Every Sunday, I share a few of my learnings, reflections, and curiosities from the week. Things I stumbled upon, things I questioned, things that made me look twice. It’s not about being right or complete… it’s about noticing, wondering, and learning out loud.

Thanks for reading. I hope it sparks something for you too.

The Rides I couldn’tride

For the past few years, we’ve ended our Summer Holiday with the kids by going to an amusement park. This year it was Phantasialand. The kids (and my wife) love the rides. The crazier, the better. I also like them, but my body clearly doesn’t. After just three rides yesterday, sometime around noon, I had to quit. The rest of the day I was reduced to bag-watcher.

Why does this happen? Why do some people float through loops and drops while others stagger off pale and queasy?

The answer lies in the vestibular system; the tiny balance organs in our inner ear. They’re filled with fluid and microscopic hairs that sense acceleration and position. On a wild ride, your eyes and your inner ear often disagree: your eyes see “we’re spinning upside down at 80 km/h,” while your inner ear feels something else entirely. The brain tries to resolve the contradiction and, failing, concludes: “something is wrong.” The result? Dizziness, nausea, cold sweat. Motion sickness is essentially your brain mistaking fun for poison.

Some people adapt quickly to this sensory mismatch. Others (like me) never quite do. Kids usually bounce back faster, while adults grow less tolerant with age… *sigh*

So next year, to give my vestibular system a break, we’ll probably be visiting a zoo. At least the lions don’t spin.

My inner Interaction Designer

This video made my inner interaction designer grin.

You do a move and the animation moves with you. Instantly. In sync. It feels like you have influence, like your gestures carry weight in the world.

That’s the magic of good interaction: the moment you realize I did that. It’s playful, energizing, and oddly empowering.

Sometimes it’s about the joy of seeing the world respond to you. I wish I had come up with this installation.

The Superhero fish I didn’t really know

I was doing some weight training the the other day, watching Planet Earth to distract myself in between excercises. On screen: red salmon. I thought I knew their story. Superhero fish, leaping up rapids, swimming against impossible currents, delivering their eggs only to die at the end: their bodies becoming food for their own offspring. Epic, tragic, beautiful.

But what I didn’t know is how much they physically transform along the way.

As they leave the ocean and fight their way upstream, salmon bodies go through one of the wildest transitions in the animal kingdom. They stop eating entirely, living off the energy they stored at sea. Their skin turns bright red, their heads darken to green, males grow hooked jaws and humped backs. They become almost unrecognizable. Not streamlined ocean hunters anymore, but single-purpose machines, reshaped for the last mission of their lives.

It’s a metamorphosis as radical as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. Only this one ends not in flight, but in sacrifice.

And somehow, watching it while training, I felt small. Here I was, struggling with some weights. And there they were, changing their very bodies just to get upstream and give life another chance. Next time I skip leg day, I’ll remember: somewhere out there, a fish is literally growing a new jaw just to impress his date.

Three very different things this week, rollercoasters, projection walls, and superhero fish, but all circling back to the same theme: how our bodies and senses shape the way we experience the world. Sometimes they betray us (three rides too many), sometimes they empower us (a gesture turned into light), and sometimes they astonish us (a fish that rebuilds itself just to keep life going).

Every week I’m reminded that curiosity isn’t about having neat answers. It’s about noticing the dizzy, the playful, the impossible and realizing they all say something about what it means to be alive.

See you next Sunday. Until then: may your rides be smooth, your walls responsive, and your inner salmon unstoppable.