Kitchen, road, studio
The kitchen as alchemy
The kitchen is closer to alchemy than routine for me: strawberries that work perfectly with black pepper, a Chinese silk steamed omelette, pho bo from scratch, homemade onigiri, kimchi from my own ferment. Ask instead what I have not cooked.
A useful side effect for work: cooking cures perfectionism. A dish is done when it is served.
Behind the wheel
I like driving out into nature. The road holds just enough attention to let go of work, without asking for effort.
On paper, I have been driving since eighteen.
Music in FL Studio
I write tracks in FL Studio: synthwave, trap, pop, whatever wants out in the moment. Building a track from nothing matters more than releasing it.
The pull toward sound runs in the family: my father was a radio amateur, and I grew up among amplifiers and Soviet synthesizers.
Canine behaviour
Velar lives with me. I read about dog behaviour and watch for the calming signals described by Turid Rugaas: a yawn, a nose lick, a head turn, walking in an arc around an unfamiliar dog.
It once came in handy in a lecture I gave on non-verbal communication. Watching creatures negotiate without words is more useful than it sounds, meeting rooms included.
Extreme vocals
I do extreme vocals: screams and growls. References: Thirty Seconds to Mars, Bullet for My Valentine, Bring Me the Horizon. Raised on 2007 culture and actively bringing it back.
Breath and technique keep me present: mid warm-up, the work chats are clearly out of focus. Same discipline as the kitchen: the result is audible right away, and no amount of willpower speeds it up.
Curiosity
I listen to lectures almost non-stop, mostly on neuroscience and anthropology: how attention works, where habits come from, why some reward loops hook people and others do not.
It works as more than background. The neuroscience of attention and motivation feeds directly into how I design game mechanics: the better you understand what holds a person's attention, the more precisely you can build a mission, a reward, and the moment that brings them back.