Tag: Stress

Categories
Preparedness

Day 798 and Snowblind

I’m a big believer in working from your gut. I will qualify that your “gut” is only helpful if you have a good information diet, a grounded worldview and some amount of actual experience. But I’d wager if you are intelligent and have common sense, your instincts are, on average, telling you something worthwhile.

So I’m a bit concerned that today my gut is going just absolutely haywire. I don’t have any rational inputs that would warrant any alarm, either specific or generalized. I’m already a Doomer with a capital D but I’m an optimist about it as we muddle through most things. So I would share if I felt like I had something actionable. I don’t. The storms have to be weathered and we can merely batten down the hatches.

But I’ve got a migraine that cannot seem to be tamped down with even a double dose of Imitrax and I’ve got the unverified and unnerving sense that it’s because my entire input system is overloaded with garbage. Which is modestly weird as I’ve torn out a huge amount of inputs in order to prevent that from occurring.

I feel as if, in my attempts to not overload my meat space system, I may be shutting out a bigger warning. But my sense making capacity is lost in the day. I am flying without instruments. It feels like I’m in a snowblind.

Usually this is not problem as I’m a good pilot of my own psyche. But my autonomic nervous system is still pretending like the existing inputs are offering relevant or useful information. I can’t turn it off despite having turned down every possible source of volume.

And I don’t know what that means. Is something about to happen? Because no matter how hard I tamp down the inputs I’m still getting a read on my instruments. It feels like the point in the disaster movie that the sensors go haywire and the birds start dropping from the sky. But I’ve honestly got no idea what’s going on. EDITORS NOTE: SVB collapsed.

I’ve written this out early today just in case I need to further ramp down my sensory inputs and cannot write later. Take this as a single fuzzy reference on the ground background of cosmic radiation noise. Maybe put on a tinfoil hat or something.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 796 and Bedtime Revenge

I’ve been putting off writing basically all day even though I’ve had a number of topics that are completely in my wheelhouse show up in the discourse. For instance, how does one masturbate safely with extremely thin skin? Yes, it was quite a day for Elon Musk jokes.

But I just don’t want to write. I feel resentful that I have pushed this discipline on myself and I do not feel like adhering to any rules even the ones I set myself.

There is a concept in sleep psychology called bedtime revenge procrastination.

Revenge bedtime procrastination refers to the decision to delay sleep in response to stress or a lack of free time earlier in the day

I had plenty of time in my day to write and also plenty of inspiration for it too. But because I feel indignation about being constrained by any sort of discipline I decided to procrastinate.

I rarely feel this about writing but I do often feel the need to rebel against schedules or demands on my time. I felt tremendously overstretched as a teenager but it goes back even further to feeling like I was put into schooling and social situations that were too much for me.

It’s valuable to recognize these behaviors that originate in childhood. Most of our unproductive habits tends to be based on very early reactions we had when we were young and had little control. It’s called a reaction formation for those of you not hopelessly therapy-pilled like me.

Reaktionsbildung is the fantastic German word for it. You are likely familiar with its basic format. “A reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which emotions and impulses which are perceived to be unacceptable are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.” Thank you Wikipedia for that simple explanation. Basically your unconscious mind helps you rebel.

I think it’s unacceptable to be undisciplined. So I impose discipline. Even though I don’t actually lack discipline myself, my anxiety around how unacceptable it is to be undisciplined will drive a host of opposite reactions. Thankfully I’m aware and now the blog post is written and I can enjoy dinner with my family having conquered today’s demons.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 793 and Pretty Skills

My mother has always had a gift for aphorisms. I am grateful she has this talent as I’ve been able to simply repackage her wisdom and look much more talented than I actually am at delivering pull quotes. Brevity is the soul of wit and my mother is very witty.

One of the pithy witticisms I believe I learned from her is a classic take on beauty and class being more fungible than we are led to believe.

Pretty is a skill set

Me and/or my mother

If you’ve ever hung out with a bunch of rich girls and wondered why they are all hot consider the dilemma solved. It’s a skill that is cultivated. Like any skill you cultivate or with time but also money. And if you are rich and white the path to beauty is a lot shorter than you might realize. It’s pretty fucked.

I’ve been lucky enough to cultivate this skill set over time. I’ve come to rely on it as part of my arsenal. But I’ve also got a bit of a cranky body so I’ve not always been able to consistently practice the various skills required.

And sometimes life just gets in the way. I look like a fucking mess today. After a week cooped up in an air conditioned room in Mexico with trips outside for slightly traumatic family emotional bonding, I look like shit.

My hair is unsettled and popping off static electricity. I’ve got small pimples all across my forehead. I’ve got patches of eczema on my right chin. I do not appear to have the skill set for pretty today.

Normally I do my best to hide in these circumstances. Especially if I don’t trust someone. I don’t like looking like I lack skill when it comes to presentation. And it is often a sign of respect to look well groomed and beautiful.

In fact, today we’ve got a houseguest that normally I’d feel required to be at full skill set capacity around. And I just didn’t feel like it was necessary. And that’s a skill set worth cultivating too.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 792 and Level Ups

I know I am courting a bit of a crash tomorrow because I can feel just how much energy this week took. But I am feeling emotionally like I leveled up. I looked at a few of my emotional patterns this week pretty head on and redrew some boundaries. And this always improves my work performance.

The upside of journaling your thoughts and emotions is you have a back catalog of your own thoughts to compare against your eventual conclusions. You can look back and spot patters in your thinking and tie them together. Writing everyday can be excruciating but I never regret having done it.

I have to always remind myself that it takes a fair amount of effort and a high tolerance for being wrong in public. You have to get used to people disliking you and finding you distasteful. People want to put their emotional response onto you and the hard work of being an adult is not accepting what isn’t yours.

If you can tie that kind of self reflection into your professional life you get all kinds of unexpected level ups. You tell people about your own responsibilities and they trust you with theirs. You get to build great things together by building on shares humanity. The best business relationships I have are the ones where we understand what value each of our personal lives brings to counteracting of own limitations and blind spots. I’ll always work with someone who leads with their humanity first. Big visions get worked out together by trusting each others talents.

Categories
Chronic Disease Travel

Day 791 and Bathing Suits I’ve Never Worn

I’m on maybe my third or fourth trip to a warmer climate where I’ve brought a Norma Kamali bathing suit. I bought it on sale from Net-Porter as I’d always wanted one of her classic one pieces. I’ve never worn it.

For the casual reader, I have a chronic autoimmune disease called ankylosing spondylitis. It’s an inflammation condition that affects my spine and is aggravated by heat & humidity. Any temperature above above room temperature, give or take 72 depending on the humidity, starts to swell my tissues.

It’s well controlled with drugs but environmental factors can quickly spin up a bevy of symptoms including pain so debilitating I can’t walk. It’s one of the reasons we moved to Montana. I can live a semi-normal life so long as it’s cold. I spend most of my days laying flat in bed or in a zero gravity chair. My disability has become one of the super powers I use to propel my investing alpha. Because what else do you do with your time if you can’t leave bed except monitor financial indicators and chat with founders?

But back to the bathing suit. The black halter swimsuit has turned out to be entirely an aspirational garment. It’s still got the sanitary sticker for the crotch on it that says remove before wearing. I left it in and it’s become the not so subtle reminder that I may never enjoy a beach vacation again. It’s simply beyond my grasp unless I want to pay an obscenely high cost in pain and immobility.

I dutifully pack the Norma Kamali suit on each trip with a warmer climate. I’ve taken it to Miami, Texas, the Mediterranean and Mexico now. For this trip to Puerto Vallarta I packed a second bathing suit. It’s a striped bikini.

I had a fantasy that maybe I’d need a second swim suit as the other would need to dry if I swam every day. Oh what self deception we humans are capable of when it involves something we cannot have but want. I’ve never put the second suit on either. It also has the sanitary sticker still on it. It’s beginning to feel like they taunt me. Isn’t it funny that Julie still yearns to participate in the simple pleasures of life. “That dumb cunt” I imagine them murmuring as I pack.

My father loves tropical vacations. An adults only resort on a beach is his idea of a good time. And for his birthday, my brother and I very much wanted to give him what he wanted. Part of this is self protection as he often forgets to ask after other people’s preferences even if they are for something serious like a disease or disability. Better to avoid disappointment than know for sure. But also if we can give him what he wants why not make the sacrifice? It’s expensive for me energetically but I wanted to spend.

But it’s become clear I can’t make the sacrifices desired for the perfect fantasy family vacation. The bathing suit gets tossed in the suitcase with the knowledge that I can only manage one event outside each day. It’s usually a dinner or a chat.

Then I must sleep it off and work to recover. There is no space for pleasant relaxation on the beach in my body. The compressed Lycra slowly battling the expansion of my tissues as they swell overlapping with stuck lymphatic liquids would be torture. There is no joy to be found and no extra capacity to be eked out that might make the experience mimic the pleasure in a healthy body.

The fantasy is just that. A delusion I have about a life a lost and unlikely to be regained. The after effects of fertility treatments, IVF and living hard to outrun the vicissitudes of capitalism. I’ve accepted it as my lot in life. But it’s much harder to get it across to the rest of the world. And my fear that I’ll be left out and forgotten, that if I don’t fit myself into someone else’s life I’ll be abandoned. And so I rationalize that I’d be abandoned if I don’t at least try to bring the bathing suit. Even though going to the beach is a fantasy.

I hope my friends and family are able to meet me half way but I remain afraid that they don’t know how, or are unable to imagine what it’s like to live in my body. And it would be nice to be met halfway.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 790 and Siesta

I have been crashing out of my day into a sleep cycle after lunch till about 4pm while I’m in Mexico. The stress of the situation along with the heat and humidity have me needing a lot of rest.

Last time I was in a hotter climate I’d find myself crashing out into naps if I did something like eat lunch outside. I think something similar happened here. There are no air conditioned common spaces in this hotel so if I want to spend time with someone I’m outside. Sure there is shade but that doesn’t knock down anything but brightness. The heat and humidity strike anyways.

I hate this phenomenon. I don’t find it helpful to be laid flat and exhausted by two or three hours outdoors, sitting, in the shade; but it’s absolutely draining. Even if I felt like I had a full charge, which I don’t particularly, I’d be down in the red quickly.

I woke up with someone asking about dinner plans which I had offered but in truth the most I want to do is get some dinner and go back to sleep. It’s just much too draining to be outside and there aren’t many restaurants in this town with air conditioning.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Travel

Day 789 and Types of Poverty

As you’ve probably seen articulated in thought leader tweet streams and thot-leader Medium posts, there are different kinds of millionaires. If you are young you are a time millionaire. If you are able bodied and healthy you are an energy millionaire.

I am in energy poverty. I carefully ration my attention & time and use lots of time-economic craft like asynchronous communication like emails and direct messages. Like a thrifty person with a budget I am always cutting the various coupons of time in my life to cobble together enough time to work full time so that no one can tell I’m energy poor.

It’s pretty common for folks to be in energy poverty. Maybe you are a parent. Maybe you are a care giver for an elderly parent. Maybe both. The most common is of course being disabled and requiring care. I am in that category.

I’ve turned my energy poverty into my super power. I am like Mr World monitoring feeds across the globe laying back and ingesting information & taking small minute actions to adjust my plans. I’ve adjust my career to fit this reality and find it to be an excellent fit for investing as it’s all about finding the alpha and acting on it.

I do telegraph that I’m in this situation. That my mind is sharp but my body is weak. I accept 2-3 events a week at maximum that require me to be up, about, in makeup and battle regalia (business dress) and the rest is dedicated to recovering.

I’ve never had hobbies that couldn’t be done from bed. The last time I participated in a sport was in my twenties before my latest flare. I’ve not had a social life independent from work for decades. It’s isolating and I remain perpetually afraid of losing people who aren’t in the same situation of energy poverty as I am.

Capacity can be drained further by negative conditions like heat, humidity or bright light. I am the type of disabled person that finds showering to be a huge drain so typically include those in my energy budgets as drains. Travel requires 24-48 hours of minimum recovery time which is why I tend only do month long stays places. You may have noticed I go cold places like Prague or Frankfurt and I live in Montana. That’s based on doctor recommendations.

Certain types of travel can’t be done without significant outlays of energy budget that will leave me in deficit for weeks. Beach vacations have long ago been lost but I can manage a tropical location so long as I stay entirely inside in an air conditioned room. Don’t worry laying on the beach isn’t fun for me so I’m not missing anything. Heat & salt water humidity is the fastest way for my body to begin an inflammation cycle.

I’m in Puerto Vallarta for my father’s birthday and the best I can manage is stay in my room all day and a dinner every other night. It’s a little confusing for folks who aren’t in energy poverty to fully grasp the concept but I feel no more frustrated with my situation than I would if I had financial poverty. Sometimes it’s just the situation and your budgets have hard limits. I’ll make an effort and spend 2 weeks of an energy on a long weekend for someone I love but it does cost me. Everything costs something.

Categories
Chronic Disease Travel

Day 786 and Snow Birds

I woke up at 5am this morning to begin my journey from Bozeman to Puerto Vallarta. My father’s 80th birthday celebration is taking place in the appropriately warm tropical conditions so favored by retired snow birds. And it’s his party so he gets to chose his favorite location for us to gather to celebrate him.

Both my father and I live in Montana, but he tends to prefer travel more than me by a wide margin. I travel mostly for work and family obligations. I don’t find travel to be fun or an enjoyable luxury. Vacations aren’t my thing. Especially when it involves travel to somewhere hot. I would have been happy to celebrate in the -20 in Glacier personally.

Most of dislike of travel comes down to not caring for hot weather because of how much it hurts my body. It makes my spine swell. Humidity and heat are my enemy. I live in Montana partially for health reasons as anything above about 75 kicks in some of my inflammation issues.

Add in the additional strain on the spine of sitting in uncomfortable seats for hours and I’m currently struggling mightily not to wail uncontrollably from the pain. I desperately want to lay flat to ease some of the tension that has built up from needing to hold my body still and upright in uncomfortable airplane seats. I don’t want anyone to see that I’m barely holding back tears because the pain is so bad.

Alex got tisked by the flight attendant for trying to retrieve some of medication as we’ve got one of those useless bulkhead seats. It’s a terrible choice for even a modest disability as all the things that keep me functional in my travel bag were immediately whisked into overhead compartments. We didn’t do it fast enough and the attendant hovered asking that we hurry it up.

I haven’t done short haul flights in a while as most of my travel has been flat lay seats on international overnights. I wasn’t prepared for how much sitting up in a tight domestic airline seat would hurt. All I want to do is lay flat on a bed for 24 hours after this.

I’m on an airplane packed to the gills with Lily Pulitzer knock off wearing Boomer blondes and their salmon shirt wearing deeply tanned husbands. They all seem cheerful and excited to be headed to Mexico. Snowbirds are a colorful species. An exotic and hopefully endangered species that will eventually give way to more local and regional appreciation as the next generation of travelers pursues less Jimmy Buffet stylings.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 785 and Not Overwhelmed

Life feels pretty nonstop for me at the moment. I’ve got three deals I’m working on that are about to go out for fundraising, I’ve got my own fundraising to do, and I’ve got eyes on me from press. Normally this would be a full plate for me but I am taking a trip to celebrate my father’s 80th Birthday this week.

Normally I’d be panicking about packing. And I did have a few little moments of anxiety about getting everything done today. But I’m actually looking forward to the trip even as I have all this professional excitement.

My father loves startups. He just lives for everything about technology. He never missed a Comdex when I was a kid. He still goes to CES even now just to see what might be out there. His enthusiasm for this world is clearly where I got it.

So I think I might be looking forward to bringing all of the energy around chaotic.capital to his birthday. My father wasn’t a particularly demonstrative father but I know he’s really proud of the career I’ve pursued. So it seems fitting that for a celebration of his life and this major milestone that I get to bring some of the world he loves so much with me.

Categories
Homesteading Politics

Day 784 and Endocrine

In case you haven’t heard, everyone is bracing for apocalypse. Well, that’s just the headline to get your attention. Everyone is watching the decline in American state capacity as we struggle with distrust across all forms of institutional power.

It’s really challenging to discuss this subject as it is unpleasant to look bad things happening straight in the eye. But if you have read some history, maybe own a copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, you’ve probably got theories. But I understand that it’s hard to look at worst case scenarios. Your life may still look normal. But know that for millions of people the consensus is that shit sucks.

I’m not placing any moral or ethical judgements on the wide variety of kooks & characters that have traditionally espoused the various flavors of doom. I don’t particularly care for my compatriots in doom included in the Vanity Fair piece. They don’t like me either. I will self identify as degenerate libertarian who is skeptical of governmental and corporate power.

I’ve been called a Bolshevik by the Christian right and a crypto fascist by the DSA so I’ll assume your average rational mind will recognize that perhaps that the common cause of an America in decline is a bigger fight than tribal affiliations. If you cannot retain a calm mind in your analysis I hope I can convince you that this is a problem.

She thought something had gone wrong with us physically too. “Endocrine systems get fried. There’s too much cortisol, you’ve been running on adrenaline, eventually you tap out. Everyone feels nuts right now,” she said, “because what on earth are we supposed to do with the fact that we’ve had this incredible rate of change for so long. We think we’re keeping up with it, but our bodies are like, ‘Oh, actually no. We have no idea what’s going on.’ ”

Dissident Fringe

We are all overreacting to everything because we’ve come out of the stress of three years of a pandemic that has overlapped with such an incredible array of natural, industrial and political disasters anyone would be edgy. Oh and remember how we had 4 years of Trump? We are acting nuts because stress made us more reactive.

Some argue the great weirding goes back much further but the point is that we are all victims of a long now of persistent anxiety, exhaustion and adrenaline. I don’t know if we can even hear each other trying to grapple with problems in good faith because we are just so tired from being driven nuts by all this.

Imagine a future where this kind of endocrine draining stress simply never relents. And that’s the future I’m earning you about. Everything gets a little harder and less reliable. You trust everyone a little less. It’s harder to eat healthy and maintain healthy habits. It’s harder to trust mainstay civic services like schools, police, and the postal service. The roads are worse and infrastructure is crumbling and do I really need to tell you? Use your imagination

Decline is hard on the body and you need to be planning on how to manage disruptions if only so you can keep at the business of raising your family, going to work and trying to have a life.

If your ambitions outstrips these goals and you’d like to make money on the realignment of the world you will need to do more, build more, investment more. So I’d probably do some basic resilience work so you can maintain focus. If you want to make money trying to solve for the many customers all looking for solutions to all the shit that is going wrong you might want to stabilize your life with basic preparedness.

I don’t know what systems will evolve. But if we don’t start investing in them now we are in serious trouble. I’ve been investing in solutions that are venture scale for sometime. If you want to join me on this journey, DM me on Twitter or join as an LP