FRAGMENTS & CURRENTS: The Journal Behind the Essays (Entry #1)
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
To the Deep Thinkers,
Welcome to the first entry in a series I’m dubbing Fragments & Currents. Think of this as my running journal—a looser, more personal companion to my traditional essays. The essays will always be the backbone of this Substack, but every month I’ll send one of these out. Part field notes, part self-experiment, part reflections.
I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while, and it feels like just the right time to document my life through a more personal blog style. It might not be for everyone. Hell, it might only be for me. That’s cool. Reason #1 for doing this is self-expression.
What you’ll find here: scraps of what I’m reading and watching, the music on repeat, the workouts I’m testing, the projects I’m tinkering with, and the occasional unfiltered story or spiral of thought. Fragments of where I’m at, currents of where I want to go.
This is for anyone who wants to see the writer behind the essays.
Here’s what’s inside the first entry of Fragments & Currents:
Current Threads: what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and rabbit holes I’ve fallen into
The Testing Ground: fitness, nutrition, recovery, rituals
Creative Log: writing and Substack updates, vlog experiments, other creative sparks
Snapshots: personal stories, reflections, manic musings
Loose Threads: quotes, insights, research notes
Last Word: a farewell until next time
Section 1: Current Threads
📚 What I’m Reading
Here's what’s been on my nightstand (and backpack) this past month.
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario (Matt Dinniman)
Absolutely ridiculous in all the best ways. A little dark. Imaginative. A good ass time and such an entertaining read. Book #2 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
Project Hail Mary (Andy Weir)
The perfect kind of clever, nerd-out sci-fi that scratches my love for intergalactic adventures.
Cudi: The Memoir (Scott Mescudi)
Like sitting down with the voice of an older sibling who you’ve admired and who helped shape you. My favorite artist, the one whose music made me feel less alone when I was confused, angry, and disenchanted.
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
A classic by one of the most influential writers of all time. Only about 100 pages in, but I feel the heaviness and magnetism in Dostoyevsky’s words. Can’t wait to see what kind of impact this one will have on me by the end.
Links:
📺 What I’m Watching
I move through shows at a snail’s pace (especially once NBA/NFL seasons start). Still, I keep a small rotation—always with one or two anime in the mix.
Severance — surreal suspense done right
This show is literally a mushroom trip, mixed with cannabis and sleep deprivation. And no, I won’t tell you how I know what that feels like. Season 1 of Severance floored me—the suspense, acting, and cinematography all went beyond my expectations. I flew through Season 1 and now I’m locked into Season 2, where the stakes are inching higher with each episode. This isn’t a hipster TV pick anymore, and for good reason. It’s that good. But seriously. I need to know: WHAT IS THE JOB? WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT???
The Handmade’s Tail — brilliance that leaves a mark
I’ve been watching since it first aired in 2017. Times have changed. I was living in a studio apartment, sleeping on a daybed in 2017. Anyway, this show is easily one of my all-time favorites thanks to top-notch direction and acting. Elisabeth Moss is a savant, both on-screen and behind the camera (though she does lose a few cool points for being a Scientologist). My only issue: the show makes me furious. Which, of course, is the point. It’s powerful and heavy. With this final season, I’m just hoping June Osborn finally gets something permanent to smile about. (And if you’ve already finished—no spoilers, or I’ll send you to the Colonies.)
DanDaDan — weird as hell, but also wholesome
Quick story. In seventh grade, my teacher asked us to decorate our notebooks with whatever we loved. I decorated mine with Naruto and other anime characters. The next day, a kid saw it and yelled, “This nerd’s got weird Japanese cartoons on his notebook!” The class laughed. Not a funny story (or maybe it is?), but one that stuck with me. My love for anime never left me, and now it’s everywhere. It’s no longer just for nerds. Or maybe it’s cool to be a nerd now? Either way, it smells ironic. (Totally not salty, by the way.) Anyway, DanDaDan is probably one of the weirdest anime I’ve ever seen, but also one of the coolest. If you prefer your anime vanilla, maybe skip this one.
🎧 Recent Jams
In Rhythm - Rexx Life Raj
It’s been a while since an album hit me this hard. Not just good background music, or the album of the week that’s now the norm thanks to streaming, but something that forces you to pause and sit with it. Rexx Life Raj’s In Rhythm does that.
What I love most about his music is how he can flex bravado (something hip hop usually demands) but still sound vulnerable as hell. That balance makes the music hit differently. It empowers you, gets you hyped, and makes you feel less alone—all within the same project.
This album is a journey through grief, resilience, and what it means to rebuild a life when the ground beneath you has cracked and threatened to swallow you up. Heavy, right? Well, the album itself doesn’t feel as weighty; instead, it leans into empowerment. More than a rap album, it’s a reminder that honest art is never wasted.
I'm tryna be a better man
I'm tryna find a peace within myself, I'm tryna settle in
I'm tryna tuck my ego for them times I need a helping hand
But it's hard to take advice out here doing shit they never did
I'm outside, walking with a light they could never dim
Battling these voices in my head, I can't let 'em win
I'ma bet the house on me and then bet again
Took a couple L's, but I bounced back, yet again
Bounced back and now I'm finna let all my
🐰 Rabbit Holes
Why does war exist? People often say it’s “human nature,” but that feels too simple. We’ve grown more sophisticated, so why keep returning to cruel and barbaric violence? Ego? Power? Fear?
Lately I’ve circled three very different wars. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning showed World War II’s toll on the individual, survival hinging on finding meaning in the middle of unimaginable suffering. The Trojan War, part myth and part history, revealed how personal grudges between a few powerful figures dragged others into the fight. Vietnam, especially the My Lai massacre, stripped away any illusion of national pride and exposed something much darker.
Different times, different faces, but the pattern feels the same: a handful of human impulses—ego, fear, ambition—spilling outward and showing the worst sides of humanity.
Section 2: Testing Ground
🏋🏾♀️ Fitness/Training:
I’ve always been the fast one. Even when I played sports as a kid, if my skills weren’t up to par, I still got to play because of my speed. Speed was my thing. And not just speed, but endurance too. I was the kid who could run forever, outlast anyone. So naturally, a few months back, I decided to lean into that identity and take up long-distance running (Now that I think about it, maybe the mob of social media runners finally got to me). Bought the shoes, scouted the run clubs, started hitting the trails.
And then… shin splints. Brutal ones. Turns out stacking two runs a week on top of pickup basketball and my typical leg workout at the gym was the fast track to blowing up my legs. So here I am, temporarily benched from running and forced to pivot.
The pivot: it’s bulking season, baby. For the first time in my life, I’m taking putting on muscle seriously. I even bought a food scale, so I’ve become a man who weighs his chicken and rice (I used to make fun of guys who did that…damn).
Nobody feels sorry for the skinny guy trying to bulk, I get it. But I’ve always wanted to do this. And if I can build some strength while giving my legs a break, maybe I’ll come back faster and stronger when I hit the court again.
For now, running is swapped with cycling, and my workout week looks like this:
Monday (Push Day): Banded push-ups, bench, chest flys, dips, tricep pushdowns
Tuesday (Pull Day): Rows, lat pulldowns, face pulls, curls, reverse flys
Wednesday (Leg Day): Bike warm-up, goblet squats, deadlifts, split squats, leg curls, calf raises
Thursday (Explosiveness + Core): Arnold press, lateral raises, Russian twists, hanging knee raises
Friday: Rest (maybe a longer walk)
Saturday: Outdoor cycle
Sunday: Full rest
Nutrition / Supplements
Bulking is weird. My metabolism literally laughs at calories, so the only way to keep up is to sneak them in. (Liquid calories are a godsend—fruit juices, shakes, whole milk.) Most of my diet is simple, though: eggs, oats, chicken, ground beef, salmon, peanut butter, sourdough, bananas, potatoes, broccoli. Nothing flashy, just whole foods that are easy to prep.
My current supplement stack also looks like this: creatine, whey protein, multivitamins, omega-3, and L-theanine. (Ok, enough. I’m done boring you with what I’m putting in my body.)
Recovery Rituals
I’ve always been awful at this part (probably why I’ve dealt with so many lower-body injuries throughout the years). Stretching, cooldowns, yoga? No thanks. But after an ankle injury two years ago that never healed properly, and now shin splints, I don’t have the luxury of ignoring it anymore. Plus, like a Physical Therapist told me, “You can’t treat your body in your thirties, the way you did in your teens or early twenties, and expect it to hold up.”
Injuries always start at the same place for me: weak feet, weak foundation. So this season is about slowing down, building from the ground up:
Barefoot grounding
Lower-body yoga
Recovery stretches dedicated to alleviating shin splints
Heavy weights are cool, but not if you’re constantly sidelined. This time, I’m trying to actually train smarter.
Section 3: Creative Log
I’ve always wanted to document my life better through a camera. Writing captures one side of me (specifically, my thoughts). But video is its own art form, one I’ve been quietly obsessed with learning because it can help capture the moments I ignore most throughout the day. I recorded and edited my first vlog, inspired by a recent essay of mine. It’s raw, imperfect, and exactly where I want to start.
Substack Updates:
The typical Deep Thinkers essay will remain the core of this space. These new entries—Fragments & Currents—are meant to complement them, giving me a place to document life in motion, to add another piece to a collection of personal works. The plan is to release one every month as a kind of snapshot of the month prior, capturing what I’m reading, watching, listening to, working on, and wrestling with.
Hitting publish on my first vlog was a win, but more than anything, it showed me how much I want to improve. My audio needs refining, lighting and composition can level up, and now that I finally ordered a tripod, I can start experimenting with better shots. Each video is a chance to learn the craft a little more.
Section 4: Snapshots
The year is 2019. I’m going through a breakup and decided I should reach out to one of my exes. I am teetering on the edge financially each month. I don’t like myself very much. Actually, I kind of hate who I am. I feel a lot of guilt over the most recent breakup, and I haven’t processed the guilt I felt for the one before. Clearly, I’m doing great.
To fight off all this turmoil, I sit and try to wrap my brain around how to fix my mess of a life. Go to therapy so I can solve my bullshit before dragging somebody into the storm again? Either create a budget or think of ways to make a little extra cash? Change my workout and eating habits to address why I feel so fatigued and mentally drained 24/7? No, no, and no. My solution: get a dog.
In retrospect, based on all the evidence, a dog—essentially, a huge and expensive responsibility—was the absolute last thing I needed at the time. And yet. It was probably the main thing that got me through that disaster of an era.
I adopted my dog, Millie, based on a sudden and spontaneous tug to make a change. Over six years later, she is still by my side. She’s been with me through big moves. Been there through my darkest times. Has provided me with a lift emotionally that is almost impossible to describe. I became more responsible. I found ways to make more money, because holy hell, pets are not cheap. I learned how to be more patient. That one, seemingly irresponsible decision changed me for the better. I felt the good kind of stress, the kind you feel when you know you have to change for the betterment of someone or something you love.
The crazy thing is, I didn’t even notice I was changing at the time. It just happened. That’s the gift she gave me. Not just companionship, but proof that I was capable of growth, even when I thought I was stuck.
2019 me would’ve laughed at the idea. But here we are. Me, still stumbling forward; Millie, still trotting loyally by my side, white hairs and all. Turns out a bad decision on paper ended up being the best one I ever made.
Section 5: Loose Threads
I can’t stop thinking about how what we deem as “the truth”—our beliefs, our convictions, the frameworks we cling to—can, even for the most well-intentioned, turn into cages. Beliefs are not permanent structures; they’re scaffolding built from circumstance, culture, fear, or longing. Useful for a time, maybe even necessary. But also fragile, provisional.
I won’t get deeper into that here. I’m working on a longer Deep Thinkers essay on the subject. For now, here are a few fragments and sparks that have been pushing me down this path:
There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral: namely, that a man is always prey to his truths.
—Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
Last Words
If you’ve made it all the way here, just know I’ve got a ton of love for you. Seriously. This series feels more like a passion project than anything else. In some ways, it feels like it’s only for me. But I’m human—so if it resonates with others too, that means more than I can say.
I want to leave you with this: if there’s something you want to do, something you feel pulled to create, please—just do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t need the right niche, or the right audience, or the perfect plan. You only need to begin. From there, you can keep building. Maybe along the way, those anxieties—the ones that kept your ideas stuck in your head—start to fade.
Being imaginative and a perfectionist kept me from doing things like this until my thirties. That’s not old, I know. But I do wish I’d documented my twenties in the same way. Still, as the saying goes: The best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is today.
So bring those fantastic ideas dancing around in your mind to life. Thank you for reading. Until next time.
—Jon ♾️
P.S. A few snapshots from August:
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I love this this is great, can't wait for next months!