Thank you all for the kind words! I want to listen to all of you on Axel's pod
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Finding the good in what's necessary
Stack homeotelic behaviors on top of required daily work.
My son makes a total mess every time we feed him. He's a baby, part of what you sign up for, just like home ownership requires time as maintenance. Not something to complain about but it might not be fun / what I'd choose to do.
But when I'm sweeping up the crumbs, I'm hip hinging on purpose, knees at the slightest bend, and stretching dynamically through my hamstrings. Deep breaths throughout.
Ends up being pretty nice, frankly. The clean up is a good excuse, as it turns out, to do the thing that I should be doing.
In "The Book of The Five Rings," Musashi preaches "Do nothing useless". Philosophy brain immediately tears apart the idea of "useful" into all its parts etc but the point remains interesting, at least.
I'm not trying to optimize everything but I will say this: when I don't really want to do something, but I have to, it certainly feels better to notice the good in it. Makes it go by faster as well.
Put another way, that quip: "enlightenment, and then the dishes".
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draft 1 of a higher lvl categorization of homeotelic "tags" I can overlay on top of actions for this "feelsgoodman.jpg" attitude about basically anything:
community
- wife/romance/life-partner
health
financial
purpose
- regret minimalization framework
creation
contribution
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Edit:
I think a lot of the personal appeal of doing these exercises is to create a language of optimization outside of my business. I know the things to measure in my business so well (ugh I hate jargon but the "KPIs"). Dashboards on dashboards because so much is quantitative.
But the strategy, the prioritization, the sequencing, for what to do next.. a lot of that is built around stacking similar "business tags" on top of each other when deciding what to do for max impact.
So I'm reflecting on my own impulse to write this "wellbeingRPG" tag system and perhaps that .. structure or behavior is what I'm after. The organizing and categorizing and prioritizing.
I'm enjoying taking these ideas / systems-thinking outside of my business and into my life. I keep saying it but I feel so lucky to have found these forums, so thank you all. Everyone here is so freaking smart and interesting and I've been inspired directly by folks here to apply these kinds of thought experiments / thinking strategies outside of just work.
WellbeingRPG 1.0 inbound
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Satre had a lot to say about "freedom-to". One of his most extreme ideas, to me, was that as long as you have your mind, you are free. Even in a jail cell, the fundamental unit of freedom is your subjectivity.
In a "I'm in philosophy class" sort of perspective, sure, I get it. So to some degree, all of us could find a version of The Good in prison. Reminds me of the last scene of the book The Stranger.
I remember being in class discussing this idea and frankly to me 17 years later, it still sounds mostly like hoity-toity hyperbole from the towers of academia.
But idk, maybe even in prison you could stack enough of these tags to feel good, even if done mostly in the mind.
I'll skip prison, though.
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FOOD
Fast ricotta / farmers cheese:
Bring full fat milk up to a low simmer, where there are a bunch of tiny tiny bubbles, almost like the first bubbles of foaming milk for a latte. Turn off the heat, add 1/2tbspn of distilled white vinegar at a time, while stirring. Continue stirring and adding in increments every minute until the milk curdles and the greenish-yellow whey separates into a liquid.
From what I've read, you can let the curds cook in the heated whey for a more bouncy texture, depending on what you do with them, or just pull them. I let these sit for a couple of minutes to see if I notice the difference and with how I prepared the cheese, it didn't really matter.
Strain into a cheese cloth. I didn't need to squeeze the curds, just let them hang for a bit.
Throw a hunk of curds with half a stick of warmish butter and your favorite seasonings (this time: red chili flakes, garlic powder, salt, home grown basil) into a blender, process until the curds are very fine / we prefer spreadable instead of crumbly.
Soak the cheese cloth in vinegar to reuse.
Major hit without spending up for fancy cheese, has a story, is customizable, tastes great. DW + her GFs approve, what else matters
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!!
Day 14!
Vs day 1 / when I 'transplanted' the pellets to the reservoir
Healthy roots
Close up of the air roots, so cool.
I have done *nothing* for this set up since day 1. Lights on a timer, a fan on the plants to ensure transpiration, and that's it.
Talk about a high ROI/rewarding project.
