funmaxxing
letters from the now #20
hello friends,
I spent a week in Uzbekistan! If you follow me on Instagram you will have seen quite a few stories. The theme is MORE GONZO! Poast moar, say more! Felt good to be liberal with showing my thoughts & POV both in my last Substack post and also poasting wildly on insta.
Being over there in Central Asia was great. I love going somewhere with a purpose. I had some work to do there, so I had a great group of people around who I had the privilege of getting to know better across the four days I was actually in the country and not on airplanes.
Four days doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the kind of four days that you have at summercamp, where suddenly you spend whole days with a bunch of people that you don’t know yet, but each hour reveals something new about you and them, you see ups and downs, see them get grumpy at 6pm, find out what they like to eat, and what they look like, pondering head in hand, when they think they are unobserved.
This is probably my favorite way of getting to know people. You know you’ll see each other tomorrow but not next week, so if you want to find something out about someone you can ask now or tomorrow, but you better ask, because God knows when you’ll see each other again.
Across the six days and five nights of my trip, I slept a total of 20 hours. This is not very much at all. My hour count each night was: 3, 4, 8, 4, 1. This is the stuff of nightmares (not very long ones though) for a sleep lover like me. If you would’ve told me that very little sleep would be a defining feature of my trip I would’ve wiggled myself out of going. Until last week I believed that a scenario like this would turn me into an absolute zombie.
What if told you that I had a great time and my energy levels were excellent? I did great work during the day — my work was to mentor and coach startups in an accelerator cohort, including giving a workshop and speaking on a panel on the expo day — and I had fun and beers with friends in the evenings.
How is this possible? Well, I have an idea or two. We need to talk about funmaxxing, as promised, and maybe even about manifesting.
But first:
getting serious
When I realized this spring that my relationship was ending, it gave me a real good kick in the ass. I did not (consciously) want this relationship to end, so I must have made some mistakes. When I make a mistake that I think is serious, I’m going to find out what it is, what’s at the source of it, how to avoid it in the future — essentially I’m going to look for it, find it, and kill it … and sometimes go after its family as well. To do this, I’ve acquired a very particular set of skills over a very long career.
The mistake that I believe I made was to be too serious. Surely not the only one, but one that I could feel in my bones, one I knew I needed to hunt down and put out.
As we moved in together, something shifted. Previously we had a long distance relationship. That means we had a week together at a time, sometimes four days, sometimes ten. Sometimes a couple more. But the timing was bound. We knew we’d see each other tomorrow but not next week, so if we wanted to find something out about each other we could ask now or tomorrow, but we better asked, for we would be apart soon.
Not so in living together. Suddenly there are no convenient time delineations. There is no practical end to the current episode. This does something weird to my brain. Something akin to perceiving ALL OF THE FUTURE as the rest of the current episode. That means, I’m orienting towards whatever I perceive as the highest good, the biggest problem, and everything else becomes secondary.
I became very interested in making money, because in my mind I was already feeding a family and paying for a house, so I needed to get serious about my work and my biz (coaching). But somehow I got dragged (dragged myself, really) into a reality in which I everything was effortful and serious. And serious isn’t bad, right? I really needed to be serious about my work, those were the right words describing the right motion. But there was an absence of fun and levity.
I remember talking to my homie Emergent in February, we do these weekly calls where we help each other with our respective work, or work on shared projects, and it was my turn to report on my work etc., and I said, yo man where is the damn fun??? I’m not having fun??!!
My ex J is an artist, all about joy and fun, and I’ve seen her laboring intensely and seriously over her animation films, which turn out to be extremely dense in meaning but inherently funny, even if the story is sad or grave. Her sense of money is also very whimsical, this always impressed me a lot. “Money comes and goes” vibe, somehow this statement feels very female-coded to me, the masculine German administrator in me is pulling his hair out, but when nobody is looking he is trying to study these mysterious manifestation techniques, knowing that she knows something he definitely doesn’t.
I wasn’t there yet, I didn’t understand my work, and what I do, well enough to understand how to go about it. I just knew that I didn’t feel connected to my work, it felt like a stream I had to step into, but it tended to turn cold and boring, so I regularly found myself to the wayside of the stream, pondering laboriously over what it might mean to swim, instead of just hopping in, swimming with the current, and seeing for myself.
So, at this time, which was after my annual friends-festival TREEWEEK, in Q4 2025, I got serious™ about my work. I just checked back in the archives, and notably there are two posts from the beginning of October 2025, after which there was silence. Reading them might give us intimations of how I was feeling at the time. The motion of getting serious is visible. And so is my pain around it.
Getting serious was good. I needed it. It was a cold shower, pouring water made from of my fear of failure, aversion to focus, various degrees of avoidance, and simply lots of unknowns.
One of the best things that happened to me during that time was realizing that I had a lot of friends online and around me, and that I could always ask for help, jump on a call, find someone to figure things out together. I feel like I got — and continue to receive — tons of impactful coaching and excellent loving attention. This is one of the best gameplay loops about work that I’ve figured out in this time. It also allowed me to offer free coaching back to many people, which already made me loosen my grip on my seriousness, realizing that if I only coach when I get paid for it, I’m none the happier.
Let me use this moment to give thanks to a lot of great friends, clients, and advisors, who were there with me and for me — please ping me if you read this and you’re not on the list even though you should be: Emergent, Brent, Maeby, Sahra, Jan, Alex L., Bea, Jack, Sytse, Teddy, Thorge, Michael A., Kristijan, Michael T., Zen, Eugene, Fred, Nil, Sebi, Louis, Marin, Pranab, etc.
Many friends, many blessings, and through a few meetups that I went to in Berlin I even found some offline work friends! Which is extremely great and something that I continue to pursue.
These were all good outcomes of getting serious.
BUT SOMEHOW I TURNED GREY.
I turned grey, those are the words that encapsulate the feeling. Grey suit, grey face, grey spirit. Contracted and unerotic and serious, not glimmer-in-the-eye and focused and serious.
Where is the damn fun bro?
When I got this message, when I got this ass kick, when I asked this question, it was immediately obvious to me that funmaxxing is the next move.
funmaxxing
My grandpa Jürgen (God rest his soul) once told me: “Fun (Spaß) is cheap and easy. What’s truly imporant is joy (die Freude).”
Spaß and Freude translate very well from German to English, where Spaß is fun, potentially short lived excitement, and Freude is joy, a sense of deep, long and satisfying fulfillment, potentially mixed with somber melancholia.
Funnily enough I took those instructions very seriously — while I always knew how to have fun, I was always seeking the honorable long-termyness of joy. Buuut I think I overindexed on this a bit. You can say that joy is more important than fun, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any fun! The same with money, for example — of course if you’re super wise and stuff, you will know that there are things more important than money but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any money. lol
It’s worth mentioning that fun and money are very close together. I think earning money is incredibly fun. Everytime I write an invoice and money hits my bank account I’m like HELLL YEAHHHH.
This is an eros thing! Fun, money, sex, impulse … these are the basic building blocks of eroticism! Just because they’re basic doesn’t mean they are to be shunned? I feel like I’ve done this a LOT in my life! Shunning the basics, aiming higher. How fucking stupid, honestly. So full of contempt. We are not better than anyone, we need the basics if we want to stand on something, build on something.
When I encounter a thrill, I enjoy it very much, and then I don’t seek it again. I think this is some sort of dopaminergic ADHD thing. I can’t pre-perceive the thrill when I think about what to do. Despite considerable advances in embodiment, in planning what to do I seek what is “right” and not necessarily what “feels good” or rather “what’s exciting”. I find this ironic, because this argument suggests that it would be more virtuous for me to optimize for thrill for the time being, and to create a new sense of rightness, that contains more eros and more thrill.
Writing this is scary and contradictory. I’ve always shunned thrill seekers, and advocated for steady process.
But I’m finding out every day, that what I shun, is often what I seek.
So what is fun? How does a Simon funmaxx? What thrills are we seeking here?
The initial law of funmaxxing was instantiated in February.
February
Due to my change in life situation, which manifested in me suddenly living alone again, I had to reclaim and restructure my apartment. At the same time, I realized I had no focus available to sit down and do focused computer work. That was pretty scary, but I could see there was no way around it. So I said, Jesus, take the wheel. My work & biz shall be fine, as I do the only thing I’m being called to do, which is to physically mill about my apartment, rearrange some furniture, as I collect my ex’s belongings and grieve and cry to my friends, while also joyfully reexpanding the space I’m taking up in here.
Funmaxxing in this case meant to reject what I wasn’t called to do. Many people talk about the need to do the uncomfortable stuff, yes of course, but in this case I just said, I have no time to waste on internal conflict, a good chunk of my external world just turned into a landslide, I’m gonna relinquish control and trust that this is the right move.
During that month, I got the most random call from an old study buddy which led to me flying to Uzbekistan in the beginning of May. I never even talk to that guy. It was completely random. Or was it?
March
I knew Brent was going to be in town in March, and some party action had been planned well in advance. Ananta, Emergent and Jonas were around as well, and it was absurdly sunny, so I knew I would be funmaxxing via a great homie week in early March 2026.
We had a nice sit-in in my new conversation pit on Saturday, where everyone gave their more or less unhinged relationship updates. Certainly a lot of changes in this firehorsey year. It felt great to have my house full of friends with all the fresh qi moving through my place. I loved showing it off, and the conversation pit conversation was maximally enjoyable.
Later that evening we had an excellent party & dance night among Brent, Hannah and I.
I learned to party in 2012. I grew up as a gamer and a homebody in a very anti-drug and anti-alcohol and anti-sex environment. The only way I knew how to party was a LAN-party (non derogatory, those times were fantastic), and then later I knew metal festivals and concerts. That’s where I learned to drink, mosh and fuck the rules. When I was twenty and studying in Stuttgart in ‘12, I fell in with a cool skater crew who were skating by day, and drinking, smoking, dancing and shmoozing with the girls by night. That’s when I learned to smoke, dance, and let loose a bit with the cooler kids.
I learned to party again in 2026. Brent had been trying to rope me into the Berlin party proceedings for years, but I was always hesitant. I’d never been into chemical drugs and there seemed no way around them when it came to an extended night (or day) of partying in Berlin. It was very obvious to me that in this fine and strange spring of 2026, these walls would fall and I would, once again, relinquish control, let myself be carried by the spirit (and consumption schedule) of more experienced party-people.
Funmaxxing is about feeling at home. I remember falling in love with house parties in the mid 2010s, realizing what a great container they provide to create a certain “who is who” in just one evening, even if you don’t know anyone. As a friend of the house, it allowed me to carry a certain host status that suited me very well, made me comfortable, and gave me a feeling of at-home-ness and okayness. I recreated this later in my own house, and it took me a while to feel at home in my own home with others in it, but I became good at it and I’ve been a great and frequent host, both at my home, at the occasional workshop I’m hosting, and once year at TREEWEEK.
The club was never my home, it always felt like an adversarial experience. Someone recently tweeted that that’s not a bug, but a feature. I believe it, but I’m not sure I like it.
The aforementioned party night is enjoyable but it feels pretty adversarial. It’s a party on a stationary boat, the music is decent, the air is unbelievably thick (I get high on fresh air later that night), and I often feel too tall and too big for the tight crowd and the looming ceiling of the lower decks. However, some things happen that night. Fueled by a certain dissociative, I relax my self-consciousness, and start realizing that my size on the dancefloor does not need to feel contentious. I can simply relax into it and see my surroundings shift, make way, reorganize. This feels way easier than the overly self-conscious tightening, shrinking, negotiating from before. My state also makes the music way more enjoyable, it sort of integrates with my system. Brent’s great musical ear and our hilarious dance communication help as well. I get bigger, and find a tiny slice of comfort, of home, on the dancefloor.
Since friends are still in town, I continue the funmaxxing homie week train by throwing a “drinks and dance” party at mine on Thursday. I really wanted to play a DJ set with Emergent and I wanted Brent to DJ as well, so the three of us meet for a jam before the set invite time, jam a bit, then friends start arriving and we continue a jam with an audience for a bit before we reset the space to DJ/dancefloor. Having that jam with some people watching was my wish, and it occured so beautifully. Bagel randomly shows up and sits down on the piano, honky tonking away just at the right time. The party marks an exception to the sober spring I was doing with my brother and I get drunk steady and fast. I contribute to multiple spillages in my studio, something I’m normally somewhat allergic to, but it’s funmaxxing season, and someone else holds the wheel. Not me, that’s for sure.
But the more I think that it’s not me, the more I can do what I want.
Got the purple drink, got the yellow drink
Then we mix it up, call it Pikachu (Uh)
With a little bit of crack, little bit of dope
Little bit of smoke, little coke, little weed, when they on them (Pills)
Little bit of E, little bit of shrooms
Little bit of deuce, what it do, hands on the (wheels)
(Wheels) And I keep the illest, trillest bitches while I’m swagging it (Yeah)
(Crush a bit, little bit) that’s my pursuit of happiness
—A$AP Rocky
The true breakthrough happens next Saturday. Brent says, we’ll go again. I say, you know my party schedule, don’t push your luck with me, I probably won’t go. Yeah right. A certain hunger inside of me renders my resistance useless quickly.
This time we’re going to the preferred club with Brent’s gf and their whole party crew. This is a day party, so we arrive at 2pm. The possibility to be in bed before midnight is part of my justification structure that makes this endeavor possible.
I leave the club at 4am a different man. I’ve danced, I’ve consumed, I’ve met, I’ve seen, I’ve touched, I’ve wanted, I’ve gotten, I’ve understood, I’ve been. I am.
Over the course of the night this wonderful venue and it’s people shrinks and it becomes my home. A place formerly so strange, now a source of comfort and ease, thanks to a great initiation I’ve received.
I cycle home in darkness and rain. I am alive and full of color.
As the grey turns back to color, I see that I’ve been cucking myself into all sorts of dishonesties and useless conditionalities. I see that my “job” is to have fun and to live well. I have to see clearly what I want and go for it directly, not think up an around-the-corner scheme of how I might get it. “Reasonable” or “strategic” are not exactly the memetics I’m looking for right now. The questions are: “What’s fun?” and “What do I want?” And then go right at it.
A quick note on work in this time: I did some work with my friend Cem, and he is a great avatar for work-friends-fun-maxxing. He embodies a very holistic spirit around these topics. After a session we do on a Wednesday morning he says “I have this friend staying over at mine, he’s got some relationship troubles with his girl, you do some work around that right? Maybe you could meet and help him.” I’m like, yea sure, when should we meet? He’s like, “how about now?” And so we meet on this sunny Wednesday morning, and I hear that it’s a tight and troubled situation, last resort for their relationship, and on Saturday I find myself sitting in an unusual park, giving these guys some relationship counseling, and it’s great work, I do my absolute best, and I get some cash in hand, and they say thanks, and two weeks later I see them at Cem’s birthday party, clearly strained, but clearly in love with each other, still together, at least for now.
What a blessing to able to do a little bit of work as a servant of love, a servant of love who just got broken up with, who can taste the parallels between his relationship and theirs, with a chance to keep a flame alive where another has gone out.
This is the real work, and this is funmaxxing. Nimble, unbothered, naively trusting. Stark aliveness, trusting the body and spirit to perform, even with no sleep, even under the influence. Letting out what is there, risking it all, pissing some people off, apologizing, grateful that truth has been told, thank you, would do it again.
I can’t believe I survived
Spun around, flipped upside down, I’m alive
How can this be true? I can’t believe I survived
Spun around, flipped upside down, I’m alive
And all I lost was you
—Hanni El Khatib
Subscribe and strap yourselves in, because I’m strapping out, and I’m not nearly done yet.
Thank you, love you, see you very soon
Simon
Credit notice: The “businessmen” images are stills from the great video “businessmannen” by Lasse Gjertsen, an absolute YouTube OG. Please watch it : )
Encore: April
In April I beat another one of those fake conditionalities I often find myself in.
My youngest brother Christian is visiting over Easter and I’m afraid that having both of my bros around will be too much for me. I have a bit of a caretaker role for him and for my brothers in general, so it’s easy for me to perceive having them around as a bit of a weight on me.
Some friends of mine are fixing up a party situation for Easter Sunday, and now I’m torn. The rule in my head says that I can’t go out and party for half a day while my brother is visiting. I say the same to Cem, who invites me to his birthday party on the evening of Christian’s arrival.
Then I get pissed off — what the fuck is that? I want to party, I want to go to this birthday party and now I can’t because of some arbitrary obligation structure in my brain? Fuck that.
I negotiate with my middle brother Lukas, whether it’s perceivable that I step out of the house on one or two days during Christian’s stay. There are some arguments for and against, but at the end of the day we agree that it’s possible.
My wants win! It turns out I don’t have to stop the proceedings of my life in order to receive a visitor at my home, whoever it may be. This is a big deal for me. And my bros and I have way more fun, thanks to a partied-out and socially satisfied big bro Simon.
: )
yay 🎉⚡️