Lemur Journal!

Where are you and where are you going?
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Lemur
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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Today I learned about something called the Self-Licensing Trap: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licensing

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Lemur
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I can't remember which journal I pulled this article from. I just set it on my browser and started reading today:
https://simonsarris.substack.com/p/the- ... -is-agency

Finished but man this article really struck a chord with me. I was programming games on my childhood computer when I was 11-12 years old and I got so into it (staying up to 3am and sleeping half the day at school the next morning). Now they call that deep/flow work. I didn't know that at the time - I just thought what I was doing was interesting, fun, challenging....maybe I could make money / not who knows. It was more like play then work.

I'm not sure when I started to give up though - perhaps subtle influences by concerned parents/teachers but I eventually concluded that what I was doing was essentially a waste of time and I needed to focus on school grades instead when I entered high school. Which I did - I ended up making good grades in school too (top 10 in my graduating class). Because what I learned is that the system required this to get into college, etc. But what I did not know is that this decision completely crushed my creativity/innovative mindset and turned me more into the cog that I needed to be.

My son today is going on 7 and already tells me that school is too easy / boring. It is funny that he told me once a week or so ago that he should just be a YouTuber and why even bother with school. I just laughed and scoffed at that idea. I told him instead to keep focusing on his reading and math skills and do his best in school...He is only 7 after-all but the curiosity and questioning of things start so young!

But is this not the same thing that my parents/teachers did to me? Someone posted an excellent comment in that article:
Maybe it won’t be our job to facilitate at all. Maybe it will be our job to get out of the way.
I'll keep this in mind because surely there is a balance....but maybe there isn't a balance. Learning to have agency and all that comes with it - the highs and lows of success and failures is what develops character. Another mention in that article is how when some students graduate they're terrified suddenly of having to interview, get a job, etc...all that college and no confidence at all?

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by zbigi »

A sentence from that article really puts its credibility into question
The world until recently was overflowing with onramps of opportunity, even for children, and we seem to do poorly at producing new ones.
To my knowledge, the world until recently was a hellhole of poverty and misery. His given examples, like Da Vinci, were extremely privileged - Da Vinci's family had a solid "middle-class" background in a flourising Italian rennaisance city. Meanwhile, 99% of people were illiterate and were grinding out a living doing farming in some muddy village at the end of the world. Where's the "overflowing onramps of opportunity" there?

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Re: Lemur Journal!

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Yes - but this also appears to circle back to a post much earlier in my journal from Jacob:
viewtopic.php?p=256707&hilit=economic+problem#p256707

And also reminds me of a quote from John Adams:
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
I'll try my best to articulate...

So there is an order of things here...to get to the creative outlets we've to remove the poverty and misery to free up these "overflowing onramps of opportunity."

Every generation seems to have their own built in creative ceilings due to either political systems that generate war or mass ignorance produced from the way our education system is set up today (to build cogs). Breaking these ceilings is rare for that reason. And perhaps you're more right then wrong here - it definitely helps to have a privileged upbringing to get a chance to see this.

But I'm also left very optimistic because the economic problems, at least in the U.S. and developed countries, is solved (in theory) if the chains of consumerism are broken (in practice). Getting from step 2 (be a cog to keep the system running) to step 3 (creative outlets) requires a complete change in mindset and power of agency.

And the power of agency can be given at a young age. And I don't think you need a middle-class upbringing to do that...
https://fee.org/articles/unschooler-ent ... e-summers/

Put another way. Our education system today is excellent at churning out people to do the bare minimum of getting paid work and paying the bills. Poverty and misery alleviated but most are not building wealth and a large cohort are stuck doing minimum wage jobs. A smaller subset have educated themselves enough to get higher degrees and some even understand the economic and financial system ("the power of compound interest.") to start building actual wealth. They save and invest and that is great. But it stops there. An even smaller subset have figured out the FIRE math (trying to remember...10% or so people have heard the term FIRE and even less aim for actual ER). It takes actual agency to want to learn self-sufficiency and not rely on the economy completely. Upbringing can help buck this trend by skipping straight to the self-reliance and agency step. Then the creativity opportunity ramps really open up and we can collectively work to solve bigger problems. Hope that makes sense.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Slevin »

Lemur wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:08 am
I'm not sure when I started to give up though - perhaps subtle influences by concerned parents/teachers but I eventually concluded that what I was doing was essentially a waste of time and I needed to focus on school grades instead when I entered high school. Which I did - I ended up making good grades in school too (top 10 in my graduating class). Because what I learned is that the system required this to get into college, etc. But what I did not know is that this decision completely crushed my creativity/innovative mindset and turned me more into the cog that I needed to be.

My son today is going on 7 and already tells me that school is too easy / boring. It is funny that he told me once a week or so ago that he should just be a YouTuber and why even bother with school. I just laughed and scoffed at that idea. I told him instead to keep focusing on his reading and math skills and do his best in school...He is only 7 after-all but the curiosity and questioning of things start so young!

But is this not the same thing that my parents/teachers did to me? Someone posted an excellent comment in that article:

I'll keep this in mind because surely there is a balance....but maybe there isn't a balance. Learning to have agency and all that comes with it - the highs and lows of success and failures is what develops character. Another mention in that article is how when some students graduate they're terrified suddenly of having to interview, get a job, etc...all that college and no confidence at all?
In "My Ishmael" Quinn argues that human children for the better part of 3 million years (at least several hundred thousand) learned everything they needed to survive / by the age of thirteen or fourteen (puberty) just by being given entire agency for their existence. Their parents let them roam and taught them the things they were interested in, and that kids have a drive (up until puberty at least) to learn what their parents do and be like their parents. This would then allow them to asynchronously (as children learn when they need a skill to do something) learn all of the skills they need in the first decade of so of their life as they became interested in fishing, hunting, tracking, building shelter, weaving, agriculture, etc.

He also argues that school acts as a time barrier that "teaches" children loads of useless skills that give them no survival value, but keeps them
there and controlled enough to not yet be able to enter the job market. Thus the education system is really a system to serve "economic" needs and not the needs of people. He also questions how much children "learn" in school, versus study a thing to pass a test and then immediately forget about it, meaning that nothing is really ever learned except how to store information short term, and then forget about it nearly immediately. It also doesn't serve the purpose of "preparing children for jobs or the real world" as we can tell because 18 year old high school graduates and 22 year old college graduates alike generally have no conception of how to cook their own food and prepare food, build a fence from wood, build a house, repair a car, repair a shoe, garden, balance a checkbook and maintain a healthy monetary attitude, etc. And i also doubt anyone's "specialized college educations" actually heavily prepared them for the jobs available in that field either (maybe excluding hard engineering in itself).

From another perspective, Gabriel Wulf's OPTIMAL theory of motor learning came out about 6 years ago now (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26833314/, or for ) , and this heavily researched method prioritizes "Autonomy" and "Expectancies" as top factors in learning performance, as well as an "external focus" of attention. Assuming children are like adults when it comes to learning (and this could apply only to "motor" learning, but it probably applies to all learning), there should be a big performance difference when the child has a sense of autonomy in their learning, as well as increased self-efficacy (confidence).

So while you probably don't really have the ability to "pull your kid out of school and become a youtuber", giving them that large amount of autonomy and a learning focus outside of the school setting will totally allow them to gain a much deeper understanding of motor learning and probably give them a higher amount of life skills as well.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Lemur wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:08 am
I'm not sure when I started to give up though - perhaps subtle influences by concerned parents/teachers but I eventually concluded that what I was doing was essentially a waste of time and I needed to focus on school grades instead when I entered high school. Which I did - I ended up making good grades in school too (top 10 in my graduating class). Because what I learned is that the system required this to get into college, etc. But what I did not know is that this decision completely crushed my creativity/innovative mindset and turned me more into the cog that I needed to be.
DW and I spent a long time this weekend talking about how direct or indirect messages from parents or caregivers can cause children to suppress their authenticity. This probably has disastrous consequences on an individual. If the majority of society has suppressed their authentic self, it is no wonder that a large portion lead lives of quiet desperation.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by jacob »

Slevin wrote:
Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:52 am
In "My Ishmael" Quinn argues that human children for the better part of 3 million years (at least several hundred thousand) learned everything they needed to survive / by the age of thirteen or fourteen (puberty) just by being given entire agency for their existence. Their parents let them roam and taught them the things they were interested in, and that kids have a drive (up until puberty at least) to learn what their parents do and be like their parents. This would then allow them to asynchronously (as children learn when they need a skill to do something) learn all of the skills they need in the first decade of so of their life as they became interested in fishing, hunting, tracking, building shelter, weaving, agriculture, etc.
You'll find more along this line in Jared Diamond's books: Hand a knife to a toddler. If they're smart, they'll learn an unforgettable lesson of what sharp metal does in one try or die. A lot of trust in the innate wisdom of humans. Probably the same wisdom that makes us afraid of spiders and snakes.

Of course, one issue that the present world is changing much faster while also being much bigger than the previous one. It's no longer driven by "the ageless wisdom of the spirit of the valley" as much as the "current research of a global collaboration of experts, subject to change".

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

My heart is saying learn the Cello. Brain is saying learn the Piano.

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto D Major Op.35 - Bomsori Kim
https://youtu.be/Qf9FKZicwL4

I just admire the incredible skill I'm seeing. That violinist easily has over 10k hours...likely doing so since they were a kid.

I've been down a classical music kick as of late. Wish I had these opportunities to pick up an instrument when I was a kid. Not saying that it is too late now though! Perhaps I'll add to my to-do list of things I want to try one day.

My son will be learning an instrument in 3rd grade - at least being exposed to the idea of picking one up. It will be interesting to see what he takes too. I bought him a keyboard a few months ago for $15. Figured I could fix it so took a gamble. I could not fix it though. I was gambling that all I had to do was open it up, take some alcohol and q-tips and clean out the insides.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by zbigi »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:04 pm

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto D Major Op.35 - Bomsori Kim
https://youtu.be/Qf9FKZicwL4

I just admire the incredible skill I'm seeing. That violinist easily has over 10k hours...likely doing so since they were a kid.
Notice the dozens of people playing in the back (aka the orchestra). They've also been doing this for 10k hours, and yet are not at her level. I'd say this level of performance is akin to being in the Olympics (BTW, on the subject of training classical musicians, I recommend the excellent movie "Whiplash" if you haven't seen it yet). I don't think a hobbyist can realistically aim for that.

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Post by Lemur »

My intuition was right…she started at 5.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomsori_Kim

Never seen Whiplash.

Starting an instrument in older ages…learning a language in older ages. Yes, many things that likely would’ve been better off starting young. Expectations should be set accordingly for max skill but I think one advantage kids have is they learn without taking themselves too seriously.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by mathiverse »

Lemur wrote:
Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:04 pm
My heart is saying learn the Cello. Brain is saying learn the Piano.

... Wish I had these opportunities to pick up an instrument when I was a kid. Not saying that it is too late now though! Perhaps I'll add to my to-do list of things I want to try one day.
Check out this book about a late learner of the cello for some motivation!

https://www.amazon.com/Never-Too-Late-M ... 0201567636

Unfortunately, I can't recommend the book on the basis of having read it because I haven't, but I read two of his other books and I enjoyed his writing in those, so I suspect the book about his experience with the cello will be good too.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

October 1, 2022

Net-worth:
$455k (Down $36k)

Down another $36k. Down $145k from all-time net-worth high. The market has sucked lately, but when I zoom out until 2016 (roughly the time I moved all assets to Vanguard), my annualized return is 7.96%. Sounds about right. How much of the profit returned to shareholders in these past years were financially engineered?

I've some short puts on SOFI that had to be rolled out a month and down from $5.00 strike to $4.50 strike. The good news is I managed to roll out for a net credit. This can be kept up for a while as long as I monitor closely and the stock stays above this strike price or trades sideways. I bet against macroeconomic conditions and lost.

In any case, I'm keeping up with my original goal: eventually allocate all capital to 25% VTI, 25% VXUS, 25% VYM (new) and 25% BNDW. This year has proven at least for me its a good idea to have an index of reliable dividend paying stocks. Some of the companies in VYM are already in VTI which is fine. These days I'm thinking more towards yields then I am towards absolute growth...and the risk that comes with that. Though I can't help myself trying to financial engineer my net-worth with options at least while I'm still accumulating.

Physical Health / Diet: I dropped the weight lifting because my workplace shut down gym access to my agency. Super lame but whatever. On a real positive front, I weigh 166lbs and maintained my 165-170lb range without calorie counting.

There is a influential paper I read last month by Elliot Danforth, Jr. MD. called Diet and Obesity. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article-a ... 32/4691821. This is an excerpt.

The gist of the paper talks about how food is metabolized and how we can use this information to adjust our diet. One should recognize that protein rarely, if ever, converts to fat because this macronutrient is broken down into amino acids and used to muscle and cell repair. The leftover is processed through the kidneys and pissed away. Protein has a high thermic effect of food at 30%. In other words, every 100 calories you consume, 30 is lost due to processing. Carbohydrates also, surprisingly new information to me, rarely convert to fat. They're broken down to glucose for energy, used by the brain, and some is maintained in the blood stream. The leftover is stored as glycogen in the muscle for which the body stores about 400-500 grams and stores another 100 grams or so in the liver. The excess? Rarely converted to fat. Typically metabolism (RMR, and body heat will kick up to expel it along with causing one to increase their own Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). In fact, only in a laboratory setting of overfeeding someone carbohydrates day and day out for weeks on end will make someone convert carbohydrates to fat in a process called de novo lipogenesis. Fats on the other hand, are stored extremely efficiently at 93%.

A big reason that a lot of the low-fat Vegan Doctors and others promote this information is namely due to opportunity costs of eating fats. One example from Jeff Novick: https://youtu.be/lbALgjmZUek

Dr. Michael Greger, John A. McDougall, Dr. Kaplan, Valter Longo and others have a similar message. Dr. Greger in his daily dozen recommends just a tablespoon of ground flax seed a day and an ounce of nuts for total fat intake. McDougall, Esselstyne, and some others even go a step further and eliminate what we might have learned as "healthy fats" as well - nuts, seeds, butters, even avocado.

While I don't think it is necessary to totally eliminate nuts, seeds, and nut butters, etc. In my humble opinion, they're on to something in general. The opportunity costs of fats are great. 1 tablespoon of olive oil, for instance, is 120 calories of just fat with trace sources of vitamin E. Instead you could eat 2 apples or 1.5 cup of blueberries or any number of foods that actually are packed with vitamins, minerals, and most importantly carry volume to hit the stretch receptors in your stomach to create feelings of satiety.

So last month, I basically stuck to beans, legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, just a tablespoon of flax seeds a day, and a vitamin B12 capsule at 2000mg once a week. I completely eliminated the oils, nuts, seeds, nut butters, etc. Fat intake was really low and basically only came from trace fats found in these foods and the 3 grams or so from the flax seeds. With no calorie counting, and most importantly, eating ad libitum, I was able to get back into the lower end of my weight range. Satiety was excellent. Despite the low levels of protein intake as well (I average around 40-50 grams), I've noted no loss in strength or muscle mass (my only data being the amount of pushup-ups and pull-ups I do). On the contrary, energy is excellent.

How convenient that this diet also really fits well with ERE level spending. I don't need to purchase meats, eggs, cheese, dairy, oils/butter, or processed foods. The bulk of my diet is staples. While my family still eats these things (only more occasionally now and not daily), they're not "extreme" as me but the Overton window of my family's diet has shifted a bit in my direction. Hard to argue with results when I don't possess a dad bod but six-pack abs at 31 years old.

Mental Health: Good but I maxed out my nutrition reading after finishing Greger's "How not to Diet" and Longo's "Longevity Diet." The returns are going to be diminishing in this area as I feel now more certain then ever I found a diet that works well for my health and spending. Another issue is I picked doom-scrolling back up but need to reverse that trend. I need to find healthy ways to engage with the world in a productive manner.

A passing thought I have had - my over focus on nutrition and health could be my way of handling terror management lol.

Job: Boring as hell but it pays. I did get a $500 monetary reward. Also I found $9k dollars under a mattress lol. So apparently my old employer had pension contributions that I completely forgot about. I'm cashing this out and we're using the money to visit the Philippines next year. The rest will be invested. So I'm excited about that - we bought tickets. I've not been to my Spouses country in 6 years.

Gardening: Bell Peppers, Carrots, Chili Pepper, Radishes, Turnips continue to grow. I once again for 3 years in a row failed to get cabbage going.

Reading / Other: I picked up this book called "Helping Children Succeed; What Works and Why" by Paul Tough. Even that last name sounds like this book might be in the perspective of an Orange but we will see. The conversation above on my journal page has been interesting. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Goals: Work is going to be busy this month so I need to focus better on that. I'm getting lazy. Don't get assigned on my short puts. I'm having a hard time lately with the topic of "Goals." Its more like, I just want to learn new things (like music theory passed my way last month) and keep focused attention so I don't fall into existential nihilism that happens when one does not engage with the world and doom scrolls all day.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by ertyu »

On diet: while you've already cleaned this up and it's not an issue for you, for completeness' sake it's good to note that refined sugar (also a carb) has 0 issues with de novo lipogenesis. Source: have a sweet tooth, am fat :lol: But there are also papers + refined sugar can actually result in fatty liver, like drinking. I've found it interesting to follow the high fat/keto school of thought vs. the high complex carb / low fat schools of thought.

Cool that you've found a science-backed diet that works for you, I'm curious to see how you'll feel about it in 3 months or so.

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Yeah I should clarify that basically, whole intact grains, whole grain pasta, fruits, etc. things that have fiber and release glucose slowly in the bloodstream = friends. Simple carbohydrates, things that will rapidly accelerate insulin secretion (we gotta store this glucose now or otherwise consequences) will wreck havoc though on your liver where it will get stored: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29697539/

The keto backed tribe likes to extend this out to all carbohydrates but that isn’t true (well a half-truth). Glucose is the preferred energy source for the body and brain…and the science is clear on that. To further elaborate, glucose released slowly into the bloodstream is utilized and stored appropriately as glycogen in the muscle and liver. An excess to that will be burned off indirectly. Yet - a sudden influx of glucose will cause fat storage issues that lead to fatty liver issues. This is the main reason why there are different health effects between complex carbohydrates and simple ones. Another benefit of complex carbohydrates is that they typically include fiber (which slows the rate of breakdown of carbohydrates and thus the absorption rate of glucose) that keeps your colon healthy and feeds your gut microbiome by breaking down the fiber into short-chain fatty acids. On the other hand, simple carbohydrates (sugar) does not include fiber (or other healthy embedded nutrients for that matter) and causes a sudden influx of glucose that overpowers the pancreas which causes excess insulin secretion… which in turn causes blood sugars to drop in excess of homeostasis …which causes one to feel hungry again. Sugar is a negative feedback loop in this regard. And so, we can see how carbohydrates can be health promoting or bad for one depending upon what form they’re in.

You can live just fine with a low carbohydrate intake though. I don’t think this is optimal for many reasons but our bodies are incredible machines that can adapt to many food environments. Probably for survival reasons I am sure the pathways exist so that fats can be broken down to ketones for energy (and ketones can even be broken down to glucose in a process called gluconeogensis to feed the brain) if glucose is not available in the environment.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Vagabond »

Make sure you get your testosterone, other hormones and lipids checked on such a low fat diet. Under-consuming certain things like cholesterol can induce your body to overproduce its own. Low test is also very common after prolonged low fat diet.

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Post by Lemur »

Make sure you get your testosterone, other hormones and lipids checked on such a low fat diet.
Not a bad idea for anyone regardless of diet to get these blood work / lipid panel and have these things regularly checked at least annually. Preferably bi-annually. Mostly for preventative reasons.
Under-consuming certain things like cholesterol can induce your body to overproduce its own.
I would need to see a source on this statement if you could provide one because this is not my understanding. Its probably best to avoid consuming dietary cholesterol for increased risk factors of heart disease and cardiovascular risk.
A large body of evidence shows there were once enormous swaths of the world where the coronary heart disease epidemic seemed to be almost non-existent, such as rural China and sub-Saharan Africa. It’s not genetics: When people move from low- to high-risk areas, their disease rates appear to skyrocket as they adopt the diet and lifestyle habits of their new homes. The extraordinarily low rates of heart disease in rural China and Africa have been attributed to the extraordinarily low cholesterol levels among these populations. Though Chinese and African diets are very different, they are both centered on plant-derived foods, such as grains and vegetables. By eating so much fiber and so little animal fat, their total cholesterol levels averaged under 150 mg/dL, similar to people eating contemporary strictly plant-based diets. https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/cholesterol/
And I think the body is smarter then we're...I can't imagine that cholesterol would be overproduced if we were not consuming enough. In a similar vein, the body does not overproduce glucose when it lacks it. Our bodies systems are well tuned unless they're damaged like in metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and the like.
Low test is also very common after prolonged low fat diet.
The information as I know it is conflicting on this topic. Typically in men, higher body fat levels increase levels of estrogen which causes decreased free testosterone levels. If someone is lean and mean, low-fat diets are not a concern for T-levels. If there is an effect, it appears minimal at best and I believe the benefits of not consuming fats far outweigh the risks of lower T-levels.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... f-less-fat ...I'll have to agree with the authors
The authors conclude that men with obesity may view a potential slight reduction in serum testosterone to be a relatively minor consideration in comparison with the potential benefits of a low-fat diet.
I'd wager for men, T-levels dropping on low fat diets is probably related to not hitting their Zinc requirements.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8875519/

Because consuming enough Zinc is easy enough to do consuming meat (which contains the fats we're trying to avoid). If you're eating low fat, then you've to increase your bean intakes to hit 11 mg a day. 2 cups a day plus eating nuts daily (or upping some dark leafy greens) should be enough though there is also some information that the bioavailability is not as good. There are some vegans/vegetarians that can benefit from a low-dose zinc supplement.

In a final analysis....regardless of any of the above... one's own data should be their guide. I don't want to be confused with low-fat dogma camps...Get blood work and avoid dietary ideologies from low-fat or low-carb internet tribes. There is so many confounding variables in nutrition, especially considering ones own dietary compliance and genetics, that despite everything I think I might know about nutrition - I cringe a little to make generalizations or recommendations for anybody else.

From a philosophical standpoint, it would be foolish to go through life without having pizza and/or pumpkin pie ever again :lol:

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

Definition of Weltschmerz:
1 : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state.

Well maybe one can solve this problem with being humble: that their definition of the ideal state is probably debatable from others. And we can’t make the world into our own image anyway. The most we can do is put a small dent in it. In any case, causality will remain undefeated.

The above reads like nihilism erotica. I should think of something more life affirming lol.

For example, Noam Chomsky. Where does he find that strength to keep fighting his causes at 93 years old? He’s still doing interviews and he’s on a full schedule from what I see. Or anyone else who decides to keep fighting the good fight well into old age.

Do life affirming individuals ultimately conclude that they need to find something “beyond themselves” ?

Think of our current food supply or labor laws. Or even the ability to FIRE at all because of the way the financial system is set up. I’m grateful for that. Millions of people before me have paved the way.

Perhaps to be life affirming is to pay it forward in your own unique way.

That concludes today’s ramblings.

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Post by ertyu »

The way in which I am "beyond myself" is that I happen to have a pretty good stamina for listening to people talk about the hardships in their lives. I'm sharing this because you're asking "where does he find the energy." I am a fairly depressed eeyoree-style couch potato, so I don't radiate joy and excitement, but I still "have the energy" to have conversations with people about issues like that. It's a very specific sort of conversation - not where someone out of touch with themselves is angrily ranting, but where someone says, "I love my cancer survivor father, but it's so difficult being his caretaker and I feel resentful of him, and guilty" (the last such conversation I had). Where I find the energy? It feels inherently meaningful to me to have conversations like that. No, I don't know why. It certainly isn't something I deliberately cultivated or something that was in any way present in my family of origin.

I guess another way to say it is, if it's inherently meaningful to you, it doesn't feel like work and it doesn't take "energy."

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by zbigi »

Lemur wrote:
Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:01 pm

For example, Noam Chomsky. Where does he find that strength to keep fighting his causes at 93 years old? He’s still doing interviews and he’s on a full schedule from what I see. Or anyone else who decides to keep fighting the good fight well into old age.
Genetics? It's possible that a minority of people are just naturally predisposed to want to be working all the time.

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Re: Lemur Journal!

Post by Lemur »

@ertyu

I like this. Anything life affirming for this energy should probably align with a person's temperament. I'm still looking for that thing for me. I can get it in spurts. Sometimes its just learning new things or expanding my knowledge/skills. For instance, I'm reading through "Investments" by Zvi Bodie. But only a few pages at a time. My attention span can just suck sometimes. I do enjoy what I read but I just spend a lot of time brain compiling. Like in coding (work-related, I never code outside of that), sometimes my best insights come when I'm not at my computer.

Here is another fella I find inspirational:
https://people.com/sports/100-year-old- ... lacing-up/

Who knows what his inspiration is - I'd wager partially for himself but partially he likes knowing that other people get inspired from what he is doing. Definitely there needs to be an long-lasting intrinsic motivation.

The problem I've is hard to necessarily nail down. And I'm definitely not unique in this issue. Its is one of self-actualization. For me, I'm grateful I get a chance to self-actualize when I look at the state of the world. Billions of people can't get to the top of this pyramid because they've security, safety, relationship, food, or other issues to tackle first. I really like seeing other people thrive. Raising my son has been helpful in that regard. One of the best feelings I've is watching him learn/struggle with something and then bam :idea: he gets it or hits a new stage in learning or whatever he is working on at the moment.

But the self-actualizing part itself, I'm still figuring it out....mentioned before but I can get it in spurts with short-term learning and projects. But I'm still looking for that long-term solution. The whole freedom-to deal I guess. I managed to ignore it for a while with a health focus. I won that game losing 30 lbs and keeping it off. But for whatever reason, I'm increasingly believing that the long-term solution has to be beyond yourself or something to that effect. Surely there needs to be an intrinsic motivation component as well.

Ultimately though, when I can't come up with an answer, what I feel I have to do really is just snap back into reality and get out of my own head; which feels increasingly incoherent sometimes. And just do stuff. I think back to JennyPenny's post for this particular issue: viewtopic.php?p=259342#p259342

@Zbigi

Genetics perhaps. Also very possible in Noam's case what he is doing doesn't feel like work. I didn't think of that until Ertyu brought that up. That was a good point. Worth pondering over.

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