Notes - August 25
Craig Mod used the expression « feeling waterboarded by reality » as he talks about not getting enough sleep and loneliness. I instantly fell in love with this expression which I have let reverberate in my mind as I struggle lately.
« Everything is exactly how it needs to be » is a thought experiment I’ve been toying around a lot with, quite pleasantly.
My wife’s is annoyed by the dogmatic appeal of this kind of thought experiment. We’ve argued in the past about my personal take on karma — a bastardized view where everything evens out at the cosmic scale (the contentious point was the unit of measurement or good/bad). The beauty is the convenient modulation between empowerment to take charge of one’s fate, or release from any responsibility. Fun, in its way.
A man stopped me to point out a giant plume of smoke in the distance. In an enthusiastic and slightly frightened voice he said this was a volcano. I’m no expert but it seemed highly unlikely, but on the moment I nodded and google when the last local volcanic activity dated. Turns out it was a wildfire. I had to wait for the amber alert as the institutional websites not responding.
The tall, fast rising plume did look volcano like. The wind blew inland, protecting us from the smoke. Odd to be in a park surrounded with kid and neighbors frolicking while a hellish cloud is looming in the distance.
Quite a few people approached me suspiciously and ended up saying: “sorry I didn’t see the baby.” Mostly because I was trespassing on private property while my baby boy was digging in dirt, sampling flowers, and other things catching his eye.
Lots of breathing exercises this month. So many weird things tried, none very rigorously. My abdominal wall is getting some serious stretching and my diaphragm is often feel sore.
As I’m focusing oon my abdomen going up and down, my mind felt like an annoying neighbor upstairs.
Animism is a funny idea. I love how science generally agrees that belief in a higher power is a healthy mental trait, yet at the same time denies any rational basis for it.
I put the Fitbit back on hoping to establish a healthy breaks cadence as I enthusiastically started a new job. I took it off after 5 days as I was frantically trying to see how far I could push it. I got to 21,000 steps before realizing how dumb I am. My calves were throbbing in bed.
My wife told me of how orthosomnia is becoming a thing because of wearables… I appalled to be part of this group.
I get to ingest more high quality food than most people on earth. Meanwhile I keep and enjoy little of it due to stress or anxiety induced hyperactivity; what my mom refers to as « the nerves ». I hope I don’t die like this. I forecast fixing this become a growing priority until it is the last thing I’ll work on.
Of all the powers, chilling out on demand would be my request to the big guy. That oddly matches the definition of enlightenment. I doubt breathing right will get me very far, but if it can open the door, I’ll keep at it.
The left side of my neck started cracking.
Yoda, gizmo, and I, have ear fuzz in common. I trimmed it for the first time ever after a lions mane life thing growing in my ear hole. Maybe a hallmark of aging or neglect, I don’t know, nor cares. I merely enjoy the experience of this aging furry vessel.
This month, on « erogneous waste » tracklist:
- Drool storm, slob fest
- Milk drunk
- Strawberry slaughterhouse
- Adult tantrum
How you do anything is how you do everything. Be a present dad, partner. Write clearly. Train hard. Make honestly. Cultivate stillness. Listen. Assume you don't know. Do what you said you were going to do.
Jacob Medure’s principles felt lofty and pretentious at first; although I emulate similar vibes on my own site. The imperative tone threw me off. Don’t tell me what to do, Jacob. Still, they’re honorable suggestions. Ultimately I’d stick to the first one. It reads like Zen philosophy — presence restores intention, everything after is contextual reframing. However I feel about Jacob (who I don’t know), I like the invitation. I love hearing what drives people. Sometimes I forget we all need these mind games to keep going.
Netigen has a strong one:
Don’t expect grand pronouncements or universal truths, just the quiet reflections of a nobody—me
I have been offered to join 3 clubs/group activities in the span of 3 weeks. I’m not a club guy. Although I like the activities, I get much less enjoyment doing it in a group setting. I always have a hard time rejecting the offer. Everyone is very nice about it. It’s the residual feeling of refusing something universally appreciated that erodes my sanity.
J: “It’s my last five years in tech.”
N: “You think AI will replace you that fast?”
J: “Nah, I just hate it. I can’t take it much longer.”
The strange feeling of having your act together.
On a mellow Friday, no meetings, usual family schedule, no outside interactions… Until 4pm when I had a dozen in the span of an hour: very unpleasant for introverted me.
The shy kid inside is very proud of my ability to be performatively social. My soul is disgusted by such performance.
The bulk of my 2 year old calories this month came from fruits and yogurt
As I was telling my experience at Opendoor, joining as employee 70-ish and leaving post IPO, a colleague replied: « Oh wow! You must not need to work then!! »
I laughed very hard, my wife who handled our finances laughed even harder. I’m sure most of my Opendoor friends of the days would also get a good laugh too.
I spent a couple minutes observing roly-polies eating a compostable coffee cup in the middle of nowhere. Felt a sense of hope.
A local was talking to me about « snake safe spaces » and his description really reminded me of the indie web: « a small, loosely defined enclave where snake can do their weird snake things ».
I met a Norwegian local on the trail. We bonded over the fact that in order to raise outdoorsy people it take a lot of effort for the parent to take their kids out. Common sense for both of us countryside European kids. Not mainstream in California anymore as the trail was empty on this lovely Sunday morning. This is our church we both agreed.
Of you feel like it, pedal harder when you got wind in the back, but please, let yourself go downhill.
Overheard at the bike shop, some agreeably zen bike talk
What do I know about technology and autonomy (my favorite blabbing topics)? Me, armchair activist, overpaid tech worker, typing on my M3 MacBook Pro in my over engineered house, sipping on filtered water, connected to the world via a global network I barely understand. To a painful extent I’m a house cat (a common metaphor). Clueless about all the dependencies, seemingly ungrateful. Evaluating worthiness and virtue is a tough act many have attempted. Various frameworks exist. I’m most convinced by the convivial one. It’s all distracting noise and politics.
I just don’t like the feel of this life. Perhaps just like house cats who seem more or less regularly despise the ones who care for them. The only options for rebellious house cats is going astray… to end up under a car or some other miserable death.
In my recent reflection on how to reconcile awe for human invention with skepticism toward the market forces that drive it, I framed the contrast between infinite games like Zen and techno-futurism some of us engage in. A typically odd post of mine. I re-read it a few times and came out uncomfortable, I will leave it there.
The marine layer rolls in while smoke from a nearby wildfire looms. We’re caught between them, shielded by the coastal wind blowing inland. The fires are just beyond the ridge, but it would take rare conditions for them to reach the city. We’re lucky. Our little wind tunnel and its humidity keep the climate and air quality pristine year-round, if you can tolerate the gales.
I used to dread earthquakes and wildfires, insisting I’d never be foolish enough to buy a house in California’s more “interesting” places. How adorable. I’m living the American dream by way of self-delusion. A delusion
The forest is the poor man’s jacket
Swedish saying
Figma gives me REI vibes. Different industry but same demographic target. I want to see that collab series. I can also imagine similar critics of these openly very liberal highly profitable large companies.
I shop at REI regularly and use figma daily.
I had this thought as I overheard a group of local young fishing enthusiasts talking about Bass Pro Shop, BPS as they abbreviated… which to me seems like the red neck cousin of REI.
Toddlers are with zippers the same way my mother-in-law is with her smartphone: rough and clueless.
(Sandor Boros on why singlespeeding the Silk Road Mountain Race)
Why ride SRMR on a singlespeed?: Because gears are for chickens.
Why did you start singlespeeding?: Shifting is mentally exhausting.
Why do you love singlespeed?: My girlfriend says I deserve to suffer.
Excellent
Something like Christian faith is the highest delusion I jokingly wish upon myself on a regular basis.
My wife reported being less sensitive to others since becoming a mother. Of course I have the opposite experience. Being a dad, forced me out of my self centeredness, naturally.
I finally reached the stage where computer = work, and phone = life.
« in a world we’re god is dead and metaphysical propositions are pointless, we feel empty » Alan Watts
Watts’s thinking has be tickling me for years by now. I won’t invent myself a religious personality and my wife consistently beats my oriental fantasies. So I’m left to my own devices. So I’m left to my own devices: filling white space with Zen-inspired theories, slowly forming a worldview beyond pragmatic boundaries.
It is juicy and messy, and happening at all times. Bored at the park. Daydreaming on a walk but also between 2 tabs, or receding in my cranium as a baby screams my ears off.
Invariably I serve similar existential, self conscious, wannabe witty posts. That’s what you do when you’re not constrained by weather and finances (probably why California got its reputation). I catch myself describing a feeling or idea I know I’ve already tried to verbalize. Repetition is the process of reduction to absurdity.
I write as passive therapy, more like journaling than “proper” writing. Quality matters little. The hope is to reduce the need to write. My end goal is to kill this blog by (over?)feeding it.
It’s bizarre that people seem interested in staring at this pus-filled blog of mine.
Had a good chat with B. We bonded over orthosomnia and the friction that comes from colliding cognitive archetypes in a relationship. Plenty of overlap, but he introduced me to the idea of semantics as the counterpart to visual.
I mentioned it to my wife, who immediately reminded me that she majored in linguistics. This is basic stuff for her… another case of me being floored by something that’s common knowledge to anyone who actually reads.
Similar moments stuck with me: Harari’s theory about grains essentially domesticated us, not the other way around. Kahneman’s breakdown of left vs. right brain. And everything Alan Watts, I can’t believe it took me 30 years to get to (although very different from the first two).
I fit the modern stereotype of the modern man who doesn’t read. Blogs don’t count, nor anything else online. A sad but important acknowledgement, hopefully just a moment in life. It’s worth owning rather than quoting from a pretentious bookshelf on goodreads.
Agreeable observations from the past few months on work (from various authors)
- All work is care work
- I’m surrounded by someone’s best work
- Work implies rest and vice versa
- Focus doesn’t mean single tasking, it most often refer to an undistracted state
- Quality is very rare. Making good stuff is a great career axiom or business plan.
- What you do, intentionally or not tells who you are.
- Restraint requires discipline and is often a sign of maturity. Doing less is often harder.
Tangentially related: For the longest time, I’ve regarded fatigued as a hallmark of integrity. In others and myself. It’s finally loosing grip.
I agree with a disturbing right-wing principle: the press is corrupt and corrupting. It takes ungodly effort to parse and filter. But I also agree with the opposing perspective: it’s imperfect but worthy.
Sometimes I cut myself off from worldly news. The rest of the time I bop around, confidently confused.
I fill my working hours white space with small (mostly self-initiated) creative task to keep me energized. I’ve been doing this for my entire career. Initially because I couldn’t stay focused on one task. Nowadays it’s a creative survival mechanism to not succumb to distractions.
Scheduling fun time by putting it on my agenda is the best way to make sure it won’t be good fun. Although I under the necessity to “carve” time like we say these days. What a strange time to be alive.
About 3months ago I bumped my right knee on a hike. Going downhill, wacky toddler carrying, slipped. I healed the scratches expertly. But a dull pain persisted on the head of my tibia. Since I feel it only when I kneel I did not do anything about it. I
These days I’ve been fighting my youngest on the ground at every diaper change. The pain is still there, like a loving and nagging mindfulness reminder. I’m very (too?) confident there’s nothing to do about it, even if something is fissured, slightly cracked, or whatever. I had enough doctors give me nuclear option or nothing spiel. I took the nuclear option once already.
The hot days of summer are behind for my family and coworkers in Europe. It’s just getting started here in California. It’s an odd halfway compared to the southern hemisphere who is fully asynchronous. That makes me want to move to Australia, which makes my wife eyeroll badly as she reminds me of how sensitive I am to the sun. That doesn’t change that Australia looks like a beautiful place to live in.
Franck Chimero summer 2025 post moved me. Like many designers of my generation I read the Shape of design like a textbook. “The webs grain” is still one of my favorite blog post. Now that I’m also knee deep in a tech design career the relatability and prose hit differently. Good pain like calf stretch.
Grandma was playing some Chinese kids songs on YouTube while feeding my son breakfast. The videos were interrupted by 6 coinable ads. Nobody budged. Somehow this as completely normal. Needless to state how I feel about it.
Life is so filled with drama, it’s such thick and rich stuff. It’s infinitely milkable. - Ram Dass hitting me once again, hard, on the trainer sweating, escaping family life for a second, tuning into the mind’s internal drama. It’s the best part of my thirties so far.
I love the term « bozo ». I use it profusely.
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