Xiluluke's Weekend Letter Vol. 01

Keywords:

• Minimalism
• Inertia
• Intermittent Fasting
• Self-awareness
• Creativity

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Hi, I'm Xiluluke, and this is a weekly column I'm starting this week.

Unlike my nightly posts, the weekly letter gathers what I think was most worth sharing from the past week and puts it all in one place for you.

Of course, don't take the word "weekly" too seriously. As the name "Xiluluke's Weekend Letter" suggests, think of it as a friend sharing the thoughts they found interesting over the past week.

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The Main Feature

Minimalism's Biggest Enemy Might Be Inertia

On Thursday night I was at home, deep in building my own feed-management app with Claude Code. Vibe Coding is a brand-new field for me, and I was hooked the moment I started, because it gives you the satisfaction of actually making something.

But once the basic features were done and I set out to improve the app further, I hit a wall. All the requirements I'd planned were already met. To make the app richer, I'd have to push my own thinking and creativity further so I could keep making decisions.

By ten o'clock my head ached from hours of nonstop decisions. Then all of a sudden it felt like I'd dropped into a pit, and I didn't want to do it anymore.

That's right. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to give up, or just call it a day. What I had already worked, after all.

The moment that thought popped up, it felt familiar.

When I'm learning something, if I feel my current level is good enough and life hasn't reached the point where I have to learn something new, I don't want to learn. Losing weight and working out are the same. I'm not so heavy that it's unacceptable, so I don't try hard. For anything that hadn't reached the point where I had no choice but to change, I could never really focus on it.

I always thought this was about willpower. But that night, lying back in my chair, it suddenly seemed more like inertia. It's not that I don't want to get better. Keeping things as they are is like a huge invisible hand. It tells me everything's fine, makes me numb to the excess, and slowly dulls my sense of what matters and what doesn't.

That surprised me a little, because I'd always thought minimalism's biggest enemy was consumerism, or wanting things. But wanting things is visible. It's easy to spot and fight. Inertia is invisible. It doesn't push you to buy anything or want anything. It just keeps you where you are, feeling like this is fine.

Every time I go from fired up to suddenly deflated and end up settling, I lose one more chance to change myself. There have been far too many moments like that.

That night I didn't shut the laptop. I sat back up and kept going for another hour. Not because I'd overcome anything. Just because for the first time I could clearly see what was holding me back.

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Lighter Bits

On Fitness

This past week I tried a new way of eating. You could call it intermittent fasting, though a bit stricter.

Breakfast is still oats, eggs and unsweetened soy milk. Lunch is whatever home cooking is around, with as little oil as possible. The big change is dinner: I either skip it or just have a glass of protein shake.

I know plenty of people eat this way. But what I want to share isn't the change in my diet. It's how I pulled it off.

I'd tried fasting or liquid-only dinners a few times before, and every time I failed. Twenty-some years of eating habits told me I had to eat at night. So whenever I skipped dinner I didn't just feel hungry. I felt off all over, like I'd left something important undone, itchy and restless.

So how did I manage this time? It was simple: I gave my evening self something to do. In the past I could never find anything to do at night. The time just slipped away on all sorts of things. A few games, some scrolling on my phone, a bit of time on the computer. One thing, then another. It felt like I was doing everything and nothing at all.

In that state I'd remember I hadn't eaten dinner yet, then keep wondering what to eat, and inevitably end up with a big greasy meal.

And a big greasy dinner is always a serious threat to the number on the scale the next morning.

So if you want to control your appetite, try getting rid of your idle time.

I spend that time reading, writing, chatting with AI and Vibe Coding. What you do doesn't matter. What matters is that you get absorbed in it and the time flies.

The only downside is that lately I get really, really hungry at night.

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This Week's Picks

Don't go make something useful. Make something you think is fun, because someone already made the useful stuff. — Fanfan

This line from Fanfan hit me pretty hard. At heart I'm still a bit of a pragmatist, and I rarely stop to ask whether something is fun.

Cut the uncertain words from your sentences, words like "probably," "maybe," and "perhaps." This is how you connect with your own heart and learn to stand by what you believe. — Writing Down the Bones

I used to absolutely love words like that. Lately I've started deliberately cutting these words of uncertainty out of my writing. I believe in what I believe.