Tag: Stress

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Aesthetics Internet Culture Media

Day 954 and Frame Jacking

It’s a war of all against all on the internet. And I don’t recall being conscripted into any kind of war but here I am up to my neck in ontological shock and crisis of meanings as I read the news.

Language is a virus. And we are all infected. I’ll let Ben Hunt of Epsilon Theory illustrate.

It’s our autonomy of mind that is threatened by this unholy troika of smartphones, social media and linguistic weaponization, and there is no more important struggle today than to defend ourselves against that threat.

Humans have nervous systems that are easily hijacked. You give us something to imitate and within a few weeks we’ve learned a new way to get a social advantage. And so we have massive social cataclysms as the rules change. And the rules are changing fast.

This TikTok about a woman accepting an engagement proposal because the vision of the future scares her? It might actually be an anti-natalist campaign by degrowthers or maybe even Chinese propaganda? Who knows.

It’s not as if America gives a shit about maternal health or women but hey here is a podcast about a porn star who specializes in anime’s less savory fetishes. Is your teenage boy an Andrew Tate fan? It’s time to enjoy a reactionary period.

Obviously this has anyone older than forty asking if the western world under attack. Is questioning liberalism actually the psy-op? Are we fighting amongst ourselves? Do you even know what memetic agents you are infected by?

I sure don’t what brain works in carrying but I don’t think animated porn is for me. But I also got taken in by lots of questionable narratives on modern medicine, fertility and children too. Untangling yourself from the desires you were given is exhausting. Good luck unpacking who jacked your frame!

Categories
Biohacking Politics

Day 952 and Do It Live

I found myself with a bit of anxiety this morning. I was afraid that I hadn’t done enough to promote some of my commitments this month.

This morning I co-hosted a session on nervous system work for founders and venture capitalists with Jonny Miller. Aside from a few Zoom hiccups, I think it well. But with my anxiety all I could think of is how I should have done more. I could have invited more more people, emailed more reminders, promoted it more on Twitter. Just more.

I don’t think my anxiety is about a Zoom seminar. It seems to be directed towards a bigger event next week. I am co-hosting a BBQ at my home for the Frontier Institute in Montana.

I am finding myself fearful that I’ve not not done enough to promote it. I’m afraid I’ll look like a fool and fail at my goal of raising awareness (and ultimately money) for our policy goals. It’s probably irrational but it’s sitting heavily on my emotions at the moment.

I care a great deal about the event being a success. And I have done quite a bit to promote it and invite the right mix of folks who will be interested.

I think even admitting to the anxiety helps me recognize that it’s irrational. I do think the BBQ will be a good time. We will have food, drinks, good company and if you’d like to come it’s on August 16th. Worth a drive into Gallatin I promise.

I wish I didn’t get anxiety about if I’m working hard enough to prepare for an event. The balance between preparing and promoting an event and having it go smoothly when it comes to performing live isn’t an easy one for me. I used to obsessively prepare for everything.

Which would then backfire on me as I’d use all my energy on the lead up and find myself exhausted and frazzled when it came time to be present in the moment for a big day.

So I’m trying to not get too much in my head about if I’ve done enough. What will be will be and I can trust myself to be present in the moment to succeed.

So if you are interested in joining the next Nervous System Mastery Bootcamp with Jonny Miller my code is JULIE and it will get you $250 off. I myself am an alumni of the course and plan to retake it again in the fall. So you’d be taking it with me.

And if you’d like to meet me in person August 16th and you happen to be in Montana I’d love to host you at my home. The topic of conversation will be the Montana Miracle and now we can continue to make the state a place for all to thrive.

Please join Alex Miller, Julie Fredrickson, and Padden Murphy as they host a meet and greet with Frontier Institute’s CEO, Kendall Cotton. We will discuss the recently passed YIMBY policies in Montana’s 2023 Legislative Session and the Frontier Institute’s future plans to ensure Montana is a place that all can thrive.

Come learn about the Frontier Institute’s impactful initiatives, enjoy some delicious food, and engage with a group of fellow Montanans dedicated to knocking down bureaucratic barriers and ensuring opportunity for all. 

Please RSVP to secure your place at this exclusive gathering. The address will be provided upon RSVP.

Categories
Biohacking

Day 951 and Well Regulated

The more chaotic your circumstances, the more necessary you will find it to regulate your nervous system.

If you are nodding your head in agreement, you might appreciate more tools to cultivate calm. If so join myself and Jonny Miller tomorrow at 10am PST/1PM EST for a free session on how to integrate nervous system work into your startup.

If it’s not immediately obvious why you should care about your nervous system, let me give a brief primer. Stress is hard on your body. Hormones like cortisol can make you sick.

But did you know that we have a choice in how we react to stress? Between stimulus and response, there is freedom.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your circumstances? Maybe you’ve had the urge to simply shut down when life seemed like too much? Perhaps you’ve felt the desire to blow your top and scream instead?

These are classic stress responses. These are all states of a nervous system under pressure. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your goal can be to move freely, flexibly and easily between different states of arousal and response as the stressors in your life come and go.

Founders of startups don’t always have a choice in how much stress is in our life. But we do have a choice in how we respond with our emotions and our physical body. We can maintain a well regulated nervous system even in a chaotic environment. If you want some simple tools that you can apply join myself at chaotic.capital and Jonny Miller tomorrow.

Categories
Medical

Day 950 and Good Teeth

I’ve always quite liked dental hygiene. Twice daily brushing and flossing after every meal has always been one of those daily habits for me. I do not compromise on it. You’ve probably seen me with a toothpick after a meal. Taking care of my teeth is just engrained into my routine.

It would seem a lifetime of good habits pays off. I’ve only had a handful of cavities (I think two) and no issues with grinding, my gums, or other periodontal problems. My teeth have been so chill that when I was broke I went to the NYU dental school for care. I learned a lot and it was cheap.

I finally found myself a dentist in Montana and went in for an intake and a cleaning today. It has been about a year since my last dental visit. I came through with a clean bill of health. They took a bunch of X-rays and fancy imagery and nothing looks problematic. Flossing really does pay off it would seem. You should do it!

I am happy my teeth are in good shape but slightly pissed. You see last year a dentist in Boulder did her best to convince me that I needed a root canal. A lifetime of good dental health and I’m being pushed for oral surgery for a tooth that didn’t even hurt.

I said I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort so I wasn’t inclined to get surgery prophylactically. She seemed a bit pissed. She did her best to insist I go see an oral surgeon. I demurred. I did not want an additional medical issue that was voluntary.

Now a year later, a dentist with much more advanced equipment could not locate the issue and told me I’ve got nothing to worry about. Maybe she got it wrong? He couldn’t quite be sure what she saw as his imagery and X-rays didn’t show any issues. I had no sensitivity or nerve issues so it’s possible she got it wrong.

We have a tendency to believe credentialed professionals like doctors, dentists and lawyers. They must know right? I’d never have considered saying no to a root canal before last year but at the time I just didn’t feel like I could handle an invasive procedure. And thank goodness I pushed it off.

And it does turn out that dentistry as a profession has issues with unnecessary treatments and fraud. This investigation in the Atlantic discusses how prevalent unnecessary treatments are in America.

Had I not turned down a root canal last year I would have subjected myself to something I didn’t need. Given my chronic health issues, you can imagine that I’m not eager to spend money and time on treatments I don’t need. Particularly ones known to be painful with the potential for side effects like infection. So be careful out there. And I hope you have a dentist like mine in Montana.

Categories
Biohacking Medical

Day 949 and Stomach Stuff

I was very excited for today. My first Monday with my new schedule after my “season of no” cleared the calendar.

I am into the day brimming with optimism. Naturally, it was only fair that I lost my entire day to some kind of stomach bug.

I am experimenting with a new GLP1 agonist and have found the side effects to be troublesome. I made an attempt to have a protein shake and it cascaded from there. So I don’t have much to say today except that my biohacking went awry so I’ve got little to say.

Instead I’ll recommend you go read my post from yesterday on assigning value. It’s some thoughts on alignment for artificial intelligence and the impossible task of being sure we all share the same idea of value.

Categories
Culture Politics Preparedness

Day 943 and Glimmers

I find myself filled with optimism today, even as I’m quite sure we are ramping quickly into the era of chaos I’ve been prattling on about for nearly a thousand days. Everything feels a bit “hold on to your hats” as we collectively experience the fear and joy of an illegible moment without any dominant narratives.

And yet today inside this chaos without clarity, the internet is filled with enthusiasm as a small niche of enthusiasts try to replicate the results of a chemistry paper that claims to have made a superconducting at room temperature material LK-99 produced with common materials like lead and red phosphorus.

Add that on top of fervor over Congressional investigations “aliens” program whistleblowers while we all collectively wonder at the potential for artificial general intelligence to be accelerated and the zeitgeist is a fever pitch of vibe shifts from doom to foom.

All of these glimmers of joyful uncertainty and hopeful chaos are emerging from a youth culture that is quite sure it has been abandoned by its own past as it is bombarded by a dystopian future by its own geriatric elite. Is it any wonder it feels like the social contract is hanging on by a thread?

Historian Peter Turchin is taking a victory lap with the accuracy of his theory of cliodynamics

When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; it’s a world of the damned and the saved.

Peter Turchin “End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

The broader popular rediscovery of historians Neil Howe and William Strauss is no coincidence. They wrote the The Forth Turning twenty five years ago.

Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly eighty to one hundred years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about twenty years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous.

The Fourth Turning Is Here

Clever Simon and Schuster realized it was an opportune moment to point out that the fourth turning had arrived with a new book from Howe.

So perhaps these glimmers are here to show us that the churn is here, the fourth turning is now, and Turchin’s race to become an elite to outrun the effects of dislocation may already have its winners.

Amidst all of that there are those of us seeking to believe that we might find a way forward. I’d rather be looking for the glimmers of hope. I’ve already done what I can to warn about the need to prepare for hard times. If you haven’t yet come to terms with the doom then I certainly won’t convince you of the need for optimism either.

Categories
Emotional Work Internet Culture Preparedness

Day 938 and Steady Till

I’ve been enjoying a bit of accelerationism in my own life. I’ve been pruning attention and refocusing myself and was rewarded with a lot of change. All of which feels good to me. I’m relieved to be happy now that I have steadier days.

It feels quite intense out there on social media. We are repeating big narratives and I encourage everyone to read up on past media fervors. I know my own nervous system can find it stressful to stay on top of every current event. I’m doing a free hour long cultivating calm session with Jonny Miller on August 10th at 11am MTN. I’d love for anyone interested in working with reactivity to join us.

I see how primed I am to reenact. found myself going through my usual storm preparedness routine. I don’t like facing a crisis without adequate resources so I’ve been known to restock inventory and clean house when the weather forecast looks bad

But I have the choice to have a steady till and my own hand will guide me on the course. If that requires nervous system work or grocery shopping. Or both. Or something entirely. Please do what you need to keep yourself steady in the storm.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 936 and Take The Beating

I got my ass kicked yesterday. I made a decision that I knew would be disliked. I knew how unpopular the decision would make and that I would have to suffer the consequences. I did not bend on my decision despite knowing how much I would suffer for it. It was right for me. But damn it always sucks to take a beating.

I have taken my college cafeteria’s name as a law of the universe. TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. I know it’s a bit unfashionable to be a Hayek libertarian these days but I do think we have to accommodate some basic physics in life. Actions have reactions.

I had to take my beating. I made people hurt. And it’s entirely possible that we have different expectations and realities. As soon as I give my firm position on my reality and energy I can expect a response.

I think it’s genuinely healthy to feel like you have the capacity to endure criticism. Sometimes you can’t make people happy. Sometimes you’ve done something wrong. Sometimes it’s just that you couldn’t find an accommodation between what you gave the situation and what it gave you.

Life has a budget. There is a balance to the energy of the world. I suppose sometimes you just have to take your licks.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 935 and Rebranding

Changing someone’s opinion is hard. Twitter is being rebranded to X so the topic is newsworthy. I was on rebranding efforts at Pepsi (the infamous one) Tropicana (that didn’t go well) and Ann Taylor (which won us a lot of awards & made money) so I have lived through the challengers of remaking a corporate identity.

That sounds so much more professional than what is actually happening . A lot of people have bought in on something that is no longer the thing they loved. A change was necessary but not everyone so ready. Something that had meaning is being remade into a new set of meanings and it will provoke a backlash.

People all adopt new ideas at different paces. And hold outs and middle of the road types can be equally challenging. Any change can be greeted fairly with skepticism. Trust is hard to gain and easily lost.

Even when circumstances on the ground demand it, people fucking hate change. It’s scary. I get it. I find a lot of the world right now to be scary. Failure rates can be high. But if we don’t change we don’t get different outcomes.

Categories
Chronicle

Day 933 and Hot Hot Heat

It would seem that we’ve officially entered the high season of summer that even northern latitudes like Montana cannot escaped entirely.

I wish I had the capacity to work out a circadian rhythm that entirely accounted for how miserable long hot days can be even if you are inside in the shade. Siestas and late evenings could work but I’ve got the hang of it. I need my eight hours.

I never get cabin fever in the winter. Even the worst storm usually abates within a couple days. I can happily layer up and enjoy being in the cold and dark. I can be outside if it’s cooler, darker and clearer. If it’s not I’m basically a caged animal.

But there is nothing to be down about the sun being out till 10pm and with temperatures crossing over the 90F/32C degree mark, all that is left is escape indoors to a cold dark place and wait out the season.

Last year on July 21 I wrote about summer season affective disorder so it’s clearly a pattern I notice around this time. I’m simply grateful it’s starter later than it did when I lived in Colorado where hot streaks are beginning even earlier.

With Montana summers, I go to sleep when the sun is still out and I wake up and it’s already sunrise. If the heat weren’t so intense I think it would be bearable but the heat domes are becoming pretty common. I remain grateful it’s only six to eight weeks unlike most of continent where summer is longer and crueler.

Another factor in all of this is how challenging fire season can be for spending time outside comfortably even if it’s not combined with a heatwave. I went out this morning before temperatures climbed to get some sun and exercise. The air quality was still decent but multiple fires are popping off in Montana and I expect this to change shortly. I suspect I’ll need to find a way to manage more time indoors as the summer rages on.