broke my sugar fast on my 27th with a sorbet cake
i turned 27 last week. i've always loved spending birthdays in the tiniest of ways cause i was never really a fan of celebrating growing a year older. it always gave me the feeling of holding on to a pull-up bar in a dead hang. the bar is time, and i was never really in control. 27 felt the same. feels super weird, but this time in a good way actually.
growing up in kerala (south of india) was grounding. the culture moulded me into the person i am today. but my exposure to the real world was minuscule — my mind had barely formed when i came to the US. i showed up completely un-opinionated and with zero context. the best combination, really.
2024 and 2025 were brutal in every way. but those were the kind of years i was truly longing for. the last two years feel like i lived 30. the density of experience is insane — the people, the lessons, the failures. it's a lot. the kind of lot that if acted on the right way builds your principles, and rearranges how you see everything.
2026 feels different. the analogy i like to use is bradley cooper's character from limitless, always full of energy, clarity dialled to ten, and locked in on a few things that matter. working out five days a week, saunas, being genuinely obsessed with living a long life, aggressively paying down student debt, and starting at a healthcare startup i 100% believe can change the world.
the only thing i still feel like i don't have complete control over is time. i still feel like i'm hanging on to that pull-up bar. in a year or two, my brother and some of my best friends are going to get married. i'll be holding their kids. maybe mine. the awareness is uncomfortable, but clarifying.
one thing i keep telling myself: don't ask what the year needs. ask what today needs. one finished task. one workout. one closed loop. one hard conversation. always in a state of momentum. always indexing on the greedy algorithm.
also ran into dwarkesh patel outside this restaurant in SF on my bday. i fanboyed so hard i blurted out something like, "keep going at it." zero eloquence.
