I offered this confession as part of my confirmation into the Mennonite Church of Haarlem. While I recognize a few details that make me chuckle or cringe, much of what I believe today is reflected in the words below. At the time, I believed this church was the most at-home I would ever be able to feel at church. After I moved away to Amsterdam, and after years of being a spiritual nomad, I discovered All Saints.

“I’ve heard someone compare it to the relationship between a parent and a child. I imagine a child wanting to create a birthday card for his mother, opting to draw her portrait on the cover. Does that child draw a lifelike portrait of his mother? No, but it sure is endearing. I just want to draw the most beautiful portrait I can with the colors I got from my Mother.”

Christmas break is passing by me like it passes by an ambitious teenager. I greeted all the things I could do with great enthusiasm. Sadly, that feeling quickly turned into terror once I realised two weeks isn’t that long and I need to sleep.

Ryan Holiday describes the how and why of his ‘Commonplace Book’, a collection of quotes and other pieces of text written down on index cards. I, too, have been keeping such a system since I started college. I always carry a few cards when I’m out and about, held together by bulldog clips.

Remember those times when you were at the store, and as your mother went about her shopping, you were attracting attention to your little self by doing something foolish, bringing soft smiles to all the surrounding adults, except for this one asshole? I have a growing suspicion that I am that person.

This is a list of things I truly have no opinion on. It’s not that I have a negative opinion and I’m just sugarcoating it by saying I don’t have one. These are things of which, when I think about them, I am baffled to know they don’t trigger any form of criticism or evaluation.