Love and DIY [Candide]

[candide]

Context -- who is this guy?
====================

* Male. Former teacher in public schools. I hope to never go back.
* My screen name is taken from a work by Voltaire. It’s not a book you ever have to read --the plot summary is good enough, especially if the description of the ending resonates with you [1].
* I started this journal the year I turned 40 and my only child (daughter) turned 2.
* Happily married. My wife is frugal, often even cheap, but is she going to spend money on the kid, and so is only willing to go so far as an ally in terms of ERE.
* Biggest thing I have of value to you: junk punk
* I realized there is nothing all that “liminal” about the space I am in, so it is time to give up the last journal.


Two aphorisms for the last point: “chop wood, carry water” and “if everything is liminal, then nothing is liminal” -- which... It’s all liminal, y’all!

....

I hope this to remains my journal for a good long time, as opposed to all the short-lived journal threads I’ve had in the past. (Use the link to “last journal” above if you want to ladder backwards through them if you wish). I will keep this as my journal as long as it fits my mode of being, so I will only change the title if family stops being the center of my life, which would have to be forced away from me.

As for DIY, it is how you or I are going to be the most efficient... That shouldn’t sound puzzling to this forum, but if it is for anyone, I will channel John Michael Greer and ask you to be clear in terms of outputs you aim to achieve efficiently based on what inputs?

For myself, I want to spend very little money, essentially none on entertainment. I want healthier meals. I want to feel better. And while there may be times that I can get a better output per dollar with something that takes more from the planet, in the long run those deals dry up, and maybe they’ll all be dried up in my daughter’s lifetime. No, it is impact that we are trained to value by the powers that be -- in other words leverage, theirs. The real “efficiency” I grew up hearing about from all those Boomers was the output of concentration of power per bait (before the inevitable switch).

But to be honest, that’s not the truest North Star of my motivations for DIY. I just like to figure out how things work, get outside, and tinker using my hands.

===

[1] Eh, let chat GPT tell you about the ending:

In the end of "Candide," after a series of tumultuous adventures and hardships, Candide and his companions find themselves in a garden. This serene and idyllic garden becomes a symbol of a simple and content life. Candide, having experienced the harsh realities of the world, concludes that cultivating one's own garden, both metaphorically and literally, is a meaningful and fulfilling pursuit. This ending resonates with the idea of finding solace and purpose in the simplicity of life, focusing on personal endeavors, and appreciating the value of individual effort and connection with nature. It suggests that, despite the complexities and challenges of the world, there is wisdom in tending to one's own metaphorical garden and finding contentment in the pursuit of personal growth and well-being.

Of course, I can also switch the prompt slightly to get it to say:

In the end of "Candide," after all the crazy stuff that happened, Candide decides to just chill in a garden. Like, seriously? After all the disasters and philosophical debates, the guy ends up gardening. It's like the author just gave up or something. So, yeah, Candide hangs out in a garden, and that's the big conclusion. Go figure.

[macg]

* My screen name is taken from a work by Voltaire. It’s not a book you ever have to read --the plot summary is good enough, especially if the description of the ending resonates with you [1].

So it's weird that my dad gave me the book when I was a freshman in high school and said, "Read it, it's good?"?

[candide]

So it's weird that my dad gave me the book when I was a freshman in high school and said, "Read it, it's good?"?

Well, I'm going to guess there was some reason the book resonated with your dad, but he wasn't able to articulate it -- and worse (for purposes of persuasion) didn't realize there was a need to. I feel for him making the attempt.

[Sorry for the length of this. I just starting thinking about the topic, and it got away from me... ]

Classics can be good, but you have to have some kind of reason that works as a motivator to get passed the mental work to translate from a different era. In the chapter in Walden called "Reading" Thoreau states

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Most people have always been too intellectually lazy to do this work. I am convinced that the way literary cannons have always worked were a bunch of books people of a certain class pay lip service to, and learn from key quotes that had a network of effect of knowing that other people know you know it when you say it.

But the social media era with its expectation of constant performance has made it transparent how many people haven't read these books, and certainly not up the to the level Thoreau (or I) would say is necessary to get something from them. Next, because the only quality values that survive in postmodernism are the markets, a counter-flex developed of people bragging about having not read works, and an implicit "if reading that makes you so smart, how come I'm the one who has more money?" ... While "new men" have often given off that vibe, they would then turn around and have their children get a cultured education, one that that paid lip service to the books in "the" cannon and gave their more nerdy children a long reading list indeed. Now, "culture" means making better hot takes on prestige television.

Coming back to Voltaire's "Candide," it is an easy enough read, and short (compared to a novel). Your dad might have liked the farce pace which gives the satire an extra bite. Another possible reading reason is where the book fits in the history of through in the West... The first wave of The Enlightenment left a sparkling sense of optimism that all problems could be solved going to first-principal natural laws, basically to summarized as "wow. if we just stop slavishly following tradition we can accomplish ... anything!" A great work to see this optimism in action is Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man." Voltaire had followed along with this, but then started to think. And it is this doubts that form Candide. If we're being so effective at reshaping the world, why is religious war still so prevalent? Why do the supply chains have slavery and horrific things happening to people do the work to get our staples? And if man is the measure of all things, how come natural disasters can dwarf us so easily? Good thing we're got all those issues taken care, I say. But seriously, since that was the first round "just use facts and logic" there was a certain innocence in the works Candide is responding to. And knowing that, makes the scope and speed of the satire more shattering.

...

When I wrote that it was a book that could be skipped, I think I in myself was skipping a step, which was making explicit my belief -- almost certainly correct -- that people either don't want to read classics at all or would want to do so as efficiently as possible. Ah, back to efficiency as ratio of outputs to inputs -- (time reading) / (historical understanding)? I think the "Candide" is some ways too much like our way of looking at things. Very easy to read it and go "so what?" Whereas, the "Essay on Man," by being so different to the modern outlook (I mean, for one, who would think formally perfect poetry with rhyming couplets would be a way to write a philosophy tract?) does more to show how different people could think in the past and what forces were in play changing those thought processes.

If the efficiency ratio is (time reading) / (impress people), I think in theory are a lot of short cuts, like learning key quotes, learning summaries, etc. But, as above, I think that was all a house of cards that has now collapsed. I think the audience of people impressed by someone's reading is very small.

[jacob]

Well, I'm going to guess there was some reason the book resonated with your dad, but he wasn't able to articulate it -- and worse (for purposes of persuasion) didn't realize there was a need to. I feel for him making the attempt.

Isn't that fairly common? I mean, the purpose of a writer is to articulate ideas and sentiments for those who can't do it themselves so as to help them along. Writing is a tool that helps readers along in how they think; if they can; if they do.

[candide]

Isn't that fairly common? I mean, the purpose of a writer is to articulate ideas and sentiments for those who can't do it themselves so as to help them along. Writing is a tool that helps readers along in how they think; if they can; if they do.

It is, but it sure makes it difficult to convince anyone to read a book they are skeptical about reading. And again the social incentives, especially online, have now lined up with boasting about not reading X.

Also, your point about the purpose of authors highlights the truth that most good books are not particularly easy to reduce. An executive summary of a good book would require even more of that total effort Thoreau describes to process than reading the way the author laid it out.

Or, maybe invert it... if a book is easy to reduce to an executive summary, it is not a great book.

[jacob]

In terms of what constitutes "good", I distinguish between the subjectively good and the objectively good. The subjectively good hit the reader one Wheaton level beyond the reader, that is, right where the message is understandable and inspirational. Higher than that and the book is overcomplicating/rambling/incomprehensible...

Whereas a an objectively good book hits higher. Humans understand more as they get smarter and capable of going deeper. Maybe the book doesn't help them along but insofar the make their own journey, they'll see deeper as they mature.

[macg]

Well, I'm going to guess there was some reason the book resonated with your dad, but he wasn't able to articulate it -- and worse (for purposes of persuasion) didn't realize there was a need to. I feel for him making the attempt.

Oh, we discussed it in length after I read it.

My father always did that - told me to read a book or series, but never described anything ahead of time. It was on purpose - he was a strong believer that people should read the books and get their own feeling of it. He never wanted to push upon me his preconceived notions, he wanted me to find my own.

He was a prolific reader. I read many classics before ever getting them assigned in high school or college. I only realized that it was unusual as I got older, when I found that none of my friend's families did that lol.

Of course it wasn't just classics. Fiction, autobiographies, etc ... anything he read and thought I'd like.

I have followed his lead, I do the same thing - recommend books without any real detail. I don't have kids, but have done that with my nieces and nephews, friends, whomever. And, as my dad always was, I make myself available to have hearty discussions about the books after they have read them.

[macg]

In terms of what constitutes "good", I distinguish between the subjectively good and the objectively good. The subjectively good hit the reader one Wheaton level beyond the reader, that is, right where the message is understandable and inspirational. Higher than that and the book is overcomplicating/rambling/incomprehensible...

Whereas a an objectively good book hits higher. Humans understand more as they get smarter and capable of going deeper. Maybe the book doesn't help them along but insofar the make their own journey, they'll see deeper as they mature.

This is interesting. I haven't quite verbalized it this way, but I think this is correct.

I personally love reading. I'm also a believer that reading, any reading, helps you grow, lets you learn something, whether it be intellectual or empathetic. Maybe I'll start a separate thread on all my thoughts on it, as to not hijack Candide's nice new journal

[candide]

My father always did that - told me to read a book or series, but never described anything ahead of time. It was on purpose - he was a strong believer that people should read the books and get their own feeling of it. He never wanted to push upon me his preconceived notions, he wanted me to find my own.

That's beautiful. I'm glad you took you father up on many of the books... I now feel like I've given the book I take my screen name from a bit of a bad wrap. I'm just so used to philistines both in real life and most online spots.

He was a prolific reader. I read many classics before ever getting them assigned in high school or college. I only realized that it was unusual as I got older, when I found that none of my friend's families did that lol.

Though I kinda stumbled onto reading on my own (via science fiction, then to ... poetry (oh, wait, gardening and Eastern thought prior) then literature) I too was shocked to realize how unusual it was. And the revelations about how few people read kept coming living in a university town my entire life. A college degree didn't mean people read. Being a teacher didn't make someone read, certainly not being an administrator. Being a professor didn't do it. Not even being an English teacher was a guarantee of anything beyond Harry Potter (our last cannon left, it would seem...)

Hmm. I did not think I would be starting this new journal finally hashing out my feelings about literature. Oh well, things about tools and making stuff are coming. Feel free to continue on in this journal about the value of books if you want... no worries on my part about "hijacking."

[Sclass]

I really enjoyed reading your posts about teaching and schools. It was eye opening. It did sound like you were suffering and that sucked. Good you have a new direction. Fighting and changing the system may not be the most efficient thing to do depending on how you define efficiency.

I get really tripped up on efficiency. You really can get wildly varying results based on the definition. I guess it all boils down to what we are trying to get out of a particular activity. Good to hear you’re thinking about this.

[candide]

I really enjoyed reading your posts about teaching and schools. It was eye opening. It did sound like you were suffering and that sucked. Good you have a new direction. Fighting and changing the system may not be the most efficient thing to do depending on how you define efficiency.

Thank you... In the end, I feel betrayed by what schools have rotted into, but must temper that with the fact that education did improve my life and got me out of the situation I grew up in. I gave back to the system when giving back was possible, but now all help has to be a matter of creative work-around. Someone is much better doing that tangential to the curriculum than being a front-line prison officer... I mean, teacher.

I promise you there was something else once. But now at that can live, at least in my red state, is bureaucracy, testing, sports, and gaming on devices. I only maintain the possibility of going back as a safety net against financial desperation.

[candide]

The fruit of my YouTube time this month was organizing much of this...

Junk Punk
=========

Today I am going to show you rather than tell you -- and then after that tell you some things.

Here is the latest example of fantastic junk punkery in action that I have seen on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/-HMdaPwBeZ0?si=zMTfksN1sinZ7_Ew
($0 camera rig)

And another cool video of junk punkery from the channel:
https://youtu.be/cM7vKRaqi9E?si=A4aLbe6HS70wEeV1

I think there is a good chance that his channel will be "blowing up" soon as the youths say, and as that happens there will probably be less and less junk punk, including the possibility of abandoning it altogether. But that is just the cost of bringing work to the YouTube monosophy -- I recommend just enjoying the pieces of junk punk you see out in the world while they last.

Here's one from a somewhat unlikely source, Casey Neistat:
https://youtu.be/SWtEqHiG8Wo?si=4l11CakK8O8fXAlW

I remember that when I first saw that video (oh, I'm sorry, "movie," sigh) years ago, I hoped there would be a lot more like it on his channel. I would say good luck. He has a lot more lifestyle to brand to you. Expect him to shill for Apple more than show you how to work around its anti-customer design features.

Casey's older (half)brother Van has more specimens of the quality that brings up here today. First, a fixer's manifesto:

https://youtu.be/K65UQy6t6KQ?si=KknXPcXx7MqopfWE

And then him showing off his portable tool-wall:
https://youtu.be/ziFHJLmN7rs?si=tM5g1NfjQN_LoOua&t=8

Alas, that tool wall video also tips the hand that he is animated by spirits other than punk, so watch instead of listen, or even better, listen critically. The channel was already well on its way to finding what it was trying to sell. Still, there are other videos to be found in his collection to serve our soiled minds, free materials, and dirty hands.

If working by hand and using materials you sourced from the waste stream is the point, then I cannot recommend enough Philip Stephens. He happens to be the least "punk" outside of his relationship to materials, but he has the most in the way of tutorials. Here's the first video I ever saw of his, and still my favorite:
https://youtu.be/LmEHuTgtcvw?si=isxP-zIjsPcuyBAs

I have re-watched it several times over the years as inspiration. This is the imagine in my mind as to what "being a man" is actually all about. And it's been healthy to look at it that way, as it is a definition I can live up to.

Lastly, check out this Australian dude:
https://youtu.be/LtBwWlJXauI?si=YNhw8ZfQ8EKAuMW0

Telling
=======

Okay, I showed. Now I will tell a bit.

I find it interesting how often these videos feature someone writing on the material as though they are talking back to it. The last video has it the most blatantly framed as messages about the kind of world we (presumably) want. Van Neistat's Stanley tape measurer has the addition "Kubrick is Dead II." This, whether intentionally or not, is an act culture jamming. Even Casey Neistat burns in the date on his little scrap wood piece, though there the more important thing to get is the contrast with humble materials, quickly whipped together seen against to the sleek artistry of the I-phone, especially as seen by a full-fledged member of the I-cult.

For those who grew up under the W.E.I.R.D. cultural forced (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) there is a spell that mass-produced goods must be taken as is. To get to making, or even repairing, one must get around those forces. And talking back, and often with a swagger is a way to break that spell... although probably not the most sustainable. Philip Stephens once again being instructive.

Junk punk is about finding ways to use things in ways they were not intended to be used. This makes it a sub-set of hacking. But hacking can also be about the high-end. If you figure out how to get Arch Linux to work on a brand new Mac, you have hacked, but you have not prevented any waste and are still signaling to others that your have money to burn... Keep it in use for 15 years, come up with some solution involving soldering and/or hot glue for when the charger or battery goes, write -- or better yet carve!-- some shit on to it, cover the logo with some inside joke or (if you must) social or political statement, and now we're starting to talk junk punk.

====

Written in Nano on a used Chromebook that has been jail-broken to run Linux.

... I just cut up an envelope from some junk mail and wrote "not any more" and drew and arrow, taping it so it points at the "chrome" logo. I also took a sharpie and wrote an X over "Chrome."

It looks like shit. Maybe I'll fix it later. Maybe.

[mountainFrugal]

Lastly, check out this Australian dude:
https://youtu.be/LtBwWlJXauI?si=YNhw8ZfQ8EKAuMW0

I enjoyed these junk punk repurpose/builds. Thanks for posting. There is a similar movement in Chicago going on. Chicago common brick as a popular remodeling material reused out of demolition sites: https://www.brickofchicago.com/chicagocommon

We reused a majority of the framing studs in our studio remodel and have just finished cleaning up the floor. We are down to the original concrete slab poured in 1926. There are many layers to the building. You can see where there was tile at some point directly on the slab because of the staining pattern. Our current plan is the do a thin grind to get the remaining gunk off followed by sanding/buffing. "New Floor" using the actual floor. ha!

[candide]

@ mountainFrugal

That was a fun read. As as added bonus, if I ever end up in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison, I can put comparing brick on the itinerary... I hope I can get my daughter to be a member of The Wander Society [1] by then.

Our current plan is the do a thin grind to get the remaining gunk off followed by sanding/buffing. "New Floor" using the actual floor. ha!

The once and future floor for the once and future city.

====
[1] I mean not literally, but

http://www.thewandersociety.com/

From the application form to this secret society made up for a book (that pretends in the book that it wasn't).

• Would you be willing to give up technology on a temporary basis from time to time?
• Modern society has created a situation where life is experienced second hand, through screens instead of through direct experience. (agree or disagree)
• It is time for us to take control of our mental environment. (agree or disagree)

[candide]

One cool thing about going out to the fringes is that you can often make contact with those you admire. As examples, @Jacob (of course), John Michael Greer, Vinay Gupta, David Graeber (RIP, friend) and Ran Prieur, who I wrote an email in response to Ran's Feb 5th piece. I received a reply, which is an honor I do not take for granted. Most of it I feel is a little off-topic for the forum, but Ran wrote something that inspired me to write something that I think directly fits here.

Ran wrote:

i often wish for my own life to be easy and fun, but then it occurs to me,
if it's fun, it doesn't matter if it's easy.

To which I replied:

Throw in "convenient" to go with "easy" and we are at the disconnect in the dominant culture. There is a block from accessing fun if it isn't easy and convenient (from the superstructure's perspective fungible so the market can deliver it). The problem with this block is that it rules out a whole hell of a lot of fun. I want to throw in a good word for no-mind. It's great stuff, and the ability to go no-mind when working with so many diverse tools is another thing that makes being a human must-see TV in terms of the soul on the go. But the problem is you can't pick up a tool and use no-mind as shortcut; you have to put in deliberate practice first.

I have found that this apprenticeship within the discipline -- see these ugly words that sound like work? -- can be pretty short. A mere handful of hours and there are enjoyable bursts of no-mind. But then you get stuck. And stuck is another place where cultural stories are messing things up. Stories of domination and logos can make stuck a moment of rage, with an ego to protect and Others to destroy.

But stuck can be beautiful. As Pirsig said in an interview.

When you get stuck on fixing motorcycles that's not a bad moment. That's actually a pretty good moment. And the times I've been stuck I've been able to catch myself at being stuck and instead of getting mad, I just gone off and got a cup of coffee. And I noticed that whenever I'm stuck like that that if I look at the clouds the clouds are much more beautiful and that's [laughs] getting a little bit sentimental but I find that at the very moment of stuckness, if you just stop and look around you'll find the world is very real.

If you remember back in your own life periods, when your life was very vivid it was usually during a hangup, at least for me. So I think stuckness is very good for people and when it comes you should welcome it because it won't last long. I think people in Western culture are trained to believe that if they get stuck that may be the end of the world. But life doesn't stop. It just goes on, even when you're stuck.

Instead of rage, another possible story is to be grateful to be working on a problem interesting enough to be temporarily stuck on, and also lean into the extra vividness that comes with being stuck, with the same maturity that comes with knowing that exercise can clear your head.

Work enough to get stuck, and then live in that moment, too.

... Man, I think writing this is going to be helpful to me. I have torn things up in my shop being pissed off at something not working out the way I want... And this stuck idea sheds some light on the type of writer's block I have -- I get stuck and then filled with disgust at my attempts to claw out.

===
End of the email excerpt
===


From the stuckness section of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (just (re)read the whole book):

Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.

This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.

The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong. It's obvious what's wrong. What you need is an hypothesis for how you're going to get that slotless screw out of there and scientific method doesn't provide any of these hypotheses. It operates only after they're around.

This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself. You should take the machine to a real mechanic who knows how to figure these things out.

It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge if necessary. You think about it, and the more you think about it the more you're inclined to take the whole machine to a high bridge and drop it off. It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.

What you're up against is the great unknown, the void of all Western thought. You need some ideas, some hypotheses. Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go, unless where you ought to go is a continuation of where you were going in the past. Creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination..."unstuckness," in other words...are completely outside its domain.

[candide]

Still on junk punk? Yes. Here is a piece cross posted from gopher ( getting started with gopher ).

I want you making (more) stuff.

Junk Punk
========

Cardboard. It's about the easiest junk to acquire right now (although empty plastic liquid containers are up there, at least in my little slice of heaven).

Cardboard. It's easy to cut. It takes to the cheapest of glues. Yes, use school glue on it [1]. It is very forgiving -- if you get a cut slightly off, you can usually either bend or smosh part of it to make it fit. This often looks charming and shows off the handmade quality of the piece.

Cardboard. It is easy to write on, so it's easy to talk back to. A box from a company tells me to "recycle this"? Nice suggestion. But I'm going cross out "recycle" and write "reuse" and proceed to reuse it. Not everyone knows that "reduce, reuse, recycle" is a hierarchy. Reusing is better than recycling, and it would be better for the environment if we reduced the stuff. Maybe not so many deliveries to single households?

Cardboard. It's the place were you can start the work of repairing the world.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Cardboard. +
+ It's Junk Punk on Easy Mode. +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


This is a call to action. I want YOU to make things. A shower thought from last week was about seizing the means of production. "Seizing" has not seemed to historically build a better social order. But the kernel of truth is that the People should not forfeit the means of production, and the pendulum has swung far, far too far in that direction. So let's make stuff.

At least customize something! It is time to talk back to the designs that want to be treated as givens. Cut two rectangles in a box so that you have handles. Or write on some of your things on your objects to show they are yours. Culture jam slogans on *your* things in *your* home, to show you are not theirs.

Use cardboard to make the cutting board for your cardboard projects. If you put a layer of tape on top this can now serve as a board to paint things on or do glue ups. Heck, you could make one board for each operation. You could put a handle at the top of each and then hang them all -- together to save space, or separate for ease of access. You have choices, you have options.

And the more you can make, the more choices and options you have.

==

[1] School glue is PVA, polyvinyl acetate, which is the same substance in "wood glue," which it usually dyed yellow here in the U.S. (but not everywhere). I don't know if the difference is concentration, or other additives, or what, so I won't make any claims about them being equivalent. But school glue is really strong when it has set properly, with pressure applied and enough time to dry.

If you are wondering why papers fall off when glued together with children's projects, I would have to say it is the lack of pressure applied.

You need clamps, friends. Or glue-up boards, or some other way to apply pressure in order to join two things together using glue.

[AxelHeyst]

Just chiming in to say I'm really enjoying reading your thoughts/adventures in junk punk and DIY. Keep it up the good work, this is great stuff.

[candide]

@Axel. Thank you kindly.

... Daughter got sick in the afternoon, so it'll be more love than DIY tomorrow.

[candide]

Shop Jig
=======

There are *a lot* of jigs like the one I am about to show you on the internet. It is one of the rare projects that you can still find with a modern search engine even if you ignore YouTube. Search term "cross cutting station", maybe throw in circular saw into that query, but it is kinda implied in these modern times. I even think the Kreg product they are trying to sale you looks reasonably priced, eBay or even retail.

So lots of options here, but mine might be the ugliest posted to the internet. #junkpunk





The rail on the right was the only thing I purchased for the project. It is supposed to be for the edge of carpet. $8. And while I used only part of it on this project, whether I can give that as a discount sorta depends if I am ever able to use it on something else -- so split the diff with a 50% probability and price the project at $4? The rail is soft aluminum and I cut it to length with a hacksaw and then used a brick as sandpaper to make it not have sharp stabbies... We’re running a high-tech operation here at Candide Enterprises.

The rail on the left is a metal ruler (also cut with hacksaw and given the ol’ brick treatment). I wasn’t planning on using at first, but I had to improvise because the motor was set so low that it rubbed against the railing on the left side. I had already cut off a piece of the ruler to use in a jig I made to cut cardboard to uniform width (not shown).

Also, I had never used a circular saw in my life until I made this jig. I had bought that Ryobi circular saw years ago when I was given a gift card to Home Depot for Christmas and it just sat in a crate, put away. Almost everything you have seen me make has been cut with handsaws. During this time as a person who makes and repairs things, I have used jigsaws and lately a saber saw for breaking some things down.

As I’ve stated before, my goal with these kinds of posts are to get more people making more stuff as part of their ERE stack. It is in that spirit that I tell you it’s okay to be scared of any piece of equipment, and it is okay to even avoid that piece forever.

I am finding that this jig has made me pretty comfortable with my circ saw. The cut is down an away, at all times the shoe is on a flat surface, and I cut with the thing angled away from me, so even if a piece kicked back, it wouldn’t hit me. Hell, cutting with this station is far more comfortable than using a jigsaw, as there is almost no vibration and the frame of the station is taking all the weight.


On Learning 1 -- not nostalgia
=======================

I want to share a thought that has been brewing in my mind over mini-retirement I am on. It started when I was thinking about the non-fiction books I have been reading, as well as the ones on my to-read stack. Geology, material science, electronics, computer stuff (more on c.s. in the next section) -- between five and ten year old me would have loved this stuff, if it could be explained down... The part I found interesting about this line of thought, and I hope I can communicate it well enough, is that that doesn’t mean it is nostalgia.

Nostalgia is when you try to recreate some piece of what is lost. It compressed reality, can generate bad maps for reality, can lead to delusions, and in its most extreme forms can get people down the Yoda Spiral of fear > anger > hate > suffering.

These kinds of studies are not nostalgia because nothing is lost; instead, this is feeding those parts of myself that I drifted away from over the years.

I think this strongly pattern matches with this quote by Gustav Mahler:

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

On Learning 2 -- Structured Procrastination
=================================

I am happy enough that I broadened my understanding with the reading I mentioned above, but I found that neither they, nor making making stuff, nor bird watching worked for me as the core of my day. I kinda burned out on each in turn.

But, BUT! now that I found what I want to study to depth all the other interesting things have been given a second life. And I owe it all to structured procrastination. As you may know, structured procrastination is a concept coined by philosopher John Perry that turns the idea of procrastination on its head, suggesting that rather than fighting against the tendency to delay tasks, you can actually use it to your advantage. Structured procrastination involves prioritizing tasks in a strategic way so that while you may be procrastinating on one important task, you're actually being productive by working on other tasks that are lower on your priority list.

For the trick to work, however, you have to have a top item on you list that you know you can actually trick yourself into believing is valuable. A job or a college course would both be examples of things that would be great to procrastinate against, but I don’t have either of those right now.

What I have found as my new core is personal to my tastes, and this is already running long, so I won’t justify *why* here, but I love what I would lump together as poking around a computer. Taking one apart will satisfy that itch, but there are only so many times you need to do that. So instead, it is off to the software side. I can take the apps and utils I run on Linux are start poking down. But I am now also going the other direction, and starting with x86 Assembly and I am going to work my up to C and then Rust. Again, in the spirit of having something to poke around in, something much bigger than me.

So today, it was wake up, drink some coffee, and start on another chapter of Bartlett’s Programming from the Ground Up. But... my god, birds are beautiful. Oh, I’m notching some interesting things here. And... it’s been a while since I wrote a journal entry for ERE.

A Whitman poem:

Beginning my studies, the first step pleas’d me so much,
The mere fact, consciousness—these forms—the power of motion,
The least insect or animal—the senses—eyesight—love;
The first step, I say, aw’d me and pleas’d me so much,
I have hardly gone, and hardly wish’d to go, any farther,
But stop and loiter all the time, to sing it in ecstatic songs.

No beginnings of studies, no stopping and loitering. And if you don’t pick something that resonates with you as a study to begin, there is no being pleased so much that you can sing it in ecstatic songs.

[candide]

Stimulation
========

** Cue eerie music. All that is in shot is some waves bubbling over. **

This goes on a while. Then narrator starts:

Modern society has created a situation where direct experiences of life have become diluted and dulled. This has occurred through mass media and the excess use of technology. We see the world through screens instead of directly through our bodies. Because of this our senses have become dulled and under stimulated...

I'll stop the quoting there [1]. The text comes from a video on the cryptic promotional site for the book The Wander Society by Keri Smith. I take the book to be fictional account of someone finding out about a secret society that many authors have been part of through history. Others have taken this as a real account, which perplexes me, but in any case if you do indeed have a cynical bone in your body you have to make sure you are in the right mood to read the book, which gushes in a way few works of art do any more. (Maybe the ability to actually feel things is what happens when you get out of the clutches of the System? Maybe the problem isn't how much you emotionally react to something, but rather what it is your reacting to? And thus maybe the common defense strategy of trying to feel nothing but coolness is modernity's curse [2]... And I'll note that coolness is still a feeling. It is comfort in that comes from being high enough in a social hierarchy).

Back to the opening quote and that bit about modern society having left our senses dulled and us under stimulated got me to thinking... Aren't we also overstimulated? After all the social critic John Michael Greer -- once 70% brilliant and 30% crackpot, but since 2016 has left the ratios reversed -- crafted the acronym for succeeding in the post peak-oil future of L.E.S.S. Less Energy Stuff and Stimulation.

Well, I think both Smith and Greer and right in this regard, but they are talking about slightly different things. Greer is talking about how we are overstimulated by the tricks that have to be used to make boring things able to hold us [3]. Here's a few of these techniques: soundtracks, rapid camera cuts, changing the color scheme. All of these are ways to jerk and distort reality that hit your brain's processing as micro jump scares... Imagine you were in the middle of the woods, just relaxing as you look at the pattern of lights moving through the branches when everything morphed both in shape and location, the color scheme shifted to red and there was a noise of "waa waaaa." You'd the very least pay attention. You'd probably be terrified the first time it happened. But if it kept happening, eventually you'd get used to it. And then younger generations who didn't know a different would just take that as reality.

So we are overstimulated in terms of context shifts. Which, again, are tricks to hold your attention. That is the power TV has to make so you can't just look away [4]. We have stacked on top of that hacks into attention using social proof and semi-random rewards, but I am starting realize those later two are part of a proper, flourishing human life; they just have to be directed differently. Artificial context shift, on the other hand, is optional and too likely to be used for harm rather than benefit.

But Smith is right that we are under stimulated. On the level of senses, most do not get enough feeling with hands or the rest of the skin (breezes, warmth, cold), not enough smell, or even taste. But those could be taken care of by technology or the spending of money, I suppose. But what technology without cultural change can not stimulate and what the vast, vast majority does not get enough of, is one: connection and two: beauty without agenda.


====


[1] Actually, I'll keep going, as it is good script.

this is not what we wish for as our reality. What we really long for, what we've always wanted is to be deeply connected -- to people, to the world, and to ourselves. Society has given us an image of what we should be experiencing as humans, of what we should have, of how we should feel about our lives. This image is propagated through the use of Spectacle: television, films, advertising, etc. It has nothing to do with the true experience of living, or the wants and needs of he individual, the needs of the soul. We are craving a life outside the commercial world, derived from direct experiences, not second hand representations of reality. We are craving a life that is free from constant distraction. We are craving the freedom and timelessness we felt as children.

There is an answer to what we crave.

http://www.thewandersociety.com/TWSvideo.html

[2] See Infinite Jest, if you want this laid out obliquely in a massive, non-linear tome. Also the book has... a lot of other stuff.

[3] The etymology of the entertain renders the meaning hold (tain, tener) between (enter), though my dictionary chickens out and renders this "hold together." No, entertainment is not the like integration > integrity... If you don't get feeling that the attempt is to hold you in, then what I wrote here probably isn't for you. There is a scene in Infinite Jest that plays with this etymology, but it is so obliquely done that I don't think it would be a quote that would easily fit.

[4] Greer offers the trick of counting each time you have a camera cut. By doing this not only are you giving yourself a distraction, but it breaks the flow the narrative (if there even is one), allowing you to see how empty it really is.