to do and following the rules both spoken and implied. So I would sit…
Can I drop my body off at the gym and pick it up when it’s done? 
 As a teenager I used to always listen to music or audiobooks when I went for a run. I did it because running and exercise were a chore - a boring, annoying, but necessary chore. I didn’t do it for the fun of it. I just wanted to lose weight and get into shape (mostly so that I would be able to run away from the…