There are some things that will always make me cry:
There’s probably a few others.
This is a screenshot of my current browser tabs. There are four more browsers windows where the tabs look exactly like this. Whenever I’m working on something, or really doing anything on my computer, I have a tendency to create a new tab any time a thought comes up about whatever. I do this so that I either don’t forget to come back to that idea later on, or so that I can address it immediately and come back to what I was working on before at a later time. Then sometimes, another thought will come up, prompting the opening of another new tab, and another and another and another. And we end up with what you see above (which is honestly pretty tame compared to the other windows).
Because of this, more often then not, nothing actually gets done. I spend a lot of time thinking and prioritizing the all things that I wanna work on, which rapidly drains me of mental energy and motivation. If nothing gets done, the tabs stay up, tomorrow comes, and tabs get added, ad infinitum.
Sometimes I feel like the best course of action is just to close everything at the end of the day and start fresh, introducing a sort of natural selection of ideas and tasks. Tabs that are actually important or pressing will be recreated, while the more flighty, ephemeral ones will be postponed until the thought arises again. I have trouble with this though, because I don’t want to lose those ideas, which creates resistance against closing the windows (some of which I haven’t looked at in days). I need to learn to let go and simplify my process.
Ever since I was little and watched Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off it’s been a life goal to master the one-handed egg crack (surprisingly and disappointingly I can’t find a video of the specific scene with his dad anywhere). Since I’ve been living on my own I would keep telling myself, Ok remember to look up how to do the one-handed egg crack. And I would keep forgetting and would remember immediately after cracking my eggs for my breakfast omelet OR after I already finished eating. I finally remembered to look for tutorials and the videos that are offered on YouTube are a bit underwhelming and inconsistent, but I got the gist.
So I finally remember to give it a go aaaaand it was a disaster. Hand covered in egg whites and yolk. Tiny egg shell fragment scattered throughout the bowl. I basically just crushed the egg in my hand. The more I practiced though the more of the nuance I picked up that you couldn’t fully appreciate in any of the videos. The cracking of the egg is everything. At one point I decided to think less and just do what it looks like the pros do; quick crack, open the egg. And it worked! My success rate still isn’t 100%, but I realized that before I was being far too timid in my egg crack, and a nice swift, crisp crack is need to get an appropriately deep crack that traverses the eggs midsection (though sometimes I get overzealous end completely obliterate the egg against the counter or pan). The rest is just dexterity.
This experience aligns well with a lot of other things I’ve done or tried to do in my life. I have a tendency to overthink things which in some cases, unbeknownst to me, may be the reason for my failure or lack of progress. Having a clear direction and little courage is sometimes all it takes to move forward.
I tried counseling for the first time this past week. My motivation for doing so wasn’t very clear to me; partially out of curiosity, partially out of “might as well,” partially out of “I actually have things I want to talk about, but don’t feel comfortable having a conversation about some of those certain things with people who are in anyway close to me.” During my appointment, while I did feel like it was a judgement-free zone, I found myself still not being completely honest or like I wasn’t representing myself properly; like I was more ok than I actually am. Not to say I’m in any sort of crisis, it’s just that when I was hearing some of the things I was saying as they were coming out of my mouth there were moments where I thought to myself, Why are you even here? But I think that’s the mental health stigma talking.
Based on some of the things I said, the psychologist asked me about ADHD and whether or not I felt like I had it, and seemed to indicate that it could be a factor contributing to my current situation. I’ve always thought it was possible, but I also don’t know how I feel about labelling it with a diagnosis. It’s not that I don’t want to be labelled by a “disease” or “condition,” its that if I do have ADHD, I don’t see it as something to be fixed or cured, at least for me. This is just how I am and how I’ve always been, and as much as it has affected me negatively I think it has also helped me. Though perhaps I’m misguided thinking that that is going to be her approach. Her being expert, I’m sure I’m not her first patient who is like this and who has benefitted from counseling.
I’ve come to realize that if I really want to change some of my habits, I need to design for laziness. I fall into a lot of my worst tendencies (doom scrolling social media, rabbit-holing YouTube, binging video games, etc.) when access to them is readily available. So step 2 is destroying the factory; moving/ deleting apps, organizing spaces, recreating my environment.
As much as I love technology and the ability to speed-up recorded lectures to save time, part of me fears that it is contributing to an increasing inability to focus and a decrease in patience, both of which are not good for working with patients. I’d like to think my brain is able to obviously distinguish the two, but there a lot of things and changes that go in our brains subconsciously that we are not aware of or have no direct control over.
Isn’t it kinda strange that we mute ourselves over Zoom during group conversations? I’m not talking about lectures or presentations, I’m talking open-form, group conversation. Do people not trust themselves not to interrupt that much? But we typically have no problem with that in in-person settings. I feel like in Zoom culture the self-mute has become more of a way to indicate that you have nothing to say or that you have no intention of saying anything or to justify awkward silence, even though we tell ourselves that we do it out of “respect” for whoever is speaking at the time.
Sure I understand muting if you got a bunch of background noise or if you don’t want to broadcast your chewing or gulping or typing sounds, but personally if I am speaking its kinda nice to get “verbal” feedback (/affirmative sounds) from the people I’m talking to or at least see that the potential is there.
This is a common quip used to counter people trying to make a point of a seemingly insignificant moment or interaction. It’s a valid argument in some cases and trying to make gravity out of levity can definitely be off-putting or ruin “the vibes.” That said I think it’s also important to pay attention to when and how it’s being used. It ain’t that deep. It’s just a joke. Why so serious? All these phrases are defensive and are often used (often not intentionally) to invalidate the feelings of individuals with valid concerns and to deny the impact that their (or someone else’s) words had another person, regardless of the intent. In many cases phrases like these can be used to dismiss microaggressions which perpetuate cultures and attitudes that further suppress already marginalized populations.
At the same time I think its important to recognize the reverse perspective. People need to give each other the benefit of the doubt in conversation. If I hear something that I think is inappropriate or that is “triggering” especially from someone I know well, I would like to think that their intentions were not bad, and rather than lecture or attack them, I can ask for clarification or expresses my concerns in a non-judgmental way.
Though from there it is also on the “offender” to not feel offended themselves by a perceived attack on their character. And this can go back and forth forever. Human’s are fragile creatures, but I think the more we seek to understand each other as opposed to seeking to impose our worldview on each other, the closer we can get to making genuine progress on issues that really matter.
I just finished The Undying by Anne Boyer in which the author recounts her painful experience with breast cancer and its treatment and the culture associated with it in striking poetic prose. In it Boyer quotes Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letter #9,” 1. kill head of Dow Chemical / 2. destroy plant / 3. MAKE IT UNPROFITABLE FOR THEM to build again.” This was written in its own context, and Boyer applies it to her own, and reading it in Boyer’s context I can apply that version to my own context (such is art right?).
If we want to make lasting change in the world around us, old infrastructures, and the people and cultures that create and sustain them need to be destroyed. If I want to make lasting change within myself, it can be a bit trickier, but I can apply a similar framework:
“1. kill head Dow Chemical”
Dissociate myself with the person I am in the present.
“2. destroy plant”
Free myself from the environment that sustains the behaviors I want to change.
“3. MAKE IT UNPROFITABLE FOR THEM to build again”
Make it inconvenient or burdensome to return to the old ways, and find joy in the desired behaviors.
Of course all of this is easier said than done, and like many great revolutions throughout history a catalyst is likely needed.
There are so many sci-fi and superhero TV shows and movies that depict creatures from other planets. These beings developed lightyears away from Earth in their own unique environments and their own set of selective pressures, and yet they always seems to be humanoid in form, laterally symmetrical bipeds (at least the most advanced and “highly evolved” ones). Not only are they similar physically, but culturally and socially as well, or at least the dominant culture and social norms of the species are extremist or ideal versions of common ones on Earth. In many cases these beings come from highly advanced societies compared to Earth in terms of technology and chronological age suggesting that they are truly the epitome of evolution where they are from, Kryptonians, Viltrumites, Titans, to name a few.
Sure there’s an argument that humans are the dominant species on Earth, and therefore there must be some objective truth to the supremacy of our form, but honestly I think humans just got lucky. The right extinction events, the right mutations, the right pressures, the right environmental conditions, at the right time. As wonderfully organized as our bodies can seem on dissection I don’t think they are particularly advanced compared to other animals, its our brains that are highly developed, much more so than our bodies. I am convinced that if cephalopods, with their independently-moving tentacles and adaptive bodies, were the creatures to develop our current level of “intelligence,” instead of humans, that species would be interplanetary already.
All that said I also realize that its harder to make stories for humans with characters that we can’t relate to in some way or human form is needed in some way to drive the plot forward, so it makes sense to stay away from weird looking alien main characters when you are making a story about humans or a commentary on humans. I do think the movie Arrival does a really good job imagining beings whose understanding of the universe and the way they interact with it is beyond our immediate comprehension.
nANIMOv 