Q42025-MonthlyBlog #1

ZoneOneSummer

10/15/25 #October
Aim: 14mins/1000words
8:01PM-8:20PM: #19mins

1000words

[[Happy City]]
[[Charles Montgomery]]
[[Immune]]
[[Philipp Dettmer]]
[[Daniel Siegal]]
[[Aware]]
[[The Developing Mind]]

[[Gratitude Towards Amazing Books]]
[[Gratitude Towards Curious Authors]]
[[Gratitude Towards Consistent Practice]]

[[Power of Being Aware of Little Moments]]
[[Power of Seeing Through Each Moment of Logic]]
[[Power of Understanding Different Unique Perspective]]

It’s been an interesting week, and I’m still in the middle of it. I’ve finished a bunch of books, and I’m super excited. I really appreciated reading [[Charles Montgomery]]’s [[Happy City]], it’s one of the few architecture books that I actually had fun reading. Even though I studied architecture for 4 years, I always had a hard time reading the books, in the subject. And I tried reading [[The Pattern Language]], by [[Christopher Alexander]], and I did finish it, but it took me around 2 years to finish it. And I read it at a very slow pace. And this book, [[Happy City]], I was able to finish it in 4 months, so that’s a huge improvement for me. As it really did keep my interest.

It’s one of those books, that has a captivating narrative. And I was able to follow the mindset of the author, and how he went about explaining his way of understanding happy cities, which is literally the title of the book. What I learned from him is, we do have control over how we live in our environment, but it’s not easy to gain that control. We have to fight for it, and we have to read the nuances of the space that we are in. A lot of things really are predetermined, and there are so many things, in early architecture, that actually doesn’t even apply in real life. Because, in reality, the kind of architecture that can be built, there is a lot of coding preset. And it’s set by people who don’t even come to the environment of where the structures are built.

It’s impressive to think that, a few prominent people in our society, they actually determine the majority of the prominent buildings that are around us. And the coding, it is also determined by a select few, picked at a certain point, and that’s kind of hard to change, specifically with the laws that come about, at least that’s my understanding of it. I hope to get more specifics when I look into the top [[100 Core Terms]], with ChatGPT. This really was one of those books that really captivated me, and I hope to read more books by [[Charles Montgomery]]. Because I do wish to become an architect, though I am not sure if I will be a traditional licensed architect, but I do wish to have an influence in the environment that I live in.

I have read and I have seen my share of architecture, and because of my background of studying architecture in college, I’ve always been super fascinated. And because I never ended up getting a masters, and didn’t even directly enter the architectural design world, comparatively, I am actually a little more distant from the field, than I would like to be. Though I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and life genuinely is long enough, so the curiosity, and the fascination remains within me, and I wish to do what I can, and understand more about how buildings come to affect us as people. 

And this is one of the cool things about books, and how intention is embedded in it. I just follow a regular book, and slowly I understand the intention of each book. And similarly, talking about intention, I’ve finished two more books in the past week, and they are [[Aware]], by [[Daniel Siegal]], and [[Immune]] by [[Philipp Dettmer]], and these are also 2 super cool books. I’ve read another book by [[Daniel Siegal]], called the [[The Developing Mind]], and that was also super cool. I genuinely think nowadays, Dr. Siegal is kind of a like a king when it comes to the topic of awareness, because he knows so much about how the mind works. And it’s impressive, his knowledge about how the mind understands the world.

The other book, that I read and finished, [[Immune]], by [[Philipp Dettmer]], was also pretty cool. And the intention of this book, was to explain the complexity of the immune system. And since I did lose my spleen last year, this was an appropriate book to read for me. And I was super captivated by this book, and I didn’t think it was going to be so good. Dettmer is really good at captivating his audience, and I think he has a lot of knowledge, and his curiosity to explain and help the audience learn, it is very apparent when you listen to the audiobook. I genuinely have so much more appreciation for the immune system now, because of Dettmer’s book. And it’s pretty impressive, how intricate our immune system is.

And I genuinely appreciate with all my heart, the intention of each of these authors. And I do genuinely love reading these books, because I learn so much, and I am able to understand more, in regards to how reality works. And I believe each of these authors, [[Daniel Siegal]], [[Philipp Dettmer]], and [[Charles Montgomery]], they are all authors that had very specific intention, to explain to the reader, about the topic that they care about. Dr. Siegal, it was the mind and consciousness. Philipp Dettmer, trying to explain how important the immune system is, and how intricate it is. And Charles Mongomery, trying to explain how a city becomes happy. These are all topics that I also genuinely care about. And I’m glad to have finished all these books, in the last few months. I hope to integrate some of their knowledge, as I continue my journey, into understanding how I want to move forward in my life. I think stories like theirs, and understanding what they understand, it’s a first step, to enhancing my own mind. This is curiosity, I think, once you put enough time in, you do learn a lot of cool things, and with things you actually care about.