Tag: Rhythm

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Biohacking Travel

Day 1130 and Accidental Fast

I had a series of unplanned excursions today that got slightly out of hand. A hotel didn’t work out and I found myself switching my base of operations.

In the process of moving about, I thought to myself “I’ll just have a coffee and eat later!” I fart all the time. It was 10am at that point and I’d had dinner the night before at 6pm.

Truly I sealed my own fate. I did not stop to eat for the next ten hours. I first repacked all of my clothing and other travel items. I then packed it all into a car. I then drove all over town running various errands to make sure I was prepared for the week. I didn’t want any distractions during my workweek.

Being practically minded, and hoping to avoid eating out for all meals, I ended up at a grocery store and bought a week’s worth of meal ingredients. That itself took over an hour. By then was a busy Sunday afternoon so it felt as if the entire city was doing grocery shopping at the same time as me. Fighting with folks in the parking garage made me reconsider if some people should be allowed cars at all. I was getting exasperated.

The drive to my subsequent my lodging managed to take well over an hour and a half. Traffic on the weekends right?

While I knew the lodging was up a hill it somehow didn’t occur to the “bitches be shopping” version of me at the grocery store.

The version of me that lives in reality had to schlep suitcases and a week’s worth of groceries up what my fitness tracker says is five flights of stairs. It took a few trips.

By the time I’d unpacked, put away the groceries and finally had the sense to put together a plate of cold cuts and tomatoes it was 6pm.

That number of activities doesn’t seem like it should have taken the whole day but at least I got in an accidental fast. I hadn’t planned to go an entire day but I’m sure I’ll make up for it with all the groceries I bought tomorrow.

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Travel

Day 1129 and Ambient Noises

My corner of Montana is in the cozy quiet grip of rural winter. I’ve left that quiet behind for a trip.

I’m in a city center and I have a symphonic mix of civilizational noises. The hum of idling trucks, the roar of a motorcycle zooming past, and shrieking giggling teenagers walking past all remind me that density gives vibrancy.

I have become accustomed to quiet noises of country life. Winter in Montana has a wonderful muffled quality after a snow fall. Once a storm has passed and the winds have blown out, you enjoy such peaceful stillness under the snow.

The ambient noises of life drag on my attention. Even as the city outside goes on with its day the Airbnb has its own new noises. The odd efficiency apartment half sized fridge buzzes at a volume I don’t think my refrigerator at home could manage. My fridge runs so quiet an alarm goes off if it’s left open.

Adjusting to new environmental sounds is always a nervous system challenge. The ambient noises of life get categorized by your mind eventually but the adjustment is tiring. I hope these new noises become routine soon. I’d rather it be a thrum in the background filter of my brain instead of this awful foreground of novel noises.

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Travel

Day 1127 and Smooth Sailing

I’m on the last leg of my journey. Yesterday I was marveling at the miracles but today I’m putting one foot ahead of the other. I want to keep getting through the connections and keep my head down.

I’ve had a relatively uneventful trip. No weather got in the way. No mechanical or crew issues delayed us for more than a few minutes No unruly passengers threw fits.

Even getting through security at my least favorite airport wasn’t so bad. Getting through airport security with injectable biologics is usually chore but the Gods smiled on me.

I appreciate how with tempered expectations every moment of travel can be appreciated. Smooth sailing in a choppy ocean is worth a smile.

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Emotional Work

Day 1120 and Good Instincts

I am feeling really good about my instincts as of late. As crazy as things are in the wider world, I am experiencing smooth sailing. I trusted myself and I seeing the rewards.

As I consider my capacity to be present I feel good. My attention is well calibrated and my broadcasting is bringing in the right people.

I’m going to trust that I am allocating my time wisely and that I will get the results I am looking for if I continue to trust my instincts.

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Emotional Work

Day 1113 and Sorry Can’t

I dislike days where I spend too much of my energy doing stuff as it prevents me from spending time synthesizing stuff.

Of course, and I hope this is obvious, the opposite problem is much worse. If you spend too much time synthesizing stuff then you run the risk that you don’t actually do stuff.

You’ve got to keep your skills sharp with new conditions on the ground but you have to intake as much information in your field as possible.

“Sorry I can’t” is a strong signal. It means you are engaged in the productive middle of focus. Family is a productive middle of focus. Your business is a productive middle of focus. Your friends is a productive middle focus.

Maybe you picked something to focus on that someone powerful wishes you didn’t. Maybe you sold your focus to someone else. Maybe you are on the clock to a wider goal. The calculation of how we do that is best left to market forces in my opinion.

I will redirect my attention for someone that asks and shows me the incentives. I think it’s a worthwhile balance. If I believe my focus being redirected can help someone else execute on taking action I’ll do so. That usually means saying to someone else “sorry I can’t”

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Biohacking Emotional Work

Day 1068 and Routine Versus Speed

I always find myself disappointed by how much time I put into health. Perhaps it’s a sign of how high expectations are for performance in the tools we use daily that it seems preposterous that it should require a third of your time in maintenance.

Perhaps this is an unfair intuition on my part. For every hour of flight the F-16 needs around 17 man-hours of maintenance. I’d prefer to not be quite so resource intensive as a fight jet but maybe fighting entropy does require 8-10 of my day.

As I try to do more with my days and push myself to do more in less time I still have to put in the effort to stay at my old baseline. I put my faith in the miracles of compounding. What was once a huge effort is now a habit.

I try to fight my tendency to optimize even as tracking my own data has its benefits. Most of my inputs are just a refinement on existing heuristics. Occasionally I’ll find someone who has a fix so might better than what I’ve been doing it fundamentally resets my understanding of my works model. It happens more than you’d think.

In accelerating I must apply more energy to my existing systems. Or course the old systems seem to call out depending more. As I push for performance my body demands its sleep, its fuel and any other number of needs. Sometimes it’s a want. It’s not always clear so I test.

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Emotional Work Preparedness

Day 1017 and Crisis Chores

No matter how trying the week may have been, a day of rest is a day for chores. Fighting entropy is the fight to remain among the living. I feel more than a little bit behind on my goals and obligations. Doing chores is the way I exert my own will over a crisis.

I hope that anyone wondering why I’ve not been up to date on correspondence over the last week can glance at the last few days of posts and extend me grace. I’m not sure if I have done anyone wrong but be slow but I notice my own tardiness.

The benefit of public diaries and social media is that it provides a kind of open “what is happening” context for everyone to see why their emails and messages are not being returned.

I was able to do some amount of personal chores around the Airbnb. Then I was hit with another round of migraines and had to lay down. I am not out of the woods yet it would seem. Maybe tomorrow.