The Age of Intention

August 23, 2026 — Leave a comment

Why the next technological revolution isn’t about better gadgets but about making them disappear.

For most of human history, technology has demanded our attention.

Every major communication technology has given us access to more information, more entertainment, and more convenience. At the same time, every one of them has become a new way for businesses to reach us.

That’s the pattern.

Newspapers didn’t simply inform us. They created mass advertising.

Radio made information immediate. It also gave brands a voice inside our homes.

Television added images, making entertainment more immersive and advertising more persuasive than ever before.

Then came the internet.

Information became interactive. We no longer consumed content aimlessly. We searched for it. We compared products. We booked vacations. We bought books without stepping outside.

The internet didn’t just connect people.

It connected consumers to businesses with almost no friction.

Then smartphones arrived.

Suddenly, the internet wasn’t somewhere we went.

It was everywhere.

At first, this felt like the final step. We had the world’s knowledge in our pockets. We could order dinner, book a flight, answer an email, and watch a movie from almost anywhere.

But after nearly two decades, something feels different.

The smartphone has become indispensable. It’s also becoming the bottleneck.

The friction we stopped noticing

Think about what happens every time you want to do something online.

You stop walking. You reach into your pocket. You unlock your phone. You find the right app. You type. You scroll. You compare. You scroll some more. You make your choice.

We do this hundreds of times every week without thinking about it. It’s become second nature.

But habit isn’t proof that something is final. People once felt exactly the same way about the desktop computer, right before the smartphone replaced it.

Every technological revolution has reduced friction.

We no longer wait for tomorrow’s newspaper. We don’t sit at a desktop computer to check our emails anymore. We don’t need a map folded inside the glove compartment.

People once marveled at electricity. Crowds gathered just to watch a light bulb turn on. Now we flip a switch without a single thought.

The internet is becoming the same kind of invisible, but the smartphone isn’t.

Artificial intelligence may become part of the solution.

The first technology that understands us

For decades, humans learned how to communicate with computers.

We memorized commands. We clicked buttons. We learned menus. We adapted ourselves to software.

Artificial intelligence reverses that relationship.

For the first time, computers are beginning to adapt to us.

They understand natural language, recognize context and remember previous conversations.

Instead of learning how to use a machine, we simply express what we want.

That’s a much bigger shift than most people realize.

But the real revolution isn’t AI itself.

It’s the interface AI makes possible.

From navigation to intention

For thirty years, the internet has been built around navigation.

We navigate websites, menus, search results and endless feeds.

Even shopping follows the same logic.

Imagine you need hiking shoes today.

You open Google. Type your query. Visit several websites. Read reviews. Compare prices. Filter by size. Filter by color. Maybe watch a YouTube review.

Eventually, you make a decision.

Now imagine asking this instead:

“Find me a pair of hiking shoes under 150 dollars”

You don’t even have to explain the rest. It already knows you hike in wet forests. It already knows you’d rather carry extra weight than replace a pair every season. You stopped over explaining the same way you stopped explaining directions to someone who already knows the way.

The AI searches thousands of products. It reads expert reviews, compares prices, checks availability, filters poor-quality options and most importantly understands your priorities because it already knows how you travel.

Then it shows you five choices. Not five hundred.

That’s the difference.

You don’t search anymore. You choose from a selection designed specifically for you.

That may sound subtle but it’s not. It’s a complete redesign of the internet.

Humans stop navigating information altogether.

AI becomes the navigator. Humans simply express intentions.

The smartphone after the smartphone

If conversation becomes our primary interface, what happens to the smartphone then?

I don’t think it disappears overnight. But I do think it becomes less central.

Today, almost every interaction begins by reaching for a screen. Tomorrow, many of those interactions won’t require one at all.

“Translate what they’re saying.”

“Book me the cheapest train tomorrow morning.”

“Reply that I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Summarize today’s news.”

None of these tasks need a display. They only need understanding, which raises a fascinating question: If we no longer need to hold a phone, what replaces it?

Voice alone won’t be enough. Humans are visual. If I’m buying a camera, I want to compare designs. If I’m choosing clothes, I want to see colors. If I’m watching a film, reading a map, or editing a photograph, I need images.

Conversation can replace search. It can’t replace vision. So whatever replaces the phone still needs a screen somewhere. It just won’t be one we hold.

My bet is glasses first. Not because they’re the most exciting option, but because they’re the least disruptive one. People have worn glasses for centuries. A display sitting in your field of vision while your hands stay free isn’t a hard sell. Navigation becomes effortless. Notifications appear naturally. Visual information follows your gaze instead of forcing you to look down.

Right behind them is a wearable version of the same idea, something clipped to a jacket or worn on our chest, invisible most of the time and only projecting a fuller hologram when there’s actually something worth seeing in detail. Earbuds handle the conversation. The projection handles anything that needs real screen space.

There’s a lighter version of that same idea too. An earpiece to speak into and listen, paired with a watch that flashes up a quick glance-sized visual, not a full display, just enough to confirm a choice or check a map pin. You already glance at your wrist without thinking about it, so it wouldn’t even feel like a new habit.

If all three of those stall, the dark horse is something closer to the eye itself, a lens or a retinal projection that skips the hardware entirely. I’d bet against it happening first, but not against it happening eventually.

Whichever one wins, the final device won’t be the most impressive one. It’ll be the one people forget they’re wearing.

The problem nobody has solved

That’s one reason I didn’t list earbuds alone as the next smartphone. In reality, they already handle a lot, just not on their own, since they still need to be tethered to another device to do it, and they can’t show you anything.

The engineering challenges are obvious. Batteries remain small. Independent internet connectivity requires more components. Processing advanced AI locally demands more power than today’s earphones can provide.

Technology will improve. It always does.

Whichever device ends up carrying the projector, the future almost certainly combines conversation with vision. Not one or the other. Both.

The next internet

Whenever we imagine the future, we usually stop at the next gadget. A better phone, better glasses, a smaller computer.

That’s not nothing, but it’s not the real shift either.

The real transformation isn’t the device. It’s the relationship.

For thirty years we’ve interacted with technology by learning its language. Menus. Buttons. Search bars. Apps.

Artificial intelligence reverses that. Technology is finally learning ours.

Once that happens, everything built around search, clicks, scrolling, and screens begins to change. Not overnight. But permanently.

Glasses, a wrist projector, or something else entirely, whichever device ends up carrying that shift matters less than the shift itself.

The future belongs to intention.

One day we’ll look back at pulling a phone from our pocket dozens of times a day the same way we look back at waiting for tomorrow’s newspaper. Not with nostalgia. With disbelief that it ever felt normal.

Teekay

Backpacking lost its soul

August 18, 2026 — Leave a comment

On the ego that turned exploration into consumption.

People often ask why I spend weeks in one place when I could be crossing several countries off my list instead. I suppose I’ve never understood how moving more is supposed to mean seeing more.

I don’t travel to collect countries.

I travel to disappear into one.

Backpackers don’t stay anywhere anymore.

They arrive. They sleep. They photograph. They publish. They leave.

Then they repeat the process somewhere else until the trip ends and they return home exhausted, convinced they’ve seen the world because they were physically present in it.

They haven’t.

They’ve consumed it.

That’s what backpacking has become.

Not exploration.

Consumption.

Call me a gatekeeper if you want, but I don’t think making travel accessible to everyone was a good thing.

Some things deserve to remain difficult.

Difficulty isn’t just an obstacle.

It’s a filter.

Backpacking once demanded uncertainty. You hitchhiked because there wasn’t another option. You camped because you couldn’t afford hotels. You got lost because Google Maps didn’t exist. You depended on strangers because there was nobody else.

You didn’t stay three weeks because slow travel was fashionable.

You stayed because leaving wasn’t simple.

That difficulty selected people.

Not better people.

People with different motivations.

People who wanted to understand rather than display.

Then technology removed almost every barrier.

Flights became cheap.

Hostels multiplied.

Google Maps eliminated uncertainty.

Translation apps eliminated effort.

Social media eliminated the need to tell stories because photographs could pretend to tell them for you.

The filter disappeared.

The culture changed.

Today, travel isn’t sold as curiosity.

It’s sold as identity.

The tourism industry doesn’t ask what a country might teach you.

It asks who you’ll become once other people know you’ve been there.

Travel has become one of the cheapest ways to manufacture an identity.

You don’t need to become interesting.

You just need to stand somewhere interesting.

That’s why so many people return with bigger egos instead of broader minds.

Ask them what they learned.

Most will tell you what they saw.

Ask them about the people.

They’ll tell you about the monuments.

Ask them about the language.

They’ll proudly repeat the three words they learned after spending 90 days crossing six countries.

They’re collecting locations, not understanding and certainly not growth.

Tourism has become another branch of consumerism.

Countries are products.

Experiences are products.

Cultures are products.

Even people become products.

Everything exists to be consumed, photographed and replaced by the next destination.

The strangest part is how proud we are of this.

“I’ve been to 25 countries.“

Why is that impressive?

Wouldn’t it be more impressive to deeply understand one?

To speak its language.

To know its neighborhoods instead of its viewpoints.

To have friends instead of recommendations.

To return home with your certainties broken instead of your passport filled.

Movement has become confused with growth.

They’re not the same thing.

Most people don’t travel to become different.

They travel to confirm the person they already believe themselves to be.

Travel becomes evidence.

Proof that they’re adventurous.

Proof of their supposed open-mindedness, despite the racist behavior they display toward locals.

Proof that they’re successful.

It’s ego disguised as curiosity.

The environmental hypocrisy follows naturally.

People cry in front of ancient forests before buying products linked to deforestation.

They snorkel around coral reefs while financing industries that destroy them.

They admire wild animals, then return home and continue consuming the system driving those animals toward extinction.

Nature isn’t changing them.

It’s entertaining them.

People tell me tourism creates conservation.

I think that’s backwards.

Conservation is usually the bill we pay after treating the natural world like a warehouse.

The less we consume, the less there is to rescue.

The same thing happens with culture.

We’re constantly told cultural exchange is inherently beautiful.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it spreads destructive habits faster than wisdom.

The world is becoming culturally flatter.

Walk through enough cities and they begin to blur together.

The same cafés.

The same apartment blocks.

The same shopping streets.

The same influencers taking the same photographs.

We’ve mistaken imitation for development.

We’ve decided that progress means looking like whoever industrialized first.

Traditional architecture disappears because concrete and glass looks richer.

Buildings that evolved over centuries to suit local climates are demolished so cities can resemble places they were never meant to resemble.

I don’t call that progress.

I call it forgetting.

A yurt isn’t inferior because it doesn’t resemble a skyscraper.

An earth house isn’t backward because it isn’t made of concrete.

Architecture should answer the climate before it answers fashion.

A society should adapt to its environment before adapting to global trends.

That’s my definition of progress.

Better adaptation.

Not better imitation.

The same principle applies everywhere.

The easier photography became, the less people learned photography.

The easier publishing became, the less people learned to write.

The easier backpacking became, the more it became tourism.

Convenience doesn’t simply allow more people to participate.

It changes why they participate.

And once the reason changes, the activity changes with it.

That’s what happened to travel.

The greatest journeys aren’t measured by distance.

They’re measured by transformation.

You should come home questioning yourself more than the people you visited.

If all you brought back were photographs, opinions and a stronger sense of your own importance, then you didn’t really travel.

You consumed another place.

The tragedy isn’t that the world became accessible.

The tragedy is that accessibility turned one of humanity’s greatest opportunities for humility into another marketplace for ego.

Backpacking didn’t disappear.

Its soul did.

Thanks for reading.

Teekay

Maybe your sleep isn’t broken, maybe your schedule is

June 21, 2026 — Leave a comment

The middle sleep vs capitalism

I’ve always felt there was something strange about the way we talk about sleep.

We speak about it as if it should be clean, obedient and uninterrupted.

You go to bed.

You disappear for 8 hours.

You wake up.

You function.

Then you do it all over again the next night.

And when the body does anything else, we treat it like a problem.

Wake up at 2 AM?

Problem.

Lie there thinking?

Problem.

Feel awake for a while, then tired again?

Problem.

Everything becomes a disorder the moment it fails to fit the schedule.

But I’m no longer convinced the schedule is neutral.

I’m not even convinced it’s natural.

Because I’ve lived another kind of sleep.

Not every night. Not perfectly. Not as some routine I’m trying to sell.

But enough to know there is something real there.

I sleep for 4 or 5 hours.

Then I wake up.

Not violently. Not in panic. Not because an alarm ripped me out of my body.

I just wake up.

The world is silent.

Everyone else is asleep.

The air feels different.

My mind feels different.

I pray, then sit in that strange state between sleep and waking, between night and morning, between the body resting and the soul speaking.

And then something opens.

Ideas arrive.

Problems untangle.

Sentences appear.

Things I couldn’t solve during the day suddenly become obvious.

No noise. No demand. No performance. No one needing anything from me.

Just me, the night and whatever rises when the mind is finally left alone.

That’s when I write some of my best work.

The over-controlled mind of the day goes quiet. The part of me that’s always responding, planning, defending, explaining and calculating finally steps aside.

And something deeper speaks.

Then, after a while, my body gets tired again.

So I go back to sleep.

Another few hours.

And somehow, the whole thing feels natural.

Maybe ancient.

Not broken.

Not disordered.

Not like insomnia.

Just ancient.

As if my body remembers something the modern world has tried to erase.

Maybe sleep was never meant to be one single block for everyone.

Maybe the middle of the night wasn’t always an issue to be addressed.

Maybe waking after a few hours wasn’t always something to fear.

Maybe there was a time when the night had two doors: one for rest, one for reflection, then rest again.

Historians have written about segmented sleep, especially in preindustrial Europe. People spoke of a first sleep and a second sleep. Between the two, they might pray, think, talk, make love, tend to small things or simply exist in the dark without immediately diagnosing themselves.

That detail matters.

Because today, when someone wakes in the middle of the night, they don’t usually ask, “What is this moment giving me?”

They ask, “What’s wrong with me?”

That tells us something.

Not only about sleep.

About the society around sleep.

Because modern life doesn’t tolerate rhythms it can’t use.

It sees darkness and calls it wasted time, hence the horrendous daylight saving invention.

It sees silence and tries to fill it.

It sees the body refusing to behave like a machine and immediately asks which product, pill, app, supplement or routine can force it back into obedience.

This is where sleep becomes political.

Sleep itself is natural.

The modern sleep schedule isn’t.

It belongs to work.

To school.

To office hours.

To alarms.

To productivity culture.

To the economic need to make bodies predictable.

Capitalism colonized our sleep.

It took something ancient, intimate and mysterious, then forced it into a format that serves production.

One block.

One alarm.

One workday.

Repeat.

And because we live in a performance-driven society, even rest has to justify itself.

We don’t sleep because the body is sacred.

We sleep so we can function and be productive.

We don’t rest because life is more than work.

We rest so we can return to work less damaged.

Even sleep has been made useful.

Recovery.

Optimization.

Output.

Efficiency.

A better brain.

A better body.

That’s the real sickness.

Not simply lack of sleep.

Not simply insomnia.

A society that can only respect sleep when sleep serves production is very sick.

Nature doesn’t work like that.

Summer is not winter.

December is not June.

The year breathes.

Days stretch and shrink.

Nights lengthen and shorten.

Trees lose their leaves.

Animals slow down.

Light changes.

Energy changes.

Everything adapts except us.

We expect the same output in winter as in summer.

Same wake-up time.

Same productivity.

Same pressure.

Same artificial brightness.

As if the body should be indifferent to the sun.

As if a dark winter morning and a bright summer morning ask the same thing from us.

They don’t.

Winter asks for slowness.

Modern economic life asks for output.

Winter gives us longer nights.

We turn on the lights and carry on.

Then when people collapse, we call it fatigue, burnout, low motivation, seasonal depression or poor sleep hygiene.

Sometimes those words describe something real.

But they can also hide something.

Many people are not failing at rest.

They’re being forced to live against it.

Their rhythm isn’t broken by nature.

It’s broken by a dying society that still demands performance from exhausted bodies.

That’s why I don’t trust most conversations about sleep.

They talk about blue light, magnesium, melatonin, sleep trackers, cold rooms and perfect pillows.

Fine.

Some of that can help.

But they rarely talk about capitalism and all it entails.

Stress.

Work.

Poverty.

Grief.

Debt.

Noise.

Fear.

The nervous system living under constant pressure.

They rarely admit that many people are tired because their lives are built against the body.

Instead, they sell us solutions to problems the system created, the system being capitalism.

You’re stressed, so they sell you sleep content.

You’re overworked, so they sell you recovery hacks.

You’re anxious, so they sell you supplements.

You’re disconnected from nature, so they sell you artificial routines.

You’re exhausted by capitalism, so they sell you wellness.

And the simplest truth is ignored.

Maybe people need less stress.

More time.

More silence.

More prayer.

Work that doesn’t swallow their life.

Enough space to do things that make them happy before their body collapses at night.

Maybe people don’t need to become better machines.

Maybe they need to stop being treated like machines at all.

Science can tell us many useful things about sleep, but it becomes dangerous when it forgets that humans are not only organisms in a lab.

A sleep study can measure the brain.

It can’t fully measure what the night means to a person.

It can’t measure the feeling of waking naturally after 4 or 5 hours, praying in the dark, writing from a place you can’t access during the day, then returning to sleep as if you had visited some hidden room inside yourself.

That room matters.

That middle space matters.

The world has become so loud that we’ve forgotten what the mind does when it’s not being interrupted.

During the day, thought is constantly attacked.

Messages.

Screens.

Tasks.

People.

Plans.

Bills.

Responsibilities.

Even when we’re alone, we’re rarely alone.

But the middle of the night is different.

It gives the mind a privacy the day can’t offer.

Maybe that’s why creativity often lives near sleep, near dreams, near the strange border where the rational mind loosens and something deeper comes forward.

The edge of sleep is not empty.

It’s fertile.

Not always useful in the capitalist sense.

But sometimes revealing.

And that is not the same thing.

That’s why I refuse to see every night waking as a problem.

Sometimes it’s stress, illness or pain.

Sometimes it’s too much worry, too much light or too much life pressing on the chest.

But sometimes, it’s something else.

Sometimes the body wakes because it has entered the second chamber of the night.

The chamber where the ego is quieter.

Where ideas come without being chased.

Then sleep returns.

Not as defeat.

As completion.

First sleep.

A waking.

Second sleep.

A rhythm, a conversation between the body, the soul and the dark.

Maybe that’s what we’ve lost.

The true meaning of sleep.

We reduced it to recovery.

Made it serve productivity.

Turned it into another thing to optimize, track and monetize.

We forgot that sleep is also surrender.

Also mystery.

A borderland.

One of the last places where the body refuses complete control.

That might be why modern life is so obsessed with managing it.

Because sleep reminds us that we’re not machines and never will be.

No matter how many alarms we set.

No matter how many apps we download.

No matter how many experts explain our cycles.

At some point, the body asks to return to the dark.

And maybe, if we stop being afraid of every interruption, we might discover that the night wasn’t only made for unconsciousness.

Maybe part of it was made for meeting ourselves without the noise of the world.

The most human sleep was never a straight line.

It was a tide.

The middle of the night was never the enemy.

The enemy is a society that turned even rest into a performance.

Resist capitalism, take back your sleep.

Thanks for reading.

Tee.

Note from a sleepless night

May 13, 2026 — Leave a comment

For the first time in a while, I genuinely can’t sleep

My whole body hurts, in a good way 🙂

Legs super heavy, ankle kinda messed up, toes on my left foot hurt (got stepped on twice in football practice today), ribcage from that knock Friday, plus some hamstring and inner thigh pain.

What I wouldn’t give for a massage right now

Anyway, I stopped making blog entries like this for a while. No one really wants to read this kinda thing anymore, amirite?

People would rather hear someone yap on video, I get it

Still, I miss this

And I miss old school blogs in general

Plus, reading just hits different, you build everything in your head and it feels way more personal and real

I’ve actually read way more this year than I have in the last five combined

I mean books

I’m a big reader overall, I just don’t read books like that, I go on Medium and read random blogs instead

I don’t really do personal stories though, which is probably why I don’t write these either, but I still think there’s a world for it

Even if there aren’t that many people left reading this kind of stuff

I miss Tumblr, I used to spend hours on there

So many interesting people, so many stories

And most of them just wrote like this, no structure, no formatting, just thoughts

There’s comfort in being natural, it makes everything feel more intimate

I’m rambling

Pain’s keeping me up, so maybe I’ll just watch Better Call Saul, eat some peanut butter with a couple bananas and wait for the sun

Nights like this I usually don’t sleep until the next evening anyway

Peace and blessing

Winter knows something we forgot

March 18, 2026 — Leave a comment

You don’t hate winter, you hate how we live through it.

I’m such a winter person. I resisted that idea for years because I don’t particularly enjoy being cold and I absolutely hate humidity, but I’m done arguing with it now.

Winter is my favorite season, the one that makes me feel most alive. Fall comes close behind. Maybe I’m really a fall-first person who only settles once winter arrives. Fall feels like a threshold, a kind of preparation, while winter is the place it all leads to.

Most people say they hate winter, but I don’t even think that’s true. I think they hate winter under capitalism, which is a very different thing.

Winter isn’t simply December 21st to March 20th like we’re taught in school. December 21st is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the deepest point of darkness. In many ways, that’s peak winter. It’s both the heart of it and the beginning of its slow release.

If you look at older seasonal systems, especially the Celtic calendar, winter is often understood differently. It begins around early November, with Samhain, and transitions toward spring around early February, with Imbolc. I’ve always intuitively aligned with this rhythm, a rhythm that feels more real in the body.

Winter always makes me nostalgic about my childhood. Where you grow up shapes your relationship to it. Below the equator, winter falls during what we call summer months. It’s shorter, less harsh. It’s still winter, but it doesn’t carry the same weight. Above the equator, winter has a presence. It changes everything.

Winter in New York, for example, is unmatched. But to understand it, you have to start with fall. Fall is special in a way that’s hard to replicate. The air sharpens, the leaves start falling, the temperature drops just enough to wake you up. School starts again. People return from summer scatteredness with a sense of purpose. There’s motivation, a quiet hope that something new can begin before the year closes.

Then come the holidays. I don’t celebrate them myself, but I can’t deny the atmosphere. Halloween, with kids everywhere. Thanksgiving, massive in New York. Then the Christmas season, with its films, its smells, its food. Cinnamon, baked goods, warmth. Fall is about getting cozy. It’s about preparing, consciously or not, for winter.

And then winter arrives.

One of my favorite childhood memories is hearing on the radio that a blizzard had shut everything down. Schools closed for days. Travel discouraged. The world paused. I remember the feeling of going back to bed, diving under the blanket, watching the snow fall outside. There was a kind of collective stillness. Everyone was home at the same time, in the middle of the week, which almost never happened.

Winter meant snowball fights with family and friends. Building snowmen. Coming back inside after hours in the cold to drink something hot, cinnamon-heavy or just a simple hot chocolate. Winter also meant shorter days, which I’ve always loved. There’s something honest about darkness arriving early. It forces you inward, and you simply sleep better. At least I do.

Now that I live in a coastal town, winter has taken on a different form. The place empties out. It becomes a ghost town. Only a few locals remain. I can walk through the streets, along the beach, into the forests, and not see anyone. Not hear anyone. Just space, and peace.

Fall here is also the perfect time for mushroom picking. There’s something deeply satisfying about finding your own food, bringing it home, cooking it. I don’t do it as often as I used to, but when I do, it reconnects me to something older than all of this.

Winter also brings unpredictability. Storms, floods, strong winds, snow.

I’ve always been fascinated by storms. There’s something humbling about them. They remind you how small you are without humiliating you. Just placing you back in proportion.

And this is where my relationship with winter becomes more than just aesthetic.

Winter, to me, is supposed to be a time of slowing down. A form of hibernation. Not complete inactivity, but a reduction. A softening. A withdrawal from constant output.

But winter under capitalism is the opposite of that.

It’s when everything accelerates. Black Friday. Christmas consumption. New Year’s, January sales. Valentine’s Day. It becomes a concentrated period of economic extraction. A time where people are pushed to spend more, move more, produce more, exactly when their bodies are asking for less.

I don’t adhere to that. I reject it.

Because biologically, intuitively, winter asks something else from us. Even illness patterns reflect that. People don’t just get sick because of viruses. They get sick because they keep pushing at summer pace in a winter body. They ignore the signal to slow down.

Historically, people understood this. They worked through the year, harvested their crops, prepared for winter. Around the end of October, they gathered, celebrated the end of harvest. And then life shifted. Maintenance replaced expansion. Survival replaced growth.

Nature does the same. Animals retreat. Bears hibernate. Bees cluster. Even plants withdraw into themselves. Winter is not death. It’s conservation.

I sometimes imagine a different life. A cabin. A cycle where summer is for harvesting, fall for preparing, winter for resting. Wood gathered. Food stored. Time spent simply maintaining what’s already there.

Life, at its core, is that simple. But systems built on constant expansion don’t allow simplicity to survive.

Winter, for me, is also about people. Not crowds, but closeness. Seeing friends, family. Sitting together, drinking tea, sharing time without urgency. There’s a different quality to connection in winter. It’s slower, deeper.

Even sports feel different. The air, the light, the coziness of it all. Everything sharpens.

And if I’m honest, part of why I love winter is personal. I’m introverted. I need that inward space. But it’s also something else. A fatigue with what humanity has become. The constant noise, the endless movement, the destruction of everything around us.

Winter feels like a counterforce.

It slows us down whether we like it or not. A storm doesn’t ask for permission. A blizzard doesn’t negotiate. When it hits, everything stops. And in that moment, we’re all equal. No one is above it.

There’s something powerful in that.

To me, winter restores balance. It interrupts the illusion that we can operate at maximum intensity all year long. The shortening of days, the stretching of nights, the way time itself feels heavier, slower, none of that is accidental. It’s a form of design.

Fighting that rhythm has consequences. You see it in people who try to live winter like summer. They burn out. They get anxious. They get sick.

I haven’t had a cold in years. That’s not just because I’m active or because of my diet, though those matter. It’s because I try, as much as possible, to align with that rhythm. To accept that winter is not the time to push.

Winter is about gathering. With nature, with people, with yourself. It’s not about peak productivity. It’s not about consumption. It’s not about proving anything.

It’s about remembering.

And maybe that’s why I love it so much. Because despite everything, despite the systems we’ve built to override it, winter still imposes itself. It reminds us, quietly or violently, that we are not in control of everything.

That there is a rhythm beyond us.

And that we’d probably be better off listening to it.

Thanks for reading.

Teekay.

The hefty cost of convenience in an artificial world

January 3, 2026 — Leave a comment

AI tools have made an already bad situation worse.

Every time you touch an AI tool, whether you’re making images or words, you’re feeding a machine that drinks real water and eats real power. Not in theory. Literally. There’s no harmless cloud floating above us. There are data centers on the ground, towers pulling heat out, plants burning fuel, all so content can come out faster while the bill gets paid somewhere else.

Think of it this way. One text request to a large AI model uses roughly the same amount of water as a few mouthfuls from a soda can. That sounds small until you remember these systems handle billions of requests a day! At that scale, we’re not talking about sips. We’re talking about entire truckloads of bottled drinks being poured straight down the drain, every single day, just to keep servers cool.

The estimated CO2 emissions from training common NLP models, compared to familiar consumption (University of Massachusetts, 2019)

Generating a single AI image uses several times more energy than a text request. One article with five or six AI images might be using the equivalent electricity of leaving a laptop running for hours. Multiply that by thousands of articles, social posts, newsletters and ads, and suddenly it’s not trivial at all.

Zoom out a little more and the picture gets uglier. AI-related data centers are already using as much electricity as mid-sized cities. Estimates put global AI power demand on track to rival places like San Francisco or Boston within a few years. That’s millions of homes worth of electricity being burned so companies can automate writing, art and video at scale. AI doesn’t just steal jobs, it steals our resources.

Artificial Intelligence Growth Linked to 80 Million Tonnes of Carbon Emissions in 2025

Now stack dozens of these facilities across drought-prone states and you start to see why people are angry.

And they are angry.

Lately, I’ve seen organizers in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia mobilize against new data center construction. Nobody wants these things in their communities. They strain power grids, drain water supplies and mostly benefit companies that don’t live there (don’t they always?). Luckily, these fights seem to be working. Projects are being delayed, while others are being stopped altogether. We can and will win against these tech oligarchs, but first, we need to be smart about our usage.

This is why it’s so frustrating to see articles about resistance, climate justice or helping nature paired with AI-written images. You can’t talk about fighting extraction while actively participating in it. You can’t warn about corporate overreach while relying on the most opaque, resource-hungry tech industry on the planet.

And it’s not just images. AI-written articles, AI-edited videos, AI voiceovers, all of it runs on the same infrastructure. Longer outputs mean more compute. Videos are especially brutal, far more than text or AI generated images. That one slick AI video you just posted (or liked) could represent the electricity use of a household for days. Yes, dayzz!

The worst part is how little transparency there is. AI companies won’t clearly say how much water or energy a specific model or request uses. Communities are asked to trust them, just like users are. Meanwhile the meters keep spinning.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying we need to go off-grid or stop using technology entirely, but we should start making conscious choices. Take your own photos. Use art made by real people. Scan a drawing, even a bad one. Use stock photos from photographers who actually went outside and did the work. Write things yourself or don’t write at all!

If you’re serious about resistance, about protecting nature, about fighting back against corporate power, your tools matter. Using AI by default, especially for images and media, actively undermines your message. People feel that contradiction, even if they don’t always have the numbers to explain it.

Food for thought.

Thank you for stopping by.

Teekay.

How to Choose the Best Writing Platform for Your Content

June 26, 2024 — Leave a comment

Personal website, Medium, Substack, how to choose the best strategy.

The greatest challenge for a creator is being spread too thin. The internet era has brought a wealth of tools and platforms for publishing, many of which are free, making it difficult to commit to just one.

Floppy disks by Teekay Rezeau-Merah — Photo by Fredy Jacob

As a long-time fan of blogging, I returned to the practice in 2020, choosing WordPress for its ease of use and affordability, especially if you skip the fancy plugins.

WordPress was intuitive and allowed me to rebuy my own domain. My domain, moreteekay.com, is a brand I created 14 years ago on Tumblr (do people still use Tumblr btw?).

Moreteekay is an ecosystem, a collection of tools and content types that I use to express my creativity, share important messages, and inspire change in any way I can.

It encompasses my blog but also links to my Medium page, my newsletter, and my LinkedIn page, as well as my audio show and parts of my photography portfolio.

As I work my up the acting realm, moreteekay will also include my filmography in the not-so-distant future, God willing.

Attention is the new currency

To capture attention in a sea of online noise and compete with media behemoths, creators must have a compelling story and a unique voice.

Making a name for yourself on Google without spending money is nearly impossible nowadays. You’re competing with companies that spend millions of dollars every year.

Focus is the key here.

My new strategy is completely different.

For a few months, I made the mistake of publishing the same pieces on my blog, Medium, and newsletter simultaneously. The issue with this strategy was that some of my followers subscribed to all three platforms and were overwhelmed with the same content three times a week. Not ideal (sorry, guys).

Those times are over.

From here on out, my usual how-tos, health tips, environmental solutions, and personal stories will remain on Medium.

My newsletter, on the other end, will exclusively feature my Vanlife stories. Comment below if you want an invite.

Lastly, my WordPress blog will serve as the hub, the glue holding everything together. It will feature the most important updates and links to my writing, socials, podcast, IMDb page, and more.

I mainly took this decision because building a native community on WordPress is quite challenging, while it’s far more feasible on Medium and Substack.

What is your distribution strategy?

Thanks for reading.

Peace!

Tee.

30 Stories on Medium in 30 days

February 23, 2023 — Leave a comment

2023 is the year I decided to take writing seriously again.

Not just whenever inspiration strikes, but consistently.

My goal is simple: publish multiple stories every week until December 31st.

So far, I’ve published 31 stories, and February isn’t even over. I also have more than 120 drafts waiting in my notes, which gives me enough ideas to keep going for quite some time.

Why make this commitment publicly?

Because writing has always been one of the most meaningful ways for me to share ideas. Whether I’m writing about minimalism, van life, health, travel or the environment, I want my work to leave people with more than just another story. I want every article to offer a new perspective, ask a better question or encourage someone to rethink the way they live.

I’ve also made a conscious decision to focus on evergreen content.

The internet is full of articles built around today’s headlines and tomorrow’s forgotten trends. I’d rather write essays that someone can discover years from now and still find useful.

That’s the kind of work I want to create.

Some of these articles are inspired by my own experiences, but I never want them to stop there. My goal is to use those experiences to explore broader ideas about consumerism, intentional living, exploration, health and the choices we make every day.

This challenge isn’t about publishing as much as possible.

It’s about building a habit.

Writing consistently forces me to think more clearly, communicate better and continuously improve my craft. Whether one person reads an article or one thousand, every piece is another step toward becoming a better writer.

If you’d like to follow the journey, you can find my latest essays on Medium. I hope some of them make you see the world a little differently.

Thanks for reading.

Teekay.

Why your passions matter more than your job

January 12, 2023 — Leave a comment

Protect your passion.

Ask someone what they do and they’ll usually answer with their job.

Ask them what they’re passionate about and many struggle to answer.

Somewhere along the way, many of us began confusing what we do for a living with who we are. We spend years building careers, yet often neglect the hobbies, projects and ideas that make us unique.

Work is important. It pays the bills, provides stability and gives many people a sense of purpose.

But your passions shape a different part of your life.

They shape who you become.

You don’t find your passion. You protect it.

People often talk about “finding their passion” as if it’s hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered.

I don’t think that’s how it works.

Most passions begin as simple curiosities.

A book that sparks your interest.

A camera you decide to pick up.

A language you start learning.

A notebook you begin filling with ideas.

The difference isn’t talent.

The difference is that some people keep making time for those interests long after the initial excitement fades.

Passions aren’t found.

They’re protected.

Creativity deserves a place in your life

For years, I’ve spent my free time writing, recording podcast episodes, building my van and exploring new places.

None of these projects began because they promised financial success.

I pursued them because I genuinely enjoyed them.

Ironically, the more time I invested in these creative pursuits, the more meaningful they became.

They taught me new skills, introduced me to incredible people and gave me experiences that no job ever could.

Looking back, I’m grateful I didn’t wait for permission or perfect conditions before starting.

Stop waiting for more time

One of the biggest mistakes we make is believing we’ll pursue our passions later.

When work becomes less demanding.

When we earn more money.

When life settles down.

The problem is that life rarely becomes less busy on its own.

If something matters to you, you have to make room for it now, even if it’s only thirty minutes a few evenings each week.

Small, consistent efforts are what turn interests into lifelong passions.

Keep learning

When was the last time you learned something completely new?

Not because your employer asked you to.

Not because it would look good on your résumé.

But simply because you were curious.

Learn a language.

Pick up an instrument.

Start writing.

Learn photography.

Build something with your hands.

Cook meals you’ve never made before.

The goal isn’t to become an expert.

The goal is to keep growing.

Curiosity is one of the greatest gifts we have, and it deserves to be nurtured throughout our lives.

Your job isn’t your identity

Most of us work.

Most of us care deeply about our families and our friends.

Those things matter.

But they’re also things millions of other people share.

What often makes someone memorable is what they choose to create, learn or contribute outside of work.

The novels they write.

The photographs they take.

The gardens they grow.

The businesses they build.

The music they compose.

The adventures they pursue.

Those are the things that reveal who we are.

Final thoughts

Your job may pay your bills, but your passions shape your life.

Protect them.

Make time for them.

Nurture them.

Years from now, you probably won’t remember every meeting you attended or every deadline you met.

But you’ll remember the things you created, the skills you learned and the moments when you allowed your curiosity to lead the way.

As Nelson Mandela once said:

“There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

Thanks for reading.

Teekay.