Dear community,

Special Fish needs your support now.

For the entire month of February, I'm asking the community to help keep Special Fish running. I run this site entirely on my own as a working artist, living off my work.

Special Fish depends on users like you for hosting, maintenance, and keeping the site running. Every user costs the site money. If you use Special Fish regularly or just don't want to see it go away, please consider supporting it. A yearly contribution of $40 is suggested (that comes out to $3.33 per month). Supporters pay for users who don't have the means to support the site.

Please consider donating:

Become a regular subscriber on our Patreon → Make a one-time donation with Stripe (USD) → Make a one-time donation with Stripe (EUR) → Donate with PayPal →

~ Elliott

This message is temporary and will be removed at the end of February. Thank you for reading :)

Jake Welch @jakewelch

https://jakewel.ch, Brooklyn

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ Guestbook ⤑ ourworldoftext.com/jakewelch Website ⤑ jakewel.ch jakewel.ch/hidden-assets/88x31.gif Currently reading ⤑ My Struggle: Book 4 by Karl Ove Knausgaard Currently listening ⤑ Snowflakes Are Dancing – Isao Tomita (youtube.com/watch?v=7YeWiIQQZAo) Starchive ⤑ ✰⁎★∗✴✦*☆※⁂✧⁑✬⁕✭⊛✪✫☸❋✷✱✶✳✲✯✸✵✺✽⧆＊✹﹡ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ Outbox ⤑ animatedimages.org/data/media/1335/animated-mail-image-0203.gif @scar Thanks Leo, I designed and built it from scratch myself and have always been proud of it, but I feel myself moving away from the cold digital brutalist aesthetic and want it to reflect my design ethos more clearly. Always asking "how can I ground and connect people through my work?" I'd be happy to chat about your portfolio if you ever need ideas or feedback! To answer your question: > what was the very first website your ever visited? And what is your oldest > digital footprint? I think the first site I ever visited was probably Postopia (https://web.archive.org/web/20040725021229/http://postopia.com/). I saw it on my cereal box and wanted to play some games lol My oldest digital footprint is my still-active yet dormant msn email inbox. I have messages in there to friends from when I was a kid. @dom this print-out rocks ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ 5 February 2026 Everyone is holding onto something 30 January 2026 You have to destroy to create ░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
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True goodness is like water.

  • Bringing benefit and giving life to the 10,000 things.
  • It doesn’t compete but like the Tao
  • Immediately flows to the lowest place.
  • Everyone else always wants to be first
  • But the wise only want to be last,
  • To live on solid ground,
  • To think deeply,
  • To be gentle and kind,
  • To speak with honesty,
  • To govern with peace and order,
  • To work with skill,
  • To act at only the best time

Supreme good is like water.

  • Water greatly benefits all things, without conflict.
  • It flows through places that people loathe.
  • Thereby it is close to the Way.
  • A good dwelling is on the ground.
  • A good mind is deep.
  • A good gift is kind.
  • A good word is sincere.
  • A good ruler is just.
  • A good worker is able.
  • A good deed is timely.
  • Where there is no conflict, there is no fault.

ways i stay grounded

  • keep a morning routine
  • read difficult yet rewarding novels
  • avoid algorithms
  • sacrifice comfort
  • write out observations
  • consider how things are connected
  • notice how big and open the sky is
  • relinquish all hate
  • seek to understand everyone with compassion
  • embrace silence
  • honor things made with skill and craft
  • allow troubles to flow over me like water

4 favorite things

  • human connection
  • figuring out how things work
  • self-actualization through learning
  • cultivating peace