Volūmen is a personal repository where I occasionally post my notes. However, I mainly use notebooks and write by hand to process my thoughts. The term volūmen is Latin for “scroll,” referring to a rolled manuscript. In ancient Rome, a volūmen (plural: volūmina) was the standard format for written texts before the codex, or bound book, became common.
Last update: 2025-08-03
As Donald Knuth wrote in 1974, programmers often waste effort optimizing too early; “premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming” (Knuth, 1974). This sentiment applies beyond code. We often fall into the trap of optimization too early, whether in programming, designing a template, or starting an exercise routine. Instead of putting a functional version to use, we start tweaking it, reshaping it until we barely recognize it. As a result, we lose the value of the original. The code ends up doing things we do not need, the template produces excessive output, and the workout becomes so complicated that it discourages us from following through.
It is often better to stick with the raw idea, no matter how rough or unrefined it may be. If you follow it long enough, perhaps for a month or even a year, you may start to notice natural patterns emerge. Haruki Murakami describes a similar experience in Novelist as a Vocation (Murakami, 2022). Early in his career, feeling constrained by traditional Japanese prose, he began writing in English and then translating the text back into Japanese. The process was not optimal, but it helped him discover a personal voice. Rather than optimizing the method, he committed to it, letting clarity and style emerge over time through repeated practice.
Last update: 2025-07-31
Daniel Kahneman said most people make quick judgments and then try to prove themselves right. The wisest wait, gather facts, and trust their intuition last.
I recently learned that Kahneman passed away on March 27, 2024, though his death wasn’t announced until March 2025. He was best known for his work on System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is fast and automatic but prone to errors. System 2 is slower and more deliberate, used for careful thinking and problem-solving.
Last update: 2025-07-27
We build tools to create objects, ideas, and dreams. These tools and their creations slip quietly into our souls, remaking us into strangers to our former selves. As they can do good or harm, we must carefully design them. This can be a vicious cycle; thus, we must strive for a virtuous one.
Last update: 2025-07-24
Borges wrote and lectured extensively on the art of translation, holding that a translation may improve upon the original, may even be unfaithful to it, and that alternative and potentially contradictory renderings of the same work can be equally valid.
Last update: 2025-05-31
Concision is to mind what cleanliness is to the body. Concision, like cleanliness, plays a crucial role in personal and professional life. Just as cleanliness eliminates dirt and clutter from the body, concision eliminates unnecessary words and ideas from communication, leaving behind clear, precise, and effective messages.
A concise mind expresses ideas efficiently, avoiding redundancy or overcomplication—just as a clean body is free from excess grime. In both cases, the result is clarity, ease, and refinement.
Last update: 2024-05-07
Who should have the burden of proof?
In the end, do justly, the best you can—and keep course correcting. Remember what Dylan said: “All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”
Last update: 2025-05-31
Focus on a select group of techniques and internalize them until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail. After training in this manner we can see more frames in an equal amount of time so things feel slowed down. Waitzkin (2007)
Last update: 2024-01-05
To the beginner: practice without effort is not true practice; the practice needs great effort.
Practice little by little. When walking in a fog, you don’t realize you’re getting wet, but as you keep walking, you get wet little by little. When you get in a fog, it’s very difficult to dry yourself. Practicing slowly is the same; true progress is the result of slow practice, little by little.
When you keep this simple practice, you will obtain some wonderful powers. Before you attain it, it’s something wonderful, but after you attain it, it’s nothing special.
Stop and think: what is wonderful is the act of practice itself. Now you can restart and keep practicing.
When there’s no gaining idea in what you do, then you do something.
Forget all gaining ideas, all dualistic ideas. Just practice zazen in a certain posture.
Source: Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. (Suzuki, 2020)
Last update: 2023-August-11
A bullshit job is one that even the person doing it secretly believes need not, or should not, exist. That if the job, or even the whole industry, were to vanish, either it would make no difference to anyone, or the world might even be a slightly better place.
David Graeber lists five different categories of job types Graeber (2018):
Many jobs are pointless or most jobs have elements of pointless activities. Pay attention to the people and the positions they hold. If you identify any of the five types, do not waste your precious time. Most importantly if you discover your job is nothing but bs, you must find ways to deal with its latent consequences. Many people suffered from bs jobs and others occupied themselves with learning other skills (e.g. languages, programming, etc.) while holding bs jobs.
A bullshit job is one that even the person doing it secretly believes need not, or should not, exist. That if the job, or even the whole industry, were to vanish, either it would make no difference to anyone, or the world might even be a slightly better place. - David Graeber
Last update: 2025-05-31
Some problems come from life itself—they shape us, test us, make us stronger. Struggling with them gives the soul weight and meaning. But other problems are man-made—born of fear, control, and small minds. They do not lift us up; they drain us. In places ruled by politics and pretense, effort leads nowhere. Spirit fades. It is better to face real storms than to rot in still air. Better a hard truth than a quiet, comfortable lie.
Last update: 2025-05-04
The basic laws assert that (Cipolla (2019))
Intelligence and stupidity are not the opposite of one another, nor is stupidity the lack of intelligence, but intelligence is the product, more or less unsuccessful, of a continuous series of attempts to dominate, or escape, the stupidity that constitutes everything that is human — Matthijs Van Boxsel.
Last update: 2022-08-11
Some memory lapses occur because we become self-conscious. Let go of self-consciousness and allow the energy of the music, and of the fear and excitement of performing, to flow freely through our body and mind. Bruser & Menuhin (1999, p. 216).
We have one lifetime in which to express ourselves and to connect to others. A performance in that sense a microcosm of life: We have one one chance, and we want to give it everything we have. Bruser & Menuhin (1999, p. 227).
Last update: 2022-08-07
The Art of Practicing by (Bruser & Menuhin, 1999) contains wisdom and practical advise. Performance as a practice see page 216.
Volūmen is built with Pandoc, Python, and the open-source font Courier Prime.