# Life Notes: Six Months, Still Here *Six months in, still circling the big questions* By [On The Hierarchy Of Clouds](https://paragraph.com/@othoc) · 2025-04-04 --- It’s been six months in Mexico City. That’s hard to believe and also not hard at all. Some days still feel like arrival. Others like I’ve always been here. I found myself sitting on a fallen tree in the middle of a forest outside the city. It must have been close to 80 meters long, collapsed but still powerful, surrounded by others just as tall still standing. There was something disorienting about its size, its stillness. Like time had paused just long enough for it to fall with grace. I sat there for a while, not really thinking, just listening. The scale of it made me quiet. Made the whole city feel far away. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ba4271a8ee7039ceaaaa7355838e047e.jpg) I’ve been thinking about what it means to look back while still moving forward. These months have pulled things out of me I didn’t expect. I’ve missed structure. I’ve missed deep conversations about work that matters. I’ve missed knowing how to explain myself. But I’ve also remembered what I love. Riding through the city with no destination. Fixing something with my hands. Drawing something over and over. The bike shop has taught me more than I thought it would. About care, patience, intuition. About listening to the subtle friction between chain and cog. There’s something about bikes. They don’t rush you but they move. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/29110d810353c36ee047ef4a2e861289.jpg) On Sundays the city does something ‘crazy’. It closes whole roads, clears the traffic, opens the streets to people. Eighty, ninety, sometimes a hundred thousand cyclists, runners, skaters and strollers take over. It’s not an event. It’s just what happens. I ride through it and feel something shift. Like this is what cities could be. What they were meant to hold. I try to imagine it in London or Sydney and struggle. The joy of movement without urgency. People gliding, chatting, pausing in the middle of the street without flinching. A temporary world where the rules are rewritten just enough to remind us that change is possible. I keep wondering if I used these months well. If I made the most of them. I’ve met people. Seen things. Started making again. But part of me wonders if I should have kept moving. More travel. More doing. More stories. That slippery fear of missing something else never really leaves. Maybe it’s just what happens when you stop long enough to notice you’re still choosing. Lately my thoughts about work have stretched beyond my own career. It’s not just about finding the next role or a better title. I’ve been wondering what comes after employment altogether. What happens when we stop pretending that jobs are the only way to contribute, to survive, to matter. If employment is no longer the centre of the social contract, then what holds it all together. Maybe we’re already past the edge of that old world and just haven’t admitted it. Maybe our work now is to imagine what comes next. An economy based on care, creativity, community. A world where value isn’t measured by output, and governance is something we practice together, not something done to us. The tools are here. The crisis is already underway. The future won’t be handed to us. We’ll have to write it. Somewhere in the background I’ve been making too. Released my first [zine](https://scttee.substack.com/p/above-us-only-soil). (I even made some money, thanks for those who supported me!) Started sketching out a new one. Helping with a friend’s garden design business. Designing a workshop for a London council on decision-making and collaboration. Reading more about how we govern across boundaries; especially in a world that might be drifting beyond employment. That’s where the next zine is heading. _‘What a biocentric policy for cities could look like’_ (what a mouthful) is starting to take shape. I keep reading about AI and most of it feels backwards. Everyone’s asking what it will do to us. To jobs. To institutions. To thinking. But the more interesting question is what do we do because of it. How does it change what we expect from the systems we’ve already outgrown. Could we use it to write with the voice of a mountain or a river or a forest. Could we use it to design futures that aren’t just digitised copies of the present. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/6ed06d9555f9fd8ee23abfe3c83a024b.jpg) It’s hard to know where I fit in all of this. I keep trying to catch a glimpse of the version of me that exists ten years from now. What he’s doing. What he’s fighting for. What he’s making with his hands. But it all feels blurry. Too many directions. Not enough money. It’s the start of a new month. Another decision point and still no map. I don’t know what comes next. I’m tired of saying that like it’s a problem. Maybe what matters is that I’m still paying attention. --- *Originally published on [On The Hierarchy Of Clouds](https://paragraph.com/@othoc/life-notes-six-months-still-here)*