Tag: Life

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Travel

Day 1160 and Head West Young Woman

I’m wrapping up my current trip through the southern Mediterranean and the Balkans. I have been doing travel as part of my own effort to do on the ground work cultivating networks.

“I cultivate movements, memes, degenerates, eccentrics and engineers. I’ve made many trips to far flung corners of the European continent including extended stays in the Baltics and the Balkans.”

Day 1155

I particularly enjoyed getting to see the practical efforts of crypto communities in the Balkans. The road to success is long and I like to walk the early paths and less popular trails in my searches for the weirdos who I believe make the best founders.

I’ll be heading to Los Angeles soon. I will be touring El Segundo where I’ll finally get see one of my portfolio founders in person. If you are in the area and working on something you think I can help with as an investor or advisor send me a DM on Twitter or drop me an email Julie at chaotic dot capital.

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Aesthetics Emotional Work Uncategorized

1156 and On and Off

I don’t have anything to say right now. I had an offline day in which I stayed in the moment and reflected.

Sometimes it’s simply a choice to be in the problems of a given moment. You could just not fixate. The frictions of any given day are a choice. If you choose to experience a problem more then once it’s not done teaching you.

I’m always hopeful that I’ll learn my lesson. That each time I’m “on” and experiencing the same problem again is because I’ve chosen to keep at the lesson.

Maybe it’s fine to get comfortable. The older I get the more I envy my stupid younger self who has the energy to be a total moron. Now if I’m a total moron my life stands still. I have to actively choose to learn from the problems in front of me.

And so as I chose to jump back into another round of action I can only hope I’ve learned my lesson. Truly sometimes I wish I was a faster learner. But then I see I learn at all and that’s not at all a guarantee. Plenty of people work hard at just staying in the same place.

Entropy tugging at our bodies erodes the coastlines of our personal boundaries. Hopefully whatever is reshaped by the pressure emerges stronger. Mostly it’s just cliff’s falling into the sea. In other news, I drove up a long coastal road and contemplated thermodynamics. It was lovely.

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Aesthetics Culture

Day 1151 and Waiting Line

Do you believe
In what you see
Motionless wheel
Nothing is real
Wasting my time
In the waiting line
Do you believe
In what you see

Waiting Line Zero 7 Sophie Barker

I like to do errands with noise canceling headphones on these days. The ambient noise of public life has become more grating as I get older. Cue up lo-fi chill hop beats you can study/relax to Bojack Horseman joke.

Or in my case, a down tempo bit on waiting in lines from some softer era when Garden State was all the rage. I have to admit I’ve never seen the movie.

It seems apt that the more alienated we become from the human component of public life that the more the waiting in line feels like an unreal unreal activity.

We run our little programs in our little lives. We accept being NPCs for a little convenience. You don’t want to slow up everyone’s business with any of your troubles.

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Internet Culture

Day 1148 and ayyy lmao

Ayyy lmao

One of my Twitter mutuals Visa of Friendly Ambitious Nerd fame has a meme format he’s perfected with the Scylla and Charbrydis mythos that has become colloquially known as ayy lmao.

If one must sail between monsters representing inescapable and opposing existential threats (yes that’s a metaphor for life) then the only path through is to just sail on.

I see a lot of “fuck it, we ball” energy in the air now. It’s been emerging slowly but surely over the last two years or so. The inclination to say to hell with the odds represents a commitment to action. With Safetyism everywhere who wouldn’t simply want to say fuck it ayy lmao?

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Medical

Day 1146 and Quesy

I had kind of a weird night. I feel asleep feeling earlier than I wanted. I was tired in a way that suggests either manually dosing oneself into sleep or intense physical exhaustion. I’d experienced neither.

I woke up multiple times drenched in sweat and freezing. It’s unpleasant to feel salty and worked up from sleep rather than exercise. I finally gave up on it around 6am.

I’m on GMT+1 in Europe which put my wake time at late Monday evening on the West Coast and early Tuesday afternoon in Japan. I used the opportunity to connect in real time with a friend who lives in Tokyo and catch up on the end of the El Segundo hackathon attendees.

Now it’s evening for me and I’m drained and a bit sick to my stomach. I can’t tell if I’ve got some odd form of stomach bug or if I’m fighting off something else entirely.

Honestly with how frequently I nuke my own gut biome it’s unclear. It feels as if I’m on a course of antibiotics but I’ve not taken a dose of anything recently. The symptoms are not the full on gastrointestinal effect of food poisoning neither are they the unpleasant travel stomach one associates with new foods & water.

In an ideal world I’d use differential diagnostic artificial intelligence but that would clearly be unsafe so I’ll have to ride through it with over the counter medication, witchy self knowledge and a bit of suffering.

I suppose that’s no different than any other medical condition I’ve had to treat in the past on my own. I’ve had a host of irritating chronic conditions I’ve only pieces together with what feels like endless effort and consultation. I wonder if we will look back on the American Medical Association as a cartel in the not too distant future. It certainly doesn’t feel as if keeping me from healing myself benefits me.

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Aesthetics Emotional Work

Day 1143 and Wastewater

I’m not a fan of Ed Sheeran but this quote on the creative faucet came to me today through Julian Shapiro’s Twitter profile.

If you turn a dirty tap on it’s gonna flow shit water out for a substantial amount of time and then clean water’s gonna start flowing.

Ed Sheeran on Songwriting

As a fan of practice and repetition (you need only look at my daily numeric total for evidence), this metaphor spoke to me.

I do feel as if I’m currently in the wastewater phase of a few things. It’s just lots of shit and unrelenting in quantity. I imagine this is relatable to a lot of people.

It’s my hope that the clean creative waters will flow more easily soon.

Categories
Internet Culture Travel

Day 1139 and Coming Back Online

I took some time off the grid last week to refocus. I found it to be a bit more tiring than enlightening but I did benefit quite a bit from time offline in the quiet.

I was whisked into some immediate local concerns getting a home base set back up in a city. I speed ran the basics. I feel as if I’ll be coming back online shortly.

This morning, despite a slight cold, I enjoyed the six hour head start I had on the markers today.

After being extremely offline for a week and change, it felt fun to submerge myself in earning season discourse, inflation data, and other concerns of industry.

I’m excited for the problems in front of me, I like my placement on the board, and I trust I will play the hands when the time is right.

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Emotional Work

Day 1134 and Happy Being Miserable

I am in a lot of pain today so I’m not thinking as clearly as I’d like. But I have learned to be sanguine about misery over the years.

When you have chronic illnesses you can either become a victim to them or accept them as part of the tapestry of human experiences.

I have had a framing that I’ll butcher today as I can’t recall any past artful coinages. It goes something like one can be existentially happy even if one’s circumstances are miserable. The opposite applies as well. People can have happy daily circumstances and be existentially miserable.

I feel like that no matter how much I may bitch and moan about my life that I am ultimately happy about my lot in life. I’ve got nothing to complain about and when I do complain it’s quite likely that kind of misery actually makes me happy.

Categories
Emotional Work Travel

Day 1132 and Slowly Unwinding

I’ve you been following my last few posts you know I am traveling and have had some hospitality hiccups and general operational effort in pursuit of getting myself fully off the grid.

I’m slowly unwinding as I’ve finally settled into a cabin where I’m quite remote. I’ve got a lovely view high up above the mountains with views in an almost full panorama.

I’ve left the ambient noises of city living and the sounds are entirely rural. Roosters crowing, cows mooing, dogs participating in twilight barking and the very occasional human passing. It’s peaceful.

It took some doing to get myself this far off grid as I’ve in transit over multiple days but I can finally blessedly feel myself unwinding. I’d hoped to get to this state of nervous system relaxation a bit sooner but better late than never.

I’m reachable here (clearly I’ve got internet or I couldn’t post this writing) but I’ve mostly chosen to keep to myself so I can focus on the larger projects that make up my yearly goals. FreedomToCompute remains the most crucial item alongside my regular responsibilities to chaotic.capital, my founders, and my own LPs. If you want to talk to me feel free to send me an email or signal message. I’ll be very present if I’m on my phone.

Categories
Travel

Day 1131 and Cabin In The Woods

I’m pretty far off the grid right now. I’m taking this week to get some time offline to do focused work

A common theme I’ve written about is the toll of stress hormones and nervous system fatigue that we are all experiencing as life accelerates.

I find I can better focus in my very online life if I’ve taken time to be extremely offline to compile my thoughts. So I’m in a cabin in the woods.

I’m in a small space that requires a certain discipline to maintain. The very considered space has all amenities of life but I am a little removed from the hustle and bustle of a city.

I usually have the option to get help with food or chores even when I’m home in Montana. But in this off the grid retreat I am responsible for all the basics personally. That slows me down to be in the moment.

I’ve got to make each meal for myself, wash each dish by hand, and otherwise maintain my small living space with constant “pick it up and put it away” intention.

It quickly becomes cluttered and claustrophobic if I don’t. The small kitchen doesn’t allow the sprawl of multiple meals to pile up. There simply isn’t the space.

It’s my hope that by being present and effortful in these daily activities I also find that I can be present for myself. Hopefully the insights are worth it as I can’t say I care much for cooking or cleaning. But it sure is peaceful.