Betterment and Praxis

This is depression, alcoholism; it's getting pretty late-stage. All of this is wrong, and everything I've gone through insists they're fucking Reifenstahl.

Yes, I have mentioned her twice this week. It's because it's germane. I'm using that word a lot more, too. It holds a certain connotation.

But that aside, I do not want 988. I want a solution, not some attempt to make me believe rich people shall be my saviors.

On a summer afternoon in 2019, nurse Charlotte Lay got ready for her night shift as normal but "wasn't feeling quite right".

Within a short space of time she had decided to end her own life close to a West Yorkshire railway station.

...

I found this interesting and relevant. Nothing actionable, but oddly comforting.

Covers way more than just the title, but an interesting experiential take.

Pretty cool guide.

The guy says that he only recently realized that cleaning isn't intuitive so people need to be taught. This is for people who maybe haven't been taught how to clean or want to freshen up on their skills :)

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/8863969

Folks who know me closely know that I'm kind of a geek for patterns - I see them in behavior, in housing, in gardens and natural structures, everywhere. They are at play all around us at varying levels of scale, and anyone who's ever said "oh this again" can hopefully relate.

Christopher Alexander (author along with others of A Pattern Language, The Nature of Order, Notes on the Synthesis of Form), the speaker in this video, has been formative in my understanding of patterns in a way few others have. His approach to design as a conduit for improving the lives of people and the world writ large have been an inspiration.

I want you to forget that he's talking to a room full of programmers. Some of it is abstract, and heady, but think about the patterns in your lives and how even slight alterations to them can influence the course of things. I'm coming to this talk from the aspect of a gardener, of a nursery owner interested in restoration ecology, of someone who wants each of us to have a closer connection to the natural systems at play. Bring who you are to this, and (hopefully) let it inspire you. I'll leave you with this quote from the talk (punctuation mine):

"I want you to help me. I want you to realize that the problem of generating living structure is not being handled by architects or planners or developers or construction people now; there is no way that they're ever going to be able to do that because the methods they use are not capable of it.

The methods that you have at your fingertips and deal with every day in the normal course of events are perfectly designed to do this ... if you have the interest, you have the capacity, you have the means.... And what I'm proposing here is something a little bit different from that which is a view of ~~programming~~ as the natural genetic infrastructure of a living world which you are capable of creating, managing, making available - and which could then have the result that a living structure - in our towns, houses, workplaces, cities - is an attainable thing. Which it has not been for the last 50 to 100 years.

That is an incredible thing! I realize that you probably think I'm nuts because this is not what I'm supposed to be talking about to you. And you may say, 'gosh great idea but we're not interested' but I do think you are capable of that and I don't think anybody else is going to do this job.

Here's a Ted-talk from 12 years back on the topic of vulnerability as a method of reconnecting with self. Just a refresher for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Highly recommended!

… ask yourself these three questions:

Is it kind?

Is it true?

Is it necessary?

Granted we’ve all heard this before, but sometimes we need reminding.

I try to do what I can to make my local community better. I research and vote in every election, donate money to local nonprofits and also volunteer there when I can (heading to the food bank in a bit, yay!), and try to speak out and offer words of encouragement when I can.

But I live in a very socially, politically, and religiously conservative community. And I…am not. It constantly feels like any effort amounts to pissing in the wind, and yet also like I am not doing nearly enough at all. It makes me anxious a lot.

The latest iteration of this is local people trying to get “obscene” children’s and YA books in the public library moved to the adult section. And to be clear most of these books are not obscene they just acknowledge that, hey people who are LGBTQ+ (sorry if I got that initialization wrong!) exist and that racism is a real thing. I went to the public meeting and was mostly ineffective except I got to thank the library director for her work pushing back against this. I would love to write a Letter to the Editor of the local paper to speak out, but there is a risk of retaliation against my family members and their local businesses. And most of the community seems to be behind this which is absolutely bonkers to me. I don’t know what to do.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this. I think I just needed to say it. Anyone else deal with something similar- feeling like you need to do more but also feeling completely defeated about actually getting anything to change?

from the intro:

Clothing repair and mending can cover a rather wide range of activities varying from those requiring very little skill to those demanding a great deal of sewing skill and expertise. The rewards of mending vary from the self-satisfaction for a job well done to a substantial monetary savings by prolonging the life of a garment.

The need for clothing repair comes from various sources. Poor initial garment workmanship or construction can be a problem with ready-to-wear as well as handmade items.

Everyday wear and tear will also take its toll. Poor garment fit can cause a seam to split or a fastener to break. Still other repairs become part of preventive mending, permitting the garment to be worn longer without the need of major repair or recycling.

Garment repair and mending can require a bit of creativity. Don't be guilty of rushing into a repair job without giving the situation some careful thought and having the necessary tools to see the job through.

Hey everyone. I'm curious what books you've found to be useful in your own lives and if you have any reccomendations for us.

Mine would be the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy which talks about consistent small actions leading to momentum/habit and driving massive amounts of change.

My past couple of posts have been very specific in application, but now that events are set in motion to regain agency, it seems a good time to try to pay forward the lessons I've gained from at this point 14 months.

• If your career is part of your identity, cool. But don't bullshit yourself about where you fall, and keep a critical eye on your industry if you're heavily invested. If it's not, don't make life about adapting for a paycheck.

• Trying to think about the future while in active addiction is pointless. Job searches necessarily were limited to things I knew I could do and still get shitfaced every night, and my perception thereof dropped precipitously past my mid-20s.

• Philosophy is there for when you get stuck, and it's not nearly as dry as in school. I found myself far more forgiving of blurred lines into religion with especially Buddhism than expected. I'd known since my divorce that I wasn't able to start asking the right questions, but philosophy wasn't speaking to me yet.

• You are a reflection of the people you surround yourself with. Any self-improvement in negative behaviours can easily lead to resentment from people who still exhibit them, and it is necessary to on a case-by-case basis decide what to do about this friction. One option that must remain on the table is severe curtailment or outright rejection of further communication. Regardless of perceived positives, there is no amount of negativity that underperforms on balance. Your sanity and outlook depend on positive reinforcement.

• As a quick add-on, this also applies in parasocial settings. So, if Reddit is your baseline for forum interaction, regardless of how reasonable of a person you are, it's going to feel more appropriate to bring your snark from being online for 30 years ... as a default for every interaction. That mindset doesn't switch on and off and thus spills out into other interaction both online and off.

• You are under no obligation to be reachable by anyone during all waking hours. Sure, there are legitimate work reasons, but those are self-evident. I'm talking about rejecting the notion that your phone means you're awaiting contact as a default state.

• Shrooms can be a viable method for quieting rumination (allowing new thoughts and ideas to fill that space), putting a lid on addiction and facing very deep assumptions that were never yours. The visuals are fun, too.

• Draw boundaries and stick to them. There's no point in wasting energy trying to keep a disrespectful person in your life.

• Assess risks and costs accurately when considering actions. Inertia can be really fucking expensive.

• Consider where others are on their journeys and always keep Hanlon on hand for the closest shave. Accept that your paths are not intertwined forever. And consider you're the one who's fallen behind.

After actually enumerating these, I wouldn't have expected half of self-improvement to be about interaction, but it's not really as surprising in the rear view. You can practice mantras and draw up budgets and all that good stuff, but building a better bubble is not building a better life.

Even relatives and close friends can do a lot of damage to confidence that inhibits options. When you're cutting someone off, if doesn't have to be forever (we'll always have email), but it could well be what's stopping you from getting to a place where you can accept them back (or they you).

But overall, regaining agency is is about being open to new paths. If the one you have isn't working, you can embark upon an expansive but ultimately futile excursion trying to graft ac-hoc solutions onto it or really get into the weeds about what a reasonable path looks like and start from there. The latter approach seems to be far more useful.

There's a lot of things we'd like to get better at, but ideas like "eat healthier" or "get more exercise" can feel lofty and difficult to start. How do you break it down and make those first steps?

What's something you'd like to do, but could use a little extra boost to get started?

I set up alerts on Craigslist for Freightliner MT45s two weeks ago, and something in my price range was finally posted a couple of hours ago. I was already preapproved for a personal loan, so I went through the actual application and landed exactly where I wanted to be for payments by adding the electrical stuff I'll need and stretching the term by a year (no prepayment penalty).

For those wondering why the hell I'm posting a truck here, this is the culmination of about seven years of looking into tiny-home living that has veered into vanlife by virtue of climate change accelerating and not wanting to be stuck on a plot of land that may be uninhabitable in very little time.

As such, with rent and fees hitting $20K for the year starting September, in addition to the 15% hike eating my entire food budget, the numbers no longer made sense with the sort of pay raises work offers. Thing is, I've been stuck getting emergency jobs for 17 years now while losing purchasing power just to afford housing and survive, and when layoffs come, I'm in the middle of a lease that I have two weeks in July where I can tell them I'm leaving without a $3,000 penalty. Otherwise, the lease forces me into another emergency job, and the cycle repeats anew.

I've changed how I approach the world and my expectations from life significantly over the past year, and this is finally a concrete physical step I'm taking toward regaining agency.

I will be stripping the interior, installing batteries, solar on the roof, electrical conduit for "oops" wiring changes down the road, insulation and framing, with just plywood walls to start. The beauty of a step van is my current bed will fit, so with those basics, climate control, a toilet and a gym membership for showering, I'll be ready to stop paying rent and then build it out as I have funds to do so, with a shower stall and full-ish (fridge + stove elements + combo microwave/toaster/convection oven) kitchen eventually. I already switched to 5G "home" internet that can hit the road and saves $30 over Charter last weekend, and I reluctantly rehomed my cat Monday in preparation.

I wanted to post here because while a significant amount of time needs to be devoted to researching ideas, then methods, being on the other end of that process and knowing what I'm looking for down to the engine and transmission makes actually pulling the trigger surprisingly easy.

Much of what I've run into outside of forums devoted to #vanlife talk about all the downsides, and questions I've posed trying to learn more get met with caustic sealioning, so I want to point out that this is a very real, very doable thing. Per the loan terms, I'll pay a total of $19,500 in principal and interest over four years, putting me $500 ahead for just this year, and assuming similar hikes annually, save nearly $80,000 in just the next three years.

"But what if you have an unexpected $2,000 repair?" Well, then I'll only be saving $78K. I can have 40 of those in 48 months and still break even vs. throwing my money away to make rich people even richer while never having a net worth.

Came across this video earlier today. While it mat be long, I found it interesting from the perspective as a millennial to see how serious a younger cohort takes these issues.

nebula link

I’m still working my way through this but thought I’d share - this is a great breakdown of a recent trend on TikTok - framed as not being too nice or not being a people pleaser. This analysis takes a critical approach to this in a real sensitive way, and talks about our philosophical obligations to others - and what we owe to each other (shout out to other good place fans!)

This change happened a few months ago now, but the aspects of the change - incentives for increasing tree cover and the reduction of impervious surfaces in watersheds - are the kind of policy changes we can work to have instituted where each of us are. In addition, including tree planting projects in these programs and giving weight to their inclusion (say, as a scoring component for receiving grants) brings access to historically disadvantaged community groups that don't have the financial power to permit, bid, and build large industrial systems but could organize a community planting day.