| Sunday, 21 September 2025 |
A community-powered Sunday newsletter on mental models, self-reflection, learning, growth, photos, books, and more Subscribe here
Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
I’m always ready to be surprised when I start writing to you each week. Because, as I’ve told you earlier, the act of writing (on your own, not via LLMs) is also an act of thinking, which is also an act of connecting the dots.
21 grams.
That was the magical connection that formed in my head literally five minutes ago, I kid you not.
You see I was going to tell you that 21 grams is the amount of ground coffee in my first coffee of the morning each day. Yes, I know that’s a large shot, a “triple” in espresso parlance. Or if you want to be Italian about it, “triplo”.
My subsequent coffees are 18-gram shots, mere “doubles” or “doppios”. I don’t recollect when was the last time I used our single shot espresso basket. Just 14–15 grams of coffee? I’ll pass.
Back to 21 grams. Some of you might remember it as the gritty and dark 2003 movie by Alejandro Iñárritu, starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio del Toro. Do you remember why the movie was called “21 grams” though?
Because 21 grams was once thought as the weight of the human soul.
Thus, in an entirely unpredictable but convenient plot twist, I learn just as I’m writing to you with the First Principles Coffee Edition why 21 grams is the amount of coffee it takes to refresh my soul each morning.
Don’t you just love the symmetry and beauty of that?
Here’s our line-up this week:
1. The First Principles Coffee Survey ☕
2. Introspections 📚
3. Silent Sunday photos 📸
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