Ideas, observations + opinions in various stages of formation. This page goes well with a pinch of salt.
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My first day in Seoul, South Korea
After an uncomfortable flight spent popping my ears and wiping the random tears out of my eyes, the aeroplane dropped out of cloud cover and within minutes we were roaring to a halt at Incheon International Airport. It’s not particularly different from any other airport, and that’s all I feel is worth saying on the matter. The train into Seoul city centre took an age but the journey was made marginally more entertaining by the fact that, for some reason, the train screens were playing highlights of a game featuring the Welsh national football team. Emerging from the subway at Myeong-dong, I was immediately thrust into the sensory blender that is Seoul’s most popular shopping district; startled by the explosion of colours after the gloom of the underground I felt like a heavily laden mole emerging from its subterranean lair.
I wove through the crowds, attempting not to turn too suddenly for fear of batting an unsuspecting tourist into a street food stand with my preposterously sized bag. At my hostel, I took stock of the situation: four men squeezed into a cupboard sized room, a toilet space that was also simultaneously the shower, and a scared looking Malaysian chap who burrowed into his bunk as soon as I finished with the first round of pleasantries. Cosy. I decided to hit the ground running and allowed my brain receptors to be fried a little as I wandered around Myeong-dong, taking in the sights, smells and sounds from the neverending array of designer brands and food stalls. I stopped at one of the latter for hotteok, a Korean donut filled with chocolate sauce and bits of peanut. Donut, chocolate and peanuts all sound congruent, that is until you sprinkle them with cheese powder as recommended. I thought about that oft alluded Italian city and got cheesy, and found myself pleasantly surprised by the absence of a need to vomit. I then really fancied fried chicken and beer, mainly because I’d seen a sign advertising those exact products 15 minutes earlier, but such is the sprawl of Myeong-dong that I was never able to find my way back.
Instead, I ducked into a side alley, then ducked again into a small restaurant which looked unglamorous enough to be authentic and full of enough Korean people to be probably quite good. I ordered a beer and a tuna-kimchi rice bowl, completely forgetting that Korean restaurants serve banchan, which are complementary side dishes (in this instance: kimchi (obviously), pickled radish, and what I guessed was some sort of tofu). For a moment I thought I was suddenly on the expensive end of an opportunist scam, and figured that as long as I didn’t touch the banchan I wouldn’t have to pay for them, but a quick Google search assured me that it was okay to tuck in. The beer was a light and slightly metallic Korean brand called Cass that came bottled. The kimchi bowl came topped with an egg and nori. A simple and satisfying first meal in Korea, and honestly the main thing I’m grateful for is that it didn’t obliterate my taste buds, as some Korean meals have done in the past.
As I was finishing my beer and pickles I got chatting with a suave-looking European on the table next to me, who was only in Seoul for 3 days but gave me plenty of recommendations, and more importantly the valuable feeling of connection in a new city. We chatted for a while but eventually he started shifting in his seat and looking distracted in the unmistakable way that people do when they are either bored or need a poo. I didn’t stick around long enough for him to make the distinction for me and paid my 13,000 won (£7.38) before confidently walking off in the wrong direction. A short and sweet first evening in Seoul.
Information dieting and the buffet analogy
The internet can be compared to an all-you-can-eat buffet, one of those establishments where you pay what you consider to be a reasonable fee for a large and varied selection of dishes, a few of which will be ‘high-value’ (steaks, lobster etc.) but the majority of which will be cheap and cheerful. You go to a buffet because:
You like the idea of having access to ‘unlimited food’
You like the perception of variety
You think it’s a good deal, financially
These points of appeal all play on ancient evolutionary biases, which in the modern age of abundance have far less practical use. The company that sets up the buffet knows full well that you are drawn in by these factors, and yet all three are misconceptions:
The food is ‘unlimited’ in imagination only. Biological appetite constraints mean that there is probably a fairly predictable limit on how much one will eat.
The food is only as varied as the buffet owners decide it to be. It is a curated selection. Furthermore, you usually get to a point where all of the supposed variety blends into one indistinguishable ‘buffet mush’.
Realistically, the truly ‘high value’ products are few and far-between. You’ll end up getting full on low-cost carbs and UPFs. Ultimately, the financial benefit is almost always experienced by the ones who own the buffet, otherwise they wouldn’t still be running it.
The Internet (and social media) plays a similar role in the consumption of information, providing an architectured environment that gives the user a feeling of personal freedom and relative gain. There are some genuine high quality sources of information and connection online (the steak and lobster), but the majority is highly engineered and addictive, using stimuli like fear, hatred and violence to keep us scrolling. This sort of content can be compared to the chips, nuggets and sweet treats that many of us end up getting full on, food that is high in salt, sugar and fat, but low in nutrition or unique flavour.
On a daily basis, we consume heaps of information online, using platforms such as YouTube or TikTok. Increasingly, we do this out of habit, but there are also times where you go online and search for a specific video for education or entertainment purposes. Unfortunately, in the cases where you’ve gone to watch something specific, this often gets blended with a multitude of other information (thanks to recommendation algorithms) and you can end up forgetting both what you went online for in the first place, and what any of the subsequent content was. Like the ‘buffet mush’, all the information you’ve consumed blends into one, forgettable amalgamation, and you realise that you’re not that hungry anymore. Unfortunately, as the majority of your plate is still made up of ultra-processed and addictive foods, you push on, driven partially by subconscious evolutionary pressures and partially by the rational incentive of ‘getting your money’s worth’. I fear that the same outcome occurs when we spend too much time scrolling. Not only is it addictive, there is also a part of you that thinks if you keep scrolling enough you’ll land on ‘the video’, one that you’ll remember and enjoy, that will have made the whole online session worth it.
Buffets and social media rely on the exploitation of evolutionary instincts that kept us alive when we were hunter-gatherers, but now threaten our demise in this new environment. With buffets and social media, there is always a cost. Regardless of how good a deal it seems, the company wouldn’t be offering it if they knew they wouldn’t make a profit. It’s at this discussion of costs that the analogy begins to fail. With buffets, the upfront cost is financial and the hidden cost is health-related, and it’s a deal we’re willing to take because we consider buffets a rare treat. With social media, there appears to be no upfront cost, but the hidden cost is data.
Benjamin's pickle theory
All fish are pickles.
As all fish exist in what is effectively a brine (the ocean is approximately 3.1-3.8% salinity), they are by definition: pickles. A pickle is defined by the Oxford dictionary as a life form/perishable object that has been preserved in vinegar or BRINE. Pickle brine must have a salinity of roughly 3.5%, meaning that any life form (which are obviously all perishable - life is transient) that lives in the ocean is a pickle.
By extension, whenever humans go for an ocean swim, they begin the process of pickling. Repeated swims can therefore be described as intermittent pickling. Those who enjoy saltwater dips exist their entire lives as half-pickles.
The sea cucumber could poke a hole in the theory. However, it is suggested that sea cucumbers are simply fish who have embraced their existence as pickles wholeheartedly, compromising their fishier elements and favouring those which seem more aligned with pickle-age. Sea cucumbers are therefore the most metaphysically aware fish/pickle to exist in the ocean, alongside any other perishable life form that vaguely resembles a pickle.
Enjoying coffee and food in Bristol, UK
an, alongside any other perish
For a foodie, Bristol has seemingly unlimited options. From the bustling pop up markets to the miles of local favourites, the city is teeming with edible excitement. A weekend trip to Bristol barely scratches the surface, and the plethora of choices can border on overwhelming. My advice: don’t do too much. Pick a few bits you want to try then find the best places in the city to sample said bits. In this article, we focus mainly on coffee, but we’ve made sure to shout out a couple of the other businesses we visited as well.
Coffee shops vye for recognition in Bristol, a city renowned for its independent retail and artisanship. However, a quick internet browse of ‘Bristol’s best coffee’ reveals a few of the top contenders, with one of the most popular being Broad Street’s Full Court Press, an unassuming venture nestled among the grandiose Georgian designs of the St Nicholas Market area. The coffee shop spills onto the street with an array of stools that could be tables and tables that could be stools, which are almost always perched on by nattily dressed regulars. On a sunny day, this setup has a distinctly European feel, and one is tempted to bin off the day’s plans and bask in sunlight, sipping their delicately crafted hot bean juice.
This brings us onto the coffee itself. As you step inside, you’re greeted warmly and your gaze is directed towards a handwritten menu (you know, those ones that look like huge hanging rolls of wrapping paper), which has a generous selection of coffee varieties etched upon it. I just like coffee - I am no connoisseur and still don’t even know what a cortado is, so some of the variety names have to be explained to me - fortunately the baristas are happy to oblige. Each variety also has its place of origin labelled, so often I will make my choice based on which location evokes more salient images in the spur of the moment. Let’s hope that cheetahs and Tusker make for better coffee than James Rodriguez and rainforest. I told you I wasn’t an expert.
Fortunately the baristas behind the counter are. They are exceedingly patient with any hmm-ing or haa-ing, even interjecting with helpful tips on selection, such as ‘This one is better without any oatmilk’ and ‘Don’t choose your variety based on that nation’s best footballer’. Full Court Press is one of those coffee shops where the beans are (rightfully) the stars of the show. There are no syrups or sprinkles in sight. Away with your childish requests for frappuccinos. All embellishment and accessory is neatly trimmed away, leaving you with a small white cup of undeniably impressive coffee.
Although Full Court Press does offer a selection of light bites to complement your beverage, you would be silly not to use the potential of your hunger to explore more of Bristol’s enthralling food scene. We wandered south of the river, first to Better Food, a Bristol-based organic produce chain that offers guilt-free groceries, then to Bristol Loaf, another Bristol company originating in Redfield but now sporting cafes in the city centre and Bedminster too. The Bedminster version is effectively a miniature food court, sharing a space with wine merchants Native Vine, Hugo’s Greengrocer and Two-Belly Cheesemonger. What more could you want? That quick post-coffee nibble will turn into a full-fledged and passionate food shop before you have time to say ‘sourdough’.
able life form that vaguely resembles a pickle.
How long is an hour? - a Vipassana realisation
Whilst practicing Vipassana, you are expected to sit for hours on end with nothing to distract you from the observation of your sensations. At times, one gets lost in the meditation, experiencing an out-of-body timelessness that makes you feel as if it’s all been worth it. However, for first time Vipassaners like myself, these moments of bliss are few and far between, and instead one is caught between suppressing and entertaining intrusive thoughts, trying to shift posture without the teacher noticing, and guessing how much longer you have to sit until the next break. Rather than focussing on the present moment (which along with ‘be yourself’ seems to be on every successful person’s list of inspirational quotes), one becomes fixated with what’s next, or the passing of time. This means you become acutely aware of how long an hour is, or perhaps more accurately, how long an hour can feel. Naturally, one hour is a manmade, standardised unit of time. Even if one hour feels like three and another feels like 15 minutes, they are both one hour. No debate. It’s how we experience that hour that really makes the difference though, and when you compare the difference between simply sitting and observing the time go past and distracting oneself from the fact that you have an hour to wait, you realise that we exist in a society that has created ‘time-speed-uppers’. We are surrounded by items that drastically change how we experience time, usually in the favour of speed. But our arbitrary measures of time e.g. one second, one minute, one hour… these are all manmade concepts. They are a product of the mind, one of the many gridlines we’ve imposed on the chaos of the universe to make a little sense of it all. But when one observes how different one hour spent observed and another hour spent distracted feels, you begin to see the perceived passing of time as far more subjective. There’s the objective hour, then the subjective perception of how time elapsed during that hour.
Work, creativity and rest: mid-exam reflections
After about 40 minutes of working at my laptop, I’d had enough. Words weren’t flowing as smoothly as they had been a few minutes ago, and my eyes felt stiff. In a traditional exam, if you complained that you needed a break after 40 minutes you’d probably be scoffed at and asked to continue in silence for the remaining hour and twenty. Fortunately for me, my final year psychology exams were open book and online, a proven method for effective academic assessment that allows students the space and time (we’re given three and a half days to complete two essays) to produce a piece of work that is actually reflective of intellectual capabilities. Traditional exams, sat in an exam hall under time pressure, seem practically mediaeval in their real-world validity. If you wanted to learn how to work well under pressure, you’d train as a firefighter, or a deep sea diver.
Exams and everything related to exams, at least in the UK, seem intrinsically associated with stress. As we already know, stress is generally not a good thing to experience over prolonged periods, increasing your risk of high blood pressure, mental health conditions and morbidity. Stress whilst you’re a student is multiplied tenfold, as for a large part of this period you’re simultaneously coming to grips with things like looming student debt and weekly budgeting, and for the other part you’re recovering from hangovers. I digress, but the point is that students are already exposed to stress by the bucketload, and it's extremely difficult to break out of the prevailing mindset of “that’s just part of uni”. It is, but it doesn’t have to be.
What the current examination process (and the wider education system as a whole) fails to recognise, is the importance of the creative process. At GCSE level, this is less important as students are simply expected to regurgitate textbooks page by page, but at university level, we are required to synthesise and generate ideas, connecting the dots between what we’ve learnt to suggest innovative and interesting approaches. It's easy to forget sometimes that university is not ‘big school 2.0’. These are multi-million dollar research institutions vying to be at the cutting edge of anything that is profound or ground-breaking. The greatest minds of our time did not achieve success through memorising the contents’ of their respective libraries. They are considered great because they took slightly different approaches to those who came before. They were intellectual juggernauts, yes, but they were also creative.
And yet, in the lead up to an exam we are not encouraged to be creative. We may be told not to regurgitate lecture content, so there’s clearly an expectation of innovative thinking, but the ways in which this should be achieved are rarely made clear. Well, step one to successful creativity is that it's rarely planned. Our minds connect ideas not when we deliberately force them to, but when we take a step back - the harder you strain, the less you gain. A famous example of this is the ‘Eureka moment’, experienced by the Ancient Greek philosopher Archimedes after being set a complex physics task by his king. As much as he mulled and pondered, he couldn’t land on a solution, and it was only when he chose to take his mind off things with a relaxing bath that the answer suddenly materialised. We have a modern day equivalent of this: shower thoughts. You’ll often find that your most interesting or profound ideas come to you when you least expect, when out on a walk, when reading a book, when on the toilet - in other words, when you’re relaxed. And in the most relaxed state: sleep, we often experience incredibly vibrant imagery and complex plotlines whilst dreaming that would be challenging to conjure up to the same extent in our waking hours.
Put simply, the creative process is not interrupted or hindered by rest, it is aided by it. By extension, when completing a task such as a university assessment, rest is an essential aspect of the process, as important to success as in-depth planning or wider reading. Students should be encouraged to step away from their laptops when tired, not just to rest their eyes and necks but to allow the creative juices to flow uninterrupted in a way that is not facilitated by strained and over-attentive study.
Finding value in overthinking
My overthinking tendencies (characterised by high speed of thoughts, connection of ideas/concepts, thinking of future outcomes) works well in a structured setting, where I can channel this process towards productive means. Outside of an established system however, overthinking becomes detrimental, as I end up processing and reprocessing thoughts that don’t actually need reworking. The mechanism itself is powerful and has potential, but it’s context-dependent. As Allain de Botton says, “we need a structure that will honour our insights”. Outside of said structure (which encapsulates tasks, communication, networks, data), abstract theoretical models and ideas are harder to translate into practical deliverables. In other words, you have no physical or real tethers for your insights, which instead end up tied to imaginary branches of an ever-expanding tree of knowledge which you will never be able to see the entirety of. This is exhausting and unsustainable. You do not just want this tree to grow, you want it to fruit and flower. Moreover, successful growth requires you to prune and trim the tree, so it does not become weighed down by itself or block the sunlight of others.
So, for overthinking to be beneficial and productive, one must have access to a sphere of influence which a) matters to them and b) allows for the honouring of insights.
What is ‘successful’ AI use?
I used AI the other day to make my life easier. More specifically, I had Chat-GPT create prompts for itself, which I then used to write up ATS-relevant supporting statements for part-time jobs I am applying for. I don’t like doing supporting statements for jobs that I don’t particularly care about, as they are time-consuming and feel like an exercise in box-ticking. In other words - a perfect job for AI. With the time I freed up, I went outside and picked some apples, which I then peeled and stewed in preparation for an apple crumble. I did this clad in my mother’s denim apron, whilst listening to Japanese city pop from the 80s. But that’s beyond the point. Using AI effectively will give us more time, but if we just fill that with more work then we’ve missed a trick. Effective AI use cannot just be measured in terms of productivity and sales. We ought to start measuring our success with AI in terms of wellbeing. If using AI means I get to spend more time reading, hiking, helping others, forming groups; doing things that are undeniably human, then surely this is something worth investing in? If we as individuals don’t get into the habit of actually calculating how much time we’re saving, it will be too easy for greedy managers to steal that time later on. Earn your time.
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