Tag: Time

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Community

Day 1532 and Friendly Service

Much of our winter has revolved around various maladies that require the help of professional from doctors to industrial hygienists.

Alex and I (let’s be honest mostly Alex) have been scheduling a lot of consultations and procedures. While I’ll certainly caveat that selling a service does generally mean being friendly to the customer. But it really feels like like we’ve got friendlier people in Montana.

Even our government is friendly. We’ve has cause to call the county and it’s just so pleasant to engage with a kind, present and helpful fellow human.

We’ve really run the gamut. Our trash needed replacing after a hard winter and the company who does our pickup sent us a new one the next day. A recycling service for mattresses excitedly told us about community programs. The eye clinic got us in the day we called. And on the follow up let us add in an eye exam since we were already there.

We are all accustomed to the frustrations that come from indifferent corporations with private equity minders. Healthcare is by far the worst offender here.

So it’s nice to be reminded in a vulnerable world that American towns are filled with everyday people like you and me. And that genuinely makes me happier. We are all in this together and being friendly makes everything for everyone.

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Aesthetics Media

Day 1527 and Wayback Machine

I just finished watching the 8th season of Netflix’s mega reality TV hit Love is Blind.

It feels as if they produce a new America version every quarter but if that’s not enough content for you there are spinoffs in Sweden, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and Argentina.

They shoot them roughly a year ahead of time. Which, in any other era in my lifetime, would have been fast turn around time. You could figure basic values would hold from year to year. But culture changes very rapidly now.

So reality tv that was shot even a year ago now makes for some very odd viewing as America’s politics and “current thing” are in constant flux.

February and March of 2024 did not have the vibe shift we are in now. I won’t spoiler it should you be considering the show but I will say it’s fascinating to see how much politics played into the women’s decisions.

Now maybe it’s because it’s the Minnesota season they felt they had to address certain topics in race relations after the summer of 2020.

But they also went to places on queer issues, religion and national politics that did absolutely nothing to make any situation better.

Looking back on one’s previous view of the world is not always pleasant. That we have a way back thanks to media makes for a strange continuity of views that probably do little to do with stuff of a happy love filled life. Perhaps a good reminder to not look too much to the past to decide your future. Or a reminder to focus on what never changes.

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Culture Politics

Day 1523 and Do Not Disturb

It is in the nature of dysfunction to misuse resources. Something goes wrong and a system that once grew or self sustained finds itself in decline.

What to do? One can apply palliative care certainly. But you can go to the root of a problem and hope systems can be righted by bitter medicine.

I’ve had some degree of measured doom about topics like debt and monetary policy my whole life. I grew up with concerns of peak oil which turned to climate change. There is always a new crisis anytime we find ways to be resource constrained.

But we are resource constrained. That’s just a variable to be accounted for in the engineering of a solution. I care about energy. I mean it in the abstract as in fuel. But I also mean the energy I control.

I don’t have to expend expensive attention for all problems. Maybe becoming “do not disturb” is a scarcity mindset. But sometimes the poison is in the dose. And I want to keep pushing for better.

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Aesthetics Biohacking

Day 1488 and Tune Ups

The back half of 2024 was such a whirlwind I keep discovering new eras where I am behind on keeping the engines of my life tuned.

While I’m adding in new excitement to my healthcare like hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy (in the market to acquire one for my own use if you have recommendations) I’ve still got to make the various rounds for everything from my general practitioner to my osteopath to my dermatologist.

If the world is going to insist on going at this pace and I’m unwilling to slow down (because why would I?) then it’s full speed ahead on regular time ups and maintenance.

I hadn’t been to my osteopath since August. I hadn’t been in for Botox since October. And apparently I’ve not had a haircut since July.

Yes some of these are a bit more cosmetic than health driven but I’m somewhere closer to an old Mercedes than the family Subaru when it comes to appreciating form and function.

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Aesthetics Politics Travel

Day 1480 and Here We Go

I’m recovering today from transcontinental travel. My body is reconciling itself with my soul after moving through the liminal spaces of German airports through the threshold of Chicago’s regional transit on to my home in Montana.

Travel always feels otherworldly to me and it’s not just the amazement of being above the clouds. The dreamscape surreality of time changing is disorienting to me. Time shifts ambiguously on long journeys which lends an added dimension of unease that comes with the change of place.

It doesn’t help that I’m already feeling the end of the political interregnum in America especially strongly. We may have vibe shifted but it’s unclear what comes next.

It seems appropriate to be uneasy. Everything as a Joker-esque “and here we go” craziness aesthetic to it. Memecoins and the Village People and algorithmic inflections makes the topology of the now impossible to map.

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Aesthetics Travel

Day 1479 and Liminal Industrial Enjoyment

I spent most of last evening wandering the empty halls of the Frankfurt International Airport. If you’ve never had the chance to do your ten thousand steps in the privacy of the off hours of a travel hub I recommend it highly.

I am entranced by empty industrial spaces, particularly when it comes to transportation and logistics. Whole worlds of people and goods being ferried to destinations near and far from the mundane to the exotic.

Walking empty corridors at London’s Heathrow can feel like you’ve stepped into your own private world. They have an enormous amount of hallways that never seem to have a soul in them. And apparently so does Frankfurt after a certain hour.

An empty corridor in an airport at 6pm

I had arranged for a morning flight out of Frankfurt after flying in the night before from elsewhere. There was little to do as most of the airport beyond convenience stores was closed so I made my way from A to Z.

American chairs never recline but Germany lets its tourists nap comfortably in the liminal spaces

Frankfurt has a “pod” hotel in their Z terminal. I walked the empty halls from A with a brief ride on an equally empty train. I went through security (the only time I saw anyone) as I plodded through with suitcase and backpack. Liminal spaces just for me.

Finding my way through roundabouts

My destination had a flavor somewhere between Japanese pod hotel and a Norwegian prison. It is called MyCloud. That it runs upwards of $250 a night and is only for international transit should tell you a lot about how expenses in Europe and the quality of the Nordic justice system.

Industrial comfort for felons and first class passengers alike at MyCloud

It’s meant as an airport hotel only for those booked onto international flights and is located in the transit area of the airport in Terminal 1, Gate Z25. And yes it is behind the security checkpoint.

I was absolutely enthralled by it and recommend it if you feel comforted by small spaces. I deliberately chose a room without any windows on the interior for the quiet. It was a cool 16 C. The toilet and shower contraption unfolded elegantly when in use.

Opaqueness is good in pod grooming

I wore earplugs and an eye mask to sleep and felt like I was ensconced in a tiny module on my way to a mining mission for the Waylund Yutani corporation.

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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.

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Travel

Day 1445 and Sprint

It’s rare that I need to make an all out physical effort. My competitive fitness days are long beyond me thanks to my ankylosis. Most of my exercise is focused on mobility, strength and low impact cardiovascular work.

Thanks to a confluence of chaotic travel issues I had to sprint a full 2 kilometers across an airport with a backpack and roller bag. Which is a little bit more of a full body high high impact workout than I would prefer to do with a red Whoop recovery.

I had 20 minutes to make a flight connection. The next available flight was 8 hours later so there was no way I was missing this connection. It wasn’t clear I had a shot with so little time to spare but I intended to try.

I haven’t sprinted so fast or so hard in ages. I had a 40lb backpack on my back, a winter coat and scarf along with my trusty Muji roller bag so picking up speed was hard but not impossible.

Imagine a 5’3” woman sprinting up airport stairs with roller bag on one arm and a backpack on her back yelling “pardon” and “excuse me” as I huffed my way through the terminals. Hilarious objectively I’d say.

I made it though. I got the flight. I was the last person on the airplane but I did it. Sweaty and disheveled, my paper ticket crumbling in my hand the gate agent congratulated me. “You made it with a minute to spare!”

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Aesthetics Media

Day 1436 and The Voyage Home

Like many fans of Star Trek, I am not at all ashamed of my affection for one of science fictions greatest franchises. I’m proud to love it.

When I visit San Francisco I like to rewatch the classic original series movie from 1986 “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” which is affectionately known as the whale movie.

Future San Francisco is a beautiful paradise where exceptional young people go to Star Fleet Academy. It’s fully automated luxury communism thanks to the not really military (but definitely feels like it) the United Federation of Planets.

The movie involves getting Spock back from previous escapades that had left him for dead. As they retrieve Spock a crisis is unfolding on earth.

A spacecraft is signaling to Earth alas no one can answer it. It disables everything near it. The Enterprise figure out that it’s whalesong and decide the only way to answer is going back in time to find Humpback whales.

The Reagan era was a strange one for environmentalist. The crew goes back in time to rescue Humpback whales and ends up in San Francisco in the 70s at least vibe wise. It was definitely a pop culture “save the whales” moment.

San Francisco was a mess in the past and everyone finds this to be relatable as a plot point though we all know it can be made a paradise.

We see nuclear vessels in Alameda as the brave future. We have to save our whales to save our future though. This was not a universe where environmentalists make the best villains. Environmentalists are the good guys which is almost sweet.

The Voyage Home is a ridiculous movie with a premise stuck in a bubble of social attitudes that is almost comforting.

Leaving San Francisco myself to voyage home myself makes me laugh at one of comedic bits of the movie. “I don’t know how these people made it out of the 20th century!”

To the skeptics I say a double dumb ass on you! Humans and their colorful metaphors might just might get us to the future after all. And San Francisco will be part of making it.

Categories
Community Emotional Work

Day 1428 and Thanksgiving

It’s nice to have a record of multiple years of thanks to look back upon. In 2023 I was thankful for the serenity of acceptance. In 2022 I was grateful for regaining optimism. In 2021 I was grateful for the small measure of health I’d gained.

In 2024 I’m still optimistic (albeit cautiously) as I have the similar amounts of health and acceptance keeping me above the waterline of our chaotic reality.

I am thankful the incredible amount of progress I’ve made in my work this year. We’ve done so well with our first fund at chaotic I have little fear that we will continue building it even as the markets remain a challenge.

I’m thankful for our founders who made it possible for me to make a go of investing in weirdos.

I’m thankful for my marriage. Alex and I have made it to our second decade together. I highly recommend marriage if you get the chance.

I’m grateful for so much this year that listing it out seems a bit overwhelming at 8pm at the end of the day.

But if you have the chance to be grateful in writing it’s worth doing. Looking backwards on your gratitude enables you to look forward with optimism.