Reintroducing: Subject to Change

This is Fei's newsletter, where she writes about stuff that's important to her and that she wants to share with the world. Welcome aboard 🎡

Hey y’all… It’s me, Fei! It's been way too long!! Way. And we have lots to catch up on.

For first-time receivers of my newsletter:

Hello there!

You may not remember me (Fei) or why you signed up. Perhaps you signed up because of PKM/note-taking, or urban planning, or my work at Tana… or a vague promise made by the title of my newsletter. Regardless, thanks for the sub ❤️ I’m grateful to those of you who jumped aboard even when the author hasn't written for over two years!

I expect a bunch of you to unsubscribe as soon as I send this update. This is totally OK, do what you need to protect your inboxes. However, for those of you who are opting to stay: Welcome aboard!

The TL;DR

Let’s jump right into it. Here's a post (or cast as they call it on Farcaster) that summarizes my 2025 so far:

Text on cast from @feeei: “2025 so far: ✅ got married 😍 ✅ got a new car 🚙 ✅ got a baby in the oven 🤰🏻 ✅ thrifted a butter dish 🧈 Feeling high on life!”

In what seems to now be a tradition in my newsletter, so much has changed, as usual. The last post I wrote on my newsletter was over two years ago after another big life thingy:

Writing about my surgery is hard (pt. 1)

Part 2 never came, because I then went full steam into my work at Tana. I tend to do that: drop everything to go hard on a thing for a while. Turns out this is a neurodivergent trait that I’ll have to unpack in a separate newsletter one day. And speaking of Tana… my final big life update:

After nearly three incredible years, my time at Tana has wrapped up and I’m stepping into something new… ✨

This decision doesn't come lightly, but these next months will be some of the last before my husband and I become parents, and I wanted flexibility to pursue my own projects before our lives are changed forever.

Quick plug:

What’s next? One of the things I'm starting is my own humble practice focused on offering personal coaching for anyone who wants to get started with Tana or build their own digital knowledge system. Helping people succeed in this way was always my favourite part of the work I did at Tana, so it's a service I'd like to continue to provide.

Interested?

After all this change, a re-introduction is in order

With so many new faces (and the fact that I've changed too), I think we could all benefit from being re-introduced and re-acquainted with each other.

who am i / life snapshot

HELLO, my name is Fei 👋

Currently located in📍Toronto, Canada

I am a blend of cultures: norwegian, canadian, chinese... I also have interest-based connections to dutch, indian, japanese, korean, and latin-american culture.

Mind: Discovered about two years ago that I likely have a fun mix of ADHD and Autism. Since accepting this, learning about both has made my life so much better. Will likely not pursue diagnosis, but my life is forever changed with this knowledge.

Body: Been through a lot these past years. Surgery, recovery, and now pregnancy! I take physical fitness more seriously, and have newfound respect for the innate intelligence of our bodies. I used to take it for granted, now no more.

Spirit: I'm feeling more aligned and myself than ever. It's not been easy to get here and there is still work to do. When I compare the present day to my low-point at age 30/the year 2015, this decade has been a riot. The happiest and most life-dense decade I've lived so far. ALSO: I turn 40 in a month 😱.... nah j/k. I'm actually looking forward to turning 40 😃 promise. I really am. Especially if it's more of the same.

Me in a nutshell: I love good bread and butter.

why i write / what I write about

I find this quote sums up nicely why I write:

writing isn't about receiving praise. It's about leaving parts of yourself for others to discover. —Stepfanie at WILD BARE THOUGHTS

To expand on this:

• Life is so weird. For the longest time I walked around this Earth thinking that the issues and quandaries I had in life were unique. Technically they are. Then I discovered the blog Brain Pickings, now called The Marginalian, that showcased all this deep writing from authors who were able to put words to their inner life… and what a weird world it opened up. Weirdness is normal! What a relief.

• I also found myself greatly relating to writing from perspectives I found myself sharing: being “euro”, being BIPOC, being a third culture kid, being an immigrant, being part of a diaspora. They added more words to my vocabulary about my life experience.

• I came to writing originally because I was frustrated with urban planning and wanted to re-educate myself. But to do that, I had to learn how I learn, and how to think critically. This led to writing, as writing is (for many, and for myself) thinking. And writing about cities led me to develop an interest in many adjacent topics.

So, to summarize why I write:

• I write to develop my own voice and to get to know it better

• I write to discover what all those perspectives, interests and life experiences look like when smashed together in writing

• I write to process what I’m learning, discovering, and thinking deeply about

• I write for the potential of others to discover something they didn’t know about themselves

Even though I haven’t actively been writing publicly, I’ve been writing a lot for myself, so I’ve been filling my cup with the top three points. Now, I feel ready to start filling the fourth cup by sharing this with the world again.

I continue to be interested by: patterns of beauty, meaning and human constructs. Understanding how they emerge helps me understand stuff like cities, culture, civilization, communication… anything that informs me of how the beauty in our world is created is what I’m interested in. It’s not ideal to explain in mere keywords, so hoping my future writing and various upcoming projects will speak for themselves!

What now?

There are several things that excite me right now: Starting a consultancy, sharing what I’ve learned about neurodivergence and pregnancy, vibe-coding, maybe even making videos again… who knows what I’ll do next? But I’m excited to get started with said projects, and to share with you all how things are going. The only way to find out what’s next is to stay tuned ✌️

I’d love to hear from you in the comments:

• say hi and (re)introduce yourself!

• what’s been the biggest thing that happened in your life the past two years

• what are you currently working on

Thanks for reading all the way to the end, and hope to see you again soon in the next letter.

Cheers 💌

Fei

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