"The mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master." — David Foster Wallace

The sentence I’ve started this edition with has been living in my head all week.

And I think that's fitting, given what it's actually about.

• A while back, I read a book called Chatter — I've mentioned it in the second edition of tanamesa — and it introduced me to an idea that quietly changed something in how I relate to myself: you are not your mind. That voice that runs in the background all day, judging, predicting, catastrophising, replaying — it isn't you. It's just a voice. An automatic narrator that showed up uninvited and never really learned when to stop.

Here's the thing that still gets me: you can hear it, can't you? Which means you're not it. You're the one listening. The observer. The voice is in you, but it isn't you.

But that contrast — between what the voice is saying and what's actually true — has been one of the clearest reminders I've had in a while that I am not that voice. It's just visiting. Loudly, sometimes. But still just visiting.

• The mind is an extraordinary tool when you're the one holding it. It can be creative, focused, generous, visionary. But the moment you forget you're supposed to be driving — the moment it takes the wheel — it can turn even a beautiful season into something that feels heavy and insufficient.

I don't think this is easy to practice. I'm certainly not claiming I've mastered it. But noticing the voice — just noticing, without immediately believing everything it says — already shifts something.

If any of this resonates, I really do recommend Chatter. It won't silence the voice. But it might help you stop mistaking it for the truth.

With love,

Micael.