The Time Travel Project

The Immaculate | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on December 14, 2025December 11, 2025 by LS Harteveld

Babysteps, according to some, are an inefficient and even dangerous way to move around.

That it’s better to leap and go all in, instead of taking baby steps..

I was reminded of that when this morning I could suddenly no longer walk, as if I had stepped in a piece of glass.
The kind of sting as if you’ve stepped into glas, but the splinter has already disappeared into your foot and the only way you can tell something is wrong is because you feel it when you walk.

I had no idea how it got there, and after taking a shower it was gone, although for good measure I still took the soda footbath.
But it was gone.

However, when I was still hopping around the house, surprised at how debilitating it was, and wondering when I would go see a doctor (as soon as possible or after a week or so?) I did wonder what it symbolized.
What does it symbolize when you wake up unable to walk because you stand on one foot?
And I knew.

I had one foot in my 1990 timeline, and the other still here.
One foot in, and one foot out, for this entire calendar year.

Sure, I write these behind-the-scenes posts so that’s something. And I’ve minimized my online time, although especially in times of stress and a lot of communication going on, I relapse back into checking my mail the whole time.
The habit of being offline (read; my 1990 timeline default) appears to be ingrained, until things get chaotic and I don’t have the correction mechanisms in place. I can derail easily.

I started multiple diaries written from the 1990 perspective, to be written in before bed. But here the same thing goes;
They work when I have calm days that meander around a familiar routine but cease to work when I spent the whole day in the chaos of 2025, and still feel the pressure of that when I go to bed.

I split off my collection of books printed before 1991, and I have a separate cd cabinet for music released before 1991. Yet I read Miranda July’s 2024 midlife novel All Fours and listen to Madonna’s 1990 Immaculate Collection on YouTube because the headphone connection of my cd player works far from immaculate.
The sound keeps coming through one speaker, although the headphone works perfectly on the computer, so it’s definitely the cd player.
And I have a dvd player installed but use YouTube entertainment more often because it is portable and I can use it to clean or do my XL bathroom routine.

In short, I have 1990’s analogue world in place, but rarely reside there.

Despite the inconvenience of suddenly not being able to walk, I did realize: “This is a real 1990 experience!”
My assessment, my decision whether to see a doctor, the not-knowing;
If I had really lived in 1990, it would have been exactly the same!

The foot injury propelled me back to where my curated 1990 collections and failing equipment had been unable to take me.
Back in time.

And I used this time in my 1990 void, to wonder why my life in 2025 was so entirely different. Why there seemed to be more at play than simply the faster communication (emails that could come in any moment etc.) and it suddenly came to mind!
I wasn’t yet tapped into collective consciousness, with its learned behavior of responding to expectations no one takes responsibility for.
Through a series of fortunate events I had not been socialized.

Even if email had existed in 1990, I probably would not have felt any pressure to respond immediately. To 1990-me, email and the whole online world, would have been like study books or a magazine that you could close at any time.
And depending on who the email was from or what website it was, it would feel more like a study book you could not wait to put down, or like a magazine that you couldn’t wait to get back to.
But regardless, quitting and limiting your time spent on it, would come entirely natural.

Contrary to many peers, I had no thoughts in my head telling me I had to be nice or always available. My value was not tied to being of use, being social nor being pleasant.
And I realized that was the mindset I was looking for, when committing to this project month after month, without making much headway at all.

I was looking for that state of mental pureness.
The immaculate mind, not in the meaning of being superior but as in the immaculate conception of Maria.
Which was clearly Madonna’s reference as well, since her work has been rich in Catholic symbolism since the beginning.

My longing for 1990 is a desire to go back to a virgin state.
To be untouched.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara;
The series Harteveld 2025*
And these Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

For an indefinite time, I will be moving to the, I assume fictional, timeline of (re-)living 35 years ago.
Making the current year 1990.
This project has a predecessor, where I wrote as if I was in 1994 – 2000;
But this was mostly a literary (diary) undertaking.

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

My 8 year goals are:
📵 to live a 20th Century life
🎸 to be a 20th century-inspired Rock journalist.
But on the current timeline.
So this means I make money creating content and speaking about rock music and 20th century things
📚 publish Lauren Harteveld work 2010-2025
📢 to make the Lauren Harteveld legacy visible

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

The Holy 6PM Portal | longread | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on November 30, 2025November 26, 2025 by LS Harteveld

About two weeks ago I wrote a post to my coach Sara, which was so important I made its insights actionable in all areas of my life and addressed multiple notebooks to it!
A sign I really mean it.

The post was called Becoming Lauren and it was about how the softer, the feminine, the writer-side of me was slipping away, now that my work-life was going well.

“I feel she’s slipping away”

This side has been with me since 2007-ish, when I deliberately started the path of being single.
And yet, if I didn’t intervene I still risked losing her forever.

But despite this realization, or the appointed stationary, nothing came of it.

It even got worse when next to my workhours being mapped out, I now took on the unholy task of creating productive evenings.
I cramped in all the stuff I could not fit in during the day, in back-to-back 30 minute time-brackets.

The evening contained multiple things but the most “blasphemous” of them (because they were just work-hours basically) were studying 20th century rock, since becoming the 20th century Rock Journalist is one of my goals (you can find my goals at the bottom of this post);
As well as a bracket to publish my diary A Letter From A Stranger, including book 2 Dear Nikki.

.
The other evening-items were fitting to the soft-feminine Lauren side of me, and it also included being creative but without being tied to a specific goal, nor is it for publishing or posting.

But because of those two productive elements (studying rock and publishing my books) as well as because of the cramped LOUD nature of this four hour productivity show;
As a whole it was just a heavy productivity core with a self-care layer of veneer.

It was nothing Lauren would want to attend.

So when I finally had my call with Sara, for whom I had written this letter Becoming Lauren, I knew very well things had only gotten worse, not better.
And that if I wanted to save Lauren, the productivity fest that was supposed to be my evening had to go.

And they did;
The two activities, studying rock and publishing my books, will be dedicated to eight weeks throughout the year where I don’t make content.
They’re now holiday-only activities, and I have stopped trying to give them a place in daily life, regardless of how important they are for my career or endgame.

But before I did I gave them one final review:
Why was it, that these activities consistently fell outside my activities?

.
And I came up with a logic or insight, that really helped me, and it may help you too.

It’s a bit controversial, so be prepared:
Long-term goals, end-games or visions, no longer pay off. (and perhaps they never did)

In 1991 Douglas Coupland published his book

Generation X, Tales for and Accelerated Culture
And by all standards, the culture has only accelerated more since then.

It is my conviction that by now, and I’m writing this November 2025, life has become so accelerated that from a professional stance, our work should be strictly limited to the value we can create within a day, a week or two weeks at most.
We should never take on anything that does not deliver value, outcome or money within an extremely short period of time.

And it’s not just the time-frame that determines whether something is worth undertaking.
It’s also the question: “Can it be produced within the (standardized) system I am currently using?”

So for example, I am a good and experienced student.
Therefor I know how to tackle a new area of interest, categorize it, create a framework for it, and take in that information in a predictable way that can also be optimized.
In other words: I know how to study this 20th century area of interest I want to use to become a Rock Journalist.
And I’ve been a writer for almost two decades, and have been writing about Rock since 2019, so it is safe to say I have all the skills and systems in order to learn this craft.

So the question: “Can it be produced within the (standardized) system I am currently using?”
Can be answered with: yes.

However, from the point of accelerated culture, the whole Rock Journalist endeavor still needs to be banned to the margins of my year, and can never have a place within the workweek.
Because this is not something that is going to produce money (the narrow definition of value) within two weeks.

There is definitely still the option of it (my Rock Journalist studies) creating a broader definition of value, which would be the next option.
This would be a blogpost or a video, so that I already start sharing what I learn.
But I don’t currently see that option, within my current content planner.

My content is mapped out, based on the value they create. And it already includes some rock music related content as well.
But I will definitely expand my rock content, if I see an opening.

My take is that 2025’s accelerated culture, which already started in the 1991 book, means that as professionals we should only invest in things that will create value NOW
It makes no sense to invest anything in things that may or may not pay off in a future we have no way of predicting.
Our time window, again “as professionals”, has become limited to what we can make work TODAY.
Today, this week, or this fortnight.

The reason publishing my books as well as studying Rock has always, and will always be impossible to fit into my schedule is because it’s not something that is professionally relevant.
And not just because it’s art (publishing books) or a weird topic (20th century rock music).

The same thing would be true if I wanted to open a bread bakery or a yoga studio;
It will never pay off, because these business models no longer pay off.
Not unless I find a way to make them work in this accelerated culture, where they make money from day 1.

“Are there no exceptions then?” I hear you speak.
Probably, but this piece is written in an early stage of developing this theory and right now the only exception I see is with regulated and gate-kept professions.

F.e. it can pay off to become a dentist, a doctor, an investment banker or real estate broker, because as long as the systems of regulation of these professions are in place, you will always have work.
You could say the regulation prevents the accelerated culture from entering these “markets”. They’re not really markets, they’re simply gate-kept systems you can work your way into.
And it’s a good option, because it’s one of the few ways to keep the accelerated culture off your tail.

But other than that, No. I don’t see ways to avoid having to deal with the reality that our professional lives revolve entirely around what value we are able to create in an incredibly short about of time.
And this means that activities like the ones I was struggling with, publishing books and studying an area of interest in order to write about it in the future;
Or the aforementioned pastry bakery or yoga studio you may aspire to have;
They’re just hobbies, until you find a way to accelerate the process and start delivering value immediately.

The tale of the accelerated culture is that a professional life means To Be A Successful Capitalist, and this has always been the case but with the “accelerated culture” it means the windows within which you have deliver have become tiny and the pace ruthless.

No wonder Lauren was nowhere to be found;
Of course she refuses to show up for this.

So although I knew, when the call with Sara started, that I had not kept my promise from the Becoming Lauren blog, and that the evenings with the back-to-back productivity blocks had to go;
It really paid off to understand WHY they had been so bad, but also WHY it is so tempting to do it that way.

They were so bad because Lauren, feminine-me who basically would prefer to just stay in bed and eat grapes all day and have lovers;
Obviously she really needs my evenings to be laid back, unplanned, and cozy.

But the reason it is tempting for all of us, to have these secret dreams of one day being a rock journalist, or a published author, well that is because we suffer from that pace of having to be ON every day.
And performing every day.

We equate our own chosen vocation with being free from the pressures of having to perform in such a shallow way, where nothing we create has cost us more than the blink of an eye.
It’s eating away our soul, we long for depth.

But the truth is in our chosen vocations, even if we “make it”, will have the same ruthless pace. The same demands of capitalism would still be barking at us.
If we think we can escape the pressures of our accelerated culture by changing jobs or chasing our dreams, we’re wrong.
At best, we get to perform the same pressure-driven but also (admittedly) addictive fast-paced production, in the area of expertise we fancy, and we are now our own boss and in control of the entire process ourselves.
But it won’t get any easier or laid back.

So what I propose, and what I will definitely be doing for my inner-Lauren before she disappears on me, what I propose is that we acknowledge that our days have become insanely productive.
But also shallow and demanding.
And that we need a rest.

That at six o’clock we pull the plug on everything.
And we go to bed and eat grapes.

~Lauren

An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2025* and the Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

Where 1990, the Matrix and 2025 meet | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on November 16, 2025November 16, 2025 by LS Harteveld

“Offline. I need to be offline. I HAVE TO, be offline.”
It’s been a while now that I’ve had this obsession with being offline.
My mind must be operating on some unconscious motivation, because my rational mind cannot explain my tenacity here.
This type of discipline is foreign to me. I’ve been patient and relentless when it comes to creating a life offline, which is the core of this Living-In-The-Past series. In 1990. Despite not having any significant results, my motivation grows. The conviction that this is going to be amazing if only-; Then-;
Without knowing, if only what?
And then what?

But I’ll take it because it’s just far too interesting a riddle, to give up.

But, I did find another clue!

In my quest to live offline, I’ve drawn greatly on the movie The Matrix.
The living in a simulation from the movie lines up exactly with us living in our mobile phones.
And the harsh reality, once Neo is awakened from his pod, equalizes how our lives would look, if we’d manage to quit the habit of being online.

Just like in the movie, we too have to choose between a life of comfort and illusion online, or a real life in stark contrast to that.

Reality will never meet artificiality.
Not unless you start including its realness and complexity, as value.

But now, I have found an extra layer to this. One that might explain my relentless poking around in this concept of living offline/ living in the past.

What if what I am really escaping from, and what Neo escaped from, is the collective bee hive mind?
Our shared code?
The social construct with all of its unwritten rules, that has been keeping us unconscious and enslaved, but also in check, for thousands of years?

What if numbing ourselves scrolling, binge watching, and letting ourselves be brainlessly consumed by the online world, is nothing new?
But our collective cage, finally visible to the naked eye.

What if the pull of the online world, and its deception, its ability to take over our lives, is actually a blessing in disguise?

This could be the first time in history, we can escape a Matrix that was there all along.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2025* and the Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

She Told Me | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on November 2, 2025November 2, 2025 by LS Harteveld

As the year is slowly drawing to a close, and with that so is the first year of this new time-travel project where I pretend to be living in 1990 and doing a rather poor job.
The biggest problem seems to be that I keep forgetting I chose that timeline.
And that writing should no longer be my priority, because I chose this experimental artform of time-travel.
For better or, most likely, for worse.

But I also support stepping away from writing because after 20 years I feel I’ve pushed the medium to its edges.
That it has said everything it could say, on my behalf.

My writer’s career was born like the Siamese twin to my path of reinventing my love life.
It was my laboratory where I logged and dissected my findings.
The war room, where I came up with new strategies.

In 2019, more than four years into what would prove to be the relationship that would be the crown to this path – I changed my diary to a fictional 1994.
I re-imagined:
“What if it was 1994, and we were transitioning from university into working life, and our loose arrangement that had started in highschool, was falling apart?”
This revived the story, and gave both my writing or you could say “it gave him and me”, a new chance at life.

But after this relationship ended, I had to switch things up once again. This is when I invented a new timeline, earlier this year.
One where a very young Lauren had chosen to be single.

I took it all the way back to 1990 where Bear, as she called him, had never been someone she had casual sexual encounters with, but instead he was someone she had seen in December 1989;
And had said No to.

She’d wait it out, until something less casual would come along.
Or not.

This is the Lauren we are dealing with now, November 1990. On this new timeline. And one I’m still insecure about as an art project.
I mean, time travel?
What is that even?

But instead of letting the Project 1990 fade and giving up on it, I started toying with the idea of creating a space or habit, some sort of reminder, that would weave 1990 into my days.
Even just being aware more often, that I was supposed to be in 1990, was already a step closer to getting there.

I was looking for ways to weave 1990 into my days, and/or into my surroundings as visual reminders, when “She” (1990-me) showed me herself.

First of all:
The girl needs more pink.
Preferably the baby pink version and also preferably combined with grey. But in truth any shade of pink and combined with any other color or straight up plain, will do.
The color Pink will remind me to live in 1990.

And she also asked for three 15 minute blocks of yoga, throughout the day. Not one longer practice, which I won’t be doing anyway even though technically I have a time block reserved for it every night (which always magically disappears)
So she took the lead and said:
“No more of that.” (clears time schedule)
“Now try this instead.”

Three 15 minute practices a day, for an 18 year old virgin. And not just to become really good at yoga, or whatever. No, the lady has got it all figured out.
This yoga is going to be her All.
Her One.
The all-encompassing, adventurous, nourishing, exciting physical experience that even if no man ever makes it to her bed, will be enough.

The yoga mat is where she will develop herself spiritually, physically and as a human being.
And the reason I said Yes, even though I’ve been flaky as f, both with this whole time travel thing, as well as with my yoga- the reason I said yes, is that I’m no longer doing it for myself now.

I’m doing it for her.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2025* and the Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

1990, but with YouTube | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on October 14, 2025October 17, 2025 by LS Harteveld

As this project is taking shape, at last, I feel I can relax just a little bit.

.
Although I am obviously still clueless as to what I’m doing, making myself travel back in time and rebuilding a life for an 18 year old Lauren, in a world that effectively no longer exists;
I do feel the understanding of it has deepened this past month or so.

In the previous post in this series I came up with four goals, which I will be including below every post.

It’s not just having goals now, it’s also seeing people around me working on the same topic:
Understanding our online consumption needs to be dealt with.
And in a big and lifechanging way.

Ultimately I want to have more to say about living in the past than it being solely an offline experience, but at least for now, my path is parallel to everybody who has made it their mission to break the habit of being chronically online, or even the habit, sec, to be online.
That being online should by definition not be a habit, but an intentional choice, weighed against ones values and protocol around their online use.

That it is the “habit” of internet use itself, more than the amount we end up using it, that we are now tackling.
Not quite collectively, I don’t see us en masse moving offline, but it’s definitely a movement, and it’s gaining momentum.

For this first bit, the 2025 setup months where I figure this project out, my first steps on an entire new timeline 35 years ago, and all these other people wanting their time and consciousness back;
We’re in the same boat.

And that has been comforting, in particular because the timelines will start to split. And I have no idea how friendships and relationships develop, when one person has decided to pretend they live in 1990.
So I enjoy this early beginning, where it has increased my feeling of sharing the same experience. A feeling of connection.
And not lessened it, as I suspect will be happening in the future.

But I have become aware of an aspect of being online, that is proving to be too deeply rooted to erase right now: YouTube.
I watch it when I do the dishes, or am brushing my teeth. Or when one of the cats wants to cuddle in a way that will not even allow for me to hold a book.

Ultimately, I want these still-watching-YouTube activities to have that quiet and quirky peace that feels almost like the 70s!
Very, very ancient, but I was still a child then, so of course I was feeling different.
But the feeling of the 70s definitely illustrates how foreign it feels to me, to be doing these things without YouTube.
(although I occasionally do, when I’m feeling very strong and happy)

But my real endgame, the moment I feel Project 1990 is getting somewhere, is to have a peaceful mind.
Something which I always had in the 20th century.

I never had internal dialogue, nor did I feel I had to keep thinking about things, nor analyze them. I was the perfect In The Now child, teen and adult.
Not just in the 20th century (of course) but I think I was actually fine all the way up until 2016!

Making this first chunk of trying to untie myself from my YouTube screen, really only that first part of the journey.
Time-traveling the recent history of bringing myself back just 9 years, to the mental quiet of 2016.

It is tempting to get irritated by that, and just ditch YouTube on full willpower. But I really feel that would take me so much effort, it would jeopardize the entire undertaking.
I need to take this slow, because the shift will happen from the inside out.

One day I will wake up, and be done with watching YouTube during those activities when 1990-Me would not be having a screen either.

But I’m choosing to save my energy for other things, not wanting to be pulling all my resources from other areas, just to make this happen.

The final months of this year, I’ll be living in 1990;
But with YouTube.

..
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

The story behind this time travel project has been added below..

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2025* and the Behind the Scenes of my 1990 timeline.
The subscription button is on this page, most likely on the top right.

About: the 1990 project

I’m cutting back deeper into time, and do not intend to keep a diary. It is the living in the past itself, that is the art.

In September 2025 I came up with these goals, covering the first 8 years.

Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

Or follow my Facebook page
/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld

A Rock Journalist | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on September 30, 2025September 30, 2025 by LS Harteveld

Before I knew what new 18 year old Lauren Harteveld wanted to be when she grew up; I knew the weight of the past 20 years had to be lifted off my shoulders.

Having been a writer since 2006, and online since 2010, with over 400 blogposts since December 2018 alone (which is this website, an act of flat out abandonment of my older website), it had gotten too much too carry.
And it had been for a very long time.

My body of work had gotten so large it was probably too much to bear for any writer, but in particular for someone who wanted to start fresh.
As an 18 year old, in the year 1990, with a future of endless possibilities.

The countless blogposts, offline diaries and Word-files? Screamed obligation, stuck-ness and threatened to drown me alive.

So last weekend I made the decision to retire Lauren Harteveld, as we know her, or knew her.

Don’t worry!
The current three series, which have been going out for months in this format, will go on unchanged!

With every week a new episode of either Behind the Scenes, of Lauren 1990, or Harteveld 2025*, a post capped at 2200 characters.

And once a month I write a letter to Sara here, my coach.

Of which the latest was three days worth of writing and creating art work and then re-creating it.
Dear Sara will always be as long as it needs to be, because they are like foundational posts on which the whole thing is built.
After writing her, I can see where I need to change things up.

As was the case this time.
The separation the letter spoke about, into three different personalities (Rock Star, Mad Chaotic Person (MCP), and Lauren, the soft, feminine side of me who isn’t online) proved that, ultimately, there were no years attached to them.
They are all whole personas, all living on both timelines, 1990 and 2025.
But initially I did not get that, and having three personalities on two timelines, at first, drew me absolutely nuts.

I thought all work on these three personality types had been in vain. I should have used the two timelines as starting points.
Because with three personalities, living on two timelines I now I had six; Obviously undoable.

I thought I had broken it, and that the only way to free myself was to burn the 20 years of writing, so that I could actually BE in 1990, as an 18 year old version of myself.
I was like an animal wanting to chew off its own leg….

But then, fortunately, I found a way out. And before I burned it all down in an attempt to free myself.

So what happened to the three personalities and the two timelines?

Well, I could extract one personality (the Rock Star/ Artist), and one professional timeline (2025).
The other timeline 1990 still exists, as do the other personalities of offline Lauren and the Mad Chaotic Person (MCP) who is in charge of all online posting, and the backup option if the situation requires warmth, fun and casualness;
But the things essential for my success could essentially all be boiled down to one career, and one persona;
The Rock Star/ Artist.

She will be working in 2025.

On the 2025 timeline Rock Star-me, writer me (mostly under my real name), will almost mechanically handle all my current day projects and work on all areas.
Including publishing all work Lauren Harteveld in the upcoming years.

I’ve always had it as my main goal to become the Anais Nin (a famous diary writer) of the 21st century, yet I’ve decided to end my diary writing years.
Almost 20 years is enough.
And closing my years as a diarist, and switching to curating this work and securing the legacy of it, feels like the best choice I made in years.

So like I said, the current three series will stay on, but they’re not written from living the experience itself.
Like this piece, what you’re reading now, it’s from a bird’s eye perspective.

That’s not the same as writing from a diary standpoint.

Professionally the personality of the Rock Star will live fully in 2025.

However, the 1990 version of me, will embody her. Live her.

And she will live with the idea of becoming a journalist.

In 1990, I’ll be studying rock, and pretend that I’m a teen in 1990, who has decided she’s gonna go for it.
She wants to write about rock and become a professional journalist!

She and current-day me are the same person. Just that real me has more on her plate, including publishing the Lauren diaries 2010-2025 and secure her legacy as the diarist of this century.
Maybe that will happen within my lifetime, maybe not.
I keep seeing recognition coming in a hundred years from now when my work be uncovered, vault style.

Meanwhile (like I said) I will keep writing posts like this, to let people know what’s going on now.
And to share how things are going on my 1990 timeline.

Should the 1990 adventures be worth writing about, I always have my offline dairies to document that.
But I feel diary writing, even as a way to shape my time travel project (like I did 1994-2000, a publication which also desperately needs to be published and I keep dropping the ball) is no longer my thing.
I am really done writing diaries, and I want to BE the rock journalist, and under my real name.

Lauren Harteveld the diary writer may one day publish a new book/diary, but I don’t expect it. And not before I have her whole legacy wrapped up.

Coming back to the three-part identities I distinguished in the long letter I wrote to Sara, and why they (thank God) had not actually multiplied after all (into 6 different ones, spread over two timelines) the answer is this:

The Rock Star/Artist is who I am professionally, under both names, and in all different fields.
Lauren, the soft, beige clothed femme, is private me. Although I acknowledge there are few social situations and few people with whom I will be choosing to “be her” (meaning, my real me)
And the Mad Chaotic Person (MCP), the fun, outgoing, let-it-rip persona, who can step in for both (Rock Star or Lauren) if social interaction is required.

There is no punchline to this story, yet I cannot express how relieved I am. Relieved the lengthy post that took me days was not in vain;
Relieved to have a separation between the professional and the private;
And to have someone (the MCP) who can navigate between the two.

I’m relieved to be wrapping up 15 to 20 years of writing;
And to have a whole new career, ahead of me.

Starting fresh.

..
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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Total Recall | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on September 16, 2025September 16, 2025 by LS Harteveld

Treading lightly!
That’s probably the best strategy in this unknown art form called timeline travel.
Which means I am in the process of teleporting myself to 1990 until I feel I live there.

My end game is to only come to 2025 (and beyond, as this is a long-term project) to do the job of whatever online work is required.

Like how you’d go to work in the morning, but want to leave at the end of the day.

I don’t reject professional use of the internet and smartphone, but as I progress I want it to be restricted more and more, until it really feels like work.
And no longer something I do in my free-time.

Obviously, being, or not-being, online is the most identifiable area where 1990 should start feeling entirely different than 2025.

And I have been successful with this, but it is still very much in the “doing-stage”.
So my online behavior is different, but I don’t feel different.
The grey noise in my head which has become my companion, is not lifting.

A few successes have been the moments when I imagined my new-body. Sometimes I imagine my actual former 1990 body, but usually it’s easier for me to envision a body from a book from the 80s, I keep next to my bed.

I make sure not to lose sight, that this is not a body make-over challenge in any way.
Because yes, it would help if my body became the physical reminder of the fact that I am pretending it is 1990.
But the real goal is to feel the era in my mind.
It’s a brain-make-over.

I am prepared to do whatever it takes to really get that open, quiet offline consciousness that was so normal in 1990.
And I know getting offline is key to achieve that, yet so far I hardly have any 1990 progress after cutting my online presence in half.

The real results are much quieter…
Like fairies or ghosts. Glimpses that appear one moment, and that I then try to catch!
By taking on the glimpse, expanding it, living it, seeing through its eyes, by letting the images unfold like a reel;
I hope the experience grows big enough to hold to.

One of the most powerful yet largely artificial “memories” that helps me to get into the 1990 feeling, is the movie Atomic Blonde from 2017.
The movie is situated in Berlin in 1989, to the backdrop of the wall coming down.

The wardrobe of the female protagonist, as well as her London apartment, is totally minimalist, only black and white, which is of course the most timeless look the 80s produced, and would seamlessly move into 90s minimalism.
The color of the year 1990 was eggshell white.

At the time itself, I wasn’t into the combination black/white at all, but right now, and no doubt sparked by that movie Atomic Blonde, it is one of my favorite time travel tools.

Also both London as well as Berlin remind me of the era as well.
I can think of those cities, and myself in those cities in that era, and have 1990 wash over me.

I also know exactly what Madonna was up to that year.
Touring the world, which would be documented and released as her tour movie in 1991 (not mentioning the title since it depends on where you live)
And in December she would release her Immaculate Collection, which would also contain her summer hit Vogue, which was released on the album I’m Breathless, which was promoted as a soundtrack to the Dick Tracey movie instead of a studio album.
Making it a niche album, despite Vogue’s unprecedented success as a single.
The release of December’s Immaculate Collection was promoted with the to-be-banned-by-MTV single Justify my Love, which was written by Lenny Kravitz.
Justify My Love and nude photos by Steven Meisel, which were shot in December as well, were in retrospect the start of her new Erotica era.
Which would last for four years.

1990 was in many ways a landmark year.

Maybe it’s a sign of how much my brain has already eroded from all the internet use, that I still cling to being offline as my roadmap.
As if being offline is what classified the year 1990, or the decade it broke in.
It didn’t.

Just that for now at least, my brain seems too far gone to grasp the truth about this monumental year.
It is captured in its own 2025 prison of small-mindedness.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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New books will be added.

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Freedom ’90 (there she f’k!ng is!) | year 1990 behind the scenes

Published on September 2, 2025September 2, 2025 by LS Harteveld

If you could see me now, I would not be able to wipe the smirk off my face.
And the reason I’m over the moon is not the usual suspect of Man-Interest-Going-My-Way.
Because that is very much not going my way, and has been a great and apparently necessary lesson in what happens if you make yourself too available!

No, the reason for this euphoria is because I finally got myself injected into the 1990 timeline.
Where an 18 year old fictional Lauren has just started her gap year, unsure if she’ll join university in August 1991, or if she’ll become a yoga teacher.

Finally, after years of trying to time travel to HERE, there, 1990-ish
– a process which intensified over the past couple of months when I was really trying hard, yet it was still not working –
I now managed to get this highly coveted job of timeline jumping DONE.

And it may actually have been the silent slap on the nose in the Man department that did the trick, because what was I doing making myself available like that?!

It was the perfect incentive to time jump, because if I was successful, it would allow me to go from leaning in, to meeting his demands to keep this as casual as casual goes;
To disappearing.

*soft poof sound*

Not just no longer showing up, but vanishing, sinking away in time.
First a big leap to 2019, the year I started my first timeline experiment.
Then another giant step, to 2007, when I started dating again after a 14 year relationship.
A step to the year 2000, where my current retro timeline stranded. Knowing it would end here, and that I would jump back again, to 1990.

I would step lightly, and affectionately, onto 1994, for having been my fictional starting point in 2019, when I started this whole experiment with timeline jumping.
In 2019 I went back to 1994, a timeline where it is currently 2000.
I would smile at 1994 and say:
“Love you! And going back to 1990, so see you in a few years!”

And then arrived, both feet in, in 1990. And smiled because I thought it was so cool, that I finally “did it”!
Even though I don’t think anyone, not even me, knows what that means.
But before I could worry about that, within a day, I realized Why, I had landed here.
What it was about 1990, that made this year so magical.

‘Cause ever since 2023 I have been trying and wishing and begging for the timeline 1988 – and failed.
And as one year passed, it became 1989.
About which I still had memories, and had that panned out, then it would have been perfect too.
But 1990?
Although I was happy the timeshift had worked, part of me still felt like 1990 was nothing more than a two-year overdue 1988.
A delay, because I was crappy at time travel and it had taken me two years to figure it out.

But oh no Baby….. Oh no!
This is all so very perfect.

One year from now, I will meet the man who could have been, and in all probability should have been, my first real love.
If, I had waited.
If, with super powers of restraint I definitely did not possess, I had refused to have sex or a relationship with anyone unless I was madly, all encompassing, sanity devouring in love?!

Then I would have stayed a virgin and in summer 1991 I would have met the man of my life.
I, a 19 year virgin who had saved herself for 27 months after her heart was broken – She, would have met an experienced young man, exactly her age, who would have been my/her ideal partner for a number of years.
And in all probability;
I, would have been his ideal lover too.

One year from now.

Which gives me exactly one year, to get ready.
To get Lauren 1990, ready.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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Desires of a timetraveler | year 2000 behind the scenes

Published on August 19, 2025August 19, 2025 by LS Harteveld

There’s a new man in my life, and I feel he’s entered on the wrong timeline and is connecting to the wrong woman.
Or not connecting, it all remains to be seen.

The chemistry is undeniable, yet undeniable is a strong word for someone old enough to see people deny everything from purpose and callings to carbohydrates and the primal urge to get together with the one you love.

Everything, can be denied.
And people who stir every cell in your body, are among the easiest.

If it is followed up upon, then it is called a mistake, a fling, a being carried away and blamed on not thinking straight.
Stripped bare of its alchemy, its higher meaning or the visceral urgency of it.

So of course I know that even if he would have similar feelings, which the chemistry implies, he can walk away from this in a heartbeat.

But what makes the whole situation frustrating, is that he does not know me under this name.
Just under my local name.

And part of me is happy about that, for multiple reasons all of which are boring as well as irrelevant to this conversation.
But what bugs me is that consequently the story is unfolding on the wrong timeline.

Because under my real name I only live on one timeline;
2025

Whereas under alterego I live in 2025, where I write all these blogs.
I live in 2000 where I keep an offline diary, recording how I try to rebuild my love life as a 28 year old who has been with the same man since she was 17, and who has now been alone for 1.5 to 2.5 years, depending on how you count.
The 1990 timeline is where Lauren 2000 is building a new life for herself.

Pretending she’s still in 1990, she wonders:
“If I had not hooked up with Bear (her longterm lover) in the first place, and also had not gone to university, and also not become a writer but had focused on doing yoga and becoming a yoga teacher instead;
How would my life have unfolded?”

If this man would become a lover to the 1990 timeline version, that would be awesome!
Lauren 2000 would write in her offline diary, how she was giving her younger self a clean slate, a brand new love life.

But even if Lauren2000 would not know how to do that, and would start dating this new man herself, it would be something she/I could write about in our offline diary.
(yes lots of consent conversations to be had beforehand, don’t get me started, I know)

But me dating in 2025?
Absolutely impossible, I have zero desire to.
In 2025, and in particular in my real life under my real name, everything is contained, planned and polished.
For me life in this timeline is so exposed, so vulnerable, so cramped in between the expectations of society as well as digital and other surveillance-
There’s no way I’m bringing my love life there.

So there is a new man, and next to the normal doubt of not knowing how this will pan out the upcoming months, there is the frustration that he’s seeing a version of me that is literally impenetrable, by design.

2025 Version of me has been stripped bare of its alchemy, of meaning and of her visceral urgency.

~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

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So incredibly necessary | year 2000 behind the scenes

Published on August 5, 2025 by LS Harteveld

It reminds me of the 90s where I no longer liked being a smoker, and the rebel identity and Hollywood glamour had worn off long ago.
Yet I could not stop.
Not even for a day.

Ultimately I managed to quit on the back of a “smoking hangover”.
The day after a party and it was almost noon before I got out of bed anyway. So the first hours without cigarettes were “on the house”.

The alcohol-free night had left me with a hangover because I had been smoking all night, at a loud venue with dozens of other smokers.
When I should have been in bed sleeping.

That day I quit and never went back.

I had been trying for years, with several attempts dating as far back as high school.
For a couple of days, or a couple of weeks, but I had always fallen off the wagon.
Over the years quitting seemed to have gotten harder.
Not easier.

Yet this final “attempt” immediately felt different. A spur-of-the-moment decision, and I remember buying the widest variety of bubblegum flavors I ever owned, including Donald Duck bubble gum that came with a cartoon in the wrapper.

And pricey nicotine gum.
But I had not read the instructions (which I believe will tell you to chew it slowly) and it made me cough.
I never bought a second pack.

But regardless of the messy start, as well as my poor record of always starting again, I immediately, and with certainty, knew this attempt was successful.
And I was right.

And I am waiting for the moment the same click happens with my internet addiction. And to only be online in a deliberate way. Which can also be for entertainment, I’m not depriving myself.

But it has not come.

I have definitely gotten better, but the finality is not there. I’m making the most of what I am humanly able to do, from my end.
But I’m gonna need some magic from the Universe, to make this final.

I have three timelines to attend to;
1990, where I am rebooting my body.
2000, where I am rebooting my love life.
And 2025 where I am rebooting success.

None of them like waking up to the taste of internet in the morning.

.
~Lauren
An unexamined life is not worth living

Subscribe to this blog for my letters to Sara, the series Harteveld 2025* and the Behind the Scenes of my year 2000 diary.
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Books

My diaries are available at LULU
New books will be added.

The best way to receive updates on when these books are ready,
is to subscribe to this blog.
Button on this page, probably on the top right.

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/ Twitter: @LSHarteveld