Shiv's Newsletter #12
Welcome to the twelfth edition! Summer 2023 💪
👋 Hello friends! I’m writing to you from my home in Antwerp, Belgium where I grew up. Being back here and reunited with my parents after six months brings back a flood of memories from my childhood and makes me think about this blog post from Tim Urban called The Tail End. Here’s an excerpt from the post where Tim visually lays out the human lifespan:
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
Since moving to the United States almost a decade ago, I now get to see my parents twice or maybe thrice a year. The same goes for seeing my younger brother who currently resides in the UAE. With my parents based in Europe, our family is spread out across three continents. So these days I truly cherish any time that we get to spend together in the same time zone, under the same roof, and at the same dinner table.
Tim’s charts really put into perspective how much time we have with the people we love most especially if we don’t live in the same city as them anymore. Tim concludes with these three takeaways in his widely shared and evergreen post from 2015:
1) Living in the same place as the people you love matters. I probably have 10X the time left with the people who live in my city as I do with the people who live somewhere else.
2) Priorities matter. Your remaining face time with any person depends largely on where that person falls on your list of life priorities. Make sure this list is set by you—not by unconscious inertia.
3) Quality time matters. If you’re in your last 10% of time with someone you love, keep that fact in the front of your mind when you’re with them and treat that time as what it actually is: precious.
Imma def keep these in mind on vacay with my fam this week. Thanks for going off on that tangent with me. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming :)
📖 ICYMI here’s the last newsletter from June 12th, it’s been a minute since I shared those highlights from May and debuted the Grat List which 100% of you who voted chose for me to keep doing that section. Here are a few of the memories we’ve made over the last two months:
🔁 June & July Recap
🏟️ Going to see Khalid at MetLife Stadium featuring an up-and-coming artist who goes by the name Ed Sheeran (followed by Taco B crunch wrap supremium)
🏎️ Driving up north for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix and hitting up the dopest club in Montréal called La Voûte (s/o Shaina, Aadesh, Trish, and Bhavs)
🌍 Getting absolutely lit seeing Burna Boy live at Citi Field in Queens particularly when Santan Dave came out to perform “Location” with Damini
🍎 Hosting my brother for a week in NYC and introducing him to my besties (s/o Krish Maria for always showing up to party with the Taksali boyz)
❤️ Grat List
Grateful for the quiet nights in LIC - especially the evenings when I’d pick up my novel, play some tunes, and get immersed in some fantastic storytelling all while overlooking the Manhattan skyline across the East River. Specifically, I was reading Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, one of my favs of 2023. I compiled the quotes that resonated with me in this blog post!
Grateful for the most wholesome week with Shaurya in NYC - from surprising him at Newark airport with Priyanshi to taking him to rooftop raves in Williamsburg, it was wonderful spending quality time with my lil bro in the city I now call home. I introduced him to everyone from the DJs at a Bastille Day event to Quartz colleagues in my office lobby and the neighbors in my building!
Similar to the annual review I did back in Jan, I’m gonna take this opportunity to pause and do a mid-year review as we make our way through the scorching second half of 2023. So here are my summer lists of books, artists, and places I traveled to in the first half of this year. You’ll get the full end-of-year reflection at the start of 2024, as per my tradition since 2018.
Places I got to visit:
🇦🇪 Dubai, UAE
🇧🇪 Antwerp, Belgium (2x)
🇺🇸 United States (NYC, San Diego, Miami, Seattle)
🇨🇦 Montréal, Canada
Books I enjoyed reading:
21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19 by Ben S. Bernanke
How to Relax by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama
The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations by Daniel Yergin
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller
The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Artists I got to see live:
Drake (2x), J. Cole, Burna Boy (2x), Ed Sheeran, Khalid, 21 Savage (2x), Usher, Sean Paul, SiR, Ari Lennox, JID, Bas, Waka Flocka Flame, Ayra Starr, Mario, Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert, Santan Dave, CISUMMI, MoBlack, Oktave, Temil, Anamesa (3x)
🏝️ Upcoming Travels
August 1-4: Sirmione, Italy
Heading to an Italian town south of Lake Garda this week for a family vacation 🇮🇹
👀 Recommendation Zone
📚 What I’m reading
🇺🇸 The Fed’s staff is no longer forecasting a US recession by Nate DiCamillo | Quartz
🍿 No one needed Barbenheimer more than AMC by Clarisa Diaz | Quartz
🎾 Carlos Alcaraz is the compelling rival both Novak Djokovic and men’s tennis needed by Charlie Eccleshare | The Athletic
🇳🇴 A stronger NATO for a more dangerous world by Jens Stoltenberg | Foreign Affairs
🎧 What I’m listening to
Relax My Eyes by ANOTR, Abel Balder
Les Gout by Rampa, chuala, Keinemusik
7 Seconds by Joezi, Coco, Pape Diouf
K-POP by Travis Scott, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd
Thanks for reading! Send any FIFA Women's World Cup knockout stage predictions, summer novels, and fav UTOPIA tracks from Travis Scott. Stay hydrated fam!
With gratitude,
Shiv