Tag: Routine

Categories
Aesthetics Politics

Day 1481 and smh

When I got started with my daily writing project I knew there would be days when I did not want to write. Today is one of them.

I actually expected “ugh no want to write” days to be more frequent than turned out to be true. I’ve bitched about it 51 times which isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things.

I knew I’d find a way to force the issue just as I had made other habits a part of my life. You really can make almost anything a habit if you are so inclined. But I rarely have to force habit. I just do the thing till it’s either a habit or it’s clear it’s not for me. They say it’s 21 days but I’d give it more like 100 to be safe.

Things I just do every day include applying facial moisturizer, brushing my teeth, squatting (no not just on the toilet I mean the full body compound exercise), taking my vitamins, Tweeting, playing a stupid pay to play Chinese mobile game, telling my husband I love him and opening up my mobile content management app to write this post.

And yet I am in a real “smh” place today with my attempts to find meaning in any of my habits. I’m disappointed in more than a few things. It’s all very Cthulhu and Antarctic cold vibes for me today. Sure it’s -20 in Montana but it’s very sunny so it’s cheery dread.

Anyways, the interregnum is over, we have a new President who is an old President and everything that is new is old and everything old is new again.

The entire Arnault family showed up for the inauguration so Dior’s New Look is back. Does that make this a post war moment? Did we live through a cultural revolution and not even notice? Smh.

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Emotional Work

Day 1474 and Process over Outcome

It’s hard to trust, well, anything. The uncertainty of the near future looks like the uncertainty of the far future right now.

It feels as if one is in a fog so thick that you can’t see your own hand reaching out to touch something at arm’s length let alone glimpse gjr far horizon

How do we set goals and work towards outcomes in that kind of world? I find it unsettling despite having years to prepare for a more chaotic world.

I am learning to let go of grasping for specific outcomes and lean on process to bring me to outcomes. I work the problems in front of me. I maintain the protocols that work for me. When they cease to yield results I change as rapidly as I am able.

Categories
Media Politics

Day 1472 and Odds and Ends

I have now done six days of hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy (HBOT for short) in a row. I also did a vitamin IV with glutathione so my morning was well occupied with maximizing wellness.

Because I was inside a chamber and tied to a chair for a few hours I was able to enjoy my backlog of reading. If you enjoy essays and e-ink books I personally use a combination of Readwise Reader and Daylight.

News and Essays

Peter Thiel has an op-ed in the financial times about the American ancien regime and the chance for the Internet era to enable us to grabble with the trouble of our elites.

A fan of Leibniz? The New Yorker reviews two books on his life. The polymath wrote quite a bit which endears me to him but our real debt to him goes beyond calculus notation. George Boole’s logic is partially informed by Leibniz.

Leibniz loved the simplicity and the suggestiveness of binary: he titled a draft paper “Wonderful Origin of All Numbers from 1 and 0, Which Serves as a Beautiful Representation of the Mystery of Creation, since Everything Arises from God and Nothing Else.”

Jacobin asks where all the good American Marxist academic work might be given that we perceive universities as hotbeds of socialism. Spoiler alert it’s hard to find.

Is middle age sexy? I went to read the styles piece in the New York Times only to discover that one must be over 50 to count. This elder millennial keeps trying to claim the mantle of middle age but Gen X and Boomers refuse to age.

Tips and Tricks

It’s wise to have a medical plan when traveling. American medications may be unavailable or even banned (Japan does not permit Adderall in the country).

I travel with a box of about 30 core medications to cover everything from allergies to food poisoning to bacterial infections.

Interested in becoming a Normie Man? Go on Joe Rogan. Not notable enough for an appearance. Let me suggest the rousing version of Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1468 and Going HBOT

I was extremely frustrated with an autoimmune reaction that got out of hand over New Year’s. I don’t care for taking corticosteroids as their side effects are quite severe even if they can be the only option when an immune response refuses to calm down.

To repair the damage, I went to a holistic clinic that offers a range of services like infrared saunas, IV therapies, cryotherapy and hyperbaric chambers.

I’d heard good things about using HBOT therapy for autoimmune responses, particularly ones that are rheumatoid in nature. I’ve done two sessions so far and I have seen a remarkably swift improvement in inflammation and pain.

I’ve got 8 more ahead of me along with some glutathione and vitamin IV drips so I’m hoping to be ship shape soon.

News and Sundries

The Chinese venture ecosystem has funds engaging in some suboptimal behaviors. They are clawing back personal assets, banning them from services and putting founders on no fly lists. Which is needless to say not the best way to encourage innovation.

Mark Zuckerberg is taking a new tack with speech at Meta. The company employing content moderators for what is true is out and enabling Twitter style community notes are in.

Many moons ago Antonio Garcia Martinez warned that Facebook shouldn’t be involved in policing and censoring speech as it would lead down a dark path.

Much To Consider

Is most memetic self help that propagates well online now predatory in nature? A tweet thread to consider for those looking to have emotions or control them.

Categories
Medical

Day 1465 and Biohacking Help Request

I’m having a bit of trouble with an autoimmune flare so I’ll keep the narrative but short.

Essays

Everything is About Sex. Femininity is About Power

Shopping

I am going to take a course with a Twitter mutual on building an AI life coach for myself. It’s an exercise in accountability for my playtime & learning.

Considering buying this Hooli vagus nerve stimulator.

Tweets

Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths in the Memetic Of Woke

Medical

I’m looking for my next step in my medical care. If you’ve been watching the blog over the last few years you’ve seen my struggles with chronic health issues and the work I do to be well enough to pursue my work.

But I’m at an impasse and I know we must have more solutions than what I’ve got. Looking for a doctor or research group that may have protocols or care capacity for the autoimmune buffet of nonsense that plagues so many. I have ankylosis & psoriatic arthritis, joint pain & anaphylactic allergy issues along with migraines.

I’ve worked with woo, lifestyle and nutrition changes, supplements, osteopathy, injections and IVs, longevity science & expensive biologics to pursue the functionality I have now to work. But I long to work the hours of my youth and I don’t believe science has progressed so little that arthritis and migraines should be so painful and exhausting. So please feel free to DM on Twitter with recommendations for clinics and physicians.

Categories
Chronicle Emotional Work

Day 1462 and Year Five Begins

“We aren’t quitters” could be a tagline from a sports movie, a speech about the American people or your parent’s family philosophy.

Fortune favors those with fortitude. Grit sums up entire pedagogies of successful education and institutional cultures.

And here I am, one day at a time, continuing to log my thoughts for anyone who might care to read them on this public journal.

When I first began I thought the experiment to write every single day I thought would last a month. Then I thought maybe I could make it to a full year. Now I’m unsure if I will ever want to stop. I’m not even sure I know how to stop?

I’m less sure the narrative aspects of this log are as crucial to me as when I first started . I wanted to improve my capacity to write regularly so I set out to practice that creative process.

Having achieved my goal to write and publish each day, it may be time to evolve this narrative into a more traditional blog format from the past.

We used to include links, asides, and unrelated tidbits alongside narratives and storytelling in old school weblogs. I may try to try to include tidbits of what I am seeing each day as a way of sharing my context and inference process.

If the mood stokes for essays (as is my usual habit) that’s fine and if the mood strikes for a log of influences that is fine too. Year five has permission to be whatever it likes.

Current Reading

A gift link to a New York Times article on the China craze and the fifth and likely final generation that carried a dish set through a century only to find the status symbol it once represented is long gone.

Hannu Rajaniemi an entrepreneur and science fiction author has a new book Darkome about a world where with a corporate giant who invented a mRNA vaccine wearable and an underground of biohackers working to keep those vaccines and edits available online not available in America but thankfully I got a copy in Europe.

Interested in the “Don’t Die” movement? Time to learn all the ways cells die.

A history of learning how cells die

Why do we know so little history? Bogus airport bestsellers are one culprit. Or a bestseller anyone who took an AP history course “A World Lit Only By Fire” is mostly bunk. Turns out that’s common.

“Style is a magic wand; everything it touches turns to gold.”

– Logan Pearsall Smith

Categories
Emotional Work Internet Culture

Day 1460 and Review Process

I began my review of my “round up” for the year post today. I was going post by post dredging memories and taking notes by hand. I’m embarrassed to say it took me almost 7 weeks of post scrolling to realize I was going through 2023 and not 2024.

Now you might argue that I’m tired as it’s been a long year, but just how crazy do things got to be when time is so punctuated with “happenings” that it’s genuinely hard to remember even the most shocking of events?

How is it that wars, elections, and major technological breakthroughs are just the daily happenings? Can it be that this much travel is required to do business? How long have we been living through this acceleration in politics and technology?

I want the narrative through lines of life to be more comprehensible. It is however clear that we are in a roiling period of chaos and even as I may remain ahead of some aspects I’ll always experience a trend multiple times.

Things that were huge this year were trends last year and were mere subcultures the year before that. Such is how information propagates in a networked world. I’m not even fully saturated on my own thesis.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1459 and Luxury Habits and Discomfort

I am hoping to achieve some variation or flavor of relaxation before the new year comes in with 2025 and it’s back to full speed chaos.

Convincing my body that relaxation is possible, dare I say even preferable, apparently requires a complex blend of sleep, vitamins, nutrition and the occasional trip to a professional.

I don’t find some of the necessities of feminine grooming terribly relaxing but even a wax and an aggressive pedicure have its capacity to relax.

Getting rid of the ugly baby pink X hooker color I’ve had since Thanksgiving in Los Angeles

Having hairs ripped out of delicate follicles isn’t exactly relaxing but it’s much chiller than the torture tools they use to get your toes appropriately trimmed back.

Winter legs and medieval torture tools

I feel like a Clydesdale with a patient farrier if I don’t get them trimmed every two months or so.

Watch out for the collegen and biotin supplements. They make everything grow faster apparently. I do feel like it was nice to do a little maintenance in the mania. It makes you feel so lucky to be able to have the torture of beauty be a luxury.

Categories
Culture

Day 1455 and Holy Nights

I used to have a habit of extended fasting during the Holy Nights. I would fast for ten days between Christmas and New Years though never all the way through to Epiphany.

I have no special Christmas traditions beyond worship as my own family does not do gifts or gatherings. I prefer it this way. Quiet suits me now.

Advent is a season for reflection on the cycles of life. For me the time between Christmas and Epiphany is a rare season. Some consider it a liminal time or still point where the veil between physical and other realities are thin.

Holy Nights can be thought of as a still-point in earthly rhythms as we transition from Christ’s Birth to Epiphany. Northern European cultures call it this time the Raunächte or “rough nights” similarly it represents the thin point between worlds.

There are many traditions associated with this time. Cleaning and cleansing and warding off bad or unwanted energy, the paying off of debts and reconciliation as well as rituals of burning, cleansing and smudging. It’s a time for introspection and reflection.

I’ll likely meditate and journal as normal perhaps with some divination exercises. I enjoy any excuse to pull tarot cards and toss a Nordic rune.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 1450 and Dream Come True

I must have taken fairy tales and “just so” stories quite seriously as a small child as I have deep faith in process, repetition, and routine. J

Just keep at it. Practice makes perfect. Chop wood and carry water. To be worthy of the opportunities that might present themselves in your life you must live each day moving forward your intentions with your habits.

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. If you maintain the course of your life by consistently apply skills and focus, you may find even the most esoteric and specific dreams of your childhood becoming a reality.

Just yesterday I was invited to participate in something that I had dreamed of being worthy of being included in since my teenage years. I kept the interests my whole life and now out of the blue I was being recognized. I could not be happier.

I had aspired to be a certain kind of person as one of my childhood dreams and here I was finding that I had indeed become worthy of my own aspirations. All it took was going in the right direction, keeping a consistent interest in learning more, and being present in public with those skills. I am so happy that years of simple regular action and interest had indeed yielded fruit.