I’m supposed to do these all the time. It’s one of the first things they teach you in blogger school, right after how many times you can wear the same t-shirt without washing it. And yet I can’t; it is beyond me. I can fix a car and I can kick an object slightly above my head, but I can’t do this.

Yet I am still loved; I feel very blessed.

Stuff

1. I have had more than a few people contact me both in the comments and by email bearing sympathy for my stressy-ness. I would like to assure everyone that even though I’m stressed, I’m basically fine. I would also like to encourage anyone who has been through similar experiences to post anything that worked for them in that article or here.

2. I will probably stop reminding people at some point, but I have a discord. The always-weird-sounding purpose of the discord is to give people access to me if they need me for anything. The secondary purpose is as a hangout spot; there’s lots of good folks in there.

   (There is, fair warning, also a sub-channel within the discord whose purpose is fight-to-the-death political discussion. I feel people should be allowed to do this or dodge this as desired; the rest of the discord is nice and friendly.)

3. Due to the long and patient efforts of an internet friend, I now have a crypto address. I’m putting it up on the sidebar of the main site, but it’s 0xe580b78b8e0779319b8df92e542f0e3927c634a8.
   
   I’m actually interested to see if this does anything, support-wise. Theoretically, there are people who have crypto, don’t like using credit cards, and who like the kind of stuff I produce. I hope to corner this niche market and use the proceeds to purchase an Australian opal mine. I’m not 100% it works like that, but I will report back once I find out.

4. I’m still accepting freelance writing here. Right now I’m very honestly a little fuzzy on pricing for different kinds of projects, but the way I’m solving this is to mostly just do the first project of any particular kind with a relatively flexible idea of pricing, mostly so I can get a handle on what takes more/less time than I think it does, and what I like or dislike.
   
   All that to say if you have something you want me to look at, let me know - I’d like to eventually grow this to where it’s a significant part of my income (or all of it) but I’m still more or less in beta testing.

Links

1). Jay Rollins once said this:

On an individual level, I think EAs are glassy-eyed but harmless indoor kids with tech money. But I like RC. He’s heavily armed, takes no shit, and turns into a wheel of blades when challenged, and I appreciate that in a person.

And it’s one of my favorite things anyone has ever said about me. I want “was sometimes a spinning wheel of blades” on my tombstone. Jay said this wonderful thing on his blog, which he has, and which is pretty good. Here’s the post the spinning blades thing is from, and here’s the blog in general. Enjoy!

2). I’m not 100% convinced on 100% of long covid, but I’d also hate to be the guy who was wrong about it in a counterproductive way. Eureka Health is an early-stage app that tracks correlations between any health variable and any health outcome. I’ve seen a bit of it; it’s pretty slick. Right now they seem to be focusing on long covid folks. If you’re that, it’s probably worth looking into.

3). Taking advantage of my offer to plug things is Tove K, who sent me this article about the tie between sex and relationships ((which I agree with in parts and disagree with in parts) a few weeks ago and this (about evolutionary psychology, stress, and their efforts to destressify themselves) a few a days ago. Fun quote:

In order to cure my depression, I did the evolutionary psychology thing hard-core: I got married and had children. I dropped out of university. I moved to the countryside. I started to renovate and build houses and to grow food for my family. 

Did it make me happy? Yes. Did it make me rich? No. Did it make me successful? Nope. 

There is a reason why most people don't do what Anders and I did: It costs. It costs in terms of standard of living, it costs in terms of social status and most of all, it costs in terms of professional opportunities. Not only for ourselves but also for our children, which is probably more than most can bear. 

Possible upcoming articles

1. Something about how really everything is a slippery slope and you should be very afraid of them

2. How hard is it to be honest?

3. Durable objects of high workmanship and how I love them

4. Something about car repair, but interspersed with things that aren’t about car repair. This would mostly be to prove that I can write an article that makes at least one person cry that’s mostly about car repair.

That’s it! Otherwise this is an open discussion thread - have at ye.