ABC of my mind.
I first learned about abecedariums from my dear friend Randy Hunt (see R for more on him). It’s not quite a blog, not quite a journal. Just a space to collect the things I’m curious about, the things I’ve learned, and the things that, for whatever reason, have stuck with me.
A
Abecadarium - According to Wikipedia an abecedarium is "an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order.
Ambition - “is a word that lacks any real ambition”, writes David Whyte in his essay.
B
Ben Dimson - I was surprised to learn, after finding my 964, that the designer behind its timeless lines—Ben Dimson—was Filipino. He led the exterior design of the 964, the 959, the 944 Turbo, and the 928 S4—some of the most iconic shapes in Porsche’s history. He began by studying Industrial Engineering at Adamson University in Manila, then went on to earn a degree in Transportation Design from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. As someone who cares deeply about feel, proportion, and restraint, it means something to know that a Filipino designed the car I love to drive.
Books - Books are magic (also the name of one of my favorite bookstores). From Francis Su in Mathematics for Human Flourishing, I learned that math can be poetic—and that it’s never too late to reclaim something you were once told wasn’t yours. From Carlo Rovelli in The Order of Time, I learned that time is more fluid than we think, and that physics can feel like philosophy when written with care. From Paul Kalanithi in When Breath Becomes Air, I learned that facing death can sharpen what matters most—and that a surgeon can write like a poet when the stakes are real.
Boutique - It’s hard to find places to stay made with intentional design and good taste. Boutique was started by my friend Marc Blazer after getting tired of scrolling through short-term rentals that all felt the same. I’ve stayed in Boutique homes in Hvar, Idyllwild, Milan, and Venice Beach—each one felt like someone I’d want to hang out with had lived there. And many of them do. They reject nearly 90% of the homes submitted. I like that kind of curation. It’s the Colette to Airbnb’s Walmart. Full disclosure: I’m on Marc’s advisory board.
C
Coffee -
Community - Having written a book on the topic, I’m often asked for my thoughts. I dislike the word. It means so much that it no longer means much. I think the trouble with the word community is how still it is—how it waits, how it names the thing as if it were already built. I prefer communal. It asks more of us. It’s not passive. It’s presence, yes—but also participation. Consistently showing up for each other. Building with, not for.
CBT - Cognitive Behavior Therapy taught me to notice the space between what happens and how I respond. It showed me that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are deeply interconnected. I am not my thoughts. I don’t have to act how I feel. How I behave is in my control. Like mental strength training, one rep at a time. The CBT series on Sam Harris’ Waking Up was the clearest and most helpful explaination I’ve found.
D
Dede - Andrea and Daria—Dede—are the couple behind Chez Dede. We’ve shared late Roman dinners together, but hadn’t yet collaborated in any meaningful way. One night, Andrea—who speaks less English than I speak Italian, and is usually quiet until he isn’t—suddenly launched into a passionate monologue. When he finished, I asked Daria what he’d said. She laughed and told me: Andrea was frustrated that I kept calling myself a hobbyist photographer. That I seemed to flinch at the word artist. He said there’s no certificate that makes someone an artist—and that if I couldn’t trust them when they said I was, then I never would be. At the time, I still thought of myself as a tech guy. But they saw me before I did. They saw the person I didn’t yet know I could become.
Demetria - A small handbag company started by my friend Mai, made piano piano—slowly, with love—in Florence by artisans who craft each bag start to finish. No factories. No markup theater. Just quality, care, and traceability. Loro Piana, often held up as the gold standard of quiet luxury, was recently accused of using undocumented workers paid a fraction of what the brand charges. At Dior, a €3,500 bag might cost a few hundred to make. Demetria is more like Hermès at the beginning—human, focused, patient.
Dome - My friend Chris Begg told me about the Costa Rica Thermal Dome—a marine phenomenon just offshore from Nosara, where cold, nutrient-rich water rises to meet warm surface currents. It creates one of the most biodiverse ocean zones in the world. It’s like a giant eat-all-you-can buffet for marine animals like whales, turtles, dolphins and big schools of fish. You can’t see it, but you can feel it—the richness, the rhythm, the life beneath the surface. Maybe that’s one reason why Nosara feels so alive.
Donald Brink - I was lucky to be introduced to Donny by my friend and surf mentor, Asher King. Donny shapes asymmetrical surfboards—each one personal, intentional, and made with full attention. He asked me what album to listen to while shaping, what colors inspired me, even my inseam. His asymmetry makes sense: I ride left foot forward, and we move differently on our toes than our heels. His boards don’t magically make me better—but they never get in the way.
E
Eric Lee - Eric Lee is a master mechanic who owns and runs Lee’s Autoworks out in Oshawa. He doesn’t make promises, doesn’t oversell, and doesn’t get rattled. He’s calm, steady, experienced—and his shop isn’t clogged with a months-long queue like so many closer to the city. His rates are fair. It’s reassuring that he’s restoring a 911 of his own. I like that he’s not trying to impress anyone. He just does careful work, and lets that speak for itself.
F
Family - Chris (Begg) taught me to use acronyms—to better understand a word, or to hold onto an idea. My acronym for family is: Flourishing As Multiple Individuals Lovingly Yielding. That’s what I hope we’re doing. Each of us growing, separately and together.
G
Get Together - The first thing I ever made that you could actually feel, hold, touch—not click, swipe, or like. A real artifact. Co-writing it with my buds, Bailey and Kevin, was pure joy. And being published by Stripe Press. An honour I’ll always carry.
I
Influence - Gil Blank’s magazine Influence didn’t just inform my photography—it unsettled it. In the best way. It challenged me to question what I see, why I see it, and what I’m asking others to see with me. We met surfing in Nosara. Later, he sent me both issues of Influence, now out of print. With them, he included a note: “Kai, Sending two copies of Influence, made during the (past) golden age of print mags. Independently run, very short-lived, and molded on the great artist magazines of the ’50s–’70s: Semina, Avalanche, and above all, Interfunktion. The second issue is particularly for you—all about the viability of portraiture.” You can still read the essays on Gil’s website. I return to them often.
Intention - When I begin a project, I don’t start with a mood board, a brainstorming session or a Pinterest folder. I start with a letter. I’ve learned that this approach is uncommon. It’s short—just a page—and I send it to the full team: architect, builder, designer, collaborators. In it, I write out five intentions. Not deliverables. Not design inspirations. Intentions. A way to align everyone on what we’re really making—not just the thing, but the feeling inside it. I have an idea for my next book, with a working title of Intentionally Home.
Italy - In Italy, I feel like the person I want to become. Italy means little if you don’t carry it with you. You don’t just visit—it reveals something in you that was already there. Life here doesn’t perform for you—it pulls you in. You’re not observing, you’re part of it. Even the airport has a café bar at baggage claim. That tells you everything.
M
Mobility - No one tears their six-pack or pecs playing on the weekend—it’s always the joints. Shoulders, knees, ankles, spine. Mobility is strength at the end range of flexibility. I want to surf for life, so I train to move well, not just look strong. A podcast with the founder of Gymnastic Bodies changed how I think about fitness. Strength isn’t just power—it’s control, resilience, and range.
Money - We should teach our kids how money works—compounding, exponential growth, paying yourself first. But knowledge alone isn’t enough. Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money nails it: how we feel about money shapes how we use it. That emotional relationship matters more than the math. Every year, I sit down and journal my personal definition of what it means to be poor. Not just financially—but emotionally, viscerally, practically. For me, it might mean not being able to buy a new surfboard or take friends out to dinner. This ritual reminds me of what I already have. It grounds me in gratitude and helps me recognize when I have enough.
P
Porsche -
Problem - People often miscategorize their problems. Complicated problems are like Tetris—they can be broken down, sequenced, solved. Complex problems are more like a ball of yarn—you don’t untangle them all at once, you start by pulling the thread you can see. The trouble comes when we mix them up. We try to unpack complexity like it’s a puzzle, or treat a complicated task like it’s all mystery. But the real trap is staying stuck in one mode. Learning to surf, for example, starts out feeling complex—but with the right teacher, it becomes technical and learnable. Until it isn’t. If you keep solving it like a puzzle, you’ll plateau. At some point, you have to switch: stop thinking, start feeling. I’ve seen this everywhere—from creative work to aging. Sometimes, the real growth is in knowing when to change how you solve.
R
Randy Hunt - Randy and I met when he first moved to Singapore—a mutual friend asked me to help him land. We got to know each other over bagels in our Novena neighborhood, both missing New York-style bagels (though I still think Montreal does it better). He inspires me not just for his design expertise, but for how he listens more than he speaks, and stays more interested than interesting. Thanks for letting me steal your Abecadarium, Randy.
S
Sabbatical - I might be a master sabbatical taker. I’ve taken close to ten over the course of my career. The first was inspired by my eBay colleague, Andrew Sloss, who took a four-month parental leave—at a time when very few men did. I followed his lead. Since then, I’ve taken time off for all kinds of reasons—and sometimes for no reason at all, other than to lie fallow. I came across the essay The Case for Lying Fallow by Bonnie Tsui in the New York Times, and it stayed with me. Years later, we met while surfing in Costa Rica. We’ve been close friends ever since. I love her books Why We Swim and On Muscle, but that first essay planted a seed. In farming, to lie fallow means to let the soil rest so it can grow again. We forget we need that too. Stillness isn’t empty. It’s where imagination returns. Where creativity breathes. Where the self quietly reassembles. We don’t always need more. Sometimes, we just need less—on purpose.
Surfing - I love surfing. It’s so fun—and so hard, especially to learn as an adult. It looks mystical from the outside, and in many ways, it is. But there are patterns. And you need good coaches—people who can hand you the encryption key. I was lucky to meet Ru early on; he went on to build Surf Simply, the best technical surf coaching resort I know. If I could do it again, I’d start with bodysurfing—because surfing isn’t really about standing up, it’s about knowing the ocean. Herbert of Ocean Moves teaches exactly that: before anything else, learn the water. Mitch of Bennett Method taught me the power of breath—how staying mindful of my inhales and exhales changes everything. And I do want to perform. That’s where Alex of Initiative Surf comes in—he’s been my consistent coach, pushing me to understand the foundations of high-performance surfing.
System - James Clear said, “You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” I’ve found that to be true—across work, movement, creativity, even how I show up for my family. Goals are nice. But systems are what hold you on the days you forget the goal. A journaling practice. A daily meditation practice. Good sweat. Better sleep. A morning without a phone. That’s the system. And when I get it right, I don’t have to try so hard to be the person I want to become. The system nudges me there.
Z
Z - As a Canadian, I pronounce it as “zed” though I will understand if you say “zee”.