About

Hi, I’m Mau!

I know that your job isn’t supposed to define who you are, but realistically, it’s still a pretty big part of life. Soooo, I work as a software engineer at a printing company, which is a combination I never really expected to end up in. It turns out that printing companies have plenty of problems that can be solved with software. It’s probably the most interesting work I’ve done so far and, most of the time, it’s actually quite fun.

Outside of work, I’ve been trying to live somewhat minimally for quite a few years. I’m not yet trying to overthrow capitalism. I just don’t want consumerism to eat me alive. When I was younger, I thought minimalism meant moving as much as possible into the digital world. Less paper, fewer physical things, and everything conveniently stored somewhere on a screen. After working in IT for a few years, that idea became a lot less appealing. I spend enough of my life in front of computers already, so in my private life I increasingly enjoy things that exist outside of them. I take photos on film, write short stories, blog posts, ...

I generally like having something tangible as a contrast to work.

That doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly declared war on everything digital. I still read ebooks, for example. Convenience is nice, and I don’t need every book I’ve ever read sitting on a shelf. I think I’ve just become more deliberate about when I want something analog and when digital is perfectly fine.

Gaming is another obvious exception. These days, it’s mostly a Sunday afternoon kind of hobby. If I don’t have anything else planned, turning on my Nintendo Switch and disappearing into a game for a few hours is still a pretty good way to spend a day.

My taste in books is a bit all over the place. I like John Green, but also classics like The Old Man and the Sea or How Do You Live?. Then there are books like Immune by Philipp Dettmer or John Green’s Everything Is Tuberculosis. Basically, I enjoy both stories and books that take some enormous subject and somehow make me understand it a little better.

I also quit social media a long time ago. I don’t particularly miss it, but apparently I never lost the urge to put things on the internet. So instead of posting there, I have this website.

And I love coffee. Every once in a while, I decide that I should probably stop drinking caffeine. Sometimes that lasts a few weeks. Occasionally even a few months. Eventually, I smell coffee again.

And here we are.