Thanks to Ernst-Jan Pfauth's favorite Dutch-language Substacks, I suddenly have a lot of new readers. Welcome! I can't promise that I'll live up to his kind words. Every week, I share something I've drawn, read, or listened to.

Drawing

Since December, I have been drawing my day every evening.

I love rituals like this. They provide structure and ensure that you focus your attention on the right things. I previously wrote about the weekly drawing I made during my children's first year of school. It was ready every Monday morning.

In recent months, I have also been preparing a creative task for my children every Saturday evening. Such as a comic template with "Create an exciting comic strip!" written on it. My children do this every Sunday morning with great enthusiasm. And we can sometimes sleep in a little. Win-win.

It does require some perseverance on my part from time to time. Last weekend, for example, after a birthday party, I was still painting with watercolors at midnight to make an example for their assignment...

However, it is also good to replace rituals, even if they are good ones. For years, I ended my day by writing in a (digital) diary. I now have 3,500 days in my Day One app. I kept this up by setting very low standards: I just typed what I had done that day. No fancy sentences or deep thoughts. And if I missed a few days, I never tried to catch up. I just carried on.

So now I've stopped doing that. Instead, I end each day with a drawing about that day. That's not sustainable, so I've made a deal with myself: it can't take more than two minutes. I almost always have two minutes. That means I have to draw very quickly and let go of everything that normally slows me down when drawing: details and perfectionism.

By drawing every day1, it suddenly never feels like I'm "not drawing enough" anymore. Other drawings also seem to come more easily to me as a result. Like a new dot drawing, but I'll share that another week!

Reading

My daily drawing also creates something physical. A sketchbook full of everyday moments. Happy, small, or sad moments. After 50 days, it's already fun to leaf through.

Make Something Heavy is written by Anu Atluru. According to Anu, we are creating more than ever, but it weighs nothing. In the physical world, we care about weight. A solid oak table, a beautifully bound book. But online, we often forget this.

Social media has mainly become a machine for light things. It runs on speed, scrolling, screenshots, or even slop. Tweets, memes, reels, they contribute to culture, but rarely to ourselves. No matter how much you pile up, according to Anu, they remain snowflakes. Sometimes beautiful, but often gone before they hit the ground.

"It's not that most people can't make heavy things. It's that they don't notice they aren't. Lightness has its virtues—it pulls us in, subtly, innocently, whispering, 'Just do things.' The machine rewards movement, so we keep going, collecting badges. One day, we look up and realize we've been running in place."

Heavy does not stand for big, but for weight. The feeling that you have created something lasting and meaningful.

My drawings can undoubtedly also be generated with AI, but it is not the end result that others, and especially myself, appreciate. The fact that I have spent 30 hours working attentively on an illustration makes it meaningful. And even though I am not very productive, it slowly accumulates into a collection, something that feels heavy to me. What is that for you?

Read the entire essay: Make Something Heavy.2

Listen

Who is Zach Bryan? Why are artists such as MJ Lenderman, Ben Howard, Alabama Shakes, and Kings of Leon actually opening for him? Oh, I missed that. Country artist Zach Bryan turns out to be one of the biggest artists of the moment, easily filling stadiums.

I've surrendered to all the country clichés like driving to California and going to the liquor store, and now I also listen to his new album regularly.

See you next week!