<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Gal Podjarny Author]]></title><description><![CDATA[Gal Podjarny]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/blog-1</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Sat, 16 May 2026 20:21:55 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.galpod.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[Why I Love a Good Metaphor]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by TopSphere Media on Unsplash I'm reading Margo's Got Money Trouble, and she has some fantastic metaphors. They make me envious, obviously, but also they got me thinking about why I love a good metaphor. A good metaphor distills what I love about books. It lets me see the world, for a moment, from someone else's perspective. Not just to see what they do, but to see how they see the world, how they feel. The last good metaphor I marked was "The walls were painted teal and had the...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/why-i-love-a-good-metaphor</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69f863447b1c42fb24fa150f</guid><pubDate>Mon, 04 May 2026 09:15:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_dc6e737747594e6481a2e2227e62bb91~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Showing Isn’t Telling]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash I watched Reality last week. It’s a film about Reality Winner, an NSA contractor who leaked a classified document to a news website. The film makes a distinct choice: it uses only recordings. Mainly, it’s the recording of the FBI interviewing Reality in her home, but there are some news broadcast recordings, and a recording of a phone call she made to her sister from jail. Reality's story opens up a host of questions that would be worth exploring. Each of these...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/showing-isn-t-telling</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69ef34f424f9d3e5cd6cd61d</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:10:09 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_499d916380ba48caad1b30b65551e8be~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Uninspired Writing]]></title><description><![CDATA[My new Sakura Notebook. It makes me happy. I started a new notebook today. It’s a gorgeous Moleskine I got in Milan, the Sakura edition. As you would expect from Moleskine, the paper quality is outstanding, and the attention to detail is quite something (there are two ribbon markers, each a different shade of pink to match the design). There’s even a little bookmark with sales copy about “The Art of Capturing Fleeting Beauty”. It says: “…Pen and paper are the best way to capture inspiration...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/uninspired-writing</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69ef2805d3f2ae6dd91083a0</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:04:48 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_48f2d7475342494c8987868fa590e3dc~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A New Word for Research]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Christian Kielberg  on Unsplash The other day, I went on a research trip for my new book. It was a sunny day, and I walked around a London neighbourhood, looking at houses. Then, I sat on a park bench and eavesdropped on conversations. I sat down at a café for lunch. I watched the people and listened in on their (rather loud) conversations, then watched the owner come in on his bike. I watched him as he put some music on, checked the kitchen had everything they needed, poured water...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/a-new-word-for-research</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69e35ad00c8d230c9e8f6788</guid><category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:21:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_f39df835627c4014860eaf26542d8787~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Tarot Question]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Joey Jacob  on Unsplash I’ve been playing with Tarot cards recently, and I noticed that asking the right question is surprisingly difficult. We come to the cards wanting answers, but we haven’t quite formulated the question yet. So at the beginning of the session, before we even touch the deck, there’s already some work happening. It connects, for me, to my academic research. In academic research, half the work is figuring out how to ask a question that, if answered, would tell us...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/the-tarot-question</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69e5f64c8b2f11ff8e55b1ba</guid><pubDate>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:49:50 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_4cbcaf75ca3b4a6c94bd55c7dc66b613~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Who Pays for Conviction]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Igordoon Primus  on Unsplash I watched Broken Glass at The Young Vic last week. The way the auditorium is set up makes you a part of the play, not merely an observer. Case in point: in the climax when Phillip collapses and the rest are standing around laughing, I had a strong urge to run over and help him up. It makes us feel compassionate towards someone who isn’t easy to feel compassionate towards. Then we get to go home feeling like heroes. We totally would have helped, even if we...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/who-pays-for-conviction</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69dcd06675afb0779a771a87</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:21:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_e29ba09369014d5c80e50e7361fa1334~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Early Bloomer]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by peter bucks  on Unsplash I’ve come across the phrase “late bloomer” a few times recently, and I noticed I resisted it. I was an early bloomer, or what is more often called a precocious child. I had my first existential crisis when I was five. I can still remember crying in bed, my mum trying to figure out what I could possibly have to cry about. I was thinking that evening about how my grandfather died and how my parents will die someday, and I’ll be left alone, and then I’ll die...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/early-bloomer</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69dcb5158614fb4128b31335</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 09:21:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_1e4dcee09ba545ceb068171a4c1579cf~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Deferral Hack]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Djim Loic  on Unsplash After writing the piece Curiosity, Taxed , I felt that maybe it was too clean. Sometimes the voice that tells me to keep writing rather than follow this curiosity spark down a rabbit hole is actually right. Sometimes what I need to do is to keep writing. But I still firmly believe that sometimes I need to fall down the rabbit hole. So how do I tell which is which? Unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for that. When I follow the curiosity thread instead of...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/the-deferral-hack</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69d38fc4d142869289e7b9dc</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:56:04 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_5cdf357d454f40e0a5305720782c9ea9~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Curiosity, Taxed]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Eijat Darus  on Unsplash I’m taking a course called Creative Systems , and one of the things Kening Zhu talks about is resources and our relationship to them. She names the most obvious ones—time, energy, attention, inspiration—but she says a lot of things can be resources. When I heard that, the thought that hit me was: I’m rich in curiosity. It’s not just a trait, it’s the driver of much of my work. Here’s what usually happens. I hear something or read something. I get curious...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/curiosity-taxed</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69d3810184368b484104f08c</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 09:48:33 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_759851e03ff24f29b646223740d532e7~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wise Sack of Meat]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Andreas Haimerl  on Unsplash Everyone says listen to your body. It's the (not so) new fad in the wellness industry. Your body knows best. The assumption is that our bodies hold all the wisdom, and we have to shut up and take it. Which, don't get me wrong, I understand how we ended up here. For much too long, women's bodies in particular have been silenced and disbelieved. Especially if there's pain, or, heaven forbid, hormones involved. But in the same way that my body is not just a...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/wise-sack-of-meat</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69bc27ce06e9acd4d41be6ea</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:30:08 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_20ab7415067946bd97c340489cf8fb3d~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Harlem Shuffle Isn’t a Crime Novel]]></title><description><![CDATA[POST CONTAINS SPOILERS Sure, there are heists and gangsters and a spectacular, public revenge. But in crime novels, mysteries are always solved. Not necessarily by a detective who gets the bad guy, but by the reader understanding what happened and why. None of the mysteries in Harlem Shuffle  gets solved. One mystery is a lapse. Three mysteries in a row? That’s on purpose. In the first act, we see Miami Joe betray the crew. Why has he betrayed the crew? We don’t know. We don’t get a “villain...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/harlem-shuffle-isn-t-a-crime-novel</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a01f3fdcfe76b0f2d4b1c5</guid><category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 13:00:17 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_ec0b189eac64414c9beb3857b6c3ecaf~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Collectors Fear]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Takemaru Hirai  on Unsplash To all intents and purposes, I'm a collector. I collect quotes in various places, fragments of beautiful sentences, random thoughts and ideas. I collect books I want to read and TV shows and movies I want to watch. I have a whole section on my website called Collections (you're in it right now). A while ago, I was reading Empireland (a rough read but such an important book), and I noted that the British Empire is, among other things, distinct for its...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/what-collectors-fear</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69b824827a34d5f0ef6ce149</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:44:34 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_b5f9e8eb227848f29d2d754e709177f2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Beyond Black and White Thinking]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Vincent van Zalinge  on Unsplash For much of my life, my automatic cognitive stance was black-and-white thinking. If something annoyed me, it was bad, and everything around it was awful. If someone said something that hurt my feelings, I'd break off contact and never speak to them again. Today, I was reflecting that I think that's no longer the case. In fact, I think my automatic stance became seeing both sides. I was thinking about the British Library and how, on the one hand, they...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/beyond-black-and-white-thinking</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a86a2c59c2d6395a443628</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:23:28 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_49356b6166677174383577~mv2_d_4300_2867_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Digital Selfhood]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Emilipothèse  on Unsplash I was listening to Ezra Klein interviewing Jack Clark, a co-founder of Anthropic, and he said something that is both insane and makes perfect sense at the same time. He said: "...when you start to train these systems to carry out actions in the world, they really do begin to see themselves as distinct in the world... But along with seeing oneself as distinct from the world seems to come the rise of what you might think of as a conception of self, an...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/digital-selfhood</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a41ae34882ec6a3ac6bed4</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 10:57:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_4654666a4d696a712d5773~mv2_d_3368_3837_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Forbidden Ground]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Tim Mossholder  on Unsplash Today I'm thinking about the word taboo. In Hebrew, the same word has two meanings: the first is a legal property term, derived from the Turkish word tapu ,  meaning proof of ownership of a property (a land or part of it). A registration in the taboo, in Hebrew, means the land is legally yours. The second meaning of the word comes from Polynesian  and means sacred  or forbidden . I was sure these two meanings came from the same word, but their origins...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/forbidden-ground</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a16da99d34acb7c433e85f</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 10:13:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_7a43a5c95dd64dd681048bc3d3be6a49~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Necessary but Not Sufficient]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Aedrian Salazar  on Unsplash Today I'm thinking about the futility of making art. David Speed (excellent podcast , highly recommend) says that all the artists he talked to say that you just need to keep making things. Which is decent advice, I guess. But he doesn't interview the thousands of people who kept making things their whole lives and stayed obscure; no one ever heard of them, and only very few people even engaged with their work. It's not that I intend to stop writing. But...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/necessary-but-not-sufficient</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69a0163512cb2e7c18f229cb</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 26 Feb 2026 09:47:18 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_a338f8301f8e4f0ca34cf1da30908bed~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Permission to be Boring]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Sepp Rutz  on Unsplash When I started the collections, I was super excited and couldn't see this rather predictable slump coming. On many days, I feel like I don't have anything interesting to contribute. Today, for example, I feel like a dilettante--there are no consequences for my success, so really I'm just dabbling in writing, surely. Then I say, well, if I don't have anything interesting to contribute, then I'm just making noise, and the internet already has quite a lot of that,...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/permission-to-be-boring</link><guid isPermaLink="false">699c1de4f1d815afdb1f4f74</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 23 Feb 2026 09:32:37 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_36625f7059595761547651~mv2_d_4096_2732_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Transformation Trap]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Shunya Koide  on Unsplash The world is shit. Every post I’ve read lately opens with that. Heck, every conversation I’ve had eventually lands here. And I get why. There are wars at a rate unprecedented since before WWII, floods and famine ravage vast areas of the globe, and there’s a worrying trend towards authoritarianism, as if we learned nothing from history . The sheer magnitude of these problems can lead anyone to despair and apathy. What can one person do in the face of such...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/the-transformation-trap</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69943de7a8ff0d3b097efca5</guid><category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 13:00:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_fb1f175808334825b1e9559f3883f12a~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dance Mums]]></title><description><![CDATA[Picture taken this weekend I've never seen myself as a "dance mum". With the equivalent "hockey mom" (in Canada) or "football mum" (when we just arrived in London), the term connotes, for me, a kind of relentless pushing of the child who may or may not be interested in the relevant sport. I was always a proponent of laid-back parenting, and when my daughter said she wanted to take ballet, I assumed this was an opportunity for her to stay an hour after school, giving me a bit more time to...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/dance-mums</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69943bfba8ff0d3b097ef6fa</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:06:30 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_75d039be521a4a939760b3e6e62c8373~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Reading Past Milton]]></title><description><![CDATA[Photo by Ian Barsby  on Unsplash I finally got around (read: scheduled time) to reading Zadie Smith's excellent essay titled The Art of the Impersonal Essay . While I don't necessarily connect to her fiction, I think she's a very clear thinker, and I admire that. I've taken notes. I don't think I was taught how to write an essay at school, and in university, I mostly learned how to write academic papers, which aren't exactly the same. I loved the permission she gave writers to write essays...]]></description><link>https://www.galpod.com/post/reading-past-milton</link><guid isPermaLink="false">698f2e986e0eff1a4858eb87</guid><category><![CDATA[Collections]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:09:44 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5f2ab3_010187ed069544cb8fd9cd7a8a067bce~mv2.avif/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>galpod</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>