Fasting, Both Total and Natural

So far, I am 17 pounds down, many more to go.  My diet started as Slow Carb with the modification of one serving of carbs a day.  Then I was able to go full on Slow Carb. And then when went on a trip her sister and my daughter, I fasted and found it so damn easy that I have been skipping breakfast and lunch M/W/F, making a 23 hour fast from one dinner to the next each time.  

The game changer has been electrolytes.  Consuming one drink that has the full range of them (not just sodium, but potassium and magnesium) has helped me not feel brain fog or lack of energy on these fasts. I don’t even feel hungry, as long as I am not around food smells.  I just make sure to sip the drink over hours, as minerals too fast on an empty stomach can cause discomfort.

I buy that human beings are not supposed to eat a steady stream of carbs three meals a day, as we we did not involve in circumstances that allow that. And it makes sense that if long fasts are going to happen anyway, the body might as well use that time to make repairs... So look up autophagy, if that is a new idea to you.

But this then created a puzzle for me. If people are “supposed” to function under fast/feast, why is it that if you eat too quickly after a prolonged fast, you can get refeeding syndrome and actually  die from it?  How is that an example of the body being adapted to its natural environment?

Well, in the hunter/gather context people would still have small finds like nuts, berries, foraged greens, even honey.  And they wouldn’t refuse those opportunistic snacks.  Thus, their bodies were rarely in a state of total deprivation for days and days.

But what about autophagy? Doesn’t it need fasts of several days to start kicking in?  Turns out if your calories are restricted to around 500-800 and almost entirely from fats (thus not from sugars or proteins), the body can start autophagy [1].  Nuts and leafy vegetables would do this. So I plan on in the future taking several days eating meals consisting only of nuts and veg -- while sipping my electrolytes. I believe such an intervention will drastically reduce my odds of getting cancer.

Lastly, I theorized that people have long known about refeeding syndrome and have done things like make broths and start them before feasts. Yup.  Turns out that they have done so.

[1] See this guy https://valterlongo.com/biography/

Aesthetics 1

Lately I have been doing a lot of work on applied philosophy. You could call my main project “unfucking my life.” From this experience, I see how much of applied philosophy requires aesthetics -- haircuts and clothes and all shorts of shit that I have never cared about before. But here I wish to communicate the best piece of applied philosophy through applied aesthetics I have come to lately: enjoying squirrels.

Too often the people who try to find pleasure from nature end up feeling either indifferent toward or actively against squirrels. They put out seeds to feed birds, and find that they end up feeding squirrels more than the birds. And this becomes a daoist trap -- the kind that proves John’s point about the Daodejing as strategy guide -- the more you fight the squirrels getting your “bird” seed, the more they thwart you, and more hatred you have ground to feel (assuming no outside re-framing -- applied philosophy[1]).

I have been one of who has put seed out in the past, and of course I mostly feed squirrels. But at least I did not do battle with them, and perhaps that has made all the difference. This year I did not put out seed in the winter, and after some consideration, I have decided to not have a garden this year. Instead, I am in a position to enjoy what comes.

...

Much like Melville’s hundreds of pages of details allowed him to just blast through the action at the end of “Moby Dick”, I hope the paragraphs above were adequate set up to say the following: I recently went on a walk to Sutton Urban Wilderness, a wooded area with several trails and side trails. I saw squirrels being their glorious selves, and I paused to marvel at them. Bio-mechanics. Mammalian shine. Pretty... And I believe my ability to appreciate the real world around me is much better for it.

...

Also, the common grackle is another gift from God. They add beauty and interest to parking lots of big box stores and strip malls [2]. They show the dao is undefeated, at least with humans as the adversary.

...

Learn to love what is really here.

==


[1] Out of the Buddhist tool kit you have the lens of dissatisfaction (and then suffering) coming from the attachment to a conception.  I believe the term dukkha tries to represent this whole cycle.

[2] In fairness, I never have to deal with the full bulk of their migration, as people apparently do in Texas. You would really need to find ways to appreciate grackles before these moments.

Homo economicus 1

Posted first on the ERE (early retirement extreme) forum.

===

I was unemployed for a year and two months. Fuck that shit. It has been 21 years since I started working, and I only now realize that I need to have my next job lined up before I leave a job. Staying within the narrow and undesirable field of education allowed me to go in and out, as well be complacent with -- hell, unaware of -- my lack of interview skills.

Currently, I sub for one or two days a week and am putting the money earned back into my appearance. For example, this is the first time I've had two professional hair cuts in a row since I was a child. (Since childhood, I think it's been two: one was right before my wedding, and another was a time I had an interview to part of the library system, the failure of which broke my heart -- shit, rereading that is brutal; I also didn't realize how much I already knew about the problem at that point). There is also a balancing act going on in my mind between how much to put into one good interview outfit versus improving my about-town game. Also, I could put thousands, even tens of thousands into my outfits right now, but 1) I somewhat enjoy the gamified aspect of using just this earned money and 2) I need more experience before my decisions would be any good ...

I have the extra problem of needing to not overdress for what I am going for. I am not swinging for the fences here, but trying to get a single on the board so I don't have to return to teaching: IT help desk, technician (mostly inventory manager) for a school, Geek Squad, Costco. And it's that rock and hard place of needing to dress but not overdress that puts me at my stupid, neurodivergent limit when I think about it too long. If the goal was to look as good as fucking possible, I actually kinda know what I would do [1]. But normie shit has to be so hard, and so exacting.

Eye contact. Have never made that with someone I wasn't trying to sleep with, and even then, not that much. I think that was what cost me another job I interviewed for a few months ago. This was with a affluent school district with small enrollment at the other edge of the metroplex. The drive would have sucked, and the pay was a joke (though more than my expenses, and more than I earn with my subbing), but I would have loved the work, as they do as much hands-on repair as they can with Chromebooks and the job has prospects to grow with the ability to in-source more and more tech services -- failing that, it would have been my year or two of IT experience that would allow certifications I earn to actually count.

The head principal was a positivity peddler [2], and he seemed amazed by my combination of education experience and recent certifications. I'd also worked on the script for interview questions pretty hard, so I do think I nailed my Zoom interview. But they had me "come in," which I had hopes would have been to sign papers, but instead it was this fucked up walk around shit that could not have been designed better to expose that I am on the spectrum. I am really good with my tone of voice, at least when I am "on," and so I was still saying a lot of the right things, and even said had moments where they were laughing at wit, but yeah, I am sure at least the assistant principal thought I was shady and shifty. There is a certain type of person who shows up late to things but thinks they are "type A" that I absolutely cannot vibe with... or at least, they cannot vibe with me. They make everyone else to clean up their messes, linguistically, work flow, etc, yet think they are the hard-nosed force everything the world together. Anyway, I think he thought he "got me" in the end with his question about my willingness to commute -- which I was, and was willing to use that time to do audio content, but my eye contact didn't say it, now did it? ... Eh, I was probably leaking other stuff at lots of other moments, too. I wasn't ready to get through that hiring process.

My wife has us pretty involved in a church. We have been there now long enough that the dues paying is over, and people like to see us. This will give me a chance to practice eye contact stuff. I'm not sure that subbing actually will work for this, however, as the kids expect distance now (could not care if I live or die... It was not always like this).

Speaking of my wife, she has actually liked and benefited from my run of not working. I have been able to watch our kid when she is sick, and just in general take care of stuff. So, one thing I am doing is stretching this gap in my work history for the next two months. During that time, I should have quite a bit to work on with appearance and trying to practice human social behavior. May 2nd, another wave of applications go out. Can't sub during the summer any way. If any job sucks bad enough, or if I fail to get a job, I will sub again one more school year, wear out my cash reserves, but then become a teacher again before I dip into selling stock.

==

[1] I am amused by the idea of a speed run to high fashion. I mean, I don't have any outfit right this second that I think would be good enough for me to feel comfortable walking into a Dillard's. So, like, what Kohl's to get an outfit, to get into a Dillard's, to then have an outfit where I feel comfortable seeing a tailor. Again, amusing speed run. But it is going to be more a slow and steady deal.

[2] Just for venting's sake, when he called me and told me I didn't have the job, he was crestfallen when I just flatly said "that's that, I guess... have a good rest of your year, and a good day." He honestly thought some more ass kissing was coming, and hell, if I lived closer by or if I hadn't been busy at that moment and pre-drained by watching my daughter, I probably would have. Well, he can enjoy the fruits of his positivity during other moments of his life. I would have liked to have worked with him.

 

===

 Two chatGPT conversations today.  First, over the basics of eye contact: 

https://chatgpt.com/share/67d091f1-32e4-8005-b69d-cc797203abd2

Second, a reaction to the piece, but with it not knowing I wrote it, so there is more criticism of the plan: 

https://chatgpt.com/share/67d09149-ffa0-8005-a7a3-28352b9757fb

 

Disclaimer

 Ran replied that he should not be used as the only source of news. 

I wrote back that I would put this as a disclaimer, but I don't honestly know what else to add.  Taking news straight on, especially in these times, causes anxiety and dread in me. If you're not like that, then... get your news however you want. 

 Why am I advising anyone on what to do?  I will try less of that in the future.

Out East 2

About my piece Out East 1 -- which I had left as a stub to start the process of explaining my disillusionment with Eastern thought -- Ran writes:

i had never heard about buddhism being hidden from the public for so long, but i'm generally mistrustful of buddhist authorities. i was reading in some forum where someone suggested doing some different thing in meditation, and got shut down with the comment, "these practices have been tested for thousands of years." and i thought, what happened thousands of years ago when someone had an idea of doing it differently? "these practices have been tested for decades, so we're sure they're right." a living system of practices and beliefs must always be open for experimentation. once it gets set in stone, it's dead.

None of these have been mass practices for thousands of years, but instead practiced in small, highly controlled groups. For the people, there were superstitions, and stories heaped on stories, needing retcons like any other bloated fictional structure. The people weren’t asked to do meditative practices, but instead ceremonies, donations, holidays.  Their daily practices included things like making offerings for good fortune, engaging in protective rituals, or even worshiping local deities alongside Buddhist figures.  

The first wave of Buddhism in the West wasn’t just a natural cultural exchange—it was heavily shaped by colonialism, the pressures of modernization, and the need for Asian Buddhists who were back on their heels to respond to Western imperial influence.  It is not the story of beautiful, untouched intellectual territory, but the strategic ways Buddhist leaders adapted their tradition for both survival and global outreach.

...

But I wanted to believe that there was some ancient book that had answers deeper than this day to day life and diseased culture.  I was searching for the Eternal.
 

"Read not the Times. Read the Eternities."

Thoreau.

So even if I had known all of this above and it had turned me off from Buddhism, and given me earlier ammo against a certain strand of hucksterism, I still would have at some point fallen for the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing). It’s beginning, highlighting something very important:

Dao called Dao is not the eternal Dao

Names that can be named are not eternal names.

Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth
Naming: the mother of 10,000 things

Truly, "rid of desire, one can perceive
the Wondrous."
With desire, one can perceive only outcomes.

I thought that last bit quoted was the key to ... like everything, man. I thought that if we could get everyone to see correctly, whether through meditation or whatever, then people could drop desires and (social) outcomes and live in a world of pure wonder ... Wonder.

And then I realized this is just neurodivergence. It wasn’t spiritual practice that brought someone to this, but autism, one of the ways a person can be shamanic to prevent the group perishing from the effects of too much conformity.  

Ran Prieur Loves Your Freedom

This is my second post coming from Ran Prieur responding to my request to look at my blog. 

To the post They Hate Your Freedom Ran writes:

you're totally right about americans and freedom. i figured out a while back that in that famous grid, with economic freedom and social freedom, they have economic freedom backwards. real economic freedom is freedom *from* money, but the way libertarians have trained us to think, economic freedom is freedom *of* money to exploit humans however it has to, to turn itself into more money.

I think this helps make sense of the supposed authoritarian turn on the right. They always were authoritarian on both dimensions. ("But wait... The West Wing showed me that their are always reasonable Republicans that we can work with, and those dumb hippies keep trying to ruin it!" Sounds too stupid for anyone to believe? Obama squandered both of his terms on this article of faith... that or he failed on purpose). 

 Ian Welsh has a really good piece that sheds more light on this:

[with] conservatives ... the general orientation is towards authoritarian identity. The left emphasizes horizontal ties, conservatives emphasize primitive identity (religion and culture) mediated through vertical ties. Ruler, nobles, rich, church. 

At some point, I think Welsh is building his own nomenclature based on how things turned out -- meaning I think there were liberals (prior to, say, the Atari Democrats) that were operating in good faith and are swept up and reordered as "left" by what Welsh is doing here, but in broad strokes, he's spot on with:

Liberals are the great apostles of capitalism, not conservatives, though they like the way capitalism stratifies society. Left wingers are the opposition to capitalism. The most extreme versions want an end to it entirely, the moderate versions want it under firm control, made to contribute to mass prosperity, not turned to produce billionaires.

And, again, this is because what the left wants everyone prosperous, not a highly stratifed [sic] society, where a stratified society is a goal both liberals and conservatives share. 

Thus, to simplify,

Right-wingers [1]: freedom of money.

Liberals: attempted freedom through money. But, opps! Over and over.

Left-wingers: freedom from money. 

=

[1] Right wing, nothing conservative about it. You can't conserve disruption. (part II of the piece). Although the end game does appear that we will have a kind of feudalism, so I guess it will end up a stratified society society to be conservative about, after all.

Oh, Someone Does Give a Shit

I am not sure every reader I have is aware of Ran Prieur, but they should be.  He is my favorite living writer (I have only read his blog... so note to self: I should read his novels soon). For years now, I have given his blog my “home” spot on my browsers.  The content changes often enough to be interesting, but but does not hit me like news does. And I find that if something is important enough, it lands on his blog eventually, after which I can then find out about the world using search terms [1].

In an odd state induced by a) my sleep being messed up from my most recent trip, b) caffeine over-consumption to try to compensate and c) that wild session with chatGPT that felt deeply cathartic on my end... I dashed off an email that boiled down to “here’s my blog. I’m finally not bad at writing. Please validate me.” Now that I’m not in that state, but instead properly rested and even coming off my first day of work in over a year, I am asking myself “why did I do that?” but since Ran graciously replied, and not only that did so in a way that shows he read through the bulk of it, I am glad I did.

About my reading list from when I followed a disciplined path to study history, I wrote “No one gives a shit -- those with credentials only want to listen to others with credentials, and 100% of those without credentials (to a rounding error) want history to either be intuitive or self-serving.”

In one his paragraphs, Ran started
 

“i actually am interested in all the history books you read... ”

Well, that’s why the internet is a net boon (oh, pun accepted!) to weirdos like myself; good to find my people somewhere, anywhere. Unfortunately, Ran also had a question I cannot answer:
 

anyway, i once heard about a quote by martin luther, that it's better for the princes to rule badly than for the people to rule well. and that does sound like something he would say, but i looked and couldn't find it, so i'm wondering if you came across it.

It doesn’t surprise me that I didn’t, as my method of getting books was what was available in the library system or public domain, and neither of the two books I read on Martin Luther were all that intellectually deep nor factually dense.

The “Unreformed Mart Luther” has the subtitle of "A Serious (and Not So Serious) Look at the Man Behind the Myths,” and it was structured in very short chapters around myths, many of them I was completely unaware of, so I had to learn from inference. And the other of the other book , Metaxas, hosts a right-wing talk show. I don’t think his hand here was all that heavy, but on Wikipedia it is written that the NY Times review:

accused Metaxas of doing naive Whig history, portraying Luther as "a titanic figure who single-handedly slays the dragon of the Dark Ages, rescues God from an interpretive dungeon, invents individual freedom and ushers in modernity."

So while I do agree that quote against democracy does sound like something Luther would say, neither of my books would be likely to highlight it. 

Conclusion (for now).

But now someone, somewhere -- let alone the living thinker I respect the most -- has said they are interested in the reading list, so I’ve got an idea for at least one more piece on it. I also have two other comments Ran made on other pieces to write about. So stay tuned...



[1] I wish I was disciplined enough about my media diet that I had used his site as my source that Trump had won (again), but it is close to that... Though there are also newspaper front pages at check-out lines and on racks at the library.

Let me wax a little more poetically on Ran. He is my news filter, the optimist to my hardcore pessimist, but still doing the work to figure things out.  A righteous dude. The link is probably not the one you think -- click it; I dare you.  

==

Conversation I had with GPT that starts with a reflection on this writing.  It goes deeply, darkly into my psychology.