Tag: Fear

Categories
Chronic Disease Startups

Day 508 and Deficit

I woke up feeling reasonably ok today. I slept well but checking my trackers I learned my recovery scores were pretty low. My HRV was dipping into 30% recovery territory and I had a low blood oxygen count. I’ve been recovering from Influenza A so it’s not a surprise my lungs are struggling. But I tried not to let some bad data psyche me out. Maybe I was ok. I told myself I just needed to stick to my routine as I can’t let myself get into a physical deficit.

So I went about my morning routine with some optimism. I got some coffee and made breakfast. I took several rounds of supplements. I did some basic grooming. I felt basically human. I was all excited to dive into work from the second I woke up. I was so excited I’ve been dreaming about the presentation I’m giving at Consensus. I literally woke up with talking points.

And then at around 10am I realized I’d used up all my functional hours taking care of myself. Fucking figures. I am already in a physical deficit from this flu. It’s scary for me to be in a deficit as my favorite coping mechanism is to engage in workaholism. I over prepare and over work and I make demands of myself that only sabotage the end result. It’s entirely counter productive. It just looks socially acceptable because of the Protestant Work ethic.

So I need to calm the fuck down and accept where I am and that it will still be good enough. I know my shit. It’s worth it. And I’ll deliver on better than the average midwit. Honestly even acting like this is kind of midwit. The real galaxy brains would just be vibing it anyway. But it really is amazing how easy it is to fall into midwit fear based patterns. Believing in the bigger broader math of your own life is really hard because so much of our own ego is rooting for us to indulge in our worst impulses. So I’m going to calm down, not worry about my energy deficit and continue to do the work. It’s not glamorous work. It’s mostly making good decisions day in and day out. But then compounding kicks in.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 506 and Walking The Talk

I had a spectacular two weeks of writing from the deepest places in my soul. We made significant and long lasting decisions for the family and the direction we want to take our lives and our investments. And yes I do mean that my husband and I are moving to Montana. One day I’ll be so proud to have captured that moment in our lives on paper.

So of course this past week I’ve done nothing but worry and fret and write about that worry as my physical body decided it was safe to be a bit sick now that we’ve done that hard work on making a big life decision. Even that mess of feverish writing ended up delivering some amusing written insights.

I’ve had to remind myself basically hourly that I’m alright. That all the uncertainty of the world is something I can live with. Indeed, it’s something I’ve planned for over the course of years. When I jokingly insisted we should name our family office chaotic.capital it seemed like an amusing and edgy piece of branding. Now I’m caught up in the reality of just how fast the thesis is playing out.

Frankly I am scared. I am scared because I can see just how hard things will be. Some days I feel like I’m beyond excited to actually be right. But then I remember the chaotic thesis sucks to live through even with the best resources and preparation. And all I can really do is walk the talk. Nothing is as terrifying as being prepared for hard times and then simply having to live all the shit you said would happen.

Because of course all of the macro big picture things that I’m planning to invest against are things that make my life harder too. I’m disabled with a chronic health condition that is annoying to manage in good times. My personal wealth is subject to the same market forces as yours. I have had to deal with the overheated housing market as a non-homeowner. I still have to act in the same face of the fears as everyone else. Am I modestly protected and buffered by privilege? Yes I’ve been sprinting to acquire it for year to get it. But here we all are and now is the time when a steady hand with a prepared mind can thrive.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 505 and Deadlines

I’m trying to stave off a cortisol spike that my body simply does not need. I’ve got a talk coming up for Consensus in June and I owe an editorial with my main thesis along with any visuals I may need for the talk due next week.

I know the area I plan to speak about quite well. It is titled the InDAOstrial Revolution and I plan to cover some far future possibilities for what the new organizational structure can bring. And I do mean far as I’ll talk about some radical ideas like data collectives for rare diseases and networked nation states. I’m really excited as I think decentralized autonomous organizations offer us a new path for how we can pool different kinds of resources. I think DAOs give humans a chance to build better bigger weirder things on totally radical timelines just like the advent of the corporation did before in the industrial revolution.

I’ve been watching Gilded Age as I’m a sucker for set pieces but also because I love stories of wealth and power and cultural mores being pushed. I think DAOs have the chance to do that for society and the family in a way that is just as unsettling and ultimately wealth creating as anything we saw in the Gilded Age. And the changes we see to cultural norms will be every bit as revolutionary as the ones we see with inventions or investments. When times change, we push all of the ideas we have about how to properly organize individuals and citizens with it.

What I’m saying is I’m obviously passionate about the topic and even when I’m home with the flu I’m thinking about ways to knit together different worlds and metaphors. I might not be the best expert on DAOs nor am I remotely close to being one of the earlier people to get into them, but I’m absolutely an informed and enthusiastic professional with the training to think about this holistically. So I’d listen to me if I had the chance.

Nevertheless I’m worried I’ll botch the talk. My mind wants to worry I’ve run out of time to do a good job (I obviously haven’t) and that even if I put in a lot of hours it could have been more. I could have started sooner.

But honestly I’ve got to let that self defeating talk go. What I bring will be enough. And a deadline looming even with a sickness is no reason to worry when you know and love a topic well. So I’ll trust myself to bring you something good.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 504 and Write Down

I woke up coughing so hard I couldn’t catch a breath. I’ve forgotten how exhausting being sick feels. I legitimately completely forgot how it felt to be tired and in pain. And what a fucking luxury that is to realize.

I was in a miserable mood this morning. Why was I losing an entire week when I’ve been functional and dare I say normal since the new year? I haven’t had any issues since I got Covid over Christmas break with the exception of a couple nasty migraines and a few modestly shitty days. But today was Thursday and I haven’t felt even modestly human since Monday. It looks like I just have to accept in having a bad streak.

My husband very sensibly pointed out that I didn’t need to act like this was a catastrophe. I’m always looking over my shoulder in fear that I’ll have a relapse and be reminded of he limits of chronic disease. And truth be told I will have them. But I’ve been making the choices that shorten those bad days. I’ll be living a life in the country in support of keeping a strong body. It’s almost comical to type that as it feels a bit like tuberculosis and moving to the west. But then again I’ve always been a mountain woman at heart. It was only a matter of time till I returned to the terrain of my family. Maybe I’m a bit of a traditionalist after all.

Nevertheless this week is a write down. It won’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I’ve made the good long term choices. I’ve accepted that the fight is long and the odds aren’t great but this is America so you’ve got to fight like you might be one of the lucky few that win. I can only hope I am treading a path that gives me the chance to make a better life. And that I’m being reasonable clever and reasonably hard working and that’s often enough.

It’s actually quite hard to trust the math. You want to give in to all sorts of silly biases. Like that every second counts. When no it’s mostly just how your habits add up over time. The mind really strains against basic math like compounding. But I’ll try not to get my fear get in the way and trust that the figures probably add up and I’ve generally done the homework to trust my inputs.

Categories
Startups

Day 501 and Do It Live

There must be some kind of residual high from making big decisions, as I’m feel powerful as hell coming out of Montana. I’ve committed to a life path and I am ready to do some thriving. Yes I’m referencing the meme.

unbothered. moisturized. happy. in my lane. focused. flourishing

I’ve got a deal I want to shop around even though it’s ice cold out there in venture land. I believe in the team and I believe in the market sector. It’s a bit of an unusual bet but I have total confidence in the problem space such that I am ready to spend some social capital. So hit me up if you want to get in on the deal. I feel like it’s a deal that’s absolutely in my lane and even if it’s a hard time to circle anyone to anything I may as well enjoy the thrive vibe. Let’s do some magic together yeah?

In another famous meme Fox News host Bill O’Reilly exclaims that “fuck it I’ll do it live!” And I have to say that is my current energy. None of us have a fucking clue about how things are going to go. But did we do our homework? Yes. I did the work. I ran my numbers. I’m good at what I do. I’ve got experience. I’ve got as good a shot as anyone.

So I’m going to say fuck it to a lot more. I’m confident. Because like Bill I’ve got the talent and why not fuck around and find out? This isn’t specifically about the deal I want to do (though I am excited) or the fact that I’m moving to Montana but rather that it’s time to express more confidence in general. I shouldn’t undermine myself. I’m good. Some people like me. And that’s enough to have some confidence to try some stuff and experiment. If you want to come and play with me feel free to say hi.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 500 and Halfway There

Five hundreds posts is a nice even number. In my heart I find myself fantasizing that I am halfway there. Halfway where? The emotion of a midway point is somehow powerful to me. That I could have known when I started that I’d make it even 100 days let alone 500 seems preposterous. And yet now that I am here I have the quiet confidence to say that yes I will make it to one thousand. That is what I’ve learned from writing every single day. I’ve learned I can do what I set out to achieve.

Writing every single day has transformed my life. I say this without guile or metaphor. I just drove back from Montana to Colorado today. I left Bozeman with the expectation that I’d be returning to spend my next decade in Montana. When I set off on this experiment to write something every single day I didn’t expect tangible impacts. I did it because I thought the exercise would be good for my thinking and my writing. And instead I found that the daily discipline pushed me to life my life more honestly.

It’s been good for my emotions. To have to bring some part of myself to every day and genuinely be present has quietly and slowly grown capacity to be present in the world. I’ve learned more about who I am as a person. I’ve learned more about my needs and wants and boundaries. I learned about how I love and who I love. By ruthlessly prioritizing one activity, I came to see what my actual priorities could be with some investment. Writing is the discipline that gave me the framework to become myself.

And so here I am picking a place to spend the next decade. It will be a huge transition. We are going to be rural people after decades of city living. Because finally we can.

I can’t tell you that all of this emotion about moving is about the pandemic and how much I’ve experienced it as profound sense of displacement. It’s all true. But also I’d been unsettled by illness and medical leave long before lockdown. I have felt like my life was unanchored for sometime. Previously I’d been a Manhattan woman through and through. And then an escape presented itself and I found myself longing to go through to see what else I could find.

We didn’t commit to rural living at first. We went to the Hudson Valley. The first foray out of the city after a decade didn’t stray too far afield. We’d seen friends of ours find farm houses nearby. But it wasn’t enough. It didn’t have the mountains we longed to see.

As our first summer wore down, we after an intense two weeks, decided on a townhouse sight unseen in Boulder. We’d discussed a move to Colorado for almost two years prior to that. We’d run scenarios on how we could pull it off. But it seemed like a fantasy. But then the pandemic made work remote possible. Plus telemedicine meant I could leave my doctors beyond a days drive. I was finally free to do what I wanted without it being a huge risk to my health.

And this is why I say the writing was so crucial. Doing it every day slowly focused my mind.

I’ve had five hundred careful days of assessing the life I was living. I had five hundred days where I thought about what I valued and what I wanted to invest in. And it paid off. Suddenly the things that I’d never quite seen clearly were manifesting themselves in our lives perfectly formed. And it was clear that we needed to make the leap to take these dreams and make them real.

After five hundred days of writing, I have a new sense of clarity on my desires. I am shedding the weak and thin desires. And I am honing in on where I want to build and with whom. And yes much of it centers on being in Montana and living a life of resilience.

I’m totally serious about the chaotic.capital thesis. I am preparing for a more volatile world and I plan to be as present and grounded as possible in it. I’m an American and I’m proud of what that used to mean. I’ll be building out there with everyone else who makes the choice to live a real life and make real things. It’s not going to be easy but I’m not going to live life on anyone’s terms but mine.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 498 and Safety

The reality is sinking in that my husband and I are actually moving to Montana. And it’s unleashing all kinds of powerful emotions and realizations.

Alex told me he’s much more willing to honestly look at unpleasant political realities in America. He’d been ignoring the news for fear it would distract him. But even if Trump wins another term, the populist wing of the GOP sweeps and Roe is overturned, at least we are safely in the demilitarized zone of the inter-mountain west. Want to fuck with us? You are armed. We are armed. Let’s keep it polite. Our libertarian preferences might still have a chance out here and if not it’s awfully hard to subdue gun toting mountain people.

That libertarian zone means business gets done. The important work of capitalism doesn’t stop because of conflict or silly culture wars. The companies that will do the best will be the ones that can get away with ignoring culture wars and focus on making stuff people need to keep their lives afloat.

We also feel safer about our personal resilience. We will be less reliant on failing electrical grids with backup power from both solar and fuel generators. Considering the warnings being issued for this summer’s black outs and I suspect we will be glad to be less dependent on the grid. I’ll be glad to be somewhere cool where my air conditioner won’t be going out. And in the winter I’ll have a wood burning stove. I’m excited for having a stream on the property along with a pond and a well that does 25 gallons a minute. I look forward to making it a home that has backups for any emergency.

I’m also a big believer in traditional skills. Having a close relationship to the land benefits our bodies and souls. Putting time into the natural rhythms of the planet keeps us healthier. I want my circadian cycle to be nurtured. And if I am ever so lucky to grow some of my own food not only is that good preparedness but it’s certainly next level wellness shit. I want that kind of power for me.

The kind of safety and sense of security we are accessing with a homestead will help us access our deep talents. There are no excuses anymore to ignore the instabilities in our dusky lives. The crumbles have arrived. And I’m so deeply relieved we are finally taking the right steps to live with them.

Categories
Preparedness

Day 497 and Collapse

You ever find yourself so stressed by a big decision or important event that you become sick as soon as it’s end is in sight? Adrenaline and cortisol take a strained body pretty far, but eventually your central nervous system is like no. I’m not at all surprised by how poorly I feel now that we’ve resolved our dilemmas on housing. In fact, the offer on the house was accepted today. If all goes well, we will move to Bozeman Montana in August. Prayers and chaos magic sigils.

I went to the urgent care center to get tested for Influenza A this morning as my husband had it last week. My Covid test was negative as was my influenza test. But I am coughing so hard it’s a challenge to get a breath in if I so much as talk. I got handed codeine cough syrup and Tamiflu and told to get back in bed. My body knows it can let go. We’ve got the house.

I want to be excited. I want to feel the joy and relief that I know is underneath the exhaustion and sickness. I want to feel the security from knowing my my job is done. We’ve been working towards buying a homestead for years. My husband and I have been doing our homework and working through preferences on the ideal land for what seems like our entire marriage.

But with the pandemic, we finally set about finding a home that could house us for decades. We’d been freed from dreaming about rural living while being stuck in cities and could now go about doing something with our desire to live in the mountains. Work from home changed the game for us completely. We could finally live where we wanted.

I want a homestead because I think we are in for hard times. Abundant opportunity exists to be sure but only for those that are prepared. My husband is skeptical on how extreme any event will be but trusts me to care for our family. Look at me doing the ultimate feminine act and standing for the home and hearth.

And I simply want harder times to be easier for my family. I don’t want my people to suffer because the world is changing too fast for them to adapt. I want to set up my tribe to succeed and thrive in a new chaotic world. Preparation takes work and making strange even crazy sounding bets before anyone else thinks it’s sane. I don’t mind being seen as crazy so long as me and mine are safe. I am a woman. You should fear this primal energy. It’s strong.

Close over the horizon we’ve got a new world of uncertainty coalescing into possibility that is emergent. Chaos will reign. How? Who can guess. Our simian minds can barely grasp the first order effects of our current landscape. Of course, we haven’t figured out second or third order issues from war and pestilence just yet. We just aren’t that smart. How could we ever predict the future? We are struggling to make sense of the present.

We are just now seeing the supply chain issues and commodity shortages from the pandemic collide with our globalized economies. This is just the start of the complexity era. Just wait till fertilizer shortages in global farmlands intersects with the war in Ukraine and the super hot and super dry summers brought by climate change. That doesn’t scar you enough? It should.

Wealth has bifurcated and American cultures are at war. It is literally a culture war playing out as fifty years of consensus in reproductive rights collapses. I don’t kid myself on it stopping there. Our sex lives are about to be the governments business and some folks feel good about it. Some fuckers are celebrating it. We are about to face some weird times and I want to face them on my own land with my own guns.

I am preparing myself for much harder times ahead. Because hard times create wealth. I am putting myself somewhere remote with a cold climate to mitigate climate disruption. But until it’s an emergency I’ve got a top notch airport with daily flights to any city where finance or technology does business.

I’m still on good supply lines but I’m also in a community that can do a lot of trade on the basics of food, water and services. I picked a state that has abstained from the culture wars. I pray it remains a libertarian “live and let place” as I fear for the theocracy that is coming for southern states.

Equally I’m disinterested in liberal states that want to decide how to best allocate my resources. I’ll build my own communities and see to them if I can. Bozeman was a very deliberate choice that came from literally thousands of variables. It’s my last stand where I think I can battle the future and win.

People talk a good game about their vision for the future. They talk up their investments and their bags and their confidence in a whole new world and yet they live in precarious cities and lifestyles a single crisis could derail. I’m telling you that I see chaos and it will not ruffle my feathers. It won’t disrupt my breakfast. And I intend to set myself up to be able to ride it out in as much comfort as possible with as little disruption as possible.

Because I want to win this churn. I want to make money. If chaos is a ladder I will climb. And I’d suggest you consider what you are willing to do to win the next decade. It might not be the collapse. But even the crumbles will require you to change. And if your answer is nothing. I cannot guarantee your comfort in the future.

Categories
Emotional Work Medical

Day 496 and Pardon the Interruption

I’ve been on quite a streak of processing as I’ve written through the emotional rollercoaster of a potential move to Montana. We found a house that seemed absolutely perfect but had to work through our feelings on the matter. We put an offer on the house and as of tonight we are the leading offer and negotiating the legal deal points.

I am however really sick. Alex tested positive for Influenza A last week and while I briefly felt under the weather, I thought my hyperactive immune system had beaten it. Alas the data suggests I very much have the flu and I’ve done my famous “double dip.” This happens to me fairly regularly where it looks like I’ve beaten something abnormally quickly but if I am stressed or not well rested the latent infection doesn’t quite clear and a week later it roars back full force.

Welltory reading showing high stress, los energy and my health at risk
Whoop reading showing a dangerously low blood oxygen count and an elevated respiratory rate this morning

Given my current status I am going to take a bunch of NyQuil and stay in bed and send my apologies to anyone who might need me tonight as I’m clearly a bit addled in the head.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 495 and Drained

I’m so exhausted from the emotional processing I’ve done with husband about moving to Montana from Colorado. I finally understand why HGTV is so popular as trying to buy a home is an extremely intense experience. It brings up all of your core fears and needs and damn if that doesn’t make for good drama. But today we put an offer on a farmhouse in the Hyalite area of Bozeman Montana.

We’ve already lost two houses after we’ve put in offers (including one that was accepted). We don’t trust that anything will weird. fully expect that the offer won’t be accepted and that we will get outbid. And even if we do win we’ve likely bought at the top of the market. I have all the worst case scenarios mapped in my head.

We expect the house to be under water for a few years as it’s possible we are buying at the top of the market, but that ultimately this is an investment in a forever home that we will be in for a decade, or God willing, many decades. If the recession of the next few years dings us we will make the most of it.

It’s been a journey as my husband and I have very different risk profiles. It’s actually the primary reason we are married. He sees to the downside protection and I look to the long term upside. I am a long term investor and someone who enjoys cultivating. I like to nurture people, plants, animals and the land over time. My husband is much more of a clear roadmap type. He likes to know exactly what he is getting and what inputs yield what outputs. I’m a bit of the chaos magic and he is a bit of the ritual right hand path type.

We also just have very different taste. I don’t mind a bit of a mess and a bit of a diamond in the rough. My husband loves luxury finishes and beautiful decor. Aligning my needs for a piece of property that leans towards resilience with his desire for a beautiful home meant we found it to be a bit more expensive than if we just optimized for my needs. Yes for once the wife is the cheaper lower maintenance one.

But after 18 months of researching and searching and trying to figure out the balance of all our needs I’m just so damn tired. We are a bit battle scarred from the years of researching where we want to put down roots. We did a full country search mapped against weather, geography, water, fire, earthquakes, political instability, proximity to cultural we value and about a dozen other factors.

We quickly said no to the South as I dislike heat and neither of us are willing to live in a Bible Belt state. New England was considered and ultimately discarded as my husband doesn’t like forests. California never made it on the last. Oregon got axed for instability and fires. Wyoming is too much badlands. Idaho got nixed because of the Nazis. Washington was too raining and wet. Michigan didn’t make it because the good land is so remote and Ann Arbor is a political capital. When I say we considered everything I mean it. Montana came out on top again and again.

If you are inclined to prayer I could use them. I am hoping our offer is accepted and we can begin this next chapter in our life. I’ve got no idea if this will work out or not but the only way to find out is to do it.