An Ode to Discomfort

Life does not provide a final finish line. There is no end to discomfort until the cessation of life itself. If a cool breeze braces your cheeks at the end of a competition, you should still anticipate the turbulent storm that is bound to follow.

I think most adults believe the act of growing up deserves them a lifetime of ease and painless sustenance. In the west particularly, adults tend to shun struggle, believing the rest of their years should be lived without pain. They “deserve” comfort, they seem to tell themselves. It’s somehow a reward for “struggling through youth.” So, they seek air conditioning, the drive-through, the chair, booze, television, gluttony, and phones. They adult bicycle collects dust if its owner fears the dirt outside. It is those who embrace the chaos outside who last the longest.

I try to avoid comfort as though it’s a disease I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I aim to thrive in chaos and live well in the maelstrom. Pain is a necessary part of living and the precursor to growth. Without pain there is no life.

How have I embraced pain lately?

Somehow I managed to bike ten miles home immediately after breaking my collarbone and hitting my head hard enough to not know what year it was.

I bike commuted 20 miles to work in sub-zero temperatures winter mornings over the past few years, while gusts of wind sometimes rocked me with sleet. I learned to change tires on the side of the road while my fingers numbed.

Tolerating pain helped me train for a marathon while my right arm was still broken and unable to swing naturally in stride.

I finished a long run after my face was stabbed by a tree branch (and drove myself to a nearby Urgent Care to have my face stitched afterwards). I laughed as the nurse stitched me up. I now embrace this scar, whereas many would be “distraught by the imperfection.”

It’s why my old teammates at the University of Texas called me “The Manimal.” They knew I can absorb higher loads of pain than most.

My tolerance for pain helped me learn to run after 36 years of just swimming and lifting, and it’s how I ran my first marathon at age 37. To get back in the pool and beat people my age at swim meets seemed too easy. I wanted more discomfort.

When a car hit me in 2021 and tore up my right foot, I shrugged it off and decided that I’d eventually return stronger than ever. I’d run faster than ever as a final revenge to that shitty driver.

I don’t believe a pain-free day will arrive, nor should it, and I try to embrace pain’s inevitable return. I can’t rest on my laurels.

Discomfort keeps me honest. It keeps me strong, alive, and fiery. It is the best friend I’ve ever had.

Some Reflections on Free Will

I find the concept of free will to be an interesting one, and like any interesting topic, there are arguments both for and against its validity.

In the scope of human history “free will” is a relatively new concept. It seems to have propagated alongside capitalism and Protestantism. Its opponents may argue that it’s nothing more than a marketing scheme for an ideology. That scheme goes something like this: “you have complete control of your own destiny, so long as you work really, really hard.” This more or less keeps the wheels of private enterprise turning and the masses obedient.

It seems opposite to the Shakespearean plays that rose in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, in which the protagonist was often pushed by the turbulent and all-powerful current of the universe, with a fate predetermined and unavoidable. The act of “paving one’s own path” was seen as an obscenity and typically punished with a violent death. Macbeth is given his fate at the beginning of the play, and we only have to wait to find out how he meets it.

Even if one has some element of free will on a societal level, possessing the ability to switch economic classes or elevate from poverty, I find it questionable that one could have complete individualistic free will. Everyone is on their phones all day, after all, behaving just as technology companies program us to. We buy insurance at the consensus that it will protect us from harm, only for insurance companies to profit (and avoiding insurance is nearly unavoidable, and seen as sacrilegious). We are therefore, to an extent, slaves to our own compulsions and thought patterns. Said compulsions can be programmed by almost anyone with a mastery of the human mind. We can therefore be exploited for profit or other gains, and all of us are to some extent.

We tell ourselves we “choose” to look at our phones, unaware that we do so under the manipulation of technology. And maybe this how it is with all things. Free will, then, would be a consumerist ploy.

The question then is whether choice actually exists, and what evidence there is for its existence. If you believe that we are all pawns in a very large scheme, then our minds are simply reacting as expected at each move of exterior forces. We are “dust in the wind.” That does seem likely. Yet some people are unpredictable, and this is where I find the fun. I personally enjoy people capable of surprising me and defying expectations. They seem the most likely types to possess the ability to truly “choose.” If they are in the throes of a current they can’t control, it’s at least a unique one that doesn’t move straight.

Nicolas Cage, for example, is the only actor I can’t pigeonhole. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to his film choices or even his acting style. He seems hell-bent on swimming against the current that pushes everyone else in their expected direction. He follows a big-budget action film with a flop, and a cartoonish performance with a subdued one. The other actors who regularly attend events such as the Academy Awards seem manufactured by their own industry to “aim for awards.” I don’t find them interesting in the least. Cue ceremony to “see who won best actor” this year. Who cares? It’s the same self-indulgent faces every year.

Nicolas Cage’s unpredictability suggests he can’t be controlled, and an uncontrollable human being is most likely to have true “free will.”

I can only conclude that although our behaviors do seem controllable to an extent, we also maintain the ability to surprise, to break routine, to “create art,” and to argue against consensus. Free will seems closest to a real thing when we defy expectations and break routine, when we take risk and laugh in the face of herd mentality. We may have some individualism if we find the courage to express it, even in spite of a powerful current that we are all more or less drifting in.

How will we surprise ourselves today?

Welcome to the Hustle

PC powered on immediately upon returning from a morning run. VPN connected. An onslaught of unanswered emails. Microsoft Teams messages requesting answers to urgent questions. Everything is pressing, everything is dire. The careerists will rest when they’re dead, and if their sleep is any indication, that may sadly happen sooner than they’d like.

I prepare a smoothie and a coffee. In those minutes spent preparing breakfast, the emails continue piling. Performance is on the line. Schedules must be finalized. People must have answers.

I sip my coffee slowly and read a little Orwell. I mute the abrasive Microsoft Teams sounds. Peace is my preference.

The screens glow, but it is nothing like the soft and soothing incandescence of a firefly at night. It is an intrusive glow, a glow that disrupts rest and shortens breath, a glow that sends the blood pressure steadily up. It is an artificial light from an artificial app, rife with artificial messages that are plagued with artificial pleasantries.

There is no empathy for my own personal interests in this screen-plagued environment. I am a cog in the wheel. Should I break, another cog will quickly replace me. I am one bullet point in a list, somewhere in a section within a procedure. My replacement would likely be bought at a cheaper price. If I exercise routinely or eat well, the other cogs scoff; they are content to just sit, log in, turn the wheel, and be careerists. They don’t prioritize movement, long meals, sunshine, or conversation. They prioritize work.

Health is nothing in the eyes of the false idol that is careerism. This false idol demands you sit, obey, and devote yourself at the altar of the corporate ladder. If you are not a team member, by golly you must be selfish.

The adherents to careerism answer emails well into the evening hours. They do not read a bible before bed; they check emails. They do not take a walk through the park unless they can multitask it with conference calls. They do not see meals as festivities; they seem them as necessary acts of binging that could potentially impede productivity.

I ignore my messages for a few minutes and take a walk outside; it’s 9:00 am. Patience is not a virtue in this place; it’s an interference. You need goals, I’m told. I have a goal though: to enjoy my day. The sun still shines outside. Microsoft Teams will be obsoleted long before the sun collapses. A mere hundred years from now, most career roles will be obsoleted and their participants likely buried. Yet trees will still grow at that time. Birds will still lay nests. The earth will continue its revolutions around the sun, and careerism will have not even managed a blip on the radar of the universe.

I salute you, quiet quitters.

The Burden of King Sisyphus

Greek mythology tells us that the Gods punished King Sisyphus for his vanity.

For all of eternity he must heave a heavy boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down, so that he must repeat the task. His existence is an eternal loop of a burdensome action.

According to Wikipedia, modern tasks that are both laborious and futile are considered Sisyphean.

What is the modern Sisyphean fate?

I wake up and manically check my phone for urgent emails and urgent messages. Rinse and repeat. Urgency ends with a funeral.

I lie in bed and watch TikTok or YouTube or SnapShit, late at night, the glowing screen frying my brain. I lack sleep but I am up-to-date. I can’t miss the latest, I can’t miss anything, the dopamine is so lovely! I must constantly check. I must constantly unlock the phone. Rinse and repeat.

I will compare myself to my social media network. They’re traveling where!? How did they find the money? I need better photos to keep up with the Joneses. I need better statements to show my social value, to be up to par again, to have “likes.” To have the most “likes” when I’m dead… will that have left behind a legacy? Will I have made my mark?

Our media and mundane tasks can deliver us a Sisyphean fate if we are not careful.

The Sisyphean fate ensnares the victim in a reactive state. One reacts to a boulder too heavy to manage. The boulder taunts with weight and gravity and the lifter cries eternally, determined to try again and again. To post again, to work again. I’m so close to having enough. Lifting gives dopamine. “I moved it a little and it felt good.” The lifter is merely a programmed response mechanism, constantly lifting, constantly checking the boulder, constantly exasperated that the hill is just too damn high.

How does one escape the Sisyphean fate?

Seems easy to me: stop trying to lift the boulder and own your own time!

Reversion to the Mean

“Reversion to the mean” is chiefly a stock market theory. It postulates that stock index growth has a long-term average; wild deviations from this average eventually revert the other direction in order to maintain the average.

If the historic market average is 10% and one has been riding gains upwards of 20% for several years, the likelihood of upcoming losses will be greatly increased.

Those who constantly seek to outperform the market average via enhanced risk are therefore punished more severely in difficult times. “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.” Those who play the market too conservatively end up underperforming in prosperous times. “Without risk there is no reward.”

Those willing to ride the average while incurring the most minimal brokerage fees reap the largest rewards over the long-term. Ironically, the greatest gains come from those least likely to “seek performance.”

I suspect that “reversion to the mean” applies to the human psyche as well.

We each have a base level of happiness. We may think that a vast accumulation of wealth will significantly elevate this base level. It will for a time, but eventually the effect will peter off. We will eventually return to our base level, having become accustomed to our expanded manors. We will find new things to need and new reasons why we are lacking. We will obsess over the same clothing stains that we once paid no mind to. We will invent new problems for ourselves, new anxieties, and new chases. We once never thought of owning “the best suit or dress at the wedding.” Suddenly we are comparing our garments to those around us.

Nomads do not escape their problems by moving to new places (their problems follow them). Similarly, we often do not escape ourselves by elevating our own economic class.

We think that a significant loss will permanently lower our base level of happiness, and it will for a time. Eventually, though, the loss will normalize, and we will become accustomed to living with what we lack.

There is a quote by LaFargue that bring to my mind this idea and our penchant for reverting to our mean:

“The working man, enduring hardships from childhood and knocking about the street and the shops, is accustomed to enduring the troubles of life; the intellectual, brought up in a hot-house, has the life bleached out of him by the shadow of the college walls, his nervous system is over-developed and takes on an unhealthy impression ability. What the working man endures thoughtlessly is to him a painful shock.”

Applying this “reversion to the mean” theory to zen philosophy, it seems apparent that those who are apt to feel their spirits skyrocket from the simplest material pleasure are also apt to crash from the slightest pain. Those who most eagerly crave wealth therefore have some of the weakest spirits, and are the most susceptible to pain. These are the types who are often the most easily corruptible; their souls can be bought cheap because they are eternally fretful of their losses. There is good reason why religions de-emphasize the importance of wealth (and some classify wealth as a sin).

It is for these reasons that I do not wish to race “higher” or “lower,” but rather to ride my own “average” with a smile, and accept my own natural ebb and flow.

Neglect Devours

I’ve heard it argued that our dreams are trying to tell us something important about ourselves. I’ve also heard it argued that dreams are nothing but a random assemblage of memories and thoughts, broken shards of glass that are glued back together into a meaningless pattern with no design or intention.

I suspect that the truth, like many truths, is a little of both.

I had a dream last night in which I owned a large pet snake that I had long-neglected to feed. I had put off its feeding for other activities, though a part of me knew the snake was badly starved. Finally I decided to feed the snake.

I opened the snake’s cage and it lunged at my right hand. It gaped its jaws wide and swallowed the hand, and attempted to continue devouring the arm affixed to that hand. I can’t believe it thinks it can eat me, I thought.

I screamed for help, but everyone was distracted by their phones. My left hand, my good hand, went numb.

I believe the message is clear: we (I) can be devoured by the things we neglect. The snake is a metaphor for anything we value but fail to nourish. The neglected thing starves, and any starving organic thing is capable of becoming monstrous. Put off the nourishment for too long and any attempt to feed the snake is futile.

The snake can be substituted for practically anything, but I think it holds truest when substituted for a relationship, a possession, or your own health.

And what greater distraction to duty exists today than the smartphone? And still, the dream’s phone distraction can be a metaphor for anything capable of instant gratification but little lasting pleasure. By focusing on these things, we allow the pet we value to starve and eventually become something hideous.

Nourishing anything of value requires work.

Plants whither when they aren’t watered.

Kids join gangs when they have no other sense of belonging.

Neglect your own body and it becomes fertile soil for budding diseases.

Giving the things we value the proper attention means often saying “no” to the world’s army of distractions.

I must not neglect the metaphorical starving snake in the other room.

36 Random Thoughts for 36 Years

Since I turn 36 today, I’ll share 36 random thoughts. Don’t take these for advice! They are only my thoughts.

1. Anger is useless. I’m not angry at the driver who hit me last week and proceeded to drive away. It’s the past, and anger won’t change history. I’ll focus on today.

2. Fashion is the anathema of freedom. To follow fashion is to accept that you aren’t enough as you are. Fashion renders you an eternal purchaser, a runner in a marathon that leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing. Fashion raises prices beyond their material worth. It renders products dead before the end of their actual lifecycle.

3. I’ll need to return to the water soon. It’s been awhile since I swam. I think the last time was in the Bahamas last year. The time before that was in China, two years prior. Swimming is the ultimate low-impact activity. I think my ankle will be able to handle swimming long before it can handle running.

4. Movies are total crap these days. Some artists are interesting; Nicolas Cage is one of them. A few others are crafting good stories outside the studio system. For the most part, it’s drivel.

5. Critics are bought and sold. RottenTomatoes is just a hype machine that showcases Twitter blurbs and teases looming brilliance that never arrives.

6. An industry is bred from every remedy. And most of the industries are scams. Even the barefoot shoe industry is beginning to look suspicious to me. The whole idea behind it is that we don’t need cushioned shoes. So what do these companies do? They make a million types of “barefoot style” shoes that you need instead. I guess if they only sold sandals, they couldn’t make as much money.

7. Revenge, jealousy, and envy are useless. I used to want to “punish” people for their ill intent towards me. This is the worst sort of mindset; it gives your enemy power over you. It renders you beneath them. And it makes the world a worse place. It stems from the lowliest of positions. It’s better to forget than it is to envy, but it is important to always be on guard. A scorpion doesn’t dwell on those it’d like to strike, but it does strike those who trespass, and it strikes without hesitation.

8. The library is one of the most sacred of places.

9. Nothing heals better than water. It’s where we all came from. It’s what we’re made of. It’s what heals our wounds and baptizes our young.

10. There is beauty in every nook and cranny of the world if we are willing to look at it with the eyes of the young and the naive.

11. There is more earth to explore than a lifetime of exploration would allow; pigeonholing ourselves in one small area seems tragic. If you don’t see something, you’ll die having never seen it.

12. Camels really like me. I don’t know why.

13. There’s a great scene in the Nicolas Cage starring film Pig where the protagonist, a former master chef, confronts an old student of his, who sold his soul to make food he doesn’t actually care for. “None of this is real,” Nicolas Cage declares (I’m paraphrasing). “The critics, the audience, this restaurant. None of it is real.” And his student proceeds to have an emotional breakdown. What is real to me? What is real to you?

14. Cells are constantly dying and regenerating. Therefore, parts of us are constantly dying and being reborn. A part of you died, just now, and a new “you” took it’s place. The eyes with which we view the world change, as does the mind that sets our priorities. What skin have we shed lately?

15. Sometimes I miss Chinese food. I never thought I’d say that. There was a spicy pork dish I especially liked. There was also a sweet fried chicken dish, “Guo Bao Rou”, that I ordered pretty consistently. Their dumplings with pork and soured vegetables were also pretty awesome.

16. Flying is overrated. Have you been in an airport restroom? It is proof that the Westernized diet is terrible. Flying is more stress than adventure, more waiting than doing. Flying is waiting in line, and the wait is overpriced. There are a million great things that you can do locally. There are a million great places you can get to with a bicycle, or a car if necessary. Airports suck.

17. Smartphones are the modern version of the succubus. They tease you with their pretty images and their useful tools and their gateways into the lives of pretty people (or people who manufacture themselves for perfection). Then the phone bleeds you dry, and drains your mind into a desiccated and withered thing that once had useful thoughts.

18. Who did the sound mixing on the latest Iron Maiden album? The new singles have TERRIBLE sound mixing. Bruce Dickinson’s voice sounds muffled. The production value just isn’t there. They are the biggest metal band in the WORLD, but the songs sound cheaply mixed. The mixer should be ashamed! Maiden deserves better.

19. I don’t write short stories often, but I have two on the way that I’m pretty excited about sharing. They’re dark, of course! Very dark. If they haunt you, they’ve fulfilled their purpose.

20. Reddit is a pretty cool online community. I’ve made a lot of friends via Reddit; many of them I share a strong connection with. One of them collaborated with me on getting some state-of-the-art winter cycling jackets reduced in price (we bought two together for a discount on each). Then he shipped the second jacket to me. I’m gonna be warm this winter!

    Sometimes you have to go out on a whim and give a stranger some trust. Not always, but sometimes, it pays off. We evolved from ancient “barter and trade” based cultures. Therefore it’s barter and trade that strikes the truest friendships.

21. I started reading Born to Run. I’m looking forward to digesting this book. My own journey in learning to run without the need for cushioned shoes has been a very fulfilling one.

22. I just read Love People, Use Things. It’s the latest book by “The Minimalists.” I poured through it quickly and thought that they had some good insights on life and relationships. I sold a lot of my clothes as well (but not my favorites… only those that could be construed as fashion items). By doing so, I was enlightened as to what I actually desired and what I was manipulated into thinking that I desired.

23. Colors can be beautiful, but they can also deceive us. Colors in nature can be appreciated. Colors in material things are another means to convince us that we “need” something. It is the color scheme of our phone screens that sends our brains signals of pleasure and comfort. Remove the color and ask yourself again: “Do I need to purchase this?” If everything in your wardrobe was black, what would you like to wear?

    Colors in a wardrobe are another thing to stress over. “What color goes with this top!?” We ask ourselves each morning. You are only allowed so many choices in a day. Liberating yourself of wardrobe choices allows room for more important decisions.

    I like color but I try to minimize it these days. Most of my jackets and shoes are black for this reason. Most of my pants are in earth tones or black, and likewise with shorts. I do keep colorful shirts. This makes pairing colors easy, as it means my colored shirts go with pretty much everything.

24. We shouldn’t be more productive as a group, we should be less productive. But we should output with more vigor and intensity when it is time to be productive, for the things that actually matter. The life of the idler is ironically more meaningful than the life of the industrious worker. One could argue that the lion and the crocodile are two of the greatest idlers that have graced the planet.

25. Grocery stores are mostly scams. Going through the food aisles, all the food is cancer-breeding crap. I should start going to places that sell locally grown food.

26. Sleep is underrated. I used to think there was value in rising early. One always reads stories of famous people who “wake up at 4 am and output work with intensity”! No! Their brains are mush by noon. Sleep in! I am learning to sleep in. It’s a work in progress. My mind can be a little overactive at times (this is an understatement).

27. Naps are a gift of the Gods. “Powering through” lunch hangovers is annoying and taxing. It’s also unnatural. Watch a lion. It’s one of the greatest predators to walk the earth. It slumbers and toils on its side through much of the day. It stores its energy. Then, when it needs to attack, it does so with unbridled ferocity.

28. Truth is a difficult thing to discover. It tends to be the opposite of what we are told it should be. Or at least, the opposite of a presumption may lead us to something closer to the truth. Snakes are often among the gentlest of animals to interact with. Dolphins are among the most vicious and barbaric. Gyms can make us fatter. Cushioned shoes and beds can make our bodies weaker. Beware what you assume. The word “assume” begins with “ass” for a reason!

29. People who are competitive at work are annoying. I think of a nice quote from Tom Hodgkinson: “The competitive principle applied to work means that your success is achieved at the cost of someone else’s failure. Big companies are hotbeds of intrigue and plotting for this reason.”

30. I was telling someone that practically all of our modern inventions are a waste of time, particularly “career-oriented living” and social media. “But we need them if we are to move forward!” Was a response when I stated that social media is a waste. To that I say, moving forward for the sake of moving forward is as pointless as moving backward for the sake of moving backward. And more often than not, this thoughtless version of forward movement… is metaphorically backward. Another Tom Hodgkinson quote:

    “Progress is a tyrant. Freeing yourself from a career-based model of working means freeing yourself from other people’s expectations.” 

31. There is little worse than a watch, but I do know one thing worse: a “smart watch”. If the watch was a handcuff that binds you to someone else’s rules and schedule, the smart watch additionally binds you to their advertisements, manipulation, and emotional control (“Read this alarming headline! Don’t you feel offended!?”).

32. Most people don’t know how to listen to music. They blare music via earbuds while they exercise, but that’s just music as medication for their boring routine. If the activity was fun, they wouldn’t need music to drown out its blandness. Sit back, breathe! If you go to the gym you see lines of people with earbuds, endlessly running on treadmills yet literally going nowhere fast. This is not “listening to music!” Nor is it empowering. It encourages banality and a lack of spirit.

    In the modern world, music is mostly medication. It distracts from crap jobs and crap exercises and a lack of personal inspiration. Play! Is the civilized adult truly capable of such a verb? Let the world’s ambience be your music. Then when you get home, sit on the couch, idle, and put on some music. Sip wine and let it stir the mind. Yes, you have time!

33. Being able to say “No” is one of the greatest strengths an individual can ever have. If you do not learn to say “No”, the masses will trample you. One must say “Yes” very selectively.

    Say “Yes” to opportunity, say “Yes” to adventure, say “Yes” to live music shoes, say “Yes” to laughter with friends. Say “No” to the herd and their tricks to belabor you and drain you of your wallet.

34. I have four plants. I learn a lot just by watching them. Their life is a lesson in the power of moderation. I think it was Aristotle who said that there is a balance to everything. The gluttonous and the ascetic receive misery in equal doses… even an abundance of moderation can cause issues. Just enjoy the light and the dark as they hit naturally.

    Too much water and the plants drown in it. Not enough water and they wilt. It is the same with our own earthly pleasures.

35. If you write for critics, you aren’t writing. If you write for money, you aren’t writing. Writing for me is primarily an exorcism. I don’t aim to make a penny with this blog.

36. 37 is not a guarantee, it is a gift. So 36 should be spent intentionally.

Minimalism: the Perfect Number of Possessions

“The best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave; not to be devoid of pleasures.” Aristippus, 435-356 BC

What is the perfect number of pants for a minimalist to own? I read this question on forums a lot. I’ve even typed it in the Google search engine a few times. Surely whatever I own now cannot be the ideal number.

Chasing is ingrained in us. If we are not racing to a pinnacle, it seems we are racing to a valley.

By searching for this question, I read accounts of several triumphant minimalists who manage to live with only one pair of pants.

I compared myself to these minimalists. “I have several pairs while they are fine with one… how do I declutter? Do I have too much, or too little?”

The problem for me was not that I owned too many pants, but that I felt the need to compare my belongings and standards to another’s. That I felt the need to move one direction or another to fix my relationship with things.

Ironically, such a mindset stems from the same source as maximalism. It involves a chase, and it presumes that one’s current state of being cannot be satisfactory.

A chase for less is as pointless as a chase for more if the parasite that is the consumerist mindset is not removed from the host. Because ironically, chasing places one’s thoughts on the very thing that shouldn’t be prioritized: stuff.

What is the perfect number of pants to own? The answer is what I have now, unless what I have now is causing legitimate life issues. Maybe what I have isn’t sufficient for work, or isn’t acceptable for my social gatherings, or simply doesn’t fit anymore. Then it’s time for a replacement. And the replacement should be affordable, and intentional, and used to the bitter end.

I consider myself “maximal” only in that I like to enjoy ”stuff”. I have summer pants that are breezy and winter pants that are cozy. I have loose pants and slim fitting pants. I have pants for winter running and cycling. I’ve used every pair. At the end of the day, it’s just fabric.

The perfect number of pants will be different for each person. The nomad living from a backpack may answer, “one”. I’ve been that nomad. The banker with a wardrobe of business suits may answer, “fifteen”. The point is the function, not the quantity. I’ve been closer to that lifestyle as well.

My purchases are intentional enough, so I don’t think about the number of things in my closet. I am not an ascetic, nor do I find asceticism alluring in any way. It is true that the things we own can enslave us if we let them, but they can also enhance us if their primary use is to help us go places.

The key, for me, is a shift in mindset away from a common “minimalist” branding that focuses on quantity (“check out my empty room, is yours this empty?”) and more towards an objective mindset that focuses on efficiency. If “stuff” serves a purpose, let it serve. I’d rather be served than serve another; serving something material sounds like hell.

Of note is that one’s base level of happiness does not seem to increase from the act of being served, or from the peacocking of one’s own status. It is a dopamine rush, an injection of heroin, and it does feel good for a moment. But the drug depletes quickly, and the depletion rate accelerates over time. In contrast, being enslaved, or in service, or indebted, will always exacerbate one’s base level of misery.

Base happiness seems to grow more like a tree, requiring carefully planted seeds, a steady yet moderate amount of water, and a lot of time.

At some point, we will think about our stuff. Maybe we have to consider our possessions in order to resolve a deeper issue within ourselves. In considering our possessions we ask ourselves, are we actually using our purchases or letting them collect dust? If a coating of dust forms on our shirts, if moths eat away at our sweaters, then our purchases were obviously not intentional. Why? What part of advertisements was it that sucked us in? Are we chasing a pinnacle or enjoying a process?

The key, for me, is to avoid a chase, whether it be up or down, left or right, forward or backward. Stay put, enjoy what’s here.

“The white rabbit is a slave to the queen.” - Tom Hodgkinson