I am doing what I can to hold steady in the turbulence of the moment. Deals are still getting done, founders move companies forward, I do my small part to contribute in the strange dance of rounds coming together.
It has not been easy with both my husband and I seemingly rotating between one health issue to another. It would be nice to have us both healthy at the same time.
Because it is the winter of our discontent I’ve spent more time on Deep Research projects this past month than seems sensible but the urge to find solutions is strong when your health needs mending.
Plus it saves a ton of time when the alternative is calling a bunch of different experts and making progress at best every two weeks with appointments. Scheduling health care of any kind is a mess.
I remember realizing so vividly during Hurricane Sandy that no matter the catastrophe the rest of life went on. Everything will feel turbulent in our new high variance age and all we can do is live through it.
The MilFred family household is not at its finest. My husband Alex seems to be in the throes of pneumonia while my body is doing its best to manage a host of medication changes.
We have all the typical work while this goes on along with a few other crisis management projects (mold). All dashboards flashing red.
I keep toying with posts saying I’ll have to consider if this is where the habit goes away or that I need some do not disturb time. This is certainly a big part of why.
Somewhere in this blog there is a date error. It’s probably easy to find. I noticed the day I did it (I believe I was ill and got confused) and then time streamed on and now it barely matters.
Oddly I only care to mention it because I notice more when things are done in day by day format. We have 10 day retreats, month long sprints, quarterly focuses, if you are large enough to have yearly plans good luck to you.
We asked for acceleration and we got it. Timelines are so preposterously fast we can count them in shorter bursts. The Wall Street Journal has an administration day count for Trump. Today is day 21. Which is a light day involving golf with Tiger Woods and going to the Super Bowl.
I’m not inclined to dramatic pronouncements about the future (ok maybe a little). Humans don’t change too quickly their hard learned ways. But we are getting so much more information at such rapid pace right now that if you are inclined to count the days maybe set some goals for them.
Now in the corner of Twitter where we discuss shared values and personal mutuality, there is an array of anonymous, pseudonymous and real name characters.
These accounts bring their experiences to the understanding of current civilizational values to life across many mediums beyond Twitter. Our wojack would be the epistemology enjoooyer but most of the memes have a darkness to them.
To think otherwise is to presume you have license which is claim for yourself of presuming a kind of irresponsibility that means you don’t suffer the consideration of others affected by your actions.
I don’t think it’s freedom as a value that is the problem. It’s the lack of realization that to truly maximize freedom, one must attend to many things (health, relationships, self knowledge, work, etc) which temporarily feel constricting – cowtongue
Freedom ultimately means responsibility to the choices you made and the people who are affected by them.
Libertarians in particular should most sincerely believe in the bedrock of responsibility in ensuring freedom.
Without that way shared way of knowing and understanding freedom we have juvenile behavior and culture. Those seeking to defer responsibility to others seem to seek a license for facing no consequences. It’s poison to any political system.
that it’s child-like to think of freedom as a thing you can have, a thing that exists, in the absence of responsibilities – forthwriter
There is no freedom absent responsibility. That’s an expensive view so I understand why people would prefer license to avoid that heavy burden.
I’d wager the biggest complaint of feminism is women who claim the agency of freedom but run to license when overwhelmed by the very real mutual responsibilities that bind us.
That is no less true of men. To claim freedom to act as a man has always meant bearing the responsibility of that power.
When men only wish for the freedoms of power without the responsibilities undergirding your claim to your own freedom it can be maddening.
Both genders wish for less license and much more responsibility in the freedom to build a thriving society of mutuality. And you might ask how to I know this?
I briefly was overtaken by the desire to travel to Washington D.C for the inauguration. I am however more focused on the work in front of me for chaotic capital and on my 2025 goals of putting my ankylosis back to remission.
I finished a ten day hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy course which has made me feel significantly better.
I found a new potential candidate for an IL-17 inhibitor that has recently been released in Europe.
I’d had a disappointing set of bloodwork and I was determined to push forward on new improvements. I want a personal life that is more than lying prone in bed working on my professional passions.
I want more time with my family. I want the capital to pursue children. I’ve had embryos on ice for years and been too ill to carry them. I may be too old. I have family that live outside the United States with no easy visa solutions at and that I’d like to have near me.
If we are able to put together the capital investment required for surrogacy (or the miracle of being able to carry myself) a family means having everyone able to be a part of the children’s lives.
Maybe my health will never support the strain of this with the workload I choose. But I pray that visas will come, that health can be granted, that capital will be liquid, and the possibilities of getting it all together isn’t impossible even in this crazy moment. Pray for my family if you are so inclined
I really tried to stay out of discourse on Twitter over Christmas break, alas being only human I stupidly decided to wade into discussions about American talent and our disgracefully broken immigration and visa system. It was a mistake.
Naturally people are pissed. The whole thing feels like it was designed to manufacture a schism between factions of the Republican Party as it touched some very raw nerves.
The “precariat” of lower middle class professional Americans took sucker punches from anonymous account and also Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy for having bad cultural values which has affected our willingness to compete for excellence.
If we had a similar cultural figure in white American that said something equivalent we’d probably get the same backlash as no one likes to hear told that they need to work on themselves. And in general people definitely don’t want to hear their flaws from someone who acts like their betters.
I think the bigger question is how is it that we found our values of hard work and achievement degraded. What has happened in our schools and in our workplaces that we are not aspiring to better ourselves. That’s where the heart of the issue is most tender and for good reason.
But you have to be wary of the stories and advice that litter Reddit and Twitter. Not everyone doling out advice actually wants you to succeed. Some of them look like they are actively undermining their peers.
The manosphere seems determined to turn young men into fearful controlling oafs while the radfem/femcel/tradwife axis of influencers is a mess of undermining advice stoking the neuroses of young women.
In the battle of the sexes, a favored tactic is sabotage. Evolutionary psychologists would probably say what we are seeing on social media is intrasexual competition run amok
Giving bad advice undermines your sexual competition. And if you sell advice or attention, keeping people coming back for more bad takes while keeping them miserable (and single) is the whole game. The hot takers build attention and clout.
Like many fans of Star Trek, I am not at all ashamed of my affection for one of science fictions greatest franchises. I’m proud to love it.
When I visit San Francisco I like to rewatch the classic original series movie from 1986 “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” which is affectionately known as the whale movie.
Future San Francisco is a beautiful paradise where exceptional young people go to Star Fleet Academy. It’s fully automated luxury communism thanks to the not really military (but definitely feels like it) the United Federation of Planets.
The movie involves getting Spock back from previous escapades that had left him for dead. As they retrieve Spock a crisis is unfolding on earth.
A spacecraft is signaling to Earth alas no one can answer it. It disables everything near it. The Enterprise figure out that it’s whalesong and decide the only way to answer is going back in time to find Humpback whales.
The Reagan era was a strange one for environmentalist. The crew goes back in time to rescue Humpback whales and ends up in San Francisco in the 70s at least vibe wise. It was definitely a pop culture “save the whales” moment.
San Francisco was a mess in the past and everyone finds this to be relatable as a plot point though we all know it can be made a paradise.
We see nuclear vessels in Alameda as the brave future. We have to save our whales to save our future though. This was not a universe where environmentalists make the best villains. Environmentalists are the good guys which is almost sweet.
The Voyage Home is a ridiculous movie with a premise stuck in a bubble of social attitudes that is almost comforting.
Leaving San Francisco myself to voyage home myself makes me laugh at one of comedic bits of the movie. “I don’t know how these people made it out of the 20th century!”
To the skeptics I say a double dumb ass on you! Humans and their colorful metaphors might just might get us to the future after all. And San Francisco will be part of making it.
In 2024 I’m still optimistic (albeit cautiously) as I have the similar amounts of health and acceptance keeping me above the waterline of our chaotic reality.
I am thankful the incredible amount of progress I’ve made in my work this year. We’ve done so well with our first fund at chaotic I have little fear that we will continue building it even as the markets remain a challenge.
I’m thankful for our founders who made it possible for me to make a go of investing in weirdos.
I’m thankful for my marriage. Alex and I have made it to our second decade together. I highly recommend marriage if you get the chance.
I’m grateful for so much this year that listing it out seems a bit overwhelming at 8pm at the end of the day.
But if you have the chance to be grateful in writing it’s worth doing. Looking backwards on your gratitude enables you to look forward with optimism.
As no cultural heritage must remain uncommercialized, you can find many pop culture best sellers on Swedish “lagom” philosophy.
“Not too little, not too much. Just right”
I’d actually never heard of it until today despite being the daughter of a Swedish American man. I am not one for balance though I actually do live a life of simple routines.
Consistent with their Lutheran heritage, the Nordic countries are united in their embrace of curbed aspirations for the best possible life.
This mentality is famously captured in the Law of Jante—a set of commandments believed to capture something essential about the Nordic disposition to personal success:
“You’re not to think you are anything special; you’re not to imagine yourself better than we are; you’re not to think you are good at anything”
I did not think I was anything special as a child. I’d laugh listening to Garrison Keillor describe the Lake Wobegon residents who were all above average. Those jokes landed with Minnesotans because who would be so foolish as to set unrealistic expectations?
I went through most of my life with the presumption that I was totally normal. I liked ketchup didn’t I? I wasn’t out of the ordinary and didn’t think I was especially intelligent or attractive relative to my peers.
As it turns out this was a real lack of self knowledge on my part. But it set me up for happiness. Every win feels fantastic because in my head I’m just a normal girl from a normal family who will achieve normal things.
None of that ended up being true. And I’ve been pleased to find myself actually quite a bit above average. They say expectations are premeditated resentments. And I have precious few of those.
Maybe I have achieved lagom. I’ve got just the right amount of expectations for my life. Set it low and your achievements will always be great.
