Tell you what, it's good to be back. I've been completely offline for two weeks—and I mean properly offline, like 12-hour days heads-down in my laptop building this AI system I've been thinking about for two years. It's basically my version of JARVIS from Iron Man, starting with a knowledge graph that's consuming all my audio recordings, journals, chat logs, and constructing this interconnected web of my entire van life experience. And it's working. I can ask it "what are the top three things I learned on this journey?" and it just delivers on connecting the dots.

But eventually you have to come up for air. I've been in full recluse mode on mum's farm, and now the pendulum is swinging hard the other way because I've got a wedding on Rottnest Island (my best mate Ben is getting married), I'm getting Margot the Mercedes registered, and somehow in the space of two phone calls yesterday I ended up with work from two completely different friends—one wants me to do embedded systems programming for defence consulting, the other wants me to host a live game night event. Because I don't fit in a box, and that's fine.

This episode is about embracing the pendulum swing between deep work and showing up for people, the anxiety of returning to your home town as a different version of yourself, practicing conversations in your head that might never happen, and what it means to just follow your intuition even when it makes zero logical sense. Also: I rehearse conversations with myself so much I basically have an entire internal cast, and wedding anxiety when you're the single guy on an island full of couples.

Recorded: November 18, 2025

Well, this isn't exactly talking myself to sleep—I'm out walking a dog that looks like a cross between a dingo and a rat, the sun is shining, and I just came off a weekend where I learned to shear alpacas, built a massive AI-powered second brain, and had a weirdly significant milestone: I told my mom I didn't want to go to church.

I know that sounds ridiculous—I'm almost 35 and it shouldn't be a big deal—but sometimes you've got to acknowledge your wins where you find them, right? This episode is about holding your own space when you're back in family territory, the surprising complexity of alpaca behavior (they vomit green gunk when they're upset, by the way), and why I've been heads-down building this AI system that's consuming all my audio recordings, journals, and creating what I'm calling my "pièce de résistance" of AI projects.

There's also a conversation about getting voluntold for Saint Colin's alpaca shearing day, the state of the sheep industry in Australia, why my brother's Mercedes Sprinter is better than my van (but I'm not bitter), and what it means to have a software project that's been living in your head for years suddenly click into existence over four intense days. Plus: mom's spectacular inability to press record on her phone at the right moment, naked sheep running around the property, and why I haven't been posting as much on social media.

Recorded: November 9, 2025

After spending the day in my dressing gown building out my AI transcription pipeline, I'm feeling pretty good about this whole hermit-at-a-laptop lifestyle. I've just processed 35 gigabytes of audio from this year—conversations at chicken farms, numerology talks with energy healers, voice notes to myself I'd completely forgotten about—and watching it all get transcribed has been this weird nostalgic trip down memory lane.

But this episode isn't really about the tech (though I do geek out a bit about having this "army of assistants" to remember everything for me). It's more about realizing how little I actually need: somewhere to sleep, something to eat, and whatever mission I'm on that day. I'm thinking about van improvements (filtered water tap, better workspace ergonomics), reflecting on how subscription services bleed your money the same way social obligations bleed your time, and getting real about the anxiety I feel when people expect a piece of me just because I'm back in Perth. Sometimes I just don't tell people I'm in town, and yeah, I feel guilty about it, but I'm learning to protect my time the way I learned to protect my money.

Also: I'm apparently the eccentric artist type now, and I'm kind of okay with that.

Recorded: November 5, 2025

This one's a bit different. I'm out in the van at my mom's place, a few days between recordings, and I'm feeling this shift happening. After six months of just capturing everything - photos, video, audio, experiences - I'm finally getting to the curation phase. I spent all day going through my photos in Lightroom for the first time, and actually found 30-40 shots I'm happy with out of about 2,500. Not bad for a beginner who's been learning photography on my own.

I dive into this idea I've been chewing on about self-reliance and the pleasure of finding things out for yourself, inspired by Schopenhauer's writings. There's something about learning photography without leaning on my photographer friend Josh this time - just figuring it out myself, making my own mistakes, developing my own style. It's slower, less efficient, but it sticks. I also share about going up on stage at a local pub's open mic night (thanks, Mom), and how that turned into a surprisingly good time with the full band joining in for Johnny Cash and Robbie Williams covers.

But the real theme running through this episode is this realization that focusing entirely on myself for these past months has been necessary, but something's missing. I'm feeling this pull back toward contribution, toward doing work that matters for something bigger than just me. I talk about my university thesis building a robot for a kid who couldn't carry his own ventilator, past projects with social impact, and this emerging plan to create a website as a hub for everything I'm working on. It's not the most cohesive episode - I'm tired, rambling a bit, comparing it to brain fog - but that's kind of the point of this podcast anyway.

Recorded November 3rd, 2025

I'm gonna level with you here—the last couple days I've been in a weird headspace. I've been struggling with vulnerability and a bit of overwhelm, which sounds ridiculous to say, but that's the nature of getting stuck in your head, right? It becomes so much bigger than it actually is.

Here's what's happening: I posted a video on TikTok about cold approaching a woman at the beach, and for the first time in this whole journey, I edited it. I chopped bits out. I overthought how it would land. And then I made it private again because I got scared. That's such a different headspace from where I've been with pretty much everything else I've posted, where I just turn on the camera and go for it without a second take.

This whole experiment—the TikTok, the podcast, all of it—has really been about trying to find a safe space to just be me without putting on a mask. And honestly? If you've listened to all the podcast episodes up until now, you probably know me better than most people who've been in my life to date. That's both terrifying and weirdly comforting. I'm trying to figure out what balance looks like between showing up authentically and not getting so in my head about how it'll be interpreted.

Today was one of those days that makes you believe in synchronicity. I woke up in Denmark to write my morning pages by the river, and what started as a quiet morning turned into a cascade of meaningful encounters—an ultra-marathon runner turned board game shop owner, a woman who lost her mind on a hike and found her soul (then disappeared like Yoda), and a meadery owner who left me with the perfect parting wisdom.

I also announced the podcast today after a week of recording in secret. Nobody knew I was doing this until this morning when I posted on TikTok. It's been this weird experiment of creating in the void while simultaneously journaling privately, recording audio logs, and posting video updates on slightly different timelines. I've basically got no shot at remembering where I'm up to with what.

But mostly, this episode is about that shift I'm noticing—how I'm actually comfortable with my own company now. I can sit at the edge of a cliff or alone in the forest and feel genuinely content instead of constantly seeking validation. That's new. That's actually really new. And it's changing everything about how I show up in the world.

Also, I'm camped in a national park by a river with no phone service, tucked into my van with a little camp light on, and I've never felt more at home.

I'm in Denmark tonight, which is apparently where all the barefoot, star-sign-tattoo people congregate on the south coast. It's beautiful but a touch cold.

Here's the thing though: I deleted all my dating apps months ago, but I also challenge myself to always approach someone if I'm interested in talking to them. So what happens when those two things collide?

Also, I've been looking at real estate around here—just browsing, thinking about potential places to eventually settle—and I've noticed how quickly that shifts everything. Suddenly it's not "how do I want to live?" it's "how would I pay for it?" and there's this tightening that happens, this scarcity thing around money that I haven't fully worked through yet.

Oh, and I quietly published the first few episodes of this podcast without telling anyone.

Tonight I'm recording from Bremer Bay, wrapping up my time in this beautiful little coastal town where I've met some incredible locals. I spent the morning learning how to build a rock wall with Leo (yes, that's the SAS/hippie commune/energy worker guy I've been staying with), had tea with Jody in her mum's incredible hand-built stone house, and met two travelers from England who are doing van life very differently than I am.

But the real thread running through today is this question that's been gnawing at me: did I actually need to quit my entire life and move into a van to learn what I'm learning? I'm wrestling with this realization that all the insights I'm having about presence, intentionality, and mindfulness—they don't actually require living in a van. You could figure this stuff out without the dramatic life change. And yet, I don't know if I personally could have gotten here without doing exactly what I did. It's a bit of a mind-bender, and I'm still working it out.

Also, there are mosquitoes the size of small aircraft in my van, and I'm definitely getting a mosquito net situation sorted out.

@_ad8d on TikTok

So I accidentally became a minor celebrity in Bremer Bay today by finishing a puzzle that had been stumping the entire town for two months. What started as a quick bathroom stop at the community center turned into four and a half hours of hyperfocus on a thousand-piece orca puzzle that was basically fifty shades of blue. Now my photo's going in the local newsletter and apparently I've earned some street cred with the locals.

But that's just one slice of today. I also had wine and steak with Leo—my SAS-veteran-turned-hippie-farmer-turned-energy-healer friend—got stood up by an art teacher (but we're rescheduling), went for a freezing swim at the beach, and had one of those deep, emotionally mature phone conversations with my person that reminds me what healthy communication actually looks like. Tomorrow I'm learning to build rock walls, possibly getting an energy healing session, and trying not to skip out on weeding duties.

This is what happens when you let the day unfold without forcing it. Sometimes you meet everyone in a small town, sometimes you finish their puzzle, and sometimes you just vibe with whatever shows up.

@_ad8d on TikTok

I woke up before dawn in Bremer Bay to write my morning pages by the beach, and what started as a quiet morning turned into one of those days that makes you believe in synchronicity. Within hours of sitting at the only dry table in town, I'd met a dozen locals who felt like kindred spirits—artists, former teachers, ex-SAS soldiers turned energy healers, and people who'd accidentally ended up here when their vans broke down 13 years ago and just... stayed.

This episode is about those weird moments when you're questioning whether you're getting too far out there with your "finding yourself" journey, and then the universe decides to seat you at a table with people who are on the exact same wavelength. I talk about meeting Jodie the artist (who's given away a dozen copies of The Artist's Way), spending the evening with Leo (who has both his SAS hat and his energy healer conference badge hanging in his workshop), and somehow ending up with plans to learn how to build a rock wall and get an energy healing session.

It's about what happens when you stop planning and start following those weird gut pulls to places you've never heard of. Also, there's a surprisingly intense subplot about acquiring the last sourdough loaf in town.

@_ad8d on TikTok

Tonight I'm processing an hour and a half conversation I just had with my brother, and it's got me thinking about how much we've both changed since we were kids. He's two years younger than me, and I used to give him hell for being the sensitive one. Now we're both in our thirties, navigating manhood together, and I'm realizing what a gift it is to have someone who shares that unique context of our upbringing.

But this conversation also has me reflecting on why I'm even in this van in the first place. I don't think I've really talked about the genesis of all this - why I packed up my entire life in Sydney and decided to spend time alone with myself for the first time ever. It came from realizing I wasn't comfortable in my own skin, that I was looking for completion in other people, and that I needed to figure out who the hell I am before I could show up properly in relationships or know what I actually want from life.

I'm also getting into some thoughts on masculinity, the total failure of our culture to initiate boys into men, and why so many guys in their late twenties and early thirties have no idea what they want. Spoiler: it's because we're only just starting to ask the questions we should have been exploring years ago. Plus some updates on where I'm headed next in Western Australia and why coming back here always used to fill me with dread - but maybe not this time.

@_ad8d on TikTok

So this is it—my first official episode. I've been recording audio logs and voice notes for months now, just capturing this whole journey of leaving my tech job in the city and figuring out what comes next. But tonight, lying here (very tired) in my van near the jetty in Esperance, I got too excited about an idea to sleep: what if I just did what I've been doing anyway—crawling into bed with a microphone and downloading whatever's spinning around in my brain—but actually shared it?

In this episode, I talk about why TikTok has become this unexpected space where I can just be authentically myself without the weight of everyone's expectations. I reflect on what it felt like to move to Sydney 13 years ago with just a suitcase and one friend, and how starting fresh on social media feels like getting off that plane all over again. I'm figuring out what resonates with people—apparently it's my voice and storytelling—and I'm learning to lean into that instead of overthinking it. There's also kangaroos, fish and chips, lucky sand from the beach, and the realization that some people just want to hear me talk about... well, anything really. So here we are.

@_ad8d on TikTok