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.
I am in transit at the moment. I’ve never calculated how many times I’ve flown on an airplane but I’ll presume I’m in the triple digits.
It’s not a new experience but it still has the power to astound me. That ugly bags of mostly water had the cognitive power and social coordination skills to lift our species to the sky still astounds me. How we’ve come to view this as anything but miraculous is beyond me.
Flying over Southwest Montana
And yet we become inured to wonder so quickly. Two women on my first flight were complaining about how awful air travel is these days. A common complaint and one I agree with generally.
Prosperity has made air travel as common as taking a bus for Americans. So I suppose the privileged few who remember a more glamorous time can’t help but tut tut about hoi polloi ruining the experience. American Airlines is less miserable than Greyhound, but you’d never know it based on the kvetching.
We’d been stuck on our plane after landing for twenty minutes or so. We’d arrived early so no good deed goes unpunished.
It was the first leg of my journey but seemingly the end of theirs as the two compared how long it has taken to arrive to their destination. Multiple flight delays and rerouting had given one woman a 40 hour transit for what amounted to regional travel.
I’ll be transiting over multiple days. It’s simply how it’s done at this point if you are going internationally. It’s obnoxious, time consuming and exhausting. And yet the miracle of our species achievement is still clear to me. I hope I still feel that way further into my journey.
I am considering doing a pullback from social media for a few weeks. I must hone my instruments. Don’t worry, I’ll still write daily and you can message me on Twitter or send me an email.
I don’t like where my attention is being pulled and I need some time to reorient myself so I can more effectively pursue wider goals for the year.
Much of the current attention economy demands that you turn your focus to this or that crucial “thing” even as engagement with others has few agreed upon social boundaries.
Even the nature of replying has changed, as Mariah Kreutter writes, “The Reply is ambiguous. It can indicate any level of intimacy, any level of investment, any level of care.”
So much is being demanded of our focus with so little being given in return. And yet we have to make such critical decisions about our own lives and future. I must go within myself to look out for
I spent some time packing today as I’ll be on the road a little more frequently in the coming months. The joys of the cozy Montana winter have had their comfort and I sincerely wish I’d never have to give them up. But there is work to be done.
I find travel to be a bit stressful but crucial to keeping a good read on reality. The more chaotic the narrative the more I think I prefer to do a bit of on the ground work.
I am feeling the urge to keep some of this close to my chest. I don’t know if that’s temporary as I am tired or if I think it might be beneficial to pull back as I know the road is going to be hard this year.
The uncertainty is palpable. I’ve had an interesting influx of people seeking out my opinion. I’ve got a reputation for being the woman you call when shit is chaotic. I’ll be busy so my introversion may increase as I lay ground work. We sit at a number of crossroads and it seems everyone knows it.
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.
I’ve developed a little social tic. If I am saying something a bit provocative I throw in a little joke.
“Ask me how I know”
I’ve come to use when I’ve learned a lesson the hard way. It will usually be revealing about my own shit and the lessons I’ve learned by making mistakes.
Taking action reduces uncertainty. To resolve uncertainty we must constantly be taking actions. But we make mistakes all the time in doing so. Owning up to our faults, foibles, and blind spots is the hallmark of responsibility.
So if I quip on some bit of social commentary and jokingly say “ask me how I know” it’s a bit of a peekaboo.
Trying to make a buck on the internet usually means knowing your audience. And knowing when your audience will pay.
I keep hitting paywalls on blogposts and I think folks really over estimate the value they deliver to readers. You want to sway my viewpoint to your side but instead you jingle your penny jar for a captured audience of seals. The audience capture that has to happen to make someone really take off requires some pandering. People like their echo chambers.
Because I myself am serious about persuading people to shared ideals it offends me when otherwise useful pro-social content that would drive forward the adoption of better information is needlessly cut off for a “below the fold” $60 a year subscription that is thrice what I pay for Vogue.
If you are selling useful actionable services that make other people better in some measurable way it’s not too hard to close a fair deal on the internet. There are lots of businesses with lots of valid marketing funnels.
But if you are trying to persuade people to an ideal or some truth that you believe must be shared I beseech you to share it widely. We humans operate such fragile nodes of coordination. We must actively work to align people to causes. Propaganda and self interests can only win out over aligned incentives if we give our attention the loudest bidder. Don’t contribute to an information environment like that.
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”
I want to be as available as possible on the Internet as that’s been the best possible path to being available to other weirdos for the longest period of time. I shift through a lot of chaff but the wheat has always been there. I’m not for everyone and everyone is not for me.
But the open human Internet is struggling under the weight of non-human actors. Machines create more and more of the content and so many interests groups, philosophies, nation states and general chaos agents are acting within the group mind and/or network state that we call the Internet.
You can complain about bots sure, and crypto folks are in the thick of it, but some of what’s going on is just the noise of people who are under the influence of algorithms. Humans are happy to be NPCs in the great game of life. And it’s much easier to play out a fantasy the Internet while you struggle to find meaning in your daily real life.
I like to intake as much information as I can but even I have my limits as to how much noise I can tolerate in the search for signal. Consider sending me an email. Maybe we go back to private corners of blog comments and email correspondence. Get a little more signal as a treat.
I like a little “woo” in my life. Anytime I hit a particularly interesting number in my daily writing I tend to do a bit of collective consciousness spelunking across the shared spaces of the internet.
Unsurprisingly, 1111 sparks quite a bit of interest across pop culture numerology depictions. The first search results were women’s interest magazines.
Women’s Health with the uplifting new beginnings represented by 1 before associating 11 as a doubling of 1’s energy as a “master number” with spiritual insight, enlightenment, and intuitive understanding.” Sure, I want an intuitive understanding of my life’s new beginnings. Good job magazine editors. Groundbreaking.
Because what good is hidden knowledge of divine intentions without an affiliate marketing link program with it? I’d love to know if search engine optimization on numerology combined with attractively curated e-commerce affiliate content hits the Cosmopolitan P&L in any meaningful way.
Glamor Magazine at least gently reminded readers that apophenia is an error of perception. Who knew Condé Nast was the publishing house for skeptics? Perhaps they need to be a trusted brand or nail salons won’t subscribe in bulk across the nation to their magazines.
But if you really want lean into your pattern recognition and the subtle schizophrenia of Internet apophenia, my original source Women’s Health helpfully leans into “service journalism” by sharing that Kabbalists 1111 is a sign from God or divinity itself.
This is because the ancient Hebrew name for God, Yahweh or YHWH, when written resembles four ones.
I will caution readers that I don’t know if any of this is true. Obviously my goofy posting shouldn’t be seen as having the same rigor as a LessWrong epistemic status post. While I like a post-rationalist, I don’t know if any of the consumer friendly versions of ancient wisdom is true. I wouldn’t be taking my reading of the Talmud from magazines typically dedicated to recipes and workouts myself.
Women browsing random bits of pattern recognition at the grocery store or on their phone really is the stuff of fluff and the stuff of fear. Who knows what bits of knowledge might lead us astray.
Best case scenario you end up with a nice Oud candle that helped keep Cosmopolitan quiz writers paid. Worst case scenario, you might summon a malevolent algorithmic rabbit hole determined to fill your feeds with angels and demons.
