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
The first time you walk into new terrain, your senses can barely process the flood of information. “Look, a high-rise building! Listen, a new kind of bird! Smell the donuts from this shop?” Your brain is so busy staying on focused on your destination, it’ll shut most “commit-to-short-term-memory” functions down. That’s why, the second time […]| nik.art
Let’s say your forehead is 10 mm by 100 mm. That’s 1,000 mm². Each square millimeter is an exit point for your thoughts on a particular subject. If you daydream about ice cream, that thought exits through square #37. If you mull over an email response to a friend, that’s gate #109. Each thought is […]| nik.art
This guide will teach you how to wake up early in 2 simple steps, courtesy of a sleep coach's expertise. Learn how to master your mornings.| nik.art
I’ll never forget the day I took back control over my inbox. I don’t recall the date, but I’ll always remember the feeling. It was like switching on noise-cancelling headphones. Liberated from the mindless base task of checking email, I was finally free to look at my schedule and ask: What’s really important today? What […]| 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
Four Minute Books · This Virtual Soldier's Speech Explains How to Have True Purpose in Life Humans are agents of change. From the moment we are conceived, our body begins to evolve. It grows until we’re born, and then it grows some more. Our bones, cells, muscles, even our brains — they constantly renew themselves. Day after […]| nik.art
At a football game celebrating their latest pickpocket haul, con man Nicky and his apprentice Jess get into a series of escalating bets with a Chinese businessman. $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 — $100,000 — they keep increasing the stakes — and Nicky keeps losing. Finally, Nicky can’t take it anymore and goes into overdrive. He bets 1.1 million dollars. “Double or nothin’, […]| nik.art
I’m not talking about House of the Dragon, although, if the early reviews are any indication, that too will require getting ourselves together until season two arrives. The seasons I mean are the ones you can watch simply by looking out your window. Today, I saw the first leaf drop from the big maple tree […]| nik.art
After 33 years in hiding, Superman is forced to reveal himself to the world. The commander of an ominous, alien ship demands the people of earth “hand over” their visitor…or else. But Clark Kent was raised a reasonable man, and so, to spare humanity the trouble, he volunteers. Of course, nothing good happens inside the […]| nik.art
In 1979, The Jackson 5 embarked on a one-year world tour during which they would play 146 shows. Despite already being one of history’s most famous music acts, one of the youngest members of the band was making his own plans. Whether it was somewhere on a tour bus, backstage, or in an empty hotel […]| 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
My sister once reminded me that there are plenty of last times we miss. The last time we hang out with a friend before our paths twist in separate directions. The last time we have a certain food before we leave a place we’ll never revisit. Sometimes, we might even fail to recognize the last […]| nik.art
There’s that saying about making your bed and then having to sleep in it. “You’ve made this choice, and now it is also you who must face the consequences.” Actually, our decisions rarely happen in isolation. Most of them affect other people in one way or another. A breakup is not an event we carry […]| nik.art
I’m usually the first one out of bed. By the time my girlfriend gets up, I might have brushed teeth, done some push-ups, meditated, and written a blog post. Whenever she does wake up, however, I take a few minutes, go back to bed, and say good morning. Sometimes, when I hear her yawn while […]| nik.art
If a woman was hit by her father when she was young, and she is now an excessively strict parent to her own son, is it because the abuse was “beat into her,” or because she still feels angry about her past and is taking it out on her child?| 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
When you’re self-employed, work can be a series of challenging projects you’ve never done. It’s exciting, and you’ll learn more than at any job, but it can also be exhausting. With some luck, you’ll eventually find a rhythm, and work becomes a bit more predictable. Settle into too much of a routine, however, and for […]| 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
When my favorite writer stopped writing, I decided to save all his articles, lest he delete them. I knew I could save them one by one in Evernote, but since he had published over 100 pieces, I thought there might be a way to avoid this tedium. I asked a developer friend for help, and […]| nik.art