They say the bigger the storm, the brighter the rainbow. And maybe that’s true. The dark, heavy clouds don’t mean everything is ruined—they’re usually just clearing out the noise so something better can take its place. A rainbow only looks that bright because of the dark sky sitting right behind it, and maybe these messy,…
Some days, my brain is a powerful, well-oiled machine. Other days, it is just two raccoons fighting in a trash can over a half-eaten bagel. It started on a completely ordinary afternoon. I was sitting in my small car outside my son’s school. The sun was dipping just enough to throw that bright, squinty light…
I am writing this on Wednesday evening. Almost twenty-four hours ago, Fruitloop, Fabrice and I were sitting around a Brida table talking about sleep. Fabrice explained how, during his military years, he learned to sleep almost anywhere: on the ground, beside a tree, inside a vehicle, sometimes for only five or twenty minutes. The important…
I haven’t quite been myself lately. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been walking around, pacing the floors, and mulling things over in my head like a detective trying to solve a mystery: What on earth happened? It’s the strangest feeling. I don’t feel lazy—in fact, my brain is shouting that I want to…
There is an image going around. It looks like a list of instructions for living better. Delete TikTok. Watch old movies. Embrace boredom. Quit doomscrolling. Eat without stimulation. Hang out in book shops. Walk without headphones. Stare out the window. Learn new skills. Seek discomfort. Experience life. At first glance, it has the smell of…
Maybe we are not tired of effort. Maybe we are tired of the grind, performance, and pretending everything good should be fun. We are talking about rest this month. That sounds simple enough, until you ask the awkward question. Rest from what? The usual answer is work. We have made work so central, so demanding,…
A Mayor’s Pen reflection on Australia, Brida, growth, usefulness, and looking from another angle When you grow up in Australia, you learn at an early age that the rest of the world thinks you are upside down. Maps do not help. Most maps place Europe somewhere near the middle and Australia somewhere near the bottom,…
Sometimes a sentence stays with you for years without you really understanding why. You hear it often enough that it becomes familiar, almost invisible. It settles somewhere in the background of your life, like a photograph hanging on a wall that you pass every day without noticing. Yet for some reason it refuses to disappear…
An interesting idea emerged from a meeting we had today: “Therapy for the alarm clock.” Now, you are probably leaning back, sipping your coffee, and wondering why on earth a mechanical object would need a therapist. Well, think about it—everybody hates the alarm clock. Whether it is set to wake you up at dawn for…
This month, The Pineapple is about balance. Unfortunately, balance appears to have left the building. The day began with good intentions. Those are often dangerous. I was working on the Brida ecosystem, specifically trying to automate part of our member-care process. The task itself seemed simple enough. If we could automate the Spud Toss, we…
