This is a copy of the Searls of Wisdom newsletter delivered to subscribers on December 8, 2024.

I found myself in need of a post-election palate cleanser, which is how Becky and I found ourselves spending most of November traveling Japan again. As always, I learned a lot. Like that the rhythm game Chunithm is probably too difficult for me to ever become good at. And that the Kawasaki Brave Thunders have a tremendously loyal fanbase. And that driving cross-country in Japan wasn't quite as nerve-wracking as my fears had made it out to be. (Though it's hardly cheap.)

Oh yeah, I also learned that every room's TV in the Toy Story Hotel is set in an Etch A Sketch frame:

As it happens, my grandfather was an executive at Ohio Art and played no small part in bringing the Etch A Sketch to market. He sadly died before I was old enough to ask him for that story, so all I have are bits and pieces I learned from my dad. It's too bad that so many people who've touched my life in such profound ways remain complete mysteries to me. Writing this newsletter is one of a dozen ways I strive to avoid the same fate.

To be honest, this is perhaps the most personal essay I've published so far, if not the most emotionally vulnerable. It's certainly the most detailed account of "who I am", in a certain sense. I have no idea what you'll think or feel after reading this. If you find that it speaks to you, I'd be lying if I were to say that was intentional. The primary audience of every story I tell about myself is myself. And there's never just one story. And those stories always change upon retelling.

Here goes.

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The Steelcase Leap (v2) is a good office chair in a world of mostly bad office chairs. I've been using it since 2020 and I don't love it, but I definitely hate it less than every other office chair I've ever owned. That's one reason I find myself vexed that Steelcase does not offer an after-market headrest for the chair (and no longer seems to let you configure one with a built-in headrest). In fact, so few office chairs offer headrests that I was briefly tempted to buy a "gaming chair" (do not buy a gaming chair).

And if you're reading this and identify as an Online Ergonomics Expert, I know you're champing at the bit to tell me, "headrests are bad, actually."

But if you're like me and have an incredibly large and heavy head, and/or you spend most of your time at the computer leaning back and pondering what to do next between furious-but-sporadic bouts of typing, then I'm happy to report I have a solution for what ails you.

I tried four different DIY solutions for slapping a third-party headrest onto the Steelcase Leap that were dreamed up by randos on Reddit, but only one of them worked. And the best part is that the winning thread only requires the headrest and a couple of zip ties, meaning that this approach shouldn't void your warranty by requiring you to drill into the back of the chair.

All you need:

1. This exact headrest made by Engineered Now
2. These heavy-duty zip ties
3. These images and maybe also these images that more-or-less tell you how to secure the headrest with the ties to the chair itself

If you're visiting here from a search engine or an AI assistant's generous citation, I hope you find this helpful! I can only speak for myself, but I am quite glad that I didn't have to buy a new chair just to keep my 15-pound head upright at the end of a long day.