Category: Life

I wrote this in conversation on facebook. I’m not an expert on the subject of economic ideologies, but I thought this critique of “taking things to a logical conclusion” was worth re-posting.

I think it is ultimately useless to take the terms “socialism” or “capitalism” to their extreme, ideologically “pure” conclusions. To say socialism is absolute authoritarianism is to thus imply capitalism is total anarchy.

Neither is a particularly good way to live.

In this starkly dualistic world, we are all fettered under the yoke of authoritarianism once you add a little government regulation to rein in the anarchy. Societal models shouldn’t be managed like food safety, where a gallon of milk is spoiled by a drop of cyanide.

Conservatives tend to conflate socialism with communism and its worst excesses. They enjoy drawing a straight line between government run medicine to re-education gulags, while balking at any such of similar absurdist response on the other side.

There’s no room for pick up basketball in a public park, sponsored by the theft of pure capitalist earnings.

Personally, I am not comfortable with the recent adoption of the term “socialism” by the left, even if it is is a loud and proud reappropriation of an overused slur by the right after the pendulum has swung so far towards unfettered markets. But many folks have pointed out that American liberals would be considered free market conservatives pretty much anywhere else on this planet so I’m not to scared of the bogeyman of socialism in US politics.

Like many other things in life, government is a exercise in balance, not purity. Logic exercises can only take you so far.

I had a canker sore on my tongue for the last few days and I was struck by how one well placed ulcer can be so debilitating.

This sore was on the side and thus perfectly place to be irritated when eating and talking. It was bad enough to the point I ended up just taking naps all weekend to avoid the pain.

Like my recent bout with pneumonia was a reminder that health is darn near close to everything, this one is a reminder that the details matter.

Even the smallest ailments can make life quite miserable!

I dreamt of meeting an old acquaintance and chatting about work as the snow fell outside the cafe windows.

It was a nice dream.

But instead of sleep-processing a meeting every six years, there has to be a better way to keep in touch.

However, time is tight. I don’t have time to chat with everyone I’ve previously known.

Social media makes it easier to stalk people, and it may be a medium for contact like email, but it is not actual connection.

Maybe the dream world isn’t an awful filter to figure out who is worth keeping in contact.

Most everyone has their vices.

These are the ones I spend my money on. The first three are in reality, and the last in aspiration.

Then again, also not so much the first two, since we’ve been living in constrained quarters.

And the third has been a bit limited due to a lack of promising places for going out to eat.

But still, these are nice luxuries to have. The greatest luxury being the ability to indulge in them at will.

I like to follow sports. Don’t have time to watch the action anymore, but I follow the players. Living through the strategy game vicariously.

I’ve started reading Lone Wolf and Cub. It’s a classic, but ultimately still a samurai manga.

Or how about my run of watching Spike Jonze music videos?

Excellent craft is beautiful to watch.

But is worth my time?

If not this then what?

As I got off of the steroids from my bout with pneumonia, I ended up crashing for a long night.

It was quite refreshing to sleep for ten hours straight. As I get older, these occasions where I just sleep for hours on end seem to have become quite rare.

I can’t remember half of what I dreamed, but it felt like I had trawled through the memory banks clearing out the muddle in my head to be rearranged in the morning.

Merlin Mann once tweeted:

Which seems pretty dead-on to me.

The alternate to conspiracy theories is just good old failure.

Most of the time it’s a confluence of bureaucratic negligence aided by individual cupidity.

I want what I want, and if the system lets me get away with it. Or the people running the system tries to get as much out of its individuals (who only have so much to give) that corners get cut.

Eventually compounds until something breaks and then fingers get pointed all around.

I heard this line on the Jocko Podcast and it’s stuck with me since.

The original question is “When should you plant a tree?”

But it applies to so many other things in our life. We can rue the lost time or just start moving.

But it almost creates another moment of paralysis – which skills do I need to learn, what is worth pursuing for the next two decade?

I guess we can never read the crystal ball that well, not if we’re sitting still. But maybe things get a little less murky if you try a few steps here or there.

And maybe the key is to take those first few steps, but then decide whether it is still worth that two decade run. Otherwise, just walk away and try something else.

So get moving, but don’t get trapped by sunk costs.

This was the cold where I in such bad shape that I could not work. Normally I’ll take a sick day out of respect of my coworkers, to let the worst of it blow off before I go into the office.

This time I was in such a general malaise I couldn’t even work at home, even though I had brought some back to try.

But the other big cost of such an extravaganza is the morning habits that have been fully broken for a week. With my impending work deadline, I had started to skip exercising the last couple weeks, and now I had fallen off the blog for a few days at a time.

I can catch up on the blog posting schedule, but daily mental exercise is something you don’t get back.

Just like that physical exercise.

Life decided to greet my entrance into my forties by giving me a bout of pneumonia!

In the past I’ve always beaten back my colds by just waiting it out with some guaifenesin, but when things slowly kept getting worse, and my chest started feeling funny, it was time to go in.

After a couple chest x-rays it was confirmed to be pneumonia and I’m on an antibiotic and steroid for a week.

And this is when you are reminded the value of western medicine. In an earlier era I can easily envision a scenario where it gets worse to the nth degree.

Ideally it would have been preferable to avoid it (a reminder to do those qigong exercise I should have been practicing), but once you need it, goddamn it’s good to have.