blog redesign
A blog redesign. Why?
I want to write more often - a daily/biweekly blog. Shorter pieces digesting what I’ve consumed, what I’m thinking about or what is going on in life. A public daily journal.
I feel creatively unfulfilled. This is because I’m consuming more than I’m producing.
Worse is when I’m sucked into the digital River of Lethe, gulping down frivolous ‘content’ that enters one ear, and exits out the other, leaving me none the wiser. I fear that this is the reality of many given the incentive structure of the big tech firms that have so successfully captured the attention of the masses.
You have to actively push back against that by creating good digital habits, like one would create good work habits, or exercise habits or communication habits. Let me outline what that looks like for me today.
- Reading mostly blogs and long form content online, rather than ‘X’ or ‘Reddit’ etc
- Reading books - my jailbroken kindle is where I spend a good amount of time. Currently re-reading LOTR.
- Using ‘Freedom’ to block email, Reddit, etc on my laptop and work phone at least in the morning
And hopefully now, I want to add writing on this blog to those habits.
Winter/spring updates
I have once again failed to write. But I am resolving to change that today. Sat in a coffee shop on a sunny London day, and the creative impulse is too overwhelming, so I’m going to brain dump all I’ve been thinking about and doing.
Currently Reading :
One Hand Clapping : Unravelling the Mystery of the Human mind
Excellent book exploring human evolution, from the first chemical replicators to formation of cells, DNA, life. Mind-bending and awe inspiring, as any good science books tend to do. Pair it with this veritasium video.
I see Michael Pollan also has a new book out on consciousness which I’m excited to jump into next.
Currently listening :
The Rest is Science. I’ve managed to binge listen to all of their episodes and now I’m hungry for more science podcasts.
Reading online
The pile of unread books we have on our bedside tables is often referred to as a graveyard of good intentions. The list of unread books on our Kindles is more of a black hole of fleeting intentions. Craig Mod
I was reading this article by Craig Mod (written in 2015!) in which he dissects through the differences between digital reading and physical books.
I typically read fiction on my kindle, and non-fiction in a hardback format where I can annotate, flick through and return to sections I want to understand deeper. I then read any medical articles/textbooks online via PDF.
Distractions
I’ve downloaded an app called ‘Freedom’ - actually recommended by Craig Mod. It seems to be working. My main guilty pleasure is … checking email. I can’t help but click on my email app everytime I open up my iPhone. I had long ago removed any social apps from it, but in their place, email and whatsapp took over. The other vice is compulsively checking Reddit, so I’ve blocked both.
In their place, I hope to write more! Especially about what I’m reading on the internet. Otherwise, seemingly, I just keep on consuming without ever actually digesting what I read.
Pair this with : The last days of social media
Thoughts on work
- Choose a job where you have the option to abandon. If it doesn’t line up with your values, ambitions and curiosity - you can walk away. This may not be an option for everyone, but it should be an aspiration.
Staying alive as you grow older
I recently listened to the latest Tim Ferris podcast with ‘Jim Collins, a 70 year old something consultant. I don’t know much about him, but I found the topic of the conversation fascinating : ‘why do some people preserve the sense of vitality as they grow older, whereas others do not?’
“why would some entities or some people have a life of continuous self-renewal rather than a life of this followed by just a long degradation”
If you divide people as they get older into two camps (I’m sorry) : those who continue to learn, grow, maintain open mindsets, have energy, joy - despite the years and the tragedies of life - and not numb out. Versus : those who fall into some addiction, numb out, space out, shrink and just simply exist.
They use the term ‘self-renewal’, which I like. As if you are crafting a new ‘self’/persona/identity at each epoch of your life.
One aspect has to do with energy. Those who continue to show up maintain a high energy level - that seems to be a commonality. Therefore, most people who get to maintain this self renewal, have a physical practice. Weight training, marathon running, yoga, pilates, you name it. And they tend to be slightly obsessive over their diet.
Another has to do with an ability to let go of identities and to craft new ones. Collins talks about his wife, an ultramarathoner who had to give up running after a hamstring injury. It was “dying, a certain kind of dying”. He calls these events cliff events - times where there is a radical shift in your existence in the world. There is a before and an after.
One has to do with crafting a sense of purpose. We all go through this phase of ‘what is life about’, but that question is not one of be answered. Like a good koan, it’s one you are meant to sit with and not fully answer, but the very act of positing the questions, alters everything. Your purpose will look different from when you are 20, 30, 40, 50 – so an aspect of it is keeping the question alive.
‘Expending energy…in things that I derive tremendous intrinsic pleasure from doing’. Mental health has to be part of it. Having cognitive ‘defence systems’ that self renew.
John Vervaeke talks about having an ecology of practices ; embodied practices (yoga, running, tai chi, swimming etc), contemplative practices (prayer, meditation) and cognitive practices (techniques that allow cognitive reframing).
I suspect those who are capable of self renewal, have an ecology of such practices, but they may not be named. Clearly, they are not sitting in front of the TV/tik tok/instagram just consuming all day. They are going out into the world, maintaining social networks, creating something, sublimating themselves in a vocation/craft/art, maintaining a fit body and mind.
What looks like discipline from the outside, is actually just intrinsic enjoyment. Clearly the people who train for decades, or meditate, or practice a craft etc – they enjoy (dare I say love) the process. Collins says “It’s almost a form of compulsion, which isn’t discipline. And if it’s sheer love of the actual doing itself, well, how’s that discipline? I just love doing it, so that’s one”
It’s not actually about ‘reinventing yourself’, but circling back to things and extending outwards. Gives the example of ‘Robert Plant’ from Led Zeppelin - extending out into bluegrass, playign with trance musician etc.
Describes the ‘fire of youth’ as burning red hot. You think that if you’ll lose that you’ll lose your drive, and you need to carry that intensity forwards. But Collins says that it’s more like a ‘sustaining warm glow’ now - he doesn’t have the insecurities, self importance etc that creates that painful red hot burning. The warm ember is much more enjoyable and sustaining.
Consumed with a ‘problem’ and in love with it. I’m reminded of Karl Popper
“I think that there is only one way to science — or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do you part - unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem, or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting though perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.”
Self knowledge - working on things and problems that are interesting to you. Not what someone else is telling you is interesting.
Collins calls these ’encodings’ : “durable capacities that reside within, and they’re awaiting discovery through the experiences of life’. You discover your ‘fit’ by doing things in the world.
Tim asks if there are certain ways of finding out your strengths or proclivities - shortcut the time spent and just jump to what your encodings suggest you would love. Collins says a lot of the time it is about trusting your experience. You’re getting clues all the time.
How to maintain social networks?
- David Whyte talks about if you’re still making friends, that means you are still alive for the next seasons of your life - it’s a good marker
- Schedule things on the calendar
- Join groups]
Quotes and Ideas
Hofstadter’s law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s law.
Reading
Maintenance of Everything
I’ve punctured my bike tyre at least 5 times in the past year. It’s excessive. I have a faint suspicion that I’m generationally cursed ; one of my ancestors slighted a local witch, and now I have to suffer the fate of constant flat tyres.
Embarrassingly, it took until the 3rd flat, that I decided ‘I should probably learn how to fix this myself’. Just a few days ago, I suffered another flat tyre, this time to the back wheel, which involves taking the wheel off the chain, something I hadn’t done before.
I decided to get that repaired in the shop - it took the guy around 15 minutes to pop in a new inner tube, and I was on my way.
But the universe has been trying to teach me a lesson. After a day of riding , I suffered another flat tyre to the back wheel.
The natural order of things is flat tyres. Decay.
This is what ‘Maintenance of Everything’ by Stewart Brand is about; encapsulated in the very first quote in the book : “You should consider that the essential art of civilisation is maintenance”.
Here are a few points I took away.
The natural order of things is decay, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Atoms, DNA, cells, bodies, vehicles, homes, societies, software, companies, countries, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies, universes. A constant is that we live in a river of impermanence, and that impermanence unfortunately involves flat tyres. Entropy is always increasing
But maintenance is what keeps life going. Atoms form stable isotopes. DNA repairs itself, cells evolved to survive in their environment, bodies have a whole host of mechanisms that are preventing you from dying. Life is what locally reverses entropy. We actively put in effort to bring order to systems - to keep the damn thing going!
Maintenance is tiresome and often too easy to neglect - “brush the damn teeth, change the damn oil”. It’s repetitive, ungratifying a lot of the time and neverending. You never get to the bottom. And importantly, “the necessity of maintenance accumulates invisibly and gradually”. If you neglect the invisible work, one day everything just breaks. So in maintenance, one is doing shadow work.
Systems don’t degrade linearly. There is a cliff. Things seems fine, you can put off the work, but one day, the bridge eventually collapses.
At the heart of it is a great paradox : “maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional… defer now, regret later, neglect kills”.
Maintenance is invisible. We celebrate ‘builders’, but the vital work of maintenance is often forgotten about. The person who keeps the sewage system up and running is not given any awards.
Maintenance involves accumulated embodied knowledge - doing the thing! You learn only by tackling the problem head on.
Maintenance is a form of sustained attention - which is care. I think about this in relationships, which are also dynamic evolving systems - gardens of shared experience. They like any physical system, need watering, love and attention.
Similarly, maintenance reveals what you actually value. What someone takes the time to maintain, it tells you more about their priorities than any words. Take the example of the person who says they care about their partner, but put little time or attention into the relationship.
Rituals are a maintenance process for meaning creation. Religious rituals, family traditions, national holidays - they are crucial in maintaining shared identities, values and culture. This is why you need to celebrate your birthdays. When communities stop gathering and performing rituals, that is a society in the midst of a meaning crisis.
No-one is above it. Entropy doesn’t care how important you think you are, your still subject to the laws of decay. You’ve got to brush your teeth. It’s why ‘sweeping the floor’ is seen as a spiritual - you need to do it everyday! The dust doesn’t care if you’re the CEO.
A few of my favourite lines of the book now :
Soften the paradox, and the misbehaviour it encourages, by expanding the term maintenance beyond referring to only preventative maintenance to stave off the trauma of repair – brushing the damn teeth etc. Let maintenance mean the whole grand process of keeping a thing going….
When you take responsibility for something, you enter into a contract to take care of it. If it’s a child, to keep it fed. If it’s a knife, to keep it sharp.
What this book reminds me is that there is nothing optional about maintenance. Maintenance is the process of keeping the thing going.
It’s fundamentally about care - by doing the invisible work, you show that you care about the system - be it your body, your society or your bike.
If we neglect habits, rituals, institutions that foster care, don’t be surprised if one day everything just breaks.