They might change over time. Or not. Chances are, some shades of you will always stay the same. Others will transform unexpectedly or slowly meander into a different hue as the years go by. How will you know? By doing a color test, of course! One of the first personality tests I did was the […]| nik.art
My deodorant hit the “it’ll run out soon” level. Every day since the fluid first seemed to stand low in the bottle, I’ve been thinking: “I need to replace this soon.” That was more than a month ago. I don’t know if it’s because I keep the deodorant upside down and that makes it hard […]| nik.art
Sitting at an empty table late at night in his not-yet-quite Michelin star restaurant The Bear, chef Carmy is stewing in all kinds of questions. His cousin and maître d’ Richie, ready to lock up the place and get out of there, sits down and asks him what’s going on. “I’m fine. I’m thinking,” Carmy […]| nik.art
For some years now, I’ve been using roll-on deodorant instead of spray cans. I find it lasts longer while creating fewer stains on my t-shirts. The problem is that once the bottle is half-empty, the liquid takes forever to reach the ball when I turn it upside down. At some point, I realized I could […]| nik.art
I remember running home from the bus so I could catch the beginning of my favorite anime series. Since public transport served multiple small villages in one route, what would be a 15-minute car drive back from school turned into a 45-minute ride. The walk to our house was steep but, thankfully, short. I had […]| nik.art
She looks ordinary, and she hides behind a partition tucked away in a corner of the community center library. Despite that, Ms. Komachi brings out the innermost feelings in whomever happens to stand in front of her counter. The last person to do so in What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is […]| nik.art
“Creative expression involves physical, mental, and emotional contributions,” my friend Herbert Lui writes in his book Creative Doing. “I like to represent these as the hands, the head, and the heart.” The hands—the doing—is where it all begins, Herbert says. “With your hands, you focus on quantity over quality, creating many average successes and total […]| nik.art
It’s there. Many people don’t believe they have one. But it’s there. If you’re unaware of it, it might be because you’ve never trained it. If you stopped speaking for a week, you’d struggle to get out so much as a croak the first time you open your mouth again. Just like your actual voice, […]| nik.art
An unexpected benefit of writing a daily blog has been that I automatically keep track of which TV shows have good writing. Usually, if I get one or two quotes from a season, I already consider myself lucky. But after finishing the second part of the Star Wars prequel show Andor, I wrote 4 posts […]| nik.art
One of my best friends recently had his first child. After four months with his daughter, he has observed an interesting pattern: “With a kid, you have to plan so much, yet, at the same time, be incredibly flexible.” Every time they leave the house now, they have to “bring their whole household,” as we […]| nik.art
In June, my fiancée and I went to Bordeaux for a wedding. Our flight was early, so we had to wake up at 4:45 AM. We didn’t get enough sleep, but when we were sitting in a café right next to a beautiful bell tower at lunch time, having a chicken salad and an amazing […]| nik.art
“Wow! I have not been in this store for years.” “Well, I was here…yesterday,” my friend said, laughing. He’s completing his PhD at the university in Munich, and he still lives close by. I’m a bit further out than I used to be, and I no longer go to the college study room every day. […]| nik.art
“Sit up straight!” we tell our kids or remind ourselves. But that assumes we know what straight feels like. Most of us probably don’t. The hotel bed I slept in last night has a very tall headboard. During my morning meditation, I sat cross-legged and leaned against it. But instead of just pressing my back […]| nik.art
Final Fantasy I was released in 1987. It was one of the first larger-scale role-playing video games and ended up spawning a franchise that has since inspired over 200 million people. The original game was for the NES, the Nintendo Entertainment System. The device is now on the rarer side, and so is the cartridge […]| nik.art