The Mood of the Year

Since it has already become something of a tradition, the photo of the year was taken with a drone. For me, it reflects the mood of the entire year. This year feels like one long autumn. A slow, beautiful sunset of an industry after decades of intense and crazy growth. There is calm in it.

My own stage of life also feels closer to autumn now. I like to think of life as a sequence of changing seasons. The abundant spring of childhood and adolescence. The hot summer of studying, hard work, and building a career. Then comes a calmer, more comfortable autumn, when we do what we know well, what we truly enjoy, and what feels meaningful to us. And finally, the cold winter of old age.

Hobby and Lifestyle

Talking about hobbies and lifestyle, this year felt like a continuation of everything valuable I had learned earlier. There was less exploration of new things and more thoughtful examination of what I had already discovered. My cycling became more serious, and completing three marathons this year was a true test of my personal limits. The feeling from that experience is still with me and continues to motivate me to train regularly. This can definitely be called the Achievement of the Year. I am falling in love with this meditative activity, and hopefully one day I will write a separate post about bicycles and the magic of exploring the world at a perfect pace: fast enough to feel the continuous flow of changing scenery, yet slow enough to notice and truly absorb each passing detail.

I am looking forward to spring and getting back to outdoor rides. There are so many places still to see and so many Statshunters squares left to fill. Altogether, I covered about 3,066 kilometers by bike this year.

I did not run as much as last year, but I slightly raised the bar in terms of distance. This year, I ran on 96 days, covering a total of about 420 kilometers.

This autumn, my wife and I spent a few days in the Polish mountains, living in a small cabin without internet, and I would call it the Experience of the Year. The picture at the top of this post was taken there. I hadn’t realized how dependent I had become on the internet and gadgets, but with a good book and many hobbies, it was easy to disconnect. Rather than traveling somewhere, this trip was mostly about deep look inside, exploring our dreams, fears, worries, and hopes.

Gadgets

Continuing the cycling theme, the Gadget of the Year for me was the Wahoo Kickr Core 2, which helped me maintain my physical condition throughout the off-season and prepare for the next one.

Books & Podcasts

This year, I did not read much, and the two books I would place in the “book of the year” category are both works of fiction: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk and Becoming by Michelle Obama. To be honest, I did not read either of them in print but listened to the audiobook versions instead. If you know Polish, I cannot recommend this approach highly enough. Both books are read by Agata Kulesza, whose performance is incredibly artistic. This is one of those rare cases where listening is genuinely better than reading.

This year, I also finally returned to The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, once again in audio form. This book was in my list for many years, we were on a trip with daughter, and she had often said it was her favorite book. Listening to the story together became an unforgettable experience. This is deep humanistic, inspiring and beautiful story.

This year could also be described as somewhat “podcast-less” for me. I definitely consumed fewer podcasts overall. In total, I listened to 74 podcast episodes, amounting to 4 days and 9 hours of listening time. Most of them were the same podcasts I have followed for a long time, such as Lex Fridman and Podcast Historyczny. The only new one worth mentioning was Lenny’s Podcast, which aligns perfectly with my interest in how the industry is adopting AI.

Music

Music continues to play an important role in my life. This year brought 685 hours of uninterrupted listening on Spotify, plus a significant amount of lossless listening through other services. A few truly great concerts made the year unforgettable for me: The Pineapple Thief, Animals as Leaders, and, most impressive of all, Steven Wilson. His album The Overview also topped my Spotify charts.

The first time we watched Hamilton a few years ago, I immediately began recommending it to anyone who had not yet seen it. Michelle Obama mentioned in her book that Hamilton was one of her favorite performances. This year, Hamilton also reached the top of my Spotify rankings, as we listened to it repeatedly during a trip with our daughter.

I consciously tried not to listen to Karnivool too much this year. Their new album is coming in February, and I am preparing myself to spend a lot of time with it. After more than ten years of silence, I am sure it will be an absolute masterpiece. They have already released a few tracks, and each one is outstanding. Definitely check them out.

If I had to name one Artist of the year, however, it would be Peter Gabriel.: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, So, Us, Up are absolute masterpieces.

Software

App of the Year is Cursor. They have put so much effort and love into the developer experience that development has become fun again. From the very first use, there was a strong “wow” effect, and it has continued to impress developers ever since. This level of care is rare nowadays. While Antigravity and Copilot are catching up, I remain loyal to Cursor and fully support what they do.

It was a year without games. From time to time, I play mobile puzzle games, but I didn’t find any game worth spending more than a few minutes on. Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Mobile App of the Year is ChatGPT. This is unquestionably number one. I even feel a little scary about how much this thing knows about me. Sometimes it seems even more than my own family knows about me.

Unfortunately, WakaTime has become less and less user-friendly, so I’ve lost track of how much code I wrote this year. If you know of any software, ideally self-hosted or local, that tracks coding activity transparently and provides meaningful analytics, please let me know.

Events

I posted about the Agile Poznan Anti-Conference this year. Highly recommend it to all colleagues in Poland. Spending a couple of days in such a positive and safe atmosphere, surrounded by incredibly interesting people, broadens horizons and inspires.

One more remarkable event this year was the Warsaw Audio Show. It’s not often that you get the chance to sit in a room and hear Hi-Fi equipment worth more than a million dollars, especially playing one of your favourite albums. For a music lover, someone endlessly fascinated by sound and everything surrounding it, this was a fascinating and interesting experience.

Wrapping Up

It was a good year for me and my family. I am very proud of my children and deeply grateful that they live relatively close, allowing us to see each other often. We spent a lot of quality time together, had many deep and meaningful conversations, traveled, and shared a great deal of joy and laughter. I am also glad that our parents visited us for the second year in a row, giving us the rare opportunity to bring three generations of our family together. For me, every such moment is precious, insightful, and profoundly pleasant.

There was also time set aside for reconnection. Friends I had not seen or even spoken to in years reappeared in my life, not all at once, but in small, unplanned moments that felt oddly natural. Time with them brought an easy kind of joy, the kind that does not need to be explained or scheduled. We laughed, remembered who we once were, and discovered how little had truly been lost. Sharing time this way was both grounding and generous, a quiet reminder that some bonds do not fade, they simply wait.