Month: July 2023

Categories
Emotional Work Uncategorized

Day 942 and Goodbyes

My childhood was full of goodbyes. I moved every two years for most of my young life. I was not a military brat or a diplomat’s child, just a millennial surviving the instability of her Boomer parents. It is a common experience I’ve learned.

My parents did their very best to walk different paths than their own parents. Like any child, I watched them closely and adjusted my own feelings accordingly.

Now as an adult I see how I work to walk on different paths than my own parents. Families are always adjusting to the wisdom of our past as we chart our future.

And so I think about how comfortable I am with saying goodbyes and I weigh it against the generations that came before. And I think that all we can do is try to balance the equation of our own life.

Categories
Chronicle Emotional Work

Day 941 and Unreasonable

Today marks our one year anniversary of moving to Montana. I noted yesterday just how much we achieved in just 365 days.

I’ve tended to think in terms of time in terms of days over the past three years because no other metric seemed sensible. Too much changes every day even as too little seems to be different.

I do believe that what gets measured gets managed. So it makes sense that someone like me who writes every single day thinks that days are the manageable metric. Not that being manageable means anything is under control. Merely that I have some metric to measure back into to make life seem more reasonable.

I am however all too human. We are feeling animals with the capacity to reason. It’s important that it’s not the other way around. Much as I like to reason my way through life I’ve learned to remember feelings matter. This has made me both much more open and also much more careful about how I treat myself.

I suppose this makes me unreasonable simply by definition. Humans are unreasonable because we do not operate through reason entirely I’d encourage even my most autistic friends to remember that this means you are unreasonable too.

Narratives are the comfort we seek as our apophenia runs rampant. Spotting the one thing that is not like the others is how we survive. We seek sense in the chaos. It’s an unreasonable thing to do when we know we’ve not yet managed to measure even a fraction of our reality. One day I hope I come to terms with that.

Categories
Homesteading

Day 940 and Dishes

Much to my surprise, tomorrow it will have been one year since my husband and I moved from Colorado to Montana. It feels like the time absolutely flew by. We achieved quite a bit on the homestead in just a year here.

We installed a solar grid so we can be off the power grid if we chose. We repaired our well pumps & installed a top of the line water filters. We installed air conditioning because sadly that’s a thing you need now even in the Northern Rockies now. We replaced the roof on the barn and the house. We furnished the living room, dining area, and a full guest floor (come visit seriously). We built out a gym in the barn. We set up a small hydroponic system for vegetables and herbs.

That feels like a lot to when I write it out, and yet oddly it was a purchase we made just yesterday that made me feel like we’d settled in. We bought dishes.

Yes, dishes as in in plates and bowls. We bought a proper nice set of matched china. It took us an entire year of living in our first home, but we finally have something to serve our guests on.

This may require some context for the significance. We got married at city hall without anyone present. We didn’t have a registry or any kind of celebration, so we didn’t get a single gift like a serving platter or soup bowl.

It turns out if you don’t do things the traditional way, neither friend nor family will bother with the rituals of gifting midrange china to celebrate what used to be a major life milestone. I don’t think we got so much as a congratulations card let alone a teacup. Not that we’d asked anyone to do so.

Our kitchen reflects this ten years later with a hodgepodge of Ikea ceramics so chipped and mismatched it’s become a running joke. And while we are clearly willing to invest in substantial equity building activities, spending $500 to acquire dishes felt insane.

Heirlooms don’t really get passed down anymore so it’s just a consumer good. To be fair, we also thought spending the equivalent of a year’s college tuition on a wedding was a waste so maybe it’s just how we prioritize. We invest in things that will be worth more over time like company stock.

I think there has been a persistent fantasy about how millennials rely on their Boomer parents that has just never really been true for my own experience. The grind to build enough stability and cash to own a home can be nearly impossible when starter homes in middle tier cities are over half a million dollars. Letting go of things like weddings was a small sacrifice in my mind given the challenges of earning enough.

But I’ll admit to feeling a little surprised that even getting a hand with your kitchen necessities wasn’t something the older generations wanted to help the younger ones with. No wonder my generation is a bunch of workaholics with no kids.

If you own parents forget to send celebratory tokens, what hope do have for maintaining any of the social fabric of past traditions? We may as well accelerate as fast as we can into the future if we can’t even rely on the past for dishes.

Categories
Community Politics Preparedness

Day 939 and Culture Wins Not Culture Wars

You could be forgiven for losing faith in the American Dream. We’ve had a rough couple of years with bad vibes and culture wars. The Great Weirdening era was not easy.

I’ve been encouraging people to consider preparedness in the face of unrelenting uncertainty for a decade now. It’s time for us to move on from the “what if” of our current geopolitical, economic & climate dislocations to the “what now?”

I’m pleased and saddened to say the future is here. My revealed preferences tell you most of what you need to know. I live in an off grid capable homestead with well water and solar in Montana. I own Bitcoin. I think we are in for a bumpy decade or two.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not hopeful. I am optimistic about what a very different future will look like. I invest in technologies as varied as open source vector database software, multi sig wallets for DAO governance & network states, and psychedelic clinics for mental health. I clearly believe we can do future in the future. Orders of magnitude better. If you believe in the same you future you can become an LP in my fund chaotic.capital

Change is the only inevitable thing in life. I’m proud to have been raised in the Rocky Mountains because our history has been so crucial in the formation of the American mythos of a better future. We are the frontier. The future is a frontier just as surely as Star Trek was about space cowboys.

And on the frontier you have the freedom to make choices of your own. How things used to be done doesn’t matter as much here because “how things used to be” is barely more than century or two for most of us.

We take what works from our heritage and we use it to inform a better future. Because a frontier represents a better future for your family. That the next generation will have it better. It’s a commitment to our heirs.

We’ve seen what happens when people don’t believe the future will be better. The pandemic years were bleak. I’ve seen the despair in people’s eyes when I discuss the problems we have in front of us. I’ve happily worn the doomer mantle as I do not wish to convey that success is assured nor that the problems all have solutions. As without clear eyes we will remain in denial forever. But after accepting that we have problems we cannot remain frozen, we must act.

I’d like us all to wake up to our reality and resolve on the good we can achieve by believing the future can be improved by what we do in the now.

We need culture wins not culture wars.

The desire for clean and livable environment, a functional state, and the dignity of our life’s pursuits remain common cause for all humans. Resilience and adaptability remain our tools.

If you are one of my neighbors in Montana, I am hosting a get together on August 16th. I believe that America has a “dissident” middle who are tired of culture wars. We want the freedom to pursue the American dream without government interference. A dynamic future with growth and choice for everyone is the best path forward. And I like to walk that path with you. If you’d like that please come on by my place.

Categories
Emotional Work Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 938 and Steady Till

I’ve been enjoying a bit of accelerationism in my own life. I’ve been pruning attention and refocusing myself and was rewarded with a lot of change. All of which feels good to me. I’m relieved to be happy now that I have steadier days.

It feels quite intense out there on social media. We are repeating big narratives and I encourage everyone to read up on past media fervors. I know my own nervous system can find it stressful to stay on top of every current event. I’m doing a free hour long cultivating calm session with Jonny Miller on August 10th at 11am MTN. I’d love for anyone interested in working with reactivity to join us.

I see how primed I am to reenact. found myself going through my usual storm preparedness routine. I don’t like facing a crisis without adequate resources so I’ve been known to restock inventory and clean house when the weather forecast looks bad

But I have the choice to have a steady till and my own hand will guide me on the course. If that requires nervous system work or grocery shopping. Or both. Or something entirely. Please do what you need to keep yourself steady in the storm.

Categories
Internet Culture Media

Day 937 and Conspiracy’s Greatest Hits

The rising volume on complaints about the mainstream media has struck me as a little bit silly as I’ve been entrenched in skepticism of institutional authority my whole life. Thinking the news had a bias isn’t new and conspiracy is practically an American art form. So be careful out there.

When I was a kid in the late nineties we still had the national broadcast evening news as the center of discourse. I was considered a bit odd for being interested in news at a young age but my hippie parent had a healthy skepticism for institutional authority so they encouraged it.

I remember before the mass adoption of social media and self publishing, if you wanted an alternative perspective you had to turn to AM radio. If you were lucky you lived in a college town and had access to library cooperatives and computer labs. If you were very lucky like me, your parents had invested in personal computers and internet access early on so you could mix formal libraries with early choose your own adventure newsgroups online.

Thanks to the confluence of the above factors I read Adbusters, went to the local anarchist book cooperative and listened to Art Bell late at night. I was practically stewed in every early conspiracy and counter culture narrative that had any amount of reach. If a zine cared or an indie publisher could cobble together a story I read it. This lead to a general fascination with media and how Americans decided on what was credible and what viewpoints were discouraged.

I was a curious child. My family welcomed skeptics and mystics. This is perhaps what happens when you take children on meditation retreats. I got inoculated to a lot of crazies, cults and whackadoodles because America has always been where utopians gather. Our evangelical cultures have led to uniquely American interpretations of our Gods. And I loved nothing more than watching these subcultures flourish.

My family bought a cable news package and I watched CNN and Fox News battle it out. I read Naomi Klein and Marshal McLuhan. I convinced my mother to get me a subscription to the Economist when I was fifteen. Embarrassingly I used their motto in a year book quote. I talked my way into a job famed talk radio juggernaut 77WABC when still technically in high school.

If there is one thing I learned from this lifelong obsession with who controls what we think, it’s that we rely on the same simple narratives over and over again. The conspiracies of yesterday are the facts of today. We change our minds. We recycle the same prophecy. If you start seeing a lot of chatter about aliens remember we’ve had this news cycle before.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 936 and Take The Beating

I got my ass kicked yesterday. I made a decision that I knew would be disliked. I knew how unpopular the decision would make and that I would have to suffer the consequences. I did not bend on my decision despite knowing how much I would suffer for it. It was right for me. But damn it always sucks to take a beating.

I have taken my college cafeteria’s name as a law of the universe. TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. I know it’s a bit unfashionable to be a Hayek libertarian these days but I do think we have to accommodate some basic physics in life. Actions have reactions.

I had to take my beating. I made people hurt. And it’s entirely possible that we have different expectations and realities. As soon as I give my firm position on my reality and energy I can expect a response.

I think it’s genuinely healthy to feel like you have the capacity to endure criticism. Sometimes you can’t make people happy. Sometimes you’ve done something wrong. Sometimes it’s just that you couldn’t find an accommodation between what you gave the situation and what it gave you.

Life has a budget. There is a balance to the energy of the world. I suppose sometimes you just have to take your licks.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 935 and Rebranding

Changing someone’s opinion is hard. Twitter is being rebranded to X so the topic is newsworthy. I was on rebranding efforts at Pepsi (the infamous one) Tropicana (that didn’t go well) and Ann Taylor (which won us a lot of awards & made money) so I have lived through the challengers of remaking a corporate identity.

That sounds so much more professional than what is actually happening . A lot of people have bought in on something that is no longer the thing they loved. A change was necessary but not everyone so ready. Something that had meaning is being remade into a new set of meanings and it will provoke a backlash.

People all adopt new ideas at different paces. And hold outs and middle of the road types can be equally challenging. Any change can be greeted fairly with skepticism. Trust is hard to gain and easily lost.

Even when circumstances on the ground demand it, people fucking hate change. It’s scary. I get it. I find a lot of the world right now to be scary. Failure rates can be high. But if we don’t change we don’t get different outcomes.

Categories
Chronicle Preparedness

Day 934 and Planning Ahead

I have been doing a short “season of no” over the last few weeks. I’m pruning my calendar and letting go of some projects, people and attention hogs. I’ve reoriented myself to obligations that give me as much as I give them.

The upside of saying no is that many obligations I’d assumed were set in stone are now blissfully gone. You can say no to more shit than you think as it turns out. I had a death in my extended family that provided me with clarity.

I do however feel as if it’s going to be hard to make plans too far out into the future for a while. A lot is happening and schisms in every community make it hard to see how some things could turn out. I’m keeping flexibility in my life so I can be mentally and physically prepared for rapidly changing conditions.

Especially as we come to grips with a world that is more chaotic, and a future that is less predictable, planning becomes the kind of exercise you hold gently. I’ve got goals and ambitions for the near term but I’ll play it as it lays.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 933 and Hot Hot Heat

It would seem that we’ve officially entered the high season of summer that even northern latitudes like Montana cannot escaped entirely.

I wish I had the capacity to work out a circadian rhythm that entirely accounted for how miserable long hot days can be even if you are inside in the shade. Siestas and late evenings could work but I’ve got the hang of it. I need my eight hours.

I never get cabin fever in the winter. Even the worst storm usually abates within a couple days. I can happily layer up and enjoy being in the cold and dark. I can be outside if it’s cooler, darker and clearer. If it’s not I’m basically a caged animal.

But there is nothing to be down about the sun being out till 10pm and with temperatures crossing over the 90F/32C degree mark, all that is left is escape indoors to a cold dark place and wait out the season.

Last year on July 21 I wrote about summer season affective disorder so it’s clearly a pattern I notice around this time. I’m simply grateful it’s starter later than it did when I lived in Colorado where hot streaks are beginning even earlier.

With Montana summers, I go to sleep when the sun is still out and I wake up and it’s already sunrise. If the heat weren’t so intense I think it would be bearable but the heat domes are becoming pretty common. I remain grateful it’s only six to eight weeks unlike most of continent where summer is longer and crueler.

Another factor in all of this is how challenging fire season can be for spending time outside comfortably even if it’s not combined with a heatwave. I went out this morning before temperatures climbed to get some sun and exercise. The air quality was still decent but multiple fires are popping off in Montana and I expect this to change shortly. I suspect I’ll need to find a way to manage more time indoors as the summer rages on.