a moment in eternity

Monthly Review - February 2026

boundaries , creative process , monthly , tech , website
Monthly Review - February 2026

Hi everyone,

this monthly edition comes with a very minimalistic design.

February has been a month of extremes and changes.

I felt torn between a raging Kali ready to destruct and transform, and a highly sensitive water spirit wanting to hide in the forest to never return.

While absorbing one disaster after another on the global stage, I kept writing and making art even if it felt meaningless.

With the start of Lunar New Year, I challenged myself to be a little bit uncomfortable every day. I felt too tired to tackle big changes right away, but still wanted to grow in a measurable, consistent way.

2026 will be a pivotal year for me personally and I’m done talking about dreams and hiding. I’m done listening to lies and consuming soulless content. I’m done leaking my life energy to fill someone else’s pocket or stroke their small ego. I want to move with agency, dare to be cringey, jump into the void—anything to grow, be appreciated for my work and find my people.

Actions speak louder than words.
Energy doesn’t lie.

kali goddess
Kali Ma

table of content

I still have no idea where this website is going

or why I invest an ungodly amount of time building it.
But I’m glad to have community support at this point.

labyrinth, a creative community of kindred souls created by Kening Zhu, is helping me to deepen my trust in the creative process and gently moving through blockages. We’re currently doing a 14-day creative trek together where each member dedicate themselves to a daily practice. I chose to redecorate my digital home, and instead of making it outcome-based, I realised that I have to practice coming home to myself first.

I felt vulnerable these days sharing thoughts that might not resonate with the mainstream hivemind. I felt cringey and embarassed about my (more emotional/poetic) writing style/my non-coherent thought processes/the way the website currently looks/my weird interests and kept imagining ways people would reject me.
It was good to slow down, look at the mind chatter and see how ridiculous it actually is.
One interesting desire that came up: I’d love to write more in German, my native language. Probably not in public, as I want to reach an international audience, but as a private practice for myself. Words in one’s native language have more weight and it feels more intimate. I’m wondering if I’ll reconnect with a more grounded, confident, or relaxed part of me? I’ve uploaded some old writings in the category deutsch.

The indieweb is broadening my perspective on what’s possible in the digital space. I feel like a little kid discovering so many inspiring, creative websites. I went to another meetup discussing our projects and AI.

To be honest, I never wanted to go too much into a tech direction — let alone coding — and rather focus on writing about spiritual and creative topics. But as often, I don’t choose my obsessions, they choose me.

I also realised that Ethical Tech probably best describes one of the underlying threads of this blog and the way I approached building user-centric digital products in the past.

I Left Instagram

  • I’ve been intentionally preparing myself for this day over the past year.

  • Before I deleted my Instagram account, I jumped over my shadow, posted a 6 min reel explaining my decision to my 240 followers, hoping to inspire one person to take the leap as well.

  • I shared that it’s possible to recreate your feed and wrote about how to export your Instagram data.

  • I started writing about how it takes 8(!) steps to delete your account, researched dark patterns, and have been too speechless to continue ever since.

  • I started two other personal essays with 1000+ words about social media addiction and am still to angry to finish them.

  • I went down some other rabbit holes about the manipulative and unethical behaviours of Meta and other tech companies that made me feel sick and helpless.

I’ll link any finished future posts here, and would like to share some bulletpoints for now.

Everything Wrong with Social Media

Meta’s Internal Research — Researchers at NYU compiled 31 of Meta’s own internal studies on teen mental health, made public only through whistleblowers and lawsuits.
some points I found interesting:

  • 13% of teens aged 13-15 reported receiving unwanted sexual advances every week
  • Meta’s own researchers described the platform as functioning like a slot machine, using intermittent rewards to keep users returning compulsively
  • They found a causal link between removing like counts and reduced feelings of negative social comparison. Still, they kept the feature, because removing it would reduce ad revenue by 1%.

Social Media Addiction Trial — Earlier this month, a 20-year-old known as KGM became the first person to testify before a jury against Meta and YouTube, alleging they deliberately engineered addictive products that left her depressed, anxious, and body dysmorphic — having first used their apps before the age of 10.

Instagram CEO Downplays Addiction— Instagram’s chief testified that social media does not constitute “clinical addiction” — while his own company’s internal research had been documenting addictive patterns for years.

Tech CEOs Don’t Let Their Own Kids Use Their Products

  • Bill Gates didn’t give his children smartphones until age 14.
  • Snap CEO Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Peter Thiel.

A day in the life of an Enshittificator Brilliant video by the Norwegian Consumer Counsil

Mobile World by Steve Cutts I remember watching this about 10 years ago when it first came out. Nothing has changed.

Yes, this is Personal

I’ve been a depressed, suicidal teenager once, comparing myself to photoshopped people on screens, let certain content rot my brain and distort my perception of reality.

While (social) media has never been the root cause of my mental health struggles, it has been an amplifier.
It pains me beyond words to see how intentionally targeted and carefully crafted it has become over the years. .
It pains me to see children and teenagers suffering through what I have suffered.
It pains me to see grown adults voluntarily giving away their precious life energy for some dopamine hits.

This is not about me.

We’re all in this together.

We’re all constantly being manipulated and we should care way more.

We have to protect our children - and I say this as a childless 29-year-old.

Boundaries & Ownership

I’ve been thinking about how everyone is living in their own unique, colorful universe — going through their days having diverse experiences, interacting with different people, pouring their energy into passion projects and relationships while navigating daily chores and work. An endless variety of interests, gifts, obsessions. What a blessing it is to come together and share all our unique viewpoints.

Unfortunately, more often than not, the way we think and act — online and offline — is misguided and misdirected without our knowledge or explicit consent.

When the heat — the manipulative tactics — gets turned up slowly, when will you notice?
When will you bother to care?
When will you say stop?
How do you decide that your boundary has been crossed?

Will you take action?
Stand in integrity?

The problem is:

Most of us are not taught about boundaries.
About ownership over our lives, emotions and thoughts.
About living consciously.
About our infinite potential to create.

Most of us run through life like headless chickens not questioning anything.
Or feeling self-righteous in a us vs. them mentality.
Or justifying why it’s okay to stretch the definition of a red line.

Unless you have a very supportive/attentive spouse, friend, family member, truth is:

No one is going to help you define boundaries for you.
No one is going to give you permission.
Your life is YOUR responsibility.

Owning your emotions, your thoughts, your actions and being conscious about the way your spend your energy/attention/money is the most powerful thing to do as a human being.

Know Thyself.

Alternative Ways to Move Online

The internet is infinitely bigger than soul-sucking platforms and addictive systems. Here are a few alternatives:

  1. Read blogs and visit other digital homes
  2. Start a blog yourself
  3. Start that project you’ve been thinking about for way too long. Thanks to AI more things are possible.
  4. Check out the Fediverse
  5. Take an internet walk

Check in on Your Friends Off-Socials or in Real Life

I met a Belgium-Iranian guy at a hackathon last year, and we bonded over our shared interest in crafting and letters. I noticed his inactivity on Instagram and Telegram, but didn’t think too much of it, since we also weren’t close and I assumed he would reply once he was ready. (I wasn’t aware of the situation in Iran at that point.)

A few weeks ago his letter reached me. He kept the tone light, but didn’t hide his pain for the state of his home country and some private issues he was facing.

The letter came with two cute stickers.

It was bittersweet to receive it.

I know for myself how difficult it is to reach out to friends, when I’m at a very low point. I imagined him being devastated for weeks, protecting his peace by staying offline, and somehow find the strength in between to send letters to friends to make a connection.

3 Simple Exercises to Call your Energy Back

it’s for free and the only thing you need is to believe in yourself.

Breathe into your body

for the next time you want to escape an unwanted feeling — by reaching out for your phone, eating impulsively or going for a smoke

  • Close your eyes. As you slowly inhale, breathe into every inch of your body — your chest, your arms, your fingertips, your belly, your legs, your toes.
  • As you exhale, imagine yourself being enwraped in a big white, glowing sphere that charges you up.
  • Repeat twice.

Leverage the power of water

little intentional reminders throughout the day

  • Before you drink a glass of water, pause for a second. Say thank you, or set an intention — strength, clarity, joy, whatever you need today.
  • In the shower, ask the water to wash away what no longer serves you.
  • Clean your space regularly with water to clear stagnant energy.

Phone Fast + Nature Immersion

sharpen your senses and sensibility

  • Choose the window of your fast (16-24h+)
  • Choose your rules (turn off/leave at home/airplane mode/no messaging/navigation only)
  • Get on a 4h+ hike in the forest and enjoy feeling alive
  • Optional: take your loved ones, four-legged animal, a notebook/sketchbook with you.

Ads are everywhere nowadays. Instead of manifesting for others, why not divert your attention to yourself and your intentions?

Life with Purpose

I’ve never been keen on dwelling on others’ wrongdoings and painting myself as a victim.
I do hold grudges longer than it’s healthy and live by the saying, forgive, but don’t forget.
I try to spend 95% of my time focused on a solution than ranting about a problem.

While calling out bullshit is necessary, it’s also crucial to be conscious about the individual power that each one of us holds.

Self-reflection and a willingness to take responsibility is key.

Out of all the infinite things I could have done with my time in the past days, I chose to spend it scribbling these words together, because I care about the message.
I’m not earning a single cent with this and from a capitalist point of view you could say, that this whole website is a gigantic waste of my personal resources.

But I’ll choose this over and over again, because it gives my life purpose and brings me joy, even though I don’t understand it.

I never considered myself an activist.
But over the years, there are certain topics I simply cannot look away from.

I want to use my voice in a meaningful way.

Our Time on Earth is Short

As children we never dreamed about being screen addicts and voluntarily consuming ads and mass propaganda. We never dreamed about fighting each other or lull ourselves to sleep with (AI-generated) trash content. We never dreamed about being anxious zombies, careful not to step outside of an ever-narrowing line, sadly unconscious about how small and repressed our lives are gradually becoming. We never dreamed about selling our soul to impress others. We never truly dreamed about overfeeding ourselves in some areas of our lives while starving ourselves in others.

Our imagination knew no limitations.
Our energy was boundless.
Our love & joy overflowing.

We were wild and free.

It’s our responsiblity to serve as examples for the future generations.

What (digital) world do we want to leave behind?

What values do we want to pass on to our children?

What kind of beautiful moments do we want to create, what dreams do we want to see manifested before we move on to another journey one day?


How can we serve as role models today?




❣️feel free to forward this to a friend or drop a message anytime


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