Gardens & Ruins

Since returning to Greece, I have been trying to read every day. I have hardly watched any political or brainrot videos in the last ten days, and it feels good. On a plane, I started to read The Book of Tokyo, which I picked mostly because it contains one of the previously unread stories by Banana Yoshimoto. I finished it today with mixed feelings. Though I quite enjoyed the story by Banana Yoshimoto and a couple of others, most of the author’s picks left me indifferent. I enjoy reading Japanese authors but inevitably compare them to Haruki Murakami, whom I adore the most. The comparison is often in the favor of the latter.

It feels great to read every day. Last year I was reading sporadically, and sometimes it was hard to catch up with a book and remember what it is it all about. Now I feel more connected to the story, and my brain keeps remembering things. The reason that I forgot things was the main one when I started writing diaries 15 years ago. Writing and reading helped me a lot to train my brain in the early years. Eventually, my reading habits declined and writing also became more plain. And I really want these things back.

Windy landscape

Did a drawing today. I used the technique of Joshua Striker as reference and tried to render something in that style myself.

Today we had a lot of snow. In a few European countries there even was a transport collapse, and Hungary, sadly, was not an exception. We spent two extra hours in the airport and then yet another two hours on a plane. I’ve never experienced flight delays before and was quite stressed out. I spent all the waiting time reading a book. Eventually, we took off, and later landed without trouble, but uneasiness didn’t go away.

I went to Hungary for the holidays and left my laptop at home. I have been reading a lot during the last week and finally finished Of Time and the River by Thomas Wolfe, one of my favorite authors. Last year I bought The Complete Works of him, which is around 6000 pages, and have been reading it in and out since then. I tend to read when I have nothing to do, and if I start, it becomes hard to stop: I can read a few hundred pages a day, and then spend weeks not reading. For 2026, I want to become more consistent: maybe reduce numbers, but increase frequency. I also did a couple of drawings.

It’s quite cold in Hungary now, and I’m not used to such temperatures anymore. I even saw snow today! Probably, the first proper snow in the last four years. It feels nice to spend time on offline activities.

When I leave in a few days, I would like to keep that feeling for the entire year.

The new year has started, but unfortunately I don’t have any major resolutions. I made resolutions in the past, but eventually it never worked out, so I decided to skip this one. Instead of putting pressure on myself and others with done/undone goals on Instagram, I decided to avoid posting at all. But nevertheless, something should be said. The last year I traveled a lot, exercised a lot, read less than I wanted, studied Greek even less than needed, and doom-scrolled more than any sane human being should. So, for the next year, I decided to reduce the screen time even more and focus on offline goals. I will try to read more, exercise more, and travel more. Spend more time writing and drawing instead of playing games and consuming brainrot content, and putting my shit together. My life seems to be falling apart, and I don’t feel like it is well organized. Maybe it is time to do something about it.