I was very excited for today. My first Monday with my new schedule after my “season of no” cleared the calendar.
I am into the day brimming with optimism. Naturally, it was only fair that I lost my entire day to some kind of stomach bug.
I am experimenting with a new GLP1 agonist and have found the side effects to be troublesome. I made an attempt to have a protein shake and it cascaded from there. So I don’t have much to say today except that my biohacking went awry so I’ve got little to say.
I don’t want to brag (that’s a lie for rhetorical flourish I am bragging), but I woke up with excellent biometrics today. My first instinct was that I should rush into a long “to do” list for the various priorities I have remaining in the month.
We think we can be a model for other western states looking to reclaim rights for their citizens from the government. I believe in individuals pursuing their own freedom as a long term incentive for growth.
The focus on long term incentives is key to understanding both my stance on individual freedoms and how I spend my own time.
Because I’ve got to turn this blog post around to why I was tempted to run into my immediate to do list but held myself to my routine.
I was reminded that my biometrics are good because I’ve been focused on core activities and processes that make my own “system” of incentives tick for my physiology.
I have to sleep, eat, exercise and otherwise take care of my body. If I simply responded to every dopamine hit and desire I had I’d be sick as a dog. I can promise you this is true as I live with a chronic condition I manage with good habits and some better living through chemistry.
I’d prefer we manage as many problems through good compounding longer term incentives. From building for a future that’s arriving to quickly to keeping our bodies from imploding. So get enough fiber, lift heavy things and build more housing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was very kindly tagged in a Twitter thread today with a lovely compliment about my daily writing habits. Does quantity have its own quality? As I close in on a thousand posts I think my answer is a strong “maybe!”
What are your favorite examples of “Quantity has a quality all its own?” Examples: @tylercowen writing a post a day, a column a month and a book a year for two decades Kanye’s “5 beats a day for 3 summers” Seinfeld’s “Don’t break the chain” one joke a day. Reply from Alan Simon @ almostmedia She’s not for everyone, but she’s been very dedicated and is approaching her 1,000th daily post.
One aspect of creation that is perhaps a bit understudied is just how much it is dominated by the truly prolific. The outliers practice a lot. Every single day I practice because I both enjoy it and I trust that doing a thing over time improves the thing. You can imagine how this predisposition makes me sympathetic to Calvinism.
I credit hippie parenting and the Waldorf curriculum. I was taught early on that it was good to make things even if you sucked at it. So I just spent a lot of my time sucking at creative endeavors and not finding it all that discouraging as I don’t mind being embarrassed.
So I suppose my quantity has demonstrated its own quality in its sheer persistence. Reminding yourself to do a daily practice has its benefits over time if you can stand it. Personally for me writing has always has a kind of blind optimism that has never been beaten out of me. I am a writer. I write. If it every becomes more than that I wouldn’t mind but I don’t need it to. The thing has been it’s own reward.
I feel like I’ve been caught in a loop of shitty things that has me in a “fight or flight” pattern that I can’t find a way to release myself from.
I’m having a very “if it’s not one thing it’s a other” summer. And it has to stop here. If I don’t let it all go I’ll be miserable and it will have been my own choice. I’ve got a choice to prioritize the well being of myself and my family.
I’m writing this at the oral surgeon’s office as my husband’s wisdom teeth removal is today. I’ve been given several lectures on how challenging his recovery will be as he’s so much older than the ideal extraction age.
Teenagers have a lot better bounce back rates than even late thirty something apparently. Fingers crossed being fit and healthy counts for something.
I’m stressed by the prospect of prioritizing myself and family. I like being open and available to the universe.
So I’m just going to start saying no to more and more things until I feel like I’ve got myself out of this misery loop. My priorities will remain my family, my fund, my founders and myself. Probably not exactly in that order but pretty close.
I’m going to be nursing my husband through oral surgery recovery this week. He’s run out the clock on wisdom teeth and they all need to be removed.
We will miss a few obligations this week but such is the nature of medical need. Necessity doesn’t always come when you want it. If we don’t do it this week we’d be waiting till November for the next appointment. Such is getting medical care in this day and age.
I’ve been in a bit of a frenzy preparing as I myself have some medical issues that are chronic so if we are both fucked up physically it gets a little tricky to manage routines. Particularly because we live a little bit country these days in Montana.
I’ve gone down a deep rabbit hole of procedures for surgical recovery. I looked up standard operating procedures for inflammation and surgical recovery from every source I could find. I consulted with our doctors. I looked at risk factors.
You’d be surprised at how optimal procedures differ from the standard median recommended ones. The fear of overprescribing pharmaceuticals runs pretty rampant even when it’s clear that some protocols would be beneficial like say post surgery prophylactic antibiotics. The NIH, Mayo and Cleveland Clinics agree it’s a effective way of preventing complications related dry socket. The condition can turn into a painful infection that is relatively dangerous if it gets out of hand given it’s proximity to your brain.
But we can’t make an antibiotic standard operating procedure as it’s not technically necessary. Especially since we have prioritized using less antibiotics overall as a public health policy for the wider social good of preventing antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Good of the many versus good of the one. I’ll admit I’d be inclined to say that my husband deserves the Spock treatment even if it is illogical.
I’ve written out an hourly schedule for the recovery procedure I intend to follow. I won’t post it all here as it’s obviously not in my best interest to disclose it. It’s involved and intended to reduce inflammation and have the maximum pain management that is responsible so that my husband’s body can recover quickly with no unnecessary stress.
Proteins powder, bone broth and soft foods
It seems as if a lot of recovery comes down to simply retaining adequate electrolytes balance with enough liquid calories. You have to meet a macronutrient balance that gives enough protein to knit the tissues and not make the body think it’s resource constrained. Which is harder than it sounds when you can’t chew or even suck on a straw.
I’ve got a number of techniques to leverage from lymphatic drainage massage to the woo woo options to reduce stress and promote recovery and I intend to use all of them. And yes I’m available for nursing.
Maybe it’s some of the grief and loss from a death on midsummer. Maybe it’s worry about my husband’s upcoming oral surgery. Maybe it’s the general sense of uncertainty and fear of future shock.
I am tired and achy and my cognitive processing is absolutely shot. I’ve been battling a migraine all day and even two doses of Imitrax don’t seem to dampen the intensity.
I want to put some of the intensity of the last month behind me but I often feel as if I write that exact sentence and nothing ever gets less intense. It’s always some new piece of human crisis. I went as many of those out of my life as possible so I come out the other side feeling more human.
It’s such a challenge to keep up with reality. Modern conditions have well overmatched human biology.
I’ve tried to keep my own physical biology from being overruled by competing inputs and attention competitions but it’s a losing battle. Sometimes the best you can do is ride the wave and be sure you know when to get up on your board.
I have a little bit of a backlog of inputs to work through. I should probably use the next few summer weeks to pull back and push through it. I’ve got a lot of sense making to do. A lot of inputs to be distilled.
I’ll do what I can to put things up as I see them and have a thought but I’m feeling the need to be a little more guarded. Can’t be out in world and accessible all the time.
