I launched kupajo.com in early 2025. It was meant to be a forcing function to organize some self-help notes by making them public. 100,000+ people visited, some notes have been read 50,000+ times, and there’s a stream of organic traffic from people sharing these notes.
Very cool, very validating.
But I haven’t been here lately. Haven’t posted regularly. I’ve still been writing. Much more than ever, actually. It’s fiction — but don’t worry, I’m not here to impose that on you.
What I am here to impose are two words that have been whispering through my head as a mantra for 2026: Be there.
Be there for other people
The road to hell is paved with empty thoughts and prayers. If you care about someone, be there for them. Write. Call. Cook food, knock on their door. M…
I launched kupajo.com in early 2025. It was meant to be a forcing function to organize some self-help notes by making them public. 100,000+ people visited, some notes have been read 50,000+ times, and there’s a stream of organic traffic from people sharing these notes.
Very cool, very validating.
But I haven’t been here lately. Haven’t posted regularly. I’ve still been writing. Much more than ever, actually. It’s fiction — but don’t worry, I’m not here to impose that on you.
What I am here to impose are two words that have been whispering through my head as a mantra for 2026: Be there.
Be there for other people
The road to hell is paved with empty thoughts and prayers. If you care about someone, be there for them. Write. Call. Cook food, knock on their door. Make the trip.
The world has given me far more than I’ve given it. Luckily, I feel increasingly compelled to reverse that trend. Usually by asking some easy questions: What’s new? What are you into lately? How can I help?
If you want to be there for someone, think about what that actually means, and show up.
Be there for other people.
Be there on time
Punctuality is a character trait. Seems drastic, but showing up when you said you’d be somewhere says so much about what you’re capable of.
This is obvious when you’re in school or at work. There are schedules, there are due dates.
But in my personal life, I’ve long been guilty of running late for casual things. Not horrendously late, but really leaning on that E in ETA. Packing the day of. Being the last one to show up for lunch. Whipping our house into a frenzy because I didn’t give my kid enough time to cycle through shoe options.
This now feels intolerable — rude and inconsistent with who I am in other, “more important” areas of my life. So I’m done being late, no matter how trivial the commitment.
Be there on time.
Be there for the moment
Attention is the most valuable thing we have. Hardly a revelation, eh?
But every year, this just seems to be the thing that becomes clearer to me. A rewarding life, and all the Great Big Things you experience, are just accumulated moments when you were actually there.
If you’re preoccupied with work, or on your phone, or chasing the next distraction, or floating a few feet outside yourself, come on back. Pull that balloon of consciousness back into yourself to be there for the moment.
“If you … if you squander your precious beautiful days on meaningless labor whose” — he coughed up blood — “whose ultimate purpose is to further enrich the ruling elite or solidify the hegemony of the state … you’re a sucker.”
~Et Tu, Babe, Mark Leyner (Book)