Tag: Emotions

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Media Politics

Day 1280 and Campaign Season

I am very much beginning to wish I had not watched the presidential debates. I want to say it’s been amusing to watch the different flavors of panic, but it makes me feel a bit gross.

Schadenfreude feels like a cousin to envy. It’s a dirty vice you shouldn’t be swift to cultivate in yourself even if it’s a very human response. I’d prefer to cultivate what virtues I can embody even if imperfectly.

I don’t want to lose my head just because everyone else seems to be doing so but it’s hard not pay attention to the politics when it’s the 4th of July week. I know I can’t do anything about national politics so I continue locally and on issues where we can have clear impact like housing and regulatory reform.

It’s possible that having more hands on experience with on community boards and with local permitting made the more tangible aspects of “Yes In My Neighborhood” campaigns clear to me.

I would prefer to be active in my contributions and focus on solutions. Am I angry and afraid when I see national politics and grand geopolitical news? Of course. If I thought about it too much I’d remember that everyone involved is human just like me. Then I’d worry even more. So I’ll try to focus on moving what I can.

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Emotional Work Media

Day 1279 and Not The Whole Story

I have recently been prioritizing correcting mistaken impressions of the world. As the rationalist set say, I like to update my heuristics.

It’s just not all that uncommon to believe wrong things and for the wrong reasons. We find out with alarming about retracted studies, updates to long held beliefs about culture or politics, or simply something galling about reality. And so sometimes we have to adjust our priors. We never have the whole story.

I recently found myself comparing myself to another person only to get quickly reminded of a set of circumstances that made our situations basically incomparable. I simply didn’t have the whole picture.

My mother loved a hippie bumper sticker about the folly of sincere youthful knowledge.

Quick ask your teenage for advice while they still know everything

The best part of middle age is discovering just how little you know. It can feel paralyzing at times. I’m sure you can imagine how “I don’t know the whole story” can be interpreted in many ways. I hope to be on the sunny side of learning.

Two men sit on a bus. On the dark side facing a dark mountain we see scared sad man with a “I don’t know the whole story” thought bubble. On the bright side of the bus with a wide vista a man thinks “I don’t know the whole story!”
Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1274 and Anger is Secondary

I am in a pocket of emotions today that I’m working through by writing. I’ve been told that anger is what’s called a secondary emotion.

Some metaphors that are helpful to understanding what is meant by a “secondary emotion” are thinking of anger as a boiling cauldron or a volcano. What you see isn’t the whole picture. It is the steam coming off something deeper. If you prefer cooler (literally) metaphor, the Gottman Institute calls it the Anger Iceberg.

The Anger Iceberg via Choosing Therapy from the Gottman Institute.

I am unsure what mix of feelings are making up my roiling cauldron. I’m struggling to feel them as chilly like an iceberg. The heat of it feels closer to my current experience than something frozen. But you get the picture. Looking underneath is important.

And underneath the anger disappointment, hurt, and frustration are all emotions I can “touch” as I explore ny feelings. But it’s underneath a roiling boiling mess that is only clear in glimpses.

I imagine I’m not the only one who struggles to see where the primary emotions. The optimism I have temperamentally abuts against a shared reality that feels angry.

I intend to watch a debate between two unpopular geriatric candidates for President of the United States of America. Of course being angry about that is secondary to a host of other more salient emotions. We must reach. It is crucial to reach those emotions if we desire to change as a nation.

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Community

Day 1273 and Context Window

The fracturing of the social web has made it harder to connect person to person.

The enjoyment of sharing a platform or a protocol with other humans is undermined as grifters and opportunists bang against artificial intelligence slop and algorithmic manipulation. It’s just not as fun to be online in that atmosphere.

I happen to like putting a little more of humanity out here on the edges of the great social media seas. I am not everyone’s cup of tea but at least you know what flavor I am.

Perhaps humans need longer context windows just as much as our artificial intelligence. I’ll allow Google’s Keyword blog on DeepMind’s longer context window to explain.

Context windows are important because they help AI models recall information during a session. Have you ever forgotten someone’s name in the middle of a conversation a few minutes after they’ve said it, or sprinted across a room to grab a notebook to jot down a phone number you were just given? Remembering things in the flow of a conversation can be tricky for AI models, too — you might have had an experience where a chatbot “forgot” information after a few turns. That’s where long context windows can help.

What is a long context window?

Part of my affection for “blogging” whether it’s on my own WordPress powered website or Twitter (remember when we called it a microblogging service?) is that it gives the chance to establish a large context window for me.

You can definitely make predictions about me based on what I’ve shared. If I am as complex as million token window (which is what Google’s Gemini can now handle) I would honestly be surprised. So go ahead and augment any conversations you have with me with the wider context of Julie. It’s my goal that it allows us to connect better.

Categories
Startups

Day 1255 and Venture Nurture

I sometimes wonder why venture capital hasn’t coded more feminine. The cynic in me say because it makes money and money accords status. Where there is status there are men competing for it. Which is a good thing in my book.

I just happen to find the kind of investing I do to be so feminine in character. I’d never really thought of my gender when I got into startups simply because I was a founder with a problem and technology solved it for me. I was a nerd about a few very specific things and the market agreed with me.

But now as the wider world has forced me reconsider gender and how my identity gets used by others in how I do business. And I do see that I approach my investing in traditionally feminine terms. I wasn’t that kind of founder. But I am that kind of investor. 

I nurture. I love finding a weirdo working on something in a weird corner of the internet. Nothing makes me happier than telegraphing out that I am weird and getting back other weirdos. I like to listen. I like to learn. I don’t mind unpolished or outlandish or even absolutely crazy. My best deals all started in DMs

Nerds aren’t a polished people. They may lack all kinds of social graces. They will often not care about anything but the thing they are obsessing over. And I happen to find this to be a good thing.

Not everyone agrees that we should work with their lack of graces. Ruxandra Teslo discussed how weird nerds are being pushed from institutions like academia.

Weird Nerds are being driven out of academia by the so-called Failed Corporatist phenotype”

Ruxandra Teslo

I am just absolutely here for the weird nerds. They are my tribe and I see it as part of my path to help bring more of them up behind me. To nurture is a feminine virtue. I am happy to bring it to my founders. They should all feel safe coming to me because they know that I am one of them and my goal is to see them thrive.

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Emotional Work

Day 1242 and Finding You

My “emotional work” tag has years of self exploration. One aspect of self understanding that remains elusive for so many of us is the belief that authenticity is the goal over mere improvement.

I’ve come to see the goal of emotional work as the work you do to to find yourself. You aren’t trying to improve yourself (though there may be areas you want to improve) but rather find the truth of who you are underneath conditioning from family or culture like fear and shame.

The ways that we don’t love ourselves are the ways in which we haven’t embraced who we are. That’s why authenticity over self improvement is such a helpful framing.

I’d recommend this podcast from AoA on the matter. Yes I’m in my Joe Hudson era. I’ve not decided if I want to apply for the summer master class though my first experience was so positive.

In some ways, I feel as if I’ve done so much of this type of work that my ambition is to stop looking for myself and simply be myself.

Being and becoming are fluid states so I have to recognize the flux of coming in and out of finding myself. I feel very much in myself at the moment and searching further instead of living in my current authenticity seems like a stretch. I’ll have a lot of “doing” next week so I’m sure I’ll find whatever kind of “being” I am as I go along.

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Aesthetics Emotional Work

Day 1237 and Having

“Having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true”

Spock “Time Amok” Star Trek The Original Series. 1967

Longing, yearning, pining, wishing…such is the romance of wanting . A simple verb “to want” has many beautiful words associated with its fantasies.

Perhaps this is why it’s helpful to remember that self improvement doesn’t work. We get something tangible from the fantasy of wanting. Our pop culture science fiction avatar alien humanity Mr Spock sees the illogic in wanting being more pleasing than having.

I recall being introduced by Sascha Chapin to Existential Kink as adjacent of this truism. We get pleasure out of resisting. The romance of wanting can give us too much joy to let go.

I enjoy the many spaces in my life where wanting has to is power. It gives me more space to enjoy having. I have so much right now. I feel it’s wealth every day in my life. The love of my husband. The safety in my family. The freedom of the position I occupy. The opportunities in front of me. I can yearn but it’s up against the power of having.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1236 and Artists All Around

I was listening to Joe Hudson’s Art of Accomplishment Master Class preparation series today.

I’d previously remarked how I found the name “Art of Accomplishment” to be a bit off putting even as I was very impressed with the results of the work.

I’ve perhaps found essence of truth on the name that wasn’t available to me earlier. In listening to this particular conversation I heard the personal meaning instead of the cultural projection. The meaning is literally finding the artistry of doing things with meaning in your own life.


“When you’re self-aware, it means there is a full expression of you happening. It’s why with the great artists, you see their full expression. And they can only get to that self-expression, they can only get to that level of ease, by having more and more self-awareness.”

Art of Accomplishment

To have an art of an accomplishment you believe there is an art inherent. An artist makes. Accomplishing things is a byproduct of the flow of doing things. To make and to build m, or otherwise enable the process of accomplishing, is itself its own art. “To do” is an art.

I’ve come to love the work of startups and building companies as they are for me a team sport of accomplishing together. Artisans of all kinds are coming together to build a thing or a tool that serves someone else. It is a beautiful process for me

I feel my own flow in the competencies in which I have my own most clear artisanal pride. I do these things for the love of the work and the outcomes of them are simply a byproduct of doing them. I have several areas where the love of the craft is its own motive.

There are artists everywhere. You may well have many areas where you apply an artist’s mindset. Your self awareness gives you a vision of what you want to accomplish. You can be a mechanic or a publicist and still practice an art. Making a salad, fixing the hydraulics, or orchestrating a magazine cover are all accomplishments.

Categories
Culture Emotional Work Uncategorized

Day 1232 and Crab Bucket

As I age from maiden into crone (many millennials missed mother) I find myself uncovering emotions I missed during the forced march through corporate feminism & Girlbossism. The meritocracy takes its pound of flesh.

I climbed the chaos ladder & am grateful for my perch but I did not understand what I sacrificed to participate in this climb. I doubt your average person does.

American Millennials intuited that we had an opportunity to class jump through the meritocracy of institutional human capital games & were encouraged to do so if we showed capacity. Largely that meant raw intelligence & affinity for playing by unwritten social rules. If you could get out you were told to do so. Social mobility is one of America’s great strengths.

It is not without costs. I sacrificed family & place. To climb above the station of my origin & “achieve” the American dream of education & assets you leave behind a lot. To go from the lower rungs to prosperity and security we leave behind parts of ourselves.

I do not regret this. Many millennials come from dysfunctional families. Boomer can read as slur to some because future shock & greed hurt so many of that generation. The narcissism of the new age experimentation with new cultures and expectations gave us divorce & rootlessness. Those insecure circumstances bred flexible performative children who adapted to incentives.

If I had not leapt onto the ladder of meritocracy I’d be struggling like many in my cohort and I’d still be without a people. The Millennial wealth gap is tearing social fabric because the divergence between our outcomes is so clear. Atomizing is part of assimilating.

I am now in a position in which I inhabit the lower rungs of the very top of the ladder. I have access & assets & a reputation for work in the infinite game of playing for leverage. There is security here to be had. But a Damocles blade hangs over us all.

American success isn’t cheap. And you may not always understand the costs at the outset.

If you’d like to read more about the millennial wealth gap I’d encourage you to look. I am lucky to be one of the “self made” in my cohort in that I picked work that ended up being well remunerated. I started from a decent place but we were poor for portions of my childhood. Startup life isn’t a smooth ride and Silicon Valley produces very uneven outcomes.

I will not however be a millennial heir. I’ll inherit debt. The great wealth transfer will not be coming my way. I’m grateful to have helped my family but equally grateful when they manage to take care of themselves. I am so sad so many of our elders spent so much that their heirs felt the best option was a race to climb out of the crab bucket of the meritocracy. I am glad I made it. But it hurt.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 1231 and Conviction

Patience may be a virtue but it sure sucks to practice. When things are slow and life’s problems are feel intractable, patience is no easy discipline.

The best I can do is find conviction in my positions and live slowly in the consequences unfolding. The agony of slow progress can make patience feels more like a fool’s errand.

But then there are days when the work of months and even years show themselves and the conviction that was once so hard seems suddenly effortless.

I have had many slow months (even years) where nothing seems to get accomplished. Startups are notorious for their uneven progress. You believe and yet must live with the slowness building that belief into reality.

Patience is no easy virtue. Conviction wouldn’t be impressive if it were.