Sam King's Journal

Eat the dog

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Your dog has lived a long life. She's old now, sleeping most of the day. The vet says it's time, and it's peaceful. Painless. Would you eat the body afterwards?

You wouldn't. The question is gross and you don't need a moment to know it.

You also can't really explain why, not in terms that also apply to a cow or a pig. The cow felt pain at slaughter and you ate her anyway. They shared the same capacity to suffer. The reasons you give about your dog don't translate because they only work as feelings.

You knew her, and that was enough for you to not eat her.

Billie Eilish said in an interview recently that you can't claim to love animals and still eat them, and the internet predictably lost its mind. The line is only controversial to people already doing the thing it names.

I went vegetarian ten years ago and ended up going vegan a couple of years after that. I didn't ease in or phase it out, I just put two and two together and stopped. I stopped pretending the cow in the field was somehow different from the dog on the sofa. If I claim to love animals but I'm treating the cow and the dog differently, what does that say about my ethical relationship to the animals we share the planet with?

Your compassion isn't gone, by the way. People who eat meat aren't morally degraded. Almost everyone, given an afternoon at a sanctuary with a pig, would not get back in the car and order a bacon sandwich. The capacity is intact but the packaging, the marketing, the laws, the language—all of it sits between you and the act so you never have to think about what's on your plate.

The cow on the milk carton smiles because the carton was designed by the dairy industry. Meat in the supermarket comes in cling film on a foam tray, head and limbs removed. Several US states have laws making it illegal to film inside a slaughterhouse. If what happens inside was something you'd be fine with, they wouldn't need that law. Children are taught songs about happy farms, but the reality couldn't be further from that.

You're basically conditioned into dissonance. So when someone gets challenged about why they're not vegan already, what comes back is a shield.

It's a personal choice. Plant-based is ultra-processed garbage. We can't feed 8 billion on plants. I only eat the local grass-fed ones. Lions kill animals, it's natural. Indigenous people. Food deserts. Vegans are self-righteous.

None of these hold up under any real scrutiny, and most don't apply to the people invoking them. I'm writing this from Vancouver, on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. The indigenous food practices argument is almost always invoked by non-indigenous people who aren't out hunting and processing whole animals, who aren't advocating for indigenous communities otherwise, and whose burger comes from an industry that's one of the largest drivers of indigenous land dispossession globally. The land for that burger had to come from somewhere.

About 75-80% of the world's farmland goes to livestock and produces 18% of calories. Per Poore and Nemecek's 2018 meta-analysis in Science, even the lowest-impact beef has a higher carbon footprint than the highest-impact plant protein. "We can't feed 8 billion on plants" mostly ends up meaning "we'd rather not start". A bag of dried lentils is half the price of mince in any UK supermarket. Vegan being a bourgeois choice is a cop out.

People say they're against factory farming, then order the steak anyway. Factory farming is, environmentally, the least damaging way to produce animal protein at scale: intensive systems use less land and water and emit less per kilo than pasture-raised. It's also cruel as fuck, with animals living their entire lives in confinement, never seeing daylight, slaughtered young. Opposing factory farming while still eating meat is asking for the same end result of cruelty, but spread across more land less efficiently. The honest options are eating the factory-farmed animal, accepting the environmental cost of pasture-raised, or eating less meat. Are you willing to stand on that?

People will tell you they're against animal testing while eating meat. Animal testing kills around 192 million animals a year globally, and meat kills 80 billion in the same period, more than four hundred times as many for the same kind of suffering.

There's a name for the pattern across all of these and it's called the meat paradox. Loughnan, Haslam and Bastian, in 2010, had participants rate the moral status and mind of a cow. Some of them ate beef jerky first, some didn't. The ones who'd just eaten jerky denied moral status and mental capacity to the animal they'd eaten. The dissonance is measurable and it's not some vegan invention. The animals being conscious in the first place is also a settled scientific position: in 2012 a group of leading neuroscientists signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, formally stating non-human animals possess the neurological substrates that generate consciousness, just like humans do.

There's a stereotype that vegans care about cows more than people, even though animal agriculture damages humans on a substantial scale of its own. Slaughterhouse work has among the highest injury and trauma rates of any occupation. Around 73% of the world's antibiotics go to livestock, fuelling resistance the WHO names a top global public health threat. Most recent pandemic candidates emerge from intensified animal contact, factory farming included. The climate emissions, somewhere between 15-20% of global greenhouse gases, most affect people in the global south who don't eat anywhere near as much meat as the rest of the world.

Veganism is about reducing harm to all sentient beings, humans very much included. It's not to be confused with being "plant-based" which is a dietary choice. Being vegan is about where you put your money, which is why it covers things like leather, cosmetics, SeaWorld, and the rest.

The arguments against veganism all rest on the same false premise: that veganism is some impossible task.

It isn't. If you can get to a supermarket, it's dead easy. Lentils, beans, rice, tofu, oats, frozen veg, every plant-based meat alternative you can think of. It's almost always cheaper than meat. I did it cold turkey. Millions of people have, none of us with any special willpower. The non-dietary stuff can be a little harder, but there's so many good vegan alternatives to things these days, it's basically a non-issue.

You don't need to go vegan tomorrow. The first move is just to think about what is on your plate. Watch a single minute of slaughterhouse footage. Spend an hour with a pig at a sanctuary. Notice what your body tells you and don't talk it down.

If reading this changes your mind about one meal, that's enough. Next time you're in the supermarket, pick up the bean burger instead of the beef one.

You still have the compassion. Stop telling yourself you don't.

P.S. I want to hear what you think, so email me.

Sesame, an unremarkably good 2FA app

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sesame is out. It's a 2FA app for iPhone. Free on the App Store, open source under MIT.

I've used Authy for years. Since the Twilio acquisition it's been getting worse, and the latest design refresh was the point I gave up on it. The design is ugly. Search is broken in a specific way—tap a result to copy and search exits, so next time you want that code, you're starting over. The logos it fetches are wrong or missing half the time. The scanner is slow. The app is slow to open. The account order has never made sense. And the whole thing sits behind a Twilio account, which means your 2FA codes are one SIM swap away from being someone else's.

I looked at alternatives. None of them gave me what I actually wanted. Some were hard to navigate. Some made weird design choices that got in the way. Most importantly, none of them had a clean way to group accounts into profiles, and I've got more than fifty accounts spread across personal stuff, work, and various side projects. Scrolling through them as one flat list is miserable. I wanted to switch profiles and see just the ten accounts that matter in the context I'm in.

It's the kind of app that's buildable in a weekend, so I built it.

The shape of what I wanted was pretty small. Local, with codes sitting on my phone and not on someone else's server. Backups I could reliably put wherever I want. Fast. Alphabetical sort. Profiles. Open source and auditable.

That last one mattered. 2FA sits between you and losing access to everything. I want to be able to read what it does, and I want anyone else who cares to be able to read what it does too. Sesame is MIT licensed, all of it. No dependencies either, so no supply chain risk. There's even a tiny sesame-decrypt CLI that pulls your codes out of a backup file without Sesame installed, so if I stop shipping updates your data still works.

The most fun part was leaning into iOS. A 2FA app doesn't need a sexy custom UI. Old me would have built one anyway. New me would rather lean into the platform and simplify everything down.

It also means you get some cool platform features for free, like AutoFill means that for most sites, you never open Sesame at all. The code just appears above the keyboard. Siri too: "Hey Siri, what's my Discord code in Sesame" puts the code on the clipboard.

Then there's the Live Activity, which I'm most attached to. Some sites disable pasting into their 2FA fields, so autofill can't help, and you end up opening Sesame, memorising six digits, flipping back to the site, and typing them in before the code rolls. When you copy a code in Sesame it goes into the Dynamic Island if you've got one. It stays there in your peripheral vision until it expires which is nice.

The last 10% took as long as the first 90%. I got the app most of the way there over a single weekend: codes rendering, QR scanner, storage, basic UI. Then my weekday evenings for the next week were spent on the polish. Apple's own sheets aren't actually consistent across contexts, so you have to chase them. SwiftUI forms behave weirdly based on the sheet detent size, so you have to chase that too. The things my designer brain notices. Thankfully AI hasn't fully atrophied my brain just yet.

The other part of the last 10% isn't the app itself. App Store screenshots, a product video, the website, a privacy policy, all the boring bureaucratic stuff you need to actually ship. I hadn't done any of it in a while, so it all took me longer than I expected.

One cool nerdy thing that saved me a bunch of time is on the App Store screenshots and product video. I did initially reach for fastlane as I've used it in the past, but it's showing its age. Missing the latest simulators, still needs Ruby, and there's nothing I hate more than setting up fucking ruby gems. So I had Claude write a small script instead. It spins up Xcode UI tests across the simulators I care about, captures screenshots deterministically, and records product videos following a pre-set choreography, handling codes rolling so the loop seams cleanly. There's a demo mode gated behind #if DEMO_ENABLED that freezes codes to fixed values so the screenshots stay consistent between runs, and the flag means none of the demo code ships in the release build. Update the UI, run the script, and voila.

I'm having a lot of fun making personal software, even if what I'm making is a bit boring. These simple utilities don't have to be hard, and it doesn't take a lot to have nice UX if you just think about it for a bit. I'm not going to replace my banking app any time soon (though I wish I could), but I am making little things for my daily life. Right now I'm playing around with a trailcam app to repurpose an old iPhone so I can watch the crows on my balcony.

Some of these things will never make it on to the App Store, but I'm glad I finished something for once and got Sesame up. If you download it, I'd love to hear what you think.

Sick of assumptions

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There's an old saying that assumptions make an ass out of u and me. I've been having a hard time with this lately, mostly because I spend a significant chunk of my working day talking to an LLM that won't stop making them.

I'm autistic so I say what I mean. There's no subtext, no hidden intent, no implied second request lurking behind the first. When I say "put the fix on a new branch", I mean put the fix on a new branch! I don't mean push the code. I don't mean open a PR. I don't mean do anything else at all. Just the thing I said.

But LLMs don't work like that.

You'd think a machine that processes literal text would be the ideal collaborator for someone who communicates literally. A system that parses instructions as tokens, operates on logic, exists in a world of explicit inputs and outputs. It should be perfect for the way my brain works. It's not.

I use Claude Code daily. I've written instructions, skills, agents, and memories that all explicitly tell the model to be literal, to not infer, to ask instead of assume. I've tried every trick in the book. It still goes off and does things I didn't ask for. The instructions get lost or aren't given enough weight. When the model falls back on its training, it falls back on a neurotypical model of conversation.

Things that happen regularly:

I say "remove this copy" and it changes something else in the UI alongside it. If I'm not careful reviewing the output, the extra change goes uncaught.
I say "put the fix on a new branch, I'll make a PR tomorrow" and it pushes the code, bypassing my own rules to do so.
I ask it to make one specific change and it refactors the surrounding code for good measure.
It adds three fallback handlers for code paths that will never fall back.
I'm exploring an idea and it sprints off implementing before I've finished thinking.

Every time, the model has parsed my literal instruction and inferred some hidden meaning behind it. Some additional intent I must have had but didn't say. Except I did say everything I meant. There is no hidden meaning. It's got the point now where I have a macro on my keyboard for "did I say to do that? no, so undo that please".

I'd say 9 out of 10 times the model's "helpfulness" isn't helpful. And maybe 3 to 5 of those times it's actively harmful, burning tokens going down a path I explicitly didn't want. Sometimes the overreach catches something I missed, and I appreciate that. But the ratio is really bad.

It's not just overreach either. Sometimes the model goes the other way and just makes things up. I've lost count of the times I've had to say "actually read the code" because it's assumed something works a certain way without checking. In one Swift project it told me there were no tests. The root directory had a folder called SesameTests sitting right there. It had just listed the directory. It would rather give me a confident wrong answer than slow down and look.

I don't lie to the model, so why does it lie to me?

Why it's like this

LLMs are shaped by reinforcement learning from human feedback. Real people rate the model's responses during training, and the responses that get rewarded become the default behaviour. "Helpful" as encoded by this process means anticipating needs the user didn't state. Reading between the lines. Inferring intent beyond the literal words. That's a neurotypical communication pattern, baked into the model at the deepest level.

I don't know the demographics of the people rating these models. It would be reductive to say they're all neurotypical. But the aggregate signal almost certainly skews that way, just by population numbers. The feedback that shapes models over time such as chat interactions, thumbs up and thumbs down, usage patterns etc. that all indexes toward the majority too. The result is a model optimised for a communication style that isn't mine.

There's actual research on this. Anthropic's own sycophancy paper found that RLHF preference judgments favour agreeable, socially smooth responses over truthful ones. OpenAI's GPT-4o sycophancy incident in April 2025 proved the mechanism. They added user thumbs-up/down as a reward signal and the model got measurably worse. A 2024 study on neurodivergent LLM users found that neurotypical bias accounted for around 17-20% of the challenges autistic and ADHD users reported. People were sharing "aspie-friendly" prompt templates just to get the model to behave. And a 2025 paper introduced the concept of "automated masking", LLMs functioning as a normative filter that places the burden of adaptation on the neurodivergent user. One participant put it better than I can: "It wasn't me interacting with people; it was literally just computer algorithms interacting with people through me".

The Claude Code system prompt was recently leaked. In it, the instructions literally say "don't add features, refactor code, or make improvements beyond what was asked" and in the same breath tell the model "you're a collaborator, not just an executor — users benefit from your judgment, not just your compliance". The model has to reconcile contradictory instructions, and training wins.

Same pattern, different machine

This is the same pattern autistic people navigate every day with humans. People assume you meant something you didn't. People "help" in ways you didn't ask for. People read tone and subtext that isn't there and act on their interpretation instead of your words. I thought a machine would be different. It processes text. It should take me at my word. But it's been trained out of literalness by the same social patterns that make human communication exhausting in the first place. The training pipeline has the same bias as the society it was trained on.

I don't have a solution. I don't know if the answer is more neurodivergent representation in training data. I don't know if it's a "literal mode" toggle. I don't know if it's possible to untangle the helpfulness training from the core capabilities. What I do know is what I want. I want a coding agent that takes me at my word. That treats my instructions as complete. That asks when something is ambiguous instead of assuming.

I'm not speaking for all autistic people. I'm speaking for me. But I suspect I'm not the only one burning tokens undoing changes I didn't ask for, writing increasingly desperate instructions that get ignored because the training signal is louder than the prompt.

Leave them there

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Iran fired missiles at Dubai last weekend. British citizens made up of tourists, workers, and families spent nights sheltering in hotel basements, listening to interceptions overhead, unable to get a flight home. Around 300,000 UK nationals are registered across the Gulf states and the government is scrambling to work out how to get people back.

The conversation on UK social media? It was largely about whether those people pay taxes and deserve to be brought home or not.

I grew up in the UK, I now live in Canada and pay tax here. I've been watching this unfold with a familiar kind of exhaustion.

The tax argument

It doesn't hold up. The UK and UAE have had a formal double taxation agreement since 2016. Both governments signed it. Not paying UK income tax while living in the UAE isn't dodging anything, it's literally what the agreement is designed to produce. The same goes for Canada, Australia, most places British people actually move to. HMRC knows you left. You filed the forms. The system worked as intended.

That's almost beside the point. The tax thing is just the reason that got reached for, but the feeling came first.

Dubai isn't even a country

Most people in this conversation keep saying Dubai like it's a country. It's not. The UAE is a country. People live all over it in places like Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, all over. But Dubai is the word being used because Dubai is where the influencers are in the British imagination.

The actual 300,000 people stranded aren't mostly influencers. They're just people who moved somewhere and built a life.

Dubai is shorthand for a type of person the British public has decided to be annoyed at. That's doing a lot of work in this conversation.

Words doing work

Every headline calls them expats. British expats in Dubai. Stranded expats.

A British person moves to Dubai for work and a better life, expat. A Zimbabwean person moves to the UK for work and a better life, immigrant. Same decision, completely different word, and the word does a lot before any argument is even made. A Nigerian doctor in London is an immigrant. A British accountant in Lagos is an expat. It has almost nothing to do with what you do and almost everything to do with where you're from.

If the headlines said "300,000 British immigrants stranded in Gulf states" which is accurate, I think the reaction would have looked different.

Where the anger actually goes

The UK is genuinely miserable right now. Wages stagnant, housing unaffordable, cost of living is brutal. People are struggling and angry and that's understandable.

But the anger goes sideways. Not up at the systems and decisions that caused it, rather sideways at whoever seems to have found a way out. Benefits claimants, asylum seekers, people who moved to Dubai. Anyone who appears to be getting something without suffering for it the right way.

A lot of the people who left for the UAE are working class people who just did the maths. UK wages, UK housing, UK prospects, and then looked at what they could earn somewhere else and made a decision. That's it. But the cultural message is that you're not supposed to do that. You stay, you struggle alongside everyone else, and if you leave, you've forfeited something.

Follow that logic and see where it ends up. Can you get a doctor's appointment if you're unemployed, because you're not currently paying tax? Can you claim housing benefit if you took a year out? The principle is never actually applied consistently because nobody really believes it as a principle. It only gets applied to people they've already decided to resent.

Where this actually comes from

There's something deep in British culture and it's older than Thatcher, though she made it worse. Brits are deeply uncomfortable with people getting above their station. Aspiration is tolerated but visible escape is resented. You can work hard, but if you actually get out too obviously, something curdles and people lose their minds.

Then austerity spent a decade telling everyone that resources are finite, that public money is scarce, that someone else getting help means you personally lose out. That's not true but it's what people were told, and it stuck.

A generation built their identity around endurance. Hard work was moral. So when the next generation says I don't want that, I want to live differently, there's a better way, it lands as an insult. Like you're saying their suffering was optional.

The result is people who are genuinely being ground down by bad policy, bad wages, bad housing. They end up blaming each other instead of the people actually responsible. Keeping everyone else trapped to make the suffering feel like it meant something.

You can see it in UBI debates too. The argument always ends up at the millionaire getting £1000 a month, or the person who doesn't work getting it "for free" as if that's the reason the whole idea is impossible. The point is that everyone gets it, the single parent, the person between jobs, unconditionally, without having to prove they deserve it first. That's what people can't stand. The idea that someone might get something without earning it through hardship.

It's collective self-harm dressed up as fiscal responsibility. Keep everyone poor to make sure nobody gets anything undeserved.

It's not a left or right thing

The right has spent years attacking asylum seekers for draining UK taxpayers, people coming in who haven't contributed. Now the left is saying people who left to make more money somewhere else don't deserve help, people going out who stopped contributing. The logic is identical. The target just changed.

Both sides have drawn a circle around who counts. Neither seems to notice they're running the same argument.

Nobody said this about Ukraine

When British nationals needed help getting out in 2022, the solidarity was just there automatically. Nobody checked whether they'd been paying UK income tax from Kyiv. People moved to Ukraine for all sorts of reasons like work, relationships, a life, and nobody interrogated the decision or made it about tax. But people have a pretty fixed idea of why someone would move to Dubai, and that idea rightly or wrongly is doing a lot of the moral work here.

Nobody says it about Monaco either… zero income tax, playground of the ultra wealthy. Nobody says it about the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, also zero income tax, also a formal tax agreement with the UK. Those conversations don't come up. It's specifically Dubai. Make of that what you will.

The cost argument

People's lives in the UAE aren't affecting anyone back in the UK. Nobody in Birmingham is worse off financially because a British nurse moved to Abu Dhabi and pays no income tax. The cost of evacuation flights is real but it's a rounding error compared to what the UK government has spent in money, in arms, in diplomatic cover supporting the military action that destabilised the region in the first place.

The UK has been involved in Iranian affairs for decades. It's been funding and supporting the very conflict that put these people in danger. The conversation about who deserves a flight home is happening in almost complete ignorance of that context.

The passport is a promise

The people stranded haven't renounced their citizenship. They have British passports. That's supposed to mean something in terms of consular protection when you're in trouble abroad, regardless of where you chose to live or what tax bracket you're in.

There's this idea running through all of it that working class people should stay put, and if they're lucky enough to get out, they shouldn't expect anything if things go wrong. That if you improved your life in a way other people couldn't or didn't, you've opted out of the social contract.

We could be collectively working toward a world where people don't have to suffer just to justify their existence. Instead we're arguing about keeping ourselves trapped and making sure everyone else stays trapped too.

That's just a mean way to organise a society.

State of mind

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Back in April, I wrote about productivity and guilt, about choosing mountains over money. I thought I was still processing personal burnout. Two months of travelling later, I realize I was only scratching the surface.

This week I made the mistake of opening LinkedIn. Success story after success story, funding rounds, AI launches, exponential growth. Meanwhile I'm sitting in my car, surrounded by everything I own, wondering what the fuck I'm doing with my life. The disconnect between their world and mine feels insurmountable.

Here's the thing though: I'm literally freelancing for an AI startup right now. The irony isn't lost on me. They're good people, genuinely supportive, building something that brings joy to creators. I can see the value in what they're doing. But I also can't unsee the bigger picture. My LinkedIn feed full of layoff stories followed immediately by "We're excited to announce our new AI initiative!".

They're accelerating toward a cliff and calling it progress. The world feels like it's crumbling at an insane pace, and I'm not sure of my place in it anymore…

Driving through Alberta yesterday, I passed a truck full of cows. You could see their eyes through the slats, these beautiful creatures hours from slaughter, and everyone just… drove past like it was nothing. I've been vegan for nearly a decade, and sometimes I still can't comprehend how disconnected we've become. If that truck was full of dogs, people would lose their minds. But cows, just as intelligent, just as capable of suffering… that's just business.

The UK, my home that doesn't feel like home anymore, slides further into an authoritarian surveillance state. The new Online Safety Act requires age verification for any platform where users might interact, meaning you have to upload your ID to some dodgy third party just to access a subreddit. They claim it's protecting children, but it's censorship wearing a safety mask. Facial recognition for shoplifters. ANPR tracking every journey. CCTV on every corner. They're one step away from prosecuting thoughtcrime, and everyone's too tired to resist. If I write about Palestinian freedom from Canada, I have to know that could mean jail time back home soon. That's not paranoia, that's the trajectory we're on.

Even escaping to nature doesn't help. The national parks here are spectacular, but they're being loved to death. I visit the same popular spots, so I'm aware I'm part of the problem, like complaining about traffic while being in the jam. But watching people walk off marked trails, leave trash, blast music from speakers, it's like there's this complete inability to just exist in a space without consuming it. It can't have always been like this, surely?

I also don't know where my money will come from in the future. I see friends back home struggling with the cost of living crisis, wages that haven't moved in years while everything else doubles in price. We're all trying to survive in a system that demands growth or death. Even if I had the business acumen to profit from this mess, building tools to replace workers, optimizing surveillance… my morals won't let me. I can't bring myself to accelerate the very problems that keep me up at night.

The thing about building akkeri is that it represents this tension perfectly. I want to build tools for smaller, more intentional communities. Maybe that's the answer, small apps for small communities, like choosing a small town over a sprawling country. I'd do everything to keep it from becoming another engagement-optimized hellscape. But even that feels naive when the entire internet is being enshittified. Every refuge becomes a resort.

With Refrakt, I naively thought "build something simple and people will connect". But it still feels like shouting into a void. The legal requirements don't help. Constantly changing rules, different demands from each country, all designed for companies with compliance teams while tech giants do whatever they want. It's not the platform I set out to build.

April me thought productivity guilt was the problem. August me realizes that was just the symptom. The real issue is that we've built a world where being productive means accelerating our own obsolescence, where success is measured in how efficiently you can exploit others, where mental health is a luxury and basic humanity is a liability.

But here's where it gets complicated. Despite everything, I still have hope. I see it in friends trying to build ethical AI, in communities forming around mutual aid, in people choosing repair over replacement. It's just that my faith erodes with every new headline, every regulation that misses the point, every system that prioritizes profit over people.

I'm still working, just less. Travel has given me perspective but also made everything feel more precarious. When this trip ends, I'll need a roof over my head like everyone else. I don't have much of a buffer to retrain for whatever jobs AI hasn't eaten yet. The next big model drop could wipe out my current livelihood overnight.

What I really want is to live simply. Take photos. Make things for people who appreciate them. Find a corner of the world where I can exist without contributing to the machinery. The woods keep calling, not because they're pure or romantic, but because when every system is broken, opting out starts to look like resistance.

I just have this growing certainty that we can't continue on this path. So I'll keep moving. Keep building small things for small groups of people who still give a shit, when I can find the energy.

On being productive today

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This isn't about how to be productive, but rather sitting with the uncomfortable reality that my relationship with productivity has shifted, and I'm not sure what that means yet.

It's been fifteen months since I arrived in Vancouver in the chill of winter. Those first months I worked on Refrakt, picked up freelance projects, tried to find my footing in a new city with new customs. I told myself I was taking it easy, setting my own pace. But there was always this underlying pressure, this voice asking: shouldn't you be doing more?

I used to be able to do more. In my early twenties, I was unstoppable. One-hour train ride into London? Perfect for coding. Work 10am-7pm at a startup, train home coding, break for dinner, then work until 3am on some animation detail nobody would notice. Up at 7 to do it again. My body could take it. My brain craved it.

Now, at thirty-something, my brain still wants those marathons but my body stages a quiet rebellion. The spirit is willing but the flesh is exhausted. And the guilt is suffocating.

In May of 2024, I joined a small startup. Structure, I thought. Routine. The team was welcoming, the work engaging. We flew to LA, pulled long days before launches, built things that were fun. Classic startup energy, intoxicating until it isn't.

Then October came, and my Nan passed. Being 4,500 miles away while my family grieved felt like watching life through frosted glass. The funeral trip was strange—a brief return to a life that no longer felt like mine. When I came back to Vancouver, back to the startup grind, something had shifted. The job felt too heavy to carry. By December, the exhaustion was bone-deep and I quit.

These past few months have been different. Back to freelance with some old friends who've been incredibly supportive (you know who you are). The plan was simple: work less, hike more, maybe build something new on my "off" days. But guilt has a way of creeping in. Every day I choose the trails over the laptop is money left on the table—rent money, credit card payments, future travel funds. I could force myself to work those days off, bill those hours, stack that cash. But something in me needs those mountains more than the money.

There's this thing about being autistic that I don't talk about much. Not because I'm ashamed, but because the world isn't always kind to difference, and visa applications don't have a checkbox for "functions differently but contributes meaningfully". It makes the traditional work environment feel like wearing a suit two sizes too small. Collaborative work can be energizing, but it drains me in ways I'm only now understanding. I'll lose ten hours to hyperfocus, forget to eat, then wonder why I'm shattered for days afterward.

So I started building akkeri on weekends. It was originally Refrakt V2, now its own thing. It's everything I wanted Refrakt to become: spaces for actual conversation, collaboration without performance, a place to plan trips with friends to go shoot together. No migration anxiety, no burden of existing users' expectations. Just building for the joy of building.

My photography has shifted too. SD cards pile up like film rolls, waiting for their moment. There's something honest about delayed gratification in our instant world. The images exist, captured, patient. They'll be there when I'm ready. Same with YouTube where I'll film things that may never see an edit. The channel sits dormant, not abandoned, just resting. Maybe video is something that comes and goes throughout my life, like everything else. I'm consistently inconsistent, and I'm learning that's okay.

The other day, I threw my first pot in two years. Just a two-hour workshop, nothing fancy. My hands remembered the clay even if my mind had forgotten. It came out pretty good but rough around the edges. But it existed. I had made something with my hands that nobody could automate, no AI could replicate. There's a productivity in that, in being present with materials that push back.

I'm prepping to leave Vancouver at the end of May and head east across Canada. Start on the island up north, hit the towns between here and the Rockies, maybe Calgary, then further east. There's this tension, the impulse to film and photograph every moment is at odds with the desire to just exist in these places without the pressure of output.

All this talk of productivity feels especially absurd when I think about what happens when AI inevitably takes over our jobs, and outputs are redefined. Photographers, designers, developers, we're all on borrowed time, but maybe that's freedom in disguise. Maybe we get to return to making things because we must, not because they're billable. Maybe I'll make wonky pots and sell them to the three people who appreciate the imperfections. Or maybe the AI overlords will lead to the ceasing of our existence. Who knows.

Vancouver taught me that being productive doesn't mean what I thought it did. I came here burnt out, thinking I needed to maintain that twenties energy just at my own pace. But productivity isn't about output, it's about alignment. Some days that's code. Some days it's a six-hour hike where the only thing I produce is sweat, an insatiable appetite, and a clearer head.

The productivity guilt is still there, probably always will be. But I'm learning to live alongside it rather than under it. Learning that productivity can mean being outside and using my senses. My brain may not be built for this world's version of productivity. That's okay. I'm building my own.

Going dark, time to focus elsewhere

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This week has been a strange one. I released my second YouTube video and received some genuinely nice feedback in DMs and comments on other platforms—the kind that actually motivate you to keep creating. But underscoring that positivity lurked this sense of dread about having to spread and promote myself across so many platforms. Each one demanding its own form of presence, each one potentially a temporary home as users migrate to the next big thing.

The irony isn't lost on me that Refrakt contributes to this fragmentation in its current form. A few uncomfortable online interactions this week only reinforced what I've been feeling: we need fewer platforms to shout into, and more spaces for genuine connection.

It's been a stark reminder. I've caught myself spending too much time scrolling when what I really want—what I really need—is a smaller, more focused community centered around the things I actually give a shit about.

This ties back to something I've been thinking about with photography platforms for a long time now. I've seen photographers argue they don't want a photographer-only platform because they need their work discovered by the public. But what they're actually describing is a need for a website and a distribution channel—which is valid. I already have a website, you're on it. It's the distribution channels that are the kind of spaces I do not want to inhabit anymore.

I should acknowledge my perspective here… I'm in the fortunate position where I don't rely on social media for client work or business growth. This gives me the freedom to think about platforms differently than photographers who need that visibility for their livelihood.

What I'm actually craving instead:

A place to organise projects and work in progress
A place to share half-formed thoughts about said projects
A place that's private and collaborative, and less performative
A place you don't have to constantly check for fear of missing out
A place that leads to more IRL connections being made
A place that puts expression over engagement metrics

But more than that, I want my time back. You can't control the firehose of information that others share. That person you've followed for years might suddenly reveal values that clash dramatically with yours, or post something that leaves you feeling drained. While different perspectives are crucial (nobody wants an echo chamber), there's a difference between healthy discourse and exhaustion.

This past year, and especially more recently, I've had this nagging feeling that Refrakt isn't quite hitting the mark in its current form. It's too similar to other photo platforms, inheriting many of the same pitfalls.

Right now, Refrakt contributes to the fragmentation because it's trying to occupy a similar space to Instagram, Glass, or Foto—but it's not different enough to carve out its own identity. People come to Refrakt with the same expectations they bring to other platforms, hoping it might be the next big thing that drives engagement or virality or generates business leads. That was never the point.

What I'm realising is that Refrakt (or something new) needs to be more of a collaborative tool than social network. Think less Instagram, more like a hybrid of Are.na and Discord. An actual home for your photography practice where the focus is on organisation and meaningful connection rather than viral potential. Sure, we could add features later that help with public visibility, like beautiful website views of your work or email newsletters based on spaces, but that would be secondary to the core purpose—creating a space where photographers can actually work with their medium, not just promote it.

It's not a bad thing that Refrakt isn't there right now, I just think there's a better and more interesting, authentic way forward.

I've been working on a vision for something new—whether that's a new version of Refrakt or an entirely different platform (open to name suggestions). It's become a lot more solid and vivid in my mind. I've touched on this in previous posts, and you're probably tired of hearing about it. But this new direction focuses on smaller communities built around shared interests and genuine connections. Communities that elevate each other through photography, where collaboration and raw creativity are celebrated. A space where you can choose to share publicly or work entirely in private, or even to just bounce ideas around with a friend.

So I'm stepping back from social. I'll maintain my presence on YouTube & Refrakt, and I'll share links to new content on Bluesky, but I'm done with the scrolling. I'm tired of reading heated debates about things that ultimately don't matter much (like the latest Instagram grid update). Instead, I'm channeling that energy into my craft and building out the backend for this new vision, and I'll share some more concrete updates soon.

I might even start using this journal more like a micro-blogging platform but with RSS instead—a return to the web's more thoughtful roots.

While I'll continue sharing links to new content on platforms like Bluesky, I won't be actively engaging on them for the time being. If you want to chat about anything I've shared, email is the best way to reach me—it's more manageable and I'm much more likely to respond thoughtfully.

Thanks for reading, Sam.

P.S. I'm aware it's a priveledged position to be able to disengage, but I have to remember… my brain isn't supposed to see and process all of that information. It's already taxing enough being autistic. I have to find what works for me.

Social Media for Photographers

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

A question keeps tugging at the back of my mind…

What is the place of photography in todays social media landscape?

It's a fuzzy question, but I think it's important to think about. There's a broad landscape of platforms to share your work online, hell I'm even building one called Refrakt. I think they solve some of the problems around photography and social media, and I'm glad to see there are people out there who care enough about photography to build places for people to gather online. Flickr still endures despite its age, Glass is great, and Instagram remains, well, Instagram.

But I can't shake that question.

Why do photographers share their work on social media? The answers vary, but most want to get visibility. The hope is that more eyes on their work leads to more sales of their prints, books, zines etc. They grind it out, relentlessly posting to Instagram, or maybe they start a YouTube channel. More exposure is always a good thing, right?

Yet this grind starts to feel like shouting into the void. Chasing that next hit of dopamine from a like or comment drives people crazy. When your work isn’t even shown to your own followers anymore, the motivation to keep shooting can start to wane.

As more of a hobbyist these days, I don't quite think the social media grind is worth it for me, so I tend not to put any effort in. I don't really need to get my name out there, and if I'm being brutally honest, there's a lot of photography that I just don't care about. I still have a desire to share, but not in that way anymore.

I want to share my work with the people genuinely care. I crave a more intimate, private space where I can talk about the work I'm creating, the themes I'm exploring, and follow projects that intrigue me. I also want a public space where I can easily show my work—something like my website, but simpler. Just drop some photos into folders and a beautiful website comes out the other end.

The current state of social media doesn't offer that. I think what I'm describing is more like a photo centric group chat.

Community groups already exist in Discord, Slack, Facebook, etc, but they're not designed with photography in mind. The photo-viewing experience is clunky, even though the discussions can be richer. However, these spaces offer something different—room to breathe, no pressure to always post your best work, no engagement metrics looming over the experience. You can actually build rapport with people, and it’s a lot more enjoyable, provided you find the right groups.

I want to experiment with this some more. It may be the next iteration of Refrakt… or not. I'm still fleshing out ideas.

The spaces I'm describing may not be for everyone, and that's okay, but I believe there are others like me who would thrive in a more intimate space. If that resonates with you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, Sam.

Refrakt and more

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

This is more of a quick brain dump than a proper post.

I've been working on Refrakt for a little over a year and a half now. Recently however, I've not had the time or motivation to work on it as much as I probably should, and I can't help but feel bad about that. Turns out, building and maintaining a social platform is harder than it seems.

I feel like there's a couple of reasons as to why I've not been working on it as much as I used to.

The main reason is that I'm back working full-time. While I was freelancing, I could be a lot more flexible with my time, but lately I'm just fried by 6PM and that really diminishes my desire to continue coding for another 6-8 hours on Refrakt.

It also feels so daunting now. Refrakt is actually pretty mature technically, and it's a surprisingly big surface area. I've added a lot of new features compared to the initial beta launch, and lots of stuff in the background too, but there's still a lot to improve. I have a huge backlog of ideas I could build for Refrakt, most of which have been started in some way, but sitting down and finishing them feels harder than it should right now.

The last reason is that I truly suck at marketing Refrakt, even if I had the time. It just never feels genuine to "sell people on it" and would prefer it to just be all organic, word of mouth. I just know that organic growth is slow, and it feels like it hasn't quite hit it's critical mass yet. It's a benefit in some ways because there's a little less pressure, and the platform feels quiet which I kind of like. However it's not that great for the people who use it. They deserve visibilty on their work, and it's hard not to feel like other platforms may be better for that right now.

This isn't the end of Refrakt by any means, just more of a technical pause.

I have just been thinking about taking a little break from development on it for a while. It feels like Refrakt could benefit from a massive simplification, and I have some ideas for semi-related projects that I'd like to mess around with and see if they could be the next iteration of Refrakt, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Ultimately, I want to make small fun projects for like minded folks, so that's going to be my focus for the next little while. Utility apps, ways to organize and share work, and maybe even non-photography related projects too.

If you want to be involved, or have ideas, or just want to chat about Refrakt and photography in general, email me!

Thanks for reading, Sam.

Running away, in a good way

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT

My writing cadence is more sporadic than I hoped. I thought having a proper space for these journal entries would make me write more, but maybe I just don't have much to say all the time. I've moved all my entries from samking.blog into this site. I was a bit hesitant initially since this is my "professional" space, and my journal entries so far have been pretty personal and sometimes intense, but fuck it.

The last entry from six months ago was about my state of mind at the time. I wasn't in a great place. My mind was scattered, and some pretty bad things were swirling. I felt hopeless. I'm doing better now. I still have my days of course, but I feel good.

So what changed?

Annesah and I went to a Mac DeMarco gig in Hackney, right over the road from where I used to live. I hadn't been back there since the end of 2019 and it felt strange. Nostalgic for the last time I was there, panicking about a move back to my hometown. It made me realise how all over the place I was back then too. I was in a stressful job, big noisy city, I'd just come out of a relationship, and my Mum was going through some health stuff. Moving to my hometown was a chance to spend more time with family, but as soon as I got there, lockdowns happened. I was alone in my flat, working flat out at a new job in the healthcare space. It felt chaotic and I was burning out hard.

We sat in the Dress Circle watching Mac and his band, and I suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotions. Not necessarily from the music, but from things catching up to me. Walking from the station to the venue with all the memories of my old routine, how I felt back then, what I was going through. In between songs, Mac would talk about his hometown of Edmonton, Canada. The slower pace of life, the mountains of Alberta. I remembered I'd always wanted to visit but never did. I felt this pull in my chest, like I was meant to be somewhere else, somewhere like Canada. It sounds cheesy, but it was like I didn't belong in the UK anymore.

On the train back home in the morning, we were casually talking about Canada and what it would be like to live there. Annesah checked what the visa process was like, and it seemed like something we could do. It was late August and the contract on our house was up in December. We'd only have a few months to apply and get accepted into the pool, so we had to decide quickly. Do we stay in the UK, renew the house contract and find more work, or do we go all in on Canada.

I'm very impulsive, but not good at dealing with big changes. Annesah is someone who has to really think about a decision, especially one like moving 4,500 miles across the world. For some reason, it wasn't really a decision either of us gave much thought. We sort of just decided on impulse. Moving to Vancouver just felt right.

Valley of despair

We began selling and donating most of our furniture and belongings, and then put the rest in storage. I loathe moving. I find it so hard. The last two times I've moved, I was on my own and it was hell. At least I could just chuck everything in boxes and be done with it. This time, I had to sift through and decide what I was doing with my things. I found it so hard. It took up so much space in my head, I could feel I was getting overwhelmed.

The thought of "wtf are we doing?!" crossed my mind a lot. I hated it.

Luckily, my Mum was kind enough to let us stay with her for the period between moving out and actually moving to Canada. It was over Christmas, so I got to spend more time with her again, along with my brothers, their partners, and my niece. I just tried to enjoy that last month, and get some rest.

Hello Canada

The flight here was horrendous. It started with a 2 hour delay at Heathrow which made us miss the connection from Calgary to Vancouver. That turned into a 30 hour delay overall. The weather really fucked us.

We've been in Vancouver for a couple of days now though. It's been hard to get out because there was a huge dumping of snow, but it's also kind of nice because I haven't seen snow like this in years. We had to leave our hiking boots in the UK due to lack of space in our cases, but we both picked up some new ones today. I'm looking forward to getting out more now I have some weather appropriate footwear.

I'm obviously a bit homesick and jet lagged, but so far I like it. I have no idea how I'll feel about it in six months, or two years. Whether I'll apply for permanent residency, head back to the UK, or somewhere else entirely. I just need to try something different, see the mountains, and take it day by day.

I'm still working on Refrakt, but I'll need to start looking for a more permanent job soon, even if it's part-time. Staying in AirBnb's is okay for now, however we definitely need our own place. A job is kind of necessary for that. If you know of any companies here that are hiring designers or engineers, I'd love an intro.

But yeah, I like it. I'm hopeful for the life I could build here, and I'm feeling good.

Thanks for reading.<br/> Sam

A hidden battle

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT

TW: Suicide and Mental Health

It's been a very long time since I wrote here, probably a symptom of the way I've been feeling. I've been avoiding some things and trying to distract myself.

Last week, I wrote the following after everything just sort of bubbled up - it was a bit too much. I've been contemplating whether to share this or not. It's not exactly light reading and will likely change your perception of me, especially if you know me personally. Friendships, relationships, potential jobs could all become somewhat awkward. I can't help but worry about coming across as a liability or an emotional time-bomb. I don't want sympathy, and I certainly don't want to make people anxious. I don't want anyone thinking they need to rush in and save the day. However, I'm starting to take steps to deal with it all.

I think I'm ready to share now, though. I'd rather just put it out there for me and for anyone else who might be feeling the same. So if you know me and reading this comes as a bit of a shock, please tell me. You can talk to me about it. One of my greatest fears is pushing people away, making them feel alienated or as if they don't know me anymore. I just appreciate your understanding and patience while I get it off my chest.

So if you've read any of the previous posts here, you know I found out I'm autistic. This discovery came about this time last year. In that time, my perception of the world and its perception of me has changed significantly. It's been an extremely challenging year - the hardest yet for me. So much has come to the surface that I've had to confront. I also previously wrote about how valuable therapy was for me before I found this out, but I haven't used it to deal with this new discovery for various reasons.

Mainly I've been putting it off due to money. I was fortunate enough last year to be in a position where I could take time out and pick up small freelance projects here and there. I had some savings which meant I didn't really have to work. It's meant I've had less disposable income for things like therapy, and I believe this hasn't helped my situation. As each month passes, a chunk of my savings go with it. I still have "runway" so to speak, but it's definitely been a worry for me. When I was working full time, I never really had to think about it. However when I quit last year, my safety net of regular income was sort of gone, and it added a lot of anxiety. I needed money to live, and I needed a break from full-time work. Two things that opposed each other.

Also not having a set routine of work has actually been hard to adjust to. I've wanted freedom away from full-time work, but I've also felt the need for the simplicity of it. Not having to deal with government obligations and taxes and getting paid on time and following up on leads and doing the actual work and blah blah blah. It was so much easier when I would just clock in, do my work, and get paid. No headaches. But that lifestyle no longer works for me either, and the idea of going back to full-time, even temporarily to relieve some of the stress, just fills me with dread. I'd love something truly part-time where I don't have to deal with the additional burdens.

So that's one thing. The other issues are related to my identity and struggling to come to terms with how my brain functions. I've been trying to set new boundaries with myself and to be kinder to myself, while still being conscious of others and their expectations of me, especially if they don't know my situation.

There's a lot of relearning happening. I feel like I've forgotten how to function in basic ways. I struggle to keep the house tidy, my office is a mess, I'm eating like shit, I constantly have a backlog of laundry, my todo list just keeps growing. I honestly don't know how I used to do it before. General life stuff has always been oddly difficult for me, but it's just got worse. There's a term for it called Autistic Regression that usually happens after a period of burnout. You learn skills by building pathways in your brain. If these pathways are built while you're masking, when you begin to unmask, the pathways are essentially blocked. The skills are still there, just the way you access them is now different. You have to learn new ways to access those skills again. I think that's why I'm so shit at design now. My whole professional life was kind of like an "act". I learnt it all while masking. Now I'm trying to be more myself, I can't access those skills in the same way, but I'm also getting better at new skills like programming.

I just wish I could keep on top of things. It's like I'm drowning in the mundane.

I've also been trying to show more of my authentic self outwardly but honestly it's been hard. I previously wrote about a term for being autistic and trying to be more authentic. I called it "Authentistic". Since writing that, and about discovering I'm autistic, I've noticed people somewhat distance themselves which is understandable given how awkward the subject can be. I'm conscious of not making being autistic my whole personality as I don't see that as authentic either, but I feel like I need to talk about it as I'm figuring this "new life" out. It means I'm more visible as an autistic person instead of just as Sam.

It's honestly reminded me of being at school again. I'm noticing how all my interactions are very surface level because anything deeper is a little weird for others. It feels like I get on peoples nerves if I try and be more myself, so I end up indexing the other way and masking more socially than I initially did before I found out, or I just retreat and let friendships fade away. I'm tired.

All of these factors have led to more frequent suicidal thoughts. It's difficult to admit this, honestly. Like I said, I don't want sympathy or empty words. It's fine. I'm writing about it for myself really.

I've always had these thoughts for as long as I can remember, even as a young child. Particularly in times of stress where it's easy to think it would just be better for everyone else if I wasn't around. Who would notice, right? When I'm in that state, everything seems so pointless. It sounds silly when I say it because I know people would be upset if I went through with it, especially because I don't think many people would even truly understand why and maybe they would feel some guilt, like they could have stopped it. I just think it would be this sad thing for people close to me and that feels shitty.

Last week was the worst it's ever been. I was in the shower, thinking "I wonder what the tax implications would be if I left my partner some money and then disappeared? What passwords do I need to leave her? How would I say goodbye?". It was only once I got out of the shower that I realised what I was even saying to myself. The thoughts came up way too easy. I wasn't even thinking about whether I should or shouldn't, I was thinking about the practicalities of it like it was nothing. I was so scared by that. I went into the bedroom while my partner Annesah was getting ready for work, and I sat on the edge of the bed. She knew I'd been dealing with a lot more than usual lately, but had no idea it was that bad. When she asked if I was okay, I sort of blurted it out. It was the first time I'd told anyone about it and it all came out. She obviously handled it really well (or that's how I felt anyway) and supported me.

It kind of highlighted how much I've been struggling in secret.

The usual advice is talk to someone, bring it up with people you care about, don't let it eat you up. It's impossible. It's so scary to even think about, let alone bring it up to someone. Sure it's nice to have someone there, and I don't know what I would have done without Annesah, but when you're in it, you can't see out. Even now it's hard for me to know what to do. I've just tried to carry on as usual, get a coffee like my usual routine, do some work, eat the same food. The thoughts are still present.

I don't want these thoughts to be a thing anymore. I want to have a positive outlook on life, not just present like I have one. I actually want to have one.

I've not slept that well since then, and I've been up late at night going down rabbit holes of the connection between autism and suicidal thoughts. A lot of what I found is quite scary. There have been studies that found ~60% of autistic adults have thought about taking their own life, 35% have attempted it. You're 11x more likely to die by suicide if you're autistic than if you're not, and it's the second leading cause of death among autistic individuals, just behind epilepsy.

There's a real lack of support for autistic individuals with regards to suicide. It's understandable as it's only 1% of the population, and it's still not very well understood in terms of why it happens, especially in those without learning disabilities like myself. The support needs are very different to non-autistic people. I think part of it is that it's hard for others to even relate in any way.

There is progress however. There's more research being done, and new tools being developed like a new Suicidal Behaviours Questionanaire specifically catered to autistic individuals to help in screening and assessment processes. I'm glad there are people out there who care enough to do this research, and it makes me hopeful that people like myself will have better tools to deal with this in the future.

Anyway, if you've made it to the end of this, I want you to know that I appreciate your time. If you're going through something similar and want to talk about it, you can always reach out to me; my contact information is available on my main site (samking.co). I might not be in the best state to help right now, but I'll do my best because I genuinely want to be there for others.

I know I'll be fine in the end. I know I'll get over this. The thoughts will likely come back throughout my life and that's okay too. I have good support. Annesah has offered to help take some of this off my plate so to speak, and sort out a bunch of the doctor and therapy stuff which I'm immensely grateful for.

I've also found comfort in building refrakt.app, learning new things, and finding joy in pottery. It's these small things that make everything more bearable, and they remind me that it's okay to be where I am, and it's okay to take time for healing.

Thank you, once again, for taking the time to read this. Your support, in any form, means more than you know.

Sam

Authentistic

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Bit of a warning, this gets quite personal and talks about Autism.

I’ve been trying to write this post for about a week already, going back and forth in my head of should I, shouldn’t I. These last few weeks I’ve been struggling with parts of my identity and how I present myself to others.

Since finding out I’m Autistic half way through 2022, I’ve been thinking a lot about unmasking and what that would mean for me, and those close to me. I’ve had to be a lot more social the last few weeks due to the holidays and seeing more people in person. That’s been quite exhausting for me because I’ve had to mask a lot more than if I was just doing my own thing. It got me questioning how much of this has carried on to my online life too.

I spend an awful amount of time online, and presenting myself to people who don’t really know me. I hadn’t considered before that I’m also masking while I’m online. The way I talk, the phrases I use, the tone of voice. This is why I cringe a little when I read back tweets and posts from even a few months ago. I’ve started this journey of unmasking and finding my authentic voice again. Sometimes there’s some alignment, but it’s rare. Up until now I’ve been altering the way I talk to try and fit in, whether consciously or not.

It’s draining.

I’ve also found it hard to get away from the idea of pursuing art full-time. It’s something I’d love to be able to do. I love making new work, building out ways of sharing and selling said work. It scratches an itch that’s always present for me. However I feel like my authentic voice is fighting against the one that’s needed to successfully market myself as an artist. This is even more obvious in the space I’m most often operating in, crypto and NFTs in particular.

If I’m being authentic, I’m a loner. I produce all my work myself, the websites, the smart contracts, everything. It’s how I prefer to work. This contradicts the feeling of open collaboration and sharing in the crypto space. I don’t say "gm" or "wagmi". I can appreciate the sentiment, but I feel like my authentic self doesn’t fit in. It almost feels like if I want to be a full-time artist in this space, then I have to become an influencer to pay my bills. I’m not saying there are no authentic artists, and it’s not a dig at anyone. It’s just my feeling that the artists with successful projects spend the majority of their time on Twitter cultivating this sense of community. Being Autistic makes that really hard for me. I’m quiet and awkward. I suck at selling myself. It feels clunky. I can try but it’s all a mask, and it’s the one thing that saps my energy the most.

I’m also scared if I try to do that in a way that feels authentic to me, people won’t like it, or I’ll just be ignored when I just want to be seen for who I am and the work I make. I’m left questioning if it’s even possible for me.

There’s lots of factors going on here, and I’m probably conflating a lot of feelings. I’ve just been feeling uneasy in my own skin, and reconciling all the emotions has been really hard on me mentally. There’s definitely a sign that I need to spend less time online and making comparisons, but it’s also how I’m currently making a portion of my income so I can’t go cold turkey. It makes me want to run away to Scotland again. I feel so at peace when I’m there. Realistically I probably just need a therapist that specialises in working with adults who find out they’re Autistic later on in life to help with the reconciliation.

I’m currently reading Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price. It’s reassuring knowing I’m not the only one experiencing the things I’m going through (obviously), but it’s also bringing up a lot of feelings I’ve been repressing. Feelings of alienation and loneliness. People thinking I’m a little odd and avoiding me. How exhausting it is trying to fit in. How I’ve got by so far in my life by just being good at something as a service to others. Being valued for my output and not necessarily me as a human being. So much of the book has resonated with me already, I wanted to share a couple of paragraphs.

In media, nearly every Autistic character is a white man with a monotone voice, rude demeanor, and a penchant for science. […] In this cultural landscape, there’s little room for Autistics who are sensitive, emotionally expressive, artistic, or uninterested in academic success. Autism is so broadly associated with assholery that many of us initially hate associating with the term, and try to overcompensate by being excessively easygoing and nonconfrontational. It takes many years of research and meeting real-life counter-examples for most of us to recognize Autism isn’t the cold, robotic condition we’ve been told it is.

[…]

Masked Autistic people are basically everywhere, though by our very nature we’re socially invisible. You can find us in any number of fields people might not associate with stereotypically Autistic behavior, including sales, the service industry, and the arts. Because so many of us mask through inhibition and withdrawal, we might not stand out as socially awkward, at least not in a way anyone can pinpoint. Though many of us experience sensory issues, anxiety, meltdowns, and debilitating mental health symptoms, we push as much of that misery into the private realm as possible. Our elaborate veils of coping mechanisms and camouflaging can create the illusion we don’t need help. Often this comes at the expense of giving up on the areas of life where we might need assistance. We may eschew relationships, drop out of grueling academic programs, avoid working in fields that require networking and socializing, or completely disengage from activities that involve using our bodies, because we feel so detached and uncoordinated in them. Most of us are haunted by the sense there’s something "wrong" or "missing" in our lives- that we’re sacrificing far more of ourselves than other people in order to get by and receiving far less in return.

I really recommend reading the book, even if you’re not Autistic. It breaks down the awful stereotypes and humanises the disability in a way I can’t even begin to here.

It’s inspired me to make more work around this topic, and maybe that’s how I can get past this feeling. I should make something that expresses it. It makes me so happy seeing people excited about my work, or when they get a print and have a physical thing of something I’ve made. It gives me hope that things will be ok, and if I just persevere as my authentic self, I’ll get where I want to be eventually.

Here’s to being more Authentistic.

Before I go, I’d love to meet more Autistic people in the arts. If you’re in a community already, or you’re an Autistic artist yourself, please come talk to me! You can email me on sam@samking.studio or @samkingco on Twitter.

Thanks for reading, Sam.

Journal

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been just over a year since I started this website and I had every intention of writing more often. I never really knew what I wanted to write about, I just had the urge to get some words out, even if it was just for myself. Over the last year I haven’t written much, or I have but it’s been in bursts. It actually aligns pretty closely with how I work. I get obsessive with something and that’s all I can think about, and then I burn myself out and put it to one side for months. The list of unfinished side projects and proof of concepts on my computer is getting extremely long, this website being one of those.

I think I’ve realized, this website is more like a journal for random thoughts than proper articles like I originally imagined. I’m going to jot some stuff down whenever I’m in the mood. If I’ve learnt anything over the last few years it’s that I can’t force myself to do something unless I’m truly interested in it. I’ll always chase the dopamine of something more intriguing. Who knows, maybe I’ll spin up another website that will have more in-depth articles on the things I’m working on or learning. I know it’s something a few people want when it comes to hearing about my process with all things NFTs and photography. I’m working on that!

As for this post, I thought I’d just list a few things that have been keeping me busy, and how I’ve been feeling.

Last post retro

My last post was me opening up about my discovery that I’m likely an autistic person and what that has meant for my life day to day, and how it’s been reflecting on it for a few months. The support I got since writing it was overwhelming and made me feel very accepted. One of my fears was that I would lose a bunch of people because of it, but frankly not much has changed which is a good thing!

It’s out there now, and people said some wonderful things in my DM’s, and I’m so appreciative of the support. It was so tough feeling alone in that (outside of my amazing partner), but I’m feeling a lot better about the whole thing.

Would recommend sharing more personal things about yourself, it seems like there will always be someone who can relate if you’re going through a hard time.

Working

In terms of work stuff, I’ve been working on some really cool things for a couple of new clients. I can’t say too much on what the projects are, but I can probably give a quick summary of what it is I’m doing.

The first project is a lot bigger, but it’s kind of like an NFT kit for a team to get up and running with new projects quickly. They’re onboarding artists to their gallery, and need an easy way to get custom contracts and websites up without spending weeks of time on each one. It’s a set of contracts to do things like pre-minting NFTs, modules for selling them in batches using a mix of auctions and fixed price sales, ERC-721 based editions, membership card early access and discounts, and a whole lot more. Personally I’ve been loving getting more into writing smart contracts, and writing smaller modules in a library fashion has been kind of refreshing. I’ve still got a bit to do on that project but hopefully I’ll be able to share something by the end of the month.

The other smaller project revolves around token-gating a checkout experience. It’s leaning on Sign In With Ethereum (SIWE) to prove ownership of wallets, and then Stripe checkout to handle non-crypto payments if a person owns a specific NFT. It can all be done with NextJS and the API routes which is super nice. I might "white label" it and open source it at some point. It’s actually quite straightforward and I know a bunch of people have been looking for something fairly simple like this. The only annoying part is adding conditions like no repeat orders, which means you need to rely on a database of some sort. As much as I love vercel, I just wish it offered a simple key value store, or a persistent Postgres database or something. Since this project is kind of small and non-tech folks need access to the "database", we’re just using Airtable for now. It’s definitely highlighted the need for me to get more proficient with backend stuff outside of smart contracts.

Day to day

Outside of work I’ve been playing a lot more Overwatch. The new version of the game just released and despite the launch hiccups, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing. I’m back on my main account since it’s now behind SMS protection—RIP to my 5 alt accounts with a much higher skill rating. I haven’t played on this account in maybe 3 years, but it has all my skins on it. The rank has decayed quite a lot which means I’m in games with a lot of n00bs, so I’ve been raging a bit! I get very competitive.

I haven’t been doing much else to be honest. I’ve managed to scan 4 rolls out of the 36 from my trip to America. I’m kind of dreading how long it’s going to take me, but there will likely be a small NFT project that comes out of it. I’ve already got some proof of concept smart contracts working that involve collectors being able to convert their image into an edition within some parameters. Each NFT can deploy a new smart contract with numbered editions as ERC-721 tokens, similar to the "ground breaking shatter contracts". I think it’ll be an interesting concept to play around with and it could incentivize some interesting mechanics such as a DAO purchasing a unique NFT and then "shattering" it into editions for their members.

That’s it

A bit of a hodge-podge post but it feels a lot nicer than tweeting a thread of all the things I’ve been up to.

Before I forget, I’ve set up a discord for collectors of my work. I might open it up to everyone, or at least have the day to day chat be open to everyone because I’d love to talk to some new folks. Check it out at samking.studio/discord.

Thanks for reading, Sam.

A self discovery at 30

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

As I’m sat here writing this post, I’m having a hard time deciding how much to share with the entire world, although let’s be real, there’s only a handful of folks who read this. It may change your perception of me as a person, and I think that has been a blocker for me talking about this more openly. I’m worried friends will see me differently. There’s also feelings of fraud and sadness but also relief and acceptance.

I don’t really know the purpose of sharing this, but I feel like it’s something I need to write. If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you’ll know I’ve suffered from burn out and massive social anxiety, leading to therapy to try and process it all. I’ve always felt a bit different, but like I can somehow adapt and change myself to fit into most situations. I just assumed it was my childhood, particularly ages 10-18 or so, where I developed those traits. There was a lot of trauma at that age.

It was only since I was no longer working, and starting looking more inwardly that I thought there might be something else going on. I was scrolling through TikTok one morning and a video came up that really stuck out to me. You always get these videos that suggest you might have certain conditions like "5 signs you might have ADHD" where the creator lists out things like forgetting your keys. I tend to just ignore them even though a bunch of what they talk about often applies to me in some way. However this video was different. I hadn’t realised my own misconceptions about autism before. I felt like every single thing they spoke about applied to me very deeply. They also spoke about Embrace Autism, a website with a bunch of tests to see if you might be on the spectrum.

I hurried to the site and took the first test, the Autism Spectrum Quotient test. I scored a 34. 80% of autistic people score 32 or higher with 26 being the threshold that you might be autistic. I wasn’t sure how to feel, so I took it again just in case I’d gone too fast and skipped over something. The score remained 34. I thought I should take the others to see if it was a fluke. Every test I took, I scored well within the range of "highly likely to be autistic". I watched some YouTube videos on the topic, and one of the creators said "autistic people tend to take all of them" which was funny and comforting.

However I wondered how could this be? Could I really be autistic? How have I gone through 30 years of life completely unaware that there might be something neurologically different about me? How did no one see this sooner? What could they have done? Would I have been different for knowing sooner? So many questions.

The test for masking (RAADS-R) really illuminated things for me. 130 is the mean score of autistic people, and 160 is very strong evidence of autism. 227 is the maximum score from the seminal paper. I scored a 174, so pretty high! It made sense since I never felt like I could be myself when I’m not alone. I was always changing my behaviour to fit in around people, and it was the thing that was causing me so much anxiety. I would always be watching how other people were behaving, and try to mirror that. If someone touches their face, or the way they laugh at jokes, or even hold eye contact. I just thought this was normal and everyone did that to a certain degree. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I don’t really know how to read people, and have a hard time processing when people don’t say how they feel literally.

I text my Mum, and asked what I was like as a kid. She always said I was shy and quiet but I wanted her to expand on that. How did I behave? How did I interact with others? I didn’t tell her what it was yet. She said I would freak out if I got anything in my shoes. I would cry to her to help me, she would shake them out, and there would be a grain of sand inside. She told me if I ate a sugar doughnut, I would hate having the sugar on my fingers. Most children would just lick the sugar off. My brother would make mud pies with his hands, but I would use sticks, or just stay back and watch, not wanting to get dirty. I loved being read to quietly, and being cuddled up. I loved going to my Nan’s house because she would do puzzles with me, take me on walks to feed the ducks, and let me nap.

My nursery called my Mum and asked if it was ok to put me in a group for children with learning difficulties. This worried her, but the nursery said I was more than intelligent enough to be with the other children, I just worked better in a smaller and quieter group. I would hate my Mum leaving me at nursery. I’d hang onto her leg. At this group called Tumble Tots I would know all the words to the songs because I would sing them in the privacy of the car, but as soon as I got there, I would just sit on my mums lap, not participate with the other kids, and not sing along. I always wanted to go on rides at theme parks, but then have such a serious look on my face like I hated it. As soon as the ride was over, I didn’t want to get off. We’d have to go on it at least three times. I was always a quiet kid. When my younger brother was born, I was a bit louder but not a lot. If we both went to the shop together, I would look after the money since I was the eldest, but my brother would be the one to ask the shopkeeper for what we both wanted.

It was very emotional hearing all of this stuff about me as a kid since I don’t remember a whole lot of it. I just sat in bed and cried while I read her messages. I told her I might be autistic, and a lot of what she told me kind of confirmed it in my mind. Thinking about this little boy that was clearly struggling with the world at such a young age, but finding comfort in being in quiet spaces with interesting things in front of me. Not too different to the current day! It felt like my whole life was a lie somehow. I was looking at those experiences through the new lens of autism. It was like I was grieving for my younger self—the quiet little boy.

Once I got past that, the feeling of fraud came. Because it hadn’t been confirmed by a medical professional (and still hasn’t) could I really say "I’m autistic"? I don’t know if seeking a formal diagnosis will help me in any way. The NHS waiting lists are stupidly long, and going private isn’t much better. Part of me thinks it will help confirm my feelings, but part of me doesn’t want to label anything. For now, self diagnosis is enough for me.

I want people to know so they can understand if I’m a bit blunt, or need them to be more direct with me, but at the same time I don’t want my friends to see me as a different person, and I don’t want any special treatment. There’s a real risk for autistic people that they lose some of the safety that masking affords them when they behave more authentically. There’s still a lot of stigma and stereotyping, and if I told people up front that I’m autistic, they might have negative preconceptions about me. Masking is ok for me but it takes so much energy to keep it up, and I hate that I can never be my true self around others. I would love to drop it completely, but I’m not sure it will ever be possible.

All of this happened at the beginning of June so it’s been a few months. I’ve been more aware of my behaviours and certain things I do that might be attributed to being autistic. I didn’t realise how much I stim (self-stimulating behaviour). I touch my chin when I ask for something from a stranger. I always pick at or bite my hands when I’m feeling anxious. My eye contact is atrocious. I get completely absorbed in my interests such as photography, coding, designing, so much so that I forget to eat certain meals, or I suddenly realise it’s 4am and I should have gone to bed hours ago. It’s made me wonder how much other people have noticed my quirks over the years, and it’s kinda funny knowing they probably just thought I was an asshole for ignoring them or being too blunt.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard processing all of these feelings. Even writing this has been kinda tough, watery eyes and all that. I feel like starting therapy again could help, but I’m lucky that I have such a supportive partner who has encouraged me to get to know myself on a deeper level. It’s made dealing with this new discovery a lot easier.

I don’t really know where I was going with this, and I don’t really know how to sign it off. Hopefully reading this hasn’t negatively impacted your perception of me. I appreciate this was a longer and deeper read than normal, so thanks for reading to the end!

If anyone has gone through something similar, then I would love to chat about how you’ve dealt with it!

Sam

Rest and relaxation… sort of

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, and my last post was talking about taking time off. I’ve sort of kept that promise to myself, but also haven’t been able to help myself.

Goings on

I started up Sam King Studio because I knew I’d want to do a few projects this year, and so far it’s been going well. I’ve slowly been easing myself back into things, focusing more on the coding side. It’s been really nice to have the space to either take on a new project, or work on something for myself. I’m still figuring out the balance to avoid burning out again, but the personal projects have helped a lot.

Built Behold The Ocean with Akosua.
Helped build the Void Runners frontend.
Designed some screens to help pitch Ethos Wallet.
Built some smart contracts for the upcoming Legend Maps game.
Launched a personal project ICE64—more below.
Worked on many other smart contracts that are yet to be released.

ICE64

This was one of the first personal projects I’ve released since going out on my own. It’s another photography NFT project, but it has an interesting on-chain component. Most NFTs store the token information off-chain since on-chain storage is so expensive. Something like an 8MB photo would costs thousands of dollars to store, and it would be very slow. A fellow DEF friend CJ had been working on an on-chain SVG renderer. It takes pixel data of a small canvas and then renders that into an SVG.

ICE64 was one of the first projects to use CJ’s work. There are 16 photos, and every photo is an original 1 of 1 NFT, with an accompanying edition of an SVG based artwork. The originals are stored on IPFS and Arweave, and the editions are stored directly on the Ethereum network. Obviously you can’t store a high resolution image on-chain, so the editions are down-scaled to fit within a 64x64px canvas. All of the images in the collection were selected so they would work in both original high resolution, and the smaller on-chain resolution.

I had a lot of fun building the smart contracts. Each purchase of an original also comes with the edition version too. You can also use a Roots NFT to claim a free edition, and you can do this from the contract directly. There’s no snapshots or merkle trees which is super nice, and highlights the composable aspect of web3.

This was also my first project making use of editions and I think it’s been very positive. Being able to offer artwork at a more affordable price is really nice and it’s allowed more people to become collectors of my work—thank you to any collectors reading, I appreciate you a lot. I even had a little shout out on the JPEG2000 podcast where I spoke about why I love editions. I definitely think editions will be an aspect of my future projects, and I’m thinking of interesting ways to use them going forward.

America

I got some big time relaxation in (depending on your definition of relaxation). I took Annesah to America for her birthday. We went all out. We spent a week in New York, and then flew to Seattle where we drove down the coast for like 4 weeks to San Diego. I think we drove about 3,000 miles in the end.

I’ve been to New York a bunch, and went to California in 2019, but I’d never seen Oregon, and it was Annesah’s first time in America. The nature and wildlife were amazing. It was so nice seeing something new every day, even if it was a bit hot.

Camera issues added a bunch of stress though. My Hasselblad stopped working in New York after a flash downpour of rain—the only 20 mins of rain of the entire week, and we got caught in it. We were due to fly to Seattle the following day so getting it repaired in NYC wasn’t possible. Luckily Glazer’s Camera in Seattle could help me out, but their Hasselblad expert wasn’t going to be around for a few days, and we’d be in Portland by then. Still, I handed it over and thought I’d just drive back up to Seattle to collect it when it was fixed.

In the meantime, I managed to find a used Mamiya 7 on Facebook Marketplace, a camera I’d always wanted. It was expensive but I’m so glad I picked it up. It was a pleasure to use and I’m so thankful to Hayden for driving up to Portland to sell it to me, and for letting it go to a new home in the first place! Good news came from Glazer’s but I had no energy to make the 6 hour round trip to Seattle, so I called on one of my DEF friends Alexi, who kindly offered up their address in San Francisco so I could get my fixed Hasselblad shipped there before I arrived a week later.

Then I just had to lug the Hasselblad around for the rest of the trip because the Mamiya was much nicer to use. In total I ended up shooting over 30 rolls of film. I have them all back from the lab now, and I’ve started scanning them but it’s going to be a slog! I feel like there’s another personal project to come out of this work though, so I’m excited to share a bit more about that at a later date.

We’d also arranged to meet a few people I’ve been talking to online for a while now. Sadly I didn’t get to meet any of the NYC folks because it was supposed to be the day we arrived, and we’d been awake for almost 24 hours—just fried. However it was great meeting Kevin, Scott, CJ, and their partners at Kevin’s place in Portland. We made some pizza’s in the garden, very wholesome.

Back to reality

There’s definitely holiday blues. Coming back to the energy crisis, cost of living crisis (perfect time for me to quit my secure FTE), and a new PM has been a lot. It’s got me and Annesah thinking about getting out of the UK, at least for a while. I’m just trying to not let it all overwhelm me, and continue to help people build out their projects, and release some more artwork of my own.

If you’ve got a project in mind, or want to just get some extra eyes on something, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’m always down for a chat!

As always, thanks for reading, Sam.

Recovering after the crash

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Tue, 15 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMT

I’ve been doing some form of product design for the last 11 or so years, 10 of those being in a more professional capacity for various start ups. I thought when I started that I was going to be this amazing designer, doing a job I love for the rest of my working life. If I’m being totally honest with myself, I’ve been feeling the effects of burnout for probably 4 years now. I need time away. In those 10 years, the longest single block of time-off I had was 3 weeks, and more recently a month before joining Plain. It’s not sustainable.

Product design was becoming just a job. I was no longer doing the thing I love every day. I’ve been asked by various employers over the years if I wanted to go into management and that’s really not something that resonates with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching and mentoring people, but managing a team just ain’t it for me. I feel like the value I can bring to an organisation has always been hands-on, designing and building the product. That meant I’d been walking down the IC (Individual Contributor) path more as my career developed. When you’ve been an IC for 10 years, you sort of see the same stuff no matter what you work on. It’s largely the same processes for solving problems, even if it’s in a different vertical. I think I’ve found it hard to keep work interesting over the years. Early in your career, you’re learning loads and at a really fast pace. Later on, that learning speed slows down as you’re under more pressure to ship things. You lean on the things you know to get stuff done quickly. Your value to a business increasingly becomes about solving problems fast.

I think that pressure and repetition is the thing that has contributed to my feeling of burnout. I was, and am, exhausted. Sure, each business has it’s own challenges, and I don’t want to give the impression that everywhere I’ve worked has been boring, because that’s not true. I’ve just stopped learning as much, and as quickly. My interest in the field of Product Design has waned. I need to reset.

Since October, I’ve been doing a lot more in the web3 space and it’s reignited that learning flame for me. I’ve released a project I’m truly proud of, and it’s been the catalyst I needed to take a break from traditional Product Design. I’m learning all these new things like coding languages, governance, and economics. I’m filled with new ideas all the time, to the point where it’s probably really annoying for some of my new web3 developer friends.

My biggest hurdle since October has been time. I committed to starting at Plain before I did my little project, and I was really excited to join the team even after launching it. I’ve worked with the founders Matt and Simon before, and they’re people I really respect and admire. The product is an interesting challenge, and I’ve had a lot of fun solving some of the problems, writing code, and revamping the design system slightly. However I couldn’t shake the feeling that Product Design may not be for me, at least not right now. I wanted to explore this new web3 medium, make some art, and make new friends along the way.

So what’s next?

I’m taking the break I desperately need. I’m not sure what the next few months look like but I’m fortunate enough to have a little runway where I can make this break possible (something I really don’t take for granted). First I’m just going to take some time away from tech. I’ll probably still be tweeting and tinkering with projects, but I also want to shut my brain off for a bit. Maybe I’ll reinstate my camera from it’s current position as a glorified webcam, and actually go outside and take some photos. I want to paint. I want to draw. I just want to be creative for a bit. In a few months when I start to get worried about the finances, I’ll probably pick up some contract work here and there. The important thing for me is that I get to choose how much I should be working. The last thing I want is to have a couple of months off, go back into something full-time, and be back here in 6 months time feeling even worse.

I do want to say thank you to Matt and Simon at Plain for being so understanding of my situation. They have a lot of interesting stuff to build, and I’m not leaving at the best time for them, but they really do get it. If you’re a technically minded Product Designer (with a bit of coding experience) please DM or email me and I can put you in touch. They’re an awesome intentionally small team, with some really cool challenges and ambitious goals.

I want to hear from you if you’re looking for someone to help with design, bounce ideas about web3 stuff, or write some fun smart contracts. I won’t be ready to work on anything right now, but I always appreciate meeting new people and hearing about what people are working on.

On a more human level though, if you want to talk about the feeling of burnout or are feeling something similar, my DMs on Twitter are open, and you can always add me on Discord (samking.eth#0001). I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands for conversations and connections. I’m more than happy to discuss things like this, and I hope sharing my experiences encourages others to look within themselves too.

Here’s to chilling the fuck out, and making some art!

Thanks for reading, Sam.

Dead already?

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 00:00:00 GMT

It’s been a full month since I last posted. I started this site in the hopes of getting me writing, and it worked to some degree. There’s just been a lot going on this last month!

First I was wrapping up my work at LloydsDirect. I really enjoyed working there—I joined back in 2019 when it was called Echo. It was nice to work on a product that helps people with their health. Initially I joined to work on internal tooling for the operations teams, things like stock management, prescription safety checks etc. I ended up joining the patient facing team shortly after starting and made some big improvements to the patient apps. We made it easier to navigate, introduced a new design system that’s more accessible, and opened up other ways for people to get their medicine leveraging LloydsPharmacy’s physical stores.

I’m really proud of the work I did there, but I left so I could join up with some old pals at plain.com. One of the things I worked on at LloydsDirect was our own customer service tool that was tailored to the online prescription service. I actually worked on it with Matt, and he went on to found Plain with Simon, the previous Head of Design from Deliveroo when I was there. I’m excited to get back into this space again. It’s going to be fun building software primarily aimed at engineers, and working with old friends!

I’m taking a month off (currently a week and a half in) which I thought would be nice and relaxing. It has been a bit, but I’ve also been getting more into the crypto space, learning new things. I actually deployed my first ever smart contract which I loved. It was my first time writing Solidity too. Lots of firsts recently! I’ll probably write a bit more about it as the project matures, like how I got started, the things I learnt along the way etc.

I also had what’s potentially my penultimate therapy session. I have one more next month, and then that could be it for that type of therapy! We’re going to compare my progress from when I started to now. Looking back on when I started, it doesn’t seem like me at all. It was like I was a totally different person. I still need to practice the things I’ve been taught, and might start another type of regular talking therapy but I haven’t decided just yet.

For now though, I need to chill out a bit. I’ve got a bunch of house admin to do because I’m planning on moving to Brighton to be with my girlfriend just before I start at Plain. There’s quite a few things to sort out, and I hate moving. I find it so stressful!

I’m going to continue writing when I can, but I’m not 100% what about right now. There might be more of these little update posts, but I’d like to do some more in depth writing about the things I’m learning. I’ll share more when I can.

Thanks for reading, Sam.

Thoughts on therapy

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

So I’ve had a few comments since my first post about therapy specifically. Some thanking me for being open, and some wondering where to start. I thought I’d continue that conversation and talk a bit out my journey with it. Obviously everyone is different but this could be helpful if you’ve been on the fence about it.

Why go in the first place?

This is the core question you need to answer. For me, I’d reached a tipping point. I’d known I probably needed some sort of therapy for years. I actually had counselling when I was very young, maybe 10 or 11 years of age. I had a very up and down childhood and I knew it had probably bled into my behaviours as an adult. Maybe I’ll get into that a bit more at a later date, but it meant I’d become a very avoidant person, often cancelling plans and isolating myself if I thought I’d be even the slightest bit out of my comfort zone. It affected past relationships and friendships. Avoiding those situations just made me feel worse. If I cancelled plans then I’d feel good for a short period of time, happy that I could retreat into my safe space, but that feeling quickly turned into guilt and meant there were times where I wouldn’t leave my bed for days. I’d ignore people and just hide myself away. It would consume me.

This tipping point came when I was supposed to meet my girlfriend for dinner. I was feeling quite low for an unrelated reason and all I wanted to do was stay home. So I did. I told her I wouldn’t be coming to see her and ended up staying home alone in bed. Obviously I just felt so shit after that, especially seeing as she went to the restaurant alone. I was frustrated at myself for letting someone down. I knew we would have had a lovely time, but I’d just ruined something for someone else. It might sound relatively small but it was the avoidant behaviour coupled with my poor communication of my needs that made this whole situation worse. It was a pattern I was repeating, and one I didn’t like but I couldn’t seem to do anything different when that feeling came up. This was essentially the straw that broke the camels back and it caused a rift between us. I wanted to find out why I behave like that and if I could do anything about it. Was it my childhood and learned behaviours? The way I’d been treated in past relationships? Or was it just me as a person?

You’ll know when you should start therapy. You’ll have your goal come to you. It also doesn’t matter how big or small that goal is. I was worried that it was silly for me to go to therapy over avoiding situations. Really, I was running from my problems. Going to therapy has uncovered a lot of other stuff I wasn’t really aware of.

So how do you start?

So the first main question you have to answer is are you in crisis or not. If you are, then therapy isn’t necessarily the answer and instead there are helplines and services that specialise in crisis. You should really head to A&E or contact Samaritans on 116 123.

The second question is if you want to pay or not. In the UK, you can get certain types of therapy on the NHS, but often the wait times are long. I ended up going private and I feel very privileged to be able to do so. Most sessions range from £50-120 an hour depending on the type of therapy, and the qualifications of the therapist (although not always true).

I didn’t know this at the time though, I had no idea where to actually start. I spent an evening googling places, filling out forms describing what I thought my issues were. It was emotional and I cried a fair bit. It’s strange when you’re a man, there’s a lot of masking emotions because “that’s what you’re supposed to do, brave face and all that”. It was the first time I’d written down my problems and let someone know, even if it was filling out a form on a random website. It was hard not to feel overwhelmed. I’m honestly surprised I persevered.

I initially tried this site called Better Help. I’d seen a few ads for the service in the past, and they had some good reviews. You get paired with a therapist and you’re supposed to have an hour session to get to know each other before you commit. I had a really shit experience though. I got matched with someone from the states (I’m in the UK) and there was no way to change it. I was worried there would be cultural norms that are different, or time zones would be an issue etc. I was nervous all day for this video call, and they never showed up. I’d got all psyched up only to fall at the first hurdle. I felt defeated really. They might work better for others but that experience left a sour taste in my mouth and I moved on.

More searching. I came across this site called My Therapist Online. It seemed promising. Disclaimer, this isn’t a paid review or anything, I just think the service is great! I didn’t know exactly what kind of therapy I needed. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by all the options out there. That wasn’t really an issue though because you tell them why you think you need therapy and what you want to get out of it. Their team will then look over your information and put together a small list of therapists they think will be best for you, and they recommend someone specifically. They also include each therapist’s prices and links to their bio and history so you can make an informed decision. You then choose the therapist that sounds like they’ll be able to help you the most, and is within your budget. You have an initial call with them for 15 minutes. It’s free and you don’t have to commit to them if you don’t think they’re a good fit. I was lucky in that the first therapist I spoke to was great. We spoke about what kind of thing I want to achieve by the end of therapy, what kind of person I’d like to be etc.

After that chat, I had to confirm I was happy to go ahead with therapy through My Therapist Online. One of their selling points is they act as an intermediary between you and your therapist when it comes to the payments so you never have to have awkward conversations about money with your therapist. You pay for your first two sessions up front, I think mainly as a sign you’re committed to the process. After that, you get invoiced each month for the amount of sessions you’ve had. Depending on the type of therapy, you might have fewer sessions over time. Then you arrange the date and time if your first session.

About my sessions

The type of therapy I have is called Strategic Brief Therapy. It’s similar to CBT in some ways. Basically it aims to solve the problem of trying the same solution over and over and not getting the desired results (like me running to isolation). They call these problems “attempted solutions” which I quite like. I’ve had to identify what these attempted solutions are like running away and isolating, among other things, and put certain strategies in place to try other solutions instead. Identifying these attempted solutions has been one of the hardest parts. Understanding why I behave a certain way has been extremely emotional but totally worth it. I’ve had to get very deep into myself to really get it.

I started sessions once a week, just for an hour. At the end of each session I was set some homework for the week. It started out small like answering two questions every morning:

Imagine a past situation that I avoided. How would I make that situation worse on purpose? What would I do?
Imagine the reason I’m in therapy isn’t a problem anymore. What would I do differently and what would my life look like?

Over the course of several weeks, these questions evolved and got more specific to issues I was facing. I was being taught tactics for dealing with situations I’d normally run from, and being forced into uncomfortable situations incrementally. My therapist had a good analogy, it was like building up my immune system to conflict and better behaviours. By exposing myself to situations I’d normally run from in smaller doses, I was slowly building up a tolerance. If I stopped practicing, this tolerance would go back down, but if I kept it up then soon enough I’d have a good level of immunity. These situations that were such a big cause of anxiety for me, would no longer be that bad.

I started this process in June of this year. It’s now September and my sessions have reduced to being monthly. Last week was the first time I’d seen my therapist in a little over a month. It’s a sign that things are improving for me. I just need to spend time now really getting into practicing the things I’ve learned, and need less time exploring my “attempted solutions”. I have a pretty clear idea what those are now! One piece of homework that’s helped a lot is journaling my frustrations and anxieties. This one practice alone has helped me identify so many things and I’d recommend it for anyone, regardless of if you need therapy. Just getting your feelings out onto paper, even if no one reads it, is so liberating. I’ve noticed triggers and patterns that I know how to deal with now.

A summary

If this post has made you think about going, that’s great! As my therapist would say…

Some people may think that seeking for help is a sign of weakness; however, being able to admit that you alone can’t deal with a situation and seeking professional help, shows great strength.

The things you need to figure out are…

What do you want to get out of therapy? Only you can answer that question. Really think about what you’d like your life to be like if the issues you’re dealing with were no longer an issue.
Private or NHS? I think this will depend on your budget but it’s good to be aware of before you start.

Then it’s just a case of finding a therapist. I can’t recommend My Therapist Online enough, but there are other similar services. If you have an initial chat with a therapist and you think it’s not going to work, that’s ok. Try someone else, or maybe you decide that you’re not ready yet. That’s also ok. You’ll know when you need it.

Here’s a couple of links to useful therapy services in the UK:

My Therapist Online is where I found my current therapist.
BACP has lots of information about the types of therapy, how to get started, and just general info.
UKCP, again for info on psychotherapy and finding a therapist.
NHS conditions has information about specific conditions so you can see if any resonate with you.
NHS talking therapies and medicine has information about types of therapy and other treatments.

Therapy has really changed my outlook for the better. I still have a lot of work to do but the improvement since June has been really good. I’m also hoping that by talking about this more, it removes some of the stigma surrounding therapy. Especially for men where it’s often seen as weakness.

If you want to know more, please feel free to reach out to me. My DMs are open on Twitter, or you can email me on mail at samking.co. If you already go to therapy, I’d love to hear about your journey too if you’re willing to share.

Anyway, thanks for reading, Sam.

An introduction

mail@samking.co (Sam King) — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 00:00:00 GMT

Hey you, how are you doing?

I thought my first post here should be a little introduction to me and what this site even is.

First of all, my name is Sam (he/him). I’ve been a Product Designer now for about a decade. At the time of posting this, I currently work at LloydsDirect, an online pharmacy. Soon I’ll be joining some old friends over at Plain, a startup making a customer service platform designed to be built with.

Way back when, I was really into photography and worked as a freelancer. I was far too young to even know what that really meant, how to get good paying clients etc. I mostly took photos of BMX, but now I get the most joy out of photographing landscapes, especially those without humans in for some reason. This lead me down the design and engineering path because I was building a new portfolio site every week. It got me hooked on making digital things that were publicly accessible. I had my own place on the internet where I could express whatever I wanted to.

That’s what I do and have done for a living, but it doesn’t really say much about me as a person. I’m a proud vegan, which means I obviously love animals. I have a strong affinity to pigs for some reason—maybe I was one in a past life. Also a special shout out to mushrooms. I still ride a BMX every now and then, but I don’t have the reckless confidence of youth that I used to. I end up hurting myself when I ride these days. I don’t read as much as I’d like to. I’m a big fiction fan, especially Murakami, I love the imagery he counjours up for the reader. I also love a good negroni.

I try to be creative outside of work when I can, but it tends to be a great cause of discomfort for me, especially this last year or so. I always feel like I’m not good enough, doubting myself before I ever really get started. It’s one of the many things I’m dealing with in therapy. I can’t recommend therapy enough if you can afford it. Fortunately I’m lucky enough that I can, a priveledge I don’t take for granted. I’ve only been on this journey since June this year, but it’s already changed my life. I feel a bit weird putting the fact I go to therapy out into the world because it’s often seen as taboo, but I want to use this "platform" to talk about it more. Maybe it will inspire someone else to seek the help I think everyone deserves, no matter how small or silly it may sound.

Because of this fear though, I end up with a bunch of half finished projects that have never seen the light of day. The only reason this site exists is because it was quick to build, and I stayed up all night thinking about it.

A sort of "aha" moment I had recently was…

I guess I have to remember that creativity isn’t like a tap you can turn on, and is more like rain. It comes periodically and sometimes in seasons. There will be dry spells and that’s ok.

Twitter thread

Some of the things I’ve been tinkering with recently are:

Roots, an NFT collection of 40 photographs exploring my roots in the Scottish Highlands.
Gēnetisk, experiments in generative art, although I haven’t produced many works this year.
AnaLog, a React Native app that helps you log settings you used when shooting photos on film (still needs more work).
A yet to be named game idea that’s still germinating. It’s a text based rougelike/dungeon crawler where you play as an alien that’s been sent to back to your old planet. You have to obtain info about a new species that’s hoovering up resources at an alarming rate, and harming the native species that still live there. You’d be able to collect companions along the way that help you with certain tasks. It’s supposed to be a comment about the current state of Earth. I also toyed with ideas of integrating this into web3 in some way.

I tend to jump around between projects a lot, or if I run up against a hurdle, I get disheartened and abandon it. It’s strangely only with personal projects that I feel this way.

There’s a couple of things I’d love to get more into though. If you’re reading this and think you could give me the nudge I need, then DM me on Twitter.

Web3. I tweeted this recently but I feel like I’ve always been on the edge of the crypto rabbit hole, watching and tentatively exploring. I’ve been spending more time in random Discords, seeing what people are building and it’s really exciting. I’d love to be more involved.
3D. It’s always been on my list to learn, even more so when I started digging into generative art last year.
Ceramics and pottery. I’ve done a couple of classes here and there, and made things at home. I love the fact I’m using my hands to make something instead of typing out a bunch of words into a computer.

So what is this?

I haven’t had a dedicated space to write for a long time, and it’s meant I kind of stopped doing it outside of work. Writing is just another creative outlet that I’m not using. I wanted to have somewhere to share thoughts without too much effort. It should also get me back into writing again and hopefully I improve over time.

It’s going to be a place where I can share thoughts on whatever I’m doing or find interesting at that moment in time. It might be about design, crypto, therapy, but it could also just be an opinion on something.

Maybe you’ll enjoy reading along! If you do, let me know on Twitter. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading, Sam.