26 Thoughts for 2026

On loss, silence, hope, and persistence.

Continuing the tradition from 2025, here are 26 thoughts for 2026.

1. Someone who disappoints you is at their most honest. That, at least, is a kind of gift.

2. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The earliest stories of Christ have this as his last words. There are theological explanations, and of course there is the atheist explanation, but I like to take it at face value: No matter how powerful, destined, or wise you are, you will experience moments of extreme doubt, sadness, and alienation. And perhaps, the deeper your love, the deeper those moments of pain will be.

3. Every Christmas my family holds hands around the tree, and sings a Danish song none of us understand. For over 100 years we have sung the same song, like a century long game of telephone. A Dane told me our lyrics are unrecognizable. But the message is in the melody, not the lyrics.

4. Some people might not deserve your kindness, but you might not deserve to hold on to your anger.

   

   Last July, my eardrum swelled on a flight, I lost hearing in one ear, and I was stuck in Shanghai for almost two weeks.

5. The world we know has not lasted that long. Tiramisu was invented in the 1970s, and its inventor died in 2024. Ciabatta was invented in 1982. And who can imagine Italian food without tomatoes, or Korean food without red peppers? Yet both of these key ingredients are native to the Americas, and were only integrated into their respective cuisines after Columbus.

6. Everyone has a different relationship to silence. When my ex and I broke up but still lived together, quiet filled our apartment like invisible snow. If we had always fought like this—with absence instead of fire—I might never have wanted to leave. But for her, I think, the quiet I found calming simply meant there was nothing left worth fighting for.

   
   I later learned that fighting in compatible ways is good, but rarely having something to fight about is even better.

7. I have dreams about people I’ve lost.
   

   My friend who took his own life in a car drove up to me in a different one, smiled, and said he was doing okay now.
   

   I dreamt I saw my ex across the room in a restaurant, wearing a wedding ring. We smiled at each other because she was finally happy.
   

   The night before my childhood friend’s father died, I dreamt he drove me home in his old Volvo across freshly fallen snow.
   

   I hope these reflect some kind of truth.

   

8. When I did a 10 day meditation retreat, my biggest luxury was a thermos that allowed me to have hot tea at 9pm, just before bed. I was almost giddy with excitement that I could drink warm tea, as if I were the luckiest man on earth. I try to remember that excitement and gratitude now, whenever I have tea.

9. The story of Icarus is presented as a warning—moderation in all things. But as poet Jack Gilbert notes “Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.” Indeed, Icarus painstakingly escaped a lifetime of prison, and dared to fly. That he died in the process does not mean he failed. Likewise, instead of the common motivational advice “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” I instead prefer this framing, which is somehow both darker yet also more hopeful:
   

   “What would you do anyway, even if you knew you’d fail?”
   

10. We often chase symbols that merely represent what we really want. An expensive watch is not about telling time, it’s about prestige. A sweater with a huge logo isn’t about warmth, it’s about demonstrating we have taste. Ask yourself, what in your life is a symbol of meaning, and what is a source of it?

11. The death of my friend privately made every argument or struggle more intense — after this loss, how can this also be happening!! — don’t you know i’m going through X! — but ultimately it made those things small by comparison. Mute and boring. Silent.
    
    I think about him even more now than when he was alive, which is strange.

    
    I think he lingers because I cannot say goodbye.
    

12. Every culture and religion says they have the answers.
    

    This doesn’t mean all answers are equally correct, but it’s worth pondering the multitude of answers when evaluating what you believe in. If you instinctively agree with 100% of the things your culture/family/country taught you, then maybe you got lucky and you just happened to be born in the only totally correct paradigm.

    
    Or, more likely, you should consider other perspectives.

13. You are always only a few decisions away from a much different life. That is both a prayer and a warning.

14. In Hong Kong, at the end of University, a friend of a friend asked me to model his small clothing collection. He took out ads in magazines. Suddenly I was a success. I applied to model agencies, and was rejected by even the bad ones. Suddenly I was a failure. My girlfriend applied to Elite for me, which I never applied to, because they were too prestigious and I knew they would reject me. They signed me. Suddenly I was a success. I auditioned for several jobs, including a Gucci Catwalk, and didn’t hear back. Suddenly I was a failure. At the last minute, a day or two before the show, I became the lead model for that Gucci catwalk, despite having never walked in a runway. I still wonder if they had someone else who got sick. Anyway, suddenly I was a success. You see where this is going.
    

15. You start a marathon knowing pain is inevitable. But still you start it.

    If you don’t start it, some kind of pain is still inevitable, and you haven’t run a marathon.

16. An ex girlfriend’s mother grew up in Chengdu, for a while, but never returned. She told me about the beautiful alleyways and streets, I pulled up a digital map, and photographs asking where to go, if I visited. But she looked confused. “Is that Chengdu?” she said, with incredulity that deadened to sadness almost instantly.
    
    Everything she remembered was gone.
    
    We never talked about it again.

17. In casinos there are no clocks because they don’t want you to realize what time it is. This is, of course, so you keep gambling. Likewise, on social media, there is always a new post. On dating apps, there is always a new, hot person. Ask yourself, in your life, what system are you in which is like a casino with no clocks?

    
    Uncomfortably, I understand the importance of that question, but do not have a final answer.

18. Astrology and tarot cards can be valuable not because they are true—they are almost certainly false—but because of how you (and others) react to the ideas they bring up. Used carefully, you can nudge yourself to rethink things. But used carelessly, you surrender your agency away.

19. When I visited North Korea, I was surprised the first time I saw someone laugh. Rationally I knew people everywhere can laugh, but emotionally I was so primed to see an endless communist wasteland that seeing any happiness was shocking. It was just a reminder of the ways implicit or subconscious beliefs affect us

    

20. In the hermit kingdom, we walked by schoolchildren who briefly gawked at me then turned away, pretending not to see. I was almost certainly the only man with long hair they’d seen in their lives, and probably the only one over 190 cm. I still hope that just knowing I exist made some of them realize the world outside is vaster and stranger than they were taught.

21. This year I saw a woman swiping on Instagram, and noticed her algorithm only showed her white women around her age, all of whom were rich. I started judging her, then realized my algorithm was entirely jokes and memes.
    
    I still like my algorithm more, though.

22. Bullying is not really about what they do to you, but about how they make you feel about yourself. I always thought this was true, but now I know it is true.

    

    At the MONA in Tasmania.

23. Writing a CV or resume is a surreal process that only appears normal because it is so common. We compress ourselves into a document designed to make others think we are economically valuable. If we don’t get a job quickly, we start to feel bad about ourselves as people, when the CV itself had little to do with who we actually are.
    
    You might ask yourself: What would you put on your CV if you didn’t have to impress a stranger?

24. It’s usually better not to send the angry text, but it’s dangerous to forget why you wrote the draft.

25. My sister had a child, and I was struck by just how helpless and innocent he is. We all begin and end life like that.

26. A recurring theme in my life is realizing that I don’t need to be afraid anymore. The specifics are always different, but the underlying message is the same.

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Thank you for reading. Looking forward to the rest of 2026, I hope you’ll consider supporting us. Paid subscribers get full access to workbooks like Connected and our year-end reset series (which you can really do anytime you need a reset).

I’m particularly excited about our traveling diary project, which is still moving around the world, as well as the Quiet CV, which still gets random downloads and messages from strangers saying it helped them. And more music.

As we enter 2026, I also want to thank some people who made 2025 special.

Thank you to Franco Wong for interviewing me, and Hyun Woo Kim for meeting up in Seoul. To Kenza Wilks for our interview I still must publish, and to Vivianne Z W (薇薇) for meeting up in Shanghai. To Jasmine Sun for her advice early in the year, and to old writing friends like Kristin Wong and Alan Henry. To Cecilia M. Llompart Borges I want to once again say I love your first poetry collection. Thanks also to Jade Lin Hart, Belinda Rastall and Elline Lipkin. Thanks to Q&Q and my family and friends, and I’m also sure I’m forgetting a few people—forgive me.

As with last year’s post, I want to thank the entire team at Substack for creating this wonderful platform, including but not limited to Mills Baker, whose post on belief and God I liked, Alex Posey, Chris Best, whose post on Britian’s online safety act was a major wakeup, Jairaj Sethi, who has the best photographs, Hamish McKenzie, whose post on individualism and community I appreciated, Zach @ Substack Ben Cohen, who had a heartwarming post about losing his dog, Pluto, and everyone else.

I would like to also give a special shoutout to supporting subscribers to Poetry Culture such as Victoria Prieto, and Jessica Wolfbird whose album Trees for Clouds is out now (!!!) to Krys Sosde whose latest poem is out in Spanish, to Diana Of The Dreamt who has new very mystical posts, and to many others who did not opt to have their recent work shared.

See you all again soon. 27 thoughts for 2027 is in 364 days <3 If you made it this far and want to go all the way down the poetry culture rabbit hole, check out our merch.