📷 #MundaneLife 📷

*The view from the balcony when the neighboring apartment complex has a small kitchen fire at dusk.*

👻 When Invisible Expectations Strike 👻

I know the things that tend to make me feel better — which is why I’m sitting down to write this, even though I don’t feel like it and it’s also why I just wrapped up my first meditation session in over a week even though my lack of consistency makes me feel like a fraud. Sometimes I overcomplicate things. I get wrapped up in my own head and the systems I’ve created to make it (theoretically) easier for me to live the way I want to live. But the activities and intentions those systems are designed to support are actually quite simple and often have a very direct way to accomplish them. Sit down and meditate. Sit down and write. Go for a walk. Read a book. Simple. Do the thing and just move on.

The last few days I’ve been feeling quite unsettled. One of those periods of time where I find myself re-litigating decisions I thought I had already settled and generally finding it difficult to latch onto one or two of the myriad things I need to do and instead just kind of flit from project to project long enough to refill my anxiety but not long enough to actually make any progress. I’m not sure why I get this way.

I noticed last week that I got away from my daily 7:00-8:00 writing session. I mostly just used that time to read or get my day started earlier. I got up on time every day except one. I wonder if that variation from my stated goal was enough to set me on this minor tailspin? I didn’t tell myself that I was intending to NOT write during that time frame each day so I think each day I didn’t do it was a slight breaking of an invisible promise to myself. This is precisely why I’ve developed, and continue to tinker, with my personal development experimentation method. Getting clear about what the week’s experiment is means I’m making a decision about everything I’m not going to try to hold myself accountable to doing, too.

That’s what lets my brain let go of all those vague intentions and instead just focus on the one thing I’m trying. Not getting clearer with myself about what I’m doing means I’m not getting clear about the expectations I’m holding myself to — which means when I break one of these unclear expectations I feel bad without realizing why.

❗️What Has My Attention❗️

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to create more space and silence in my life — so Cal Newport’s latest article came at an interesting time for me. I’m pretty sure I hide behind a nearly compulsive amount of reading and learning as an excuse for why I don’t create more. I wonder what I’d be able to do if I spent a little bit more time with fewer external ideas and voices in my head?
From, “Toward a Bayesian Theory of Willpower”: “At the deepest level, the brain isn't really an auction or an economy. But it is an inference engine, a machine for weighing evidence and coming to conclusions. Your perceptual systems are like this - they weigh different kinds of evidence to determine what you're seeing or hearing. Your cognitive systems are like this, they weigh different kinds of evidence to discover what beliefs are true or false. Dopamine affects all these systems in predictable ways. My theory of willpower asserts that it affects decision-making in the same way - it's representing the amount of evidence for a hypothesis.”
First, I'm not at all surprised to find out the Seinfeld Technique is mostly bullshit. Second, love the alternative of aiming for “dailyish” from Dan Harris, via Oliver Burkeman. As I continue to learn how to extend myself the same grace and understanding I readily and happily extend others, this was a welcome read.
The Standard Critique of Technology has failed. “The proper response to this situation is not to shun technology itself, for human beings are intrinsically and necessarily users of tools. Rather, it is to find and use technologies that, instead of manipulating us, serve sound human ends and the focal practices (Borgmann) that embody those ends. A table becomes a center for family life; a musical instrument skillfully played enlivens those around it. Those healthier technologies might be referred to as holistic (Franklin) or convivial (Illich), because they fit within the human lifeworld and enhance our relations with one another. Our task, then, is to discern these tendencies or affordances of our technologies and, on both social and personal levels, choose the holistic, convivial ones.”
Max had a rough week and experienced his first flash flood. I had a less rough week and talked a bit about how The Ready does the wild and crazy stuff that we do. You can listen to both of these things on the latest episode of Fields of Work.

⭕️ Closing Round ⭕️

Reading: I finished the last book of the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons. Wow. I absolutely loved it. The creativity and the characters and the writing — just everything.
Watching: Emily and I stumbled across the absurd sketch comedy group Aunty Donna and absolutely devoured season 1 of their Netflix special. It’s a particular brand of humor but if it aligns with your preferences — hoo boy you’re in for a good time. Isn’t that relatable?
Playing: I started playing Starcraft 2 multiplayer again after 7 or 8 years away from it. I’m loving diving back into the community a little bit via Twitch and exercising the part of my brain that memorizes build orders, strategy, and the tactical mechanics of this incredibly complex game.

Until next time,
Sam