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Welcome to the Extra Practice Newsletter, a semi-regular letter that shares whats going on in and around XP as well as the thoughts and feelings of its six members. ✼✼✼✼✼✼✼✼ December 2025 Newsletter
Hello Old Friends, New Friends, Strangers, Future Friends, It’s Ben here writing this to you on Friday the 19th of December at 10:07am. I'm currently sitting at my parents kitchen table, where are you? I hope you're feeling good and looking forward to a break. I have just returned from a walk I often do when I'm visiting Cornwall between Poltesco and Cadgwith. It was raining all day yesterday but the clouds float lighter in the sky today and vivid blue seeps out from in-between them. I saw a seal, five ponies and many birds whilst walking along the coast. The waves moved underneath the surface of the water at a heavy, lumbering pace and exploded when they fell upon the rocks. It's the end of the year which I always have mixed feelings about.
Geese in a field
This year has been a tumultuous one for me (as well as probably 99% of everyone else) and one that has forced me to examine some of my priorities when it comes to life and work. After what could be quite appropriately described as a burnout, I took a step back from everything. I quit, I postponed, I dropped out, I became reliably unreliable. Cut loose from responsibilities, I would like to describe that time as good and free, which in part it was. But my professional quitting was done out of a necessity. Since it happened I've taken to doing more things at home, not only because I'm socially tired but because I think it's important that I spend a large quantity of my day looking out the window at the birds in the trees and watching the clouds pass by in the sky. Unfortunately, staring out the window won't pay my rent and after spending several years in relative financial stability, I am now back to drifting, unanchored from income streams, and only able to stay afloat because of savings. Yet still, I feel it is more important than ever to gaze out of windows as well as climb, surf and walk (i.e not work) as much as possible. I bought a Playstation 5, which for me is the height of unproductivity and prioritised play. I feel the acute pressure to earn a living and to contribute bearing down on me but I just want to go to the beach all the time. What’s changed? Has my motivation left me? Will it return and soon I’ll be back on track or am I now traveling to a different destination entirely? |
