“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”—Leslie Lamport
Declan Molony
Karma: 1,394
If you would be willing to experiment, I’d like to know if your experience of dreaming is affected by screen usage before bed.
You could just copy what I’ve done, which is eliminating screen time 1-2 hours before bed, then report back here any qualitative/quantitative changes in dreaming. I’m curious what you’ll find! (even if there’s no change)
I reached the opposite conclusion, that “normal” people are misfortunate
When looking for the positives of aphantasia, I recognize that it’s probably a lot easier for me to meditate since I can’t be distracted by mental imagery.
Hm, it sounds like as if you were grieving a loss… How did you come to the conclusion that there is anything of substance that is desirable to have that you cannot have?
Nope, no grieving of losses. Ultimately, I can’t change my neurological structure so I’ve come to accept it. Yet it’s also nice to see images now if only in my dreams.
Many years ago, I wrote down a list of successive feats I could accomplish to overcome social anxiety:
Say hi to the barista at a coffee shop when I order.
Ask a customer for the time.
Ask someone what they’re working on or reading, then start a small conversation from there.
^I did this over a week and slowly desensitized to meeting and talking to new people. Baby steps got me there.
Also, as someone with aphantasia, your post heavily discussing visualization was mildly frustrating for me lol. Like, I want to participate!
I dream every night now
Somehow I stumbled upon being friends with the CEO of a construction company who is twice my age. We get coffee together regularly on the weekends. I tell him about what I worked on that week, and he either gives me approbation, or withholds praise, depending on if he thinks I spent my time wisely. In this way, I get feedback from a person IRL.
With parasocial relationships, it’s entirely one-sided. We give online personas our tacit approval by repeatedly consuming their content; they sit back and watch their view counts go up and receive implicit validation. We, in turn, receive the semblance of a friendship but with none of the reciprocal validation that humans thrive on to determine if our actions are worthwhile.
Solution? Continue to seek out new friendships IRL and tap into their networks.
I said hello and greeted 1,000 people at 5am this morning
You make a good point: advanced surveillance tools are more likely to be a problem for people living under autocracies. Without markets principally driving the measure of employee competency, submitting to strict social norms shows that you’re not going to rock the (autocratic) boat too much. So for those people, it’s even more important to regulate their social presence. E.g., the Communist Bloc in the 20th century; any society described in a Kafka novel.
I agree that human intervention in hiring is not the most likely outcome in market-based economies. But, I did follow that example by saying:
These two examples presuppose that humans will always be the ones initiating employment discrimination. But with AI increasingly taking an active role in hiring, algorithms could make decisions on their own without humans ever directly being involved.
So in market-based economies, I contend that we have more to fear from algorithmic, non-human hiring decisions.
Your Digital Footprint Could Make You Unemployable
You want a story about a lumbering, towering, sweaty, intimidating, bulky, no nonsense investigator grappling with eco-terrorists, a conspiracy, and also raising and protecting her family?
Try “Hummingbird Salamander” by Jeff Vandermeer!
The “Expert Fallacy” (sometimes known as “Argument from Authority”) is when an expert goes outside of their domain of expertise to opine on a topic.
Common examples:
Movie stars (who are good at acting) getting involved in politics.
Scientists that are experts in one domain commenting on an entirely different field.
Happens commonly on podcasts...
Without looking it up:
I assume so, up to a certain point. As long as the apple is able to germinate successfully, then it’s cells are probably still alive.
As it decays/decomposes, cells walls probably deteriorate. Eventually, it loses the ability to germinate?
Idk, I haven’t taken a biology class since 7th grade. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“To Explain the World” is a great book by Steven Weinberg. Every page goes down smooth, even the technical notes. Part of what makes it work is Weinberg’s clear prose, granting an unobscured view into a mind well the equal of its words. Nothing is made obscure or complex, including technical ideas. It also helps that Weinberg has an appendeix of technical notes to illustrate what’s going on, with plentiful figures. Another part is the multi-layered narrative. At a small scale, ideas are placed in the context of the lives of scientists, for whom Weinberg gives a mini-biographies. At a large scale, we progress through time from Ancient Greece, Hellenistic Greece, the Islamic Caliphates, the Renaissance and England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Finally, there’s Weinberg’s dry wit, which had me laughing throughout the book.
From a reader’s perspective, this post did not capture my attention. The first sentence does not explain what the book was about. Nor did the second sentence, nor the third...etc. It’s not until the seventh sentence with “At a large scale” am I able to intuit that this book is about world history. Before then, I was just reading your opinions on a subject matter that was not made clear to me.
The first sentence of a blog post is the most important one—it should induce someone to read the next sentence. Your first sentence is that there exists a great book. Okay? There are a lot of great books, but you didn’t explain why I should care about this one. I didn’t read the rest of your post for this reason.
I’ve been enjoying many of your posts this month :) But this one lost me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I actually tried talking to my mom about this 6 months ago. As I elaborated further and further on all the reasons A-Z why we’re fucked, she saw that it was distressing me.
She told me, “If it’s bothering you, why think about it? You can choose to go think about something else.”
“You’re basically saying that I should stick my head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore it?”
“Yes. If we’re heading towards the end of the world, which I highly doubt, then you should spend the rest of your time doing what makes you happy.”
15 minutes later, I finished the story. Jesus. You’re getting really good. I was gripped until the very end.
If there was one amazing line that stood out among the rest, it was this:
a now-raw soul rubbing against a world of broken glass.
I told him about the angel on the train, how he was beautiful even as he died.
^When I got to this line in the story, I noticed I was confused. I had already forgotten that you had described the absorbed man as “angelic”. I didn’t make the connection when you then later mentioned an “angel”. I had to Ctrl + F to find a previous mention. Angelic is an adjective describing the man, whereas angel is an entirely new noun (in my head).
Besides that, you also wrote “on the train”, but there’s no mention of a train previously.
You’re an excellent writer and I’ve loved reading your fiction. I thought that I would mention, for the sake of feedback, that these two things took me out of the story enough to come write this comment.
Waking up at the same time every day is as important, if not more important, than the quantity slept (up to a point).
For example, if I go to bed 1-2 hours later than usual, I will still choose to wake up at the same time the next day to maintain my normal circadian rhythm. But if I stay up 3+ hours later than usual, then sleeping in makes me feel better.
I’d do some research online to confirm this for yourself, as well :)
I hereby propose that this song by Marc Rebillet be the official anthem of Inkhaven (especially the spoken word part in the middle of the song) :)
The call and [Redacted] response reminds me of author David Foster Wallace’s book Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. He puts a blank question, followed by a response from interviewees. Really forces me to pay attention and try to fill in the blank.
Yours is fun to read, nice job!
No you shouldn’t be concerned. What you’re doing is a form of HIIT training (ie: High Intensity Interval Training), which is great for cardiovascular health and boosting your metabolism.
While you’re choosing to perform HIIT with running, it’s not really running in the general sense that I’ve described in this post. For example, you could perform HIIT with biking, or jump rope, or swimming; anything to increase your heart rate for the duration of some intervals. The sport of running is more about completing longer distances for a sustained time.
As long as you feel healthy and nothing hurts, I don’t see anything wrong with doing HIIT as frequently as every other day for your general health. I like your approach of gradually increasing the intensity and shrinking the rest periods. Seems good!
Great post, and great cat philosopher quotes :)