It is in the nature of dysfunction to misuse resources. Something goes wrong and a system that once grew or self sustained finds itself in decline.
What to do? One can apply palliative care certainly. But you can go to the root of a problem and hope systems can be righted by bitter medicine.
I’ve had some degree of measured doom about topics like debt and monetary policy my whole life. I grew up with concerns of peak oil which turned to climate change. There is always a new crisis anytime we find ways to be resource constrained.
But we are resource constrained. That’s just a variable to be accounted for in the engineering of a solution. I care about energy. I mean it in the abstract as in fuel. But I also mean the energy I control.
I don’t have to expend expensive attention for all problems. Maybe becoming “do not disturb” is a scarcity mindset. But sometimes the poison is in the dose. And I want to keep pushing for better.
I am doing my best to remain steady. The world at large doesn’t make it easy. Every day we have a new crisis, impending doom and looming fascism.
I would be more inclined to reactivity if it didn’t seem much more important to pay attention to the actual problems over which I have some agency.
Some days that agency is used on frustratingly small things and others it’s the most fantastical science fiction come to life in our day to day reality. The indignities of human embodiment and the miracles of applying knowledge to problems exist in the same reality.
There is so much pretending and posturing in the process of pursuing any goal, it’s understandable that people mistake the symbols of things for the thing itself.
The people who said yes first on my own companies still years later mean so much to me. Their opinions still matter to me and succeeding for them remains a goal across decades and investment vehicles because that faith is so precious.
Being a part of someone’s story is risky. Especially on the first chapter you don’t know where the story goes. And that’s the beauty of it. Faith when there is nothing to go on.
I want more than anything to be the first believer. To see what no one else can. That’s part of my drive in investing. To be early is rewarding beyond the finances of it.
And so tonight I’ll have FOMO, or maybe just MO, as I will be missing out as Valar reveals Ward One. I feel like I live a pretty cool life if it has been writing checks into nuclear reactors. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to see it in person.
I’m writing this in the waiting room of the new hospital campus in Bozeman. We’ve recently had an outpost of the Billings Clinic go up alongside the highway between Bozeman and Belgrade to keep up with the growth in Southwest Montana.
It’s really nice and absolutely packed with people. The average age looks to be early seventies so it’s not a young crowd in the eye clinic.
The only other mid-life people besides Alex and myself is a prison inmate in a yellow jumpsuit and his two Corrections officers. I had half a mind to go ask him what he was in for while showing off my own deformity m.
I’m unsure if it’s a side effect of changing medication or just plain bad luck, but I have an infection in my right eyelid. It started about a month ago and looked like it was a simple chalazion.
It’s sometimes called an eyelid cyst or a meibomian cyst. It slowly forms when an oil gland (called a meibomian gland) becomes blocked. Cleveland Clinic
But over the last month it went from painless little boba ball sized lump to my entire eyelid being swollen. It got much worse this week especially as I started applying wet washcloths to it regularly.
They were able to perform an incision and curettage (don’t click through if you don’t want to see some gnarly eye stuff) as my discomfort was pretty intense. I desperately wanted it drained and they did not disappoint.
Just wiping up the last of the pus
I hope this heals well and without issues. I fear this was complicated by the changes I’m meant to undergo in my medical protocol from one IL-17 inhibitor to another.
To soften any backlash in symptoms during the change I’m on another immunosuppressant so I’m particularly nervous about infections especially when it comes to sensitive areas like the eyes. I’m glad I was able to get this drained but I’m a bit nervous about how it will heal.
Given the amount of illness that seems to be plaguing folks this winter I’m surprised we’ve not all decided to hide until Spring thaw.
Every event seems to be a super spreader. Our physical immune systems are shot and I doubt our emotional defenses are much better. Everyone is predicting informational dangers myself included.
It is hard out there and we all experience it in different ways. My medical improvement sprint is plagued with logistical issues, the mold situation in our basement is overwhelming, and yet I have hope that I’ll make it.
o many people are dedicated to building solutions to problems, big and small, that I can’t selfishly let my any of my problems stand in my way. We have to all pull forward together.
I spent a few hours with a portfolio founder working on their fundraise today and I felt my optimism. I enjoyed the flow of work even as the enormous task of raising capital is filled with risk.
I’d taken a risk on directional play earlier in the year. I believe in the founder. They are making their way through YC. I can see their path emerging with every step forward. And I see hope.
I’ve not in one thousand five hundred and thirteen days of writing in a row set forth a m standard for how I might quit. Four years (or 216 weeks) is plenty of time to come up with a criteria for making a decision.
I have in that time embraced the haziness inherent in self trust. I’ll just know when it’s time. That’s obviously a rationalization. I assumed that circumstances would decide for me which meant I’d never need firm criteria for stopping. It would just happen.
Given my health and the general state of the world surely in this long timeframe some calamity, crisis or mishap would keep me from writing one day and that would simply be that. The chain would be broken.
It has not yet happened. No forcing function has stopped me from my writing practice. And I’ve not yet set worth anything firm about how I’ll know.
So far 2025 has tested me. There are many short posts. I have been hampered by health and home issues which sorely make me want to give up some days.
I’ve tried to included more sporadic “linking and thinking” to make my writing space more blog-like and less essay oriented. Backing away from narrative forms is a fine way of introducing flexibility into one’s writing.
I can’t help wondering if I should introduce a forcing function and create a set of criteria for when I’ll stop. But the truth is I’m scared to give myself a clear way out when I’m struggling. Perhaps it’s better to keep that trust that I’ll know.
It’s been a bad month for me. It seems like a bad month in general. But that’s February for you right? It’s a thumbs down kind of month. I’ve enjoyed the nonstop snow but we’ve finally gone above freezing.
Icicles
As the sun melts down our power into icicles I’ll try not to dwell on the negatives.
Are you a Frankfurt School student? I certainly am. If you are, you may find John Ganz’s review of Alex Karp’s new book The Technological Republic to be an amusing read. His Substack also has some gems including this imagine of Adorno which I intend to use everywhere.
Almost two years ago I sent a Twitter DM to a young founder named Isaiah. He was intellectual, curious and humble and I was impressed by his authenticity.
He was strong enough and driven enough to ask for hard feedback. So I told him the truth when he asked. I hated his first idea, gave a prediction about how it would go and said I’d invest in him on whatever he did next.
Lucky for me that feedback turned out to be accurate. We talked for months as he worked through a plan for his true passion for abundant clean nuclear energy.
I was blessed to be put in a position where I could commit as his first investor. His progress since then been extraordinary. Their goal is to make the world’s energy by building nuclear reactors at planetary scale. Today Valar Atomics announced they raised a 19m seed round.
When I say extraordinary I really mean it.
First, we have completed the construction and pressure certification of our thermal prototype, Ward Zero, at our Los Angeles facility—the fastest in history a thermal test unit has been developed and built. Ward Zero will be unveiled next week at an exclusive event in LA. Isaiah Taylor
We are in an age of acceleration. To be able to design and test a prototype this fast is a sign that we can expect better solutions to arrive and quickly if we should so will it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are able to turn on a working reactor in the near future. If you are interested in Valar (working for them or investing in their growth) hit me up on DM.
Want to see an android art direct as if it were in the cremaster cycle? The Protoclone is a faceless, anatomically accurate synthetic human with over 200 degrees of freedom, over 1,000 Myofibers, and 500 sensors. Clearly they are doing this just to scare us into giving them attention so here you go. I hope they don’t execute as swiftly as Valar.
I am seeing some progress in my various home and health projects. I’ve been doing my best to remain optimistic even though I was not feeling well and the sheer amount of changes required was intimidating. But I’m seeing low progress.
An industrial hygienist is coming to do an arm test tomorrow on our basement as well as the rest of the house to confirm the extent of our mold problems. Our hope is that it’s contained to the bathroom in the basement.
If we have to do a bathroom remediation that presents an opportunity to do some renovations. While exciting that is also introducing more risk. But you can’t waste a crisis right?
I want to rage against the symptoms, the system that can’t solve anything, and even my own body for being tricky. But that won’t fix anything. I’m need to give the new protocols the space to work.
So it’s one foot in front of the other. Whatever is happening out there in the real world I just need to put one foot in front of the other. Or if you prefer a meme. Just keep swimming Dory.
Just keep swimming
I’m doing my best not to get it get me down. I’m afraid of the setbacks. I am afraid of the length of recovery and the potential for things to be worse. But I’ll Dorymaxx. It’s all I’ve got in me
