Shaken Awake
Rituals to reboot the mind in an age of infinite noise
I’ve always believed in the power of small rituals. Especially those that jolt us out of routine. A single cocktail1 can restart the entire mental machine if we give it the right parameters.
Enter the Corpse Reviver No. 2 my personal kernel panic button.
Gin lands first. Botanicals slice through mental fog, a liquid assert that compels us to name the real problem at hand.
Not the Slack messages piling up, not the extraneous comments in the code, just the single line that actually matters. This is clarity on command. A ping to an overclocked mind that says: wake up.
Lemon threads a different frequency: acid truth.
It stings the way a brutally honest feedback does. No place to hide behind easy vibes of ambiguous words. Its cuts straight to missed deadlines and the hacky patch shipped at midnight just to feel like we won.
Sometimes that sting is the reminder needed because no matter how advanced our tools get, self-honesty that we’re all still figuring it out is still the best debugger.
Cointreau glides in next and provides a subtle touch of sweetness.
It’s that warm hum of team alignment we crave in every collaboration.
You might think synergy is an overused buzzword (I know I do) until you see a project come together without the usual friction. It’s a gentle push in the right direction, a whisper of “yes” that helps everyone operate as one. We’re dominated by asynchronous everything and a flicker of collective harmony stills feels damn close to magic.
It reminds me it doesn’t have to be rare.
Lillet brings up the rear: light and floral, a deliberate invocation of chance.
Serendipity in a collision of improbable events. Derigeur workflows often sterilize this: we plan in advanced, we have rigid sprints and build out our calendars like we’re playing Tetris.
But I believe that the most creative ideas arrive in unguarded moments. How we stand for chance encounters and surprise insight. Serendipity is that flourish that keeps innovation alive.
Finally, the absinthe rinse. Just enough to electrify the glass without drowning the drink.
Risk itself should be measured.
The hint of anise on the rim represents the thrill we chase in everything we do, the invisible force that sets our hearts racing before that big launch.
We can’t let risk take over the entire show because we know real havoc lurks a few steps too far.
But oh, how we need that little flash of daring to remind us we’re alive. A bit of unknown is what keeps my spirit resilient.
Ritual reset recipe, Friday 5 pm
Close the editor. Kill Slack. If the world catches fire in those few minutes, well hell, it can wait.
Shake equal parts Gin, Lillet, Cointreau, and lemon over ice. Strain into a coupe. A light kiss of absinthe.
Sip once. Breathe twice. Jot down the single question that will truly matter on Monday morning.
Archive every tab. If it mattered enough we know it will surface again.
But we have to sleep sometime…. Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. —V.1
We chase breakthroughs all week.
We fiddle with prompts and wonder if the next line of code might solve our hardest problems.
We bury ourselves in data and research.
Sometimes we forget the simplest debugging technique of all: stepping away.
This ritual is a forceful break. An exit function that reboots the mind in under four ounces.
It strips down to the essentials: forcing clarity, truth, alignment, chance, and just enough danger to keep us awake.
At the end we can remember something crucial: no matter how advanced our systems enabled us to become, we remain the architects of our own mental infrastructure.
And sometimes the best way to debug the code in our heads is to shake it awake with a drink.
One that reminds us:
To savor every line
Trust the tension of risk, and
Embrace the spark of chance.
If we don’t overdo it, we come back on Monday with fewer illusions.
And more determination armed with refreshed optimism that you might just ship something extraordinary.
If alcohol’s not your thing, the ritual still works. The reset is in the intent, not the ingredients.
“Sip once. Breathe twice. Jot down the single question that will truly matter on Monday morning.”
Very cool idea. Sounds like a great way to prime your powers “unconscious cognition” (in which the mind processes complex problems unconsciously).