Category: Life

THERE’S ANOTHER WAY

“But what if there’s another way? We’re clearly starving for something different online. A 19-minute ambient song with a static image of a whale has 3.1M views on YouTube – people choosing to spend nearly 20 minutes with literally nothing happening while the rest of the platform optimises for peak stimulation. This is evidence of a deep hunger for ‘digital quiet’. Online spaces that offer contemplation instead of consumption.”

This from “The Restaurant with No Music” by Simon James French.

He also linked to this Google Doc called ‘Ambient-ish music to do work to,’ with all sorts of links to playlists and albums and.. Plants.fm??

That’s right – there’s a device you can buy called Plant Wave.

“PlantWave measures biological changes within plants, graphs them as a wave and translates the wave into pitch.

With PlantWave, every single note you hear is a real-time expression of a shift in a plant. The more active a plant is at any particular moment, the more notes you’ll hear. When a plant is less active, it will often drone or even stop producing notes.”

I literally just want to hook one of these up to a plant next to a creek, set up my camera, and take a nap for an hour.

THE HEAT BROKE

We had a thunderstorm and then the temp dropped 20 degrees. We could finally turn off the AC units and open the windows. Breath the slightly less hot air. We got a nice sunset, too. Some nice clouds out there, being soft and calm.

BEEPING

It’s been going on for a few nights. Then into the days. An alarm nearby, but I could never find out where it was coming from. When I’d go outside, it would stop. When I’d come back home, I’d hear it again.

I started to wonder if the beeping was coming from inside my place. There’s a blocked off hallway in part of our apartment. But nope, it was definitely coming from outside.

Today I saw a firetruck out in front of a building across the street. Firemen at the door, in and out. Seems about right that they’d be the ones to check it out.

Now the beeping is done and I’m going to sleep better tonight.

ANSWER QUESTIONS

As always, Ash Ambirge bringing the gems:

If you’ve ever been like, ugh, HOW AM I EVEN SUPPOSED TO MARKET MYSELF, why not ask yourself a new question: how can I show up & just answer my customer’s questions?????

In the early days of my Social Media Escape Club I’d just answer people’s questions on Substack’s Office Hours threads. I’d even link them to Substack help docs. I did this so well someone from Substack noticed and reached out and asked if I had any interest in joining their help team (no, thank you).

Even for the bigger picture questions, like “how will I live without social media?” I don’t have the full answer for anyone, but I have bits and pieces that I’ve learned from my experience, and how other people have done it.

Sometimes you don’t need the full answer, you just need to the experience of reading and talking to a bunch of people on the same journey.

TURNING 49

It was my 49th birthday, and I treated myself to some place fancy. That is, the 110 State Game Lands access road, on a chilly rainy evening here in PA.

There’s a gate at the entrance, then a gate near the “top,” which is about 1.5 miles, and about 500′ of climbing. This is one of the only hilly routes where I can run the whole thing, and by run I mean shuffle and slightly jog, but hey, I couldn’t do that a few months ago, so I’m stoked.

Also, I used to do just one lap. Up and down, and call it night. Last night I did it twice, so just over 1000′ of climbing, six miles total, and felt great.

This is the last year in my 40s I guess, might as well keep things moving.

SURFACE AREA

There’s the saying to increase the surface area for luck, but I’m telling you… meeting new folks increases the surface area for COOL STUFF.

I just got off a Zoom call with some great folks and met Andrew White and I want him to take photos of me running up the hills I try to run up (just kidding, I’d look awful), and also discovered Andrew(?) Byrd who is running an analog recording competition – making and recording music with no computers!

I know, I know… the surface area thing… for networking, for finding jobs, yes, sure. Of course. But wow, there are just so many amazing people out there doing great work.

DOUBLE UPS

Doing more of the thing you want to do usually leads to more of what you want to do.

That doesn’t mean I should eat pizza and ice cream everday, of course, but the math adds up soon enough.

Months ago I got back to my running practice. Some days I just couldn’t grind through a three or four mile run.

Sure enough, I wasn’t eating enough to have the energy for those runs, so they always sucked.

Once you start eating to run, running gets easier.

And so now I’ve run 30 miles a week for the past few weeks, and usually hitting 5000′ of elevation along the way.

I’m not the fastest, but I’m probably the only ding dong who runs up and down this dirt road with no guard rail at least once a week.

And this past Sunday I did it twice, because hey, at 48 years old if you’re not challenging yourself, most likely no one else will, either.

NO MORE CORPORATE TREATS

The other night I went to Starbucks, as a treat. You know, a $6 Nitro with sweet cream… really hits the spot.

But I stood there and waited. And waited. There were two kids in front of me. Waited. Waited.

A barista came by and made eye contact, but they were tending to a drive thru order. Someone else just had their head down making drinks.

I get it. I don’t fault those baristas one bit. The company is shit. The CEO is shit. And holy fuck, I’m shit for believing that a treat is giving a corporation money.

Like a chat I had with a friend a bit ago, about boycotting Target. Oh, how we all loved going to Target. But wow, after a bit, we don’t miss it. Just like I don’t miss visiting Twitter or Instagram.

We’ve been so conditioned by the marketing and the culture and the branding that treating ourselves is contingent on giving corporate behemoths our time and our money.

Look at apps, order in the apps, take a photo and upload it to the app – “this is living,” they say.

Anymore I’m becoming a cranky “I got food at home.” I got coffee at home.

Expecting any corporation to brighten by day is a foolish notion in 2025.