📩 In Today’s Email

• TL;DR - Tactics, rituals, and systems that create slowness, especially in overstimulated, foreign environments.

• The Deep Dive — Last week we explored the philosophy of Slomadism; this week we put it into practice.

• The Read — A lyrical portrait of Shakespeare’s wife Agnes, soon to be a feature film, told with gust and sensory precision by master writer Maggie O’Farrell.

• The Stream — The Taste of Things — a slow, cinematic film that turns cooking into poetry.

• The Speak — A new TikTok carousel blending poetry and photography, plus a coming series on nomadic reinvention with tools I actually use. Like and subscribe! @theedwardeffect

🤿 The Deep Dive

I NEVER EXPECTED TO BUILD A FRIENDSHIP out of a hamburger cart.

El Chino was there every night except Sundays, just down the block from the house I was renting in Oaxaca. Same corner, same cart, same ritual: hamburguesas, hotdogs, an old speaker looping banda music.

He was a large man, always smiling, always slightly sweaty from the grill heat.

People called him El Chino, though he was unmistakably Oaxacan, with thick curly hair that had nothing to do with China. He said it was common in Mexico to call someone with curls chino. That was enough.

At first, I was just a regular customer. The foreigner who didn’t say much.

Then he started nodding when I walked by. Then saying “Qué onda güey,” like we were already friends. One night, after I’d come back from a long trip, he handed me a burger without asking and said, “You look tired. Sit.”

Eventually, I started storing things at his house when I traveled (extra bags, a guitar case) because it felt safer with him than any rental.

He even let me borrow his car: a battered old Firebird with a steering wheel the size of a grapefruit. It had no power steering and the brakes required a prayer. But it worked. I drove it to see the great Tule tree, a tree thousands of years old.

What started as a street vendor relationship became an anchor.

Something unchanging in a world of movement.

Sometimes that’s all you need. A single human connection that makes life feel worthwhile. That makes a place more memorable than the Mona Lisa.

Slowness Is a Design Choice

We talk about slowness like it’s a luxury. But in motion, slowness is a design choice.

Travel (especially the nomadic kind) is overstimulation by default. New smells. New rules. New currencies, faces, decisions, fears. Your nervous system gets no rehearsal. You’re constantly switching context, translating, deciding, navigating.

Even when it’s beautiful, it’s exhausting.

So what do most people do?

They fill the void. Maximize the days. Stack locations. Grind content.

But that’s not slomadism.

Slomadism is not anti-motion. It’s the art of anchoring.

It’s what El Chino gave me, something that stayed put, so I didn’t have to.

It’s a counterforce to the dopamine drip of infinite novelty. And the more you travel, the more you realize that the motion can deteriorate into just noise.

The Slomad Practice

So how do you build in chaos?

You don’t wait for it. You design it.

Here are a few of my field-tested ways to carry slowness into motion:

1. The One-Café Rule

Every new city, I pick one café. That’s it. I don’t Yelp (does anyone anymore?). I don’t shop around.

I find the first one with the right light, and I commit. Not because it’s the best, because it becomes mine. The barista learns your order. The light becomes familiar. The table near the outlet feels like home.

And yes, that familiarity builds momentum. You’ll recognize the other regulars. You might even make a friend. Maybe even find a date.

2. Walking Loops, Not Checklists

Instead of planning “must-see” sites, I walk the same loop every morning. Same streets. Same faces. Same dog sleeping on the same step.

You notice more the second and third time. Your nervous system stops bracing. You sink.

I did this also when I lived in New York. Still know my loop by heart.

3. Return Markets

Every city has a market. Choose one and go back. Buy from the same fruit stand. Let them recognize your face. Speak a little more Spanish (or language of your chosen locations) each day.

Familiarity becomes a kind of freedom.

In Medellín, there’s a little fish spot in Minorista run by Costeña women. (They know how to cook fish.) But you gotta find your own spot, that one if my secret. Keep your special spots secret, share only with those who deserve the proper clearance level.

Part of getting work done is having places people won’t look for you.

4. Repeat the Street Musician

This one sounds strange, but it works.

Most cities have at least one street musician who posts up in the same spot. Make it a ritual to pass him. Let him become your metronome.

In Oaxaxa, mine was a man playing Pink Floyd on accordion. Still hear him sometimes in dreams.

5. Layer Your Base

Wherever I land, I build a base layer before I explore. Mine includes:

• Morning writing or meditation

• Gym within walking distance

• The café

• A grocery run (especially in places like Chiang Mai—where the grocery store is the experience)

• One analog ritual (reading, journaling, chess, drawing)

That’s enough. That’s a nervous system base.

Only then do I allow motion.

In Rest, author Alex Pang argues that creative productivity isn’t fueled by hustle, it’s fueled by deliberate rest. The kind you protect.

Slomadism is that theory in motion.

When you move too fast, you don’t just lose time. You lose attention. And without attention, you can’t see. Can’t hear. Can’t create.

Slowness is not passive. It’s active noticing.

Slowness isn’t wasted time. It’s claimed time.

The street vendor becomes a mentor.

The walk becomes a meditation.

The café becomes your office, your church, your perch to watch the world.

I still talk to El Chino.

He’s still storing two of my keyboards: one’s a DAS keyboard (from an independent company in Austin), and the other’s a piano.

He sends voice notes sometimes, usually chaotic, full of sizzling meat and cumbia in the background. Once, I asked him why he stayed on that same corner all these years.

He said:

“Porque si te mueves todo el tiempo, no sabes quién eres.”

(If you move all the time, you don’t know who you are.)

That’s the truth.

Slomadism isn’t about moving slow.

It’s about moving rhythmically enough to recognize yourself in motion.

So if you’re trying to build rhythm into your own journey:

Start with one thing:

One café.

One market.

One human.

One ritual.

Build yourself an anchor in the storm of travel.

And let it hold you,

until you’re ready to move again.

😏 The Meme

📢 Newsletter News

1. Audio editions are here. I’ve been quietly working on the voice-cloned audio version of A Texas Nomad. It’s not in the email (my mistake earlier), but you can now listen to each essay directly on the website.
   

   → If you prefer to hear these in my voice, visit the site for the full experience:
   

   www.atexasnomad.com 
   

2. From now on, all future issues will include audio on the website. 

🌎 Visa Watch

🇳🇿 New Zealand now allows holders of the Active Investor Plus Visa (aka “Golden Visa”) to buy or build one residential property worth NZ$5M or more—even without spending 183 days a year in the country.

🇳🇿 Applications for the Golden Visa are surging, with over 300 high-net-worth applicants in just a few months (mostly from the U.S.) bringing in over NZ$1.8 billion in potential foreign investment..

🇸🇱 Slovenia will introduce its first-ever Digital Nomad Visa starting November 21, 2025. It’s a one-year permit for remote workers (plus spouses and dependents), with Schengen access included. Renewals require a six-month break. 

🐸 (Bonus—Unexpected) Victoria, Frogland announced their own “Parent Boost Family Nomad Visa” a whimsical new category where remote parents are officially encouraged to homeschool from the wetlands. Okay, just kidding, this one doesn’t exist (but wouldn’t that be wild?).

🤓 The Read - Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

And soon: A Film by Chloé Zhao

(And yes, it’s about Shakespeare’s wife.)

Last week I mentioned Butter, a book I’m 100% sure will become a movie.

This week: a book I never expected would.

Because Hamnet is one of the most beautifully written, literary books I’ve ever read, and I honestly didn’t think the film industry would touch it. But the movie drops this fall.

When I was at Oxford University (Teddy Hall!), I was in a Shakespeare program and we took a field trip to Stratford‑upon‑Avon. I still remember walking the same streets Maggie O’Farrell describes in the novel.

Her writing is so good it borders on witchcraft. Most writers just describe what things look like. She writes smell. She writes weight. She writes grief. If you don’t cry you have a heart darker than Richard III.

It’s the story of Agnes (aka Anne) Hathaway (Shakespeare’s wife) and the death of their son, Hamnet. If you know anything about Shakespeare (1564–1616), you know that name shows up again in a little side project he called Hamlet.

Anyway, now there’s a film. Directed by Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, and it’s already got a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. One critic called it “the most devastating movie I’ve seen in years.” So yeah… maybe not a first-date film

The trailer feels like a fever dream. There’s wheat, flashbacks, maybe ghosts? Juliette Binoche isn’t in it (wrong movie), but it feels like a Binoche film: historical, intimate, quiet, and full of slow-burning feeling.

Who this is for:

If you like your history tragic, your writing poetic, and your Shakespeare stories told from the other side of the marriage… you’ll love this.

🦜 Rio’s Corner

🍿 The Stream - The Taste of Things (Amazon Prime.)

Set in 1885 France, The Taste of Things is a slow-burn of sensory devotion. A film where love simmers, recipes speak louder than dialogue, and meals become monuments to memory.

Juliette Binoche stars as Eugénie, the long-time cook and companion of a famous gourmet, played by Benoît Magimel. The film unfolds like a French recipe: patiently, precisely, with no hurry.

You feel every stir of the spoon. Every flick of fire. And eventually, the emotional weight of every word unspoken.

“Marriage is a dinner that begins with dessert,” one character jokes, sweet and tragic, depending on where you are in the meal. Or in the story.

From baked Alaska to fillets of sole (my favorite fish), the dishes are sacred. Watching them prepared is like watching memory get stitched together with butter and flame.

Director Trần Anh Hùng won Best Director at Cannes for this. The film currently holds a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not just about food. It’s about ritual. The pace at which humans connect when we don’t rush to define things too soon.

For today’s The Read (above) we walked through Shakespearean England with Hamnet. Now we slow down a little further south (into France) for another historical tale shaped by love, loss, and slowness that feels earned.

Watch it if you believe a meal can be an act of devotion. Or if you’ve ever felt like cooking was a form of travel.

🛤️ Outtro

Reinvention begins not with where you land, but with what you make.

Every place is a blank page. What you write there? That’s your legacy.

If this newsletter sparked something, pass it on to a friend, a fellow explorer, or anyone rewriting their life.

This community grows through real connection. One story, one share at a time.

If you enjoyed this, share it.

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See you next week. Don’t Escape. Design.