Author: Julie

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1341 and Trade Offs

I enjoyed a long weekend mostly offline and with a group of interesting people. I enjoyed the extra elbow room of mountain remove as much as I enjoyed the atmosphere of a purpose driven community retreat amongst exceptional individuals.

I am however quite tired from the exertion of it. The danger of using a long weekend for anything that requires exertion from me feels ever present. I have so little room for error, and even with keeping my participation more limited than almost anyone else, it was still more than I could handle.

I even left a little early so I could have a full day at home without work to recover. I can feel my immune system overreacting and hope that this will be better by tomorrow. Anytime I feel flare symptoms I naturally get nervous. And frankly I’ve got a busy week ahead of me so I can’t afford needing more recovery time.

The busy season kicks off in earnest tomorrow and I feel sad that in reaching for a more demanding schedule to experience an important gathering that I’ve hurt myself in the process. Not going hurts in quite a different way. There is no winning with chronic illness just trade offs.

Categories
Travel

Day 1340 and Elbow Room

Americans have one of life’s finest luxuries in our protected and ample open spaces. Our cities are bustling economic hubs of opportunity, but unlike in many other countries American has an incredible heritage of publicly owned wilderness.

We may take this access to ample elbow room for granted. Having spent the weekend with a diverse groups of people with interests in how we manage and care for our American ecosystems, it was an incredible reminder of our vast shared inherited wealth.

One friend pointed out that other nations may have become accustomed to the density of a megapolis but Americans come by their space loving “don’t crowd me” individualism honestly. Another friend pointed out that many of us would find ourselves over-socialized in other culture.

Peacefully watching the water go by in the sunlight of late summer

I felt this especially as I’d been socializing with people I enjoy and respect. And even though I had an amazing time I am exhausted from even the love and joy of fellowship.

We’d picked a spacious spot where we had plenty of privacy. It was an intimate group working through topics close to all of our hearts. And yet after a long weekend, I’d like to be quiet and quite alone for just a little. Fortunately I can do just that.

Categories
Culture

Day 1339 and Alienation

I don’t feel strongly alienated from the world. I am not confident I have the right to be at war with my reality. Certainly I’m frustrated with aspects of my reality and I’ve taken actions to feel more at peace with my lot in life.

Perhaps because of this bias towards action, I’m familiar with many flavors of alienation. Those seeking to remedy it are the people who bring change.

Being dissatisfied with the world is the first step in applying your will to solve your dissatisfaction. Some of us will build great things by doing so.

Through that lens, I have had the good fortune to meet many people alienated from and by the world. They don’t wallow in it because the point in the dissatisfaction is to take action to remedy it.

Problems naturally range from daily quotidian ones to full system wide issues. Even small actions are enough to remedy the feelings that arise from feeling separate or out of step with the world. Modernity isn’t a permanent state even in its own age.

Categories
Travel

Day 1338 and Long Weekend

I am spending the weekend at a gathering that is a little bit off the beaten path. It is a group of pretty eccentric folks so it’s a double dose of remove from the real world. I’m looking forward to being offline and engaged in real life as I like odd folks in the wilds

It was a bit of a drive to get here but it will be worth it. I’m feeling the journey in my body as racing across American highways isn’t the most relaxing activity. Keeping focused tends towards tension building in my body. Add in a total lack of pit stops and I’m just coming down from the stimulus.

Cabin in the woods complete with functional typewriter

I’m now tucked into a cabin where all is quiet. To complete the remote retreat vibes there is a typewriter on the desk. One could imagine clacking away at it far into the night with a whiskey and a roaring fire.

I’ll be doing some writing I’m sure but I doubt I’ll be using a typewriter instead of my usual WordPress CMS. Maybe if the mood strikes I might write a little story. A cabin in the woods with a typewriter seems like the perfect setting for horror.

Categories
Internet Culture

Day 1337 and Leet

I’m officially a leet writer. I’ve now been at this daily writing habit for so long that on day 1337 I am cool saying I’m absolutely elite. I have done the thing consistently and gained skills. Because everyday is practice here I am l33t.

If this not-at-all humblebrag is confusing to you, let me explain why 1337 is a joking milestone to an internet kid like myself.

Leet, also known as “1337” or leetspeak, is a form of modified spelling used primarily on the internet. It involves replacing letters with numbers or other characters that resemble the original letters, creating a unique orthography. For example, “leet” can be spelled as “1337” or “l33t”

Leetspeak on Wikipedia via Perplexity

I’m no h4x0r but I’m not a n00b to being extremely online. While a being on the fourth year of a daily writing habit is nothing to scoff at I’ve been on WordPress for close to twenty years. It feels good to be leet at something as extremely online as blogging.

Categories
Emotional Work Travel

Day 1336 and Pick & Pack

It’s possible exposure therapy has worked for me. My worst recurring nightmare always involves packing. And yet recently I’ve come to find packing to be a neutral to even positive activity.

The dream has many forms. Sometimes it’s a permanent move, often it’s about rushing for some type of upcoming unexpected travel like a flight change or worse an “evacuation emergency” like a fire or natural disaster.

My subconscious likes to chew on packing up crucial items and leaving. I moved a lot as a child. My father also valued traveling while my mother and siblings did not.

I assume some of these nightmares are a related to those experiences. Instability is a classic reaction formation process for a child seeking safety. And I’m now as an adult finding that safety to be in reach.

I still have these dreams but I take a lot more pleasure in picking items for travel and packing them up now than I could have imagined. Even over the lifespan of this writing experiment I’ve seen changes in my emotional relationship to packing.

I have whole systems for managing the types of unexpected problems that crop up in modern travel like my three bag cascade. I’ve taken this activity that has had a negative valence for me and turned it into positive experiences.

I travel a lot for work and I can manage that even with health conditions. I have done work on disaster preparedness for myself and for my friends. Always be prepared is a terrific motto for the Boys Scouts and for myself.

Categories
Culture

Day 1335 and Open Season

We are so close to being out of the long horror that is Summer. I’m ready for a change. I can almost taste it. The temperature hasn’t really dropped yet but the shortening of the days feels like a balm to my nervous system.

Yet oddly it wasn’t nature that cued me in. I saw a tweet from a New Yorker complaining about the 7 train not running on the first weekend of the U.S Open.

With unpredictable and uncanny seasons off from the baseline of my childhood, it can feel like I rely on cultural markers for seasonal shifts more than temperature changes.

I grant a chill in the air may come at random when you live in the high variance mountain West so maybe it fits that a complaint from a city is a better marker as to last call of summer. They like in concrete and need the reminders. Tennis in New York means fashion week is just around the corner.

I’m ready for the season to open. I look forward to pilgrimages to the cities to keep business turning. But I’m going to enjoy one the last weekends before we are all called back to the churn of industry. For those lucky few who harvest I pray for bounty.

Categories
Startups

Day 1334 and Heads Down

I had a couple days of flare in my autoimmune condition that had struggling last week. Down time in bed, especially when you are in pain, can be a bit dangerous when the news cycle is popping off. Pain and American politics are a terrible combination.

I do pay attention to politics alas as I am involved in a number of issues (#FreedomToCompute, regulatory reform, and housing) so it’s easy to over do it with being extremely online. My nervous system doesn’t need any additional stimulation.

I was relieved to be back on my feet today as it felt good to be heads down at work. I’m excited about how my seed investing has been going over the past few years and I’m taking the next steps to evolve the fund. I’m so optimistic about what can be achieved. Founders are particularly motivated to build. Ingenuity sparks when things are darkest.

Categories
Culture Media

Day 1333 and Tagging Identity Algorithms

I am looking to be distracted from reality. I’d presumed this would be relatively easily accomplished. There are so many ways to be distracted. Mass media is so ubiquitous you can be distracted from reality for the price of adding our data to the algorithms.

Show an interest, some disposable income and the advertisers will find the minimum viable audiences. Those audiences be thrown together until it’s as finely grained as the tagging will allow.

There are now reality dating shows about being autistic on Netflix so you too can be neurodivergent and accepted into a wider pop culture narrative of being part of normal living. Everyone wants love right?

Civilization is great and America pioneers all kinds of ridiculous identities and the markets that coalesce around them. We might even have someone neurodivergent in the 2nd family. Tina Brown is excitedly penning

I’ve never been able to reconcile that we crave being part of a wider population and connected to every day experiences even as our distance from reality is one of the highest status signaling mechanisms available. As relatable as love is as a topic on Netflix there are just as many shows about the lives of favorite flavors of economic elite.

Being unaffected by bitter reality is the American Dream. Maybe we want our ingroups reflected in power so we can remain distracted. Paying attention is exhausting. Maybe we figure if our identity are shown as valuable we can leave behind reality.

It’s not the worst logic. If we’ve made it then surely our group interests will surely be represented. Being out of touch is everyone’s goal. If we can be distracted from reality without soil and economic ruin we’ve made it in America.

Distracting ourselves is the privilege we all seek. While Love on the Spectrum is pretty captivating television and Tina Brown is extolling the shit and fresh honesty of autism I’m still skeptical that any identity is safe from being too far removed from reality.

Categories
Media Politics

Day 1332 and Blackpilled

Being engaged in American politicians is a thankless task. I do not at all begrudge people who tune out of our national politics entirely.

After an assassination attempt, a resignation of a sitting president after a public pressure campaign and two political convention I am in no fine mood about the nation.

My assumption is that this mood is being induced deliberately. It’s no wonder I’ve felt a bit unwell over the past two days. The endocrine fatigue we must all be collectively experiencing. Constant cortisol stimulation is no way to live. I was quoted in a piece about the dissident middle last year.

She thought something had gone wrong with us physically too. “Endocrine systems get fried. There’s too much cortisol, you’ve been running on adrenaline, eventually you tap out. Everyone feels nuts right now,” she said, “because what on earth are we supposed to do with the fact that we’ve had this incredible rate of change for so long. We think we’re keeping up with it, but our bodies are like, ‘Oh, actually no. We have no idea what’s going on.’ ”

Day 784 and Dissident Fringe

And yet I feel compelled to engage on how we are governed. Being steeped in enlightenment values and the collective history of Western Civilization, I have taken as a given that civic involvement is a higher virtue. The capacity to govern and be governed is a noble pursuit of rational men aspiring to more.

I feel even more compelled to engage as a citizen when legacy institutions like the media are less able to maintain trust. If I’m being shown nothing but Pravda but I know it’s not the truth do I have an obligation to speak up?

Regular people have incredible rights in America. I do not always feel like we treat that privilege with the respect it deserves. We have a say.

Don’t let yourself become blackpilled by duels between bad policy and bad people. Our institutions need reform. We cannot continue on with the projects of civilization unless we find ways to collaborate at great scale. You can’t let yourself get exhausted by this daunting task.